Short Stories: Right Size, Right Price

The Associated Press reports that a new poll conducted by the Sports Marketing Group in Atlanta has identified the top 10 most hated spectator sports:

1. Dog fighting
2. Professional wrestling
3. Bullfighting
4. Professional boxing
5. PGA Tour
6. PGA Seniors
7. LPGA Tour
8. NASCAR
9. Major League Soccer
10. ATP Men’s Tennis

I think that poll was last year.  Well, on to the real stuff.

Recently I have read with some amusement and even some concern about the attitudes and beliefs of various colleagues around the place as regards the value of blogging, social mediating, promoting and advertising.  Over the last however many years I have gained some insight into these topics, not as a professional, mind you but as a consumer.  Now, if I were writing this as a submission to an academic journal, there would be numerous footnotes and citations of sources.  Be of good cheer and a little trust.  No footnotes.

The information that follows is gleaned from many sources and observations and my own personal expenditure of time energy and coin of the ream.

1)     In spite of all the hoopla and phenomenal growth of use, and the fact that many reviewers blogs are widely read, we who review have little  influence on the book-buying public.

2)    Surveys consistently show that the number one influence toward the purchase of recreational reading in any form is word of mouth.  My own informal survey over the last year indicates that among Internet users and Mystery fiction book buyers, Blogs play almost no role.  Disappointed?  Sure.  Am I advocating dumping all your fine blogging efforts?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.

3)    In spite of the expenditure of massive amounts of money, money which supports some fine magazines, I am quick to point out, print and on-line advertising books to the reading public is minimally effective, unless one can commit thousands of dollars to a professionally designed ad campaign.  Can You?

4)    Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, FacePage, AuthorsDen, Blogs, DorothyL, Mystery Must Advertise, etc etc, are fun and useful networks but they are NOT free.

5)    Running around the country doing what we call Book Events or signings are fun and often produce significant sales.  However, they rarely pay for themselves.

6)    My own recent and informal survey last year of more than 500   fans and readers of  crime fiction, less than 1% (!)  read blogs.  Hey-they’re reading our books!

So what’s the deal?  How do we manage this affair?

Harper Lee aside, how many blockbuster best-seller novelists can you name who after that biggie, went on to significant literary careers writing crime fiction?  Now, how many other authors of crime fiction who never even made a best-seller list, or won an Edgar, have continued, year after year to produce good, readable, enjoyable satisfying crime fiction?

Here are the covers of some good and inexpensive shorts to consider.

We write crime fiction for many reasons, not the least of which is the hope we’ll get paid a reasonable amount for our efforts.  That effort includes the promotion of our work, side by side, or sometimes in place of, what a publisher is willing to do.  We know we have to do it.  But, as with everything else balance and discipline are required.  And that includes time and energy spent on networks, whether social or professional.  It requires that we understand that nothing in this life is free and that includes Tweet and FaceBook.  So in the final analysis, let it be said that as astute Echelon Authors, we do realize we must discipline ourselves and share our time among many countervailing pressures.

You got all this?  Okay, now over here, I have this interesting deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.  I can let you have a piece of it for…….

Write well, promote well, provide your life with good food and libations of your choice, surround yourself with good friends and companions and party on!