Figure Skating Fiction Promotion

It came to my attention this week that an author of my acquaintance, who writes romance novels and figure skating mysteries for Big 6 publishers was coming under attack for translating and posting foreign language figure skating articles on her web site. "She's only doing it to promote her books!" They said.

Good friend and fellow skatefic author Jennifer Lyon (The Strong and the Sequined) opined that it might be because said author was not an active participant in the communities she frequented. I can see how it might look like that, but having hung out online a long time myself, I know it's not true. This particular author was already on rec.sport.skating.ice.figure when I arrived in 1997 posting under her real name (as opposed to the pseudonym she writes under). She actively participates on the SkateFic mailing list (no relation to my web site SkateFic.com) and is very generous with her time and experience. She also posts to SkateFans now and again.

But aside from the fact that this person is indeed a long-standing member of the online figure skating fan community, I want to share a bit about the realities of promoting books. There is an old adage in publishing that says that advertising does not sell books. The upshot of this is that a mid-list author—which is basically everyone except Stephen King and John Grisham—might as well expect no further support than a box full of review copies and maybe a press release from the publisher. Anything that gets done is done by the author.

And there lies the rub.

Fiction doesn't pay enough to hire a big time publicist. I, myself, am planning to spend pretty much the sum total of my expected advance for On the Edge (maybe $5K if I'm lucky) on a publicist and some advertising. Reaching what readers there are left is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Reaching readers in appropriate affinity groups—people who would in read your book because they have associated interests, like figure skating fans are for this author—is key to any author's strategy.

I am somewhat fortunate that I managed to keep Skatefic.com going all these years (our 7th anniversary is this coming February). I have what is called in the business "platform"—that is a venue from which to promote my books. I have divined some sour reactions when I talk about my site on various online forums. Yet discrete promotion is about all I've got. The author we're discussing didn't even have that.

So she created it. She is a native speaker of a foreign language so she scours the online sources in that language for figure skating articles and then translates them. She uses those article to draw people to her site where she promotes her figure skating mysteries. In the book business, this is sheer brilliance. I knew what she was doing the moment I got to her site and I thought, "MORE POWER TO YA, GIRL!" The public gets free articles that they would not otherwise be able to read. She gets attention from an important affinity group. And BTW, it's not like she is stealing or lifting anything illegally; the translations are hers to do with as she likes.

It's all good!

So if it is now entering your mind that the large purpose of this blog is to promote my web site, and my fiction and increase my Google rank... say it ain't so! You mean people really do try to promote their own interests? Wow. Never. The next time someone whines about getting free translations of figure skating articles or seven years of free figure skating fiction, they might think seriously about how it is that us authors pay the daycare and the electricity. It's by selling books, mainly to people who might be interested in buying them... ie figure skating fans. "She's only doing it to promote her books!"

WELL DUH!