6 ms·
Kind of a meta comment, it's always interesting to see / hear that when a somewhat well-known author writes a new book, you see interviews with them cropping up
by perlgeek 4y ago
Kind of a meta comment, it's always interesting to see / hear that when a somewhat well-known author writes a new book, you see interviews with them cropping up on "all the usual" places, other outlets write about it etc.
It's nice with something like "What if? 2", because Randall is an interesting podcast guest, and there are just so many different things to talk about.
It's a bit more annoying in other cases, where within two month you hear the same author on 5 different podcasts, and the author says the same thing on each of them. Time to use the skip button.
I guess that's simply how it works nowadays in publishing: writing the book is work, but then you also need to spend quite some time promoting it, in the hopes not only that it boosts sales, but also that the boosted sales put the book in some bestseller lists, boosting sales even further.
- fknorangesite 4y ago> nowadays When has it not worked like this?
- perlgeek 4y agoI guess I just wasn't aware of it in the past. Back when I listened to radio, I wouldn't often come across the author doing interviews, but then I only switched between 3 or maybe 4 different stations...
- VyseofArcadia 4y agoHm, I was going to say before podcasts, but then there's TV. So I was going to say before TV, but I bet it was like this on the radio. Let's go with the 19th century, when it would have been more difficult to read five of the same interview with someone in five different newspapers.
- VoodooJuJu 4y agoEven the Romans did this: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/spectaclesintheromanworldsourcebook/chapter/marketing-and-advertising/ https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/spectaclesintheromanworldsour...
- toyg 4y agoJ.D. Salinger. Samuel Beckett. Anybody writing under pseudonym, a practice that used to be extremely common (Ellery Queen, etc).
- fknorangesite 4y agoDid you think I meant that every single author always goes on a press tour? If so, why?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 4y agoIt's not just for authors. You'll observe the same for new movies, TV shows, product launches etc. It's not a coincidence that leaks and behind the scenes articles and videos pop up when something new is launching. That's just how the PR machinery works.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThese comprise of more than 50% of reddit posts on all the popular subreddits. You can filter any post title with a celebrity or upcoming release of media in it as an ad.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago> It's not a coincidence that leaks and behind the scenes articles and videos pop up when something new is launching. Can't leak something after it's been released though
- toyg 4y agoI know for a fact that publishers will now vet authors as well as manuscripts. A nice-looking and personable author, preferably with a well-oiled presence on social networks, has a much higher chance of getting published than the rest of the pack; that's because publishers now "sell" the author as much as the book.
- digdugdirk 4y agoThis is actually one of the more important aspects in publishing. But its not so much the author themselves being sellable, its the built in sales they might have from their social media audience. The conversion rate from marketing to their own audience is much higher than otherwise, and is enough for even small publishers to justify an initial print run of a niche book.
- SleepilyLimping 4y agoYou must fandom everything you can.
- bombcar 4y agoMore importantly to the publisher, the author sells themselves. Most books are basically flops and so having a built-in market is a huge advantage for the publisher. Also saves them having to do much publicity, too.
- karaterobot 4y agoIf we're selecting for mediagenic authors with a lot of Twitter followers, we're going to get the culture we deserve. I grant that publishers have always selected for things other than the quality of the book alone, just observing that this has an effect.
- ephbit 4y agoMakes me ask myself: which hugely successful works of fiction (excluding stuff like the Bible) are out there convincing readers solely through their content because the author remains anonymous/pseudonymous and how can they reliably be found?
- jagraff 4y agoThis has been extremely noticeable with the author of What We Owe The Future, he's been on every podcast I listen to over the last month or so
- TideAd 4y agoIn many cases, the point of writing the book is getting the book tour. Ever thought "wow this book really should have just been a blog post"? Well, there is no such thing as a blog post tour.
- lbotos 4y agodepending on the topic a "blog post tour" may be speaking at conferences.
- perlgeek 4y agoWhat do the authors get out of the book tour? Fame, maybe?
- fragmede 4y agoMoney, traditionally.
- bombcar 4y agoUnless the author is relatively well known, the book tour often barely pays for itself. In some cases the author gets to travel "on the company dime" and basically tour the country/world and have the expenses paid by some book sales. The author may also get a much larger cut of any books sold during the tour, even without "signing fees" or similar.
- bluGill 4y agoThey are hoping to get the big break. That can be people who see them locally buying a copy (most people will buy a book when the author is there, but may not even look at the book otherwise, so you can count on a few sales if you appear in a bookstore), but ideally is moves onto they actually read the book and like it enough to tell all their friends. You can get a big bonus if a someone well known happens to be in the crowd and tells all their followers.
- VoodooJuJu 4y agoThis sounds like advertising 101 for just about anything with sizeable resources behind it - big movies, AAA game titles, gladiator matches [1], etc. [1] https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/spectaclesintheromanworldsourcebook/chapter/marketing-and-advertising/ https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/spectaclesintheromanworldsour...
- teddyh 4y ago> within two month you hear the same author on 5 different podcasts, and the author says the same thing on each of them. They’ve received media training to do exactly that, to repeat their main talking points no matter what the interview questions are, and normal journalists are trained to ignore it and just move on to the next question, so it usually works for them both (but us listeners and readers are left with the situation you describe). Sometimes, though, the people asking the questions aren’t willing to ignore it, and if the interviewee does not catch on to this and adjust their answers accordingly, the interview can go disastrously wrong: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/woody-harrelson-reddit-ama https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/woody-harrelson-reddit...
- adamsmith143 4y ago>I guess that's simply how it works nowadays in publishing: writing the book is work, but then you also need to spend quite some time promoting it, in the hopes not only that it boosts sales, but also that the boosted sales put the book in some bestseller lists, boosting sales even further. PR Tours for Books have been around for decades. The format may have changed but the concept has been around for a long time.
- soneca 4y agoI think it is how it works since always. Book tours on bookstores and book interviews (newspapers, tv, and radio) are a way of promoting book sales on launch for some time. Just added podcasts to the mix.
- fasthands9 4y agoI do sorta wonder how often people are turning down podcasts. Will MacAskill was on several of my favorite podcasts lately. Presumably it makes the interview slightly easier for the interviewer when there is a clear argument/thesis of the author but also seems like he would have been just as good of a guest 4 or 8 months ago (and 4 or 8 months from now) as he is now. And seeing he always has a desire to promote his work/his view I don't know why he would ever say no to a legitimate podcast. Was Will saying no to them then? Or asking people to wait? Or is much of this still sorta random and it takes the initiative of a third party PR person to connect people? (Replace whatever author you are thinking of with Will)
- barry-cotter 4y agoWill wasn’t saying no. He just didn’t have a book to push. He wasn’t seeking out opportunities himself, or having a publicist doing it for him.
- ska 4y ago> I guess that's simply how it works nowadays in publishing: Not nowadays, this is how it has always worked. Promotion is always trying to find cost effective ways to raise awareness, using whatever tools are available in the budget that makes sense for the project. You are listening to podcasts that have a correlation, in the days before podcasts you might have noticed the same things with talk shows or magazine articles, the main difference being you might consume fewer of those so not notice as much.
- mathattack 4y agoI’d the book is a one-off you see this a lot. The best podcasts are with people who aren’t promoting a specific item, just themselves as experts. You get more variety that way. In general if they’re on a book tour, I only listen once no matter how much I like them.
- jimmydddd 4y agoTim Ferriss was one of the first to avoid a traditional book tour when marketing his first book (4 hr work week). Instead, he reached out to bloggers, which was a new strategy at the time. He's written that he would tailor each interaction for the culture of each blog. So he'd use a portion about fitness for a fitness blog, and a portion about finance for a finance blog, etc. At least that mixed it up a bit.
- vidarh 4y agoIt is exactly how it works. Unless you have ridiculous amounts of luck and/or is an established name, you won't sell books unless you commit to spending a lot of time marketing. The market for books is ridiculously saturated.
- wodenokoto 4y agoAmong the more interesting submarines ads for the new book is Minute Physics that recreated one of the chapters. I kinda wonder if it was sponsored, or a collab and who initiated it. link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tu0mIpX8nU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tu0mIpX8nU Note: when I clicked it a few days ago, there was no XKCD in the title.
- abhinavkulkarni 4y ago> Randall is an interesting podcast guest You can keep track of Randall's podcast activity here: https://jkstream.com/#/personality-randall-munroe-Q285048 https://jkstream.com/#/personality-randall-munroe-Q285048