Marketing your book in the internet age

“If you're creative, give it away. Really, give it away until you gain a status where you can monetize it.”

Comedian and magician John Lenahan tells Creative Choices about generating publishers' interest in his novel by podcasting it in chapters and gaining thousands of fans online first, and how aspiring authors need to change their methods in our free download culture.

Video Transcription

John Lenahan: "My name's John Lenahan and I'm a magician and a comedian,
that's my day job. A couple years ago I read a book about writing novels,
and it said if you write a thousand words a day, you can't not have a novel
in seven months. It then went to say 'It won't necessarily be a good novel,
but it will be a novel'. So, I tried it and I made it my priority for the
day and wrote a thousand words a day and at the end of it, I had this novel
called 'Shadowmagic' which I kind of liked.

"I didn't try very hard, I sent it around to a handful of publishers. I
started realising that getting a book published is a job in its own right.
The book sat in a drawer for a while. And then I took a writing course,
which was great, but nobody liked my book. They all looked at a humorous
fantasy adventure as a Beano magazine or an Archie comic book or something.

"And then I found this website called podiobooks.com, and its authors read
their own works on the website and you podcast it, you serialise it like
old-time radio week after week. And it went just ballistic on the website.
Instantly fan mail poured in...it was just amazing, it gave me faith in my
writing again. And by the end of it, I ended up with 20,000 subscribers. Out
of the 300 books on the website, mine was voted number one...and then
publishers started getting in touch with me.

"There's been a lot of authors who've had books out for a while by regular
publishers and then have given it away for free, and it's anecdotal evidence
but it has improved their book sales by giving it away for free. The model
now is to get out there so people know about you. You can't just get a
review in the Sunday Times and then become a bestseller, it just doesn't
work that way any more. So if you're creative, give it away. Really, give it
away until you gain a status where you can monetize it. And how you monetize
it, well, that's the big question.

"I'm a big fan of marketing myself, because who else is going to do it? And
I have a big enough ego to be able to say to people 'I'm really good.' But
saying that, that wasn't the case with the writing. I really did, when I
podcasted it, think that I was mistaken, that it really wasn't very good.
And it was finding the audience out there that just gave me hope.

"The other secret is to be realistic about the writing market. All you have
to do is walk into a bookstore and realise just how many books are out
there. The percentage of people that make a living wage writing these books
is pretty low. I'd probably put it in the bottom 10-15%, you know? So just
because I have a shiny cover (that's very nice, by the way, did I show you
the book yet?)...just because I have a shiny cover and people say nice
things on the back doesn't mean that it's going to sell.

"So yeah, I don't see giving up my day job much, but it would be lovely to
make a living wage writing fantasy novels, that's a wonderful idea, because
you could do it anywhere, really."