A Smoldering Red Moon and the Shameless Art of Self-Promotion
Attempting to Enter the Season of Book Promotion with a Modicum of Grace
Happy Full Moon, folks! This month’s moon is the Strawberry Moon, since we are now in berry season in the Northeast, and this year, it coincides somewhat with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year (technically yesterday). Happy summer, baby!
Here’s what the Farmer’s Almanac has to say about the solstice’s effect on the full moon, making it appear large and turning it reddish on the horizon:
“Since the 2024 June full Moon happens on the solstice, the very day the Sun is absolutely at its highest of the year, this month’s full Moon on the 21st is the very lowest full Moon, indeed, the lowest we’ve seen in years. Just look at it! Because the Moon is so low, it will appear bigger than ever. This is called the ‘Moon Illusion.’
So we’ve got a paradox coming. The Full Moon usually is our brightest night. But this month, it ascends so little that the thick horizon air will give it an orange-red hue and subdue its light. Moreover, its extreme southerly position will keep it aloft for a few short hours, leaving that night mostly black. Don’t miss this extra-low, extra-big, colorful full Moon for a few precious hours.”
Also, we are having a heat wave here in NJ, and from what I gather, much of the rest of the US is too. So I hope you are staying cool and hydrated, wherever you are!!!
This month, I promised to continue talking about getting ready for my book launch in September, so I’ll spend a hot minute delving into the treacherous waters of book publicity and marketing. Then, let’s please go break for lemonade and watermelon!
As a writer and author, you may be shy about promoting yourself, your book, and your writing. I often feel a little slimy or shameless when I start pitching my book or telling people where they can pre-order it, like I’m right on the verge of becoming a used car salesman. Because if we were talented in sales, we would have made good money having careers in sales, amiright?!
However, it’s so important for writers and authors to strap on their promotional hats— because first, our friends/family/community/readers actually DO want to hear about our books and possibly even buy and read them, and second, because if we don’t, no one else will. Our publishers are most likely too overworked/low budget/busy doing other stuff to shout our praises from the rooftops. So we all have to become amateur publicists.
Basically, unless you score a big contract as a lead title at a Big 5 press, the literary equivalent of hitting the jackpot in the lottery, your publisher will not do enough to get your book out there. What’s “enough,” you might ask? It all depends on your definition of success for a book, but it’s worth considering. For my book, I’m hopeful that I can do a solid number of book events at local and regional bookstores where I know enough people to draw a crowd and sell some copies. Also, while I appreciate that this book is probably a bit too niche and literary and academic for a big review in say the NYT or Washington Post, I’d like to try to get some reviews, press, or excerpts published in literary magazines, Asian American focused journals and websites, and possibly even a podcast interview or two. But perhaps this is the hundred-dollar question: How does one do this?
Here’s where we cash in on years of participating in local literary communities. In the past, I’ve written reviews for friends’, acquaintances’, and strangers’ books for The Rumpus, The Adirondack Review, the Ploughshares Blog, and other venues, and interviewed authors for Electric Literature, The Guardian, and The Rumpus, and elsewhere. I’ve placed craft essays at places like The Millions and Lit Hub, where I hope to pitch related pieces, and I know some editors that I’ll query about submitting or publishing excerpts of the book as a teaser. But there’s a lot of legwork, and many of these relationships are forged slowly over time—or dissipate when an editor moves on or a new team takes over a publication. And most of the reviews and interviews I placed required pitches from me as a freelancer, and for every accepted pitch, there were several to numerous rejections.
But now I’m attempting to reach out to this network of friends, family, acquaintances, and former classmates, teachers, and colleagues, so I’m hopeful that the relationships I’ve built over the years will mean that some folks are willing to do me a favor and interview me, review my book, join me for an event, or even just help publicize and amplify news on social media.
Speaking of which: my dear friend and writing group member Rachel Stolzman Gullo has a new novel coming out called Confuse the Wind, with Vine Leaves Press! And she is doing an event with our other friend and writing group member Anne Hellman at The Strand next Thursday 6/27! Buy her book!!! It’s such a wonderful novel — I’ve read most of it in our group and it gets better every time I read it!
This is also a great time to mention literary citizenship: one of the best things you can do to build these connections is to review other author’s books, go to literary events, amplify other writers’ news on social media, pitch and publish interviews or other pieces about books, and generally be a nice person who is enthusiastic about reading! Every little bit helps.
On that note, who wants to review my book? I can get you a digital galley (advance copy to read) and send you a list of great places to pitch a review. Heck, I can even send you some book review pitch examples! (Not kidding, folks— please email me at knliao@gmail.com if you’re interested. Same question about interviews!)
Likewise, if you are a writer and live in the NYC area or New England or upstate NY or DC or California and want to do an event together, let me know! I’ll keep everyone posted once there is a schedule of events.
I’ll add more to this over time as I prep for the release, but it’s a process, to be sure. Happy to also address questions about self promotion as a writer, so feel free to leave them in the comments!!
I’ll close by saying that one promoting event dropped in my lap last week, as some of my Taiwanese John Jay Professor colleagues were organizing the North American Taiwan Studies Conference (NATSA) this year, and invited me to join to moderate a panel and give a book talk. I got to have a fabulous conversation with my brilliant colleague in Anthropology, Anru Lee, who wrote a book called Haunted Modernities about memorization, industrialization, and ghosts in contemporary Taiwan. I also got to moderate a talk by three absolutely brilliant authors, Wendy Cheng, Wen Liu, and Christopher Fan, about Taiwanese American identity, history, literature, and activism.
To promote my book to NATSA conference goers, I printed a poster and postcards of my book cover, and the postcards have some advance praise blurbs (thanks to Kirstin Chen, Anru, and Shawna Yang Ryan), and pre-order information.
And largely based on that boost, it seems that my book is now a top-ranked new release on Amazon in the category of “Taiwan Travel Guide,” which is a funny if not altogether accurate description of my book’s genre/category….. but it’s nice to have a little buzz???? Some people are pre-ordering my book, which is great! (Though please don’t buy my book if you want a guide to hotels or sightseeing!!!)
With that being said, my book is available for pre-order! Here are the links:
Barnes & Noble
And I’ll be in touch with my publisher about perhaps categorizing my book as a memoir and *not* a travel guide. As I said, it’s all a process.
More soon! Let’s stay cool! Summmmmer is here!
Woo! Preordered! I can't wait for my trip to Taiwan! ;)