Promoting a book is... hard
My book comes out in 6 weeks and I feel like a snake oil salesman
Why is it this way? I love my book. I’m so proud of Where Are You, Echo Blue? It’s the book I’ve always wanted to write. And I think it’s good! I should feel uninhibited, unbothered, excited even, about promoting it. Except I feel like a shill. I feel like I’m annoying everyone. What’s wrong with me?
For instance, I feel silly telling you that Booklist, the book review publication from the American Library Association, loved Echo Blue.
“Krischer's look at fame and the toll it takes is piercing, timely, and astute.”
—Booklist
Why do I feel silly? I don’t know. I’m not used to putting the attention on myself. It feels… weird.
Yet, I push forward, through the awkwardness. And just yesterday I found myself looking up the term “creator search insights” on TikTok which is a way to find what people are searching for so you can properly target the search engine. I found all sorts of relevant topics like “actual Y2K.” Yes, that’s what the kids are searching for. “Actual Y2K.”
Since Where Are You, Echo Blue? is about the ACTUAL Y2K and actually takes place on the eve of the millennium and the cover was inspired by actual Y2K fashion, I thought I would be stupid if I didn’t make a TikTok video about how my book is about Y2K. (*If you click on this, and like it, please make sure you comment. Engagement is a huge part of how TikTok and IG works. The more people engage, the more the video gets shown. Thank you in advance.)
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People ask me a lot how long it takes to make a video. Let’s break down this one:
Scrolling on TikTok to stumble on someone who made a video about creator search insights: 30 mins
Watching said video and researching what this person was talking about, plus digging into the search insights for topics that were relevant to me: 45 mins
Going through Getty images to find pictures of actresses from 1999 to 2000 who inspired the cover for Echo Blue, then taking a screen grab and editing them: 1 hour
Writing a script for what I’m going to say: 45 mins
Making myself look cute: 25 mins
Making the video, including all the mess ups, writing the captions, editing it, etc: 1 hour
Total time making the video: 4 hours and 41 mins.
Is that a long time? I don’t know! Will it sell books? If yes, it won’t matter how long it took to make, right?
This is a big discussion right now in the publishing world. Should authors even be responsible for promoting their own books to this level? A lot of people I follow on line speak about how difficult this is. Leigh Stein, who has a great TikTok account about publishing, was talking about how hard it is for first time writers to break out, a topic that came up because of this article in Esquire.
Editors today said in the article that to hit the NYT Best Seller list, you really have to have one of those coveted book clubs (like Reese Witherspoon’s or Oprah’s) to get behind you. The only thing that leveled the playing field was BookTok. It allows people like me, a mid range author who doesn’t have the power of the coveted book club behind me to maybe make some viral break out video that goes viral on BookTok (just a simple name for where the book people are on TikTok). Hence the Actual Y2K video. Going viral is like winning the lottery. But what does New York State say about that? Didn’t they say “You gotta pay to play?” Maybe they didn’t say that. I’m a writer. Sometimes I make things up.
Does this mean it’s fun for writers to promote their books even though we’re getting this. NO. It does not. Writers are generally introverted people who doesn’t talk to anyone all day long. Do you think we want to be in front of the camera or self promote on Tik Tok? No. Most writers say when it comes to TikTok, their brain feels broken. It’s hard to come with ideas and we shouldn’t be expected to do so much heavy lifting, especially when it comes to big publishing houses with marketing budgets.
And look, my publishing house, Dutton, is doing an amazing job. Look at this cool image they made me!
They’re really coming up with amazing marketing campaigns, I’ve brainstormed endlessly with my marketing team, my ideas have all been welcomed. I couldn’t be happier with them.
But how can I personally ignore the power of TikTok? Why would I? I’m 53 years old and this book, and my writing career has been one of the most important things in my life outside of my family. I would be slighting myself if I didn’t at least try.
Thanks for reading. Six more weeks!
-Hayley