Where can you sell a poetry book?
Question: Denica McCall, author of Flowers of In the Darkness, asks:
"I do write novels, but I've just put out a poetry book, my first published book. The book is partly being used to raise funds for a local organization fighting human trafficking. What kinds of places should I look to connect with that might help me sell the poetry book, and how could it work for a church, for example, that wanted to sell copies? It's self-published through Amazon, so would they buy the copies at print cost and then split up the profit between themselves and me, or would that be up to each specific location?"
Thomas: This is a tough one because there isn't a lot of demand for poetry books. Americans don't read much poetry these days. Think about it, when was the last time you paid money for a poetry book? Selling poetry might be the hardest marketing challenge there is.
Jim: It's not that people won't read poetry, it's just not on their radar. A hundred years ago poetry was a big deal, but it's not anymore.
Thomas: It's interesting that when rhyming, meter, and the rules of sonnets went out the window, that correlates with people's loss of interest in poetry. I don't know if one caused the other, but free-form poetry has become more common, and demand has declined along with it. It hasn't disappeared completely though. There are poets who are making money and selling books.
One idea is to sell the book at events the nonprofit puts on. As a thank you for donating $100 to the nonprofit fighting human trafficking, donors get a free copy of the book. People may not love buying a book, but they love receiving one as a gift, because it makes them feel smart and sophisticated. You can cross-promote it that way.
Jim: Another idea is the classic puppy dog close, probably one of the first sales techniques ever used. You walk into a pet store and the owner says, "You don't have to buy the puppy. Take the puppy home, and if you don't like it, you can bring it back."
Once you take that puppy home, you and the kids fall in love with it, and there's no way it's going back to the pet store.
How you do that with poetry? My suggestion is you start posting a few pieces of your poetry on social media. When people say, "Wow, that's really good, I love that," you sell them the rest of the book.
Thomas: That's right. The challenge is convincing people to read the poem instead of skimming it. People naturally skim when they're reading online, and that doesn't work for poetry. You have to surrender yourself to it, give it your full attention, and think about it to figure it out. If you can get people to do that on your website and it moves them, you've got them. They'll buy your book.
Jim: The final thing is doing the open mic circuit. Read some of your poetry and create interest that way. If you have a drama or speaking background, you could also try YouTube readings of your own work.
Thomas: Having your poetry book on your My Book Table page will help a lot. For more on that, go to mybooktable.com.
Should you buy the copyright to your book cover?
Question: Michael Emert, author of Dwarves of Getallumane, asks about cover art rights. Should you let the artist keep the copyright and license it to you, or should you buy the copyright outright?
Thomas: I'm a sucker for titles like that. Michael, you need to buy the copyright, and here's why. The copyright for your book lasts 75 years after you die. If you die at 80 or 82, your children will be in their 60s and your grandchildren in their 20s. Seventy-five years from now your grandchildren will be 95, which means it's your great-grandchildren who end up dealing with your book's copyright. If the cover artist keeps their own copyright, their great-grandchildren have to be tracked down too, and there's no way anyone stays in contact through all those generations. You can get into a real mess. You want the entire book under one copyright holder so it's less likely to get orphaned.
If an artist insists on keeping the copyright, don't use that artist. This is non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned. I once tried to reprint a book my great-grandfather had written and hired an artist for the cover. She insisted on keeping the copyright and just selling a license. She knew how copyright law worked, but I didn't want my great-grandchildren negotiating with hers, so it ended up being a no deal.
What if your cover is a photo of something that doesn’t belong to the photographer?
Jim: Hey Thomas, I have a question about one of my books. My books are copyrighted since I've been traditionally published. I took a photo myself and sent it to my publisher, and they used it on the cover. That's fine, I gave them the rights to do that. But I took a photo of something someone else owns. Is there any legal problem with that?
Thomas: Where were you standing when you took the photo?
Jim: In a public domain.
Thomas: Let me first say I'm not a lawyer, and if this ends up being bad legal advice, it's because I'm not a lawyer. My understanding, from what lawyers have told me and what I've read, is that as long as you're standing in a public place, you're pretty much good to go with taking the photo. I'd still recommend talking to an actual lawyer if you're concerned, but I don't think it's a problem.
My short answer is you need to own the copyright, and you want to work with an artist who sees their work as work for hire. If an artist has an ego about owning the copyright as self-expression, they're not thinking about it the right way. They're creating packaging for your book from a marketing perspective. Yes, there's an artistic element, just like there's an artistic element in writing the book, but those copyrights need to run together. Otherwise, you're creating a mess for your descendants, and no one wants that.
What counts as a hook?
Jamie Foley, author of Sentinel, asks:
"We all know about the importance of a hook in writing, but I've heard two very different definitions. The book The First Five Sentences defines a hook as a sort of marketing ploy in the first sentence and the first few paragraphs of the book to grab the reader's attention. But the loose definition sounds like something like an event that occurs somewhere in the first few chapters that delivers a promise to the reader regarding what the full story has to offer. Which definition is correct, and how important is the hook for marketing reasons such as free sample chapters?"
Jim: It's a good question because it goes beyond just the story. First, there's the hook of the story itself, the what-if question. In my novel Rooms, the question is, “What if you could walk into the rooms of your own soul?” That's a hook for radio interviews, for readers, and if you're going the traditional route, for editors and agents. It's the hook that makes people want to figure out more, the elevator pitch. It could also be called the high concept. The hook is the what-if question.
But there's also a hook in the first sentence, where you want someone to read it and think, "I've got to keep reading." You want a hook at the end of your first chapter, so they think, "I've got to start the next chapter." You want a hook at the start of your second, third, and fourth chapters so they keep reading. A lot of novels are missing those hooks, and with so many books out there, readers are being glutted.
Unless you have a hook that makes them think, "just one more page," they'll put your book down. You want a hook in your back cover copy that makes people think, "I better read the first page." You want a hook on the first page that makes them want to read the second.
Thomas: So, from a metaphor perspective, you want a net of hooks, not just one. No hook is an excuse to be boring later. It's not, "I hooked you in chapter one, so I can have a boring chapter two." That's not how it works. Everything has to be interesting.
Jim: Everything has to be interesting.
One mistake I made in my first novel was putting all the hooks in the first chapter. It was too many at once. You need one hook to catch a fish, then later you put out another hook to catch another fish. Think of it as Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. You don't give readers the whole feast up front. You make them follow the breadcrumbs, but every crumb has to be tasty enough that they keep going.
Thomas: We talk a lot on this podcast about how your book has to be well written, because no one wants to buy a boring book, and good marketing makes a bad book fail faster. This is what we mean.
Your marketing gets baked into the book itself. Every chapter has to sell the next chapter. Every sentence has to sell the next sentence. If I'm not sold on why I want to keep reading, I'll abandon the book, and people hate doing that. They feel guilty about having an unread book on their shelf, so if they're afraid a book won't hold their attention, they won't buy it at all. That's why the hooks on the cover, on the back cover, and in the first few sentences are so important. You're proving you have what it takes to write a book that can hold attention all the way through.
Jim: Donald Maass would call it micro-tension on every page. Tension, conflict, and unresolved questions on every page draw you to the next breadcrumb.
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