Lisa McMann is the author of Wake (Simon Pulse, 2008) and its forthcoming sequel Fade (Simon Pulse, 2009), paranormal young adult novels with a “splash of romance.” Wake is a NY Times Bestseller, a Borders “Original Voices” nominee for the month of May, and is eligible for the Original Voice of the Year award. It has received favorable reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, among other places, and is sold in bookstores all over the USA and Canada. Lisa is currently on tour for Wake. Find details on her website or Myspace page.

Wake has achieved tremendous success. Will you give us a brief plot overview, and discuss the marketing strategies and hooks utilized in launching Wake to bestseller status?

Seventeen-year-old Janie gets sucked into other people’s dreams. She can’t stop it. She can’t tell anybody about what happens – they’d never believe her, or worse, they’d think she’s a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn’t want and can’t control. Until she gets sucked into the nightmare of a guy named Cabe, and for the first time ever, Janie is no longer just an onlooker in someone else’s twisted psyche, she is a participant.

Marketing was a serious team effort. From the day I got the book deal I started marketing. I went out to find my readers on MySpace, message boards, Facebook…meeting teens, adults who love to read teen lit, librarians, teachers, booksellers, reviewers – even though all I had to sell at the moment was a paragraph-long hook from a query letter. I knew I had one shot at this – and if I failed, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. I began this journey like any other novelist – thinking that if the book is going to sell, it’s totally up to me. I expected to spend my entire advance on promotion. I came up with some catch phrases. “Don’t dream and drive” plays tightly into the story, and I used it on promotional t-shirts, postcards, posters and dogtags. I held regular contests on MySpace and gave away ARCs and bling. And most of all, I talked to people. I made personal connections. One very cool thing about this biz is that authors don’t have to be in competition with each other. There are tons of readers and readers don’t have to choose one author over another – they can read both. So I spent a lot of time discussing other YA books I liked with my future readers, and that is not only enjoyable to me but it grew my fanbase before I had a right to have fans.

What happened? My publisher saw my efforts. They also began hearing early praise for WAKE from the national sales team. Things began to stir. Over time, the publisher support grew and grew. They went all out on a fabulous cover (designed by Sammy Yuen, Jr.). They decided to send me on tour – a huge commitment financially for them. They put together an amazing book trailer. They did promotions with teen groups like Bookdivas.com and the Pulse-It Board – Simon Pulse sent out a thousand free copies of WAKE to teens around North America right before publication to get the buzz going. And then they worked with the cool people over at fanlib.com and came up with a dream-writers contest (wakecontest.fanlib.com) with prizes like a Wake-skinned Wii, iPods, and signed copies of WAKE.

Once Pulse decided WAKE would be a lead title for them, we worked together and it was terrific – I found readers, they catered to them and grew them exponentially. It was a delicious combination. I am more than lucky to have had this experience. I wasn’t expecting it, and I continued marketing the book as if I were going it alone. I worked very hard. I think that’s really important.

Where did you learn these self-marketing techniques?

By watching other authors. Reading as much as I could from other authors’ websites, blogs, etc. And having been a Realtor, I knew a lot already about the importance of establishing a presence for a product. Much of it is common sense — you use the channels you have or can create to build buzz. There are many great books available on the topic, too. And for those that can’t stomach it, one can always hire a publicist. Check out Bella Stander’s website — she offers all sorts of help with book promotion and public speaking, and she’s a wonderful woman who really helped me out when I found out I was going to tour (and would have to speak in public!! Talk about overwhelming fear). I highly recommend her.

Writers having to promote their own material is a fairly new trend, isn’t it?

I have heard this, yes, but I don’t know how new it is. I also have a hard time imagining someone writing a book, being one of the few to land a publishing contract, and then not doing everything in her power to sell the thing. So I would imagine that writers have always done some means of promotion for their own material, at least through word of mouth, but with the Internet, it has become much easier to do things at a very low cost, and more of that falls to the author now. I’ve heard publishers are on a tighter profit margin. I believe something like only one out of five books actually earns money. So yeah, I think that promotional stuff has gotten far more concentrated to the lead titles and many more authors are left to fend for themselves.

Let’s talk about MySpace, Facebook, and other internet venues where people congregate. I have a hard time understanding the allure of such sites, but they proved vital in getting Wake noticed. How important is it for an author to have web presence in today’s market? Do you think an author’s success rate can depend on it?

I think it is absolutely vital to have a web presence if your goal is to sell books or be read. If your goal is simply to say, “I have a book published,” then no web presence is necessary.

Many aspiring authors have a distaste for MySpace, Facebook, etc. One thing I did NOT want to do was get on MySpace and maintain one more site (on top of website, blog, Amazon.com blog, etc). But I bit the bullet and once I got my MySpace rhythm, my attitude changed in a hurry. Think about it, Kelly — if you cross-posted this blog on a MySpace blog, you could reach a whole new group of readers and have a great way (through bulletins and blogs) to alert all of your friends to a new post with the press of a button. Yes, it takes time and persistence to build up your readership, but you can target the people who would most likely be interested in reading what you write. And with MySpace, you have tangible means of watching that readership grow through friendships. A few months later, I started a Facebook page too.

I know that I have already sold hundreds of copies of books to readers who otherwise wouldn’t have heard of me — these are my MySpace and Facebook friends. It’s all about connections. Five of my MySpace friends (whom I’ve never met in person before) showed up on my tour to buy books and have them signed — and most of them drove more than an hour to see me. They made special WAKE T-shirts and sent flowers and chocolates to the bookstores where I would be signing. They take photos of themselves holding WAKE and post them on their pages — free advertising — and suddenly I’m not just reaching that one friend, but all their friends, too. They absolutely LOVE to read — and if I hadn’t been on MySpace, I would really be missing out — not just on sales and readers, but on friendships. I care about these teens and I have a place where I can communicate with them regularly — it’s much more personal than a blog or website. And now that the book is out, my MySpace page has become an automatic stop for those readers I don’t know. I have my MySpace address in the back of the book. It’s amazing that now, after a year of seeking out readers, the readers are seeking me out. The buzz is there. The momentum grows and builds and when book two hits the shelves in February, hundreds (thousands?) of my MySpace friends will be waiting anxiously with me for FADE, just like I waited anxiously with them for Stephenie Meyer’s ECLIPSE to come out, and Cassandra Clare’s CITY OF ASHES, and Harry Potter 7, etc. And the best part is that these sites are totally free advertising.

Is this sort of thing better for a YA author than it would be for authors in other genres or age groups? Maybe. But successful authors like Barry Eisler and J.A. Konrath swear by it, too.

It’s worth it for me. But some people just can’t stomach it. I can respect that.

How is the book tour going? What dates do you have upcoming?

I visited schools and bookstores in 8 cities in Arizona, Michigan, Illinois, and California so far. My next stops are all local to me:

Tuesday, April 8, Borders - Superstition Springs Mall, 7:00PM (w/ NYT bestselling author Cassandra Clare)
6555 E. Southern Ave., MESA, AZ 85206
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Wednesday, April 9, Changing Hands, 7:00PM (w/Cassandra Clare)
6428 S McClintock Dr., TEMPE, AZ 85283
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Thursday, April 10, Phoenix Book Company, 5:30PM (w/Cassandra Clare)
4134 East Wood St. Ste 290, PHOENIX, AZ 85040
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And near the end of May, I think, I’ll be in the San Diego area – more details will be updated on my blog if/when I have confirmation of dates and stores, etc.

What kind of feedback have you received from teens on this book?

It’s been overwhelmingly positive, with a few teens that just plain don’t like it. I love that about teens – they are not afraid to tell you straight up what they think. If teens don’t like it, it’s usually because they can’t get into the writing style. Most YA is written in first person, past tense. WAKE is third person, present tense. It’s quite a jolt to the ear to make a change like that, and a few people just don’t like it.

Most fan letters include one of the following phrases: “I stayed up until two in the morning reading it!” “WAKE is amazing I couldn’t put it down!” or “OMG I’m totally in love with Cabe!” (and this not just from teens – adults too). Every time I get a comment or email like this, it totally makes the hard work worth it.

Tell us about Fade, the sequel.

We’re actually working on flap copy for FADE right now. It’ll go something like this:

For Janie and Cabel, real life is getting tougher than the dreams. They’re just trying to carve out a little (secret) time together, but no such luck. Disturbing things are happening at Fieldridge High, yet nobody’s talking. When Janie taps into a classmate’s violent nightmares, the case finally breaks open–but nothing goes as planned. Not even close. Janie’s in way over her head, and Cabe’s shocking behavior has grave consequences for them both. Worse yet, Janie learns the truth about herself and her ability. And it’s bleak. Seriously, brutally bleak. Not only is her fate as a Dream Catcher sealed, but what’s to come is way darker than she’d even feared…

What interests you about the Young Adult genre? How is the writing, the language, different from adult novels?

The Young Adult genre has one of the fastest growing audiences at the moment. Adults are finally seeing what YA has to offer to them, too, and thanks to Harry Potter and the Twilight series, adults are no longer embarrassed to carry around a YA book in public. YA can be lyrical and beautiful, or it can be stark, edgy and harsh. Nowadays, there is no “off-limits” for YA as far as content or subject matter. It’s fast-paced, full of drama. And it’s totally relevant. How is it different from adult novels? I’m tempted to say, “It’s not boring,” but that wouldn’t be nice, would it? Truth is, I don’t read a lot of adult stuff anymore. I really enjoy reading YA. It caters to my short attention span.

Do your children read your drafts?

My fourteen-year-old son read a WAKE draft. It’s a little too mature for my daughter (11). But both have read other manuscripts I’ve been working on as well. My kids are wonderful for giving feedback. And they are totally blunt. Which can knock the wind out of an author pretty fast. They don’t hesitate to tell me when something sounds wrong, and they haven’t quite mastered that “criticism sandwich” technique, where we cushion the harsh parts with praise, ha ha.

What did you read as a young adult?

I read everything I could get my hands on. Classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, YA stuff written by Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, S.E. Hinton. I loved novels like Watership Down, East of Eden, 1984, the Tales of the City series…I liked lots of different things then and I still do now.

People outside the writing business have little idea about what’s involved in writing and getting a book published. Talk about the timeline from conception of a novel to fruition.

Writing a novel can take a very short time or it can take 20 years. For me, that timeline from conception to fruition is about as short as it can get – just under two years. I got the idea for WAKE in June of 2006 through a dream. I sat on the idea for a month or so, played around with the concept, and had pretty much the entire book in my brain when I started writing. I wrote very quickly and the manuscript came together fast. I took a couple months to edit, polish, and get it as perfect as possible, and then I sent out twelve query letters one day in early September. Five days later, I had my dream agent, and in January 2007 I signed a contract for a 2-book deal. WAKE came out in March 2008, FADE will come out in February, 2009. Typical timeline from when editor purchases the novel to the novel being on sale is a minimum of a year, and often eighteen months to two years.

Now, before people start throwing tomatoes, I should mention that WAKE was the third novel I wrote. I have two others under the bed that didn’t make it…the first one rejected 68 times, the second never quite good enough to query. So I’ve seen my share of rejection too. Amazing things ARE possible in this business.

Your short story, “The Day of the Shoes,” won the Power of Purpose Award in 2004, earning you $10,000. What does this award honor?

This was a one-time, world-wide contest sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. The contest’s purpose was to honor those who showed an extraordinary sense of purpose for their lives. Participants could write an essay, biography or short story. I believe the word count requirement was 3500 words or fewer. They chose nineteen winners and offered quite astonishing cash prizes totaling $500,000. Honestly, I’ve never seen another contest like it.

I’ve read that you like cooking. What kind of a cook are you? A by-the-book kind of gal, or a pinch, a palmful, a throw-it-together recipe inventor?

I’m more of a creative cook. I like to wing it and I don’t often use recipes, unless I’m trying something entirely new for the first time. Even then I look at the ingredients list and make adjustments based on past experiences and intuition. Problem is, I never write the changes down, so every time I cook, it comes out just a little bit different.

Are you writing full time now, or do you keep a “day” job?

Writing has been my full-time job for about 3 years. Before that I was a Realtor, and before that, a bookseller. The experience in both sales and books turned out to be a great combination to help me know what to do as an author, because if you want to succeed, you definitely need to market yourself – it’s not just about the writing. Which can be a very scary idea to an introverted author whose best friends are fictional and invisible.

Are you introverted? How do you recommend an author overcome his/her shyness?

I’m not a complete introvert, but yes, I’d much rather be alone than in a group (or standing in front of 100 skeptical teenagers). I was so afraid to do a book signing, I couldn’t breathe. It was absolutely terrifying. Just thinking about it made my stomach churn. And I feel for the person who is horribly shy — I really do. But the question I’d ask is this: How badly do you want it? Do you want to be a successful author badly enough to suck it up and talk to people? Before you got your book deal, how badly did you want it? Don’t forget that hunger. Put your computer down and get thee to a Toastmaster’s meeting. Go to your kid’s school and talk to the class about what it’s like to be a writer — I don’t care if they are Kindergarteners, just get out there and get used to standing in front of humans. Walk into a bookstore with a copy of your book, introduce yourself and spend thirty seconds telling the clerk or manager about it. Sit your family down in the living room, stand in front of them, and say five coherent sentences about your book to them. Then do ten the next day.

There are millions of people who would give anything to be in your shoes. How badly do you want this? Enough to step out of your comfort zone and go get it? Enough that you don’t want to have to start this process over again because you were too afraid to promote your first book and it’s failing? If you want it, if you want this life as an author, if you ever want to sell another book, your goal needs to be this: You must do everything in your power to make this book succeed, because if you don’t, and this book fails, nobody gets fired…except you. The ultimate responsibility lies with you. Sure, books still fail even when an author does everything he can. But if you did everything you could possibly do and the book still fails, at least you will never look back on the experience with regret and say, “I wish I had tried harder.”

Try harder now.