Lindsay J. Sedgwick, author of Mischievous Magical Maia Malone, asks: is all publicity good? ‘Perhaps’, she tells us . . .
First things first: you can’t do everything.
I read so much advice about social media marketing that I filled a file and a thick notebook with all my plans and all the boxes I thought I needed to tick. Generally, the advice is to begin your marketing campaign a minimum of three months before publication, about posting five times a week, across everything, by reel and post and story, not to mention blogs and organising a blog tour, but you need to be practical.
I’m a one person operation. It’s difficult enough to run a campaign on one platform, with drops into other platforms and I won’t lie, trying to run a social media campaign while doing everything else is overwhelming, and frequently.
I’m a writer, but I’ve produced and marketed plays successfully. I’ve pitched and sold tv shows and films, and I’ve done this indie publishing lark before – but it’s both harder and potentially easier now. When I published my first book Dad’s Red Dress in 2017, the world was different. Amazon was the main publisher of self-published books and the freedom it gave writers was immense. Twitter and Facebook were the only avenues I needed to use, plus the Dublin People newspaper.
My experience below is based on publishing a children’s book although the same principles apply to most books.
Who is your audience?
Look at your characters, your themes, your setting, your message, potential links with school curriculum or upcoming anniversaries/ events. Who are your audience? Once you know this, you need to work out where they are and what will appeal to them.
My most successful adventure in Indie publishing thus far was with my third book, a comprehensive guide to writing the character-driven screenplay, Write That Script. Itstill sells, being somewhat timeless, but it’s an easier fish to fry than my other books because, being non-fiction, it has a defined audience.
My new book, Mischievous Magical Maia Malone is for the 7-10+ age group. This means schools, libraries, kid’s book buyers in bookshops but also parents rather than children – while still making obvious its appeal to kids. There are clear themes in terms of its diverse cast of characters, cross cultural adoption, but also identity, family, bullying, the power and responsibility of having a magical gift. There’s the comedy and slapstick, but also the very-much-earned feelgood ending. There’s a talking mouse, and a boy with autism. Then there’s how Irish it is, in terms of setting and language.
Think outside the box for how it might fit into curriculums in schools, on third level colleges and then look for advanced readers curriculum, if the school libraries are one of your target markets. If there is a local or national angle, something to do with sports, with social/ emotional/ psychological/ familial/ relationship issues etc.
Libraries and schools
It’s up to you to make sure the libraries want your book. Put together a one sheet to send out to libraries or schools. This will give them all the necessary details – ISBN, where to get, publication date, RRP, endorsements, cover image – but also contain a paragraph indicating where it fits into the curriculum – if it does; whether it’s illustrated, what issues or themes it deals with, and if you have a local connection to that area, or are available to give author talks, run workshops or courses etc.
Last time round, I pitched workshops at writing festivals, several run by library services. When I did a gig, they generally ordered all my books. I was also writer-in residence in Kildare (Maynooth Uni & Kildare County Council Arts& Libraries), so they took a pile. After that, I rang all the county councils to get the names and emails of those I should approach for them to buy my books. It worked enough times to be worthwhile. (Irish Library Suppliers supplied them and I frequently re-stocked their supply.)
This time, I’m planning to update my list of who to contact in the various library services and ring each in turn, before following up with an email, attaching my press release info and the one-pager. But I’ve decided to wait until the last fortnight and focus on it properly in the weeks after publication when my head might be a little less cluttered.
As for schools, I’ll do my first launch for kids in Hodges Figgis with the illustrator. I’m on the Writers in Schools programme and I have a portfolio of workshops ready to roll out.
Bookshops and Publicity
Selling direct to independent bookshops generally means keeping a larger percentage -they generally take 30-40%. Approach them early but I would advise against supplying bookshops that you’d have to make a long trip to visit. I did that before and never got back to check on stock. Bigger retailers like Dubray’s have a list of the criteria they expect you to meet and the book has to be available via a supplier. They also expect to see a physical copy six weeks before publication.
If you can build up a relationship with a bookshop – doing schools’ events, for example – it is possible for them to set up a community account for you to supply directly. They take a good two weeks to set it up before they can order from you so start the process early.
Ideally approach retailers with a press release that has the cover, blurb, endorsements and ISBN etc. They all have systems and requirements. Find out what they are well in advance – they all have one-pagers – and then you can roll out your requests to them to take on your book in advance. In Week six, I began checking back with the bookshops who had agreed to take the book – I had homes for 53 copies out of a 200-book print run, the majority on a sale or return basis.
As one bookshop who has stocked my other books told me, self-published children’s books don’t sell unless you are standing right beside them – or you make a big splash. Another pointed out that they got between three and six self-published books sent in to consider daily.
This business, as I realise time and time again, is not for the faint-hearted, but it’s also okay to crawl into a corner and lick your wounds before returning to the fray.
ARCs/Endorsements
Having got two endorsements months earlier for the cover, I needed parents and kids to do reviews of advance reader copies so that I could post up as part of the campaign. I started this process ten weeks before the launch. Most were happy to look at a pdf. Their comments are gold dust – appealing to the parents and reiterating that this is a book to buy.
What issues do you cover/ touch upon to get adults to see your book on social media? Knowing this, you can look for target markets and groups online that are interested in this – book clubs, parenting groups, special interest groups that mirror some aspect in your book.
Publicity: Be Creative
Who do you know?
Lean into your networks – book clubs, WhatsApp groups, special interest groups – or find groups to whom your book might appeal. Does anyone know anyone who might be interested in reviewing a copy, in interviewing you for a local paper or blog, radio station; look up the arts programmes and book shows that might be interested …If it’s a kid’s book, can you do a reading in the local school or the summer camp, are there parenting groups that might have kids willing to read it and give you feedback you can use?
Local media – many radio stations have an arts programme, what human interest angle could you use to get them interested in talking to you about your book? Would it work for trad media too, maybe supplement pages? Make a list of journalists who regularly cover writing/ writers/ books/similar human interest topics – it could be worth reaching out to them.
What tools do you have?
Gather your materials into a file you can dip into for social media. Feedback from readers? Illustrations – tie them into the book.
If you have friends who can help designing posts, shooting reels, sharing and commenting, maybe even researching something that’s in their field for you… Line up friends or colleagues who are willing to share and collaborate. Share posts in a similar area – those people will see and often reciprocate then when your posts come out.
Publicity: The Marketing Campaign
This was the tricky part for me. There aren’t enough hours in the day!
Which media platform to use
Choose your media platform and prepare material well in advance. That takes the pressure off.
With reader feedback, I made a series of slides. I compiled a document of quotes from the book to use with each of Abigails’ illustrations that we were going to use, and short personal stories to add to those posts. I did this for the characters and for themes/ aspects of the process too – adoption, creating villains, neurodiversity etc.
To engage my audience, I put together questions that related to the book but should be fun to answer. I planned to record reels talking about the process of writing and writing this book, but that didn’t happen. I made a link of discussion topics I could write to trad media -such as Mischievous Magical Maia Malone coming from the same story as Punky, the animation series I created, – but five weeks from publications they have only made it into a draft email and my guide for libraries.
Instagram is my main platform, and that feeds Facebook – but you need to remember to change all the tags for each. LinkedIn, I planned to use sparingly, maybe every week or so, while the website – landing page, blog and Maia page would need to be updated weekly. The only one I managed to properly cultivate after five weeks was Instagram, but I plan to rectify that.
I underestimated how long posts would take. To begin with, if I was doing the slides and the text, it could take two hours for each. Once I had a template, I prepared a full document of text and gathered quotes to go with every post for the following two weeks. Then I could start scheduling posts. I created my slides in Canva, while Abigail prepared the illustrations in a way that I could drop them in.
Plan the Ten Weeks
Break down the weeks into themes. For Mischievous Magical Maia Malone, the first four were all about the book – cover reveal, introducing the story, the characters, the world. The next two were about process. This included one week about its setting in Dublin, albeit with semi-fictional locations – they were all grounded in places within my head, while Abigail made sure to use real places to ground her illustrations.
Weeks seven and eight were to be about the creators. Abigail would take over the first, to bring us behind her process while I did the same in week eight. The focus for the last weeks was to be about how much fun the book is – reader reactions, snippets, fun bits of info, quotes – but also information for librarians and teachers – with a link to the guide, the call to buy and the launch dates/ venues.
By the time you read this, we are in pre-launch week and hopefully, my intended audience will be waiting to buy their own copy of Mischievous Magical Maia Malone. It will be available from all the usual outlets, but if you are free, these are my launch dates so far.
17th September – School’s launch at Hodges Figgis, 11am.
17th September – The Exchange Bar & Restaurant, Lord Edward Street. 6.30pm
2nd October – Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Galway, 6pm
Publicity Tips:
- Give yourself plenty of time but prepare material in advance.
- Have your press release ready before you approach any distributor or retailer.
- Do a calendar with themes for each other weeks, even if you don’t quite keep to it.
- Collect photos of the work in progress, of your working space, your cat sleeping on the first proof copy.
- Make a file of quotes from the book that you could use in posts.
- If there are personal stories behind any of them, type those up and file them away. Have discussion topics you can use to interest bloggers or journalists.
- Don’t supply bookshops directly that you are unlikely to revisit frequently.
- And remember – it’ll be worth it in the end!
(c) Lindsay J. Sedgwick
Web: lindsayjsedgwick.com Insta: @Lindsayjsedgwick
Online bookstore: Janey Mac Bookstore
Author Photograph (c) Barbara Henkes
About Mischievous Magical Maia Malone:
Broomsticks, alligators, gargoyles, and a lighthouse stretching up to touch the sky. When nine-year-old Maia describes her drawings, they come to life with comic and chaotic results – but could losing the family she loves be the price she has to pay?
After finding herself transformed one time too many, Maia’s older sister Neeta snaps and tells Maia she’s adopted. Maia’s world crumbles. Thinking her family would be better without her, she sets off on a daring and dangerous quest armed only with her pencils, her notebook and a faded photo of a woman she resembles.
A rollercoaster ride full of surprises, with themes of identity, adoption, friendship, bullying, and the scary responsibility of a powerful magical gift.
From the author of the Wulfie series and the creator of the ground-breaking animation series, Punky, comes a new action-packed adventure for 7-10-year-olds, illustrated by Abigail Hicks. A rollercoaster full of surprises, it deals with themes of identity, adoption, friendship and bullying, and the power (and cost) of having a magic gift. A heartwarming tale about the true meaning of family, friendship, identity and the power of believing in yourself, richly illustrated by Abigail Hicks.
Mischievous Magical Maia Malone will be available from International Education Services, Gardners, bookshops and online, while you can pre-order signed copies here.
And read more from Lindsay J. Sedgwick on Writing.ie here.
