The Little Things Community

By now, you’ve probably all heard the news. Borders is going out of business. For good. All of their remaining stores will close their doors and thousands of jobs will be lost. This is a big hit for the publishing industry, but not one that was completely unforeseen. Borders was too late to jump on the ebook bandwagon and it’s ereader just couldn’t stack up to the Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook. Even though they caught the trend in time, the future is still looking kinda shaky for B&N.

Here’s an article from the International Business Times about the effect that the collapse of Borders will have on the other industry giant.

The final line of the article is dismal. “Ultimately unless Barnes & Noble can find a new, innovative way to start selling hordes of books in those major stores, it would be wise to finally sell to a willing buyer.”

We at TLT like to stay positive and focus on the solution, rather than the problem. What do you think Barnes & Noble should do? When was the last time you bought a book from one of their stores? Be honest. I can’t remember the last time I did and I used to work at one!

I worked at the largest store in the Chicagoland area during the holiday season two years ago to learn more about the retail process. Now, I’m no retail expert. I can tell you what you need to know about how to set up an author event or the best way to identify your target audience, but throw last quarter’s sales numbers at me and it’s likely that my eyes will cross and I’ll start drooling. However, even I know that when the managers are walking around with grim expressions and lunchroom bulletin boards are plastered with unfulfilled sales goals at CHRISTMAS, things are pretty bad.

Fortunately, I no longer work for B&N, but my heart does go out for the thousands of people who may lose their jobs if the company is sold or, God forbid, goes under. Let’s help these folks out. They sell our books and host our events, and I think that if they keep their minds open to change, all is not lost.

What ideas do you have that may help Barnes & Noble (and brick and mortar bookstores everywhere) avoid collapse? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Ok guys, we’re going to take a break from my usual we’re-having-coffee-together rambling and switch to a classy topic today- a priceless 12th century manuscript was stolen out of one of Spain’s cathedrals! Oop, we just lost a couple of readers. Quitters. No but seriously, this is like a real life Ocean’s 11 stint- can you just imagine the hours before it happened? A couple of men huddled around the blueprints of the cathedral, slightly dirtied on the corners with cigarette ash and whiskey rings from their glasses. They stand there, conversationally going over the intricate step-by-step plan of how they’ll get passed the security system and vault. One of them smirks as he reaches for his gloves.

Or maybe not. What disappeared was the Codex Calixtinus, which is a beautiful manuscript from 1150 that has a collection of advice and background detail for pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Saint James the Great. It holds strikingly illustrated sermons and musical pieces, as well as descriptions of customs and the route of the pilgrimage. It was nabbed from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and is now being called “one of the most important robberies of Spanish historical and artistic heritage.”

The disappearance of the manuscript was discovered on Tuesday, although authorities believe the theft occurred as late as last week. On top of that, there was absolutely no sign of a break-in. These robbers were definitely on Clooney’s level.

How do you think this shook down?

That's me!!

Hello everyone! I’m sure you’ve noticed me tinkering around on this site — adding new info about our authors and events. I’m going to be speaking to you directly now, through this new blog.

A few weeks ago, I taught a free course about how to self-promote a book to about 15 community members at the Learnapalooza Festival in Chicago. I was completely blown away by the level of interest, participation and appreciation for the information that I shared. This experience got me thinking about all of you– the TLT community– and how you might be able to benefit from some of the stuff that I have learned (sometimes the hard way) over the years. I have worked both as a publicist for a major vanity press which shall remain anonymous (hint: it rhymes with “rother mouse”) and as the senior publicist for TLT, but even I am still learning. I read new books and blogs every day to keep up with marketing trends and techniques. The field is constantly changing.

If you are one of our published authors, if you’re planning on submitting your manuscript to us or to another publishing company or if you’re planning on striking out on your own through self-publishing, this blog is for you. I will be adding new posts on a weekly basis and I encourage you to ask me questions and make recommendations. If there is a particular topic that you would like to see addressed in the blog, please send me an email: lindsey@tltpublishing.com

Lastly, I encourage you to comment on the posts. I would like to see this blog transform into a sort of forum where we can all share our experiences and success stories. Isn’t that the point of a community, afterall?!

Thank you for your continued support and happy writing!

While you were lounging on deck chairs and watching firewroks crack open the sky, the staff of TLT Publishing was busy putting the finishing touches on our new e-commerce page!  Think of it as one of your new favorite bookstores, it now proudly boasts 9 books that are ready to be ordered.  To sweeten the deal a little more (and because we like you so darn much), we are now offering an extra 30% off of all pre-orders!  Just use the code  fffxxx2tlt at checkout. We’re not stingy though- feel free to share this code with friends, family, and any other fans. Happy reading : )

Let me lead you to our front door: http://bookstore.tltpublishing.com/

Ohh the elusive best seller. Everyone wants to have one, no one understands how to become one, and most are perplexed over what it even really means. Is a book a bestseller because the words on its pages are epic, or is it because there was a clever publicist pulling some strings? Is it because the story is so good that everyone flocked to get a copy, or did people keep buying it so they could see what all the hype was about (and not seem like the only thing they read is Star magazine when asked about it at dinner parties. Do people even do dinner parties anymore? I digress). We have had centuries of books and yet we still haven’t figured out a formula that explains just what makes some novels shoot to the top, and others stay behind and quickly fade into irrelevance. John Sutherland, an English scholar, voices this perplexity the best: “As a rule of thumb, what defines the bestseller is bestselling. Nothing else.”

Maybe one of the reasons why we can’t figure out just why a book gains this gold-star-status is because we don’t even know what a bestseller is. The list is a mix of literary and fluffy pieces, a blend of quality and trash. Because of this, books that make it on the list smack into an odd paradox. As Ruth Franklin says, “Its popularity can be understood as both proof and negation of its value”. If sales are the only thing that ranks these novels, then the book is just well marketed and can be easily forgotten right after the last page is turned. The writer isn’t the next F. Scott Fitzgerald and our grandkids aren’t going to be laboring over his chapters (slash skimming sparksnotes) in their highschool classes. On the other side, maybe it’s on the list because it’s entertaining and makes you sort of excited for that train ride home so you can pop back into whatever shenanigans your characters were in the middle of. Even though your intellect may not be amused (and might even go as far as turning its nose up at it), you’re still enjoying yourself and becoming involved with what’s happening. So even though a spot on the Top 10 List is coveted, it comes with a price: it gains and loses value. It’s a contradiction. Like a Starburst.

On top of that, bestseller lists change weekly. Heck, Amazon’s best seller list becomes updated daily, which means there are about a hundred thousand chances for an author to have his fifteen minutes of glory and then cling to the fact that he “reached the top ten.” As Eliza Truitt describes perfectly, the stamp “best seller” on the cover of a book means “about as much as the phrase ‘original recipe’ does on a jar of spaghetti sauce.” So here we circle back to my original question- what is so great about this list? Why is it so hotly pursued and why do we so trustingly agree with it? My answer to you is going to be as satisfying as a TV dinner: no one knows, but we roll with it.

(P.S. props to whoever knows who I was quoting in the title. Thaaat’s right, go check Google )

Reading the latest interview about Stephen King, it comes out that he’s a pretty cool guy.  He answers questions about his creative process, where ideas come from, and the pros and cons of background music…just to a name a few topics.

But my favorite part of the interview was reading about just how this man’s imagination operates; how bits of reality pokes and prods at his daydreaming  until a brilliant storyline starts to slowly emerge. He looks for little signals in his normal day, small insignificant events or encounters that start a story in motion in his head.  He gives an example:

“The other day I went out to the mailbox at the end of the road and there was a flyer in there, one of these things where they give you coupons and you get a dollar off mouthwash or makeup or whatever, and on the back there’s a number of pictures of children, missing children. It says: “Have you seen me?” It’s just a sort of throwaway — you get it and you don’t really look at it. And I was looking at it on the walk back from the mailbox, and I thought: “What if there was a guy who got one of these and one of the pictures started to talk to him and say ‘I was killed and I’m buried here in this location or that location, in a gravel pit or stuffed into a culvert …?”

Aaaand just like that he’s got a storyline running frantically in his head.  The peculiar thing he mentioned in this interview, though, was that even though sometimes he has so many ideas crammed into his head, the way people cram themselves into an overcrowded elevator, he refuses to jot them down.  He believes that if it’s a good idea you’ll always remember it.  If you forget it, it was actually a terrible, terrible idea and you just haven’t realized it yet. As he says, “No. I never write ideas down. Because all you do when you write ideas down is kind of immortalize something that should go away. If they’re bad ideas, they go away on their own.”

Well, who are we to argue with the King?

A recent article in The Guardian discusses the new concept of ebook spammers….

“What seems to be happening is that Amazon’s platform is being overwhelmed by spammers who “scrape” content from websites or, in some cases, actually lift entire texts, and republish them as ebooks.”

Entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/26/kindle-ebooks-publish-naughton

This is yet another hurdle for the unknown or self-published author. How do you make your book stand out in all the muck and mire that will now be available through the Kindle?

Reading McCrum’s article, “The Phrase Every Publisher Craves: Word-of-Mouth Success”, it made me think of the giant influence that “hearing it through the grapevine” has.  For example, people like JK Rowling began their success through this, and now there are people getting tattoos of her face on their biceps.  Obviously there is something to word of mouth then.

Good book reviews and book tours are important, yes, but when there is a growing chatter between friends and neighbors about a novel it can really jump to the top and go nationwide.  As McCrum says, people don’t want to be told what to read, they want to find these literary gems themselves.  So even though People gave it 5 stars and a raving review, a person is more likely to wander over to the book store if their friend comes up to them and swears they couldn’t go to bed till 3 a.m. because it was impossible to put the book down.  You trust your friend and believe that story really is that bookshelf worthy.
Take Oprah for example (because Oprah is all of our friend).  When she puts that little “O” on a book it automatically creates a stampede to the nearest Borders.  I’m willing to admit that there were a couple of books I wouldn’t even give a second glance to (mainly because they were as thick as the Bible), but after seeing Oprah’s stamp of approval  I snatched it off the shelf and ran to the nearest cashier.  It’s because I trust her judgment and believe what she’s telling me is true- it has to be a great read.
Also, platforms like social media help spread the word and stir talking.  All it takes is someone “liking” your book on Facebook or tweeting how much faster their train ride goes when they’re submerged in your pages and all their friends know.  This could lead to someone replying how much they enjoyed it too, and then a conversation starts that thousands of others are open to see.  The same goes for bloggers that write reviews about your book- all their followers automatically see the post and trust their opinion like they trust a friend’s.   Even though this makes sense, McCrum says that simply starting a conversation is not the golden key to making a surprise bestseller.  Rather, it is creating a community around a book and its author, where the readers believe their aspirations, beliefs, and anxieties are all understood and illustrated in the story line.  Then they can relate with the book and its characters, and feel the need to share it with their friends and family who also have similar dreams and beliefs. 

Take, for example, why the Twilight series is so huge.  Meyer started promoting her book on college campuses, where there are thousands of young women still drawing hearts in their notebooks and looking for their college sweethearts.  The storyline reflected their beliefs and dreams (the undying love of a vampire, sigh) and so a devoted community began building around the books and author.  Afterall, this is what a good novel is supposed to do anyway- it only makes sense for success to follow.