When I was little and I imagined my career as an author, marketing never crossed my mind. It still doesn’t – I think that someone important will read my yet-to-be-completed Great American Novel, realize my genius, and suddenly I would explode onto the literary scene.
Working at Beaufort, however, does not encourage that idea. Every author I’ve met here is in a constant state of hyperactivity. At BEA, there were hundreds of people marching around from booth to booth, manuscript, CD, and book proposal in hand and an enthusiastic smile on their face. The authors that we’ve published, certainly, are constantly making contacts, cornering people in restaurants, strategizing with PR firms, making calls, and sending out e-mail after e-mail. It’s like Singin’ in the Rain: “dignity, always dignity.”
Today in the office today we had Neil Ducoff in giving a presentation on his book: No-Compromise Leadership. He had a pile of handouts and flow-charts, five copies of his book, and a stack of business cards. After the hour-long presentation was over, one of my co-workers asked, “So, how do you get people to go into the book store and buy your book?”
It seemed like a depressing note to end the presentation on, but, perhaps unfortunately, the most crucial discussion of the meeting.