Q: How do I attain top market placement for one of the most fascinating science fiction books ever written?
A: Create a fan base BEFORE approaching a publisher.
I’m a former publisher and an avid reader. I consume traditional books, audio books, and ebooks. If you’ve got a relatively new writer, particularly in SciFi (Yes.. I’m just messing with you Rodney) consider giving the book away. Or, at least half of it.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a 2003 science fiction book. It is the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. He gave it away and encouraged others to copy it and share it. It was also the first novel released under a Creative Commons license.
It worked. The novel was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2004. Doctorow re-licensed his book under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Under the new license, one can now make derivative works from the book without permission, provided the license and attribution is retained with each new work and the derivatives are not used commercially. Already, fans of the book have begun Russian and Spanish translations, an audio book version, and several amusing re-arrangements of the text. Doctorow has noted that he is pleased that people are building on his work, and that he hopes that further innovations will follow.
In 2004, Doctorow released his second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, the same way. “The first novel..was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and sold like hell,” Doctorow said. “I’m delighted to do it a second time.” He’s released three additional novels since. His latest is Makers,
Tired of seeing their stuff distributed (often poorly) by others, Monty Python decided to create a YouTube channel with high quality material. It drives their sales to the top at Amazon.com.
The already-popular band Nine Inch Nails gives away its album entitled Slip at nin.com. The music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. The free download link will include all options – all free — and include a PDF with artwork and credits.
Bottom line: If you’re a new author, you’re not risking a lot of dough by giving your work away. I’ve worked as a publisher in the past and the revenue generated for a new author is typically pretty low unless there is a lot of marketing going on. You’ll actually make more money if you have an existing fan base when you approach a prospective publisher. If your fan base is large enough, you could always sell the book yourself using a company like Blurb or Lulu.
The most effective form of marketing for a product without awareness? sampling.
If you really want to achieve “top market placement” you’ve got to take risks. If you’ve got good content — and you believe in it — consider giving all or part of it away. If you’re right, you’ll get paid.
Build a fan base and the money will come.
Credits: This post began as a LinkedIn question from Lee Webster. After providing an answer on LinkedIn, I wanted to share it with the bloggers, readers and aspiring writers on socialmeteor.com
No Arguments
“For 3 years YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands. We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.
No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing – HQ videos delivered straight from our vault. What’s more, we’re taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what’s even more, we’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!”
About Troy Janisch