In Praise of Sponsorships...

I'm a huge fan of sponsorships and product placements. I have absolutely no idea whether other authors like them, but I know that I try to use them as much as possible. They are invaluable to me.

When most writers, particularly unpublished writers, think about their books being published, they instantly think about having a booksigning tour, television appearances, and maybe even being selected by Oprah. In this fantasy world, their book is on the tongue of every reader and the royalty payments never stop. That's not reality.

Most publishers give their books about six weeks worth of attention (if you're lucky) before they move on to their other releases. They MIGHT schedule some telephone interviews for you. They might support a few booksignings. But I think of that as being extras. For me, the most important thing a publisher can do is make sure my book is in the bookstores, which is not a given. Publicity, promotion, without access to the book is like lighting a candle in the wind. It is absolutely useless.

It is VERY difficult to sell ONE book. It is extremely difficult to sell ONE THOUSAND books. It is INCREDIBLY HARD to sell ten thousand books. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to sell over one hundred thousand books. But despite this, it CAN be done. But you have to have a plan. For me, I use sponsorships, and I've seen what can happen when you use sponsorships and when you don't.

For my first book, The Divine Nine, I had a built in audience of black fraternity and sorority members, who were the most likely candidates to purchase. But if I'd relied on simply appealing to this group, The Divine Nine would have sunk within six months. So I wrote a proposal to Lifestyle condoms about funding a tour of historically black colleges and universities, while also talking about safe sex to black college students. That tour helped get my book into the consciousness of the readers I wanted to reach and broadened my sales.

However, with The Ways of Black Folks, I didn't have a sponsor and its sales reflected it. It was critically praised, but it hadn't been put into the consciousness of potential readers, so it sits unread by most of the people I think who would be interested in it. You can write a really good book that no one reads, and unfortunately, that's the fate of most books published.

For Friends With Benefits, I decided to not make the same mistake. One, I secured a sponsorship/product placement deal with American Suzuki, because my character rides a motorcycle and Suzuki would like to reach the burgeoning African American motorcycle riding community. It's a perfect match, and I look forward to helping Suzuki make headways. As I continue to write in this journal, I'll go over my strategy for adding sponsors, hopefully enabling me to use their resources to promote my book.