Marketing with Mandy ~ EC ~Raelene Gorlinsky, Publisher

Marketing with Mandy ~ Raelene Gorlinsky, Publisher

Since Marketing with Mandy generally focuses on tips and tricks to help authors market themselves I thought it would be fun to get the publishers point of view on it all. I’d like to extend a great big thank you to Raelene Gorlinsky for joining us here today. For anyone who has been living under a rock and doesn’t know who Ellora’s Cave Publishing is and what they do, could you please tell them a little bit about the company and yourself?

Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc. actually encompasses three imprints:

Ellora’s Cave – erotic romances

Cerridwen Press – mainstream genre fiction: romance, mystery/suspense, futuristic/sci-fi, paranormal, women’s fiction, historical fiction

The Lotus Circle – metaphysical/psychic fiction and non-fiction

What is EC in the market for from authors? What would you like to see more of? Less of?

At EC, we run various special themed series, and are always looking for stories to fit in those. We have our Ellora’s Cavemen anthologies—four books a year, six stories in each. We had three special short stories this year (Valentine Vixens, Naughty Nuptials, Tricks and Treats); for 2008 we are doing a monthly set of short stories based on the birthstones. Our Torrid Tarot series runs into early 2008. A new continuity scifi/futuristic series has just started—Hunters for Hire. You can find info on all these in our Calls for Submissions, which you can download from our website.

At Cerridwen, we are looking for more historical fiction and especially for our Cerridwen Cotillion traditional Regency romances. We also want more mystery/suspense and science fiction (non-romance).

Less of? We get way too many category-style romances, and too many supposed erotic romances that are from writers who do not really understand what the genre is and what the readers want—they are sending what’s basically non-sensual, non-romantic raunchy sex.>>

What do you feel is the single most important thing an author can do to promote their work, after writing a “killer” book of course?

Have a great website that really interests readers and update it frequently to bring readers back again and again – and publicize that website.

What publicity can authors contracted through EC/Cerd expect from the publisher on their behalf?

We focus most of our marketing efforts and money on promoting the imprints and all books overall, so that all our authors benefit, not just a few books. We do advertise our special projects and new lines. We advertise heavily in RT magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and a bunch of others, and do banner ads on popular sites. We maintain a MySpace page, and are looking to set up a group blog for our authors. Our Art Department will create ad layouts for our authors when they buy ads in magazines. We also organize group book signings and other events to publicize the books and authors.

What online promoting do you feel is the most effective? Blogs? Chats? Virtual Booksignings? Blog Tours? Websites? Myspace? Ect?

I don’t really have any facts or statistics to support what venues are the most effective. I’m not a blog reader, but I know they are very popular now. Websites are critically important to provide information about available and upcoming books to your readers.

What types of advertising do you credit part of EC’s success to (strictly marketing speaking, we know that the people in the company also determine success)

For print books, advertising in the magazines appropriate to the genre is highly effective. For ebooks, our own websites are the most effective promotional venues.

What opportunities does EC offer their authors so they can promote/publicize along with the publisher? ie Joint paying of ads, ect

We provide ad creation support, print cover flats and sometimes posters, and supply free print books to certain book signings (BEA, RWA National literacy signing). We also help organize joint advertising opportunities, such as the book cover card decks and group magazine ads.

What conferences does EC attend? Do you feel author attendance at these conferences is beneficial to their career? Why?

We attend a number of RWA regional conferences, RWA National, a few other writer conferences, the annual RT convention, and Book Expo America. We’d like to get involved in more conferences in other genres, not just romance, for our CP and TLC imprints.

Does EC encourage authors to send in promo materials like cards and bookmarks for company use? ie in the tour bus for EC signings? to send out with print book orders? If yes, how many should authors send in?

We don’t actively ask for promo materials to be sent to us, it seems more effective for authors to use them at book signings and conferences and in their own correspondence with readers. But if authors do send us such material, we include it with books we ship out to fill individual orders.

What aspects of your job do you think it would surprise authors to hear?

Oh, gee, I don’t really know what authors understand about the details of my job, so I don’t know what would surprise them. A huge amount of my time is spent handling emails from everyone about everything.

Does EC offer catalogs/promotional items for author use when going to booksignings and for general promotional efforts? What is the procedure for attaining/requesting such items?

We have promo items and print book catalogs. Authors can contact the Sales & Promo Department to request.

Are there services offered to authors by EC that they generally don’t take advantage of and maybe don’t know about?

Cheerleading, encouragement, and help in analyzing their sales and looking at the marketability of their books. An author can always contact their editor or me for such discussions. Sometimes it does mean we have to tell the author things they may not want to here – for example, “your stories in genre X just don’t sell as well” or “sales are declining on this series, I think you’ve stretched it out too long”. Authors can and should, of course, be tracking the monthly sales figures on each of their titles and “learning” from that, but often discussing it with someone at the publisher helps clarify things.

Not all authors may be aware that they can submit articles for consideration to be included in our monthly e-newsletters. The article should not be promo about their book, but rather on a topic of interest to our readers. Just having your name out there in the newsletter is good promo.

Thank you for joining us, Raelene!

CONTEST: Monday-Friday of this week– anyone who comments on ANY of the posts for Marketing with Mandy’s Ellora’s Cave Publisher Spotlight (going on all week long) will be entered to win a download of their choice from Mandy’s Ellora’s Cave backlist and Michelle’s Ellora’s Cave backlist. (There will be two winners, each selecting one download)

To enter: Comment on the blog in a Marketing with Mandy Ellora’s Cave Spotlight post this week! The more you enter, the more chances you have to win. Winners will be selected on SUNDAY and announced on the blog.

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