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Two ‘PW Select’ authors arepicked up by Amazon
A quarterly guideto what’s new inself-publishingFull reviews of 37 self-published booksListings for 193new titles
January 2012
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
JANUARY 2, 2012
24
WHEN AMAZON CALLS: TWO SELF
B D P
Recently, two of the self-published titles reviewed in
PW Select
’s inaugural edition in Decem-ber 2010 were picked up by the Amazon Encore publishing imprint. Both are memoirs:Laurel Saville’s
Postmortem
(which has been retitled
Unraveling Anne
) and Tim Anderson’s
Tunein Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
.
PW
spoke with Saville and Anderson about their journeys fromself-publishing to Amazon Publishing, and learned that their experiences—and reactions tothem—were remarkably similar.
Laurel Saville:
UnravelingSelf-Publishing
PW Select
’s review said
Postmortem
“docu-ments [Saville’s] stormy relationshipwith her mother, gifted artist anddesigner Ann Ford, whosocialized with the likes of Marlon Brando and ClaesOldenburg, but whoseschizophrenia, drinking,and drug use led to home-lessness and a tragic end.”Saville began writing thebook while she was in theM.F.A. program at Ben-nington College; her men-tor brought the finishedmanuscript to the atten-tion of his own agent.After a couple of years of submitting it, though, Saville says,“There was lots of praise but no takers,for a variety of reasons that were vagueand undefined. One editor had it for ayear, then declined.”Saville’s marketing background helpedher understand the rejections. “I knewthat other things affected it. For exam-ple, at the time a lot of memoirs werebeing exposed as fraudulent, so some of the publishers were skittish. And later, Iwondered if it would have been betterreceived by a West Coast editor, becausethe book was set in Los Angeles.”When her agent had exhausted all theoptions, Saville decided to self-publish,using iUniverse in 2010. Fortunately, asa corporate communications profes-sional, Saville, who resides in upstateNew York, understands self-promotion,branding, and presentation. “I made sureI purchased high-quality editing andproofreading services, and hired a greatgraphic designer in Los Angeles. I hiredtwo different book publi-cists: one did the tradi-tional PR stuff, and shegot some nice reviews, afeature in the Albany Sun-day paper, magazines, andsome blogger interest. Theother publicist specializedin social media, both tra-ditional and user-gener-ated contentsites. Andbecause I have amarketingbackground, Imade sure I had a very com-prehensive Web site.”Another element of hermarketing strategy includedsubmitting her book to theDecember 2010
PW Select
forreview. “I thought it lookedlike a great opportunity and a great bar-gain—and obviously it was a pretty goodinvestment.” On January 3, 2011, Savillereceived an e-mail: “It said, ‘I saw yourbook reviewed in
PW Select
and thoughtI’d download and read a chapter or two.When I looked up, it was four hourslater!’” The sender was Terry Goodman,senior editor at the Amazon Encoreimprint.The Los Angeles connection bore fruit:Saville later found out that Goodmangrew up in Los Angeles. In addition, the
LA TimesMagazine
recently commis-sioned an adaptation of the book, whichappeared in its December 3 issue; Savillereports that its editor praised the way shecaptured an L.A. scene that’s gone now.Released on November 1 under thenew title
Unraveling Anne: A Memoir of My Mother’s Reckless Life and Tragic Death
(so retitled to avoid confusion with thePatricia Cornwell title
Postmortem
), Sav-ille says that the book received a newcover, light editing, and a few changes tothe prologue. Otherwise, she says, ”Thereis no perceptible difference from theoriginal.” Since the book’spublication, Saville and herbook were twice mentioned in
New York Times
articles aboutAmazon Publishing.“I found Amazon Encore tobe very professional. And Ifind them to be extremelyauthor-focused, so much sothat other authors’ eyes popopen when I tell them. Evenmy agent says I would not havegotten this much support from a tradi-tional publisher. Their attitude is, theauthor always wins.”Sales figures were not available at presstime; however, Saville noted that “basedon Amazon sales rank on December 7and 8, it’s doing phenomenally well: theprint version is #1 in the Memoir/Family& Childhood category, and #9 in the
S E L F - P U B L I S H I N G
-PUBLISHED AUTHORS REFLECT
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM
25
S E L F - P U B L I S H I N G
Kindle store in the Biographies & Mem-oirs/Women category.” She is hopefulabout holiday sales: “That’s part of whythey put it on sale in November, and it’sworking. I see buyers mentioning thatthey’ve bought multiple copies as gifts.”For her next project, Saville says she’sworking on a novel based on an incidentin
Unraveling Anne
, and her agent is try-ing to place some essays. “And, yes, she’smy original agent. I’ve been with herabout eight years, and she was supportiveof my self-publishing. When I told herabout the Amazon Encore deal, I askedher how much I owed her, and she said,‘You owe me nothing—I didn’t get youthe contract.’ She’s not jealous or territo-rial. I keep saying I hope I get a moviedeal—not for myself, but for her.”Saville’s advice to self-publishedauthors: “Make the best, best,
best
prod-uct you can. That means getting itedited, proofread, and a good coverdesign. Badly produced books—full of typos and grammatical errors—bringdown the whole group. If you wantsomeone else to take your work seriously,you have to take it seriously first.”There’s also a family connection thathelps erase any doubt about self-publish-ing. “My brother-in-law is the head of the prints and rare books department atChristie’s New York. He says the self-published editions of well-knownauthors’ books are highly sought after ascollector’s items, because they were pro-duced in such limited quantities. Rightafter I ceased publishing
Postmortem
, Isaw it listed used on Amazon, as high as$175,” Saville reports, with a lengthy,hearty laugh. “So it’s such a horriblething that I self-published, right?”
Tim Anderson:
Out of the Rut
Initially, Anderson’s manuscript for
Tunein Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
was shoppedaround by an agent. As Anderson recalls,“We got lots of nice responses, but wher-ever we pitched, the marketing depart-ments vetoed everything.They couldn’t decide how tomarket it, or where it would goon the shelf, etc. So after a fewyears of pitching, my agentsaid she’d done all she coulddo.”At the time, althoughAnderson had started writinganother book, he says, “I had anagging feeling: I
know
there’s a marketfor this book. I work for a book packagerand when the topic of self-publishingcame up, my boss said, ‘Do it!’ I wentwith Amazon CreateSpace. I chose thedesign myself, and had it proofread andedited by an editor friend of mine.”Anderson published
Tune in Tokyo
in June 2010. “I sent it out and did getreviewed a few times here and there, butthe book got no traction at all. I was try-ing to get people to pay attention–andthen I saw the
PW Select
announcement.”In its review,
PW Select
described thebook: “When Anderson decides his life inNorth Carolina is in a rut, he chooses tomake a dramatic change and moves to Japan to teach English, as he chroniclesin this hilarious, enlightening, andinsightful memoir. Anderson is tall,white, and extremely gay—all thingsthat distinguish him from the averageperson in Japan.”But that wasn’t all.
PW
’s Adam Boretzalso contacted Anderson: “Hesaid it was one of the bestreviews in the issue andwanted to profile me.”Boretz’sprofile appeared in the sameissue, and the two piecesresulted in a call, and a pub-lishing offer, from AmazonEncore’s Terry Goodman.“I knew that once I got in
PW
there might be some interest, but Ididn’t know it could happen so fast. Terryasked, ‘When do you want this book out?’I said, in time for Christmas, and it wasdone. It came out on November 29[2011].”Anderson describes working withAmazon Encore as “pretty incredible.They have an
incredible
editorial and mar-keting team. There was no developmen-tal editing, just copyediting. They con-sulted me about the new cover. My origi-nal was much simpler because I’m not adesigner and I did it myself. They tookmy cover, reduced the character, and over-laid the Japanese imperial flag over theTokyo skyline. It’s very striking, and Icould imagine it leaping off the shelf tograb people’s eyeballs. I get a lot of com-pliments on the cover.”In its categories (Travel/Tokyo; Gay &Lesbian /Travel; and Gay & Lesbian/Biog-raphies & Memoirs), Anderson reportsthat even after only a week in print, thebook has been #1 quite often in both theprint and Kindle versions. “I’m hopingthat people will buy it as gifts, especially Japan fans—there are a lot of those. That’swhy I wanted it available at the end of November.”Next, Anderson is writing anothermemoir, which he calls “a gay, diabetic,New Wave memoir of adolescence in the’80s.” As of now, he has no agent: “I planon submitting my next manuscript toTerry and hopefullycontinuing my rela-tionship with them.”“My advice to otherself-published authorsis to take advantage of whatever opportunitiesyou might find,”Anderson says. “I hadhoped to get a largeraudience, but I wanted to find the audi-ence myself. I almost didn’t do the
PW Select
thing because you had to pay. But Ikind of hit the jackpot when I did
PW
.This has exceeded my expectations.”
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