Sales from Friends & Family

[Zero Angel]

Hi guys,

Let me just say, I'm not unhappy with where I am in the journey of having writing being my day job. I fully expect to get there in 10-20 (definitely within 50) years so long as I haven't died of a heart attack or something by then.

And I know it is unreasonable to expect everyone you know to buy your book.

Yet, at the same time, why is that unreasonable? I don't know a friend or family member that my fiancee and I haven't bought their kids' candy bars for school when they're presented or gone to those parties where a salesperson comes and sells stuff and the host gets so much credit/free stuff based on how much their friends buy.

Anyway, the point. Although I wasn't expecting to be a huge success and I know that nice burst of sales from friends & family at the beginning doesn't necessarily take you all the way to the bestseller lists (although it definitely helps!), I find myself incredibly crushed by the lack of sales to people I know.

I don't know if it is the recession woes my fiancee and I have that is adding to this soul-crushing despair, but I am just wrecked. I can't imagine not wanting to support a friend or family member in something like this. Even if I had no intention of reading or enjoying the book (I know that's not the kind of sales you want to get), I cannot imagine not buying the book of someone I know.

I don't want to bug people, so maybe that's where I've gone wrong (since you're supposed to be able to bug friends and family, right?), but other than telling people that my books are on sale when they first go live and if there is news when people ask me how it's going, I don't really try to pitch it to them. I don't know.

It's to the point now where I want to buy the books of everyone on Mythic Scribes that I've interacted with and those are online relationships that I've only been fostering for the last six months!

Anyway, is it just my friends et al that suck? Do other people have experiences like this? Am I being unreasonable? Is $1 - $5 only acceptable to spend on chocolate and not on a novel, short story or novella?

Aside: I'm sure that my recent employment situations have motivated this to some extent, and getting my 1099 papers from BN and Amazon for taxes and seeing just how little I made off my debut year, but I'm still just bewildered by the entire experience. I've never had something in my life where so many people said they were happy for me and even proud of me and as I was writing saying they can't wait until it's done and then nothing. It was just empty words. I'm not writing for money, but I don't understand the lack of support from people I thought cared.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

You hit on part of the issue already. Effort.

If I buy a chocolate bar from the neighbor kid, that's the end of it. Transaction complete. Any friend or relative buying your book is also purchasing an expectation to read the book, whether you care or not. What aunt wants to have their nephew come to them at a family function and ask "How did you like it?" and not be able to say they've read it. Further, there's always another fear living in the purchaser. What if they don't like it? Will they have to tell you that? If they lie, will you know? You may not care about any of this, but they might. Just something to consider.

A friend of mine, who is a full time fantasy author, has said to me many times "You think you have 50 friends and relatives who will buy your book? You don't." He's been down that road, living the day job you desire, and even his relatives and friends won't buy. If you ask him why, he'd tell you it's precisely because they know him so well. They grew up with him & know all of the idiotic things he's done. So, in his view, intimacy can destroy a piece of the author-reader relationship.

Your best bet at success is book #2, not relying on friends and family or free downloads to momentarily boost ratings.

 

[Zero Angel]

You hit on part of the issue already. Effort.

If I buy a chocolate bar from the neighbor kid, that's the end of it. Transaction complete. Any friend or relative buying your book is also purchasing an expectation to read the book, whether you care or not. What aunt wants to have their nephew come to them at a family function and ask "How did you like it?" and not be able to say they've read it. Further, there's always another fear living in the purchaser. What if they don't like it? Will they have to tell you that? If they lie, will you know? You may not care about any of this, but they might. Just something to consider.

A friend of mine, who is a full time fantasy author, has said to me many times "You think you have 50 friends and relatives who will buy your book? You don't." He's been down that road, living the day job you desire, and even his relatives and friends won't buy. If you ask him why, he'd tell you it's precisely because they know him so well. They grew up with him & know all of the idiotic things he's done. So, in his view, intimacy can destroy a piece of the author-reader relationship.

Your best bet at success is book #2, not relying on friends and family or free downloads to momentarily boost ratings.

That's a good point I hadn't considered. It doesn't feel true, but it is reasonable and could be (read "could be" as "probably is" ). I'm glad there's at least one person that doesn't sell 50+ to people they know.

Just to clarify: I'm OK with my success level at this point in the game, but hurt and bewildered by the lack of expected support. There are a few people that bought it immediately and I appreciated their support, and some that bought and read it immediately and that was incredibly encouraging as well. I was amazed I had a few of my beta readers buy the final version in spite of having the pre-final version. I was very encouraged by their support and appreciated it immensely. Even if the sales from others had no impact (i.e. no boost in the sales ratings and no monetary amount awarded to me), I'd find the lack of them from people I expected discouraging. I suppose an issue is that I shouldn't expect anything.

And I guess that another major part of this is that I view my writing as such an integral part of me. My writing is the (besides my future wife) most important thing in my life and if I was to ever define myself, I would define myself as my writing. My writing is more of me than anything I've ever done, achieved or strived for in the entirety of my life.

I'm not about to quit, because I'm not doing this to be noticed or recognized or become famous.

But I can't help feeling rejected more so than I have ever felt before.

And again, I've had letters from publishers and agents rejecting me, so it's not like I'm not used to it...I don't know.

I've progressed into full-out rambling and whining by now I suppose. Apologies.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I think there's a difference between buying cookies to support a cause and buying books to support one person's bank account, even if that person is a friend. A better analogy would be to throwing a Tupperware party, or pressuring friends to buy Cutco knives.

(Personally, if I ever published a story that wasn't free, I'd still give free copies to any friends who wanted it.)

Edit: Dear God, you actually BOUGHT something at a Tupperware party? I always thought those were a gross abuse of friendship. (I've sold Cutco knives, but only to folks I thought could actually use them.)

 

[Chilari]

Bear in mind also that your friends and family aren't necessarily part of your target audience. Your target audience are people who like to read, and who read fantasy at least some of the time. Your friends and family aren't necessarily readers, and even if they are they might not be fantasy readers. I know I'll never sell a book to my little brother, or even persuade him to read a free copy, because he's not a reader. The last book he read, to my knowledge, was The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time when he was 15. He's 21 now. Then there's my Dad. Dad is a reader. He reads crime drama and police proceduarals and mysteries. He even sees Agatha Christie plays fairly reguarly. But he's not a fan of fantasy. He fell asleep in the cinema and snored when we went to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Dad is not a fantasy reader. He will probably struggle to read anything I write.

Of my friends and relatives I think I could rely on to read what I write, there's my sister, who does read fantasy and in fact betaread a fantasy book for her friend; my mum, who writes but isn't so much a fan as fantasy; one of my cousins, who does a lot of fantasy stuff but less reading; two friends who also write fantasy; and my colleague Pam who reads a lot of fantasy and lent me a Brent Weeks book I keep forgetting to give back. But everyone else will pat me on the back and hope I don't ask if they've read it.

So think about that - think about whether they'd buy or enjoy it anyway if a complete stranger wrote it, and if not, don't push it. Let them know, sure - a single post on Facebook would be enough - but don't push it. If they want to support you because of you, that's a bonus, not an entitlement. For those who do read a lot, and read the sort of story yours is, then it would be worth asking a second or third time, but if after that they haven't, don't push it either; they might be worried it's no good and not want to hurt your feelings.

 

[BWFoster78]

Zero,

There's a lot of good advice/opinions already posted above me. Still, though I have as of yet no actual experience with this since I haven't tried to sell anything yet, I felt compelled to comment.

First, what was your approach to getting them to buy from you? Did you limit it to an announcement or did you ask them something concrete?

My understanding (from How to Make a Killing on Kindle) is that it's important to make specific requests. I think that a corollary to that is to incorporate the points Chilari made in that request.

I'm thinking of doing something like this:

Explaining (briefly) that I'm self publishing, why I'm self publishing, and how hard it is to make a mark self publishing
Explain (briefly) how much it helps for my friends and family to support me
Give a list of the ways they can support me and let them know that I appreciate them doing ANY of the items on the list no matter how small
Create a list that includes:

Buying and reading the book
Tell others about the book, including posting on forums, even if they didn't read it (Hey, I guy I know wrote a book. You should check it out.)
If they do read it, post a review

Anyway, not sure this helps or not. Hope your future books do better.

 

[Zero Angel]

...

...

I appreciate the viewpoints guys. Just to reiterate: it's not about paying me, I have offered free copies to people that are genuinely interested in the book. And it's not even about creating buzz or anything like that. It's about this feeling of betrayal or abandonment that I can't get over.

I understand that it's a "big thing to ask" according to a lot of people, but I don't understand *why* it is a big thing to ask.

If a friend is having an art gallery I will go, if a friend makes a movie, I will watch it, if a friend is in a play, I will go and sit through the play, if a friend is having a public speaking event, I will go to the event, if a friend has a big sports game, I will go to the game, if a friend is running for office, I will be in their campaign quarters volunteering, wearing their pins/shirts or at least voting for them (although this one I guess does have the requirement that their viewpoints don't suck).

Same thing for family members.

So why is it such a big deal to ask them to buy and read it or borrow and read it or be given and read it? (I'm upping the original ante now to they should read it also).

I don't feel that I bother them. I definitely don't pester them about it. If they tell me they are in the process of reading it, I'll ask how it's going. If they bring up needing a fantasy novel to read and they haven't read mine I'll remind them about it. If they ask me how my book is doing I will explain how it's doing.

Zero,

There's a lot of good advice/opinions already posted above me. Still, though I have as of yet no actual experience with this since I haven't tried to sell anything yet, I felt compelled to comment.

First, what was your approach to getting them to buy from you? Did you limit it to an announcement or did you ask them something concrete?

My understanding (from How to Make a Killing on Kindle) is that it's important to make specific requests. I think that a corollary to that is to incorporate the points Chilari made in that request.

I'm thinking of doing something like this:

Explaining (briefly) that I'm self publishing, why I'm self publishing, and how hard it is to make a mark self publishing
Explain (briefly) how much it helps for my friends and family to support me
Give a list of the ways they can support me and let them know that I appreciate them doing ANY of the items on the list no matter how small
Create a list that includes:

Buying and reading the book
Tell others about the book, including posting on forums, even if they didn't read it (Hey, I guy I know wrote a book. You should check it out.)
If they do read it, post a review

Anyway, not sure this helps or not. Hope your future books do better.

Great points, and I think I will be a little more focused with the next book. I limited myself to directly talking to people that I considered "close" friends and family while blanketing the rest with the announcement. And I didn't spell out ways that people can help or do help. I think that can be really beneficial.

It's not even that they're doing "bad". Like I said in the OP, I'm OK with where my books are right now in my career. If I'm 6 books in and it's still like this, I'm going to start to worry, but right now I did not expect to be much better than this. I did expect more people to care though. I know that not purchasing / borrowing and consuming it does not mean they don't care, but talk is cheap, while actions speak louder and it's hard to convince my heart otherwise in spite of what I "know".

 

[BWFoster78]

I feel ya, man.

I, too, would be disappointed if my friends failed to support me and feel that I would help them in a similar situation. I plan send an email/FB message to each of them telling them specifically what I need and why. Hopefully, that will help. I'm not depending on them for all my sales, but it would be nice to get a little bit of a bump.

 

[TWErvin2]

A few observations based on my experience:

Not everyone is into ebooks. Most of my sales to family and friends is via print editions. One of my sisters picked up my first novel. Read it, enjoyed it and then gave it to my other sister to read. That's okay with me. They've read my other novels, and I gave copies of my short story collection away for Christmas gifts.

Friends, those that have bought it, only one purchased the ebook version. The same with co-workers.

Also, consider what you right may not be up their alley or of interest, and reading is not as common in some circles as others.

You will also find with respect to your writing, nobody will care as much about your books as you. It won't even be close. Not your spouse, mother, agent (if you have one), editor (if you have one) or even a fan of your works (unless they're sort of on the unstable crazed stalker type end of the spectrum) will care as much as you.

I realized this when I began writing. If family/relatives read my works, that's cool. My uncles have picked up copies and read them, and ask when I see them when my next novel is coming out. While that's neat, it's not something I push. In the end, family and friends and coworkers have formed a small % of the sales of my novels. Mine haven not taken off, but they're slow and steady.

I also don't think individuals outside of writing/publishing don't fully understand how reviews, a good ranking, getting on a good 'also bought' list on Amazon, for example, can help to drive sales. Getting noticed is difficult. Heck, I've been a member of a crit group for years. Members have come and gone. The only ones (except for one) who've written reviews of my novels are those that have published works themselves--or works soon to be published. I've mentioned it would be helpful once or twice, but don't push it--beg, demand, whine, pout, constantly remind, etc. It's just the way it is.

Stressing about family and friends purchasing copies isn't worth getting worried about, from my perspective. Yes, if every friend purchased a copy of a new release, told their friends and co-workers, bought copies for gifts, wrote reviews, etc. it would help--to be certain. But I think that's the exception, rather than the rule. A couple co-workers have bought copies for gift to others (most after having read my work), or written a review. I thanked them for their time and effort in reviews, believing in my works enough to share them with others as gifts, etc., but I didn't expect them to do it.

Okay...sort of beginning to ramble here (have to get back to grading papers for midterm reports), but I thought I'd chime in. Good luck, Zero Angel. One doesn't always know the trigger point where something might catch fire, and what might cause it. Maybe this year will be your year to take off. I hope so. I don't see publishing as a zero sum game. Well, it is up to a point. People have only so much money to spend, but if they enjoy a novel, they're more likely to invest in another book--by that author, or another author in the genre. Thus, grows the pie--instead of spending on a movie or fast food meal, they get another novel to read for recreation/enjoyment.

Okay, rambling again...

 

[Penpilot]

I think there are a lot of good points stated already. From my perspective, maybe it's not about you but rather about them. As stated above, what if they don't like the book? Nobody wants to tell someone they care about that they don't like something that they did, especially if said loved one spent a lot of time and hard work on it.

Part of it is what kind of relationship you have with each of these friends. I would say I've got one friend who, if I ask their opinion on my writing or anything for that matter, is willing kick me in the guts with the truth bluntly.

Also there may be some fear of inadequacy on your friends' part. If they read your book and don't understand something in it, and divulge that, it may make them feel dumb. Imagine having hear someone say, "Oh it's a reference to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Didn't you get that? All the chapters are reflections of one of Shakespeare's plays."

As for myself, I wouldn't expect any of my friends to buy or read a book I published, but that's just me. I'd mention that I have a book for sale on say Amazon, and if they're curious, I'd give them a free copy. I'd leave it at that.

 

[Zero Angel]

You are all much more noble than I.

 

[Jaredonian]

In my opinion, you're looking at things the wrong way. You even mentioned yourself that you know expecting these people to buy the book is unreasonable. Instead of feeling disappointed that people who might not have read or enjoyed your book didn't buy it, you should try to focus on the positive feelings you get from people who did read and did enjoy it.

 

[Zero Angel]

In my opinion, you're looking at things the wrong way. You even mentioned yourself that you know expecting these people to buy the book is unreasonable. Instead of feeling disappointed that people who might not have read or enjoyed your book didn't buy it, you should try to focus on the positive feelings you get from people who did read and did enjoy it.

It's debatable what I know. I know I *shouldn't* expect them to buy it, but I don't really understand why it is unreasonable since I would (and in many cases have) support(ed) them in anything (everything) they do (did).

I don't want to hold it against them, but I have not been able to not. There is a bitterness I cannot leave behind. I don't want to feel betrayed about it, but I do.

Besides "getting over it" and "not expecting their support", HOW can I get over it?

Or is this just something that there's no way around?

I am going to try Brian's suggestions with my next novella, to see if maybe it was a lack of cognition that I need their support (whether that is via Facebook "likes", sharing my links, or consuming it themselves). I hope for different results, but I can't help but now expect an entire lack of support from EVERYONE.

If I have to go it alone with no support, I am prepared for that. I can do it. I'm OK with where I am at and where I am going. I never believed that support from friends and family would be a critical difference in my success and I do not think that the relative lack of support is a factor in my lack of success. I am taking responsibility for my own work, my successes and my failures.

But I can't stop myself from feeling betrayed, feeling abandoned, and I cannot stop myself from the now overwhelming bitterness towards practically everyone.

 

[ThinkerX]

I gave an early draft copy of 'Labyrinth' to my daughter. She took it to work, read it a bit on break, and gave up about halfway through, saying she needed a dictionary.

A cousin of mine saw another draft copy of 'Labyrinth', had a sort of 'meh' reaction. Fantasy just ain't his thing.

NONE of my other family members have read 'Labyrinth'....or any other fantasy stories I've written. They're vaguely aware I muck around with writing, but have zero interest in the content.

This isn't exactly new for fantasy writers. Take Lovecraft - he didn't become popular until AFTER his death. His friends and family...didn't exactly have a high opinion of his writing.

 

[Jaredonian]

To be fair, with your close friends and family, expecting some form of support is reasonable. My post was more about more distant friends and relatives. I would say however that if you want these people to support you by buying your book, you really do need to communicate that to them in some way, and possibly more than once. People tend to be concerned with their own affairs first, and just because they haven't remembered to go buy your book doesn't mean they don't care. Try to tailor your expectation to the individuals involved, and do your best to let them know in whatever way you're comfortable that their support would mean a lot to you. Don't let feelings of bitterness and betrayal sour your relationships with these people, because the experience of publishing a book is better enjoyed than endured.