DIGITAL PUBLISHING
WHERE ARE YOU WITH DIGITAL PUBLISHING?
Let me jump to my conclusion first. I began this process nine months ago with one big question: Should we open up a digital publishing division?
My answer: No and Yes.
No. We are not going to launch an e-book publishing house.
Yes. We are e-publishing our authors' backlist ourselves. We will also publish a few of our clients' original books in the coming year.
The agency has now successfully "re-published" five books into the digital marketplace. For instance, Robyn Carr's first novel, CHELYNNE, initially published by Little Brown in 1980, was released by the agency as an e-book in September 2011. Within a few days, it reached No. 1 on Barnes and Noble's bestseller list and No. 25 on The New York Times' e-book fiction list. Furthermore, we are launching our first "original" e-book in October 2011. By the end of 2011, we will have launched approximately fifteen titles. We're charging our standard commission and expenses.
It's recently been Digital Publishing all the time for my assistant and me. What follows is our personal travel guide into this new land.
ARE YOU OUTSOURCING THIS PROCESS? OR ARE YOU MERELY POSTING THESE DIGITAL BOOKS?
It means that we're actually RE-publishing these books; we're doing far more than simply posting digital versions of the books and crossing our fingers.
The agents at Liza Dawson Associates gained decades of experience working in-house at publishing companies. Now, when we take an author's book into the digital marketplace, we ask ourselves the same questions we used to ask when we took a book before pub board.
- Can the author and our company make money on this digital book?
- Does the author have an ongoing career as a writer?
- Does the author have a social media platform?
- Do these books have a publicity angle?
- Will this re-launch strengthen the author's career?
- Will this be fun?
TELL US ABOUT A SPECIFIC BOOK OR AUTHOR, LIZA.
The first books we've launched are four nonfiction titles by Jean Sasson: PRINCESS: Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia; PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS; PRINCESS SULTANA'S CIRCLE and FOR THE LOVE OF A SON: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child.
Nineteen years ago, PRINCESS was an immediate bestseller in the US and the UK and internationally. Despite the series' long success in print, it had never been published electronically. More recently, Jean's book GROWING UP BIN LADEN had been published by St. Martin's and we'd sold it into fourteen countries. This activity signaled that Jean boasts an active following in the US and abroad.
Jean was about to start work on her tenth book when I suggested that instead she take a step back from that project and become our digital guinea pig. We'd craft a plan to build a strong web presence for the author and her books.
Since Jean had never established a sophisticated web presence for herself and her books. I decided that was the first thing that needed to be done.
HOW DID YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS?
I decided to spend real time and money to master the world of digital publishing. I realized that only a focused effort would enable me to truly engage in thoughtful conversation about where books are going.
I went to Digital Book World. I organized a panel for the AAR with Liz Scheier of B&N and Arthur Klebanoff of Rosetta Books and Anne Kostick, a publishing consultant in the e-world. Amazon staffers came to visit our offices several times. I met with people in the new media departments at the major houses. I sent my amazing assistant Judith Engracia to Media Bistro social media courses. Judith spent hours learning how to convert text to digital. We bought a software program to design jackets and Judith learned to use it. And I had many lunch dates with old publishing friends who were now deeply involved in this new world.
I also tapped expertise within my office suite, building a team with agents Nancy Yost and Laura Dail. We went into this together. Nancy has now launched approximately thirty books. Most of these are backlist fiction. She has a dedicated staffer working solely on digital. Laura has also published backlist (notably a book about adoption called TRULY YOURS) and new original work (notably MEDITERRANEAN MEALS by Angelo Acquista, M.D.)
Together we hired Lori Culwell, a consultant who became our web-sales guru. Lori taught us how to truly exploit SEO [search engine optimization]. She showed us how to coordinate and streamline our authors' presence on Facebook and Twitter and blog sites. We learned about Google analytics. I hired Lori to work directly with the author.
And then finally, when I felt confident that Jean Sasson's internet presence was well established, I laid out a week-by-week, day-by-day publication strategy. One week was devoted to retailers. I learned about Author Central; I learned about tagging; we focused on pricing by comparing Jean's books to others'. Another week was devoted to formatting. Another week to publicity. One week for Facebook, another for blogging, etc. And then we launched, triggering e-mails and twitter blasts out to everyone.
The experience was like moving to a new country: exciting, exhausting, sexy and infuriating.
WHERE WAS THE AUTHOR IN THIS?
Jean signed up for Good Reads, LibraryThing, Shelfari and more. She updated all of her books and wrote a new epilogue for each. She collected all her quotes and reviews. She began to blog. She posted reams of new material on her website: maps, glossaries, chronologies, photos and a list of further reading. After the first two weeks of solid work on her part, we agreed that she'd spend two hours a day collecting this information. She agreed to just DO it and not try to figure out whether it made sense. Jean discovered that she loved being in contact with her fans. I think she might even have used the word "energizing."
In a month, the number of Jean's Twitter followers grew from 0 to 700. She's now up to over 2,000 followers. We consolidated the five Facebook pages that had been set up by Jean's fans into a single site that Jean controls. She now actively blogs, and she follows other authors' blogs.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO DO THIS?
It took approximately four months to build up Jean's use of social media and to refine her website. It took several weeks to convert the text for Kindle and for Barnes & Noble. It took much painful learning to master Smashwords. We had a brilliant intern design the only jacket we needed, which was FOR THE LOVE OF A SON. We launched the first book in December 2010.
HOW DID IT WORK OUT?
In its first month, PRINCESS sold 100 copies. In its second month, we sold ten times that number. I'm reluctant to cite a precise count of current sales since Kobo, Apple and Sony report on a delayed schedule of 30-60 days and Smashwords, in turn, reports those numbers to us quarterly. But, conservatively, total sales appear to be running at north of 3,000 copies a month.
Our timing was fortuitous. In January 2011, Egyptian citizens revolted against their government: Stories about women and change in the Middle East shot to the top of Google's search rankings and Jean's site was right there, ready to satisfy eager visitors. Journalists harvested information from Jean's website and they learned they could trust her.
Jean's Google Analytics measure shot up 2,000 percent on May 2, 2011...the day Osama Bin Laden was killed. Jean had written GROWING UP BIN LADEN in collaboration with Osama's son and wife, and Jean became the person reporters wanted to talk to. Journalists from all over the world called her for information. The New York Times asked her to draw up a family tree of the Bin Ladens.
When The New York Times Magazine chose to interview Jean for a Q and A, I switched hats once again. I became the sales director and called Barnes & Noble and Amazon and then fed them a steady stream of information about Jean's publicity appearances. When Barnes & Noble ran a promotion, Jean's daily sales shot up impressively.
WHAT'S YOUR NEXT STEP?
Jean Sasson has just finished writing a "short." It's called AN AMERICAN CHICK IN SAUDI ARABIA, and it will run about 30,000 words. It's Jean's alarming, shocking and sometimes-funny stories of living in Ridyah as an unmarried young woman.
In the next few weeks we're launching three backlist historical novels by one of our bestselling authors. And we've got titles from two other authors to launch.
WHAT ARE YOU CHARGING?
We take a 15-percent commission plus agreed-upon expenses, for outlays such as conversion, proofreading and jacket art. So far, we've been able to do all of this in-house. However, we don't want our books to look self-published so we'll spend the money if we have to. The entire process is collaborative.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?
All of the old rules apply. Digital publishers must make all of the same decisions that print publishers do. Publishing in any form is labor-intensive.
I'd like agents to toss out their assumption that, "Oh, we can do digital publishing better than can traditional dead-tree publishers." Publishers' investment in setting up the technical and sales ends of this process has cost them millions of dollars. The advantage I have is that we are re-issuing very few titles, and we're doing it only for authors whose name recognition is already well-established.
I believe that we are able to publish just as effectively as do most digital-only publishers, but that's largely because our list is small. If I had forty titles by a single author to e-publish, I'd probably outsource the job.
Do authors need agents to do all this for them? Some do and some don't. Many authors, for instance, choose to set up their books solely on Kindle, which means they miss a lot of the marketplace. My chief fear with these authors is that they'll underprice their books and thus cannibalize their frontlist in search of easy money.
Largely, what I've learned is that e-publishing is not chiefly about digitizing text. It's all about expanding readership. The way to do that most efficiently is by helping internet users to find the books. Until I got involved with digital publishing, I thought "digital marketing" was just one aspect of a publisher's marketing campaign for a book. Now I realize that – at least for now – it's imperative that I get deeply involved in digital marketing to make sure that everything that can be done is being done.
I'm deeply involved with my clients' on-line presence. Eight months before their book is published, I look closely at that author's website. I check that all their social media is coordinated. I encourage the author to add a lot more content to their site and to optimize the site for discovery by search engines. I recommend (where appropriate) that they send out newsletters and that they do everything possible to capture e-mail addresses. I introduce them to publicists, to digital marketeers and website designers. Most of all, I hound them to concentrate on this now and not to procrastinate.
At the moment, most publishers aren't focusing on the deep but boring work of ensuring an author has built a solid digital foundation. But they'll get to it eventually. Building a vibrant, interactive internet presence is just about the most important thing a publisher can do.
WHAT HAVE YOUR AUTHORS LEARNED?
It doesn't take an author long to grasp that, as a result of digitally publishing a book themselves, a real check will soon appear in their mailbox. They will receive 70 percent of list price rather than 25 percent of net (which sum may, or may not, reach their pockets until after the advance has earned out). Suddenly authors who never thought digital marketing was interesting find it, well, fascinating. They truly GET that the bigger their fan base, the bigger the check. It turns out that all those former English majors are pretty good at arithmetic after all. With the zeal of the converted, authors find they've got the time and the energy to learn about e-marketing and publishing. And soon I don't have to hound them as much as I once did.
WHAT'S THE TAKEAWAY? IS THERE A PLACE FOR "REAL" PUBLISHERS?
Yes, and yes, and yes again. I don't want to replace “real” publishers. I am in awe of how much time, energy, money and expertise they devote to the publication of each frontlist book. But their business is selling millions of books each season. My business is to build up my authors' careers. And with digital publishing, agents have been handed a very effective tool for doing exactly that.
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