Selling a book comes with its fair share of paperwork, just like any other job. There's the author contract, the W-9, and the almighty Cover and Marketing form (CAM). I don't know if other publishing companies have a similar form or not, but Etopia uses the CAM to communicate with cover artists, develop blurbs, gather information about an author's online presence, and basically lay the groundwork for the book's marketing campaign.
So what kinds of questions do they ask on this form?
What other books I might compare the story to, what I think the target audience is, suggested tag words that would help in online searches, and character descriptions, as well as an author bio. There's a whole lot of other stuff, too: the CAM is 5 pages long.
5 pages? That seems like a lot of busywork. Why can't they just read the story and do it themselves?
Maybe they have people who do that specially at larger publishing houses, but Etopia isn't that big...and also, I'm more than happy to do it. After numerous incidents of inaccurate book blurbs, whitewashed covers, and other buggery, it's encouraging to see a publishing company ask for author input in more than just the story. It's my baby they're putting out there; no one cares more about making a good publicity campaign than I do.
So what are you hoping for in terms of marketing?
Well, mainly I'm hoping that they don't get a couple of ripped male models for the cover. Not that I have anything against ripped male models, but...Eiland and Charon are definitely not gym bunnies. Nor is the story all that much about sex: it's probably a bit heavier on the fantasy side than anything else in terms of genre.
Then why are you selling it as a gay romance novel instead of a fantasy novel?
Because it has a central gay romance in it, and if I tried to pitch it as fantasy, the fantasy publishers would tell me that I'd be better served to go to a gay romance publisher. While queer subjects are becoming more mainstream, they're still very much a niche market.
Okay, okay. So what are you working on right now?
At the moment I'm stuck trying to come up with a potential tagline for the story. It needs to be about 85 characters (though 50 is better) and act as that first hook to get readers interested. Well, second hook: the cover is hook one, tagline is hook two, back cover text is hook three, and critical blurbs are hook four.
The problem is, I'm not great at short, punchy thoughts. That's why I write novels: I tend to think big, and most of my stories balloon up to epic size. A good tagline is all about being cool in small proportions, as exemplified by Braveheart's tagline: "Every man dies, not every man really lives." 36 characters and you already know a lot about the tone of the movie. You can guess that the main character is going to be a gung-ho kind of person, and that he's probably going to die in the end--but dammit, first he's going to live. Combined with the poster image of William Wallace with sword and blue face and crazy hair, and you know you're in for one badass warrior epic.
Are you really taking your cues from Mel Gibson?
Oh, shut up.
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