Report from NJRWA's Put Your Heart in a Book Conference: The State of the Publishing Industry

This past weekend I attended the NJRWA’s Put Your Heart in a Book Conference. In the past I usually would just go the book signing on Saturday, but this time, because I decided to attend the entire conference. NJRWA is like a mini RWA national conference where you can meet great people and network, especially if you’re an aspiring author or are a published author.

Friday kicked things off with published author retreat with Eloisa James as the Keynote Speaker. Eloisa talked about the state of the publishing industry, how promotion is key and why publishers are so scared of Amazon. Many things she said made sense, but also raised some eyebrows and questions.

As an author, you are everything. “BRANDIFICATION”. You must brand yourself. This is one of the most important things you can do as an author for promotion. This is as important as writing and publishing a book.

Facebook is key in driving sales!

Eloisa stresses how important Facebook as become. She also mentioned Twitter, but Facebook is important with promotion and branding. I’m not a big fan of Facebook myself and prefer to use Twitter (I have under 1,000 FB followers, and over 3,000 Twitter followers). Publishers are looking at an author’s Facebook page to see how many followers they have. Eloisa used Julia Quinn as an example. Julia has 60,000 Facebook followers. If Julia mentions she has a new book coming out on her Facebook page, her 60,000 fans will see that and buy her new book.

This may sound strange, but mid-list authors on Facebook who have under 5,000 followers may mean they don’t have good enough sales, or so the publisher thinks. Again, Publishers may look at your Facebook page, and in some instances the amount of followers you have on Twitter. If it’s too low, publishers may think you’re not doing enough to promote yourself. I have no idea how they came to this conclusion because there are some authors who are selling many books and barely do promotion.

Now not only do you have to spend time writing, but put aside time to do all types of social media. Sleep and showering are optional.

It’s important to “share” posts on Facebook with others. The more you share a post, the more people will find you and become a follower of yours.

Did you know mass market sales help support hardcover books? If mass market sales are down, that means hardcovers are down as well.

Social media numbers have become very important.

Publishers are nervous of Amazon. Or should I say they’re trembling in their boots? Publishers have a big overhead while Amazon doesn’t. These publishers are spending millions of dollars in rent on month on their offices in places like NYC. Amazon doesn’t have to pay such a large amount in rent. They pay freelancers for their work.

Amazon is counting on Connie Brockway, (under their Montlake Romance line) to hit the NY Times bestselling list with The Other Guy’s Bride (release date, November 22nd). Talk about the pressure on Connie’s shoulders! If she hits the NY Times with this book through Amazon’s new publishing line, there will be major waves in the publishing industry. Amazon will end up doing the Snoopy Dance.

Also, the more comments left on an Amazon review helps the author and that book. Amazon will push that book more if there are 50 or more comments left, which boggles my mind. can see an author rounding up their friends and opening Amazon accounts to do this, and leave comments regardless if the comments are rude, degrading a mean.

Eloisa has a column at the Barnes and Noble website and B&N is in the belief that intimacy sells books. She is sent so many books each month to promote at her column because the publishers know she can help drive sales.

Publishers are excited about debut authors and people are always looking for good books. There are a lot of bad books being published, but also good books, so don’t despair that only crap is being published.

Things learned from this talk:
- Author branding is very important
- Social media is also very important and Facebook and Twitter are key in driving author sales
- Publishers are running scared over Amazon becoming a publisher. Amazon realizes that an author and their book are a platform and not only a product. That’s where they think differently from publishers.
- There will always be good books published even though there may seem to be a lot of bad books being published also.

Next up the agent and self-publishing roundtable discussion where one author told us she made $7,000 last month self-publishing.