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Book Promotion During a Pandemic

Molly Woolbright speaks about book promotion for The Writer’s Workshop Seattle writing classes.

Book Promotion During a Pandemic

Promoting a book is challenging enough in normal times. Doing this during a pandemic makes it even more problematic. Nevertheless, it can be done successfully, according to Molly Woolbright, the publicist at Sasquatch Books, who visited my spring Seattle writing class, The Nature of Narrative.

“I will broadly describe how a publicist at a traditional publisher approaches a book’s campaign and hopefully demystify the process,” she said.

Woolbright emphasized that the digital aspect of marketing has taken on new importance in a time of social distancing. In the past, book tours and talks made up a significant part of the marketing plan. With those options limited or nonexistent, other strategies need to be developed, including talks and meetings via Zoom and other web conferences.

She detailed a number of effective ways of getting the word out about your book. I’ll include the highlights of her talk to my Seattle writing class, The Nature of Narrative, below:

Overview of Book Publicity

An in-house publicist at a traditional publisher works on a variety of books at a time, striving to secure a mix of trade reviews and regional and national media for each. From the general public’s perspective, a book campaign is typically about 3 months long; from an author and publisher’s perspective, the work begins at least 6 months before a book is published.

Long-Lead Media

About 6-8 months out from publication

Advance reader copies (otherwise known as ARCs or galleys) sent to media outlets that work far in advance, including: Print magazines, Trade journals (Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, etc.), Podcasts.

Short-Lead Media

About 1-2 months out from publication

Finished copies sent to media outlets that work on a shorter timeframe, including: Newspapers, radio, TV, blogs.

Local/Regional Media

Often overlooked in favor of bigger or more prestigious national media outlets, your local newspaper, magazines, blogs, radio, and TV stations are a great starting point to build buzz (while still striving for national hits). The Amazon algorithm is fed by any and all publicity, and local media is more likely to take notice.

Optimizing Your Author Platform for Media

Book promotion, regardless of genre, is often more about the author than the book—it’s about you and the expertise you can provide or discussions you can spark. Whether you’re working with an in-house publicist or you’ve hired a freelancer, one of the most helpful steps you can take to assist her efforts in securing media is to boost your online presence.

Website

From a publicity perspective, a website is the most useful asset you can have as an author. Whereas social media is ephemeral, a website offers a consistent representation of you and your work. Think of it like a toolbox where journalists/reviewers/editors can go to find more info.

For more on book promotion and writing technique, please consider signing up for my next Seattle writing class, online writing class or travel writing class through www.thewritersworkshop.net.

Best Books to Read During Covid Pandemic

If there’s any silver lining to this Covid 19 scourge, it may be that people now have time to read and write. Some people are writing about how their lives have changed. Others are writing about anything but Covid, relishing a break from the constant barrage of negative news.

I’ve included below some books to get you through the Great Pandemic, including accounts of previous pandemics and titles serving as wonderful distractions.

Best Books to Read During Covid 19 Pandemic

The Plague By Albert Camus a pick by The Writer’s Workshop.

1) The Splendid and the Vile: A New York Times bestseller by Erik Larson about the Churchill family in the first year of WWII. Covid may be bad, but Western Civilization was at risk in WWII. Even if you think you know the history of the period, you’ll hear many fascinating stories about surviving the Blitz, fighting among the cabinet, smoking cigars, drinking champagne, and Churchill wandering around the house naked.

2) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize: The memoir of an obsession, an addiction, an entire world in and of itself. I know almost nothing about surfing but I got sucked in by the beauty and precision of the language,

the crazy ass characters, the danger and challenge of it all. It’s a rich, funny, evocative book, with wonderfully detailed description of a fascinating subculture.

3) World War Z by Max Brooks: If you think we have it tough, read this book to understand just how challenging an outbreak can be (makes the Corona virus look like the common cold). This 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel is written from multiple points of view to demonstrate the chaos and devastating global conflict against the waves of zombies. Never dull.

4) The Plague by Albert Camus:

Published in 1947, this novel tells the tale of a plague overwhelming the French Algerian city of Oran and the doctors, vacationers and fugitives who seek to survive it. The novel is believed to be based on the 1849 cholera epidemic in Oran. The Plague is an existential classic, posing searching questions about the nature of honor, goodness and meaning in an absurd world.

5) The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin: The original trilogy takes place in a magic land resembling the San Juan Islands in Washington State, inhabited with wizards, dragons and other magical creatures. Start with A Wizard of Earthsea, then continue with The Tombs of Atuan, and the superb The Farthest Shore. Wonderfully imaginative and distracting from the current Covid crisis while deceptively wise and insightful.

6) Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – A novel of astonishing power, with the main characters Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza falling in love in their youth. Eventually, Fermina rejects Florentino in favor of the accomplished Dr Juvenal Urbino, who is committed to eradicating cholera. After many decades of marriage, he dies trying to get his parrot out of a mango tree. Having lived separately over five decades, Florentino and Fermina resume their romance, which despite the years, blossoms into true love.

7) Zone One by Colson Whitehead – This 2011 post-apocalyptic novel takes place after a global pandemic has laid waste to civilization, turning the infected into flesh-eating zombies. “Mark Spitz” and fellow sweepers who have survived the apocalypse patrol New York City, killing zombies so as to make Manhattan habitable again.

8) Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinning – The current Covid crisis draws comparisons to The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 , one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth–from poor immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain and Woodrow Wilson. In this narrative history, Laura Spinney traces how the pandemic killed 50 and 100 million people as it traveled the globe, exposing mankind’s vulnerability and decisively altering politics, race relations, medicine, the arts and religion.

9) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: If you haven’t yet read this amazing novel, now is the time. The novel chronicles Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows some of the

most well-known characters in literature, including Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to go to war, and a unforgettable cast of characters whose lives are irrevocably changed by the war. Should be on every literary bucket list.

10) The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio: A story about a group of seven young women and three young men who escaped the Black Death by sheltering in a secluded villa outside Florence. The tales of love, sex and misfortune remain entertaining and titillating. Buy a used copy and look for the underlined spicy bits. The work had wide influence, including on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

If you’d like to write your own story about the pandemic, consider signing up for an online writing class with The Writer’s Workshop.

How To Write a Page Turner

Scenic writing animates some of the most moving, satisfying, sophisticated works of literature as I teach in my Seattle writing classes and other writing classes. It quickly brings readers into the story because it helps create a world, a world that you the writer have inhabited and can share with the reader through words. Scenes present a visual, sensual dimension the reader can inhabit, a kind of imaginary garden with real toads, whether that’s the world of the astronaut program of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, the landscapes of the American South in Flannery O’Connor’s stories or the hard-bitten, humorous Irish Catholic childhood of memoirist Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. As I describe in my Seattle writing classes, Stimulus-Response scenes create a cause and effect relationship, adding pace and direction to the narrative.

How do you accomplish this? Read on.

1) SETTING THE SCENE

a) OPENING SENTENCE: Find a sentence that creates suspense and foreshadows what will happen. This makes clear to the reader that information in summary lead is important and needs to be read. In William Stafford’s memoir Down in my Heart, he uses the opening line, “When are men dangerous?” which accomplishes this perfectly.
b) SETTING DETAILS: Provide details that suggest what will happen in scene. These should be chosen for their inherent interest, color and humor and for what they illustrate about main point of story. For instance, in Down in My Heart, Stafford includes details like “loafing around in the Sabbath calm.” These details help set the scene, and also create suspense. Readers suspect that something will soon shatter this tranquility. The best scenic details do double duty, both painting a picture and creating suspense.
c) SCENE GOAL: After sketching in the scene and briefly introducing the main characters, the writer makes a transition to the action. This transition is crucial, often spelling out the main character’s goal in the scene. What does the main character want? Will he get what he wants? Will the other characters help or hinder him? What is the larger point of the scene? Why should the reader care?

2) DESCRIBE ACTION

Use Stimulus-Response to organize the action from beginning to end. The stimulus should be external, an action or a dialogue. The psychological response should follow directly from the stimulus. This response should lead immediately to another stimulus, back and forth, like a ping-pong match, until the action of the scene is finished.

3) CONCLUSION

What happened in the scene and what does it mean? For more, please consider signing up for my Seattle writing classes, online writing classes or travel writing classes.

Jeff Smoot Reads at The Writer’s Workshop Seattle Writing Classes

Jeff Smoot reading at The Writer's Workshop Seattle writing classes. — Jeff Smoot speaking at The Writer’s Workshop’s Seattle writing classes.

I take great pride in seeing the students in my Seattle writing classes succeed. One of these students, Jeff Smoot, wrote the memoir, Hang Dog Days, which recently earned a runner up for the Banff Mountain Festival Book Award and the Boardman/ Tasker Award, two of the most prestigious prizes in mountaineering literature.

Jeff finished The Writer’s Workshop’s certificate program two years ago and began working on his memoir about sport climbing. Having published some 10 guidebooks, he had a lot of writing chops but needed some help with storytelling.

“I joined Nick O’Connell’s Certificate program in narrative writing as a refresher and to improve my storytelling so I could get a longstanding book project to the point I felt confident in pitching it,” he said at a talk for my Seattle writing class last Wednesday. “With Nick’s help and encouragement, it was accepted. In addition to achieving this goal, the course reignited my passion for writing.”

After writing the book, Jeff had to edit it before the Mountaineers Publishing Company would accept it. “I did my best to cut down the narrative and got it into the hands of a developmental editor who wanted to kill my babies,” he said. “Then it got into the hands of the copy editor and got cut down some more.”

Despite the pain of having some of his stories cut, he believes the process helped the book.

“It’s important to have a good editor,” he said. “You want someone who can debate. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it made the book so much better. I used to hate editors, but I loved my editor.”

Hang Dog Days chronicles the difficult birth of sport climbing in America. It is rich with the vernacular of the sport, one of the techniques I emphasize in my Seattle writing classes. “Climbing went from being a traditional sport with the adventure of ascent, starting from bottom and going to the top,” he said. “If you went to the top and came down that wasn’t the way it was done. But youth rebelled against the old guard.”

The new technique of rap-bolting, inspecting and fixing a route while on rappel, caused a great deal of controversy in the insular world of climbing. “Some bad things happened,” he said. “I received death threats from some climbers I wrote about. The book is about my growing up climbing in that era and some of the characters I hung out with like Todd Skinner who was pushing the boundaries.” Skinner died in 2006 in a climbing accident. “He’s one of the best storytellers we had and he’s gone so I have to tell the story.”

To read an excerpt from the book, click the link to https://www.thewritersworkshopreview.net/article.cgi?article_id=97.

Pacific Northwest Booksellers Shortlist

2020 Pacific Northwest Book Awards Shortlist Announced

The Pacific Northwest Book Sellers association just announced its 2020 Book Awards Shortlist, selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, a non-profit trade association that supports independent bookselling, literacy and free speech in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Each year since 1965, the Pacific Northwest Book Awards have celebrated exceptional books written by Northwest authors.

In my Seattle writing classes, online writing classes and travel writing classes, I hope to teach aspiring authors to write books such as these. I also encourage students in my Seattle writing classes, online writing classes and travel writing classes to support organizations like this one who keep independent bookstores in business.

From more than 400 nominations, the committee winnowed 12, finalists, crafted by Northwest authors and illustrators and published in 2019. The six winners of the 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Awards in early January. For more contributor and title information, visit PNBA’s 2020 Shortlist page. Shortlist honorees will be profiled on NWBookLovers.org over the next several weeks.

2020 Shortlist:

Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World’s Greatest Rodeo,
and a Hidden History of the American West
David Wolman (Portland, OR) and Julian Smith (Portland, OR)
William Morrow/HarperCollins

The Cassandra: A Novel
Sharma Shields (Spokane, WA)
Henry Holt & Company/Macmillan

The Death & Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story
Aaron Bobrow-Stain (Walla Walla, WA)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan

Deep River: A Novel
Karl Marlantes (Woodinville, WA)
Atlantic Monthly Press

Exhalation: Stories
Ted Chiang (Seattle, WA)
Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House

Fall Back Down When I Die: A Novel
Joe Wilkins (McMinnville, OR)
Little, Brown and Company / Hachette

Is, Is Not: Poems
Tess Gallagher (Port Angeles, WA)
Graywolf Press

The Merciful Crow
Margaret Owen (Seattle, WA)
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers/Macmillan

My Heart
Corinna Luyken (Olympia, WA)
Dial Books / Penguin Young Readers

The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden
Rachel Wada, illus. (Vancouver, BC)
Orca Book Publishers

Queen of the Sea
Dylan Meconis (Portland, OR)
Walker Books / Candlewick Press

A Wolf Called Wander
Rosanne Parry (Portland, OR)
Greenwillow Books / HarperCollins

Flannery O'Connor and The Habit of Art in Seattle writing classes. — Flannery O’Connor and The Writing Life in Seattle writing classes.

In her essay collection, Mystery and Manners, Flannery O’Connor talks about writing as a habit of art. I discuss this approach in The Writer’s Workshop talk on The Writing Life, on Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in room 221 at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. This approach emphasizes that writing is a craft and a daily discipline as well as an art. It relies as much on regular practice as inspiration. While inspiration plays a large part in any literary breakthrough, the habit of art gives concrete expression to inspiration, making the story or book possible. Here are some of thoughts on how to develop your own habit of art.

WRITING AS A PROCESS – Thinking of writing as a process allows you to complete a story in a series of steps, avoiding the paralysis of perfectionism. Instead, write a draft (a “shitty first draft” in Anne Lamott’s memorable phrase), organize and polish it. By breaking things down into a series of steps you increase the odds of creating something special.

SET A SCHEDULE – Set up a time to write, ideally five days a week for an hour or so a day. If possible, write for more than that. It takes practice to hone and perfect your craft. This comes by repetition. I usually write about three hours a day, five days a week, sometimes more, sometimes a little less. I schedule the time and try to stick to it.

SHORT ASSIGNMENTS – As the Chinese say, the thousand mile journey begins with the first step. Give yourself short assignments every day – a page, a lead, a character sketch. Then perhaps complete a story or novel chapter every week or so. Making steady progress increases your confidence and the fluency of your writing.

I’ll be offering a free class, The Writing Life, on Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in room 221 at the Good Shepherd Center in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. You’ll have a chance to learn how to get started with your story, hear about our classes and enjoy some delicious Spanish food and drink. Please RSVP.

How To Write for Magazines

Andrew Waite speaks about breaking into freelance writing at The Writer's Workshop Seattle Writing Classes. — Andrew Waite speaks about breaking into freelance writing at The Writer’s Workshop Seattle Writing Classes.

In my Seattle writing classes, I have experts talk about how to write for magazines, among other topics. Alaska Airlines Magazine associate editor Andrew Waite talked to my summer Seattle writing class about how to write successfully for magazines. He offered excellent advice about working with editors, including making sure to read the publication before pitching.

“If I haven’t worked with the writer before, I like to write out an outline of how I would write it,” he says. “What’s the lead, nut graph, etc. I want this piece to come in as close to being finished as possible. Make sure you’re on the same page up front. If I have the outline I have an idea of what it’s going to look like. It likely won’t need a major rewrite.”

Though the magazine has a number of writers who work for it regularly, it’s always looking for new writers. He says they usually break in with shorter assignments of 300 words or less. “If you do an awesome job on a shorter story, we’ll definitely look at you for another longer story. We’re looking for writers who travel a lot, have good reporting skills, turn in clean, structurally sound copy. We like to take on new writers with fresh voices.”

The magazine considers regular freelancers as part of its staff. Such writers have a sense of what the magazine publishes and how it approaches travel, among other subjects. He suggested looking at the magazine’s editorial calendar to get a sense of what it will cover over the year.

“Pitch three months before the story should come out,” he said. “Pitch what’s unique.”

In putting together an issue, Waite emphasized the care the editors take over the editorial process. “We search for a writer for the ideas,” he said. “Then we get the ideas assigned. When the finished piece comes in, we hope it looks like the original assignment. We usually do a developmental edit for structure, content, and organization. Later, we’ll get into the nitty gritty as well as fact checking.”

He emphasized that breaking into freelance magazine writing is possible, but you have to work hard at it, something I emphasize in my Seattle writing classes. “There’s a lot hustle involved in the freelance game,” he said.

How to Outline a Story or Book

J.K. Rowling on outlining, a technique taught in Seattle writing classes.

How to Outline a Story or Book

Outlining a story or book allows you to chart the emotional peaks and valleys of the story so that you’ll know where you’re heading when you sit down to write. As I explain in my Seattle writing classes and online writing classes, the five short statements below describe the major actions in the story. There is one statement for each major focus. This is not like the outline you wrote in English composition class; these statements highlight the dramatic actions in story. They help you focus on what’s essential to the story. This is a conflict—resolution outline, with the conflict introduced in the first statement, developed in the next three statements, and resolved in the last statement.

1) Complication – Make it simple and active. Have you chosen active verbs to show action? Is the main character included in the statement? How will you illustrate the main action? Do you have the source material for this? Is the action dramatic enough?

2) Development Action – Clear, cogent, related to complication.

3) Development Action – Clear, cogent related to complication, tied to previous development, tied to main character.

4) Development Action — Clear, cogent related to complication, tied to previous development, tied to main character.

5) Resolution – Must fit the complication.

Writing this outline will save you a lot of time. You’ll be able to figure out in advance where the story is going. You can still change it as you go, but at least you’ll have a clear direction when you write the first draft of your story or book chapter. For more on how to do this, please consider signing up for my Seattle Writing Classes or an online writing classes.

Break into Freelance Magazine Writing

In my Seattle writing classes, I invite experts to talk about their approach to writing and editing. I had the pleasure of having Alaska Airlines Magazine associate editor Andrew Waite talk to my spring Seattle writing class about how to break into freelance writing. He offered excellent advice about approaching magazines, including making sure to read the publication before pitching.

“The best pitches reveal a sense of who we are and what we do,” he said. “We want your piece to slot in easily to the magazine. I’m looking for pitches that meet our needs, show command of writing and have an engaging hook.”

“Pitch three months before the story should come out,” he said. “Pitch what’s unique.”

New Issue of The Writer’s Workshop Review

I’m now working on the next issue of The Writer’s Workshop Review, the online literary magazine for The Writer’s Workshop. The stories have been accepted; now the editing begins, choosing the photos to run with the stories, writing the captions and headlines.