‘People Are Trying To Make Money From You’
At The Bookseller this week, author Isabel Losada is blogging for us about her experiences as a writer here at London Book Fair.
Not surprisingly, much of her focus is on the Author HQ program(me) with which London has led the way in attracting and welcoming authors into the big trade show’s rough-and-tumble world, beginning three years ago with Authoright’s presentation there of Author Lounge.
In her Thursday piece for us, An author at LBF: Not for the faint-hearted, Losada writes:
Some small publishers offer no advances and some large publishers offer no advances, and now crowd-funding publishers offer authors the chance to become fund-raisers with the added attraction of no advances. Even the advice “Buyer Beware” has been reversed; this is “Seller Beware”.
Authors were warned: “People are trying to make money from you”. But they didn’t even mean the writing. They meant the other industry of all the people who will charge to tell you what to do next.
She’s right. And in author-facing conferences this year it seems — by my completely subjective count — that we’re seeing more and more such “people who will charge you to tell you what to do next” sitting on panels onstage.
I think the time has come to have a few words about this. It’s my provocation for you today. And the trickiest part for me to get across to you is that there is nothing wrong with sponsorship at writers’ conferences; the question is in how we communicate those sponsorships — or don’t — to attendees.
Because I don’t love being misquoted, I’m going to repeat myself: There is nothing wrong with sponsorship at writers’ conferences.
Thanks. Moving on.
‘It’s Like My Head Is Going To Explode’
If you’re a journalist, you’ll know that “It sounded like a freight train came through here” is the line you get after every major natural disaster. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes seem to sound like something on rails to victims cornered by television camera crews and asked (why do we ask?) what it was like.
At writers’ conferences, you don’t hear as much about boxcars but you can depend on hearing one line: “It’s like my head is going to explode.” The person who tells you this is normally listing to port, lugging a heavy tote bag filled with promotional literature and tchotchkes from various sponsors of the conference.
- Maybe there’s that not-at-all-cute big eraser advertising an editorial service: “We Make Your Mistakes Disappear!” (I wish.)
- Or a pack of multi-colored Post-Its printed with an ebook platform’s logo: “A Rainbow Of Formats For Your Ebook!” (Sure.)
- Perhaps even that odd foam-rubber book I was given at one of these affairs. I have yet to understand the value of a foam-rubber book. It might have some dark-genre purpose we don’t want to think about too much. (I’ve been trying to slip it into somebody else’s tote bag for months.)
As that freight train of disruption chugs through the mind of the writing-conference-goer, how clear is he on what he’s hearing from speakers in each session? Does that noggin-near-poppin’ understand that some of the people on the podium have paid to be there? Does our tote-toting attendee know a sponsored speaker from his asterisks?
I’m guessing no. Not least because it’s like his head is going to explode, right? Overwhelm is at hand. Too many facts, too much excitement, the vaudeville of all that Kumbaya-boom-de-ay stuff is in his face and he’s seeing pretty much nothing clearly.
Even that’s okay. The immersion and inspi-vational elements of these events are, after all, part of the draw. To some degree, you want our good conference-going author to be a bit off-kilter so that old habits are loosened up and the blessed light of new ideas can enter the brain pan.
But what do we owe our writer as she feels the aspirational tide rise and we shift her moorings for all the right reasons?
One big clarification. We are not talking about industry conferences here. At such an event as Digital Book World or the upcoming IDPF Digital Book Conference that I’m working to program for the opening of BookExpo America, sponsorship is, in fact, very much an order of the day and business people — the audience for those events — know it, expect it, and use it. That’s part of what “networking” may be about for them, and sponsored stage appearances can be deal-starters. This is all fine.
Today, our topic is not industry-facing conferences but author-facing conferences. That’s where, I think, we might want to do a bit more about communicating and revealing sponsorship.
Because at one writers’ conference this spring, I asked the organizers for their figures. And of about 67 speakers, more than 40 were sponsored. That means they or their companies had paid the conference enough money that they had that chance to speak on a panel.
Sponsors Are Good, Not Bad
Sponsors have a practical and meaningful role to play at writers’ conferences. We want them there.
- Sponsors are one of the ways that the organizers of authors’ conferences can raise the capital to produce these events. The writers might have to pay a lot more for registration if sponsors weren’t there to pick up part of the tab.
- Sponsors frequently offer important, valuable “author services” to conference attendees. Many of the sponsoring regulars at the conferences I cover are among my favorite folks. Many of them are honest, hard-working, highly principled and fully responsible business people from companies big and small.
- Sponsors also have a more subtle role to play, but an important one: their presence is a sign of how attractive a marketplace the author corps has become, as both self-publishers and traditionally publishing authors look for professional assistance in book preparation, marketing, publicity, distribution, you name it.
At most writers’ conferences, sponsors function in two ways.
- They have a table or booth or stand in a part of the conference complex where attendees will be able to find them and become familiar with their services. In those settings, sometimes called “sponsor alley,” it’s completely clear to the attendees that the vendors are there to pitch them.
- They may have representatives of their companies appear on panels and/or other informational sessions in a conference program, itself. Sponsorship packages frequently are sold with just such benefits listed as part of the appeal, offering a “panel appearance” or “speaking opportunity” as well as program ads, online ads, logo listings, maybe direct email blasts, that table or booth or stand, even special sessions or other events, receptions, breakfasts — lots of options. It’s in some of these formats that the pitch factor may be less apparent.
A conference’s value increases for its writer-attendees if they get to meet strong author-service purveyors and find the right assists for their career needs. Even the mere experience of what Losada calls “people are trying to make money from you” is a good education for the author who wants to function as an entrepreneur.
The question becomes how aware are the author-attendees that they’re hearing from a mixture of specialists in most conference settings?
Tote That Bag
Assume that we’re back at the conference with the excited author and her tote bag and her cranium about to fly apart.
[pullquote]”What do we owe our writer as she feels the aspirational tide rise and we shift her moorings for all the right reasons?”[/pullquote]Assume that every person she’s hearing from onstage is an excellent specialist, a true expert in the field.
How aware is she that some of those specialists are working in advertorial mode?
As I was saying to Bryan Cohen recently in a podcast for Jim Kukral’s Author Marketing Institute, I wonder if we shouldn’t consider having sponsored speakers identified as such in programs, on their name-tags (please print them on both sides, organizers), on panelists’ name-slides shown onstage during sessions, and/or on the name cards put in front of them on panels.
The intention does not look like obfuscation to me. Every conference I cover does a fine job of clearly listing sponsors on special Web site pages. There’s usually lots of signage with logos. It’s a rightful point of pride that a good conference can attract strong sponsorship. It means that author-services companies want to be in touch with the caliber of writer being attracted by a given event, and that can be a win-win-win for that conference, its delegates, and its sponsors.
But those ways of listing sponsorship are different from designating sponsors as such at the moment they’re on stage talking — which is the point at which the sponsors may have their greatest impact on attendees.
I’m wondering if the addition of “sponsor” next to a sponsored speaker’s name during a panel session or speech or demo might not help writers clarify that what they’re hearing might be akin to a “paid political announcement.”
One respondent to the Author Marketing Institute podcast commented that conferences have every right to pay speakers. Of course they do. In fact, I encourage them to do that. And that’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about money going the other way — from speaker to conference. It’s all on the up-and-up and the funding is important. So why not clearly brand each paying speaker who wants to sell something to conference-goers?
So many new models of “author services” and salesmanship around us. How much “buyer beware” burden should we place on the writer who may not yet be an accomplished business person? And how much transparency do we owe them in the author-conference setting?
About Porter Anderson
@Porter_Anderson is a recipient of London Book Fair's International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair New York. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller's The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations' WFP in Rome. PorterAndersonMedia.com
I don’t think any standard below total transparency is satisfactory. Your suggestions for flagging sponsored speakers on programs and presentations seem reasonable to me.
Personally I have no problem being “sold to.” I follow many productivity/writer bloggers who monetize their blogs by selling services or affiliate products, and I’m happy to hear the occasional sales pitch in return for the information they provide. Once in a while I buy a product they recommend. A writer’s got to eat, and I’m gearing up to start monetizing my own writing efforts as there’s only so much writing for PIE (paid in exposure) you can do.
But I’m pretty good at looking for the guy behind the green curtain, and I’m well aware that many writers (especially newbies) aren’t. So I’m glad you’re speaking out for them, Porter.
Hey, Jane,
Thanks for the good input, and sorry for the delay in getting back — you know the busyness of last week in London.
I agree with you — in most cases, I’m OK about a commercial pitch in someone’s work, and I’ve found a lot of sponsored offerings at conferences, in fact, to be helpful and worthwhile.
It’s just a matter of how unaware some writers are of all this. As you say, you’re way beyond many newcomers in being able to spot pitches. The sponsorship is rarely a problem. All we need is more transparency about it.
Thanks again!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Good provoking, Porter.
Here’s what I wonder about all the services authors can buy: How does one know one’s money is wisely spent? Remember the old advertising phrase, “measurable results”? Where’s the measure?
Talk with indie authors and they have a pretty good sense of what they’ve done that’s had a direct effect on sales. On student at a recent workshop I taught swears by doing readings at nursing homes. Best sales tool ever.
I’m guessing no one will sponsor seniors to go speak at BEA to recruit authors onto their circuit.
Would love to hear your thoughts, Porter, on how authors with exploding heads can begin to judge the effectiveness of the services they’re offered.
One thought: How do author helpers get paid? Flat fees? Hourly rates? Monthly retainers? As an agent I’m paid by commission, meaning I only make money when the authors does. That may not automatically make me effective but it does mean that if I’m not the author doesn’t go out of pocket.
Good point, Don. I honestly think the agency model is the closest thing we have to patronage left in our craft. An agent who truly cares for his clients, invests in them, and negotiates for a future where authors have better rights is invaluable.
Don!
Sorry for the ridiculous delay — ’tis the season of conference travel for me. I think Delta is about to issue me a uniform. Wings at last.
You’re right exactly. The underlying concern here is that the author with the exploding head (duck) can’t possibly be able to parse what’s a legit “author services” offer and what isn’t. We had a rousing #FutureChat today, in fact (this is 24 April) on the question of the many start-ups that proudly talk of their “new model” while impugning the “old model” they say is “broken.” But that “old model” is profitable and still churning very well, and those “new models” are relatively unproven and often oversold. (Here’s the walkup to the #FutureChat http://bit.ly/1zTNiCH because I know you don’t have enough to read, LOL.)
Your questions are right on the money. Where are the metrics? And as Jane Friedman’s new update of her Pathways to Publication chart shows, who can even sort the many uses of a term such as “partner publishing”?
The reason I’m interested in more transparency at conferences about sponsored appearances is because I think that at least that layer of awareness — “what makes these two panelists different from those two panelists?” — is a start toward helping the head-explodee grasp that there is another energy at work beyond simple expertise in many cases. Again not necessarily something untoward, but definitely something that has put itself onto the panel platform through an expenditure. That much, the boggled attendee can grasp, I think.
Beyond that? Well, beyond that, we have a much harder consideration — to what degree is the industry itself responsible for the naivete of many of the amateurs now jumping in as aspirational writers? How much can we and should we reasonably expect to do? Look how much of that task IS handled by agents who, as you say, aren’t paid without a sale.
It argues, I agree, for agents, and powerfully, as advocates and even protectorates at times for writers. I’m glad to see many independent authors interested in agents. I’m hoping that agents can find a way to make such clients profitable (no easy feat).
And on we go.
Thanks for the comment!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter– Another useful, thought-provoking post, thank you.
The issue of sponsored participants at conferences has two sides, the consumer-writers, and the vendors of services. The consumer needs to come to the conference armed against information/tschotchke overload. This means the writer must have limited, specific objectives before going in. Is the goal to find an editor? Marketer? Book designer? Then that is the vendor or vendors to focus on. Forget the cognitive dissonance generated by all the rest.
I don’t think printing “sponsored” on a name tag is more than CYA for conference organizers who are relying on vendor fees. What someone like you and other publishing-industry professionals can do is to educate consumer-writers in the right questions to ask, and what to listen for from sponsored vendors. The writer’s natural, hopeful wish to find help and believe in those selling services needs to be balanced by a caveat emptor attitude. I speak from painful personal experience: a book marketer I hired turned out to be successful in marketing just one thing, herself.
As for the rubber book, I’m surprised you didn’t know: it’s a sex toy for bibliophiles.:)
Hi, Barry,
And thanks for the comment.
When you write, “What someone like you and other publishing-industry professionals can do is to educate consumer-writers in the right questions to ask, and what to listen for from sponsored vendors,” isn’t that what I’m suggesting?
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Great stuff Porter. I think the best response I could offer is to quote Chesterton, but it speaks more to the issue behind the issue:
“I should say the first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation [between art and advertisement] will entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be advertisement. I do not necessarily mean that there will be no good art; much of it might be, much of it already is, very good art. You may put it, if you please, in the form that there has been a vast improvement in advertisements. …But the improvement of advertisements is the degradation of artists. It is their degradation for this clear and vital reason: that the artist will work, not only to please the rich, but only to increase their riches; which is a considerable step lower. After all, it was as a human being that a pope took pleasure in a cartoon of Raphael or a prince took pleasure in a statuette of Cellini. The prince paid for the statuette; but he did not expect the statuette to pay him. …No one who knows the small-minded cynicism of our plutocracy, its secrecy, its gambling spirit, its contempt of conscience, can doubt that the artist-advertiser will often be assisting enterprises over which he will have no moral control, and of which he could feel no moral approval. He will be working to spread quack medicines, queer investments; and will work for Marconi instead of Medici.”
Now Chesterton was describing the advertising industry itself, but he made his point through the humanity of patronage. What you’re describing is not only authors whose art increases the wealth of the businessman, but who also pay the businessman for the privilege—again in enterprises over which he has no moral control. Unchecked, the problem compounds upon itself.
It is, in effect, a double insult—for the artist is now, in America, both patron and client. And since he has both the responsibility of the patron and the poverty of the client, his only recourse is to expand his empire unto international fame on the battered wings of the renown created by the many he employs and the few whose souls he happens to enrich along the way. Only then, as a celebrity in his industry, can he afford to retire in peace AND paint (or write) what pleases him.
This client-as-patron is what we mean when we modern Americans say “starving artist,” but make no mistake—the starving artist did not design this famine. Any client knows the odds are thin if he seriously hopes to become a successful patron and the artist is no exception. That he begins as both in this climate? Faced with this path he might as well create in solitude, for he no longer finds middle ground between success and failure. His choice is to between becoming a debtor prince by hiring out his superior’s patronage or a patronless client wandering in search of an audience. Otherwise he must pack up his toys and go do something else.
And when he does give up and is reduced to creating between his hours working some other trade, we Americans will be eagerly waiting to celebrate him dying young from an overdose or suicide or a broken heart and then, like crows, devour the last manuscript found beneath the mattress.
Or am I being too dramatic? I don’t think I am, but I do think I’m speaking more to the issue •behind• the one you raised in this very interesting post of yours…
Hi, Porter:
It is a sign of my fundamental idiocy that I not only have never been sponsored by a publisher to attend a conference — despite Penguin’s interest in generating buzz for THE ART OF CHARACTER — I didn’t even realize this existed.
Like I said. Idiocy.
I’ve generally been asked to attend conferences because someone else has recommended me to the selection committee, and they’ve liked my proposals. I’m often invited back because of participant evaluations, which typically put me in the “informational AND inspirational;” category.
I agree with Don that measurables are important, but as a fledgling indie editor my credentials remain modest. My best calling cards are my book(s), those student and participant evaluations, and word of mouth from previous students and conference participants who’ve attended my seminars.
But how would the average conference attendee know whether I’m sponsored or not? No clue. Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for this, Porter. I haven’t been to a ton of writer’s conferences, but enough to know the subtle distinction in feeling when someone is speaking mainly to sell a product — without too much that I, as an author, can take away from it other than that this product would be awesome. I don’t like sitting through a “just plain” sales pitch in the form of a plenary session, but I understand that they are an important part of funding for conferences, especially as they get larger, so I just text my husband or write notes about things I’m thinking about during those. An asterisk with *Sponsored* in programs would be great.
Your piece also made me think about a Craig Ferguson bit about Hollywood “helpers”: “problems that do not exist, and they solve them for you, and you pay them for that.” Now, I know that in this fast-changing publishing environment, problems get created all the time, but so do fantastic author-focused organizations where authors will happily point other authors to great resources — for free. And, oh, what is available from a Google search is glorious. When we are not all bound up in fear-responses, authors are a tremendously generous group of folks.
Reading your post reminds me of my experience at the few conferences here in the local Canadian scene I’ve attended. Conferences are a great place to go and meet others in the industry, and a great place to learn. I think what you get out of it depends all on what you expect heading into it.
If your goal is just to get published, then it’s going to be easy to fall victim to the editor-prey cycle. As you put it, Porter, there are so many services out there and people trying to make money off the Indie revolution that it is so hard to tell what’s safe and what’s not safe. Just as writers go to conferences looking for a home for their book, those who want to make money off writers go to these conferences knowing this is a prime spot to find clients.
I tend to rely on word of mouth myself, the test of time, and measurable credentials, and in order to do that I need to have time to shop around. If I’m looking for editing services or publishing options, I don’t like to jump in with two feet at the first opportunity I get. So far, the Author Accelerator program, and, recently, putting my debut up as an Inkshares project, are two services that I’ve utilized, and none of these have come from conventions. There is an editor who I consult and have hired to look at some of my work, and I met him at a convention, but not where he was shopping around his services. I attended a panel where various editors talked about the importance of editing, and was immediately impressed by how helpful he was an how much wisdom he possessed about storytelling. I did some digging afterward and found out he’s also a Tor Books author under a pseudonym and has been editing for 20 years. There was no mention of that, and no sales pitch. He was just up there showing what he has to offer, and respectfully leaving it up to authors to decide if they like that they see.
That’s become my yardstick now. Is there a lot of smoke and mirrors? Is there a lot of desperation, an eagerness to get me on board? If there is, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as soon as I see that I want to know credentials. What other work has this person or service done that merits such claims? These are some good questions to ask. Offering to do something and actually doing it are two different things, and sadly, I’ve been on the receiving end of empty service that came to a cold end as soon as the money was paid.
An important post, Porter.
Care for some finely honed cynicism, courtesy of the deceptions I fell for in my past career?
Yes, sponsorship should be disclosed, and not just in the fine print but at all points of persuasion. Writers should also know their vulnerability, and that school smarts or writing talent may not be enough to protect them from an agenda, especially if they aren’t sufficiently skeptical.
It takes almost nothing–a free pen with a drug company logo, a sponsored pizza lunch–to change the prescribing habits of a physician. Add in salespeople’s half-truths, lies of omission, and you get situations like the recall of Vioxx. (The literary equivalent? Maybe Author Solutions.) This is why sponsorship is being banned entirely from some medical schools and hospitals.
Those dietary guidelines and studies you read about in the NYT? Many people, probably including the reporters, don’t know that the studies are often designed for specific outcomes and funded by companies which will benefit from the–surprise!–recommended use of their product.
So if sponsorship is going to stay in publishing conventions, it needs to be as transparent as possible. AND writers need to learn, ASAP, to run advice through the filter of their own common sense. Also, to spot what is NOT being disclosed, because that’s often where hidden dangers lie.
Porter Anderson,
We rely on people like you to blog about this topic.