Double Mint Gum!

In which I discuss publicity moves I would make if ... (I was actually working on the book I should be working on), collaborations, flow charts, horoscopes, and more!

Warning, self-pitying opening to the newsletter: Unfortunately, the last few weeks I’ve felt totally disillusioned about publishing (and what I’m doing with my life). It’s one of those slow crisis episodes where if I sit too long alone I get weird. Between the Barnes & Noble shift (which I’m waiting to see the side effects of)—plus the viral thread about how all that works, the court testimonies in the PHR/S&S merger case, Twitter (in general) which used to feel like a true community for me and feels less and less these days, and the relentlessness with which everything comes back to money and bottom lines—all of it is really eating away at me.

So, rather than write a debbie downer of a newsletter this week, I’m just going to share a list of book promotion moves I’ve noticed recently that feel fun & fresh or nostalgic & enduring—the double mint gum of publicity! Think of it like an Austin Kleon newsletter / Girl Boss Town “moves I would make if…” but for book publicity. This isn’t to say the traditional review is dead by any means (you know I love a review), but please read this interview with Kate Tuttle, the Boston Globe Books Editor.

*Disclaimer! A lot of this is marketing, which is different from publicity, although they’re often lumped together. When I think about what publishers and/or writers can do to enhance what they may already be doing, I think of some of these things. But as a publicist, my job is not (usually) creating these marketing materials. My purpose is trying to make connections between those that do and my authors. Everything, everything, in publicity is a collaboration, and it can be fruitful for all sides. It can (should!) also be organic. Word of mouth and hand-selling is still the best publicity that exists!

HERE GOES:

1. Edie Meade (a writer I really adore for her ability to create lush, atmospheric stories) tweeted about Baltimore Review offering 50 prompts for donations (as part of their submission fees). And the prompts are based on their contributor’s work, so Baltimore Review is getting their contributor’s work read (again) after the initial publication AND they’re offering their paying audience something.

2. A Room of One’s Own social media & marketing manager Fawzy Taylor is creating flow chart memes, which was covered in the NY Times. They’re stylistically fun to look at, they catch your eye when you’re scrolling through a feed, AND they are social justice orientated and relevant to the cultural conversation. It’s like hand-selling and Buzzfeed quizzes had a baby. Shout out to their browsable book lists too!

3. What Julia Harrison calls a “wonderful collab of film & poetry” by partners, Sara Moore Wagner (poet) and Jon D. Wagner (director), DYNAMICS. I love these two married creatives making art together, gives me the feels! If you haven’t read Swan Wife, it’s partly about their relationship, and the poem in the film is from that book.

I can’t find it now but Natalie Diaz has a really beautiful video for one of her poems too, which is about the Colorado River. If you all know the link, send it to me or put it in the comments!

On a smaller scale, I also really love that Sophie Klahr made this blurb reel out of a quick sunset video—it’s gorgeous and gives me book atmosphere without being a lot of work, or an overwhelming thing. I also love this simple video “things I am loving” from @keepingthecreativity on Instagram (which could easily become—”things I love about my book” or “things I love about the creative process” or “things I’m looking forward to when my book comes out” or “places I would love to see my book reviewed” or some other book promotional thing).

4. Books on GIF is a substack that does book reviews with GIFS. They just reached 2k followers, and I think this could be redone by authors or publishers in a Twitter thread (and it would be fun!). In my high school classroom, I used to have my students choose something we read from the year to Emoji-story or GIF-story. This would be great for talking about a work-in-progress, or to tweet out a hint about a current project.

5. Living *a little bit* in fear of shouting Kateria Kramer out for her incredible, illustrated reviews at The Rumpus, but goodness should be shared. So, here’s her review of Girlhood by Melissa Febos.

I wonder sometimes if we don’t think enough about collaborations with other artists as a part of our book promotion. I really love how Melissa Febos partnered with artists Forsyth Harmon and Girls Write Now last year for these beauties. While you’re thinking about all the places you want reviews, maybe think about if you could partner with a local organization or artist to do something cool for your book?

6. Discovered this tweet by Dr. Hannah McCann recently (it’s from 2021 but Twitter is such a random resource sometimes) and it pairs specific books with astrological signs. There are so many ways we could use this format for books and book lists. Astrological signs, personality tests (lol a Myers-Briggs booklist) birthstones, birth flowers, love languages, moods, seasons, colors, literally anything with categories could be promoted this way. I would love to see this done with someone’s shelves and a tarot deck. Talia at @verynicebook does something similar. I would totally pitch her my book, which will inevitably be a Leo. Don’t ask me why, but this story collection, Almost Deadly, Almost Good by Alice Kaltman SCREAMS Scorpio to me. It’s a feeling, okay?

7. The McNally Jackson 2022 Summer Reading Matrix. I couldn’t find an image of the 2022 board, but I found an image of an older one. Reminds me of the March Madness essay brackets I see every season from Curing Season: Artifacts author Kristine Langley Mahler’s Twitter. This year is March Fadness. I also get Sealey Challenge vibes from the summer reading matrix—what’s stopping more of us from stealing notes from 2010 bloggers and creating book challenges, book bingo boards, etc? Publisher’s could do this in a newsletter or on their website! There are so many ways to use this format.

8. Really obsessed with these carousels at P&T Knitwear. If you want more folks to spend time with your stuff, or spend longer looking at something, this feels like a great idea to replicate. Plus it’s doing double publicity work. They’ve posted the list curated by two authors that were doing an event that night [this was June 23]. Electric Lit has been doing carousels too of what their staff is reading and watching—publishers, agencies, organizations could do this too.

9. Buffalo Street Books is *crushing it* on publicity (i’m seeing them everywhere!), but #lunapicks is one of my favorites. Do you have a pet? Could you do a monthly #petpicks? People LOVE a pet picture.

10. Creating a virtual or local reading series. Reaching out to reading series’ in your area to see if you can be tagged in. I love what the Wild & Precious Life series does. Shout out to the newest reading series in Portland too, Constellation Reading Series.

11. There should always be an extra for good measure. Encore! I had a meeting a few weeks back with Oriana Leckert, who is the Director of Publishing and Comics Outreach at Kickstarter. She has great hair and she’s a fabulous human. And while I thought of Kickstarter as a get-the-project-made source, it can be such a valuable tool for publicity, so I’m linking to the Creator Tips: Publishing, Comics & Journalism link that she sent along. And thanks to Megan Posco for the introduction to Oriana. Y’all if Copper Canyon and The Believer can do Kickstarter, other literary authors and publishers can as well.