Poets & Publicists: The Intro (aka My Backstory)

The day I received the acceptance email from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press that it wanted to publish my debut full-length poetry collection, Head of a Gorgon, marked the end of a journey in this writer’s life — or so I thought.

Looking back now that my little paper baby is out in the world, I realize this was really only maybe the 20th- or 300th-to-last step for this particular book. It’s one thing to have a book published; it’s a very different thing to actually sell it.

As we discussed the details of the contract, one thing I deeply appreciated about my earliest exchanges with my publisher was how much freedom it allowed me to have in shaping whatever would become my PR strategy. I wasn’t going to be forced to create or submit a marketing plan — which is more common a practice than you might think among small presses — let alone have to worry if it lived up to someone else’s expectations. I wasn’t going to be forced into readings or events, particularly in-person ones — a big concern for me during the ongoing pandemic. I wasn’t going to be required to meet some minimum sales requirement — not to get a contract or stay in anyone’s good graces. And my royalties, whether I sold one book or a thousand, would be quite generous — though not to be outdone by my publisher’s personal overall generosity.

All this inspired me to want to do more to make this book successful for the press. And that meant book promotion.

In a past life, I not only worked with some top-notch PR and marketing folks — think big, multibazillion-dollar companies like HP, Dell, etc. — but I myself had to do some marketing and PR work (on a much lower level). I had a baseline knowledge of both what exemplary, six-figure-income publicists looked like in action and the kind of effort it was going to take to spread the word about my book.

But because I had this baseline knowledge, I was definitely spoiled as far as my expectations of folks to potentially work with were concerned. I also knew what kind of odds were stacked against me — both with respect to the quality/level of experience of folks who might be available to me and what anyone could reasonably accomplish for a poetry collection and with a small budget. I knew how much I hated doing this kind of work as well. Such is life.

I saved up a modest amount, with the goal of hopefully bringing aboard someone reasonably competent and professional to help me in my PR efforts. And I say “help” because I knew I was still going to have to do some amount of work myself, as any author really must, though many bristle at this, typically to the detriment of their book sales and overall author brand.

In the end, for a variety of reasons I’ll delve into throughout this blog series, I ultimately decided to handle the PR efforts for my book myself. But after learning what I did while exploring my options — not to mention all the relationships, insights and metrics I was able to obtain from doing it myself — I’m much more comfortable and at peace with it. I recognize I’m playing the long game here in building a name for myself, my current book, and any forthcoming books (my memoir being next in line), and to me, it’s worth it to put in the effort and to have access to all the data I can right now.

And I’ve even taught other people how to do this for themselves, which I’ve found rewarding, especially because the industry generally acts like this is something beyond authors’ or small presses’ capacity (it’s not) or that there’s some great secret to success (there’s not). In fact, while you may not be able to control sales as much, you actually can do pretty well with the promotion stuff, and you tend to see more tangible outcomes the more you put into the effort.

To this point, I’ve pitched my book to hundreds of outlets of various types and garnered more than 50 placements for Head of a Gorgon alone, which is not too shabby, especially considering the success rates of some of the folks I was close to potentially bringing on board to help me, which were significantly lower — and by significantly, I mean 5-7 times lower. Yes, as in, those folks sometimes only got 7-10 placements for the titles they represented. (And to humor any potential contrarians who want to argue about potential “quality over quantity” of the placements, it’s not like these folks were getting their authors into The New York Times or anything, either.)

However, I realize my decision may not be right for everyone. So if you have the funds and think you may want to wash your hands (mostly) of PR/marketing and seek assistance instead — or are being provided some form of assistance through your publisher — I’ll be sharing some things to be aware of in this blog series to help you better navigate your options. Stay tuned!

###

If you like what you’re reading and want to support my effort to bring this info to you and our fellow writers, please consider ordering my latest book for yourself or, if you already have it, for a friend! I don’t have a tip jar, but the link to the book is right here; your order will support me and the small press that believed and invested in my work. Or you can order directly from me by reaching out through the Contact Me page if you’d like a signed and/or personalized copy.