http://lithub.com/ask-the-publicists-but-what-about-my-book/

https://janefriedman.com/getting-ready-launch-book-start-5-questions/

http://publishingperspectives.com/2014/08/making-book-promotion-work-the-authorpublisher-partnership/#.V-3c0cm3Fdw

Agents have differing opinions on this next point, but I think it’s worth considering hiring a freelance publicist, provided you realize that hiring one does  not offer a guaranteed return on investment. But it does create a scenario in which you have a publicity professional reporting to you, in which you collaborate on/advise/help shape the efforts, where you are generally assured of the extra mile, the assiduous follow up with producers/editors etc.  Freelance publicists  rely on customer satisfaction and good word of mouth, so they have a vested interest in doing their utmost.

If hiring help is not an option, as it is not for many authors, then plan on investing some percentage of the time you spent actually writing the book promoting it. I know I’ve used this metaphor more than once, but imagine, if you will, that you are participating in the publishing world’s answer to the folktale Stone Soup.  (This version of the story is less about the potential of cooperation and collective action than it is about your soup-making acumen.)

The publisher brings the magical soup-making stone, you bring the stock, the vegetables, the diced meat, noodles or legumes, the grated cheese and the freshly baked bread (without which no soup  is complete) and ideally a crisp Pino Grigio or unoaked Chardonnay.  All the years you spent mastering soup-making, all your assembled ingredients, those represent  your platform, and most major publishers/magic stone owners will not so much as invite you into a kitchen if you’ve not got those in order.  So why then, would a competent soup chef require a partner?  Not everyone thinks they do; plenty of people self-publish. But like most folks involved in mainstream publishing, I still believe that sometimes the stone really is magical—and it can transform a single pot of good soup into a blockbuster phenomenon.  Publishers still have the editorial vision, cultural clout, and retail distribution to make bestsellers.

If you’ve just completed the marketing and promotion section of your proposal or an author questionnaire, you will have inventoried every literate, potentially book-buying person you’ve ever known and listed every plausible method you can envision to promote your book/get a blurb/call in a favor.  Think about how you’d put together your own DIY tour, whether real or virtual—I know a novelist who ran a cross country tour from his car, traveling from one independent bookseller to another, blogging all the way, and another author whose tour unfolded from her studio apartment, spanning 15 guest posts in 15 days.  Where might you go? Physically? Virtually? Who/where are your people?  Do you have connections to bookstores, community organizations, alumni groups, professional associations, clubs, writers’ leagues, bowling leagues? Can you craft a talk/workshop/presentation/video short/interpretive dance around your subject that offers something richer/stranger/more interesting than a straightforward reading? Can you team up with another author?  Where can you place essays related to the book?  If your subject is a tough or unlikely one, can you write about the process of writing? The business of publishing?  Investigate the authors/thought leaders/experts who are writing about issues that your book addresses. Engage with them online, suggest a guest post on their (heavily trafficked) website, interact via Twitter. Emulate fellow writers who seem, by your lights, to be doing it right.  Say yes to local media and podcasts, and any venue that will provide you with a good quality video of you speaking. You never know who might be paying attention, and clips of interviews or discussions are terrific tools, and should be housed or linked to on your website.  Take possession of your author page at online booksellers.  Skype into bookclubs.  Remain a pleasant but persistent presence in the life of your publicist even after you’re certain she’s moved on.   Be gracious. Solicit suggestions for what more you can do, suggest ideas for outlets and venues that might be outside a house’s usual remit.  Designate a time each week that you devote to publicizing your book, and stick with it.  Like a sustainable diet or exercise plan, choose methods that you don’t find abhorrent (or so completely absorbing that you cease to write!)

Finally, talk to your agent and be on the receiving end of an interminable e-mail a lot like this one.

Thing is, a plethora of amazing authors and delectable sounding books are being published this fall.  Ann Patchett, Zadie Smith, Maria Semple, Ian McEwan, Colson Whitehead all had/have hotly anticipated novels coming out.  And then, of course, there’s the Springsteen memoir which will undoubtedly break sales records because, OMG, the Boss!!! (Ahem, okay, I’m done fangurling.)

What all of these books have in common, is that they are all being published (or were in Whitehead’s case) on a Tuesday.  Because, well, that’s when books are published.

Now, I’ve been in the business for roughly 150 years, give or take, and when my husband asked me why the Springsteen book was pubbing on a Tuesday, I mumbled the usual “distribution, PR, bestseller lists” blather I’ve heard over the years.  Then I thought about it and realized that I don’t really know for sure how Tuesdays  became the “new books” day.

Turns out, I’m not alone.  Laurie Hertzel goes digging for answers in this amusing piece in The Star Tribune and reaches no definitive conclusion.  Suffice it to say, books are published on Tuesday, so pre-order accordingly.

It stands to reason that people would want to get to know the people of this amazing country that has become so popular, and what better way than through literature?

After taking a course in grad school covering translated literature, I’ve made it a point to read more translated works. I learned through the class how little I know about other cultures, and that the bulk of the books I was reading focused on American culture. Books are supposed to broaden your horizon, and yet, I was being fed the same stories over and over again, learning very little in comparison to when I read about different cultures. I found that through these completely foreign books, I could travel to another country from the comfort of my own home (and without the ridiculous flight costs). I developed a broader love for foreign rituals and traditions, discovered wars and conflicts I never knew existed, experienced new landscapes following characters that know them best, and most importantly, I became a better writer. Maybe even a better person.

So knowing that more Icelandic books will be translated thrills me. Reading an Icelandic book will take me one step closer to my dream vacation! Or at the very least, I may finally understand why Iceland is so cherished.

Like Miriam, I am an inveterate NPR listener (read: geek), and nothing makes me happier when two of my favorite things come together—my clients and my radio habit.

Tomorrow my client Judy Melinek, co-author of the memoir WORKING STIFF: Two Years, Two Hundred and Sixty Two Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner, will be on NPR’s Science Friday. To kick it off, there’s a medical mystery to solve The Pink Eye of Death (is the cause of death natural or otherwise? You decide) up on the website.

Publication is always thrilling, particularly for first-time authors, and it’s especially exciting when good things are afoot. Reviews for the book have been glowing, there’s a TV option in place, interviews and features are in the works, and I’m counting the hours ‘til 2pm tomorrow. The book officially publishes on August 12th, but this is an excellent lead-in.

Scribner, the publisher, has been terrific.  Editors Shannon Welch and John Glynn worked on numerous drafts of the book—again, disproving the canard that editors “don’t edit.” The design team created an arresting cover, going so far as to correct their initial draft, which featured a blue gloved hand holding a scalpel as a surgeon might.  According to Judy, who is a forensic pathologist, both glove (too thin) and grasp (too delicate) were incorrect, and Scribner actually photographed Judy’s hand to get it right.

The book is also a labor of love; Judy wrote it with her husband TJ, a Hollywood screenwriter turned stay-at-home dad whose literary gifts nicely balance Judy’s scientific mind.  This was my first time representing a husband and wife writing team, and it seems that collaborating on a book, like never going to bed angry, makes for a happy marriage.  In any case, I’m thrilled for both of them.

As agents, we play many roles: we may be midwives, advisers, advocates, editors, but we are also, at heart, fans.  Undergirded as it is by genuine admiration, ours is a job that rarely grows old.  It is also significantly less hair-raising than forensic pathology.  Which–since I can live vicariously through my clients– is just fine by me.