New authors test festival’s offerings
By John Guigayoma
April 24, 2008 9:01 p.m.
For most emerging writers, it takes more than a good book, a tiny back-cover biography and a grinning mug shot to break out of anonymity.
While more seasoned authors can sell books through a devoted fan base or name recognition alone, new authors must build up their own readership from scratch. Once the author’s first or second book hits the shelves, appealing to readers can mean the difference between the current book and the next.
For today’s demanding readership, new writers must physically put themselves out into the world. Book promotion ““ through fairs, talks, interviews, readings, articles and reviews ““ becomes a priority, and if a new writer is really lucky, he or she will keep busy ““ very busy.
“You have a month or two months when life is so much faster and life is just a bombardment from both sides,” said Charles Bock, a first-time author at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books who is coming to promote his book, “Beautiful Children.” “There could be three or four interviews a day, and a book signing, and you fly somewhere else. Your job is to promote.”
The Festival of Books, ranking in as the country’s largest event of its kind with an estimated 140,000 attendees and more than 450 authors, places more eyes on new writers than they have ever come to expect.
For young authors attending the festival for the first time, the sudden transition from smaller fairs, quiet readings and answering reader e-mails to public panels and awards with hundreds in attendance can be daunting.
Irish mystery author Tana French knows this feeling well. This is also her first time stepping foot on festival grounds, and her goal is to promote her second book, “The Likeness.”
“I constantly feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just bopping along, hoping that it works,” she said. Like many young writers, promoting the first book began as a small operation, but after the growing publicity French began to receive for her first book, “In the Woods,” she can count herself among the lucky few new authors who have gained rising publicity.
“It was just me, a few notebooks, a computer and my fiance, and he was sort of a first manager,” French said. “All of a sudden people started to go, “˜You have a review here and an interview here.’ I suddenly realized that it’s no longer a solo process. In a lot of ways it’s no longer about you the writer. It’s about the interaction between the reader and the book.”
The elimination of anonymity is another one of the biggest adjustments for a new author. New writers must come to terms with not only how the public sees their books, but also how the public sees the writers themselves.
“The assumption is that people are there to look at and talk to and engage with me,” French said. “It’s a very weird idea that people are interested in me. I like the idea that the book is interesting, but I didn’t know that I was.”
Chinese writer Lijia Zhang, who is promoting her second book, “”˜Socialism Is Great!’: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China,” Zhang shared similar feelings, especially after growing up as a Chinese worker in the 1980s.
“I came from such a low background,” Zhang said. “I’m not well-connected. I’m not rich. I’m not beautiful. I’m just very ordinary.”
A planning committee considers first-time authors but determines who they should invite mostly based on what new books will pique audiences’ interest, explained Maret Orliss, programming manager for the Festival of Books. They read through thousands of applications for authors to attend.
The result is a mix of writers from different points in their careers, including those with enough fame to sell books without attending the festival, such as Gay Talese, Ray Bradbury and Mary Higgins Clark.
The audience appeal of more well-known authors can also pull new readers into an emerging writer’s work, especially during panels, which place upcoming authors with seasoned writers on the same stage.
In Bock’s “Urban Renewal” panel Saturday, he will share the stage with novelist Richard Price and National Public Radio personality Scott Simon, both names that may draw a bigger audience.
“It’s nice to think that there’s going to be a crowd, that it’s a huge population,” Bock said. “Some of them are going to trip over me.”
The panel is an important moment for emerging authors because it means a chance for valuable face time between the writer and potential readers. Authors go from editing their ideas for the page to unrehearsed public discussion, and the event can be nerve-wracking.
“I was very nervous (at one panel), but once I started I just decided to be myself. When I speak I don’t even have notes; I don’t want to seem pretentious and use all this literary jargon,” said Zhang, who will be attending the “Memoir: Other Places, Other Lives” panel on Sunday.
The festival also serves as a platform for new foreign authors who would normally never get such a huge U.S. audience. Zhang not only plans to promote her book but also hopes to use the festival as an opportunity to share her perspective on the tension between China and the West.
“I do see the two sides of view. I’m glad to have my voice heard in America, and I’m glad to be able to see my readers or help others see what I see,” Zhang said.
But for new authors, the festival is not purely business. The publishing world is a risky field to begin with ““ though an author’s book sells, his next may not ““ and authors are not always focused on the chance to make money.
“I don’t think a majority of authors coming to this festival are saying first and foremost, “˜I have to get this many fans and make this much money out of an event,'” Orliss said.
For both author and reader, a good book is ultimately transcendent. The experience of an effective work surpasses the questions of the private writer and the public figure.
“It would be absolutely lovely if I had the financial security to write another book, but no one in their right mind is writing literary novels for fortune and fame,” Bock said. “You write a novel because, at some point, a book has changed your life.”
