As an author, we all need publisher support when interfacing with news outlets, literary festivals, libraries and contest/prizes. It’s just a fact that an author is taken more seriously when represented by her publisher.
And Gord keeps saying, “If only this novel were in the hands of that special person, who could just recommend it to a friend . . . ” His confidence comes from the overwhelming support and excellent love I received with the debut of A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVE.
He keeps saying, “Have you sent it to The New York Times?”
As if it were that straightforward.
Although my novel was published by a mid-size trade publisher, who presumably, has the promo bases covered; I had little way of knowing what their publicist was sending out about my book. Or to whom they were sending it.
The other thing I know is, there is a very small window of opportunity to promote your book in it’s first year of publication.
And like my protagonist, my essential angst surfaces: being left out. Forgotten. Passed over by the others. I was raised in a litter of children, and when I just look around at that gob-smacking statistic of thousands of new books flooding the market daily, I knee-jerk: Yeah! Put your hand up! Wave it around!
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.‘
And I know my novel best; the stories it has, the issues it brings up, the talking points.
After discussing with my current publisher, who encouraged me, I put together a sell sheet for KENNEDY GIRL.To share with Sunbury Press & their publicist company, CISION.
A sell sheet provides the basic information about your book on one page, including the ISBN#, the genre(s) of your novel, and a flash-synopsis. Your PR campaign sends this to libraries, bookstores, writer’s festivals and book clubs to keep the buzz going about your new release, and to introduce your request that they order the book for their readers, buyers and catalogues.
We had lots of early reviews for KENNEDY GIRL, some of which we included. Because we were short of space for this, (it is a one-sheet!) I tried to get important reviews that also included some info on the plot line & characters in the story. Luckily my partner is an accomplished visual artist who has been co-creating visual publicity pieces with PhotoShop throughout our creative lives together.
SUNBURY PRESS decided to re-publish A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVE, alongside KENNEDY GIRL. THEORY Is the #1 book in the series of the story of Annie Shea. So Gord and I had two sell sheets to create. With THEORY, we had reviews, great quotes, a list of prizes. With every inch of the sell sheet filled with that info, we had to make a couple of tough decisions.
SINS OF OMISSION:
You will see there is no mention of the author on this sheet other than my website url; we had to axe the NYC BIG BOOK AWARD for the audio book, and BOOK RIOT’s list: 100 Must-Read Books on Women & Religion. I decided that we could put that info in a cover letter – giving me room to marvel again at the excellent company, authors who are also on that list of classics: Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Hoffman, Arundhati Roy, Alice Walker, AS Byatt, Zora Neale Hurston, Anita Diamant . . .to mention a few excellent writers and their excellent books.
