~~~Lara Zielin~~~

This article in the Washington Post, sent to me by my friend Colleen, got me thinking about all the stuff I’ve done to promote DONUT DAYS — both on the road and on the internet. Everything I’ve done has been out-of-pocket, self-taught (because there’s no manual for this stuff) and largely hit-or-miss.

I’m not typing all this up to say, oh gee, look at me, look what I did, but rather to simply wholeheartedly agree that if you’re a first-time author, the onus is on you to get out there and promote yourself. Also, I have no idea how effective any of this is because sales numbers aren’t in.

Nevertheless, to date I have:

• Sung karaoke to a Corey Hart song and let my husband spray me with a hose to simulate crying in the rain. You may have seen this in the video “Editing Letter.”
• Road-tripped with my friend Heather to Chicago where we sneaked a suitcase full of donuts into the American Library Association conference. Oh, by the way? I so was not invited. Not at first. I begged my publisher to send me and eventually they did, giving me a full half-hour on the tradeshow floor that turned into an hour because a.) everyone wanted donuts and b.) they also wanted my book.
• Called my local Borders to ask them to carry a copy of my book, even though the national chain had decided against carrying it (thanks, Borders!). They still haven’t stocked a copy. (Thanks again SO much!) Quick shout out to Barnes & Noble who is carrying my novel. Mwa! Love you.
• On National Donut Day, Rob and I made another video. This time I dressed in a donut costume and sang a Fergie song. Ah, integrity. You are my close friend.
• I tore apart and photocopied a galley of my book and sent it out to bloggers who would not otherwise have received a copy. Um, Kinkos? You charged me a lot for that, and two of the pages were missing. Still, I think the overall effect was a good one.
• I bought Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards to enclose with my galleys. I wrote a letter to everyone willing to review the book and told them why I wrote it.
• Online, I started Tweeting (@larazielin), and I hosted a blog tour, complete with prizes for peeps who left comments.
• I contacted the Star Tribune to do an article on author Sarah Quigley and me. They did, praisejeebus.
• I reached out to my local independent bookstore and organized a launch party there. I printed out invitations and mailed them to anyone who might have a.) seen me one time at Meijer and b.) lived in a 50-mile radius. I bought a new dress and wrote a speech. I brought donuts and sold 50 books.
• I faithfully answered questions from any online interviewer/blogger who might ever want to talk to me about anything.
• Most recently I scheduled a Minnesota tour, complete with bookstore stops and visits with book groups who read DONUT DAYS. I drove the whole way — countless hours in the car and hundreds of dollars in gas — smiled, and gave away free books.
• This weekend, I was actually invited (yes!) to the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association conference in Cleveland (Cleveland rocks!), where I’ll sign a bunch of books and then come home.

I know I’m forgetting a lot of stuff here. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, really. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. But is it a lot of work? Yes. Especially when I have another job to do from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. Sitll I’m grateful to be published, and I’m proud of my debut novel. It’s a lot of work, but like the title of the post says … it’s done out of love, love, love.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Donut Days. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.