My guest today is Romantic Suspense Author, Loucinda (everyone calls her Cindy) McGary. She is also known as Aunty Cindy.Her topic today is one that many an author has wondered. How do you measure success? These days, authors must do self-promotion for their books and that's true whether you're published through a small Indie press or with traditional publishers. As an author, Cindy also speaks about blog tours, are they worth the whirlwind of time involved?
To promote my recently released romantic suspense, The Treasures of Venice, I did a ‘blog tour’ that required me to post on eighteen blogs in three and a half weeks. Yes, after eighteen blogs in twenty-four days, my head was spinning. Plus, I was left with the nagging question: Was all that effort really worthwhile?
Back in the not-too-distant past when I still had a Dreaded Day Job, I worked for many years as a policy analyst. In those days it was my job to dredge up data or find some other method for quantifying the success of a recommendation, a project, or sometimes an entire program. My bosses wanted numbers and I had to find them.
The saying goes “old habits are hard to break,” and I’ve definitely found this to be true in my new career as a romance novelist. Let me get back to my earlier question about the eighteen blogs in twenty-four days. I quickly discovered there was no ‘hard evidence’ (in other words--numbers) to prove that blogging is an effective promotional tool. However, my in-house publicist, and more importantly her boss, my publisher believe it is. Since I know they want my book to succeed as much as I do (they’ve put time, effort, and money into it too), I just have to take their word for it.
But what is success in this crazy publishing business anyway? Okay, I suppose we can all agree that hitting number one on the New York Times List or being one of Oprah’s Bookclub picks is successful. But it’s also not a very realistic goal for the vast majority of us, so why set ourselves up for failure?
Until Sept. 14, 2007 (the day I got The Call), my entire measure of success hinged on selling a book – ONE book – to a publisher. Of course, as soon as I achieved that goal, I immediately saw that publishing one book was not enough. Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee notwithstanding, I did not want to be a ‘one hit wonder.’
Shortly after my first book, The Wild Sight was released last October; I was thrilled to sign a contract with my publisher for two more books. As I mentioned, The Treasures of Venice was just released, and The Wild Irish Sea, will be out next July. And, you guessed it, I’ve decided three published books still doesn’t meet my elusive definition of success. Please wish me luck on my new proposals.
Phyllis A. Whitney was one of the first romance author’s whose work I loved, and I’m proud to claim her as an influence on my own writing. She published scores of novels during her long career, her last at the age of ninety-three! Another author I idolize, J.R.R. Tolkien published only four novels in his lifetime, but what novels!
Clearly the number of books published is not an accurate way to measure success, but what about sales? Again, this seems to be very subjective to me. Again, in the days when I was still unpublished, my little pea-brain couldn’t even conceive of 10,000 people reading my book. Such a thing was on par with when the pilot comes on the intercom and tells us passengers we are cruising at 35,000 feet. That is too vast a distance for me to fathom, so I don’t even try! So for the unpublished, or newly published, 10,000 copies sold might sound like a huge number. But it could be very disappointing for an author who previously hit one or more best-seller lists and is accustomed to sales over 100,000. Plus, copies sold are not the same thing as copies read.
One of the most exciting things I discovered was Library Thing. This site shows you every library in the US (and a few foreign countries) that has a copy of your book in their collection. Seeing my book in the library was a huge success for me! From the time I learned to read until I graduated from college and finally got a full-time job, I couldn’t afford to buy many books. The library was my own personal refuge, and is still the place I go for most hard-cover novels and research books.
I feel the same when people tell me they loaned their copy of my book to a friend. I have to really love a book before I’ll loan or recommend it to someone else to read, so I consider this a very high compliment. And that brings me around to the thing I love most – hearing from readers!
The main reason I write stories is for people to read and enjoy them. Entertaining an audience is my goal and having my books published helps me to achieve that goal. I’ll never forget the happiness I felt the week after The Wild Sight was released and I received three pieces of honest-to-goodness fan mail. I knew that hearing from readers would be wonderful, but I never imagined just how much! I’ve received dozens of emails, snail mails, and even in-person praise since then, and I treasure every single one of them! Knowing that someone read and enjoyed my story makes all the hard work and hassles of writing and publishing worthwhile.
So maybe readers are my true measure of success. As long as I know I have one or two (or more) people out there somewhere who are reading my books and eagerly turning the pages to see what happens next, I don’t need to crunch numbers or collect empirical data or anything else. I have achieved my ultimate goal.
Back in the not-too-distant past when I still had a Dreaded Day Job, I worked for many years as a policy analyst. In those days it was my job to dredge up data or find some other method for quantifying the success of a recommendation, a project, or sometimes an entire program. My bosses wanted numbers and I had to find them.
The saying goes “old habits are hard to break,” and I’ve definitely found this to be true in my new career as a romance novelist. Let me get back to my earlier question about the eighteen blogs in twenty-four days. I quickly discovered there was no ‘hard evidence’ (in other words--numbers) to prove that blogging is an effective promotional tool. However, my in-house publicist, and more importantly her boss, my publisher believe it is. Since I know they want my book to succeed as much as I do (they’ve put time, effort, and money into it too), I just have to take their word for it.
But what is success in this crazy publishing business anyway? Okay, I suppose we can all agree that hitting number one on the New York Times List or being one of Oprah’s Bookclub picks is successful. But it’s also not a very realistic goal for the vast majority of us, so why set ourselves up for failure?
Until Sept. 14, 2007 (the day I got The Call), my entire measure of success hinged on selling a book – ONE book – to a publisher. Of course, as soon as I achieved that goal, I immediately saw that publishing one book was not enough. Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee notwithstanding, I did not want to be a ‘one hit wonder.’
Shortly after my first book, The Wild Sight was released last October; I was thrilled to sign a contract with my publisher for two more books. As I mentioned, The Treasures of Venice was just released, and The Wild Irish Sea, will be out next July. And, you guessed it, I’ve decided three published books still doesn’t meet my elusive definition of success. Please wish me luck on my new proposals.
Phyllis A. Whitney was one of the first romance author’s whose work I loved, and I’m proud to claim her as an influence on my own writing. She published scores of novels during her long career, her last at the age of ninety-three! Another author I idolize, J.R.R. Tolkien published only four novels in his lifetime, but what novels!
Clearly the number of books published is not an accurate way to measure success, but what about sales? Again, this seems to be very subjective to me. Again, in the days when I was still unpublished, my little pea-brain couldn’t even conceive of 10,000 people reading my book. Such a thing was on par with when the pilot comes on the intercom and tells us passengers we are cruising at 35,000 feet. That is too vast a distance for me to fathom, so I don’t even try! So for the unpublished, or newly published, 10,000 copies sold might sound like a huge number. But it could be very disappointing for an author who previously hit one or more best-seller lists and is accustomed to sales over 100,000. Plus, copies sold are not the same thing as copies read.
One of the most exciting things I discovered was Library Thing. This site shows you every library in the US (and a few foreign countries) that has a copy of your book in their collection. Seeing my book in the library was a huge success for me! From the time I learned to read until I graduated from college and finally got a full-time job, I couldn’t afford to buy many books. The library was my own personal refuge, and is still the place I go for most hard-cover novels and research books.
I feel the same when people tell me they loaned their copy of my book to a friend. I have to really love a book before I’ll loan or recommend it to someone else to read, so I consider this a very high compliment. And that brings me around to the thing I love most – hearing from readers!
The main reason I write stories is for people to read and enjoy them. Entertaining an audience is my goal and having my books published helps me to achieve that goal. I’ll never forget the happiness I felt the week after The Wild Sight was released and I received three pieces of honest-to-goodness fan mail. I knew that hearing from readers would be wonderful, but I never imagined just how much! I’ve received dozens of emails, snail mails, and even in-person praise since then, and I treasure every single one of them! Knowing that someone read and enjoyed my story makes all the hard work and hassles of writing and publishing worthwhile.
So maybe readers are my true measure of success. As long as I know I have one or two (or more) people out there somewhere who are reading my books and eagerly turning the pages to see what happens next, I don’t need to crunch numbers or collect empirical data or anything else. I have achieved my ultimate goal.
Blurb for The Treasures Of Venice:
When American librarian Samantha Lewis and Irish rogue Keirnan Fitzgerald set off to find priceless jewels, they become embroiled in a 500-year-old love story that eerily prefigures their own...
In 15th century Venice, beautiful and wealthy Serafina falls in love with Nino, a young Florentine sculptor. They decide to flee to Padua, and to fund the trip, Nino copies a set of jewels that then disappear.
In modern-day Venice, Keirnan needs Samantha's help to locate the jewels so he can pay his sister's ransom. Samantha must decide whether the man she's so drawn to is her soul mate from a previous life...or are they merely pawns in a relentless quest for a priceless treasure?
Question for readers: Out of curiosity, how many of your books were chosen because you read a blog about the author or their latest book?
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A life-long avid reader, Cindy writes the kinds of stories she likes to read – stories with danger, romance and a touch of the unexpected. Cindy likes to read and write about wonderful, far away places and people not so very different from her or someone she knows. Her characters must overcome physical and emotional obstacles, sometimes risk their lives, and eventually discover love.- Cindy discovered and joined Romance Writers of America in 2001. But her stressful career as the manager of a multi-million dollar State and Federally funded program prevented her from doing much writing or traveling. She still managed to squeeze in a little of both, but not enough of either to be truly satisfying. Finally, at the end of 2003 she decided to take an early retirement from her career to fully pursue her twin passions of travel and writing. Cindy likes to set her novels of romance and suspense in some of the fascinating places she has visited.
Cindy loves to hear from her fans and you can visit her Here.
