Buzz, Balls & Hype
I understand that everything we believe, deny, desire, fear, choose, and do is shaped, in some way, by what took place in the past—yet I’m not a fan of backstory in novels.
Think about it. When we meet someone for the first time “in real life,” we get clues about their history and the events that shaped them from the information we receive right then and there—how the person reacts, moves, speaks. We aren’t handed a long biography. We don’t need it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
This was underscored for me—just as I was getting this piece ready for posting, in fact—when I went to see an excellent new film called Conclave. Without getting into the intricacies of the plot, I’ll just say that it depicts the psychology and relationships between several Cardinals who aspire to be chosen as the next pope. As the story unfolds, we see their ambition, overt or suppressed, their strengths and weaknesses. What we don’t see, except in one instance, is anything about their past, before the conclave began, and how they came to be the sort of people they are now. Why not? Because the story doesn’t need it.
So too, when we meet a character in a novel. As a reader, our information comes from the character’s behavior in the scene. In most cases, there’s plenty of information, at least for the moment. Where does she sit or stand in the room? What does she notice or avoid? When the dessert tray is passed around, does she grab the biggest piece or wait until everyone else has one? Is she the one who tells the joke, laughs loudest, looks confused, or rolls her eyes in irritation?
As we watch the scene unfold, do we need—or want—to know about her early experience with an impossible-to-please mother, duplicitous ex-husband, or snarky junior high school rival? Of course not. We might, later, if there’s a story question that this information would shed light on. If so, then her memory of the past event will need to intrude into the forward-moving story in that very scene.
I’m using the word intrude, because a shift into the past is an interruption. If the reader’s immersion is interrupted, it had better be for a good reason. Which means: it had better be necessary, right now.
Narrative necessity
“Narrative necessity” comes from the characters, not the author. In other words: backstory information shouldn’t be presented simply because the author wants to tell the reader stuff that she thinks it would be helpful to know—e.g., to convey a character’s “origin story” as a way to justify her motivation and goals.
Rather, a memory intrudes into a story for two reasons:
If we think of remembering as a link in a causal chain, not as a way to convey information to the reader, then it’s clear that remembering is an active event, not a passive one. The act of remembering—along with the emotion and insight it brings—enables the character to do something that she needs to do, in order for the story to move along.
How, then, can we portray those […]
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Novel openings don’t always start with a bang. Or at a run, such as in the example I analyzed in last month’s post. This month, thanks to a suggestion by community member Barbara Morrison, I’ll look at how three other types of openings invite the reader into the story—and at the end, leave one for you to dissect.
Hit the Ground Walking
Character movement can create the sense that the reader is merging into a story that’s already in progress. Like last month’s example, the character here is moving—but slower. Here’s the opening of The Girl in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian, set in the spring of 1923.
Ada smelled the swamp before she reached it. The mingling of sulfur and rot worked with memory to knot her stomach and burn the back of her throat. She was returning with little more than she had taken with her a year before, everything she counted worthy of transporting only half filling the pillowcase slung over her shoulder. It might have been filled with bricks, the way she bent under it, but mostly it was loss that weighed her down. The past few days had swept her clean of hope, and a few trinkets in a pillowcase were all that was left to mark a time when she had not lived isolated in this green-shaded, stagnant setting. When she was a little girl, she had believed she loved this place, the trees offering themselves as steadfast companions, the wildflowers worthy confidants, but passing through now with eyes that had taken in other wonders and a heart that had allowed an outsider to slip in, she knew she had only been resigned to it. As she was again.
In addition to putting the protagonist in purposeful motion—Ada is is not meandering, but showing agency by pursuing a goal—this opening creates story movement by:
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I have some homework for you.
For 2025, I want you to really think about two things: connection and purpose.
Try to…
Consider how you will…
Describe yourself…
Describe your writing…
What influences your work…
What do you want readers…
Answer this question honestly…
If you have questions, you can always email me – am@getredpr.com – or drop a comment below. Wishing Writer Unboxed readers a very happy and healthy holiday season.
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Hello from Bisbee, Arizona. Have you been? Everything here is named Copper Queen This-or-That, after the played-out copper mine outside of town. Today you mine the antique stores for copper kettles, cast iron skillets and Western wear. There are historical hotels and outstanding meatloaf.
What am I doing around here? Teaching at a writers’ retreat, naturally, at a ranch deep in the southern New Mexico desert. The land around is vast and empty, a dried-up prehistoric seabed where now you can walk and hear nothing except your crunching footsteps. At night the Milky Way hazes serenely in the velvet black sky. It’s a place to hear your inner thoughts. Day or night, nothing moves.
Which brings me to manuscripts, and this week’s students. As is often the case with developing fiction writers, there are recurring issues in manuscripts as well as skills to impart, ranging from stronger narrative voice, to scene shaping, to emotions on the page, to micro-tension and more.
However, primary among the topics to tackle is the one that I term sequential narration. What that refers to is the tendency of newer fiction writers to spin out a story as if it is a transcript of the movie in the mind, a flowing visualization that walks alongside the main characters from the opening moment in time to the concluding moment in time.
The most obvious shortcoming of sequential narration is that it produces lulls, pages that present low-tension business such as lengthy arrivals, traveling between scenes, domestic humdrum, and so on. For the most part, those things are presented visually in the belief that anything that a protagonist might be doing matters if we can “see” it.
Summary—the collapse of time—can help with that, but that trick masks a misunderstand about what it is that conveys to readers that a story is progressing. What accomplishes that is not entirely what we “see” any more than it is the passing desert, seen through a car window, that gives one a sense of making progress over the land.
Drive along Highway 80 and you’ll understand what I mean. One mile of desert is very much like another. The desert going by is dull. After a short while, one’s sense of movement arises not from the car rolling along, mile by mile, but rather from road signs, monuments, far-off mountains, tiny towns and the thoughts in your head.
Newer writers believe that it is the plot events that provide a feeling of story progress. That’s true, in part, but another sensation of story movement comes from inside, including—and perhaps most importantly–from readers’ experience of human moments. Every time we “get” it—meaning not what a character feels but what a story moment feels like—then we inwardly take a step forward.
Call it emotional beats, if you like, but this kind of movement arises not from what characters are going through, but from what readers are going through. And one thing that readers can go through—if you make it happen—are human moments of recognition and connection.
Human Moments
In creating moments of human connection for readers, there are several variables. The first is narrative distance. However, it doesn’t matter how “close” we are to characters or not. What matters is whether what you are writing about on any given page produces […]
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By Ann-Marie Nieves with Randy Susan Meyers
Today’s post by Ann-Marie Nieves of Get Red PR features her perspective on marketing and the opinions of Randy Susan Meyers, her friend and client.
Will it be dueling points of view or simpatico? Read on to find out.
We are all marketers.
I know you don’t believe me. I know it feels safer to say, I can’t do this because I’m not a marketer.
You can continue to say…
I can’t.
I won’t.
I’m not.
It’s my publicist/marketer/publisher’s job.
But it’s your story. It’s your brand. So it’s your job too.
And letting the value of marketing rest solely on someone else’s shoulders is not enough to sustain you.
This advice isn’t exclusively about accepting that you need to get involved with spreading the word; I’m not saying get over it.
I’m asking you to open your arms wide and embrace your compelling story.
A few weeks ago, author Randy Susan Meyers wrote about choosing joy in marketing. Here’s how she fully embraced her story:
From Randy:
Years ago, I heard the words that guided my career regarding (for me) the most vexing and challenging part of publishing a book—marketing and publicity:
Wisdom from literary agent Sorche Fairbank, speaking at a writer’s conference, became my mantra when facing the after-the-writing part.
Nobody will care about your book as much as you—not your agent, editor, husband, wife, mother, or father.
Nobody.
My literary agent, Stephanie Abou, became my other source of wisdom on taking responsibility for spreading the word—how to do what my publicist and marketing folks could not.
She urged me to, starting that day, move beyond relying on my writer circle and spread the word among friends (from past and present), family, alumni from any school I’d ever attended, camps, and houses of worship. Please do not rely solely on folks you are on contact with on social media.
I pretended I was throwing the largest giant wedding, bar mitzvah, and christening and prepared the most extensive guest list in history.
I even included old boyfriends. Hey, everyone’s curious about their exes, right?
Trusting my agent, I moved beyond my natural inclination towards quiet privacy and tracked down email and physical addresses. I designed postcards, wrote emails, and crafted a message that (I hope!) shared my news with a ‘letting you know’ tone that I might use to share any fun, good news. (I’m getting married! I became a grandma! I joined Habitat for Humanity!).
People responded with warm excitement. Nobody scolded me.
Okay, that’s a lie. One FB alumni group member scolded, “This isn’t the place for selling things.”
But he was always a jerk.
There are miraculous things only publicists can manage and things they can never do—and vice versa.
Now, with my sixth novel releasing (The Many Mothers […]
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By Randy Susan Meyers with Ann-Marie Nieves
Today’s post by Randy Susan Meyers features not only her perspective on writers facing promotion, but also the opinions of Ann-Marie Nieves of Get Red PR, her friend and publicist—the person who keeps Randy from repeatedly hitting the wine bottle until the launch is over.
Will it be dueling points of view or simpatico? Read on to find out.
There is a subset of writers for whom promotion and marketing come naturally—men and women who get and enjoy the many sides of promotion. Come launch day, they leap from bed, put on their (bright red!) lipstick, shrug a perfect blazer on their sharp shoulders, flick their perfectly cut hair over their collar, smile wide, and greet the readers of the world with joy.
Then there are the rest of us.
We slouch towards book release day with equal amounts of dread and fear. If we’re lucky (and smartish), we’ve read Naked at the Podium, a must-have guide for readers. (“This practical book of tips, solutions, and exercises was born of a writer’s angst: how to present material in a way that was appealing to bookstore audiences, flexible enough to use in non-traditional venues, and dramatic enough to keep any audience awake and eager to buy.”)
If we’re massively unlucky, we live in the killer zone of denial and decide that winging a launch will be fine. At least our wrinkled shirt is clean!
And hey, didn’t we put our book up on social media? Over and over and over?
Can you choose joy in marketing? Is that even possible?
Sometimes it is possible to find joy in marketing, but I’m using my definition of joy:
noun
She felt the joy watching the cat chase a laser pointer.
Synonyms: absorbing
For instance, writing this piece thoroughly absorbs me, even if I’m not jumping for joy. This work nourishes me. Self-engagement is what I want marketing my novel to bring. Absorption. Interest. Cause if I’m bored with what I’m doing, there’s a good chance so-too will be my potential reader.
What authors do is usually different from the marketing and publicity work done by our publicists and marketing people, whether they be from inside our publisher’s domain or outside professionals. They are professionals and know their business.
The marketing we do—think social media, events, emails, author newsletters, walking the streets with a sandwich board—that’s the part that can destroy our souls if we’re not careful—or can work against our intentions.
We want readers to know we’ve written a book. (Because they’re readers—and books are what they want.) But we don’t want them rolling their eyes (see above me-me-me)—we want to tempt them to hunt down our books. Thus, consider these tips:
You Don’t Have to Do Every Single Kind of Social Media
In truth, unless you do them in an authentic and semi-enjoyable way, you don’t have to participate in any. One could make social media a full-time job between Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X (formerly known as Twitter), BlueSky, and TikTok. How do you choose which to […]
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At Orange Theory Fitness (OTF), where I torture and nurture myself each week, the trainers like to say, “How are you going to show up for yourself today?” Entering the OTF building, walking up the two extremely long flights of stairs, and starting each block of torture exercise, is me showing up for myself. This is my time to sweat, set free the to-do lists forever running through my head, and pretend like I’m a thin, athletic goddess. No phones, laptops, husband, hound, or children. And for the rest of the day, I am a better me.
A few weeks ago, I attended a celebration of life ceremony for a long-time client, Sharon Rowe, the fearless founder of Eco-Bags Products, the first reusable bag company. One of Sharon’s friends talked about the various sayings she lived by, which were chronicled in her book The Magic of Tiny Business. SHOW UP was one of Sharon’s tenets in business and in her personal life. Having worked with Sharon since 2006 or so, I saw her show up time and time again. She asked questions, responded quickly, worked hard towards goals, stated her case, recognized and celebrated achievements, boosted the morale of those around her, joined organizations, gave to charities, mentored, continuously encouraged women in business, counseled entrepreneurs, and understood the importance of pleasure, family time, community, and planet.
So what does this have to do with PR and marketing? Well, everything.
Every time we show up, we feed our creativity, boost morale, gain insight, increase our visibility in the industry, and build community.
When Sharon hired the marketing firm I freelanced for in the early aughts, her goal was to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show, despite never having seen it. What working woman with children watches daytime TV, she asked. (That’s for another post. ) You, we collectively told her. You’re the working woman who will watch this Oprah show, so you understand what it is you want. Well, she showed up…ECOBAGS® were given away to the audience of Oprah’s first Earth Day show, forever solidifying Eco-Bags Products in the zeitgeist. It was a moment so many showed up for and continue to do, carrying those bags to the market each day.
Who or what are you showing up for?
Got PR and marketing questions, drop them in the comments.
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Greetings, WU family! I’m pleased to be back with the latest in my Up Close series—a series designed to provide insight into the publishing industry from various stakeholders, including authors, agents, publishers, and today’s guest, a media strategist. A veteran of the publishing industry, Linda A. Duggins is the former Senior Director of Publicity at Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group where she led successful national campaigns for authors such as Tayari Jones, Jane Goodall, and the late Octavia E. Butler. In her current role as an Independent Media Strategist, Linda helps authors identify their books’ key selling points and teaches them how to leverage media opportunities to build awareness and boost sales. In today’s Q&A, Linda offers valuable insight into crafting a clear and compelling message about your books and your writing.
GW: Thank you for agreeing to this Q&A. First, can you tell us a bit about your career in publishing as it relates to media and publicity?
LD: There has never been a time that I did not enjoy talking about books. Spreading the word about amazing reads that keep me up at night or make me think well beyond the last page has been an ongoing experience for me. Prior to my publicity role at Grand Central Publishing, as co-founder of the Harlem Book Fair, I spent a considerable amount of time pitching various stories about the book fair, the authors and their books, and information about the various organizations that supported the work around what the book fair entailed. I was that person on the subway in NYC passing out upcoming book event postcards and advanced reader copies to just about anyone who dared to look at me. The organic transition to becoming an in-house book publicist was challenging and very exciting. Getting the media and booksellers to pay close enough attention required strategy, effective people skills, perseverance, timing, and luck. There was plenty of reading, book campaign strategizing, meeting media professionals, book tour planning, and engaging with book club members as well as booksellers and librarians. It’s really a blended affair, with collaboration inside the publishing house as well, with editors, marketers, the creative team, sales, audio, and many others.
GW: What exactly is media training and how does it relate to authors, both self-published and traditionally published?
LD: Media training is a form of communication coaching designed to help an author navigate interactions with the media to effectively convey their message, handle interviews, and manage conversations about various topics including: the author’s backstory, writing career, and book details, just to name a few. With media training, the goal is to help authors learn how to keep the title of their books and the key selling points up front and top of mind during interviews.
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I had Covid for Christmas. First time. I spent the holiday week quarantining in my basement and binge-watching The Morning Show. I was pissed. My husband was overwhelmed. Our kids were sad. Our hound watched over me figuring something was very wrong if we weren’t going out for our daily two-mile walk. January couldn’t come soon enough.
January 2024 has been the most meaningful month I’ve experienced in some time. Don’t get me wrong, Covid has left me with lingering headaches, brain fog (I write down everything and say it out loud), and an almost desperate need to drink Diet Coke at 3pm daily (not a custom habit for me). Ironically, Covid also gave me a chance to reset after an obnoxiously busy autumn.
So here’s what’s on my mind for 2024.
Consider your asks (I’m saying this nicely)
Many of you likely heard the news about author J.D. Barker’s booktok campaign to get influencers – mostly young females – to cover their private parts with his new book. There were other sexually charged asks, but this is the gist. As a publicist whose client came forward about Bill Cosby, I don’t take this behavior lightly.
Are marketers, publicists, and authors getting so desperate for a leg up that we’re pushing out predatory campaigns that objectify the very people who breathe life into our book community?
Shout-out to the influencers who came forward about this and publicly shamed this author and his campaign. Continue to lift our community as you do.
When I worked for PR firms in my twenties and early thirties, no campaign was implemented without the heads and the clients signing off. Our pitches were vetted and vetted again. Our bosses sometimes stood over our shoulders as we smiled and dialed to hear what we were selling to the media. As anxiety-inducing as those days were, I’m thankful for those lessons of strategy, preparation, control, and protection.
When they go low, we go high
I like Goodreads for what it could be. And thank goodness the company is finally addressing its review-bombing issue. We also need to address our behaviors on platforms like Goodreads. Aspiring writer Cait Corrain upended her career after she admitted to writing fake reviews that praised her forthcoming novel and blasted fellow authors in her genre. Please remember there is power in your review. And please remember that bullies never win.
How do you measure success?
Greer Macallister said the following in her recent WU post, “Whatever stage of your publishing career you’re in and whatever path you’re taking, I urge you to figure out your own definition of success.”
I think of standing still quotes… be afraid of standing still…if you’re not moving, you’re standing still.
One of the things I’ve experienced with clients in the past is this belief that they should get the same press, retailer promotions, signings, book clubs for every single book.
But the story is not the same. The month or year is different. The landscape has changed. Not only do you need to figure out your definition of success, but you also need to get comfortable with the fact that the definition should change.
Be a student
There are […]
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Today’s post was inspired by a novelist friend of mine who has been having a hard time of it lately, and in their struggle to regain footing in the fiction market, suggested that I address the question of how to keep the faith in today’s challenging publishing environment. What follows are my thoughts and observations about what’s going on and why, and what can be done, and whether there’s any cause for hope. I welcome your thoughts and observations, too.
Times are tough these days for novelists who are not long-established perennial bestsellers, literary luminaries, or aren’t named (for example) Colleen Hoover, Bonnie Garmus, Rebecca Yarros, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Hannah Grace, or Ana Huang.
Fiction sales to consumers over the past three years have been robust in comparison to pre-pandemic years. Yet, across genres, published and aspiring authors alike are finding it especially difficult to get read, whether that be by editors or agents or the reading public. Authors who’ve been in the business for a while (sometimes for decades) can’t get new book deals. Agents are rejecting new authors at even higher rates than usual. What gives?
I should note that publishing always has a component of what I call “eight-year-olds chasing the soccer ball”—wherever the ball is going at any given time, the herd is running after it. Which is to say that when a given genre or sub-genre starts trending, a significant proportion of the publishing ecosystem, from writer to bookseller and all points between, wants in. In years past, this wasn’t especially problematic for those who exist outside of the trend(s); there was demand for and space for all kinds of books. So what’s changed?
Let’s look, first, at space. National media book coverage has shrunk to almost nothing, and where it exists, coverage has in many cases become so clotted with titles that it’s practically meaningless (take for example, EW’s recent list of “The 42 fall books we’re most excited to read”). Bookstore space is also tighter, due to rising rents, the proliferation of eBooks, and online book-buying. What’s more, many physical bookstores, wanting to capitalize on the biggest trending books, are prioritizing that handful of titles by placing even larger orders and creating big, obvious, exclusive displays. Publishing space—meaning the number of publishing imprints as well as the number of books being acquired—has contracted, too.
Now, demand. Demand is a wibbly concept. Seen one way, it’s demonstrated concretely by what readers are buying en mass. The books they’re buying, though, are less a reflection of what, independent of influence, they may desire than of what they see the most of (this is the principle behind advertising; create demand). By the same token, if we don’t know a book exists because we haven’t seen or heard about it wherever we spend our time, we aren’t going to seek it out—and this creates a perception that there was no demand for it. (This is the all-too-common Kiss of Death for authors’ careers.)
These days, the primary, most effective book-discovery resource is TikTok—where nearly 75% of users are younger than 45, and 44% are under 25. During the early phase of the pandemic, lightning struck Colleen Hoover there. Her blaze was astonishing. If I’m recalling correctly, I think that […]
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If you ever have a marketing and PR question, feel free to email me – am@getredpr.com – or drop a comment in the Writer Unboxed Facebook Group and tag me @Ann-Marie Nieves. I’ll do my best to answer in future posts. This question was posed by Leslie Budewitz last week and it’s a great one. Let’s unpack.
When this article, The Ten Awful Truths About Publishing by Steve Piersanti of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, landed in my inbox, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Warning: It’s a positively frightening read that will make you want to hide underneath your covers… or hurl a glass across the room. If there is bourbon in that glass, down it quickly, read the article, and then throw the glass across the room.
So why did I breathe a sigh of relief?
Because someone else far more important than me said it – all the things I’ve been thinking, saying, that have made me change the way I work. A publisher said the things. The things about the many, many books on the market; how they sell or don’t; and the constant change due to disruptors (TikTok) and disruptions (supply chain issues).
So now we know about The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing. And now we understand that we have to think differently, reset expectations, and get to work. But first, we take inventory:
What’s the key takeaway for you in Steve Piersanti’s article? Are you ready to take inventory? What are […]
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Last week I sent out a few extra emails. Emails that read:
-I’ve been meaning to congratulate you on xxx.
-How are you holding up – I know you’ve had a rough go and I just want you to know I’m thinking of you.
-I just want to say thanks for your referrals and your wisdom.
-You’ve been in my head and I just wanted to say hi.
The weeks go by so quickly. The days are filled with meetings, deliverables, and requests. Sometimes, we just can’t help but put etiquette aside. But it’s never too late to show gratitude and kindness.
Now, let’s answer some PR and Marketing questions…
So you’re interested in hiring a publicist? Here are some of the common questions I get asked during the discussion phase:
Do you work on commission or for royalties? This is a big no for most seasoned publicists. The math on royalties just doesn’t work. Despite the outcome of any campaign, PR pros put in significant hours, and a good number of us respond to client needs well outside of standard business hours and days of the week. The bottom line is don’t ask anyone to work for free. What you do want to ask is how the fee structure works: Is it a monthly retainer or a project fee and for how long?
Can you only focus on getting me only national press? I’m certain many publicists will say yes to this and in a previous year, I might have said sure too, but the answer to this question today is sorry, that just won’t work for me or for you. A publicist worth her salt is going to ask you what your goals are and where you would like to see yourself. And then she’s going to tell you where else you can and should be because she’s prepared to slice and dice your story for numerous audiences. I’ve found that a good majority of folks in the market for a publicist have little idea about the media out there – the magazines still in circulation, the outlets that have a books focus, those websites that have the best books roundups. And because national media is the hardest get, your campaign may not meet expectations.
I’ve written some articles, can you try and get them placed? I’m happy to take a look at what you’ve written and discuss your goals for placement. But I really want the client to come to me having done his research as to the possibilities. Too often I’m told to go after high-circulation magazines that are either no longer in print, not open to submissions, or whose content isn’t the right fit. When this happens, I will counter with some outlets that I believe could work.
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One of the comments on my last post in which I asked writers if they liked their online persona, suggested the following:
“I would like to suggest a follow-up post you might consider. This one would be for older writers like me. They grew up without online anything, but in a time when values and standards related to the written word took precedence for anyone who wanted to be a writer. They still have something to say (even to younger readers), and know how to say it, but are lost in cyberspace.
What guidance or advice could you give to such writers? You run a successful PR company, and some writers with deep pockets might be able to do business with you. But what about others with some money, but limited resources? If the writing itself is what still matters, older writers need someone like you to point the way through the minefield. Otherwise, we will be silenced before our time.” – Barry Knister
Dear Lost in Cyberspace,
A good percentage of my client base is above 60. I’ve launched books by authors who have published for the first time at 80-something. To say I adore writers of retirement age would be an understatement. Why? They listen carefully. They are present. They show considerable patience. They value time. They respect the outcome even if it’s not the desired outcome.
The other night I took my daughter to the Jingle Ball concert at Madison Square Garden sponsored by iHeartRadio and Z100-FM. The crowd was rabid with pop music fans in glowing reindeer headgear and bright bulb necklaces. The evening was fantastic, but what I remember the most is singer/songwriter Charlie Puth saying the following, and I paraphrase…It’s great to see my songs on TikTok remixed by so many, but nothing beats this. His hand pans over the crowd of thousands that he just sang his heart out to. And man can he sing.
My advice to you Barry:
Tell your story.
After you’ve found the editor of your local paper, email them your pitch or snail mail a copy of your book with a copy of the pitch. Remember to say what town you live in. If you don’t hear back, send another email a few weeks later.
Go beyond local to your regional daily and magazine. Some communities even have local cable access programs and news and lifestyle websites that you can pitch.
