The Mockingbird Still Says What It Has To Say

On February 19, just shy of her 90th birthday Nelle Harper Lee died. If you are unfamiliar with her life, I can summarize it by saying she is the author’s equivalent of someone who won the lottery. Or more accurately, the $35 million dollar lottery, because at the time of her death, that is what she was worth.

Ms. Lee grew up in a small Alabama town in the 1920’s and 30’s. Her father practiced law in the segregated South where he actually defended a black man accused of murder, who was later hanged. Her chatting, slightly strange childhood friend, Truman Persons, who later would become Truman Capote, was Dill in her book. And, the lazy summer days they spent together would become the backdrop of her story.

Ms. Lee wrote her book To Kill a Mockingbird between 1956 and 1957 after a friend paid Lee a year of her salary to stop working and write. She took another three years revising the book, rewriting portions, and editing. She edited out an entire second book that her lawyer, finding the pages 55 years later, would seek to publish and succeed, over the concerns of her friends and family.

In 1960, Harper Lee published her fictional book set at a time when a child’s innocence collided with the harsh world of discrimination and injustice. She wrote about what she knew. She wrote about the people she loved. And she took the time to polish it to perfection.

In 1961, she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and in 1962 the screen play of her book won an Academy Award. She had won all the prizes a writer could dream and then she was done.

Although she attempted to write other works, she never published again and I respect her for that (yes, I am ignoring Go Set a Watchman). Thirty three years after the first printing of To Kill a Mockingbird, Ms. Lee was asked to write an introduction to her book (this is the version I have). In part, her introduction reads: “I am still alive, although very quiet. Introductions inhibit pleasure… Mockingbird still says what it has to say; it has managed to survive the years without a preamble. Harper Lee.”

If Nelle Lee were writing in this blog, I think she would say:
Write about what you know
Write from the heart
Don’t lower your standards but know when you reach them
And…. Edit, Edit, Edit.

Yo, I’ve Got a Book Over Here!

Almost six years ago, I heard those words we who write yearn to hear; a publisher said yes. The next step, I assumed, would be to lean back and rest upon my lush, green laurels and watch my book fly off the selves. But I quickly learned, life is not a story I get to write and I don’t have any laurels. (The best I can manage is a little basil from my back porch). In reality, my book was one of 250,000 books published in the United States that year. It was one year newer than the 250,000 books published the year before and would soon be shadowed by next year’s crop of books and eager authors. So the question every new author must ask is: After the frenzy of purchases by friends and family, what makes someone want to put down hard earned cash to buy your book? These are my experiences in trying to answer that question.

Soon after my first book was published, Facebook contacted me with a proposition. They would advertise my book on Facebook to millions of members free of charge and only if someone was interested in my book and clicked on the cover would they charge a few cents to my pre-setup account. Great publicity, I thought. You can target people based on their likes. People who “liked” NCIS would see the cover of my crime lab mystery. The more refined I got, the higher the cost per click. I put together a very witty slogan and CLICK, CLICK, CLICK within a week I was twenty dollars poorer, my advertisement was popular but no books sold. Witty draws people in but not to buy books.

I changed the slogan to BUY THIS MYSTERY; fewer clicks but the same results. People are not on Facebook to buy books. Note to self: sell your book where people want to buy books. My next marketing strategy was Goodreads.com Fantastic place; readers wanting to read books, authors with books to sell. I signed up to give my book away. The end result…. 2682 people signed up to try and win a copy, 248 people clicked that they would like to read my book, 5 people read it and gave me some nice reviews. Not a slam dunk in sales but affirming.

So, back to the question, what makes someone want to put down hard earned cash to buy your book? After being on local radio stations, several newspaper articles, talks at book clubs, book signings at bookstores, book signings at libraries (libraries did much better than stores), book fairs and book festivals – in the end, the one thing that reliably sells your book is you; a connection with you, a smile from you, a question to you or a talk by you. At my first but book fair, I had a chair, a folding table and five books. Over time, I have added things to draw people to my booth; to make a connection. I can make enough through sales of the other products to pay for the festivals and have been to some of the biggest. Two excellent ones are the LA Times Festival of Books and Tucson’s Festival of Books. Few of us have laurels, even fewer can sell a book on our name alone but all of us can say, in our own way, “Yo, I’ve got a book over here. Come look!”