"The Value of Marketing"
I had a couple of comments about "Documenting the Value of Marketing" (Foreword, Apr. 24). I'm all for data, bringing as much science to the art of publishing as possible, but a couple of assertions in the piece struck me as at least potentially misleading.
The piece reported that one of the key findings of "The Business Impact of Writing a Book" was that authors who invest their own money in promoting their book see considerably better results in sales. The reader is likely left with the impression that if only more money were spent on promoting books, authors would always see big sales increases over those that don't receive this support. But this doesn't take into account a couple of other factors. The great likelihood is that authors who invested their own money in promoting their books did so because they felt their particular book would benefit from the publicity. Those authors that didn't probably didn't think their book—because of the subject matter—would benefit in the same way. So, the authors might in fact be making the same discrimination that any publisher makes about how best to spend their money. Also, authors who spent money on hiring a PR or publicity firm are likely to support their book in other ways, while those that didn't are likely to be much less active in supporting their book.
The other assertion has to do with the marketing support and sales results that tend to occur when a book is published by a big publisher rather than a small publisher. Being a "small" publisher myself ($10 million in annual net sales), I'm very sensitive to dynamics that drive competition for authors (and sales) between us and the big guys. What I would suggest is that much of the disparity in sales is the product of one simple fact: small publishers are rarely approached by agents or authors with commercial books, that is, unless major publishers have already passed on them. For this reason, smaller publishers have to be much more creative, proactive and nimble when it comes to marketing and publicizing their books. Whether they'd see the same results (or better!) as big publishers if they had the same content to publish is an interesting question.
PETER TURNER, PRESIDENT SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS
