How To Be an Editor’s Favorite Author

Favorite Author

I’m excited to have one of my favorite editors, Christine Dore, back on the blog today with some fabulous advice for authors. She’s shepherded dozens of books from the idea stage to final printed copies, so she’s seen it all. And one thing authors sometimes forget is that it is always to your benefit to be working with your editor, rather than against him or her. Publishing people are all in the business because we genuinely care about books and want to see authors thrive. We want to make sure you and your book are a success, and the more we can rave to our teams about how professional, gracious, and hard-working you are, the happier we all are.

Of course, every editor has their own idea of how casual or formal they like to be with their authors, but here are Christine’s great tips for building a happy, productive relationship with any editor:

Email Rules – Or: How To Make Your Editor Not Want to Reply to You

Most editors thoroughly enjoy the lax-professional relationships we build with our authors. We know we’re working on “your baby,” and don’t take that honor lightly. We want to get to know you; we want you to trust us (so you’ll trust us when we suggest changes to your writing).

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The Upside of the Dreaded Track Record

Books

Ah, the track record. One of the must brutal realities of publishing.

An author’s track record is essentially their sales record—how many copies they’ve sold of their books. This number used to be completely inaccessible, and only an author, agent, and publisher would know how many copies a book had really sold. But with the launch of Bookscan in 2001, anyone who subscribes to that service can look up the sales figure for any book and any author. This is both a terrible thing and an excellent thing.

Let’s start with the excellent:
So you’ve published a book, and you worked long and hard to make it incredible, and then you worked even longer and even harder to tell the world that it exists. And hey, people bought it! Lots of people. Now you’re in a very enviable position—you have proven to publishers that you know how to make a book successful and that you’re an author worth investing in. You are golden.

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When is the right time to build a platform?

when to start marketing a book

Now. Always, always now.

I was at a writer’s conference this weekend full of fabulous, motivated writers who were eager to crack the code of publishing. They had spent months, sometimes years, on their manuscripts, and they had worked extremely hard to polish those manuscripts and proposals to a perfect shine.

But, on occasion, I also heard a familiar refrain, one I hear often in the hundreds of query letters I receive a week: “My website is in the works…” “I plan to launch social media accounts …” “I will create a site to promote…”

The truth is, “I will…” has very little weight with publishers, agents, retailers, or any other gatekeeper. “I have…” is what we want to hear. “I have…” means you’re committed; you’re all in; you’re creating a community of customers now, before you even have a product.

 

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How John Green built an army of fans (and how any writer can do the same!)

how john green sold so many books

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In case you’ve been living in another galaxy, The Fault In Our Stars movie (based on the eponymous book) debuted in theaters nationwide this weekend. It topped the weekend box office with a $48 million domestic debut, easily crushing Tom Cruise’s new action flick “Edge of Tomorrow,” which did only $29 million in sales. Not bad for a movie geared to a younger audience, with two fairly unknown actors, and an unconventional female protagonist (she has cancer and wears an oxygen tube in her nose).

I think it’s safe to say that the movie was so successful because the book was so successful. But why was the book such a blowout bestseller? Well, my guess is that it’s because John Green has been so successful at building a platform. Which goes to show that, even for fiction writers, building a platform really matters.

Obviously, the book is wonderful, and no amount of platform magic can bolster a lackluster book. But The Fault In Our Stars was a #1 bestseller on Amazon SIX MONTHS before it was even published. That is, thousands of people ordered the book before anyone on the planet had even read it (except for the editor and publishing team, of course).

So why did all those people spend their hard earned money on a book they knew so little about? My theory is simple: they really like John Green. And they really like John Green (and know who he is at all), because of his platform. I’ve seen so many readers, editors, literary agents, and other folks practically swoon when talking about John Green. I don’t see that same visceral, emotionally connected reaction happening for other mega authors, even those with very loyal followings like John Grisham. The difference? One author has a robust, lively, and authentic online platform, and the other not quite as much.

I’m sure 95% of TFiOS book-buyers have never laid eyes on John Green in real life. But millions of his fans see him a few times a week through his hilarious YouTube videos, his blog, and his endless Twitter stream. Those online outlets aren’t just fun hobbies and avenues for self-expression. They’re the pillars of a platform (as I discussed here), and they are powerful tools for connecting with people. They create a direct, one-to-one connection between authors and readers, and they allow readers to feel like they really know an author–like the author is their friend, not just a name on a book jacket. That direct connection is just as valuable for fiction authors as it is for nonfiction authors–who wouldn’t want a whole army of Nerdfighters (or whatever you’d call your army!) ready to support all your work?

But it’s one thing to set up all those accounts and then avoid them like the plague, or feel horribly self-conscious about being your true self on them. But John Green is all over all his social channels every day, and he’s funny and genuine and adorkable. He’s completely himself, and he comes across as just a nice guy. He’s not “marketing” or “engaging with a fanbase”–he’s just talking to his readers, sharing his conversations with his brother, and trying to help people through his work.

The New Yorker profile about how John Green built an army of fans was completely fascinating to me. I will admit that I haven’t read The Fault In Our Stars or seen the movie, but I somehow still teared up at the end of The New Yorker profile. (Yes, I’m a sap.) It’s obvious how much goodwill John Green has earned from his fans, and how he’s done so just by being an accessible and approachable guy. John Green isn’t just out there to sell books–he’s giving his time, energy, and money toward charitable causes; he’s a friend to a girl who died of terminal cancer; he’s a husband and a dad and a brother and a writer. How could anyone not like a guy like that and want to see him succeed?

He also treats his fans like friends, rather than his subjects, which is an incredibly important distinction. He signed the entire first printing of The Fault In Our Stars (that’s 150,000 books, hand-signed), even though it caused him to need physical therapy for his shoulder and would probably have driven the rest of us completely loony. That’s a guy that, in my opinion, feels a strong sense of appreciation for the people who support him and understands that the fandom of a reader is something to be earned. A dedicated readership is not something you’re entitled to simply because you wrote a wonderful book–it’s something you must earn by being in service to the reader.

I thought this passage from The New Yorker profile particularly zeroed in on the difference between the writing life of yore and the new John-Green-esque lifestyle:

“Green’s online projects keep proliferating along with his fans, and he seems determined to keep up with them all. He told me that he has sketched out some scenes for a new novel, about “two male best friends who live less privileged lives in a world of privilege,” and that he hopes to work on it after the movie junkets are over and he has taken a few days of vacation with his family, in a Tennessee farmhouse devoid of electronic devices. One wonders, however, when he’ll actually find the hours to recline in the La-Z-Boy. E. Lockhart, an acclaimed Y.A. novelist, is an old friend of Green’s. She said, “Most of us look at what John does and say ‘That’s awesome,’ but we’d rather be in our pajamas writing.”

While I’m a big believer that periods of unconnectedness from electronic devices are one of the most important sanity-maintainers these days, I think we’re also moving past the days when it was enough to write a great book, publish it, and call it a day. If we all hung out in our pajamas all day, hermited away from the world, we’d miss the sense of connection that drives us as human beings. And we’d also miss the opportunity to help more people through our work. I think authors should remember that platform building isn’t about helping yourself by selling your work, but about helping others through your work.

And the best way to reach the most people is to be, like John Green, both accessible and approachable. Being accessible to your readers means they can find you and connect with you, and being approachable to them means they might just start to really like you, and not just your writing.

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