Congratulations! Your book’s been accepted for publication! First, you dance! Then you make plans to give your new book its best chance in the world.
You’ve got nearly a year while the book’s in production, just barely enough time to do the following:
• Contact any reporters or reviewers you know—print, broadcast, or online. Send them advance publicity and reviews. Add them to the press’s standard review list.
• From your acknowledgments page, make a list of the magazines that have published your work. Do they also publish reviews? If so, compile a list of those editors and their addresses. Add these to the press’s review list.
• Prepare your personal address list for advance fliers. These can be sent by snail mail, e-mail, or both.
• If you can afford to, set up readings in different parts of the country. Send a copy of your book to the person who organizes the readings at your venue of choice. Once you get a yes, try to set up two more within driving distance of the first.
• Know this—universities, community colleges, and schools often pay authors for readings. Some libraries do. Bookstores don’t. Read at bookstores anyway. Read anywhere someone will set up chairs and do publicity. Offer to visit classes, discussion groups, and/or book clubs.
• If you can’t travel to meet with a class that’s reading your book, offer to talk with the group by audio conference.
• Offer your services at writing conferences and festivals. If you’ve attended some in the past, contact the organizers and let them know about your new book. Try to find a link between your book and their audience or community. Send a sample of your book to organizers who seem interested.
• Say "yes" to interviews on the radio or television, in print, or online.
• Ask bloggers you know to do a blurb on your book.
• Prepare a one-sentence description and three-sentence synopsis as reference points when you talk about your book.
• Prepare study questions and post them to the Web site for your book. These help teachers who might host you, discussion leaders, and interviewers who might not read your book. Let these questions lead to things you’d like to say about the book.
Once your book comes out:
• Announce your book’s release on listservs and on your own Web page. Link to your press’s Web page to make buying your book a breeze.
• Place your book in local bookstores. Independents and university bookstores will likely buy directly from you or from your press. Chain stores will require you to go through a distributor. Find out who the distributor is. Make an appointment with your local rep. Buy her coffee. Let her know where your book fits into her list.
• Keep a carton of books in the trunk of your car. Keep an extra one in your book bag. Don’t be shy.
• Attend the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) conference. Spend time in the booth talking about your new book, handing out postcards of the cover, and signing purchased copies.
• If you’re lucky enough to get invited to a regional or national booksellers’ association conference, prepare a ten-minute presentation that will help booksellers place your book in the hands of customers. Be prepared to sign books as fast as you can, then mingle. Walk the book show floor and talk about your book.
• Be aware of calls for papers at conferences around the globe. If you can link your book to their programs, submit a proposal. If your proposal is accepted, attend the conference, and take along postcards of your cover and a few copies of your book.
• Donate copies of your book to libraries and nonprofit literacy centers.
• Donate copies of your books to students who cannot afford them.
Throughout this process, you should stay in close touch with the people at your press. They will help you as much as they can. Rely on their expertise. Ask questions. Get suggestions.
Take great pleasure in spreading the word about your words.
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Peggy Shumaker is professor emerita of English at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the author of Just Breathe Normally (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). She teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Visit her Web site at www.peggyshumaker.com.
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