What If Book Publishers Had Substacks?
Plus, one idea for authors who are on the fence.
What If Book Publishers Had Substacks?
I’ve written fifteen books in the last twenty-five years, published by three of the Big Five publishers, which means that I’m old enough to remember when editors sent marked-up manuscripts through the mail and an author’s “platform” was a list of print magazine and newspaper writing credits. My first publicist complained that some of his authors refused to get an email address. I didn’t have a cell phone on my first book tour. That’s how long I’ve been doing this.
A lot’s changed since then. What hasn’t changed is that publishers—and authors—are still trying to figure out how to reach actual readers, and how to sell books. Kathleen Schmidt wrote a great piece about this recently and talked about how publishers have been primarily in the business of selling books to bookstores, not to readers. They counted on those stores to actually connect books to readers. They counted on newspapers, magazines, and radio shows to build their own audiences and spread the word about new books. Basically, publishers didn’t have to deal with readers directly. They had retailers and media outlets for that.
That worked pretty well, until it didn’t. Blame this in part on the dominance of Amazon, and in part on the decline of traditional media. I used to do dozens of local radio, TV, and newspaper interviews on a book tour. Today? Crickets.
Social media never really delivered on its promise. Authors were told to build up a Twitter following and to beg for pre-orders on Facebook, which was great for a few people but awful for many of us. Publishers posted pictures of book covers on Instagram, often surrounded by ferns or lattes. I don’t think anyone really loved it. (I say this in the past tense as if it’s over. It’s not over, but maybe it’s starting to be over.)
One thing we don’t talk about enough is the emotional toll of the book publicity hamster wheel— Courtney Maum describes it well right here—and whether publishers should be more concerned about preserving an author’s sanity so they can write another book. After all, nobody else can write the books. Only authors can do that part.
So that gets me to newsletters. Some publishers do have mailing lists. What do they send out? Lists of new releases—basically thumbnails of book covers accompanied by catalog copy— and round-ups of media hits.
But what if publishers had their own Substacks? Hear me out.
Launch a Substack on a topic. Crime fiction. Book club reads. Cooking. Big ideas (i.e., influential nonfiction books). Something broad enough to cover a decent chunk of what you publish while still appealing to a particular audience.
Reach deep into your backlist to solicit contributions from authors. Let them write something meaningful that speaks directly to your readers. Could be a Q&A, a book tour diary or day-in-the-life, a review of someone else’s book or movie or podcast, any kind of essay, a funny list…just let writers do what they know how to do, which is write.
Publishers could, of course, contribute their own interesting, thoughtful, behind-the-scenes posts. Anne Trubek does this brilliantly. Just be real. That means no marketing copy, no Tuesday pub date roundups, no lists of media hits or blurbs. Basically, if you’re sending it out to your sales team, don’t put it on your Substack.
Even team up with (gasp!) authors from other publishing houses! Why not promote a book you didn’t publish once in a while? We authors know each other. We’re into cross-pollination.
Why not invite contributions from your readers? Let’s hear from the book clubs, the librarians, and the superfans.
Maybe hire one of your authors, and pay them, using actual money, to sort of curate and run the whole thing, with help and input from in-house.
And hire one of the many illustrators you work with, and also pay them with actual money, to illustrate the Substack. And/or: let in-house marketing/graphics people make interesting illustrations (not just book covers! Be clever!) using their fantastic design skills.
Add some buy buttons to Bookshop.org so you can both track sales and support independent bookstores.
Actually get into conversations with your readers! Find out about them! Publish what they want to read and share and think about. (I repeat: Don’t toss marketing copy at them!) Host some Zoom events for them! Invite them to a special subscriber-only meet-and-greet with the author before or after book tour events! (What if—hear me out—publishers had a big enough newsletter following that they could actually help get a good turnout for an author event?)
Let Substack’s growth and recommendation engines help you find even more readers. Participate in the platform.
Hell, maybe even go paid someday, for a smaller group of superfans! Use the revenue to—I don’t know, pay your contributors!
Is that working? I mean, I don’t know if it’ll work. Find out! And if it does…pick the next topic that represents a decent chunk of what you publish (History? Science? Poetry? Noir?) and start your next Substack. Lather, rinse, repeat.
A word of advice for authors: Team up! You don’t have to do this alone.
Are you an author who thinks you ought to have a newsletter but you just don’t know what to say, or it seems like too much work? Take a lesson from the good old days of blogging and start a group Substack on a topic.
I helped found GardenRant, which is still going strong today thanks to the efforts of a group of horticultural rabble-rousers.
Red Jungle Writers are, in their words: “smart and sassy crime fiction writers who dish on writing and life. It's The View. With bodies.” Love them! Do this!
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YES!! This exact topic has been on my mind a lot lately. Imprints within publishing companies should redirect some social media efforts to Substack. They need to cultivate an audience here.
Thank you for the shout out-- I loved this post and your take on this subject. I would eat up a publisher Substack! Plus then they would see for themselves how much work needs to go into one and perhaps stop telling every and any writer that they should "go start a Substack" without understanding what that entails.