REEPIJEEP

Her forthcoming memoir, The Place Between Our Pains, narrates her journey from health to debilitating disease. The book begins while on a road trip with a dear friend, wandering the Redwoods, skinny dipping in national parks. Then, she is struck with a terrible illness where she fights for her mobility, faith, and life itself.

KJ’s voice is raw and honest. And while she finds joy, she has absolutely no tolerance for toxic positivity. Thank goodness.

In a gut-wrenching plot twist, KJ is now fighting for her life again, just weeks before she’s set to release her beautiful book.

It is an unimaginably cruel and terrible thing for anyone to go through, but it feels especially incomprehensible that it’s happening to her. KJ has been one of the most encouraging, affirming, and generous people I have met during my own publishing journey — and that is saying something, because I’ve met so many incredible people.

Support KJ and preorder The Place Between Our Pains today!

Since Famished released in December, one thing I find myself doing almost without even noticing it is looking at other people’s books and thinking about angles they could use to promote them.

Part of this (the sheer amount of new writing!) was because I was a debut author with a very small platform. No one really knew who I was. I had to hustle to get noticed. KJ’s different than me here. I’m sure you know who she is. The size of her platform means that she won’t depend as much on mainstream media to get attention.

Still, since the audience for my Substack is mostly writers hoping to get their work out into the world, I thought it would be fun to spitball ideas I’d have for companion essays based upon a sample of KJ’s The Place Between Our Pains (get a sneak peek here).

I hope this brainstorming session gives you ideas for promotion whenever it’s time for you to get your own book-length work out into the world and into the hands of everyday readers.

🌙I would absolutely pitch a personal essay about the joy and pain of promoting a book about chronic illness while receiving a scary health prognosis weeks before the book’s official launch (this sort of first-person piece would be great for places like Literary Hub or Brevity Blog)

🌙KJ talks a lot about complex PTSD (CPTSD) in the memoir. This would lend itself to a reading list of other books that narrate the experience of living with CPTSD (Electric Literature publishes excellent reading lists of books; Longreads publishes reading lists of literary essays).

🌙I would place Google Alerts on words related to chronic illness (or autoimmune diseases, or CPTSD), and I would see if anything crazy happens in the news (RFK Jr. is always serving up some shenanigans. Bad for the world, but sometimes good for book promotion).

🌙I would also look for newly published peer reviewed studies related to the topics I put Google Alerts on. Let’s say — and I’m just making stuff up here — that a new therapy is developed that helps sufferers of CPTSD more than anything ever has before. I could imagine pitching a personal essay with a headline that begins, If this wildly effective new therapy had been around when I was diagnosed with CPTSD, I might not have gone through XYZ.

🌙KJ’s book focuses a lot on joy (not on toxic positivity). I could imagine pitching a piece about how pain or illness promotes (rather than restricts) creativity. I would guess that the constraints of chronic illness, while limiting, also lead to some creative expansion. I could envision writing this craft-focused essay for places like Writer’s Digest, The Writer’s Chronicle, or Poets and Writers.

🌙 Visiting national parks is described by KJ as “perhaps even medicinal.” This made me think of Victorian doctors prescribing “the seaside cure.” I think it could be fun to pitch a first-person piece with a bit of reporting (perhaps for an outlet like Slate or Business Insider) that says something like Are you landlocked and in need of the Seaside Cure? Try visiting a national park, instead. Here’s how you can get similar benefits.

🌙 Some of this book is set in Nevada. KJ says that she didn’t know the land in that state could be so green. She’d always thought of it as mostly desert. I could imagine pitching an essay to a Nevada-based publication (perhaps a travel or lifestyle outlet) that says something like Here are five unexpected joys you will encounter when you visit Nevada.

🌙 KJ’s nickname for her car is Reepijeep (a Narnia reference!). It could be fun to write a nostalgia essay, something like here’s how my childhood appreciation for Narnia has followed me into adult life. I think that Narnia is about to be on Netflix this year (The Magician’s Nephew!). I might tie this essay to that premiere, and I would pitch the culture verticals at places like Salon, HuffPost, Slate, or other similar outlets.

Okay — that was fun! I hope that brainstorming session gave you ideas for getting your own writing out into the world!

Thanks for reading! Tell me in the comments — what are some of the most unique angles you’ve generated to get your own writing out into the world?

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— The strategy behind how I landed an agent and a traditional book deal as a lifelong Appalachian with no MFA and no New York connections.

— Backstory about how I positioned myself for interviews in outlets like The Atlantic (with my name and website in the first line of a widely shared essay).

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