The
publication of my second mystery novel, Wash Her Guilt Away, has set me, once again, to thinking about the business of
bookselling. I think I learned some things from the publication of the first
book, The McHenry Inheritance; now
let’s see if that turns out to be the case.
One analogy
that occurred to me in the first turn was that selling books is a lot like
fishing, a simile that rings particularly true for the self-published author.
With due respect to my readers, especially those who paid for the book, I’d
like to pursue the comparison a bit farther.
To begin
with, one has to think of Amazon, the undisputed big boy in the self-publishing
world, as a large, nutrient-rich lake teeming with readers, who are symbolized
by fish. You know the fish are out there, and in enormous numbers, but for the
most part you can’t see them, and figuring out where they are and what they’re
biting on, i.e. buying, is an immense challenge.
Into the Boat and Onto the Water
An author
who puts a book up on Amazon is rather like an angler who takes a boat out on
the lake, drops anchor and casts his bait into the lake. Assuming the book is
good (in other words, that the bait isn’t rancid), the author can fish from one
side of the boat, sit tight, and sooner or later catch a fish or two. But the
reality is that nearly every other fish in the lake won’t even see the bait.
In point of
fact, not even every fish within catchable distance of the boat is going to see
that bait. If the area fishable from the boat can be described as a circle
surrounding the vessel, the author with one book is like an angler fishing with
one rod and one hook from one side of the boat. That angler is putting the bait
in front of only a quarter of the fish within shouting distance, at best.
Furthermore,
even if the bait is perfectly good, it might not be what the fish are in the
mood for that day. You could be fishing with a plump, savory salmon egg, but if
the fish are in the mood for cheese that day, they will swim right past your
egg without so much as a second thought.
Two Rods and Two Hooks
As a
fisherman, I like to say that when you’re catching fish, you know you’re doing
something right, but when you’re not catching fish, you often have no idea what
the problem is. You could be using the wrong bait or the wrong technique, in
which case the failure is on you. But it could also be that the fish ate their
fill earlier in the day and simply aren’t interested, or that they have
temporarily left the area you’re fishing, or that the weather is temporarily
affecting the food supply and the environment. You just don’t know.
Now let’s
say our author/angler puts a second book up on Amazon. That changes the
equation. Instead of fishing off one side of the boat, our intrepid angler now
has a rod off two sides and is covering twice as much area and, theoretically,
reaching twice as many fish with the bait. Also, each rod now has two hooks on
it — one for each book. The fish can choose between cheese and salmon egg, and
that increases the author’s chances. You have to figure you’ll do better
overall.
Those were
the lines along which I was thinking when I put the second book up at the end
of April. Next week I’ll discuss the early results.
