Buzz, Balls & Hype
My family has been enjoying the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary, about a Philadelphia public school with limited means that’s run by a principal obsessed with social media and youth. Abbott’s teachers are from different generations with almost nothing in common, but what they share is an incredible dedication to their professions and students. You may have heard that actress Sheryl Lee Ralph won an Emmy for her role as Teacher Barbara Howard. She’s outstanding.
The other night we watched the episode “Wishlist” and it struck a chord. Read on…it’s coming.
The teachers have shared their wish list of school supplies with the greater community, and instead of receiving the necessary notebooks and pencils that are needed, people are dropping off old fax machines that might smoke once plugged in.
Twenty-something teacher, Miss Teagues–ever the optimist–puts together a simple video to share on social media but history teacher Mr. Hill says that it’s missing a little something … the internet is a big place and you need to cut through the noise.
Anyone practicing social media as part of their career marketing efforts has heard about “cutting through the noise.” Am I right?
Miss Teagues seeks out Principal Ava Coleman who just happens to have a green screen in her office. Miss Teagues comments, I can get you a lot of views and that means a lot of supplies. But I’m gonna need full creative control. Do you twerk?
Do you twerk?
The stylized video in which Miss Teagues looks like a Marvel character gets 20K views in a matter of hours and is even shared by Taye Diggs! Her school supplies runneth over.
Now, Mrs. Howard, a seasoned motherly type, hasn’t gotten any new supplies and her students are using water to paint with. So Miss Teagues calls upon Principal Coleman again for help. Principal Coleman creates an emotionally manipulative video that makes the students and teachers look sad, impoverished, and hopeless. The video goes viral. Mrs. Howard receives boxes of supplies and genuinely believes that the Good Lord is working on her behalf. Until a group of influencers shows up with more cases of supplies each holding up their iPhones to capture Mrs. Howard’s reaction does Miss Teagues fess up to her meddling.
Mrs. Howard makes it clear that she doesn’t want her students to think they are lesser than others. To paraphrase…My kids don’t have half of the supplies they need most of the time, but they don’t need to know that. Our job is to build them up and make them confident. My students don’t need to feel less than others because they do not have stuff. Talk about what they do have, and not what they don’t.
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Image – Getty iStockphoto: Phonlamai Photo
Scaring Up Some Audiobooks
Recently, a distributor of digital books – both ebooks and audiobooks – announced that it was adding a new offering for publishers: “AI voicing” for audiobooks. The company could barely clear the word audiobooks before rushing to assure everyone that “AI narration” would never match the primacy of audio work using human readers and production. The caveat, going on and on, came across almost as an apology before any offense had been committed.
True, a certain resistance to the idea of machine-generated audiobooks is hardly eased by such headlines as Synthetic Voices Want To Take Over Audiobooks (Wired, January 27). No, they don’t. Synthetic voices don’t want to take over audiobooks. They don’t want anything. They’re synthetic. But book publishing is an industry that’s never accepted digital developments easily. Even after e-commerce and digital products played a key role in the US market’s comparative success during the still ongoing pandemic, those “synthetic voices” seem to murmur something sinister.
The many vendors now offering machine-generated audio narration know that this is the pushback to expect. It’s a mindfield of emotional reaction. They’re nervous about it.
Some defensiveness isn’t without reason. The business of gifted human narrators – who are actually readers, voice actors, interpreters, not narrators, the term has never been quite right – are supported by many additional workers in important roles. Those workers include sound technicians, audio editors, studio and tracking-booth providers, producers, in some cases directors, and more folks. Jobs are involved, and they comprise a lot of talent and many skill sets. Programs like the Audio Publishers Association support these workers, and the APA’s Audie Awards rightly honor their work in 25 categories.
Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for publishers to listen to machine-generated audiobook readings. The kind of work they can handle is unlikely ever to be produced in human readings because of the cost factor.
As many publishing professionals readily agree, machine-produced voicings may be best for nonfiction, which is generally thought not to need the emotional and aesthetic nuance of fiction. But of course, in a great many cases, nonfiction is read by the human author, who may be untrained and inexperienced at the microphone. While there’s always someone asserting that those “synthetic voices” feature many mistakes in pronunciation, so does the work of many human authors.
Just days ago, I heard a very fine, prominent nonfiction author in his reading of his own book pronounce scathing with a short a, making that first syllable rhyme with cat. Most of us have had the experience of discovering, red-faced, that we’ve been pronouncing something wrongly for years. The audio edition of one of last year’s most important American political books was at times almost comical in its mispronunciations by its much-praised author. In both machine-generated and human-produced readings, proof-listening is critical to catch these things.
Still, the imperative for publishers regarding audio actually goes beyond nonfiction.
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For my last post in April 2022 I asked a few authors at different stages in their careers, what did they learn about book marketing and PR which was surprising. The feedback I received from writers was that these little nuggets of book marketing communications wisdom really hit home. So, I’m at it again with advice from five savvy authors.
The Differences Between PR and Marketing
“I think I didn’t realize at first that book marketing and PR were two completely different entities! In the beginning, before someone explained it to me, I thought PR and marketing were all the same thing. believing it all came under the umbrella of any kind of exposure for your book. It wasn’t until a dear friend explained that marketing “cost the publisher money” to ensure a novel was “seen” by potential readers with promotions like advertisements and blog tours, did I fully understand it was something that was guaranteed because it was paid for by the publisher. –Alyson Richman is the USA Today bestselling and #1 international bestselling author of several historical novels including The Secret of Clouds and the forthcoming The Thread Collectors with Shaunna Edwards.
A Holistic Approach
I originally thought that the objective of marketing and PR was to get my book sold. Period. What I’ve learned is that marketing and publicity create channels to reach readers via influencers, podcasters, bloggers, traditional media, etc., who then serve as conduits directly to readers. The more channels you employ to draw attention to your book, the better because this is an extremely competitive industry in terms of getting your pages onto the eyes of readers. It’s also imperative to collaborate on the marketing and publicity of your book and to not assume you can sit back and let your publicist and/or marketing professional do all the work. Yes, they understand the business of pitching and positioning your book. But, you know your story better than anyone, so when you have an idea or an angle that you feel can influence readership, go with it. Or, at least, run it by your publicist; she’s a wonderful resource.-Eileen Brill has written professionally for the restaurant, hotel, and commercial real estate industries. A Letter in the Wall is her first novel.
PUBLICITY BASICS 101: Get to Know Your Publicist
Okay, so you have been working with your wonderful editor on this precious book of yours for a long, long, long time. You feel that you now know your editor as well as you know your husband or parents or child and your editor most likely feels the same way about you.
But what do you know about your publicist?
Most likely she or he is a total blank in your mind. So although I’m saying get to know your publicist, you really want them to get to know you in a way that your editor might not know you— or at least they don’t know what you feel is important about your book in terms of connecting with the marketplace. A slight footnote here: Editors don’t really like the word ‘market’ or market place—it’s too coarse for them I’ve discovered. Too transactional, etc. The vulgarity of the terms […]
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This has been on my brain for some time, and what better time to write about it than the holiday season. Here goes…
I believe we’re forgetting to say our thank you’s. I also believe that because of our on-demand society, we’re forgetting that human beings don’t function like an app. While you can get a good Barolo in the hour to enjoy with your dinner ordered from Seamless, your marketing team may not deliver as quickly when you text them at 11 pm for an update.
So spend some time this holiday season saying thank you to those that have given you a referral, plugged your work, given you a compliment, provided sage counsel, or just lent a good trusting ear. And as you begin 2022, don’t allow your attachment to desire overcome business etiquette. Be patient with responses. Be gracious with requests. Remember that there are boundaries when it comes to the workday. Be mindful of how you’re communicating. Be mindful of why you’re communicating.
Now, let’s unpack some PR and marketing questions asked in the Writer Unboxed Facebook group:
How can you persuade yourself that marketing is necessary, that contrary to how it feels, marketing does not drain the soul from your body?
You don’t have to persuade yourself that marketing is necessary. You already know it is. And you may never feel comfortable doing it, but it’s important you make peace with it. I was reading an article today written by a client Elazar Aslan, co-author with Joe Loizzo of Boundless Leadership: The Breakthrough Method to Realize Your Vision, Empower Others, and Ignite Positive Change, he writes that clear decisions start with clarity of the mind. What could distort our lens is ignoring your reality.
You can’t ignore what’s part of your work even though it’s not the preferred part of your work. This might be TMI, but when I came home from the hospital after my second C-section, I made sure I had stool softener in my medicine chest. Find your stool softener.
What is the most efficient way to do marketing vs. what do people think is necessary but isn’t?
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As a debut author not long ago, I was desperately uninformed about who’s who in the publishing world. I knew I’d be working closely with my agent from day one, and ultimately the editor who acquired my debut. What surprised me was that in the months leading up to my book’s release, this circle of key players grew wide (and fast!) No longer were only my agent and editor on phone calls. Soon, these were joined by publicity, marketing, sales…quite overwhelming, to say the least. At the time, I didn’t understand what each team was responsible for, or how they differed from one another (even now, I struggle to understand the difference between publicity and marketing!)
It takes a village, as they say, and my objective today is to summarize each of the (very) important players in the traditional publishing village. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and there are roles behind the scenes that aren’t listed here, such as finance, distribution, etc. However, I tried to include the players with whom an author is most likely to interact.
Core team: Agent & Editorial
Your agent and editor will be the individuals with whom you work most closely before, during, and after your book’s publication. Below is an overview of these roles.
Agency team
For many authors, generating social media content ideas is a necessary evil: we all know the importance of keeping up a platform so we can engage with readers and the book community, but maintaining social platforms is yet another to-do item on an already long list.
I’m here for you, friends.
Below are 100 social media content ideas for every stage of your writing career. There are 25 items listed for each of the four stages. Whether you’re an aspiring author, have an impending book launch, just launched a book, or your career is in-swing, I hope you’ll find the below ideas useful.
The content suggestions listed are best-suited to three platforms in particular: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. That said, these ideas could also be used in your author newsletter, on YouTube or TikTok channels, etc. We all have a favorite platform (mine is Instagram) but no need to recreate the wheel: once you’ve created a piece of content, use it widely across platforms (and reuse down the road, if applicable!)
Let’s get right to it.
Career stage: Aspiring Author
Content goals: Form connections with other writers, develop an organic following
Content ideas for the aspiring author include:
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I should not be writing this post right now.
I should be working on my second novel, which is due to my editor, in three days.
I should be promoting my first book, which just launched three weeks ago.
I should be doing laundry or cleaning the bathroom.
Is my son due for a Covid test tomorrow? Wait, where are my kids? Did anyone feed the dogs today?
I should not be writing this post right now.
I will look back on January 2021 with a lot of emotions. My debut novel, Waiting for the Night Song was released on Jan 12, marking the achievement of a dream thirteen years in the making. I didn’t have the in-person launch party I had always envisioned, but my virtual launch was incredible. Friends, family, and strangers from around the world tuned in – including my middle school science and English teachers. I had cake, flowers, and an outpouring of love that I will treasure forever. It was perfect.
At least that’s what you saw if you followed my social media posts: love, joy, pride, celebration.
What you didn’t see was that my second novel, The Last Beekeeper, is hanging over my head, so I’m trying to juggle celebrating the first book while madly revising the second book for a deadline I’ve already pushed back twice. For every celebratory post I write, there is a stress bomb hovering over my shoulder.
You might remember a few other things that happened in January 2021. The pandemic reached its most deadly point, domestic terrorists attacked our nation’s capital, we inaugurated a new president under tenuous circumstances, and we initiated a historic second impeachment of a former president – all of which make my book launch feel a bit inconsequential.
Oh, and I have four kids, three of whom have been home doing online school since March. Two of them moved out in mid-January – the same week as my book launch. As my launch day approached, the stress bomb got bigger.
Did I mention my husband had ankle reconstruction surgery in November and hadn’t been able to walk, even with crutches, until a couple of weeks ago?
I really should not be writing this post right now.
As I write this, I’m contemplating whether or not I have time to squeeze in a shower before a book event this evening. (My hair looks fine. No one will notice on Zoom will they?)
Before you all start overnighting me bottles of scotch to calm me down, I need you to understand something important: I’m fine.
I’m great, actually.
As the pandemic worsened and it became obvious that my book launch would take place under tightened lockdown and in the middle of political turmoil, I had an epiphany: This is my moment. This is my debut that I have worked toward for more than a decade.
I can give in to fear, stress, and anger, or I can rise up and claim the joy I’ve worked hard for.
I choose joy, dammit!
As I write this, it is snowing, that quiet, soft New England snow that makes you want to curl up with a book and a cup of tea. I have a fire roaring in my fireplace and, despite the deadline stress and the fact that I cannot […]
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Publishing a book is the scariest, most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. It’s hard to believe that my debut novel, The Kindest Lie, will enter the world in less than a month. One of the best parts of this journey has been sharing it with Julie Carrick Dalton and Sarah Penner, writers who are also debuting this year. Three different publishing imprints. Three very different books. Yet one shared obsession when we meet every Sunday afternoon on Zoom: Will my book be successful? Have I done enough to give my novel the best shot at success? What is success?
I turned to a few authors I admire (many who debuted in 2020) to hear what they’ve learned along the way. These writers, like most, were incredibly generous with their wisdom. Whether you have a book coming out this year or someday (and you will), save these nuggets of insight and pull them out when you need them.
What I wish I had known…
“I wish I’d known how overwhelming marketing and promotion can be, immediately after your book is released. Readings, panel discussions, interviews, book clubs, social media posts—all of these take up an amazing amount of time, and it’s important to keep your writing going. So, the best piece of advice I can give is to set aside at least an hour a day to devote to your next project. You won’t be sorry!”
-David Heska Wanbli Weiden, author of Winter Counts
“I had such a great debut year and learned so much as a result. What I wish I’d known going into my debut year is to not be ashamed to ask for help. As Black women, we’re so used to carrying everything on our shoulders. This mind frame bleeds into everything we do. With publishing, you have a whole team behind you with years of experience in navigating the difficult terrain of editing, marketing, publicity, etc. That doesn’t mean you won’t have an opportunity to educate them on how to improve upon this in our evolving landscape between publishing and social justice; it does mean you can use their assistance to grow your platform and give voice to you and your art.”
-Catherine Adel West, author of Saving Ruby King
“As a decades-long career coach to lawyers, I pretty much “coached” the heck out of myself as my debut month approached. But the one thing that most surprised me was how quickly the satisfaction, for me, of a good review dissipated compared to the malingering of a bad one. For every author affected by bad reviews, there is one for whom negative criticism remains instructive and constructive. Sadly, I am not that author! So, having a handle on how criticism would resonate with me, and how to handle or even avoid it, was one thing I wish I’d known.”
-Natalie Jenner, international bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society
“I wish I had known how kind, generous and compassionate readers are. I have received many letters since the publication of The Mountains Sing and I count them among my precious gifts. I also wish I had known how busy the year could be. I have done more than 100 virtual events during the last nine months since my novel’s […]
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John Cunningham, my longtime client, called during the height of COVID, when many of us were either crying daily or making sourdough, to say he had dusted off an old manuscript, re-wrote much of it and was sending it to his editor. It was my cue to be prepared for a PR and marketing campaign. There was a catch. It wasn’t his usual Caribbean action adventure featuring hard on his luck protagonist Buck Reilly that I had worked on for the last eight years. This novel was historical…political…biographical…had an alternate ending…female protagonists.
Whoa.
John had genre jumped.
OK, I thought, I’m up for the challenge.
When I sat back and absorbed it all, this jump came as no real surprise because, a writer’s gonna write and the pandemic seemed to lead to either total paralysis or a complete overflow in creativity. Also, John having grown up in the Capital Beltway with an FBI father, a degree in International Relations with the goal of working for the Foreign Service, and a passion for travel seemed destined to write something political.
But as I always do, in my head, I thought about what it meant for his brand; what marketing communications tactics would I pursue; and could it help the sales of his Buck Reilly series?
Months passed as John went through edit, cover design and proofreading. The final edited PDF of The Last Raft sat in my Kindle waiting for me to read it on my annual end of summer trip to Maine. Through the years I read a total of eight Buck Reilly books on York Beach in a sitting. The books are fast, funny, transporting and just ever so entertaining.
It took me a full week to read The Last Raft. (Yes, I was still at the beach.)
It’s smart, detailed, contemplative, and entirely different than what I thought it to be.
And it totally stumped me.
And so I walked away from it… read Jamie Brenner’s manuscript in a sitting…watched Cobra Kai on Netflix with the kids…shopped a little too much with my daughter… and when I had finally distracted myself enough and that last kernel of doubt in my belly was gone, I picked up my laptop and fleshed out my strategy thinking about the following:
I work my campaigns in three parts for my clients—PR, advertising and social media. With indie books my goal is to maximize sales as press coverage is a harder get.
Where would I find the readers I wanted for this smart, political novel with hot button issues?
Could I bring new readers to John’s brand?
Could I market a completely different book to John’s existing fanbase?
It’s time to chat with John and learn more.
How long was The Last Raft collecting dust in your writing barn, and what made you go back to it?
I wrote The Last Raft before I ever dreamed-up Buck Reilly. I had gone to Cuba in the Summer of 2001 just a few months before 9/11 to research the story. I was able to get a license to visit there through the Department of Treasury and spent a couple weeks touring and soaking up the culture. I had lived in Key […]
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The first half of this year has been a monumental test in flexibility and resilience for authors and everyone in publishing. My debut novel, The Kindest Lie, will release on February 9, and that publishing date has changed several times as the William Morrow team attempted to position my book and others in their catalog for optimal success during these uncertain times.
Recently, I joined the team of A Mighty Blaze, a new organization that formed to help authors and books find their readers during this global pandemic. That’s how I met Laura Rossi who leads publicity for A Mighty Blaze. She worked in-house at top publishers, including Random House, Viking Penguin, and W.W. Norton before founding Laura Rossi Public Relations.
Laura was incredibly generous sharing with me nuggets of wisdom about promoting books during a pandemic, buying the right equipment for all the Zooming and Skyping, making publishing more diverse and inclusive, as well as pulling back the curtain on how some books get on those elusive, coveted “most anticipated” lists. I’ve edited our interview for brevity, but it was seriously so good that I wish all of you could’ve been on the phone with us.
Nancy Johnson: How has the pandemic impacted our ability to get our books out there into the world?
Laura Rossi: The first thing that happened to many books is their publication dates changed. That was a huge pivot for lots of authors, seeing their early summer pub dates move to fall or in some cases 2021. Summers work well for commercial fiction and beach reads, but it’s often not the best time for bigger books. That was a big trend I noticed. Authors had to give up control and let their publishers do what they thought was best in a very different world. Some books published and didn’t live up to expectations the authors had. Lots of books with March, April and May pub dates—copies were already printed and warehouses were still able to mail books—pubbed during a pandemic. But before May there wasn’t a lot of space for book coverage and some of those books that weren’t able to move didn’t get a lot of media or sales. However, if your book came out in hardcover during the pandemic, you still have a shot at pushing that paperback a year or more later. That second chance is encouraging.
NJ: How has publishing had to adjust now that we don’t have hand-sales in bookstores and in-person author events?
LR: All real-life events were paused or canceled, and many went online. Conferences, workshops, big in-person events like BookExpo and the intimate author lunch with someone from a magazine went away. Those schmoozing opportunities to hand-sell your book were gone. Some authors in the past would get pre-sales visits to New York to meet with booksellers. That personal touch has had to go virtual. People are not going on tours visiting 25 bookstores anymore.
NJ: This all sounds terrible. What do you tell your authors about how to pivot in this new environment?
Read MorePhoto: Voltamax-60363
I was on the phone with author Barbara Taylor Bradford on Tuesday morning. We were just having a check-in to see how things were going in quarantine. I complained about my mornings of remote learning with my five and eight-year-old children. We both agreed that as women who have worked from home for years—she 40 and me 15—not much had changed for us in that respect. But having lived through WWII, she wanted me to know that it would be OK, that things would get better, that I had to have hope. She then commented that she was excited for the end of the day because after she completed a writing chapter of her next book, she would be shopping online for some Maybelline makeup. This was her reward for a chapter complete. This was the bright little ray on her day.
It made me smile.
In my last WRITER UNBOXED article, I discussed the positive movements in the book world since the pandemic. I’ve seen many a book launch since then, and as a publicist, I’ve been part of a few. Despite all the good, I’ll admit, there are days I feel less than hopeful.
With limited distribution, cancelled tours, fewer marketing dollars, media shifts and downsizes, and possibly decreased publisher support, many authors with books launching this spring are facing a challenge.
So I queried nine authors who have recently launched or are about to launch a new book. I wanted to know, as an artist, what or who gives them hope each day? And what gives them hope for your book despite this uncertain time.
I have to say, the power of US, is so very strong.
Richard Fifield, The Small Crimes of Tiffany Templeton, March 10
My second book was launched on March 7th. Three days later, the world shut down, and I had no live audience, no venues. I need an audience. On the computer, the camera creates a distance that cannot be closed. Last year, my mother died of leukemia, and I was holding her hand at the end, just the two of us, my laptop open, because I promised her that I would finish this book. She was my best friend, and in the last six weeks, I needed her. Our relationship was stormy, until I got sober in April of 2005. I did the work to make it better, and that work began with learning how to love selflessly, to find perspective. Fifteen years ago, I began walking the dogs at Animal Control, the worst dogs, the ones considered unadoptable, damaged beyond repair. I could identify with that. They were so grateful to see me, the real me, and it broke my heart that they had no idea they were set to be euthanized. I was spared, by the grace of something bigger than me, stopped from euthanizing myself slowly. I have adopted five of those dogs, learned to grieve without numbing myself, learned to love without the fear of loss. My rescue dogs rescued me, showed me how to love, and how to be loved. In the last six weeks, they remind me I’m fortunate to have published a book, no […]
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People often ask me what I’m reading and sometimes I forget. What’s the name of that book again? But then some book titles stick to my brain like a gecko clinging to a wall. They take root inside me and often the book itself proves to be just as unforgettable.
In brainstorming the title for my own debut novel, I turned to experts who advised that authors should keep titles short for a variety of reasons: Something short will be easier for people to remember. Fewer words will fit more neatly on the book jacket and not require a small, unreadable font. But like most advice, it depends.
My favorite title these days consists of eight words. You read that right. Eight. Yet it sounds cool as hell when I say it aloud: Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick. Zora Neale Hurston’s story collection centers on love and migration. The rhythm and flow of that title hits my ear just right. Genevieve West, who wrote the book’s introduction, says there are many ways to understand the title, one being that it refers to the ability of black people to endure and overcome challenges, or as the old folks say “make a way out of no-way.”
Then there are the one-word wonders that pack a world of meaning in an astonishing economy of letters. I devoured Heavy, the memoir by Kiese Laymon. In one small word, he interrogates so many aspects of a heavy life: blackness, body weight, secrets and lies, America’s sins, and the many ways we hurt others and ourselves. In her runaway bestseller Becoming, Michelle Obama uses the title of her memoir to explore how our personal growth has no finite destination; instead, we’re always learning and evolving. The title sparked a mini-movement, too. Using the hashtag #IamBecoming, readers took to Twitter to share their personal journeys of becoming.
The scope and breadth of a book title can intimidate us as the authors of the work. How expansive can it be? Am I being audacious in my choice of a title? When I studied novel writing with Tayari Jones at Tin House, she discussed the difficulty she had in choosing the title of her latest novel. In an offhand remark to her editor, she suggested An American Marriage but quickly dismissed the idea because it sounded like a book about navel-gazing white people in Connecticut, not a novel about a black couple grappling with the fallout of wrongful incarceration. It was her mentor, Pearl Cleage, who reminded her that black people are indeed American and that the prison system responsible for upending her protagonist’s life is a uniquely American institution.
Some of the best book titles turn popular sayings on their head and imbue them with new, unexpected meaning.
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“Okay, I’m a little, teeny bit jealous of a few writers,” I admitted to another debut author via the anonymity of Facebook Messenger.
“I am SOOOO jealous,” she typed back.
Behind the confessional curtain of social media, we could whisper that ugly truth. We even conceded we’d been jealous of each other from time to time. Once I began opening up to more of my writer friends, many revealed mild annoyances, burning secret resentments, and even crippling envy. Still, everyone stressed they were extremely happy, thrilled, and overjoyed (substitute other convincing superlatives) for the success of other authors.
One of the most insidious sources of this madness has to be the list, which is lauded as the holy grail of success by enough writers for it to be stressful. Well, all the lists. This time of year, almost every publication from O, The Oprah Magazine to The New York Times and PopSugar releases its list of the most anticipated books for the new year. The timing couldn’t be worse because those lists come on the heels of year-end wraps of the best books from the previous year. Every time a new list emerges, a collective, congratulatory whoop rises in my author communities and I believe it’s genuine. Still, amid all the fanfare, I know authors scan those lists, starry-eyed, looking for their own names.
Lists are not an immediate consideration for me right now. I’m in the early stages of the publication process completing a second round of structural edits for my novel, which doesn’t release until early 2021. But anticipatory angst is real, if a bit irrational, and I sometimes envy authors who make lists I’m not even eligible for, wondering if my own trajectory will be on par with theirs.
One winter afternoon I spent hours poring over a website called Edelweiss (totally unrelated to The Sound of Music), where you can request advance reader copies of books and browse publishers’ catalogs. It’s still early so my book doesn’t appear in the database yet. Still, Edelweiss offers a preview of what’s happening for other authors. I try to manage my expectations.
Be cool. Just be cool.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice the publicity and marketing plans for the most buzzed about authors, which include branded influencer packages, national author tours, New York media lunches, and pre-pub cocktail parties. Some authors whose publishers are committing few if any resources to boost their books often look at those plans with envy. For me, there’s this bubble of hope, cautious optimism coursing through my veins, as I imagine all that hoopla for my novel someday.
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Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.
Most writers dream of making it big. But what does “making it” mean, exactly? The answer is different for everyone. There are lots of resources about how writers can make money and improve their craft, but today I want to focus on every writer’s purest motivation: to gain the validation, attention, and admiration of important and attractive people. That’s right, Famous Author Bill Ferris is talking about your level of famousness, which is a healthy and totally controllable thing for you to fixate on.
[Note that I’m differentiating between fame and success here. While a small handful of folks like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have both, many writers have one without the other. Financial success is outside the scope of this column, but to find out more information on how to get rich as a writer, just Google “writing” and click on literally any search result.]
Writing is a never-ending and non-lucrative job, and if we can’t get paid in money, then we should expect to sign a few books for readers, to get recognized when going through the Drive Thru, or at the very least get some “likes” on social media (which is the true coin of the realm in the influencer economy or whatever).
To find your ideal level of fame, we need to identify what type of writer you are.
Type Zero: Fame? What’s That?
Motivation: You write what you write, and people can like it or not. You’re just doing this for you.
Ideal fame level: Your boss knows you write during your lunch breaks, but doesn’t take that as an indication that you’re slacking off on the job.
How you’ll know you’ve achieved it: You’re either a wild success or unpublished, and in either case, you’re already at your ideal level of famousness. So take your emotional maturity and well-adjusted priorities elsewhere, because the rest of us divas are trying to make a breakthrough here, okay?
Type 1: The Bestseller
Motivation: You want to get booked on every morning show, and go on months-long publicity tours so you can get laid in every time zone. You have an insatiable hunger for praise and validation, for someone, anyone to notice me. Er, I mean you.
Ideal fame level: You can’t leave the house without someone approaching, photographing, or cursing at you.
How you’ll know you’ve achieved it: 1. You’re a guest on a book podcast, and the host has actually read your book. 2. The subject(s) of your infamous tell-all book will no longer speak to you.
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