Making Direct "Asks"

Why authors talk about pre-orders (or beg friends to post reviews) and why learning to ask is a dreaded requirement

No writer I know likes asking for things. Then again, does anyone—aside from born salespeople and politicians—enjoy it?

I’ll make my ask first. Then I’ll invite you into this week’s sausage factory to let you see how writing careers (and bestsellers) are made, including all the asks we need to make over time.

Today’s ask: especially if you haven’t bought a copy of THE DEEPEST LAKE, and it interests you, would you consider clicking that button or walking into your local bookstore this week? (Barnes & Noble has piles of my book. Eegadz, I’m sick with excitement. I mean…these stacks are amazing. But now they have to sell!)

Photo posted on Instagram by an anonymous B&N bookseller

By the way, this is a mother-daughter story that would be appropriate as a Mother’s Day gift!

Plus, the new paperback has an exclusive excerpt of my next book, What Boys Learn!

I’ll tell you why the timing matters, in a minute.

Notice I’m not also asking you to attend my online Barnes & Noble event (except sneakily, by attaching a link here), because I’ve been told an email should make one ask only.

(But the event IS HAPPENING. TODAY! And I’d be thrilled if you could register and play it in the background while you work or write or drive!)

BESTSELLER LISTS AND HOW IT FEELS TO BE—almost? just barely?— IN THE RUNNING

It feels great! Also, nauseating. So, this week I learned a lot about bookseller lists I didn’t know before. How one actually gets on certain lists is surprisingly complicated—the narrower NYT and longer USA Today lists work differently, just for starters. You’d think it would come down to simple numbers, but nope.

The simplest thing I can tell you is that to get on a NYT trade paperback list, for example, you would have had to sell 7500 copies (but only in the right places) last week.

I know that because I asked my publisher indirectly (lame), and then asked my agent more directly (better) and they were kind enough to look up the latest numbers, while probably realizing they were giving a numbers junkie a dose of her favorite drug. Now I want more numbers. More, more, more!

To get on the USA Today list, I can’t quote a precise figure but somewhere between 5,000-6,500 copies, from Monday through Sunday, has sufficed, at times.

Usually my recent books sell about five to maximum fifty books in a week. The very old ones may sell zero to two.

But because Barnes and Noble picked THE DEEPEST LAKE as a May Monthly Pick and has it prominently displayed at all 600 stores—which required my publisher to also print many more copies than they normally would have—the sales have been excellent, a word that is not typically in my vocabulary.

In one day, more copies sold than for my last book’s paperback edition—ever.

In three days, more copies sold than for my last two books’ paperback editions.

And so on. Once we get through a full week, I don’t doubt the paperback will have sold more than all of my paperbacks.

This places me sitting below the bottom of two bestseller lists, no idea how many more copies I’d need to grab that last rung.

NYT is not going to happen, my publisher told me, because I’m not stocked in Wal-Mart and my print run wasn’t big enough. (But could she be wrong? One has to wonder!)

The other list—USA Today’s, which counts all formats by the way (ebook as well as print)—was within spitting distance, my publisher told me.

Within spitting distance? Help! Then I’d better get busy and keep spitting!!!

My agent agreed. So of course, this has caused me to lose all of the Zen I had managed to muster for many months, detaching myself from all outcomes, because now it seems that a good outcome is close and shouldn't I be doing more?

(Husband’s answer. No, the good outcome already happened.)

(Me: I know. But…………!)

I’m not snooty. I’d be very happy with ANY NATIONAL BESTSELLER LIST.¹

(Me: And I promise I’ll be happy in the long-term without one. But this week I would like to try to reach up and touch one! Even if I can’t hold onto the rung!)

Thus, this newsletter. Thus, this ask.

Because how would I feel if I missed the list by just ten or fifty copies? It would be like losing an election by a hair.

I won’t likely get a B&N Pick again. (They don’t repeat a lot.) This is my shot!

If you’re interested (please do let me know)— in a week or two, I’ll willingly share how close I got. (60%? 85%? A super painful 95%?)

OTHER WHYS BEHIND OTHER ASKS

Often, you will hear authors ask other things specifically. I always like when they explain why. Lately, a lot of my author friends have been asking their supporters to pre-order copies, explaining why these pre-orders matter. (They can help a publisher decide to print more or invigorate a team to promote more, for example.)

We authors, in turn, have to ask all kinds of embarrassing things. Just yesterday, I had to ask an award-winning author to read an uncopyedited copy of my next book, in the hopes of a blurb, and tomorrow, I’ll get off my keester and ask yet another writer for some expert feedback I need. Ugh. I’ve been procrastinating!

Friends or strangers may ask you to write Goodreads and Amazon reviews—short reviews are just fine! This matters the most just as a new title is coming out. Getting those first fifty reviews may help algorithms. It’s certainly an emotional buffer for the middling (or missing) reviews to come.

HOW TO MAKE ASKING EASIER

First, it doesn’t.

Second, you tell yourself it’s circular—a karmic thing by which we all try to help others, knowing we all need help.

Third, think of all the times you have been asked to do something very specific, and then you’ve done it—because you needed that little nudge! (This happens to me constantly.)

HOW TO MAKE GIVING EASIER

You’ve been asked to buy a book. But you can’t afford it. No worries! Requesting a book from the library is also helpful. I’m surprised by how many people think that borrowing from a library doesn’t help an author. It doesn’t get the book on bestseller lists, but it absolutely helps with sales and general authorly resilience!

Years ago, I got embarrassingly emotional in a book signing line, bringing a copy of an author-acquaintance’s several-years-old title up for her to sign. I was so embarrassed to admit I hadn’t bought her book when it first came out. I felt the need to tell her, “I was too broke at the time!” And then I started tearing up. I felt bad for being a bad friend/acquaintance, and simply bad for being poor and unable to do cool things, like support the arts because I had to buy things like food. Those were some lean years. Ramen, tomato paste, bounced checks.

What I didn’t realize is that the author-acquaintance was probably thrilled I was adding to her sale count for the day. Who cares that I’d had to delay. A sale is a sale!

We all want to feel like our actions matter. And we all want to feel connected.

You can only do what you can do.

But if you’re the one on the asking side of things, there are really no excuses, whether you’re an author or any other kind of human being. I’ll be the tough coach and tell you: you have to ask, at times.

Thanks for reading!

1. Here is where I admit I’ve been on two bestseller lists in my life so far. Tulsa, Oklahoma for one week. (Go, Tulsa! Yeah Magic City Books!) And Poland. (Yay, Poland!) Which is a country! But damn, no one has ever chosen to list that fact on any of my book covers!