It’s been about two months now, since No More Dead Kids came out on February 7th 2019. It was a day that came and went much like any other, the only fanfare was that which I made for myself. I posted about the release on social media that morning and spent the rest of the working Thursday liking and thanking all of the people that were congratulating me and supporting me. Support for which I am the most grateful of, more than just about anything else.
I’ve spent these last two months working. What they fail to mention in the short author bios on the inside sleeves of hardcover dust jackets or paperback prologues is that writing is hard, and largely unfulfilling from an external perspective. Most all creative, artistic, or inventive endeavors are. Some get wealthy and famous, most do not, and so you must be able to find joy and fulfillment solely in the true work of writing. Because most of it is work. Through this process I realized that even if I never saw a cent of profit, if I never got published again, I would still never stop writing, and never stop working.
Writing itself is work, you have to work hard to organize your mind and thoughts and stay devoutly determined to the process that works best for you and actually finish that story that’s been rattling around inside of your soul for as long as you can remember. This whole blog is dedicated to that work, and the struggle to stay steadfast to it. After that book, screenplay, short-story, song, album, poem, or anything else is finally finished, after it has been painstakingly poured-over and edited, edited, edited to the closest thing to perfection that your imperfect human mind and hand can render, and after the long, laborious process of getting that thing out there is complete, one lucky day that piece of you may actually get out there. The only real difference now is that you get to change the “writer” in your tinder bio to “author.” This is where most self-help books ‘on writing’ conclude, if they even take you to this part of the process at all.
Now comes the part that you honestly thought would be easy, but in reality, is just about the hardest yet (at least for me). Your creation is out in the world, you can do nothing further to alter it, it is completely separate from you; you, the author, is dead after all. What the writing world fails to tell you, or quite possibly what your own hubris prevents you from considering, is that no book has ever sold on its own. Hard work must be put in to get a book in front of people who might possibly then choose to pick it up. Your publisher, for whom you could not be more grateful for this platform, has far too much to do and far too many other authors to work with to do much for you at this stage of things. They do everything in their power to help you sell your book, after all it’s in their best interest too, they’re the ones that took the risk on you and the ones that will reap the reward with you as well. But they can only do so much. You, the author, lacking formal representation at this early stage in your career (which, so far, has yet to become a career, it’s really more of a public hobby at this point), must do the work of selling your book and selling yourself as an ‘author’ along with it.
I work full time, 9-5, Monday to Friday, in a cubicle under fluorescent lighting. In the time before work, during my lunch break (which I drive home and back for, one of the nice things about living less than ten minutes from where you work), and in the time after work on the nights and weekends I’m not trying my best to be normal and actually going outside and spending time with friends, I work on and around the book. This work, the work surrounding the book, consists of several main tasks, all centered around one single goal: publicity.
First, you need to establish yourself as a presence. This involves tailoring your social media presence to fit with this image of you, or it may even involve setting up a social media presence in the first place. You should set up a goodreads author account and another on Amazon’s Author Central too. Amazon owns goodreads, and so when setting up either of these accounts, do not link them to your personal Amazon account or your Facebook, create new accounts with a non-personal use email (creating a professional email to use for all literary related things is also a good idea); it may just be industry paranoia, but many an author has stories of Amazon reviews disappearing without notice because they came from a Facebook friend of the author. Every review counts and you don’t want to lose a single one, especially this early on. Also, never pay for reviews either, don’t pay for anything that you can’t do yourself. If someone wants money (for reviews, publicity, email blasts, marketing campaigns, or anything of the sort), this is more likely than not some form of scam or illegitimate business. There are entire industries that exist solely on the money of desperate writers hoping for a break (vanity publishers being the pinnacle of this). After setting up these accounts, along with setting up a blog and a website, you must also maintain all of these. One easy way is to link or embed your blog’s RSS feed to your website, goodreads, and Amazon Author Central. From here, you can use these internet footholds to launch the next stage of your publicity blitz.
I’ve spent countless hours Googling and pouring over dozens on hundreds of review blogs and literary publications, picking out the ones that accept unsolicited submissions (in your genre/target age range), and saving the rest to a list you will graciously send to the PR people or person at your publisher to submit your book to on your behalf. Of the ones you contact yourself, much like during the querying process, the people you are sending your book to are more likely than not inundated with potentially hundreds of author submissions daily; rejections are therefore, as always, a large part of this process. You should do the same for places that give awards for books (unless it costs money to submit, as this is, once again, a telltale sign of a scam), most of these you will have to hand over to your publisher or agent to apply for, same with all the conferences and festivals you can realistically see yourself making it to (both in terms of travel and prestige).
This is where I am now, searching, emailing, waiting, and starting over, my first royalty check yet to even come in. I’ve yet to book any readings, signings, conferences, fairs, or interviews, but I’m working on it. The hardest part is resisting the temptation to write. That next story will always be there, gnawing at you from the inside until it is released, and you just have to keep it at bay until you are done with what you are working on. You’ve come this far, and you don’t want to let anything slip in the last leg of this marathon, because it’s all working towards that glorious and distant dream of hopefully one day being able to support yourself on your art alone. But until then – work.
“The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.” – Corita Kent
Editing Sober 