Summer School: diy your marketing and publicity with Samantha Paige Rosen

Hi there! Is anyone else deep in the sludge of summer, or is that just me and my bad attitude? Here in New Jersey, we’ve had two kinds of weather so far: dangerously hot and floods. (Literally! I had to route around two different sets of swamped cars on flooded roads on the way to pick up my kid and his friend from camp the other day.)

In any case—these chats, in the Summer School series, have been such a source of joy and connection, and I’ve loved having so many of you join us in the last couple of weeks. This past Thursday, Samantha Paige Rosen told us all about her the strategies that have netted her TONS of coverage for her new book, the anthology Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection1, and she gave some great advice that anyone with a book coming out in the next year or so will definitely want to snap up. (And honestly, I think, anyone working on a book, even if you’re mostly at the poking at it and dreaming stage, will benefit from her insights.)

If you happen to be in the Philadelphia/south Jersey area, you’ll definitely want to come to Sam’s book launch, this Thursday the 19th at the Philadelphia Ethical Society in Rittenhouse. It’s a party! And a potluck! I’ll be there, and I’d love to see you there, too. (You do need tickets, but you have the option to do free or buy a book.)

1. Cast a wide net. Sam said, since no one really knows what works for marketing and publicity, her goal was to “try a little bit of everything.” (This reminded me of what Dan Blank has said—that no one knows for sure what works, but doing things works, so you might as well try.)

2. Don’t be afraid of dropping what isn’t working or feels painful. Sam’s example was backing away from tik tok after she realized it wasn’t for her and probably wasn’t where she was going to find her readers.

3. Listen to your body. You’re allowed to take a break. We talked about ways to get help, ranging from hiring a publicist to help you strategize, to hiring an admin who can help with execution and follow-up of your good ideas. You should also enlist your writer friends in helping you spread the word!

4. Personal outreach goes a long way, and you should probably follow up slightly more often than you’re comfortable with.

And—Sam created a great bonus resource for helping you dream up your own publicity and marketing campaign. You’ll find that below the paywall, along with two of my own posts about how I’ve promoted my own recent books, including two annotated examples of successful podcast and newsletter pitches.

If you’ve been working on a book and have thought, but is this too weird? or can I get away with this? Erica’s book, Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story, which is at once an incredibly moving birth story and a knockout western slash ghost story, shows that yes you can, and she’ll share some great tips for how to do it.

And you don’t have to take my word for it! Check out this endorsement from Cassie Mannes Murray:

If you want to grab your very own copy of Frontier (you do!), you can get $5 off from the good folks at Barrelhouse, Erica’s press (they’re the coolest) with the coupon code REDDY. (I’ve never been a coupon code before, feels very fancy.)

You can get all the Summer School info and an archive of the recordings in this post:

And! If you’re looking for even more writing inspiration this summer, Philly-based Blue Stoop has a great lineup of online workshops, and two of their upcoming classes close for registration TODAY: Writing Body and Desire with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan and Verse Chorus Voice with Sadie Dupuis.

You can check out the full lineup at Blue Stoop and you can get 10% off with the code FACULTYFRIEND26. (It’s good until August 6.)