Promoting Books

The necessary struggle.

I’m having a January sale on annual subscriptions! For 15 bucks, you can support my newsletter—and me!—through 2023. That works out to pennies per newsletter. Not much for you, but, if enough of you sign up, a significant boost in newsletter income for me. Receiving your financial support would allow me to do more research for each post, spend more writing each newsletter, and develop new features. Many thanks in advance!

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A small press works in cycles: sometimes we are very acquisition oriented; sometimes we are mainly heads down, editing; sometimes we are swapping countless emails as we do rounds and rounds of proofreading and design, deep in production and printing mode, and sometimes publicity and marketing take the lead. And that cycle—promoting forthcoming titles —is the cycle our trusty staff is in this January.

Well, really, Phoebe is in it. Phoebe Mogharei, Belt’s publicity and marketing director for the past year (and who has worked for Belt on a freelance basis for the past four years) is sending emails. A lot of emails. To lots of people. She has spreadsheets for all six of our Spring titles which, due to their staggered publicity lead times—some need more advance time, some less—all happen to all need to be launched this month. Some are sent to colleagues who know our books well; some are sent cold to editors we hope will open our CLICKY SUBJECT LINE! email. Some are sent to the same person, six times over (NYTBR editors get ‘em all, so do booksellers, librarians and the like), and some get only one (Buffalo alternative weeklies, recipe websites, COVID researchers, bicycling magazines, Chicago literary publications).

Publicity is the toughest job in publishing, because you have almost no control over the results. You cannot blame yourself if none of your emails result in reviews or orders, nor do many publicists take credit when they do (though they should). The vagaries of individual interest, closing times, editorial priorities, audience interest and the news cycle all factor in. So do personal relationships, and those take time—and, often, proximity to New York City socializing—to nurture.

Authors, of course, are also responsible for publicizing and marketing their books. There is a lot of sighing and regretting about how much work authors need to do these days to promote their books, but this is nothing new (my research on 19th century American novelists bear this out! They were out there hustling and hustling and hustling. Six month lecture tours! Knocking on the doors of booksellers up and down the coast! )At least today’s authors can do much of the hawking from their couches.

For years, I pooh-poohed the idea that authors had be good at marketing in order for books to do well. I don’t any longer, sadly. Ninety books under my belt (lol) and I can trace a pretty, if not completely, clear line between an author’s marketing prowess and effort and sales. I do think this is a notable change from how the ecosystem worked, say, ten year ago, if not 150. The shift to social media—which is a shift to individuals and personalities before organizations and ideas—means a writer shilling for their book is simply more effective, for many editors, booksellers, and readers, than a company doing that same. We don’t follow brands; we follow people. Influencers are individuals, not institutions. This logic extends to promoting books.

But let’s back up. Let’s go back to the current cycle of one small press, currently in promotion mode. We are actually really excited about our forthcoming books! We *want* to extol their virtues and brag about them and we really really hope people will be interested in them too. So it is not from duty but enthusiasm that Phoebe is sending so many people emails this month, and that I am now going to promote Belt Publishing’s Spring catalog to you.

Buffalo in 50 Maps. The third book in our 50 maps series. It feels good to give Buffalo something nice; they’ve had quite a time of it lately.

The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World. Self-published by Major Taylor in 1928, a riveting first-person account of Taylor's rise to the highest echelons of professional cycling, becoming the first African American cycling world champion, going on to set seven world records in the sport. With an introduction by Zito Madu (who is also writing a book for Belt!)

The Girls by Edna Ferber. A sweeping look at the lives of three generations of women on Chicago’s South Side, with a new introduction by Kathleen Rooney.

Midwest Pie With an introduction by the aforementioned Phoebe! With recipes for Hoosier, Schnitz, Buckeye, Sawdust, and other favorite pies! Plus photos of people eating pie from the olden days! It only looks spiral bound.

Who We Lost: A Portable Covid Memorial. This is a book we crashed—I received the proposal in September, and we now have galleys (upon request!). I am so proud to be publishing this beautiful and important and timely collection of essays by Americans who lost a loved one to Covid. It also includes guidance for anyone interested in writing an essay themselves, and a discussion of the power of writing to the grieving process.

Team Building: A Memoir About Family and the Fight For Worker’s Rights. Pittsburgh, unions, fetanyl, softball, and gorgeous prose from the editor of our Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook: this book will choke you up both ways.

A great shelf, right? I’m excited. Phoebe is emailing. Welcome to January.