‘It’s beyond my control’
Get used to saying it
I’ve talked before about what a roller-coaster publishing is. You can be selling well one year, then find your royalties are down another year. Because this industry is a bit mad, it’s tempting to believe that we can control things; that if we made more Instagram reels, or did more promo events that could sell books/get us publishing deals.
You can influence things A LITTLE. Obviously if you do lots of shop visits or signings, or you sell at school visits or your Insta post goes viral that will help a bit. But only a tiny bit.
The things that will REALLY help your book are actually things that fall more under the publisher’s control than yours:
Getting Waterstones book of the month
Being sold into supermarkets
Proper marketing eg tube ads
Co-editions (foreign rights deals)
Showcases to shops (where a publisher has a mini event pushing your book)
Being ‘lead title’ (where you are the main title your publisher is focusing on. You can ask at negotiating stage whether you’ll be a lead title – especially if you have more than one publishing offer)
Paying the ‘admin fee’ for the book to be on prize lists or ‘best-seller’ lists or in book clubs (yes this does happen) or in train station shops
Traditional media eg getting your book on Cbeebies, getting you on the One Show sofa, getting press reviews
The editor that has been championing your book STAYING at that publisher rather than moving jobs to a different one (believe it or not)
Those things will make a proper difference. But they are very hard for YOU, as the author/illustrator, to bring about. Or they are total luck, like accidentally hitting a sudden trend; or having your old book read online by a granny who goes viral (‘Wonky Donkey’); or an A-list celeb saying they loved your book.
For some reason we fool ourselves over and over again that if we just did a few more shop signings or a few more Insta posts, that would make all the difference.
Maybe it’s desperation? ‘I’ll try anything to make my book sell’
Maybe it’s guilt? ‘I should be working harder. It’s my fault if this book fails’
Maybe it’s because everyone else is doing it? ‘Look at her on Insta, she’s at every lit fest, every party’
Or maybe it’s just the desire to stamp some kind of control over this insane industry.
PR, promo, marketing is primarily the job of the publisher. In this social media era, the publisher likes us to shoulder some of this burden. Of course it looks good if you are doing school visits, festivals, social media. Your publisher will LIKE you more if you do them. And it might mean they are slightly more inclined to give you another advance for another book. But it won’t sell significantly more books.
It’s doubly frustrating that the reading public don’t usually understand how little is beyond our control either. When my publisher changed the glitter in Fairytale Hairdresser for a more eco version I got so many emails from parents complaining. And I’ve heard horror stories of authors writing a 4-book arc only to have the publisher decide not to publish book 4, leaving them to deal with the angry fans who want to know the story’s ending.
The truth is, the only thing you can ACTUALLY control is putting your head down and writing/drawing. Remind yourself of that. Write it above your desk if that helps. Try to accept it (ha! I know it’s hard).
And remember the other things that ARE in your control:
Making things you love
Enjoying the process
Living your creative life
Time with writing buddies (it’s the friends we make along the way…)
And no work is wasted. You are building your craft.
ps my new picture book Little Fairy Godmother comes out tomorrow. It’s the origin story of the Fairy Godmother and it’s super cute! So yay me and yay Leire Martin, the illustrator. If you want to support me, you could buy it for a little person you love. Thank you!
Very true. It’s a white knuckle ride with no one in the driving seat.
I have to keep reminding myself of this: Eyes on my own own page, focus on the words, always.