MUSE MONDAY
Please join me in welcoming my guest, Nancy Nau Sullivan. Once the muse has pronounced "the end" an author is on her own with a hard road to becoming known. Nancy explains it nicely.
As a first-time author, I was the last one to know the rigors of promotion, and,
in particular, the way to reviews.
Writing the book was one thing, promoting it another.
I had to dive in.
Then I hit cold, hard reality. No stopping in mid-air to think about it. I had to go
all in. From start to finish, it had taken years to bring my memoir THE LAST
CADILLAC to market, and by the grace of
God, I had to get out there and push that book.
I did get suggestions for
promotion from my publisher, but I had to do the legwork. With so much to choose from, I didn’t know
where best to start. I came to realize how very specialized every book is, how every
choice to promote it is individual, and the avenues of publicity are pretty
generic: social media, traditional media, interviews, calling, writing emails,
getting a table at the local fest. So, it seemed, I went everywhere. A scatter shot approach, if
you will. The first bright (ahem) idea was to take out an ad for my book – four
months before publication – in a prestigious writing magazine. It cost $ 750 (what was I thinking?). There are a
lot of good ways to spend money on promotion, but this was not one of them.
Writing emails
and phoning with both hands, I took a break and walked into my neighborhood branch of the Chicago Public
Library. I got up the courage and handed the manager a newly minted copy of my memoir for review. “Here. You’ll love it.” He was gracious. We chatted. “Get more
reviews,” he
advised, warmly. “Get one of the biggies if you can.”
It was too late
for many of the “biggies” now that the book was published. (And, sadly, my
publisher had missed all the deadlines for submission to get those reviews.) But
I could send my book around to Kirkus, and I did. The review came back, and it
was good. In fact, it was great!
And what did the
branch manager at the library think of THE LAST CADILLAC? I was still waiting
to hear. The days ticked by. No comment. I called one time, and then again, and I felt like a pest, and that’s what I was. A first-time author, A PEST. Because I had to bug people. Constantly.
I finally
reached him. He said he loved the book. It’s now in the Chicago Public Library collection.
Whew. That was
good news, but I still needed
reviews. I
checked Amazon. Andre Agassi
with his autobiography, OPEN, sat next to me on Amazon with more than a thousand reviews.
Really?
I had in my
possession a list of hundreds
of reviewers, obtained through some research and
persistence. How hard could
this be, to reach
out and request reviews? To sift through these names, many of them residing in Scotland or England with a super
abundance of interest in the paranormal? But
I dove in and
heard back, mostly from bloggers, who were courteous and accommodating. Only one declined because
we didn’t have “chemistry.” To my surprise, I enjoyed the process of reaching other readers and
authors who were promoting their own work. We shared ideas. We learned from
each other. One of the most satisfying “book exchange” I found was BookBub. I
posted my book, my profile, and I get to recommend books I love. It’s a real
book-loving experience.
And now for a
shameless pitch--How about a review? From you. On Amazon or BookBub? On your
own blog? Facebook? May I ask you to watch for my first mystery, SAVING TUNA
STREET, due next June from Light Messages Publishing?
The promotional
route is circuitous, and I’ve learned a lot. I keep circling back to the main
premise: to connect to the audience. It’s what we do when we write and publish.
We want to reach readers. We want that special exchange that only comes from
one-on-one, putting eyes to the page—whether writing or reading—and we wouldn’t
trade it for anything.
Middle-age is challenging enough, but when
Nancy Nau Sullivan suddenly finds herself caring for two children, grappling
with her mother’s death, and caring for her ailing father while at the same
time navigating a contentious divorce and dealing with long-simmering sibling
rivalries, she wonders how she can keep herself sane. Things get even more
complicated when her siblings accuse her of “kidnapping” their father and
carting him—and his Cadillac—off to Anna Maria Island, Florida, where they are
greeted by Hurricane Josephine. In this gripping memoir, Sullivan guides the
reader through the chaotic whirlwind of unexpected and unwanted change and
offers a common sense and humorous guide to surviving family relationships.
Nancy, you have put the dilemma very well! When people tell me that writing a book is hard, I think, "Writing is easy! Marketing is hard!!" So many of us are not at all prepared for this part of producing a book!
ReplyDeleteDee, you are so correct. If only all we had to do was write!
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