Tag: Mike Nappa (Page 21 of 23)

A Sales Team reason for rejection

This is actually a pretty common practice—and one that’s fairly smart on the side of any publisher’s sales team. 

When I worked in acquisitions for both fiction and nonfiction, there were several occasions when a book I was advocating was put on hold so that members of my sales team could call a few key bookstore buyers to get their opinions. If the buyer at Sam’s Club said she’d likely stock the book, that was a good thing. If a buyer at one of the national chains—say Barnes & Noble or Lifeway—said he couldn’t see my book on their store’s shelves, well, that was pretty difficult to overcome in the next publishing board meeting. 

The reason for this is simple: Money. (Surprised?) 

According to a 2009 report from the Association of American Publishers, “Trade Books” (hardcover and softcover adult and juvenile books that are best suited for sales through bookstore channels) are the number 1 moneymakers in this industry, accounting for more than $8 billion in net annual sales. This becomes even more significant when you consider that, over the past decade, bookstores have been closing at an alarming pace. In 2000, there were 2,794 bookstore members of the American Bookseller’s Association. In 2010, that number had shrunk by almost half, to 1410. “Big publishers are primarily interested in ‘bookstore books,’” says industry veteran, Robert Bly. And he’s right. If your new book doesn’t demand a place on bookstore shelves, chances are good it won’t be published at all.

What You Can Do About It

1. Visit a few bookstores to see what’s getting the prime shelf space. 

“Know your enemy,” as they say. Shelf space is definitely limited in the typical bookstore, and that makes it valuable. Yet hundreds of books are still prominently displayed in just about any place that sells books. So your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find out why those books got the prime spots at Barnes & Noble or Books-a-Million or your local independent bookstore.

Visit three or four stores. Try to mix your visits between national chain stores and independent (sole owner) stores. You might even pop into Sam’s Club or Target and see what’s going on there. Then make a list of all the qualities you notice about the highlighted books on each store’s shelves, and look for identifiable trends across all bookstores—these are obviously elements that appeal to book buyers at these stores. 

When you’re done, figure out how to position your book so it fits into some of those identified trends. Then when my Sales VP asks a book buyer for an opinion about your book, the answer she’ll get will be, “Sure we’ll stock it—it fits right in with what we’re doing at our store!”

2. Use BISAC categories to help make your work bookstore-friendly. 

Don’t ask me what BISAC stands for—I don’t know and I don’t care. But the BISAC Subject Headings List is the bookstore industry standard for categorizing books. Created by the Book Industry Study Group, Inc., it’s a complicated, detailed, subject-tree style list that—despite its complexities—is actually fairly easy to use. Every publisher looks to the BISAC list when labeling the category for a book, because just about every bookstore in America organizes its shelves based on the categories here. 

When you’re getting ready to write up a proposal for your book, go ahead and browse the BISAC Subject Headings List until you find a strong category that fits your book. Then be sure to identify your book as part of that exact category in the materials you send to the publisher. If they’re already having trade sales success in that category, they’ll be glad to know yours fits in.

Here’s the web address for the BISAC Subject Headings List at the time this was published):

https://bisg.org/page/BISACEdition

3. Emphasize significant non-trade sales options for your book.

The truth is, many books make their money outside of trade bookstore sales—through direct-to-consumer efforts, or in professional association channels, and so on. In fact, a book that must rely solely on trade sales is probably going to struggle anyway. 

So, in your book’s proposal, temper the need for significant sales in the bookstore channels by emphasizing the non-trade channels where you think your book will have success. (See Reason #67 for more on this.)

Looking for more? Check out these links:

• Mikey Can’t Sleep blog
• Mikey Timeline
• Fan-Favorite Books
• Mikey on Amazon

A Sales Team reason for rejection

Here’s an acronym that’s often quoted in bookstores and publishing board meetings: SMOWS 

That stands for “Sell More Of What’s Selling,” and it’s more than simply a mantra. It’s an ingrained business strategy that dictates decisions across the board from my Sales VP to my Publisher to the bookstores that stock and sell your next book. It’s the reason why one successful book on low-fat cooking suddenly produces a glut of low-fat cookbooks in the marketplace, or why a single successful TV series on forensic pathology suddenly multiplies into a dozen shows about people who spend their lives squirming through blood and body fluids to solve crimes.

And SMOWS is why, before your book will pass my publishing board, someone on my sales team will always ask me, “What’s this book like in the marketplace?”

This is a tricky question, of course, because what my sales guy is really asking is, “Can I sell more of what’s selling with this book?” It’s a real, tangible expression of an emotion that psychologists call “loss aversion.” That is, it’s a deep-seated desire on the part of my sales team to “avoid any option associated with loss” by instead making sure the books they approve (yours included) are somehow associated with success. In publishing, that means being like a bestseller. Still, if you or I make the mistake of answering that question in a way that makes it seem like we’re simply copycatting an existing bestseller, that most often spells doom (see Reason #27). 

So to avoid rejection in publishing board, our job (i.e. your job in your proposal) is to show the sales team that a) your book is completely unique, and b) your unique book will attract an enormous audience that’s already made another book a huge bestseller.

What You Can Do About It

1. Study your industry’s bestsellers. 

First, find out which bestseller lists are important in your chosen industry. 

For instance, the most successful trade books (both nonfiction and fiction) are gauged against one of the major national bestseller lists such as The New York Times, or USA Today, or Wall Street Journal. Specific fiction categories (such as mystery or historical) may benefit from a Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com list. Religious bestsellers are an industry to themselves, and they show up on either the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) list. Children’s books bestsellers that show up on a list from Publisher’s Weekly carry weight. Industry specific lists (for example, for textbooks, or business books, etc.) are also out there, as well as regional lists (Los Angeles, for instance, or southern states).

The point is, find out which bestseller lists will be important and comparative when it comes time for the sales people at my publishing house to consider your book. Then make sure yours compares favorably to the books on that list.

2. Choose carefully what you identify in your proposal as your book’s competition.

As we discussed in Reasons 45-47, the market summary and competitive analysis you provide for your book is critical to your book’s success during a publishing board discussion. So why not slant that section to favor you and your book? When choosing books for comparative discussion, go ahead and include one or two that are bestsellers on an appropriate list, and play up how your book will attract readers of that book in significant ways. After all, we are known by the quality of our enemies, right?

3. Find a comparative bestseller somewhere—even if it’s not a book.

Monopoly has been a bestselling family game for decades. Does your book deliver an experience for families that’s similar to the appeal of a game of Monopoly? Then heck yeah, you’d better talk about that in your proposal. How about a blockbuster movie? Does your novel deliver to readers an appeal similar to their insatiable hunger for James Cameron’s Avatar? Well, that’s interesting—and my Sales VP should know about that as well.

The point is, don’t let your book be considered in a void. Find something that has significant sales history—even if it’s not a book—and find a way to favorably compare your book to that thing. It could be enough to help my sales team forget to check for other comparable, yet elusive, books on an industry bestseller chart.

Looking for more? Check out these links:

• Mikey Can’t Sleep blog
• Mikey Timeline
• Fan-Favorite Books
• Mikey on Amazon

A Sales Team reason for rejection

In the summer of 1983, editor Sarah Gillespie of United Features Syndicate eagerly signed then-unknown cartoonist, Bill Watterson, to a development deal for a paltry $1,000. The deal was for Watterson’s quirky little comic strip titled, Calvin & Hobbes. 

According to Watterson biographer, Nevin Martell, Gillespie and her editorial VP, Dave Hendin, “were under a great deal of pressure from the corporate executives…to bring in higher profits.” As a stepping-stone toward that profit goal, and “to determine which strips had the most commercial potential, [parent company] Scripps insisted United use focus groups for their untested comic strips.”

And so, Mr. Hendin and Ms. Gillespie dutifully trotted out about a month’s worth of Calvin & Hobbes cartoons and presented them at several focus groups around the country. 

The cartoon failed.

Sarah Gillespie was angry, and appealed to the corporate brass to save Watterson’s little creation. But the focus groups’ decision was final. Gillespie was told, “F*ck it, we can’t take everything.” So United Features Syndicate sent Bill Watterson a rejection for Calvin & Hobbes. 

Almost two years later, Lee Salem at Universal Press Syndicate handed Bill Watterson a contract for his comic strip about a boy and his tiger. The success was immediate and long-lasting. In fact, the first book collection of those strips sold over 1 million copies—and every Calvin & Hobbes collection after that did the same. 

If, like Nevin Martell, you were to ask Sarah Gillespie to explain her company’s astonishingly bad decision-making in regard to Bill Watterson, she’d shake her head ruefully and say, “United didn’t take Calvin & Hobbes because a couple of housewives in Connecticut said, ‘It’s OK, but we don’t get it.’”

The lesson for us today, kids? 

If it can happen to Bill Watterson, it can happen to you.

What You Can Do About It

1. Be sure your book includes obvious appeal for your target demographic. 

This is covered in more depth in Reasons 5-8 earlier in this book, and also in Reason #59, so if you’re unsure what I’m talking about here then go back and re-read those sections. 

The main idea here is to write in such as way that you can be supremely confident your work actually appeals to your target audience. Then, when a focus group made up of people from your target audience is assembled, your book will have instant appeal that powers it on to publication.

2. Hold your own focus group. 

Here’s a newsflash for you: Publishers don’t hold a copyright on focus grouping. In fact, all you really need to pull one off is a place to meet, a few polite munchables (like pastries and coffee) and six to 10 people who fit your target demographic and who are willing to give their opinions on your book. Presto! You’ve got a focus group.

If you think your book might be susceptible to negative focus group comments (or even if you just want to get a better sense of how your book will be received by the general reader), go ahead and hold your own focus group right where you live. It’ll be best if you leave your closest friends and family out of this focus group, but a cousin you only see on holidays? Sure, include her. A co-worker at your spouse’s workplace? Why not? 

Strip away any author byline (so people won’t know they’re criticizing you), compile a list of relevant questions (use this book to spark ideas), and make it happen. Afterward, address any concerns that came up, so the next time your book is focus grouped, it’ll be ready. You may even consider highlighting positive results from your private focus group in your book’s proposal, just to let the sales team know you’ve been doing their homework for them.

3. Research before you write.

Many “back end” problems in a manuscript are preventable with “front end” considerations. This is difficult for many writers, though. We’ve been trained to write first, seek opinions later. But—and I speak from experience here—you can avoid many problems by getting as much information up front as possible.

For awhile, I was assigned to edit a line of curriculum for children. My first efforts were, well, not great. So my supervisor wisely instituted a new job requirement for me: At least once a month I had to sit in, all day, with a 5^th grade class at a local public school. I resented the assignment, but I wanted to keep my job so I did it for many months. Surprise—by the time I was done, I’d become almost an expert on what worked and didn’t work in a 5^th grade classroom. Editing became easier, and my product line became better—actually winning an award and becoming one of the company’s bestselling curriculum lines of all time.

So take the lesson here: Invest time up front studying your audience and researching your content. Then, if you are subjected to a focus group’s evaluation, you’ll likely pass with flying colors.

Looking for more? Check out these links:

• Mikey Can’t Sleep blog
• Mikey Timeline
• Fan-Favorite Books
• Mikey on Amazon

A Sales Team reason for rejection

People who write books are word folks—that’s what empowers us to capture ideas and express them well on the printed page.

People who publish books are numbers folks—that’s what empowers us all to actually make money from writing.

If you’re a word persona and all you want to be is a writer, then go ahead! Nothing is stopping you from writing, nothing at all. But if you want to be a published writer—if you insist on adding a price tag to your words—then you’d better learn how to think, and talk, like a numbers person.

I told you this at the start of this book, and I think now is the appropriate time to tell it to you again. First, foremost, and always, there is actually only one overarching reason why any book is published—or rejected: 

Profit. 

That’s it, really. 

You must understand that, regardless of how much your editor loves your writing, or how enthusiastic the marketing team feels about your book, or even if your book can literally cure the common cold, the bottom line for decision-making in our corporate publishing industry will always be potential for profit from your book. 

Every book that goes through a publisher’s approval process is primped and prodded and primed with the goal of making it pass the final feasibility report (also called “P&L—profit and loss” “Pro Forma” and “Projected Book Budget”). Every possible expense we can think of has been tossed into that P&L statement, along with any possible way we can see to bring income from your writing. Down at the bottom of that Microsoft Excel report, typically in bold letters that are either red or black, there’s a single number that predicts what our ROI (return on investment) will be on your book. If that number shows 50% or higher net return in the first year, chances are very good your book will be published. Anything under 50%, and your prospects dwindle.

So, if you want to publish, find out how you can manipulate that bottom line percentage on my company’s P&L until it makes my numbers people (specifically, my Sales VP) smile. 

That’s the only guaranteed way to avoid getting a rejection letter for your next book.

What You Can Do About It

1. After you’ve written words, think in numbers. 

This takes a forced change in perspective because, if you are any good as a writer, up to this point you’ve been 100% focused on creating a work of art with words. That’s good. Essential really, if only because true art is inherently rare and thus infinitely valuable.

But after you’ve created the art, after you’ve bled your heart and soul into your manuscript, after you taken the intangible idea and translated it into actual, physical words, it’s time to stop thinking like an artist. It’s now time to start thinking like an accountant. To view your spiritual masterpiece as merely another commodity to be bought and sold like pork futures or that shovel on sale at your local Ace Hardware store. 

What makes your manuscript something that people will buy? And how many will buy it? And how much can your publisher realistically charge for it? And how much will it cost to make it? And how will that paper-and-ink commodity add up on the accounting ledger?

Answer those questions well, and you’ll make a kindred spirit out of my Sales VP—and you’ll earn her vote when it’s time to make a decision on your book.

2. Find a way to guarantee a certain amount of sales for your book.

Hey, if money is what really matters in publishing, then being able to guarantee sales that make money gets everybody interested. Of course, that’s much easier said than done. 

People who are best-positioned to do this are those with a built-in demand for what they create. For instance, leaders of an association that will commit ahead of time to buy 1,000 copies or more out of the first print run on their book. Professors at a university that will require their books as textbooks. A public speaking career that enables you to buy and sell a significant number of your own books each year. A writer’s own online store that demonstrates significant sales already. A business leader of a national retail chain that can promise all her stores will carry her book. You get the idea.

3. Remove your “fuzzy focus” lenses.

In the end, you must remove the warm, fuzzy feelings you get from writing and instead be determined to face the facts. Coldly determine what factors influence your publisher’s profit potential. Position your book’s content and market features to highlight profit potential. Propagandize your book’s proposal to hammer home that profit potential for the publisher. 

If you can do that, you can make pretty much all 77 of the reasons in this book go away for good. 

Looking for more? Check out these links:

• Mikey Can’t Sleep blog
• Mikey Timeline
• Fan-Favorite Books
• Mikey on Amazon