by Sara Fujimura
My first traditionally-published YA book, EVERY REASON WE SHOULDN’T (Tor Teen), launched on March 3, 2020. And there was much rejoicing! For about a week. Then ERWS promptly fell into the COVID19 Abyss along with pretty much the entire Spring 2020 catalog. Whether you were the big fish scheduled for a 10-city book tour or the tiny minnow throwing your own launch party catered by Costco, COVID19 was the great equalizer. Launch parties, book festivals, book tours, and other fun in-person marketing events all went *poof* overnight. Yep, there was a lot of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the Football going on.
I was understandably disappointed, but there was a silver lining. I’m a hybrid author with two indie-pubbed YAs under her belt, so I’m used to doing my own marketing. Yes, Tor Teen can do things that I can’t, like getting reviews from NPR and making it onto Buzzfeed specialty lists. But I can also do things that Tor Teen can’t. So, if you’ve finished Netflix, baked enough bread to feed a small village, and created a TP-hand sanitizer-Oreo stockpile that would make a doomsday prepper envious, it’s time to get to work. Here are three things you can do TODAY to get your writing career rolling whether you are indie-pubbed, traditionally-pubbed, or a hybrid:
#1--EXPERIMENT WITH SUPER-TARGETED MARKETING
When my second indie-pubbed book came out in 2018, I hired two local HS teachers to create curriculum for me. BREATHE is set in 1918 Philadelphia against the Spanish Flu pandemic and is rich in both science and history. The resources have been on my website for over a year now and have mostly garnered…*crickets.* Fast-forward to April 2020 when a nation of parents and teachers were desperately trying to figure out how to make distance learning work. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (www.scbwi.org ) asked its members for content of all kinds and levels so teachers and parents could have free, quality activities at their highly-sanitized fingertips. So, I dusted off my suddenly extremely relevant, teacher-created, pandemic curriculum and sent it over to SCBWI. Though I can’t track specific sales of BREATHE to the SCBWI promo, I did see an exponential jump in sales from April to June. What about you? Can you create something (a how-to blog post, newsletter article with a short science lesson, an Instagram post featuring a vintage recipe, etc.) for your audience which can be passed along to their like-minded friends? Can you offer up your expertise in a particular subject that ties into your books for a Zoom workshop for a school, club, or organization?
#2--STOP LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE
Is there a list of email addresses collected at your last event gathering dust in your office? Have you been too busy in the past to update your email newsletter list? These are people who WANT to hear from you. There are whole courses on building email funnels and optimizing your email-opening rates, but it’s okay to start with the basics and build. One caveat: Make sure you are GIVING readers something along with your “Buy my book!” pitch. It could be a new short story with beloved characters, a bonus chapter cut from a published book, or a behind-the-scenes look of your latest project. If that feels too overwhelming, try a recipe for a food your characters eat. Or invent a themed cocktail readers can sip while enjoying your book. Create something fun, light-hearted, and connecting. It may not result in a sale right away, but you’re building momentum toward your bigger brand.
#3—EXPAND YOUR CIRCLE
“It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” This adage is 100% true. Indie-pubbed authors, if anybody ever looks down their nose at you and says that indies never get to sign at book festivals, be on writing panels, or see their books in Barnes & Noble, feel free to point at me. I’ve done all of the above multiple times in the last three years. Thank you very much. And that was BEFORE my traditionally-published third book came out. How? Connections. How do you make connections? Join a writing organization. I write romantic, coming-of-age stories for teens. Therefore, I belong to both the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (www.scbwi.org ) and the Romance Writers of America (www.rwa.org ) and have been very active in my regional chapters for many years. It might feel a little squidgy, but this is a form of both short-term and long-term marketing. Absolutely don’t be pushy about your books, but being that helpful, experienced writer who answered a newbie’s question is a form of marketing. Be an active member of your chapter. Volunteer to check people in at your regional conference (one day!). Do a writing craft workshop for your chapter. Mentor a newer writer. Join a subcommittee. Can’t afford a membership fee right now? Lift up other authors in your genre by retweeting their book cover reveals, showing up to their book launches (one day!), and bragging on them when they win an award. All the good you put out will come back to you. Case in point, while I was writing this post, an SCBWI-Arizona friend from the other side of town pinged me that her local library branch is looking for books from Arizona authors and that I should apply. This is the same author who I invited to be part of a special event at MY local library earlier this year. See, it’s not squidgy!
There you go. As someone with a degree in Public Health Education who wrote a book about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, I need to give you a hard truth…COVID19 is going to be here for a while. So stop waiting for publishing to go back to normal and take the reins on your career today.
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Sara Fujimura creates stories for intelligent, adventurous, globally-minded teens who aren’t afraid to fall in love with someone completely different than themselves. Sara started as a journalist, so it is no surprise that her young adult books contain a lot of facts to go along with the fiction. Whether you want to know about Nagoya, Japan (TANABATA WISH), the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 (BREATHE), what it’s like to be an Olympic-caliber skater (EVERY REASON WE SHOULDN’T), or how unscripted television works (FAKING REALITY, Tor Teen, July 2021), Sara takes the reader on a swoony journey to unusual places. She is a creative writing teacher, literacy advocate, and is excited to support the next generation of authors.