Self-promotion. Some people are good at it, some people love it, some people are bad at it and some people hate it. Yet publishers seem to think writers should do it, like it and be good at it. Or do they? And are they right?
Articles like this suggest all creatives — and it seems, even accountants and bus drivers — now need a personal brand if they are to succeed and that everyone (especially publishers and record labels) expects it. For a publisher, if you have an active TikTok presence, they can rely on that to bring in sales of your book, or so the argument goes. They can piggyback off your own publicity work instead of doing theirs. For some types of book, this might be true, but certainly not for all. No one is on TikTok looking for engineering textbooks. Or are they?
If you have a large following on TikTok for something you already do, it might help you sell books. If you go onto TikTok (or whatever platform your publisher currently likes) in order to sell books, I doubt it will work. Think about how you respond to people self-promoting. I unfollow or silence them. It's just advertising. (I don't mean people excitedly announcing they have a new book. I mean people going on and on and on about their one new book for weeks.) We are not all performers. When it was just 'write a blog post', that was OKish as it's just more words. I can do words. But performing monkey with an iPhone? No thanks. A lot of us became writers precisely because we want to sit in our shed/office/bedroom hiding from the world and talking to ourselves or imaginary beings. Indeed, I suspect if I did a load of self-promotion videos it would reduce sales rather than increase them. Perhaps this is, after all, a use for AI and deep fake. I could deep fake myself for TikTok and rely on its not being very good to cancel out my own not being very good, two negatives making a positive. But I really don't think it makes any difference anyway and none of my publishers has ever pressured me to do this. (I can't speak for all publishers/writers/books, obviously.)
The thing about pressure to do something is that it's usually a bad idea to fall into line. There doesn't need to be any pressure to do something that's good for you or you want to do. 'Peer pressure' is generally seen as a bad thing that drives young people to smoke, wear trousers that are too baggy, or other things their elders disapprove of. Pressure from an employer to answer your emails out of hours is seen as exploitative. Pressure from a publisher to do their job of promoting your books works only to their benefit unless you are that rare creature who actually enjoys it. Really, do what you enjoy. If that's TikTok, brilliant. If it's writing stuff online, brilliant. If it's lying on a branch doing nothing — just don't roll off!
Many things get in the way of writing a book. (Over the last few years, I’ve struggled through moving house, teenagers with exam leave, and constant elections and referendums...) But one thing that regularly gets in the way writing a book, for me, is promoting the previous book.
It shouldn’t take me by surprise, but it seems to ambush me every single time.
Whenever I finish a novel, I allow myself to start investigating new ideas, I get excited about one particular idea, I ask deliciously intriguing questions about that story and begin to consider the answers, then just when I’m ready to start writing – boom! Suddenly the previous book - the book I’d already said good bye to – is published and I have to start promoting it. The time and energy required to launch a book means weeks or months when it's hard to find time to settle into writing the next book...
I’m not complaining. I’m really not. I love that I have a publisher, Floris Books,
who care enough to host a launch party, and send me to Aberdeen, Newcastle, Wigtown, St Andrews and all sorts of other
places to talk about my books. I love meeting librarians, teachers, parents, booksellers and READERS! I love that. But at the same
time a small quiet part of me just wants to settle down into a
new story.
So, despite the fact that I have been out and about for all of September and most of October telling people about the Spellchasers trilogy, I have been trying to keep the new story warm.
I knew that if I waited until everything calmed down, if I waited until I had perfect writing conditions, I might be waiting around for ever. And I might lose the ‘what if’ and ‘what happens next’ excitement that makes me want to write this new story. So I tried to keep the story momentum going, even if only a little bit a day...
notebooks, on a comfy bed
Therefore, while touring with the Spellchasers trilogy, I have been reading 18th century collections of folklore on trains, scribbling ideas in notebooks while teachers sat kids in front of me in neat lines, asking my characters vital questions in bookshop cafes. And I have been writing actual words in actual sentences in hotel rooms (never easy, with a comfy bed right there, just asking to be snoozed on...)
But I honestly, I didn’t think I was getting anywhere. I thought I was just making a token effort. I felt like I was only writing tiny slivers of story. Half a scene here. Half a scene there. A snippet of dialogue. A thought about the baddie. A hint of a character’s true voice.
I thought I was just trying to keep a foothold in the story’s world, so that when I finally got time to think about it in peace and quiet at home, I might still have a wee bit of momentum.
But last week, I finally got a chance to stand back and look at what I have. To see how (whether!) all the half-scenes and snippets of dialogue fit together.
I was delighted to discover that I had written 10 chapters! They need a lot of tidying, but the characters and their problems are there, and I'm now ready to write forward...
So taking the time to promote the previous book hasn’t stopped me writing the next one at all! All I had to do was keep the story warm, and keep my notebooks close by as I travelled...
Lari Donis the award-winning author of more
than 20 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture
books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for
reluctant readers.
When my first book came out in the UK in 2010, other than a card
from my publisher Walker Books, I did not do anything to celebrate it,
publicise it or promote it. Only my Mum knew and she was proud. Even though it
was my 14th or 15th book internationally, in the UK it
was my first and it had fizzled out like a firecracker on a wet Diwali night.
While I placed four picture book
titles in India in 2012, life went on in the UK in a pattern of day job and
rejections. The Indian books started coming out in 2014 and it coincided with
my moving from a full-time job to a part-time situation. Now I had time to go
into schools and I had found my sea legs so to speak.
In 2015 – after five years of
waiting, I had a second book accepted with Walker Books and a picture book with
Otter-Barry Books. And to top that, my Indian picture book Farmer Falgu series
too was going to be distributed in the UK by Red Robin Books and suddenly I realised
four books were all going to come out in the last quarter of 2016.
I decided it was unusual and cruel
for a writer to have four books coming out in the same quarter. At the same
time it was opportunity. (The Law of Lemons and Lemonade).
I didn’t want to throw
the opportunity into oblivion as I had done before in 2010. Here is what I did
to maximise the air cover I got while the smell of new books was still
lingering on my doorstep. So I decided to hire a freelance
publicist.
But before I go further, here is the disclaimer - I’m not saying this is for everyone - because it does cost hard-earned money (money I
earned at the day job or the advance I got for these books whichever was on top of the pile at the
ATM). But at that time, I wanted a boost to my brand and I wanted to do justice for these two "diverse" books to be noticed. Would I have done this (or been able to) if I didn’t have a
day job? Perhaps not.
So for those who are curious, here is how I handled hiring a personal publicist even though I was not a celebrity author.
Step 1: Write a publicity plan
I
looked up the guidelines in the SCBWI publicity grant guidelines and I modelled
one on it. I didn’t get the grant. But I had done the research At least I knew
what I wanted to do.
Step 2: Find a Publicist
I looked for freelance publicists
who could be commissioned to work directly with me for my books. I found five
who specialised in children’s books out of which two responded. One said No and
the other agreed. I met with her and we planned a campaign
for the two books that had a definite date and also because it fit within her
budget.
Step 3: Surprise the Publisher
Firstly we informed our publishers
that I was going to take care of my publicity by ploughing back the advance. It
did make them sit back and watch what I was up to. I also wanted to make sure
we were not stepping on toes and both the official publicist and the freelance
publicist knew who was doing what.
Step 4: Send word to the world
Then my freelance publicist sent out
review copies, blog posts requests, bookshop and festival requests. And we had
to wait. Ah the waiting game, I knew how to play it. I’m a writer. I knew how
to chew bed sheets, go on walks, cry into the pillow and press the refresh
button on my inbox a million times a day while I waited.
Step 5: Start the in-house campaign
While the publicist was focussed on
the outside world, I was focussed on what I could do in the meantime. Here are
some things I did while I waited.
·Spruce up my website – I
reformatted my entire website to look new, fresh and welcoming for all the new
people who might look me up when they receive our publicity requests
·Create posters – this is
where Canva.com came in. I spent an unhealthy number of days on Canva designing
posters to print, blog graphics and post cards and stuff. Canva actually sent me an email saying, “You’re here a lot, do
you want to go pro?”
·Write blog posts for my own
website – I started writing about the books ahead of the launch to create
anticipation.
·Find friends who would host
my blog – in addition to whom the publicist was contacting – I reached out to
friends who were happy to host me on their blogs.
·Create classroom content and
extras for school visits – I have a small site under my banner for kids stuff –
it has puzzles and activities and intro to my illustrators and such. I updated
a lot of this content for the new books.
·Request the illustrator to do
a blog post – Frané Lessac (illustrator of Pattan's Pumpkin) was amazing. She agreed to be interviewed for my site and hosted my content on her blog too.
·Request the illustrator for
resources - Frané Lessac was kind enough to make me colouring sheets and craft
activities etc.
Step 5: Plan the book launch
I did hit a block when I came to
this. My freelance publicist wasn’t going to arrange the launch and I had to
cold-call a number of South London bookshops. Most of them turned me down and a
few looked me up and then turned me down.
I turned to the amazing Nicky Potter
who did publicity for Otter-Barry Books for help and she introduced me to the
North London bookshop Pickled Pepper Books. They are amazing, aren’t they?
Of course I wasted more time on the
Internet planning the launch. I invited everyone I knew, create events in
Facebook and ordered matching cupcakes. A wise author once said, “A launch without cake is no launch at all.”
Step 6: Write insane number of blog posts
The publicist had arranged for me to
blog on different sites. I had to find an angle that was different and unique
to their blog about the same two books. I wrote over 25 blog posts in a matter
of five weeks, not including the ones I had promised friends to write on their
blog too. At one point I was so worried I was going to run out of things to
say. Luckily my early life as a chatterbox came in handy.
Step 7: Make a Trailer
I loved wasting time on the computer
while watching reruns of Big Bang Theory. So I decided to try my hand at making
a trailer. My one day course with SOA on how to make videos using iMovie by
Shoo Rayner, came in handy. Interestingly, I learnt a few things along the way.
·Get permission from everyone
before you release the trailer into the world. Of course my publisher Janetta
Otter-Barry was impressed and so was her team. My illustrator Frane Lessac loved
it and she was happy to consent.
·Use original photos, text and
permitted content. Luckily I had my own photos and where required those in
public domain I could use and attribute.
Step 8: Prepare for diversions
As the first book’s publicity was
proceeding, the freelance publicist had landed a full-time job. Now she was no
longer available to promote my second book. But before I could panic, she
managed to secure the services of another publicist and made sure the work
continued uninterrupted. Things are always fluid and coping with them as they
come was one of the things I do at my day-job and that was useful in dealing
with this.
Step 9: Keep a Calendar
I had so many balls up in the air
that I had to create a calendar of events and blog posts and keep them updated.
By now bookshop visits were coming in and they were spread across a range of
3-4 months. My calendar resembled a jigsaw puzzle in colour. I hoped I could
find the edges if everything fell apart.
Step 10: Be grateful for kindness of friends
Few days before the launch, a school
librarian reached out to me and asked if I could do two libraries and her
school in her borough as a pre-launch promotion. I was so grateful for the support.
Except fate interfered and sent the flu virus to land on me and the day before
the launch I was on the road armed with my books and a stack of tissues.
And so, the freelance publicists who worked on the campaign had
opened many doors I hadn’t been able to approach. I got into some really
wonderful festivals and bookshops, got noticed by some organisations who would
not have heard of me otherwise, got some print reviews in teachers’ magazines
and trade publicity magazines.
It gave me the boost I needed and putting in all the work on my
own, hours in front of a computer not writing, sweating the details of fonts and
images on websites proved very productive.
Whether you are traditionally
published and want a leg up for your new book or you are self-published and
want to build a brand, it might be a worthwhile option to look into. It is hard
work and it involves spending money and I did a lot of DIY work myself – like
posting letters, printing posters, writing blog posts, sprucing my website etc.
But it was a good learning experience and I can build on the contacts I have
now been introduced to.
