Mark Clavier (TM)
A thing about writing books in the 21st century is that unless you’re fortunate enough to land a good agent, it’s left largely up to you to market your own work, which essentially means marketing yourself. I suppose publishers have too tight a profit margin to risk splashing lots of money on authors who haven’t proven themselves in the marketplace. It’s much easier to use social media as a cheap alternative to get the word out about whatever it is the author has written. To be successful, therefore, most writers must not only be decent at their craft but also adept at self-promotion.
This expectation places most of would-be authors in an unenviable position. It’s one thing for other people to promote your work, making the public aware of you through glowing reviews, snazzy adverts, blogs, and word-of-mouth. But it’s another thing altogether to have to shout about yourself…doubly hard if you’re a cleric! It’s an essential part of being a non-academic writer with which I’m most uncomfortable.
I was naively unaware of any of this when I published my first book Rescuing the Church from Consumerism. If I had, I might have written something with the title Redeeming the Church through Consumerism. As it was, I suddenly found myself in the ridiculous position of having to market a book that argues that mass marketing is destroying our world. Not only was my hypocrisy compounded but I also discovered that I was so bad at it that the publisher asked me not to approach them with any more book proposals! Collectively, my books so far have earned me the equivalent of an airfare for a European holiday. Not a bad thing to be sure, but perhaps not the reward one expects from countless hours of work.
But, one mustn’t grumble (as the Brits are fond of grumbling). Actually, all of this is a ham-fisted way of introducing two pieces of advice about writing and books before finally introducing my new website.
The first piece of advice: If you’re writing a book, especially if it’s non-fiction, be aware that its composition will probably be the easy and more rewarding part. Attracting a publisher and marketing the book require an entirely different set of skills and can be far more time-consuming and frustrating. As self-promotion these days requires a social media presence, you may find the process also encourages unhealthy practices like spending countless hours tweeting, blogging, or creating a website that bears your name. You’ll find yourself worrying about how to build a multi-platform online audience, post things that will get liked, and get yourself noticed by influencers. If you’re not careful, you’ll begin to feel like you’re suddenly back in Middle School.
Second, if there are authors you love, Google them to see if they have an agent or to check their sales rank on online bookdealers. If they aren’t writing fiction, they’re probably depending on someone like you to encourage others to read their books. If they post something on social media about their book, take the necessary two seconds to share it (they’ll be enormously grateful). If you run a book club, consider discussing a book you know is good but isn’t a bestseller. The writing industry is too dependent on gatekeepers (a select number of literary agents who mostly share a similar urbane culture) who determine the success of a book as much as, if not more than, the quality of the writing itself. Just imagine if Aquinas had to pitch his idea for the Summa to a book agent!
With these public service announcements done, I finally introduce something I swore I’d never create: an author page for myself. I have only done so (reluctantly) because I hope soon to announce that my first novel will be published sometime in 2025 (more about that later). Publishing novels is completely different than from publishing non-fiction (especially theology), and the marketing of your writing is in many ways harder. If the potential market is larger than for theology, so too is the competition from other unfortunate authors who’ve produce good novels but have failed to woo an agent.
So welcome to Mark Clavier (TM). What you’ll find here bears some relation to the actual Mark Clavier, but (as ever with marketing) he’s been branded to attract an audience. I fear the real person is not nearly so interesting as the one who appear on this website…except perhaps to his Spaniels. In any case, please do let me know what you think. Even better, go buy one of my books!
