Marketing for Playwrights at KACTF in Durham, NH on Friday

Tomorrow I'm off to Durham, New Hampshire, for the day.  I'm going to the Region 1 meeting of the American College Theatre Festival at UNH, which has already been going on for a few days.  I'll co-lead a marketing workshop for young playwrights with fellow playwright, Steven Bergman.  I'm looking forward to it--I love talking about marketing for writers.

While I'm at the festival, I hope to sit in on a directing workshop led by Adam Zahler, and also catch the dramaturg luncheon.

Even though the ACTF is really for college students, it's actually a huge opportunity for local theatre folk to catch some interesting workshops.  You can get a day pass for $30.  There are lots of workshops for playwrights and shows and acting to watch.  If you're a playwright with some free time, it's a great way to learn something and see some rising theatrical talent.

Tornado Siren Marketing: What I've Done So Far

I'm trying to stick with my plan of 30 minutes a day on marketing my novel, Tornado Siren, and 30 minutes on screen stuff. So far, I've spent more than 30 minutes on the book mostly making a list of exactly what I've done so far, so I can get my head around what's worked and what hasn't. Next I need to make up a list of what I want to try next (and then actually do it).

So, here's what I've done so far:

• Designed and printed post card. Got 5,000 copies. Have about 1,800 left.
• Mailed out post card to a couple hundred people. Gave away lots more.
• Got www.tornado-siren.com web domain registered. Put together a web site for the book.
• Set up an Amazon Day, where I e-mailed all my friends and family and encouraged them to buy on the same day (in the hopes of increasing the Amazon ranking, and thus gaining more notice). It worked pretty well (we got to #484 overall, and in the top 100 for fiction). Not sure how many we sold, but it was close to 100. This was the most successful book selling that I’ve done, and really fun, too, because it reconnected me with a lot of old friends.
• Came up with a list of all bookstores in Oklahoma. Called most of them and then had publisher send them advance copies. Didn’t seem to accomplish much—I don’t know if they’re currently carrying the book.
  
• Worked out a deal with an Omaha bookstore to offer a discount on the book with a ticket stub from a play festival (in which I had a play). The theatre offered a discount to patrons who brought a copy of the book. Sent post cards to the theatre to give out. Didn’t seem to generate many sales.
• Did a signing at a Washington, D.C. theatre festival where I had a play. Learned, the hard way, that having the signing after the show is a bad idea. Intermission would have sold a lot more books. I also tried setting up a cross promotional deal with area bookstores, but they weren’t interested.
• My parents and my in-laws have all sold dozens of books for me to their friends and co-workers. Not unlike as if I was a Girl Scout selling cookies. I have to say, these readers have been some of the most appreciative that I’ve encountered.
• Did another signing at a play reading event. I signed books at intermission and sold half a dozen or so, which felt good.
• Set up my first book store signing, at the MIT Coop bookstore. It was an early signing, 5:30pm, which was problematic, but it was my first, so I got about a dozen people, who bought almost 20 books. This store rarely does events, so they were pleased with the turnout. I’d postered all around campus and sent tons of e-mails. The e-mails helped but the posters did nothing.
• I set up signings at other bookstores: Harvard Coop (good audience, decent sales, great staff), Book Ends in Winchester (local flooding was a problem, but 2 people showed), Salem (driving rain kept away all but 2 people), and two signings at a Barnes & Noble in Worcester (where the books were sold on consignment)—the first one was great, with coverage in the local paper (though the article brought in only 1 person) and my wife’s book club showing up. The second signing brought in only 1 person.
• I tried to get signings at half a dozen other stores in the Boston area, but was turned down.
• Went to a local weather conference, and gave out a few post cards and made a possible contact at a book store, but sold no books. (Started to figure out that weather geeks are more interested in non-fiction around tornadoes than fiction.)
• Got a copy to a meteorologist friend, who is friends with the publications director of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). This landed me a nice blurb in the Bulletin of the AMS. This, in turn, got the book noticed and mentioned by the Weather Guys, who write a blog for USA Today. I wrote to people that I knew had read the book and asked them to write comments to the blog, and got a great response (28 comments). The coverage sold a few books, and word popped up on another blog, but that was about it. (I had fantasies of it catching fire from this coverage.)
• The book got three reviews (Curled Up With a Good Book, Romance Junkies, and Publishers Weekly) thanks to my publisher’s efforts, and I got one from a playwright binge writer (on Ink19, which was my very favorite). All were positive, but all were on-line only, and it’s unclear if they lead to many sales. We still haven’t had an actual print review. (The best print coverage I got was in Worcester.)
• I tried my Boston Globe contacts, but they only write about theatre (and not about playwrights writing books).
• I researched all the big media markets, looking for weather forecasters who were black and/or female, and gave this list to my publisher (my main character is a black, woman meteorologist), who sent out copies. We also sent one to Al Roker. Never heard a peep from this. (I’d hoped at least one might read it and like it.)
• I searched Yahoo for groups interested in romance novels (mine has a romance in it, but isn’t a “romance novel”) and groups interested in tornadoes. I joined a couple, made an initial post or two, but didn’t find a way to make any progress. I still feel like this could pay off, but I must be missing something.
• I gave books away as raffle items, to my daughter’s school, and to the weather conference I attended. This didn’t really seem to lead to anything further.
• I contacted some of the biggest stormchaser web sites, and even got a nice mention on StormTrack.org, which is a biggie. Sold a couple books that way.
• Sent books to a bookstore in Denver, where my old theatre company, Chameleon Stage, was having a signing of some of our collected monologues. (I should follow up with them.)
• Went to NYC for two signings sponsored by my publisher. Unfortunately they were at odd times, on weekdays (one in a restaurant that changed its name that very week, so was tough to find). We had half a dozen authors or more at each event, but the audience was entirely made of spouses and people that I’d e-mailed (and just a handful of them). I don’t know that any books were sold.
• Got my publisher to enter the book in both the Massachusetts and Oklahoma state book awards competitions. (My publisher paid for all the books.) But I didn’t win.
• I set up an interviews with shows on a Worcester Community Access TV channel, but for the first one, the producer never showed up, and the second one got canceled. It started becoming clear that it wasn’t worth the gas, so I let it go.
• I participated in an author’s weekend sponsored by my local library, where I got to do a reading and a signing. My friends and neighbors came out in support, and I sold about half a dozen books. There might be some ongoing contacts that come from this event. (We might start a book show on the Brookline community cable channel. We’ll see.)
• Put in requests with my local libraries to carry the book. (And had family members do the same.) They did buy the book and it’s now often checked out.
• Sent a copy to my screenwriting agent/manager in Hollywood, with the hopes that it might lead to it getting optioned by someone. Nada.

That's mostly it. Mostly I've learned that selling a first novel, by an unknown author is very, very, very, very difficult.

I'm certainly interested in suggestions/ideas (other than, "get it on Oprah.")

In The Dumps: Need a new plan

A friend scored a copy of the Bookscan sales report for my novel, Tornado Siren, last night, which was both helpful (good to be reminded of the reality) and depressing (reality bites). The book got off to a good start when it came out early last year, but since then sales have been slow. I've had a lot of experience marketing plays and play productions, but trying to sell books has been a whole new thing.

I've sold a lot of books just on my own to friends and family, which has been enormously helpuful. But most of those don't show up in Bookscan (which is what editors and agents can look at to see how well my book fared). I'm with a very small publisher, so their marketing and distribution power is tiny, and now that the book has been out for a while, it will be very hard to get additional reviews and press. (We're hitting the hot patch of tornado season, which might help make people interested in Tornado Siren.)

So I felt depressed for a while last night (you know--I suck, no one is ever going to read or buy this book again, I should have been working harder, I waste too much time, what an idiot, I don't know what the hell I'm doing), but I know that I just need to make a plan and get to work.

I'm in the midst of writing a new novel, so time is short. But I think I'm going to shoot for spending 30 minutes every day marketing Tornado Siren, and 30 minutes on screenplay marketing. I'll try this for the next 30 days and see how it's going. (My own little marketing binge.) I haven't spent much time at all on marketing either of these aspects of my work this year, but if I don't do the work, the stuff won't sell (duh).

Mailbox Ups and Downs

The mailmain brought bad and good news today. I got a rejection that I'd been expecting from the Boston Theatre Marathon. Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass was kind enough to include a very nice personal note. I don't know how she does it. I've had plays in four previous Marathons, and it's been a very valuable experience. The Marathon is one of my very favorite theatrical events, with 50 ten-minute plays, by 50 New England writers, produced by 50 different theatre companies. The event has a tremendous positive energy, and it's a great way to check out work by so many actors and companies operating in my area. Hopefully I'll get a show in next year. (I also got a query rejection from Trinity Rep, but they said they'd look at more of my plays, so that's not so bad.)

On the plus side, I got a modest check (about $70) for a signing I did of Tornado Siren at Barnes & Noble in Worcester last August. (Talk about slow.) When you're a very small fish like me, sometimes you have to do signings on consignment (not ideal at all), and I managed to sell some books. Incoming funds are always good news. It mostly reminds me that I need to get off my butt and try hustling the book a little more again.

good news: Fade In advancement

This is only the tinest bit of good news, but I found out (by visiting their web site and hunting), that my screenplay, The Carrier, has advanced to the semi-finals of the Fade In Screenwriting Awards. This means it's in the top 90 scripts (there wer 574 quarter-finalists). I'm not quite sure when they'll announce the winners, but I've got my fingers crossed. A top 3 finish would bring in a little cash and some attention for the script.

I really need to do a screenplay submission binge. I've got four feature-length screenplays that are finished and in desperate need of being bought and filmed. I need to get my resources together and start sending out at least a query every day. (Maybe next week...)

Last Day of Binge #10

Today was the final day of the 10th Playwright Submission Binge. This is a (Yahoo) group of writers who agree to take on the marketing challenge of submitting a play every day, for 30 days. I started this group about five years ago, as a way to make my marketing chores a little more fun, and to build an additional sense of accountability. Over the years, the group has grown to more then 300 (though only a fraction of those actively post and binge). We do submission binges twice year, once in the spring and again in the fall.

For Binge #10, I sent out 26 scripts and 53 queries, and I actually managed to submit every single day of the 30 days (I don't always succeed in this).

About a year ago, I asked folks how much success they'd from past binges, and just from 14 writers we'd had 140 productions and 31 awards (which includes honorable mentions, finalists, etc.) from binge submissions. I'm sure the number is much higher now. This year the group submitted many hundreds of scripts and queries to theatres all around the world.

The best part is that it's turned into this very supportive community of writers, who interact all year about writing and marketing for theatre.

Why Contest Fees Don't Make Sense (for Playwrights)

The topic of submission fees for playwriting contests has become the fallback topic online (and perhaps in person) for playwrights, coming in right behind bitching about critics. I posted this back in January on the Playwright Binge list, but it seemed worth revisiting.

The main problem with most contest fees for play competitions, especially for short play competitions, is that they don't make sense for the playwrights or for the theatres (or for audiences).

For playwrights, it's a cost/benefit problem. Generally, when you enter a contest for which you pay a fee, you do so with the expectation that you're taking a risk which has the potential for great gain if you win. And a contest, rather than a lottery, involves some element of skill on your part, so if you (think you) are more talented and/or experienced, you would expect a greater
chance of a win.

Oddly enough, many short play competitions that require entry fees do not offer significant prizes. Often, the winners get a production of the play, and maybe a video. In some instances, the writers might only get staged readings. However, what is the value of these productions to
the writers? The theatres seem to think that a production has a value worth a fair amount of cash, perhaps enough to cause a talented writer to wager $5 or $10.

This isn't really the case. For an experienced playwright, a production of a ten-minute play, in East Podunk, Indiana, which will lead to no further professional productions, no useful contacts, will not generate any useful reviews, and won't even be seen by many people, is not particularly valuable as a prize. If it's in a venue that's close to home, and the playwright can see the show, then the value goes up. But if it's far afield, and the writer can't see it, the writer gets very little from it. And a video? Ever watch a badly produced video of an amateur theatre production? Not so fun. For an beginning playwright, it's useful to have a competition win and a production to put on a resume, but even with these, they're not going to impress the folks at big theatres.

If theatres offer a $500 prize for the winners, then hey, I might be there. Lots of other experienced writers will be, too. But otherwise, the rewards are too low. Writers who are submitting to these competitions are selling themselves short. I don't think this is an
ethical issue, really. I don't care what the theatres do, but it doesn't make sense for most playwrights to participate.

Why is it bad for theatres? Well, because it's bad for writers. And especially bad for experienced writers who can get productions elsewhere (where they get paid, rather than pay the privilege themselves). So what this means is that theatres have created a situation where they have a competition that does not draw in the best material. Ideally, a theatre should want to work with the most talented writers possible, but these competitions are taking away the incentive for these writers to send them this work.

Some theatres introduce fees to keep the volume of submissions down. This is just stupid. Yes, raising fees will bring in less submissions. But it mainly means that you get less varied submissions (class issues at play here, playwrights with spare money are not necessarily better
writers) and a lower quality of submissions. A more effective way to get fewer submissions is to narrow your window, time-wise, when you'll accept submissions. Or narrow the subject matter. Or state in your guidelines that you will only accept the first 200 submissions, and post on your web site when the door is closed.

Why is it bad for audiences? Again, it's bad for audiences because it doesn't encourage submission, and therefore production, of the best possible plays available. In this age of constant media exposure, theatre needs, more than ever, to present exciting, vibrant work of the highest quality. Going to watch a mediocre evening of theatre is worse, I think, than watching a thoroughly wretched evening of theatre. Mediocre theatre makes people feel that "this was nice, but I could just have easily have stayed home and watched something better on TV."

If theatres need to raise more money to put on these festivals, they should pick better plays (from a better pool) and sell more tickets for work that really thrills audiences. If you can't find and produce such work, get out of the business. One of the reasons many ten-minute play
festivals start in the first place is because they can utilize a lot of actors, which means a lot of tickets sales to friends and family, which means it's easier to cover costs.

As to why screenplay competitions charge so much (this is often an excuse used by play contests)--it' s a totally different business. The film business has very few entry points, through which tens of thousands of writers are trying to cram material. Access to producers and agents is a precious commodity. And the best screenplay contests (they're not all created equal), offer big cash prizes for your $50. Some of them might have as much as $30,000 in total prize money, as well as guaranteed reads by agencies or production companies (who are named on the competition web site or brochure). The ones that don't offer this are a complete waste of money.

The good news for playwrights is that there are tons of theatres out there, large and small, and lots of opportunities to get our work produced and seen by audiences. We need to save our money, buy theatre tickets, and go network afterwards with the producers and directors and
actors.