I have been in touch with all my advertising information with the national headquarters for B&N and the district contact for Borders. Both have been very helpful and instrumental in getting the book placed in stores and moved closer and closer to getting a number at Borders. Once that happens, we’ll be hitting them hard with posters. Keep in mind that I did not get a response from either company until I had plenty of successful advertising scheduled to show them.
I continuously hound big publishers with Amazon stats, comparing my book ranks to theirs. I remind them that I am a comedian. I can hit the road and plug the book onstage. I interview and banter well. I can make the audience and interviewers laugh and joke around with them all. With my drive and talent, and their resources... well, who knows how far this book could go? I did get Simon & Schuster to read it. They had some great comments and gave me the thumbs up to send them future ideas. They suggested some changes which would enable them to consider the book for re-publication under their own imprint. The guy I’ve been talking to there is very professional and helpful. I’m hesitant to make the changes for now because it would make the book mostly appealing only to guys and one of the most repetitious compliments its received has been “it works on all levels.” Such a change would remove some of these levels. For now, I’ll keep pounding some of the other big publishers, in case one of them would like to carry it as is. Again, keep in mind that I did not approach these large publishers until I had solid figures to show them. They do not accept queries.
A Word On Shelving
If you’re like me, you think that all new books get displayed in the “new books” section of bookstores. Not the case. Bigger publishers get those spots, which makes sense, since they are primarily responsible for creating the most books and thus keeping bookstores in business. Small published books like mine get buried in their category section, in my case “humor.” Thought you’d like to know.
Where Is The Book Now?
You’re pretty much up to speed. I know this was long and some times tedious, but I wanted to share it all. It’s no good if you don’t share it all.
The message I hope you get here is that with careful planning, hard work, continuous tenacity, professionalism, a good product, targeting the proper crowd, patience, more tenacity, more hard work, and people willing to take time and effort to review your work and interview you — people like Simon — and finally, with the luck of reaching vocal readers, you can get published. You can have your voice heard. For what it’s worth, another idea I have for a book, completely different than this one, is currently under consideration with a large publisher. Once doors start to open, stay on it, more will come and each one will open a little wider each time.
Article comments
1 - Marco
Wow. Great stuff. I am one of the readers who has been talking about Ian's book everywhere I can. In fact, I got kicked off a dating message board because they thought I was spamming! I have been following this interview along as he put up the links on his site.
I'm not a writer or a blogger, but I am an avid reader. I live in OH but have been on consulting assignment in Chicago, where I heard about Ian's book because as Simon points out, he is marketing it everywhere. I had no idea what authors go thru and applaud you all for doing it. Without you, there would be nothing for people like me to read! I found the comments about publishers and authors being responsible for the decline in literature to be very interesting and make sense. It is getting harder and harder to find good books. More and more they are just about marketing. For instance, I recently read "The Average American Male" which is just horrible and its publisher spent over $10,000 to market it with videos on YouTube. Ian's book is so much better and along the same genre. $10,000 for it could really make it take off. Yet, it goes unread and unconsidered by such a big publisher or they wanted it changed to the crappy book they are pushing.
I hope that "God is a Woman: Dating Disasters" does very well. We should all get copies, if for no other reason than to show publishers this IS a book people want and IS what readers want to read. Maybe it could do for books what independent film as done for movies. If it wasn't for independent film, all movies would be "White Chicks" now; the big places only make good films because of the pressure from small films to compete with them for awards.
Thank you both Simon and Ian for the insight. I want you to know I'm doing my part; I just talked my friends into buying a bunch of copies off Amazon for their bachelor and bachelorette parties! Thank you to all authors and aspiring ones for your hardwork. Lord knows I couldn't take punches like these.