Dear Storyteller #14 - If I Publish in a Pandemic, Did I Publish At All?
Dear Storyteller,
Okay I know that title sounds kind of alarmist, and it is. Things have been scary this year, and especially for creative industries. Film productions and TV shut down their sets. Shows were canceled. Publishing has lost several imprints, there have been layoffs, option books that might have sold easily pre-pandemic are rejected by their publishers, and everyone is uncertain and scared.
I feel for the writers who debuted this year. It is not easy to be a book struggling against a rising wave of changes to an industry that has largely operated in the same way for centuries. A publisher publishes a book; readers go to bookstores and buy said book. I’m going to not even bother talking about the factor that is Amazon, because we all know that Amazon has been changing the books landscape for a decade now, and they’re still not done. Is that part of what’s going on? Absolutely. But I really want to talk about books at the individual level. Because this year has changed a lot of things for a lot of people. The writers who debuted this year learned a lot of lessons that writers debuting next year and the year after are going to have to take with them into their careers.
The fact is, marketing and publicity within publishing houses were already stretched thin pre-pandemic. We hear a lot of stories about authors whose books never got a lick of marketing or publicity from their teams, who favored particular titles that season. But marketing and publicity is forever changed by this pandemic. The things we once relied upon to establish an audience and generate word of mouth aren’t available to us in the forms they used to be: in-person events at bookstores and libraries; conferences with librarians and bloggers; hand-selling in bookstores.
That means that individual author marketing, already a skill that many debut authors had to learn pre-pandemic, becomes even more important. It means that you, the writer, must find a way to generate word-of-mouth support for your book in ways your publisher might not know how to, or have the time to help you do. It means making sure your website is as easy to navigate and accessible as possible and that you have information for foreign publishers and tv/film producers that is easy to find. It means guest-blogging and finding unique opportunities to talk about your book. It means reaching out to schools and libraries and setting up virtual book talks with students, and joining the virtual versions of book fairs. It doesn’t have to mean being on twitter or instagram or facebook - it means reaching out to potential readers where they live, and talking to them about why they’ll love your work.
Does this sound like a lot of work? It is. It was pre-pandemic, and it is in this version of the world, too. It’s a facet of getting published a lot of us don’t talk about, but it is a necessity for growing your audience. While publisher support is nice, it’s probably easiest to go into your debut year assuming there’s a lot you’ll have to do yourself, and showing your publisher, and your audience, that your book is a product that they’re gonna want. And if you’re a writer who has already debuted, I know it’s easy to worry about your future. I know your book may not have performed the way you had hoped. But publishers know what happened this year. They know things aren’t what they used to be. We’re all learning how to navigate our current circumstances. Keep hyping your book - it isn’t less relevant now that it’s in the world; it’s MORE relevant. Keep writing, and write what YOU want to write. Now is not the time to worry about the market. Now is the time to be true to yourself and keep going.
Here’s the really, really good news: people are reading MORE in this pandemic, not less. They’re using word of mouth to spread the word about books they’re loving. They’re talking about books on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok. They’re excited to read right now, and your book just might be the one that satisfies the craving.
Until next time,
Hannah