Authors Must Promote Themselves

By Hillel Italie
Associated Press Writer digital
Thursday, March 7, 2002; 4:52 PM

NEW YORK ­­ Nancy Newman took five years to write her first novel and 10
years to get it published. But when "Disturbing the Peace" was finally released this winter, her life only became harder.

Although she has been assigned a publicist from HarperCollins, the author spends at least 40 hours a week promoting the book herself. She has made hundreds of phone calls and sent hundreds of e-mails. She has arranged readings and conducted her own research.

"I have not been a writer lately, I've been a publicist," Newman says.

Newman's experience is part of a trend highlighted by recent reports that David A. Vise, author of "The Bureau and the Mole," purchased more than 15,000 copies of his book from Barnesandnoble.com.

With thousands of titles coming out each year, just getting someone to notice your book can be as challenging as writing it.

"It really does highlight the problems writers have getting their books sold," says Robin Davis Miller, who as counsel to the Authors Guild has led many workshops on self-publicity.

"It used to be authors would write and publishers would package and sell. ... That's absolutely no longer the case."

These days, writers often set up their own tours, compile mailing lists and help make sure copies of their books are available at readings. Newman, whose novel features a woman's journey to find her birth mother, contacted hundreds of adoption organizations, and, in April, will speak at an adoption conference in Philadelphia.

"HarperCollins has been wonderful, but the big publishers don't have the time and money to do everything themselves," Newman says.

Thanks to the Internet, authors increasingly are using Web sites to promote, sell and even publish their work. The most notable case has been Stephen King, who self-published the novella "The Plant," serializing it in electronic installments.

M.J. Rose, a columnist for Wired.com, self-published her novel, "Lip Service," in 1998 after she was turned down by 12 publishing houses. She not only set up a Web site, she persuaded over 50 Internet sites to review or excerpt the book, purchased ads and gave away hundreds of free copies in both electronic and paper form

"Authors walk this fine tightrope. We have to balance ourselves between promoting ourselves in a nice way and doing something outrageous. We're all just trying to get some attention."

"The whole world is more aware of promotion, publicity and marketing and authors have become more savvy about it.

© 2002 The Associated Press

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