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Local fairs, Facebook replacing the book tour

Phila. Free Library's book festival this weekend hosts writers well-known and obscure.

Robyn Schneider says authors need "a range of online stuff."
Robyn Schneider says authors need "a range of online stuff."Read moreFrom book cover

The Free Library of Philadelphia's book festival this weekend boasts a slew of impressive headliners, including Oprah biographer Kitty Kelley and Sapphire, whose novel, Push, inspired the Oscar-winning film Precious.

It also features Jim Zervanos.

Um - Jim who?

"I've rented an exhibitor's table" at the festival "to get word out about Love Park," says Zervanos, a Fairmount resident who describes his debut novel as a mordant "Greek tragedy-meets American sitcom" take on a dysfunctional Greek-American family living in a Philly suburb.

Zervanos is a newbie with a tiny publisher - it's up to him to drum up his own business.

Yet, in an era when major publishers are cutting expenses, even established authors can find themselves in Zervanos' situation: fending for themselves in a crowded media marketplace. It's a path that takes them to the Web, community bookstores, and local literary festivals.

Zervanos, 40, whose book came out last May, has spent much of his free time over the last 11 months attending conferences, book festivals, and writers' workshops across the country - all at his own expense.

His publicity campaign, he says, has cost him $10,000.

"I had put aside a savings account for the book," the Penncrest High School English teacher says, laughing.

"I knew going into my relationship with my publisher [Wisconsin-based Cable Publishing] that I would be more or less responsible for manufacturing a book tour of my own."

Doylestown's Dennis Tafoya is published by a major New York press, but feels orphaned by the industry.

"Even some best-selling authors don't get a ton of support from their publishers," says Tafoya, whose latest mystery, The Wolves of Fairmount Park, is due in June from St. Martin's Press.

"I think some [companies] feel that by publishing your books, they're lending you their brand name as a major publisher and that's enough."

Random House publicist David Drake, who is coordinating Kelley's appearances, says only a few A-list authors still enjoy the classic perk - a book tour.

"Kitty is doing an old-fashioned tour: Full media and event appearances in 10 cities over three months," he says. "But for many mid-list authors, the economics of putting an author on the road are forbidding."

Fantasy, horror, and romance writer L.A. Banks, 50, misses the good old days.

"You would sit down with marketing folks to come up with a campaign," she says.

And today? "Puhleeeze!", she says, adding a sigh for effect.

"It kind of stuck in my craw last year when I wasn't sent to ComiCon," the entertainment industry's premiere sci-fi and fantasy convention, in San Diego, to publicize the last volume of her best-selling Vampire Huntress series.

But she is generally sanguine about the brave new world of publishing.

"All the little niceties that go with [book tours] have started drying up," the lifelong Philadelphian says with a laugh.

"I pity the poor new person coming on board who doesn't have an established name" as a writer, she says.

Tina Jordan, vice president of the Association of American Publishers, which represents the publishing industry, says things aren't as dire as Banks seems to think.

"Budgets are tight, but marketing and publicity is always a collaboration between author and publisher," she says.

Do writers today have to bear the bulk of the responsibility for publicizing their work?

"Again, it's a collaboration," she insists.

But the economy is only half the story.

"The media landscape has changed so much in the past two or three years" that the nature of authorship and book publishing needs to be rethought, Drake says.

He cites the "decline of local print media and the consolidation of TV and radio stations" and the revolutionary rise of digital media and networking sites such as Facebook.

Ben Laurro, founder of Pure Publicity, represents gospel singer Tina Cambpell, who'll talk about her inspirational young-adult book, Be U: Be Honest, Be Beautiful, Be Intentional, Be Strong, Be You! at this weekend's festival.

He says the priority today should be to find "new ways to market books" in an era when traditional venues such as book stores and libraries can't generate enough publicity to justify marketing dollars.

"Facebook and Twitter have become powerful avenues to reach readers," he says. "The media wasn't the same as it was even two years ago . . . [and authors] need to realize that we need to reinvent the wheel."

Publishers Weekly features editor Andrew Albanese says some authors find it empowering to market their work.

Consider Rebecca Skloot, he says - the science writer who devised and mounted her own publicity campaign for her new tome, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

"She's now on this crazy book tour . . . and she's getting huge crowds. . . . She did it by using social media to personally reach out, almost one by one, to readers," Albanese says. "She really moved the needle herself."

As Skloot showed, Albanese concludes, when it comes to the future of books, the Web isn't just important, "the Web is the ball game."

But isn't the Web just another tool?

Authors today have to face another major paradigm shift: They have to stop being authors and reinvent themselves as celebrities.

"What Skloot found," Albanese says, is that "it's really important for authors to look at themselves as industries."

He adds, a little ruefully, "Yeah, it's not a popular way for aspiring, serious writers to think" of themselves.

That's certainly not the case for Robyn Schneider, a 23-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate student who already has two popular young-adult books to her credit, including the snarky faux life-guide The Social Climbers' Guide to High School.

She seems to relish the media game.

"It's an absolute necessity for writers to learn how to market themselves," says Schneider, who'll talk at the festival about her children's book, Knightley Academy, published under the pseudonym Violet Haberdasher.

Schneider says it's foolish to promote a book. "If you're a writer, it is better to promote yourself as a brand. It reaches a greater audience."

First discovered by literary agents and publishers for a blog she wrote as a teenager, Schneider keeps up with her audience via every electronic outlet imaginable. She even hosts a Webcast talk show.

"Kids today expect authors to have a brand and a range of online stuff," she says. "They grow up forming [online] relationships with J.K. Rowling and [Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer."

Philly native Jonathan Maberry, author of the action thriller The Dragon Factory, also has embraced the new digital world - so much so that he teaches seminars for other writers on how to use social media.

"It's such a large part of the marketing plan. It's huge. . . . You can't really get anything done in publishing without social media."

He also helps fellow writers with a more low-tech strategy: He cofounded the Philly-based literary collective, The Liars Club.

He says that whenever he and fellow authors socialized, they'd spend most of the time complaining about the state of the publishing industry.

Three years ago, Maberry and Banks, who have known one another since Cromwell Middle School in the Northeast, and a handful of other friends decided to pool their resources to form a club that they would use to market their work collectively. Today, the Liars Club has 14 members, including Tafoya.

Banks, Maberry, and Tafoya will speak about the Liars Club Sunday at the library's book festival. Tafoya says the topic of conversation often is the angst so many writers share: How to stay afloat in today's media market.

Banks says that each year the club plans to champion a local cause: "Last year our focus was on independent schools . . . this year we will support the library" with a series of readings and lectures at branches across the city.

In a very real sense, the pressure writers face today is a boon for their communities. If you have to pay for your own book tour, chances are you'll concentrate on time close to home, Banks points out.

"Just as Philly was a great fertile ground for the music industry in the '70s, it has developed a great art and literary scene. Philly is so rich. It's an embarrassment of riches," she says.

"I don't think the general public really knows how many of us are local."