"You've got to figure out every way to sell your book these days."
Although many might still consider it a glamorous gig - write a book, reap the rewards! - selling those books, especially for first-time authors, has become a lesson in perseverance. Stand-alone newspaper book sections, or even substantive morning TV and radio talk shows that would discuss the books, have dramatically decreased in numbers, as have the publicists who could book such appearances. There are fewer bookstores at which to hold signings and even fewer libraries that have the ability to hold author series. While publishers might still invest resources to promote a high-profile author, more of the selling part of the literary life is falling to the writers.
Luckily for many writers, creativity is what got them this far. Still, the tricks of the trade can range from anything as simple as blogging to a book's targeted market to as complex as arranging a whistle-stop tour.
Take Stephen Fried, 53, of Philadelphia, now promoting his fifth book, Appetite for America, about Fred Harvey, whose hotels and restaurants, primarily on the train routes in the Midwest and West, helped usher in middle-class tourism a century ago.
Before the book's launch date in April 2010, Fried spent months setting up a train tour, with plans to stop only at locations with Fred Harvey hotels or restaurants or towns with ones nearby. At those stops, he set up speaking engagements at historical societies or museums, where he would get several dozen listeners, almost all of whom would be buyers of the book.
"You have to find what your core audience is and target where you are going to get them," said Fried. Fortuitously, the Wall Street Journal reviewed his book just as his tour was starting in Chicago. Then NPR thought the excursion clever enough to produce a story.
