A Marketing Guy Sees It From Both Sides Now

Carl Lennertz, vice president of independent retailing at HarperCollins, former senior consultant to ABA's Book Sense marketing program, and friend to independent booksellers everywhere, shares his thoughts about his new role as author of May Book Sense Pick Cursed by a Happy Childhood (Harmony).

By Carl Lennertz

I've had the good fortune to be able to spend time during the last two and a half years seeing this business from a writer's point of view. I've been a bookseller, a rep, a marketeer, and now this. I am extra fortunate in that my experience with Harmony and Random House has been golden. They have been supportive and smart and kind in every way -- the kindness every first-time author really needs -- while still holding firm on pesky things like deadlines.

I did know enough going in to realize that the image of the tortured artist ripping pages out of a typewriter and balling them up in a rage is more a movie image than reality (although I did yell at my laptop computer once or twice), as is the notion of writing in solitary in some cluttered, or Spartan, study. I had the dining room table on weekend mornings until everyone else was up. My experience was clearly different from that of a novelist, who has to keep the thread of a story in mind for months or years -- that would've driven me crazy -- or of a biographer who has to do hours of research before writing word one. I was sitting down and pulling out memories from my head, linking them to my daughter's life, and, for a year, it was quite fun.

But then came the hard part: editing myself, being edited, feeling good about a weekend's work, getting down when things didn't flow, and, drumroll, the moment I realized that someone was actually going to read my words. (Can you say deer in the headlights?)

And I really did not know, as I began, how many drafts it would take -- first, for a year, with my agent, a former editor herself, just to get the manuscript ready to show publishers. And, yes, needing to be told it's good, to keep going. Then, after finding a publisher, the polishing and nipping and tucking really takes place, all the while trying to maintain the flow of the first take. And, yes, needing to be told it's good, to keep going. Next came the rereading of three copyedited passes, with the parsing of every last word: It is joy and agony. Even now, with finished book in hand, I want to change just a few more things.

A bit of marketing-publishing behind-the-curtain stuff: I have suggested more possible subtitles for other people's books than I can count, but I could not come up with the best one for my own. The subtitle is like a bass guitar. It doesn't get the attention or respect it deserves, but it does the unglamorous work of being the counterpoint to the title/lead guitar. You would not believe the number of hours that authors and marketing, sales, and editorial folk spend noodling subtitles that will best explain a book's theme in a concise but enticing way. It's hair pulling time, but essential.

Now, the next-to-last bit of my education as an author is almost done ... the waiting. The four to five months from when you've handed in the final pass to when the first pre-review comes in, followed by the arrival of the actual printed and bound book … an event you secretly fear may never happen. It felt like an eternity.

This is also when authors have the time to focus on marketing for the first time ... and usually start to fret. I'm lucky that I decided early on to not get involved and to trust the Crown sales and marketing team. I am also acutely aware that it's a complex marketplace, business-wise and media-wise. And I'm ready, mostly, to accept that, at some point, fate plays a role. Copies are winging their way to booksellers, reviewers, and talk show folk, and they will like it or not. Many booksellers have sent me wonderful notes, which meant more than they know, but I know that there are a lot of other books in stores for customers to choose from.

The final phase is on the horizon: the author tour. I told Random House they had to pick the cities and stores. If I did, I'd be on the road for five years trying to see every bookseller. Alas, I can only take a week of vacation days, and my wonderful publicist will point me in the right direction and tell me where to go.

(Look for a chronicle of Lennertz's author tour in an upcoming edition of BTW.)