Why MIRRORED HEAVENS isn’t a bestseller (yet)
Ok, so the book’s done well, and sales are generally strong—but MIRRORED HEAVENS remains a long way from battling its way out of the midlist. And I have to rationally grapple with this fact, because I need to figure out how to market the upcoming mass-market (not to mention the rest of the series). I’ll have a post shortly on stuff I did to market the trade paperback (released last summer), kinda like what my pal David Edelman did here. But in the meantime, I need to think deep.
I need to STRATEGIZE.
And in the hopes this will be helpful to others, I intend to be totally transparent about this.
And here’s what I’ve noticed, going back over the negative reviews (incredibly, there were some!). You’ve got some people who say the book is just pure “combat porn”, with “little to no plot”, and then some people who say the plot was too complex, and they didn’t understand it. Clearly, these directly contradict each other, which I find fascinating, and which leads me to believe that I have a larger challenge. The core military SF audience at whom Bantam aimed the book has yet to entirely embrace MIRRORED HEAVENS; I suspect this is partially because it’s not as Manichean as that audience is used to (there’s no clear line between good guys and bad guys), and also because some of them might be getting lost in the thicket of unfolding conspiracies (because the book is in many ways a spy thriller). At the same time, a lot of folks in the non-mil SF world haven’t looked past the shoot-outs, I suspect, and have been quick to dismiss it as just another kill-crazy action-fest.
So where does that leave me? It leaves me all the more resolved to come up with a marketing strategy that will find a way to crack the lucrative n’ large military SF market, while simultaneously positioning MIRRORED HEAVENS for a breakout into the mainstream/Tom Clancy audiences. Hell, Stephen Baxter himself invoked Clancy’s name in describing the book, and my agent sold it as LeCarre on SF crack, so there’s gotta be a way to crack this code. More on this later—
Tags: marketing, Mirrored Heavens
January 15th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Just my 2 cents and I may be off base but speaking as someone who is;
A- A hardcore scifi reader fan
B- Loved the book
I am frustrated that I have no place to kick the book around and discuss the plot, possibilities, what if’s and to try and figure out what happens next.
There’s plenty of subject matter to discuss in book 1, but where? I can’t do that openly because it involves spoilers. In my opinion Mirrored Heavens needs a spot for detail discussion.
As for “there’s no clear line between good guys and bad guys” this is the HEART of the book. That’s what makes it so good. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe there are no clear good guys………and it has a great following.
As for “unfolding conspiracies” what do u think made me want to turn the page and read on? Who the hell was who here? What side is anyone on? WTF is going on?
That’s what makes good reading.
John
January 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Not a best seller? Wot?
I think that the problem lies in the fact that this kind of stuff is very niche. Think of it this way. Compare normal fiction to fantasy/scifi, how much of the latter books there are compared to other genres? Yes, pretty low.
Then drill down a bit and see how SciFi is doing compared to fantasy, ditto again. Add some weird twists like military action AND espionage with a complex plot.
Now, paradoxically you happen to have incredients of many good books but the problem is that it is a SciFi setting instead of more modern setting.
Just like John said, it was a page turner. There was always something happening. Either it was a turn in plot or a hair rising action scene.
The simpliest way to market is to make sure that there is a lot to offer to very varying readers…
January 17th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I got to do an interview with Dave(hi Dave!) for my now defunct blog site(rescuedbynerds) which I managed to talk io9.com into running a story on it before they went and got super popular.
I think marketing these days for things that aren’t really mainstream is a tough nut to crack. Part of it I guess is placing ads where people who should like this sort of thing will see it like video game magazines or maybe comic books.
I found out about the book from an advance review on a fantasy book review blog which honestly is how I find out about a lot of books I never would have heard of on my own, cause there’s not really a place where cool things like Mirrored Heavens are discussed.
How about the publisher Dave? Don’t they have some sort of master plan or market based research to help out with this?
I think the net is the best place to try to get the word out Dave. I should be writing for a site again by the point Burning Skies hits so I’m happy to help get the word out if I can.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
hey Mike- great to hear from you, sorry that Rescued by Nerds is no more; that’s too bad, as it was a pretty fantastic site. . . I’ll drop you a note offline as well.. .