by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Once upon a time, way back in the last decade, author and researcher Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s publicity predicament illustrated to the world of books what we authors suspected all along: Huge amounts of publicity surrounding a release don’t necessarily translate into massive sales figures.
In fact, the result of a major publicity coup could turn out to be the most bitter dose of rejection we ever encounter.
That may be true even when the publicity is the stuff of which dreams—in Surround Sound and Technicolor—are made of.
It is reported (variably) that Hewlett’s Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children sold between 8,000 and 10,000 copies.
Many authors would be ecstatic with sales figures that look like that, but everything is relative.
It is believed that Miramax paid a six-figure advance for this title and projected sales in the 30,000 range for hardcover alone.
Considering expectations for the book, the figures do appear dismal.
Therefore, smart people in the publishing industry searched for reasons for its less than stellar performance, especially with the kind of publicity this book received and I mean biggies like Time magazine (the cover, no less) and several “New York” magazines.
TV shows like “60 Minutes,” “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America,” and “NBC Nightly News” lined up behind this book, for heaven’s sake.
Even Oprah’s magic book-sale-wand was not effective.
Hewlett’s book made great news!
It warned young career women that they have been mislead by petri dish miracles reported in the press.
She pointed out that women have come to believe that they can put conception after career and be reasonably sure they can have still have both.
She attempts to exorcise that notion in Quest.
So, just what did go wrong?
Many groused that the title was not scintillating nor was the book’s cover.
Those in the know wondered if that influenced book sales.
But that’s a huge burden to put on bookcover or title choice when something else was clearly wrong.
My 37 year-old-daughter who had just returned to college to embark on a career in anthropology suggested that women don’t want to hear the dreadful news.
She says, “I just flat out don’t want to hear this bad news in the middle of something rewarding, exciting and new!
Why would I slap down the price of a book to get depressed?”
Another unmarried friend who is also caring for an aging mother said, “I wouldn’t buy it. What am I supposed to do with that kind of information once I have it?”
For women like them, delaying childbearing isn’t a choice. It’s a necessity.
All this searching for answers may reap results, may help publicists and publishers and authors determine cause and effect so that this syndrome can be avoided in the future.
The problem lies in the fact that this soul-searching and hullabaloo was misdirected.
Even Hewlett says, “I don’t know what to make of this absence of huge sales.”
One can see her shaking her head in disbelief.
If someone with her research skills can’t figure it out, can anyone?
It may be the economy, stupid.
Or retailing.
Or the book biz.
It’s surely something completely out of the author’s control unless someone had thought to run the idea by a focus group of career women the age of the book’s expected audience.
But there are more lessons to be had.
I think the most valuable lesson that can be learned with this kind of rejection—any kind, really—is that it is not personal, but that it does pay to search for the lesson.
For me the lesson is that I must keep the faith.
I must keep writing and keep publicizing, because if I don’t, I’ll never know if I gave my book—or my career—the best possible chance at success.
If I don’t see direct or immediate results and my faith should slip just a tad, I don’t have to feel too bad.
Thanks to Sylvia Ann Hewlett.
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This article was originally published after my novel This Is the Place was published. It is now out of print and only available using Amazon’s new and used feature.
There are at least two more lessons in this latter day situation:
1. Because of the Internet and online bookstores, books can stay alive much longer than they once did.
2. Authors who are more interested in readership than selling books will find it easier to persist through the ups and downs of publishing and eventually build a writing career.
About Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program.
All her books for writers are multi award winners including the first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter, and the second.
Her The Frugal Editor, now in its second edition, won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award.
Her blog TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, lets authors recycle their favorite reviews absolutely free.
Learn more about Carolyn Howard-Johnson at http://howtodoitfrugally.com.
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