Traffic Is Vanity

I was looking at this site’s stats the other day, and I re-learnt something I’d known a long time ago, from my days in magazine publishing: numbers are sheer vanity.

Like most bloggers I get regular spam promising me that if I just buy some little doohickey for the site I will explode on the Internet. My site traffic will soar. It will feature more prominently in Google searches. Etc. etc. Here’s why I ignore these messages (and probably always will): I don’t care about traffic — by itself, traffic means nothing.
Of course, it depends what you’re setting out to achieve. If you want to build a huge audience for advertisers, you need eyeballs: an audience. But if you think advertisers don’t care who that audience is, as long as you can show them big enough numbers, think again. Advertisers want to be able to qualify their audiences. That way, they can tailor their messages to their audience, and spend less cash getting their messages to the right consumers.

But I don’t really care about that, because I don’t write this blog to attract advertising (just as well really). So traffic — by which I mean sheer numbers — doesn’t concern me. Of course, I want readers. But not any readers at any cost.

So when I look at my traffic numbers and note that a large number of readers are driven to my site by (for example) searching for ‘ugly Afro’, I shake my head. These are not my peeps. They will take one look at the site and leave for ever, in all probability. And I don’t even care. I’m not interested in traffic for traffic’s sake. If that seems arrogant, it’s not. Far from it.

My major goals for this blog are a) to build a platform for my writing, and b) to achieve some visibility in the publishing world. Now, I realize those are mighty ambitious goals for a humble little blog, but I didn’t (and don’t) expect to achieve them overnight. If I achieve them at all, I will achieve them by slowly building an audience. A loyal readership. It’s a steady-as-she-goes, tortoise-not-hare approach. But it’s the only one that makes any sense, given my goals. To me, a reader who is also a literary agent, or an editor of a magazine is worth a million random page views.

I suspect, if you write a blog, the same is probably true for you too. So focus less on numbers (Seth Godin says he doesn’t even look at his) and more on your goals. If you’re looking to attract a certain type of reader, seek out their blogs and comment on their posts. Engage with them. Swap links. Quote them in your own blog and on your Twitter feed. Not willy-nilly, but in a disciplined way which will gain you a sustainable following.

Now, my other blog, that’s another matter. I started that for a bit of fun. I didn’t really have an aim in mind, I was just riffing for the hell of it. And (while I haven’t posted to it in a while) I’ll continue to add to it because it doesn’t actually take very long, and I have fun doing it. And that’s OK too.

December Book Of The Month: Long Drive Home

Right. So, with this book I’m officially all caught up. Up to date on 2011 and up to date so far this year (I’ve already got two books up my sleeve, and others I’ve recently bought which may not make the cut).

This one, Long Drive Home by Will Allison, will (I promise) be the last Julie Barer book I choose. I bought it for the same reason I bought the others: same emotional territory as my own book; interested by the literary style that hooks this particular agent (not so I can write like him, just so I can see if my writing will mesh with her tastes). However, it turns out to have been a very successful choice. An Oprah pick for June 2011, and a NYT bestseller (hmm… maybe there’s a connection there?).

So here’s the thing that hooked me (from the dust jacket blurb on the front flap): “Chronicles a father’s attempt to explain himself to his daughter, even though he knows that in doing so, he risks losing her.” I’m a father. I have a daughter. And something like two years ago I wrestled with the same thing – telling her some ugly truths about myself and my past that she needed to know to make sense of her present. So this is territory I know. I’m not sure I’m ready to explore it in my own fiction, but I’m interested to see what Mr. Allison makes of the landscape. I haven’t read this one yet though, so I’m afraid I can’t report on results.

Published By: Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster

Bought at: Nicholas Hoare (ordered by my nice little old lady bookseller – I must get her name next time I go in the store. I hope she’s called something cute and old-school like Enid).

A note on Book of The Month. New Year resolution: Buy one book a month at full price, from a local independent bookstore (for me, local means I can walk there). Let it be fiction, and by an author whose work I’ve never read before. Thanks to Red Sofa Literary for the idea.

November Book Of The Month: The Unnamed

Publishing can be a little confusing. Take this little book, by American author Joshua Ferris. It was the first title in a new imprint: Reagan Arthur Books. Reagan Arthur is a person, so I guess this is a little like slapping a name like Martha Stewart on stationary, or Michael Koors on the back pocket of a pair of jeans. Except intuition tells me book buyers tend to care less about these things than a) the name of the author on the cover, and b) what the blurb on the back cover tells them about the book. But maybe that’s just the author in me. Anyhow, like the tiny Russian doll at the centre of the stack, Reagan Arthur is just the beginning of the complexity. Her imprint is part of Little, Brown and Company, which is itself a part of the Hachette Group. So why does the spine of my trade paperback copy of The Unnamed  read ‘Back Bay Books’? Because Back Bay is the trade paperback imprint of Little, Brown and Co. See, I told you publishing can be confusing.

I picked this book up because a) Ferris’s agent is Julie Barer, and I wanted to read some of her authors and b) because I figure, when you’re launching a new publishing venture of any kind you’d want to open with a bang, so I thought this would probably be a special book. The plot is disarmingly simple: lawyer is beset with a baffling compulsion to walk. He walks across America. Which poses a few challenges to his family. There are bees and there are birds. It’s dark, but not in that “seeps inside your soul and makes you despair” way that a lot of novelists take pleasure in. Real would be the word. The New Yorker named Ferris one of America’s tip 20 writers under 40.

Bought at: Nicholas Hoare (ordered by my nice little old lady bookseller – I must get her name next time I go in the store. I hope she’s called something cute and old-school like Enid).

A note on Book of The Month. New Year resolution: Buy one book a month at full price, from a local independent bookstore (for me, local means I can walk there). Let it be fiction, and by an author whose work I’ve never read before. Thanks to Red Sofa Literary for the idea.

Why I Don’t Plan To Self-Publish: Part II

Some time ago I wrote a post on self-publishing, and why I’m not planning to go that route. I was at the Ontario Writer’s Conference on the weekend, and sitting in a session on pitching work to agents and publishers, the inevitable question came up. “Why not self-publish.” The session’s facilitator was Hilary McMahon, of Westwood Creative Artists (a Toronto agency). She did a good job of explaining the value that publishers add in the value chain. It’s increasingly difficult in a cluttered marketplace to make your work stand out, especially if it’s one of thousands of self-published novels. The publishers’ network of reps, distribution deals, and cross media relationships will help lift your book above the crowd. Which is not an insubstantial advantage. However, here’s a couple of other reasons she didn’t mention (and which I didn’t mention in my first post):

1) If you self-publish, you can’t apply for grants. Living in Toronto, I can apply for grants from the Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts, but only if I’m going the traditional publishing route. They will not fund self-published projects.

2) If you’re hoping to win the Giller (or any other major award) you can forget it if you self-publish. The major prizes are not awarded to self-published novels, no matter how good there are. True, there are a few prizes for self-published novels (and I think we can expect more in the future) but none of them come close to the traditional prizes for credibility (and, frankly, cold hard cash).

Will this all change in the next decade? Probably. Will this lead to greater diversity, and make it easier for authors to succeed by non-traditional routes? I very much doubt it. It’s much more likely to result in a less diverse market, where choice collapses to the major author ‘brands’. I really hope I’m wrong about that, but the economics of the business points that way.

Stalking An Agent

It’s time. I’ve re-written and re-drafted until I can draft it no more (well, maybe just the once, for old time’s sake). I’ve pitched the book at an agent/publisher pitch conference and got some positive feedback (two partials requested and one full manuscript, out of four pitches). I’ve had substantive, copy and line edits carried out. I’ve spent a year or more on Publisher’s Marketplace compiling a master list of potential agents. If all of this seems a little obsessive compulsive to you, consider this: you only get one shot with any given agent or publisher. One audition to wow them. If you don’t you can never go back. Not with that project. Maybe with the next one. So there’s a lot riding on this step. Having taken four plus years to write a book, wouldn’t you want to spend a little time to make sure it’s not stillborn too?

Anyway, if you think that’s a little excessive, just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet. So I have my list of agents, and a clear favourite at the top of the list. Julie Barer of Barer Literary. I’ve been stalking Ms. Barer for at least a couple of years.

The first time I found her on an agent directory she had one of the qualities I was looking for: she was young and hungry, and therefore highly motivated. But having just set up her own shop, she didn’t have much of a visible track record. I wasn’t subscribing to Publisher’s Marketplace at the time, so I couldn’t tell what deals she’d done at her previous agency (Sanford J. Greenburger Associates). I loved the fact that she’d worked at one of my favourite bookstores in New York City (Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers). When I was working for Jupiter Communications, the New York office just north of Houston on Broadway was a short walk from their Broadway branch. Stars seemed to be aligning.

Since those days, she’s become something of a rising (perhaps even a risen) star in the New York literary scene. She’s done a particularly good job of representing debut authors. Everything I’ve read about her and her approach and philosophy resonates with me. She likes to work with authors to make the work the best it can be before approaching publishers. She understands the need for personal care and attention and she wants to work with her authors over the long-haul. (If you’re interested, you can read her interview with Poets & Writers).

There are other pluses. She likes international settings (my book is set in London), with historical backgrounds (during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s). She likes books which teach her about unknown or untapped little wrinkles in history. The historical background for my novel was a new law, passed in the UK in 1960, which legalized gambling. According to the BBC, within 18 months Britain’s high streets were pocked with off-course betting outlets, as bookmakers set up shop in neighbourhoods. The book looks at the social impact of this through its impact on one family, and one relationship in that family — a mother and her son.

So far so good. On the surface everything looks groovy. But now we come to the most crucial part of the equation. Taste. Will she like my writing? Will she get it?

Think of this journey as a form of bizarre online dating. The agent/author relationship is a cross between a marriage and a business partnership. Compatibility is key. For some people a mixed tape is a good, early way, to check the compatibility index. Think of an agent’s list as their mixed-tape. These are the books they loved enough to fight for. If I don’t love them too (or at the very least respect and admire them) what chance does this relationship have?

I compiled a list of five novels Ms. Barer represented; books whose emotional landscapes seemed similar to that of my own book (fractured family relationships, secrets and betrayals, that kind of thing) and added a sixth just because I was intrigued by it. I took my list to my local bookstore, Nicholas Hoare. The little old lady who serves there on a Saturday morning is delightful. I’m never sure if she remembers me, or if she’s just that friendly to all her customers. She was devastated that she didn’t have a single one of the six on her shelves (the full list, in case you’re wondering, is at the bottom of the page). She insisted that I should wait while she found me a book (I have at least 20 novels sitting at home waiting for my attention, but what the hell, who doesn’t need more books?). She came back with several I’ve already read (Sister’s Brothers, Cat’s Table, Sense of an Ending), a couple of non-fiction titles that intrigued me, and also, miraculously, another book represented by Ms. Barer: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.

Foolishly, I mentioned this to her. She launched into a rhapsody of praise for the book. I’m not the first customer she’s introduced to it. Far from it. And the others, she told me, have all come back wanting more from this author (Helen Simonson). I was ordered, should I be speaking with Ms. Barer (I’m apparently a personal friend of her agent now), to tell her to get Helen working on the next one, tout suite. I’m actually really liking it, although its tone is gentle, wistful and a little whimsical (while mine is often gritty, with a certain dark humour). It’s reminding me a lot of Barbara Pym, who’s been largely forgotten these days. But the good news it, it’s distinctively English. So you CAN sell books in New York about England and the English. Good to know. I’ve learnt that at least.

I’m making it my April 2012 book (yes, I know, I haven’t followed up on that series for months… I’ll get onto it right away), because it qualifies on all fronts.

What next? Next is the query letter. A single page missive where I beg Ms Barer to represent my novel, tell her why I want her and nobody else to do so, describe the book in about 100 words, and convince her I have the credentials of a writer. The only dangling question is, should I mention my little old lady, and the request for another novel, pronto, from Ms. Simonson?

Oh, and for those who are interested, the books from Julie Barer’s list that I was looking for in Nicholas Hoare were:

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris, A Friend of the family by Lauren Grodstein, The Summer We Fell Apart, by Robin Antalek, The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes by Randi Davenport and Long Drive Home by Will Allison. The book I ordered just ’cause it looked interesting was The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson.