Mike Plested talks Publishing / Promotion

Mike Plested "Get Published" Podcast, episode 84, talks about publishing and book promotion. Usually Mike interviews authors and editors on his biweekly podcast, but this time he is the interviewee, talking about his own new book, Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero. Mike describes the process of writing the novel, shopping it around to publishers, the editing process, and post-publication promotion. I was particularly interested in his discussion of why he chose to sign on with a publisher rather than just self-publishing, and what it was like working with an editor.

(Particularly glad to hear him say complimentary things about the latter, since I was the editor on this book.)

Five Twitter Turn Offs

Got yet another person following me on Twitter, in hopes that I will immediately follow back. A quick glance shows me that this individual has accumulated around 8,000 followers...and follows over 8,000 other people. I'm guessing almost all of them are working on the same wrong-headed principle that the more followers one attracts -- the larger that number -- the better one's networking and sales potential. This is completely stupid and an enormous waste of one's energy.

Rule #1: More is Not Better

8,000 followers does not translate to 8,000 network connections. If each of these averages 3 tweets a day, that's 24,000 tweets going past each day. If one is spending one's day reading 24,000 tweets, then one is a professional Tweet reader, not a professional writer. Since one would have to be a complete time-wasting idiot to read all that chatter, you don't. Since you know better than to read all those tweets, who do you think is reading yours?

Time invested in building up a following -- particularly in artificially inflating that figure by using the tricks one read in some self-appointed expert's column on how to use social media to promote one's book -- is consequently a complete waste of time and energy better devoted to improving one's writing or paid output.

If one's tweets attract an audience on their own, then it is remotely possible that those individuals following you are in fact reading you. But following others to get them to follow back, and other such tactics, is just useless.

Rule #2: Keep the noise to signal ratio low.

I am constantly amazed at the number of idiots whose tweet stream is their stream of consciousness."Going for coffee. Gonna have a big cup. Oh Yeah!" Who gives a giant pile of dead leaves? I don't even want to hear this from my wife, unless immediately followed by "Can I get you anything while I'm up?"

Admittedly, there are a few people I follow who are sufficiently witty and provocative that their daily observations are worthy of the 15 seconds of my attention that reading their tweet requires. It's like office conversation, and provides the illusion of having coworkers for shut-ins and isolated writers, but these masters of the trivial are few and far between. The vast majority of tweeters (yes, I mean you specifically) are just wasting their time and their Followers' time by tweeting such minutia. I do not care how much coffee you drink, and if you insist on commenting on it, you're a prime candidate for the next round of "Unfollow"s.

Similarly, I find Twitter's recent change to post tweeters direct messages to others a complete waste of my time. I can't stand tweets like "@whosit: Right on Sister! You tell 'em!" or "RalphM42: More to the left and then up one!" What does this mean? Why would I care? I understand the concept of re-tweeting: passing on news and interesting tidbits picked up from someone else stream is a (potentially) useful networking function. But relaying conversations out of context simply wastes my time. Consequently, I don't follow people whose tweet stream contains a lot of direct comments. People who only occasionally make direct comments to others, and who take care that these comments are intelligible to those outside of the immediate conversation, are more likely to stay on my Follow list, and to be read.

Rule #3 Quantity is Not the same as Quality.

What is required, then, is a few quality tweeters. I follow people who provide useful information on topics that I am likely to need to know about: topics I teach about or write about. There are hundreds of folks out there, for example, who tweet when they read an interesting science article. I follow two or three whose interests appear to parallel my own. By following them, they act like a specialized clipping service helping me to quickly focus in on a few relevant documents, thus saving me hundreds of hours of research.

I try to return the favour, tweeting about resources that I have found useful or surprising that others might not otherwise have come across. If I feel the need to tweet about my daughter's new video on YouTube, I stick "for family and friends" or at least "Family" at the start of the post so everyone else can just skip it.

To sum up: only follow people who contribute directly to your work by providing a stream of useful information. Try to be that person for everyone else.

Rule #4: Don't Use Tweets (or Facebook) for Commercial Announcements

One is permitted to post one tweet when one publishes a short story; two for novels (the second in case someone missed it the first time round). That's it. If one sends out a tweet every couple of hours about sales on this or that title, then one's tweets become nothing but the commercials interrupting the Twitter Stream content, and readers will quickly learn to tune them out.

If you really want to promote your work be interesting. If your followers come to associate your name with interesting stuff, they will be prepped to buy your stories and novels. When I find an author I don't know on Kobo, and they have a good cover and a good tag line, I might think their book is a possibility. I will then go to their blog, or Facebook page or Twitter feed, and if I find there nothing but self-congratulatory commentary on their own brilliance, I realize I have made a mistake and move on. When I found Lindsay Buroker's Encrypted and checked out her blog, it didn't say anything about her books. But it made me laugh out loud in the first two posts I read. Consequently, she made the sale. (And I subsequently wrote a positive review of the book). Stop trying to write ad copy. Write stories and books, and if you have to tweet, write something interesting and worthwhile there too. Or, just don't. <{> Rule #5: No Reruns

I used to just quickly glance at someone's tweets (three or four samples come up when you first click on their name) and think, wow...those are great tweets, I'm going to follow this guy! But you only get suckered a couple of times before realizing there are a bunch of folks out there who develop a list of 10 or 20 or even 30 brilliant tweets, and then just rotate through that list again and again in the hopes that people will follow them. This works well to greatly inflate the number of their followers, but once I see the same tweet a second time, I realize that the individual is a phoney cluttering up my tweet stream with reruns. I can't hit the "unfollow" button fast enough.

Retreat: Day 12 (last)

Had trouble sleeping on the train again; this particular stretch of track and high speeds leads to some significant shaking. There is also the disturbance that at midnight they merge the trains from Portland and Seattle, which involves a certain amount of bumping around; and they start announcing stations and breakfast etc way too early. The train going West, I was able to turn the speaker off in my room, but this particular sleeping car didn't seem to have a mute for the speakers. (The steward told me that it was the only car with this particular control panel type in Amtrak, a constant annoyance to him because the call button and the light switch looked identical.) But when I eventually drag myself out of bed, have a quick breakfast and finally start on my fiction.
Get three hours to wrestle with my short story, see the problem and write a couple of scenes to fix them. Am not quite through when train arrives in Shelby and I disembark, gas up the Van, and start driving back to Lethbridge.
On the whole, I judge the Retreat a major success. True, I had hoped to be writing more fiction when Mary booked the trip, but it's my own fault for not clearing the decks by that implied deadline that I had to work on work-related writing instead. But I managed to get what might have otherwise been about a month's work of work done in 12 days. This has taken a huge amount of pressure and stress off me, and ultimately, that's the point of the exercise. Hopefully I am now sufficiently back on track with work deadlines that I can in fact have my work completed by the time I go on Study Leave (July 1) and be able to write both my textbook and my novel without too many major distractions.

Retreat: Day 11

Sleep in because up very late last night. Spend what’s left of the morning doing email: half urgent business, half arguing with colleagues on teaching/learning list over assessment issues. I should probably be spending the time writing, but I love pontificating even more. I am probably annoying many of those on the list by pointing out why their grading practices make no sense, but off list am being egged on by private emails of support and requests to reprint my comments in their newsletters or Facebook pages. (A lot of the staff in teaching/learning centers don’t have tenure, so are rather more cautious about telling off profs, but I am happy to front for them. I think instead of going for full prof, I should apply for official curmudgeon status.)

Mary tells me to go to the Seattle Art Museum for the afternoon, so I do that. It’s just three blocks away, and it would be crazy for me to keep wasting time on email while I am in another city, especially one I’ve never been to before.

I instantly love Seattle. I desperately want to go to the Café Nervosa, but am handicapped by it not being a real place. But that’s the tone of the whole city. I can definitely see why people move here. I feel invigorated just walking through the streets in spite of the rain and cool temperatures.

And the Art Museum! It is middle of the afternoon and jammed packed with people. Not school kids this time, but adults of all ages. If this is typical of the turnout, then Seattle is one art-loving city. The current exhibit is Gauguin and Polynesian art…I find Gauguin kind of okay, and when I work out how old he is and how young his native girl “companion” in these paintings, there is a bit of an eewwweeee moment. White imperialists picking up local teens is kind of dark. But the Polynesian artifacts that inspired him are marvelous.

There are several other exhibits I rush through, the African facemasks being a great one. I snap some pictures for future reference for my own cultural appropriation purposes, should I ever care to write fantasy.

Then onto the Empire Builder. Supper is with three gentlemen who have been travelling extensively by rail, clear enthusiasts. They exchange the relative merits of particular trains and routes. On of them is a piano tuner, and we have a great conversation about mentoring, the arts, Seattle, and life.

Not much writing done today. But an excellent holiday.

Retreat: Day 10

Arrived in Vancouver, quickly find a Starbucks so I can use wifi to fire off my report to committee in preparation for Monday’s meeting. Then transferred to train station to train back to Seattle. (I have to train back to Shelby, rather than fly back to Lethbridge because that’s where I left the car when I started out.)

Across from the train station is the Science Center, so went there until my train. The exhibits are mildly interesting and there is a nice little gift shop.

Scale at Science Center indicating that I weigth more than average black bear, but less than a loggerhead turtle.

Watched Imax movie on Arabia. It was well done, but a blatant propaganda piece to counteract deep-seated American prejudices – that not all Arabs are terrorists needs to be explained to American audiences is embarrassing to watch; but great photography, nice re-enactments.

The early morning crowd in the science center is almost entirely classes of school children, with a scattering of mom’s with toddlers. The toddlers are fun to watch as they interact with the interactive displays, and the larger kids move in herds and so are easy enough to avoid.

Overheard two teachers talking to each other about some interesting point concerning one of the displays:

“That’s my point exactly. Say, have you seen any of the kids?”
“No. But they must be around somewhere. So anyway. . . "

What parents suspect happens on field trips.

After, I find a three story Chapters with free internet for anyone with a Chapters card, so fire off bunch more emails, other essential work stuff. Then back in time to catch train to Seattle.

I finally get some time to work on my fiction. Struggle with a story I had started on years ago but abandoned because could not fit all the characters required within word limit for short story publication, and the idea not quite worth a novel. But been thinking about it a lot lately for some reason, additional scenes coming to me unbidden. But it’s still not coming together, and I start to see holes in the logic of the piece. And then, about 3 AM, it occurs to me that it might work if I reverse the POV. So will try that tomorrow.

Arrive in Seattle and step outside to find pedicab pulling up, so have Mitch take me to the hotel. He peters out a block short, but it’s late, the end of his shift, the last hill up is 45 degrees and he is simply not going to make it with me and my suitcase in the back. Indeed, I’ve been watching him struggle this far and wondering if I’m liable if he dies from a heart attack. (Though in reality, he is far less at risk of that than I. He looks to be in pretty good shape!)

Arriving at the Olympic Fairmount hotel, am assigned palatial room. More a suite than a single room, it has separate bedroom, large sitting room, and the bathroom is round a corner and down its own separate in-suite corridor. Makes the Westgate’s room seem small by comparison. Don’t know how I’m going to cope with tiny bed on train tomorrow after this. The radio is on and by the time I settle enough to turn it off I don’t, because this is the best radio station I’ve heard in a long time. Who plays this music?! So the station I would tune to if I could. Check out the TV, am surprised to find Seattle has it’s own Chinese TV station, almost equally surprised to find they get CBC.

Retreat: Day 9

Day 9 Ship docked in Port Angeles, Washington, which I had never heard of before. Apparently a logging town, now diversified into ship building and ship repair. Town has less than 20,000 people, so arrival of Oosterdam raised the population by 10%; doubled the skyline. The town was deliriously happy to have cruise ship in town: a host of volunteers served as greeters at the port and were scattered along the town’s two main streets to direct tourists. A fleet of shuttle buses, obviously commandeered from a twenty-mile radius (i.e., had the names of retirement homes and the like, rather than tour companies, on the sides) ran Holland American’s aging passengers the three hundred yards downtown for a mere $7. (If I were the median age of a Holland American passenger, that might strike me as a fine deal, but after three days of cruise food, I definitely needed the six-minute walk.) Another manifestation of the significance to the town of the Oosterdam coverage in the local daily paper:

Yesterday’s front-page news: “Cruise ship arrives tomorrow”.

Today’s front-page headline: “Cruise ship fashionably late, won’t arrive until noon.”

The town was so small…it didn’t have a Starbucks.

But for all that, it wasn’t a half bad place to walk around. Two bookstores, a half dozen antique shops, and a nice used-clothes/coffee shop (Clothier Coffee) with excellent cookies and free customer Internet. I had followed a girl on stilts to the coffee shop when she said the magic words “free internet” to a crowd of Cruise passengers a few blocks from the store. It’s amazing how much email can accumulate in just three days off line. I downloaded, answered key business emails, uploaded previous day’s blog posts, and continued my tour. I hiked a fair way listening to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on my iPod, so probably startled a few locals by laughing out loud for no obvious (to them) reason. Pretty sure insulted antique store owner by laughing uproariously as I fingered her merchandize, but episode with Neil Gaimen is one of the funnier ones.

Highlight of Port Angeles for me was the Lower Elwha Klallan Tribe’s cultural Center. Not only is it a visually striking structure, but when I complimented the manager on the architecture, she told me it used to be a tire store. Mindboggling to me that they could take an old eyesore like a dilapidated tire store and turn it into such a striking and vital community center. Some visionary leadership in that group, obviously. (Found out later they had also led the lobbying for largest dam removal in the world, to restore the Lower Klwha river. Unbelievable leadership for such a tiny nation!) Inside they had tribal dancers/singers (rather good, I thought—I’ve always preferred West Coast tribal songs/drumming to plains culture) and a fabulous gift shop. I found I couldn’t buy anything, though, because the majority of items said “made in Canada”, which kind of defeats the purpose, eh? But the Kallan in the Lower Elwha number less than a thousand, so lack the critical mass to have their own merchandise. Still, well worth the visit. I was bit saddened to see how few Cruisers had stopped inside. The Center had obviously gone to a lot of work to mount a series of activities and a fairly elaborate sideboard of appetizers (couple of whole salmon for starters!) for Cruisers, but I don’t think that the cultural center was one of the five stops for the shuttles, and that was a long climb up an almost hill for the average 80 year old, so not many of them had made it there.

And unlike San Diego, there was only one homeless guy lying in the street. (Or, I don’t know, maybe they tidied up for the Cruisers…though it seemed a more laid back community than some.)

Returned to ship, had a nice dinner, finished my report around midnight. Off the ship in Vancouver tomorrow morning around 7:00 AM

Retreat: Day 8

Keep to my cabin for most of the day, just coming out for lunch and dinner; take in the show at 10 PM. It’s the “comedy and vocal impressionist” Jason Neistadt, and I have to say, he is very funny. Fascinating to see him do impressions of people who have been dead for decades and get huge laughs from an audience that remembers them as if it were yesterday. Bit depressing that I seem to be one of them. Poor kids in the front row have no idea who he is supposed to be. So he tries Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, and gets blank stares from everyone except one pre-teen who cracks up. I am impressed with Neisadt’s repertoire because it is obvious he is reaching into a vast line up to pull out the ones he thinks will work for the Holland America crowd. If he tried this routine in LA, he’d get nowhere, as you have to be at least 60 to get any of it. But it’s a nice end of day wind down activity for me.

I make excellent progress on my report; break to do some more fiction editing. I finish the book I want to buy for Five Rivers: very pleased with it, better than I remembered. (It’s funny how wrong our memories get…one of the scenes I remembered the most distinctly isn’t actually there at all. I must have made it up out of whole cloth. And I had completely forgotten the two bits of business that are now my two favorite scenes. Such brilliant little touches of characterization, humor, that create an almost complete picture of village life in just a few sentences.) Such a nice little book, can’t understand how it has been allowed to languish out of print for decades.

I start the next book I am reading for Five Rivers. Actually another editor’s project, so I’m just reading it to give some quick general feedback--more free reading than assignment. Can’t put my finger on why exactly, but it reads more like European novelist than Canadian. Nice alien world though.