It’s difficult to get published – conventional wisdom states that less than 1% of would be authors receive an offer from a reputable publisher. A few weeks ago I signed my first book deal. This posting reviews the virtual sales and marketing efforts which were leveraged to accomplish this. I worked on a book about virtual businesses for about a year and upon the completion of a basic draft, decided to contact some literary agents (it’s easier to find a publisher if you have an agent representing you). I found several free internet sites listing agents including: www.1000literaryagents.com, www.writers.net and www.writersdigest.com. Some sources estimate that top literary agents receive about 400-1,000 unsolicited book queries every month, in other words, it’s very competitive. I started this sales and marketing campaign as I would at www.StartUpSelling.com for any business. I selected 1,200 agents from the free online lists above. In most cases they had an email listed for the book query submission (that’s agent speak for a formal proposal a writer must create to whet the interest of a prospective agent). As with any sales and marketing campaign, it usually begins by building a prospect list. But hold on a minute, this isn’t a smart, targeted, virtual sales and marketing approach. You are much better off targeting a niche or specific profile than you would be sending out emails to 1,200 general literary agents. I refined the list and culled through the agents to identify 100 who were interested in business books, non-fiction and prescriptive books (how to books). I focused first on agents listing business books as a specific area of interest. This information was available for free on the sites mentioned above and the respective agency websites in the instances that the agency actually had one (there are some agencies that have very limited websites or don’t have them at all).
The list building, culling and niche targeting were done in just a few days. I decided to do a test run of 30 agents, and would then do another wave of 70 agents if necessary. I had read that it was extremely difficult to sign with an agent, and that you might not even get a response to a manuscript inquiry (query letter). As fall approached in 2008 I sent out my first wave of emails. Here are the results for both waves:
Wave 1 Statistics
- 30 Sent
- 4 Interested
- 12 Not interested
- 14 No response
Wave 2 Statistics
- 70 Sent
- 5 Interested
- 20 Not Interested
- 45 No response
Overall, 9% of the agents expressed interest, 32% were not interested and I received no response from 59% of the agents. Normally you would follow up a campaign with a personal telephone call/voice mails. In this particular industry, however, the rules of engagement state that agents prefer no calls. After all, in a system that rejects 98% of all would be authors, the number of follow up calls would overwhelm the agents. As a side note, there were some highly personalized responses and suggestions from agents who did not have interest at the moment and some standard form rejection letters too. I sent out wave two a week after I sent the first wave of emails. I did not market to any agent requiring a query on paper.
Most of the results came in within the first two weeks of the respective waves. Of the 9% expressing interest, their approach varied dramatically. Four agents asked me to email my full proposal; another four asked me to print out a full proposal and snail mail it (or FedEx) it to them and one asked me via email if I would like him to immediately contact publishers on my behalf to see if they had interest. I immediately sent my proposal to the four agents who requested it via email attachment. About a week later I sent out one paper copy to one of the four agents who expressed a particularly high level of interest in my query. In retrospect, I don’t know why I bothered – this is a really stupid approach I liken to the current issues with traditional print Newspapers – the distribution system makes no sense (though it was just fine in 1949). Of the four agents who received my full email proposal, two asked for an exclusive (a period of time whereby they could solely determine if they wished to represent me) and two asked if I would speak with them right away. One of the agents who wanted to have an immediate discussion was Wendy Keller from Keller Media. Wendy asked if we could set up a conference call to discuss my query. I sent her a GoToMeeting invitation, and within 24 hours, we were meeting virtually in cyberspace. Later that day, the agency representation agreement was sent and signed digitally, there was no paper that ever exchanged hands. It took me less than four weeks from the time I decided to approach the literary agency market to sign with a well known agent. About 6 months later, my agent secured an offer from a well known business book publisher, Career Press. My book which is to be called Your Virtual Success, Finding Profitability in an Online World is due out at the beginning of 2010. Leveraging virtual sales and marketing tools is effective, inexpensive and reusable. My virtual business model expands and contracts easily and is far more profitable. I look forward to exploring the nuances of this in my upcoming book from Career Press, Your Virtual Success, Finding Profitability in an Online World. www.startupselling.com www.alanblume.com www.kellermedia.com www.careerpress.com
