How to sell your debut novel
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: How to sell your debut novel
A publisher doesn’t invest that much PR in first-time writers unless you’ve been recommended on Richard and Judy’s Book Club or been hailed as the next best thing. However, there are options available that can help dramatically increase sales.
I hope this blog entry on the guardian’s website is preaching to the converted. As Guardian blog posts go it’s not the most thoughtful or insightful. I’m not sure that sales figures of over 1,300 copies of a book in the first two months is something to promote in a blog post about promotion. But then I thought that Niraj Kapur was published by a mainstream publisher, but no he’s self-published:
The Matador imprint was specifically founded for authors who have been unable to publish their work through a commercial publishing house and who do not wish to pay the large charges levied by vanity publishers.
So I think the post is a little bit misleading. The post has good advice for anyone who wants to ramp up a few more sales. I just don’t think that he’s qualified to comment on what mainstream publishers do or don’t do to promote their debut novels.
Edit:
I don’t know why this has annoyed me.
