FIRST IN MY HEART

on early industry buzz, paying to play, Publishers Weekly $25 announcement on galleys, and a brief (harrowing) explanation of timelines

It’s currently ice cream hour after treadmill hour and I found my computer buried under a copy of Bluey’s Book of Games, Cranky Makes a Friend (oh, clang it! folks who get it, get it) and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (a classic) to come to your inboxes and talk about Publishers Weekly new pay model for book submissions, early industry reviews, and why early buzz matters.

I’ve debated writing this as, of course, I want folks in the industry to love me and say yes about my authors, but why do we put so much stock into early industry praise? Well, for starters, that’s where librarians and booksellers (alongside sales presentations and publisher catalogs through distributors) find out about new (and often buzzy) books. They order books based on this trifecta of knowledge—sales team, sales presentation, early industry buzz. I mean early, early like “this book sold at auction!” in the Publishers Marketplace announcement and then a few months shy of publication got a Kirkus star. This is not why authors get so excited about stars (it’s a STAR!), but it’s why they probably should. It’s one way (at least previously) where a book could stand out to the people literally stocking shelves without having the backing of large sales teams and presentations. Media matters (duh! it’s my job!) but sales MATTER. Big M.

This all starts so early. I’ll give you an example. 2026 spring titles for a certain independent publisher need to have all their marketing materials to IPG (one of the major distributors) by early June for “front list season.” (Front list meaning the books that are given top space in a distributors catalogs—this is often decided well before marketing materials are due). They ask for very similar things that you might see in a book proposal—author bios, if they author is hiring a publicist (and who they are, in case you think that doesn’t matter), networks with numbers on their reach and membership, professional affiliations, who and where you’ll be reaching out to for media, what bookstores you might approach for events, and same sales pitches for you book (unique points, nationwide selling points). Most of the time, authors have nothing to do with this, it’s the publishing team that gathers all these materials and presents the book. Definitely this is what’s happening at the conglomerates, but it’s also what’s happening with independent presses that use a major distributor. Timelines vary, but you can see that prep for this kind of thing is a year out at least.

If you ever get an ARC (advanced reader copy) of a book, you might see it has a “Publicity and marketing plan” on the bottom, which is just bullet points with a general overview of plans for the book. Here’s a terrible screenshot of a simple one (still hopefully readable). This is not for your average freelance writer who is pitching magazines, but for trade professionals and major media to see what kind of leverage the book is pulling from the publisher—what stock they’ve put in the book, to then tell them what stock publications, booksellers, librarians, should put in that book. It’s like an insider tell.

Now for the harder to swallow part, book clubs like Jenna’s Book Club are booked … well, right now, through this year. (Not all of them!). But the major, make you an overnight bestseller book clubs are booked up. Those teams are reading new books in word doc format—books that haven’t even been put through copyediting yet. They’re reading Publishers Marketplace announcements, eyeing major auctions (you know the ones that have sold to seventeen foreign countries already) and requesting manuscripts then and there. So, that’s almost two years out from publication, maybe more. They’re hearing from scouts early, they’re hearing from publishers early, they’re hearing from folks way before I would ever begin a campaign with an author unless we’re doing some sort of platform building situation. Here’s an example of an obvious Jenna’s Book Club choice (I wish I could find the PM announcement because it was truly wild—Michelle Brower, I bow down). Can you hear the chiming of an “11-way auction” to studio execs?

So, independent publishers are often simply not meeting those timelines. Where do those playing fields get leveled? Well, it used to be in early industry reviews. And then they got really slow. Publishers Weekly was putting out reviews months after pub date, and my good dudes—where is the help in that? The point of the early industry review is to generate early buzz. I used to love using those little ditties for follow-up to folks who I had already pitched. “Hey remember me! The book is in fact “magnificent” to someone else too!” We say, as publicists, we want everything to land around pub date (that short and sweet window of about six weeks), but we do need some early traction—something ANYTHING to cause a little commotion in someone’s inbox.

But now, now you’re telling me that you can’t keep up (which we knew from the slowness) and you’re asking publishers to pay $25 a title without the guarantee for a review. Who does this serve? Well, it does serve PW if they’re getting nothing but AI slop submissions to weed those folks out, and it of course serves them financially, but I’m wondering about those finances too. Because wasn’t it y’all that bought The Millions a year or two ago and suddenly it’s on a kind-of hiatus? There’s been some recent movement, but four pieces were published in January and then … nothing. Arguably one of the best spaces for complex author interviews and essays about literature. Did you think we would just let that one go quietly? Hopefully some of the galley submission cash will go to the revitalization of The Millions (I’ll be watching).

And now, after (potentially) crushing The Millions, we’re looking at fees per title across the board with an opportunity to opt-in to a bundling if we need to submit unlimited books (at a price that we are all aware mostly only the conglomerates can afford). So, here we are: Netgalley is expensive (another early buzz generator—if you’re not requesting books for review on Netgalley, let me change your life!), Edelweiss is reasonable (we still have her!), industry reviews are slow and now pricey (I worry that the Publishers Weekly pricing is going to encourage the same across the board for places like Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, Kirkus, Booklist). So, what do you do?

Well, first you decide if you want to pay to play. Then, you talk with your people about how to generate early buzz that doesn’t take away from launch media, but does have teeth. You don’t want to go in hard too early (as in, people don’t know what action to take with the book—it’s like going to AWP without a retail link for your book. If people can’t order it, there’s no point in telling them other than for your own glee). Early industry reviews aren’t a sure thing at all, and they aren’t sure to be good either. Kirkus is notoriously snarky (no offense, Kirkus, I enjoy reading them and yapping with Alisha and Zoe about the particular burns).

I’ve had campaigns where we wrote letters and did outreach specifically to librarians, book clubs, organizations, groups. I’ve had authors who hand wrote individual letters to booksellers (thank you, Indie Next!). Though these are obvious choices, they are action. And sometimes action is all an author needs. An assignment, a doable task, a place to put those tendrils of anxiety. Another way is publishing essays that are adjacent to the book topic.

Since so little is confirmed early (we are sometimes following-up in the final seconds, sending those Hail Mary emails), it’s hard to say “a ____ will appear in _____” though sometimes I hedge my bets there. The political climate is unstable (at best) and of course that takes space from book coverage. Something timely could happen FOR your book or AGAINST your book, we truly can’t know until we get there. It’s all about framing.

You really can’t be sure about anything until the thing appears or the contract is signed (and even then!). I had a whole face-to-face meeting last year with the head of design at a major newspaper that you can probably guess, about a graphic nonfiction piece, zoomed into his perfect little living room with his green couch, and we agreed on timeline, deadline, expectations, sizing, and then…he ghosted four days out from publication. The piece was done! It’s a nail biter every time, I love it.

Anyway, this is all to say—the game is rigged, it’s been rigged, and yet we still play it. You always get to decide what matters to you and where you spend your money (or not). Is it worth it to you to spend $25 on a Publishers Weekly maybe? Is it worth it to you to spend $500 on ad space on Facebook or in Mother Jones or through a Goodreads giveaway? All up to you (or your publisher, depending!)

My kid (he's three) is currently obsessed with being first. Sometimes it’s grand, like when I ask them who wants to brush their teeth first and they both volunteer. But cause and affect, my second born has started saying, “Me! First!” (he’s 1.5). Now, whichever one isn’t first and if it’s something I can’t manage to do at the same time while singing “round and round” (Wheels on the bus) or “tinkle tinkle” (you can guess), I say, “but can you be first in my heart?” And so, I say to you, good and noble book people, what is first in your heart when it comes to putting a book out into the world? And what can you, in the words of Elsa, “Let it Go.” (Though she does sort of let it go so much that she builds an entire gleaming frozen castle at the top of a mountain—so maybe we should start framing publicity as more of a surrender to surprise and magic than, “if I don’t get reviewed in the New York Times my life is over.” Is it though, Jan?

---

As always, the Pine State calendar of events lives here, and you can buy our books here! You can also see what we’re working on and contact us through our website, Pinestatepublicity.com.

ICYMI: Lauren k. Watel was interviewed by Emma Bolden for The Rumpus, Keetje Kuipers’ Lonely Women Make Good Lovers is in the Alta April booklist, poems appeared in BOMB, she also had a recent essay in Romper on being “sort of a single mother” and was interviewed on Poetry Off the Shelf, Nicole Graev Lispon got another fabulous review in The Rumpus with a side of interview in MUTHA Magazine, Erica Stern’s debut memoir made its first anticipated list in the OC Register, Gabriel Fried was reviewed in Southern Review of Books and Columbia Daily Tribune, plus this truly intellectual interview in Chicago Review of Books, Iris Dunkle talked Sanora Babb on Colorado Public Radio, Lisa Russ Spaar’s Paradise Close was reviewed in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and she’ll be at the Montclair Literary Festival (don’t miss her!) and so much more on our Twitter & Instagram.