Today’s post is by author Julie Liddell Whitehead.
In September 2023, I opened perhaps the most shocking email of my life to date—Madville Publishing, a traditional house, accepted the manuscript of my short-story collection, Hurricane Baby: Stories, which is set during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for publication in the summer of 2024.
I was astounded, ecstatic, excited, amazed—all the words that go along with realizing the culmination of a long-held dream of being a published author.
In that blur of big emotions, I sprang into action to next steps: revising, editing, choosing a cover design, proofreading (so many little errors!), approving fonts, and—the biggie—devising a marketing plan for my book.
You would think I’d have a head start on this task—I worked in the marketing department for a scholarly university press. I aided the publicists, the exhibits manager, the course adoptions manager, and the director of marketing in setting up marketing plans all the time.
But what I realized over the course of my debut author journey was that the best marketing hack lay not in my own knowledge of how to write a press release or what email contacts I could glean in researching podcasters across the internet.
Instead, I needed to do more of something I already was invested in: being a good literary citizen and collaborating with others in the writing and publishing world.
Reaching out for advance publicity
I had already begun using this principle almost as soon as I signed the contract. I shot off emails to my MFA professors who published in my genre to see if they would be willing to write blurbs for my work. Two agreed, as did an author friend and an MFA mate whose work I admired. Those blurbs went into my initial press release, along with a summary of the book, my bio, and pre-ordering information.
As my author journey progressed those next few months, I made phone calls to people I knew to cooperate on advance publicity. I contacted a reinvention guru I had written for before to place an article on her website about how I’d gone from an unemployed housewife to a published author.
Talking with another author friend netted me the email of the person who selected books to review for our local metropolitan newspaper. Another pair of MFA mates interviewed me for the online magazines they edited or wrote for.
One magazine editor that I had written for during my freelancing days in the early 2000s helped me shape an article on my faith journey with the book, while another sent my press release in an email blast to their subscribers and followers the day the book released!
Scheduling appearances
Another call to a local TV personality who had interviewed me about my mental health advocacy work led her to recommend me to do a short TV interview with one of her colleagues on an afternoon talk show right before launch.
I had coordinated coverage for many books in my freelance work in advance of author appearances at the local independent bookstore, and they were very open to scheduling me a signing a few days after my book released, once I assured them I was open to doing the legwork needed to get customers into the store for the event.
To that end, I had postcards printed and sent to all the people I had postal addresses for in our local area to alert them to the event—and sold more books that day than I would anywhere else.
And I called my hometown library where I had grown up to schedule a reading for friends and family in the area, as well as my alma mater to schedule a reading through the English Department from where I had received my Master’s degree. Then I hit up a university professor I knew to see if we could work together on a signing event at her bookstore in south Mississippi.
One of my coworkers at the press also recommended me to the organizers of an event I didn’t even know existed where I was allowed to bring books to sell and conduct a breakout session where I talked about my book and my writing journey to publication to a roomful of college students.
Podcasting opportunities
Four MFA mates were also gracious enough to allow me time on their podcasts after I contacted them: one was scheduled to help drive pre-orders, another was broadcast in conjunction with the book launch over the statewide public broadcasting system, another went on YouTube in January, and yet another is scheduled later this August to discuss Hurricane Katrina literature twenty years after the storm’s landfall.
And by pure happenstance, an author I know and follow on Facebook posted a video of a podcast he had recently been on. He was gracious enough to share the host’s email with me, I made the contact, and the episode where I was interviewed just recently dropped on YouTube.
What didn’t work for me
Sometimes the proposed partnerships didn’t pan out. One friend of mine submitted my book to her book club, and it wasn’t selected. An author friend offered to do an event with me at a bookstore that knew him but not me, and they passed on the opportunity. A symposium held yearly at my MFA alma mater didn’t invite me to present my book. I learned to accept disappointment gracefully.
Did I do a few things that didn’t work? Sure. I paid a good bit of money for an online book marketing course that told me nothing I didn’t already know from working in the media as a journalist. I also paid for three months of social media management that didn’t seem to move the needle on engagement or book sales.
Both times I spent money because I was insecure about my own skills. The same insecurity led me to be too self-effacing in answering questions about my work early on. I made myself sound unsure and like I didn’t know what my own work was about. Eventually I figured out after watching myself in interviews that I needed to speak with authority about my book because I was the resident expert on it wherever I went.
Simplicity counts
Did my efforts make a difference? They certainly did, given how many collaborations I had—and especially if you take into consideration that when I started out I was a literal unknown except for some writers and arts advocates in my metropolitan area. But those efforts to be friends, to support each other’s work, and to give back to the community that gave to me represented a better investment than any money paid to a marketing guru I’d find on the internet in terms of finding my people, my tribe, those who stick with me through thick and thin. It’s that simple.
Julie Liddell Whitehead lives and writes from Mississippi. An award-winning freelance writer, Julie covered disasters from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina throughout her career. Her first book is Hurricane Baby: Stories, published by Madville Publishing. She writes on mental health, mental health education, and mental health advocacy. She has a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree in English, both from Mississippi State University. In August 2021, she completed her MFA from Mississippi University for Women.
Leave a Reply