How Do You Generate Buzz for the Debut & Mid-List Titles?

Many of you will remember Elisabeth Weed, founder of Weed Literary, from The Writing Life talk we held this past January on Finding a Literary Agent*. In addition to her daily work, Elisabeth also manages to find time to write a very informative blog about the publishing business.

In her most recent post, she talks to Lucinda Blumenfeld, an agent who also works as an outside publicist and marketing professional, about the challenges of raising awareness for debut and mid-list titles.

Lucinda’s message is that word of mouth (she calls it “WOM”) is crucial, and appears to be the catalyst for the most popular books. We’ve talked about it before, in a number of The Writing Life programs, how authors must do more for themselves and must start much earlier in the process. Lucinda worked with NYSL member writer Gretchen Rubin on publicity for her wildly successful The Happiness Project. In our April 2010 talk Social Networking for Writers, just after publication of her book (and its debut on the NYT Bestseller List), Gretchen regaled (and slightly terrified) our member writers with the story of what it takes to build that word of mouth. It’s hard work. It takes time, effort, and dedication. But, according to Lucinda, it can also be gratifying for authors when their “fangelists” start tweeting and blogging the book.

She’s upfront about the fact that authors need to be realistic. You’re probably not going to get the front page of the New York Times Book Review or a tv spot, so look for non-traditional routes like writing an op-ed or a trend piece. Find outlets where you can have a larger impact, a place where you can get a larger conversation started which will be the hook that gets readers back to your book.

So get to it. Now’s the time! (Lucinda suggests getting started 6-8 months before publication.) Read the full interview with Lucinda in The Weekly Weeder.


*for recaps of The Writing Life talk Finding A Literary Agent, click here, here, and here.

Member Writer Notes and News

Some new-ish notes about some of our member writers:

Member Alexandra Horowitz's Inside of a Dog: What Dogs, See, Smell and Know is one of the most popular selling books on college campuses.

Member Jonathan Franzen has been nominated for a National Book Critic Circle Award for his bestselling Freedom.

Member Dan Cryer's first book, Being Alive and Having to Die, a biography of Forrest Church, has been purchased by St. Martin's Press. The book will be published in the Fall. {via Publishers Lunch}

Kristin Davis will star in a television treatment of member Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project.

Got news to share? Let me know!

Social Media and Me

I just found out that I have a lot of work to do. I've been doing it all wrong. Or at least, I haven't been doing it enough. That, according to member Gretchen Rubin, the fabulous author of The Happiness Project, the blog and the book, who took time from her (very) busy schedule to visit the Library today to talk to member writers about social networking.

Gretchen knows what she's talking about. In my intro to her talk, I mentioned she had 19,000 Twitter followers, but I just realized, she's got more like 20,000 now. She was gracious and generous with her time and patiently answered the dozens of questions from the audience about how to get started, the commitment required (Gretchen faithfully blogs 6 days a week), and whether privacy matters.

Some takeaways from the talk included Gretchen's picks for blog software (WordPress), for newsletters (Mail Chimp and Aweber), and some great sites for Twitter tips (tweetdeck and twitips).

But the best advice? Gretchen's social media mantras:
1. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity
2. Self expression is the new entertainment
3. A strong voice repels as much as it attracts
4. Competitors are your allies

There was a lot I took out of this talk. I'll post more in the days ahead...I've got to get started blogging 6 days a week!