By Susan
Cushman
When I
realized that I would have three books releasing within a six-month period in
2017, I put on my multiple-book-marketing hat and went to work. I didn’t plan
for it to happen this way, but since I was working with three (and now
four—more on that later) separate presses, the right hand didn’t know what the
left hand was doing. Without an agent or publicist, I worked with each
publisher individually.
My first
book, Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s, (a memoir) released early in February. It was followed a
month later by an anthology I edited, A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be. Since these were
such different books, I found venues and audiences to fit each, and between
March and June I had eighteen events at bookstores and other venues in six
states, eleven for Tangles and Plaques
and seven for A Second Blooming.
Marketing the memoir involved communicating with Alzheimer’s caregivers’
support groups in several cities, and many of those folks showed up at readings
and became an important part of the discussion. One group invited me to their
meeting, where several of them purchased both books!
For A Second Blooming, I traveled to seven
bookstores in five states to join contributors at readings in their hometowns.
On a couple of occasions I was able to sell both books—when I was invited to
speak on my “late life career” as an author at a women’s conference at a
community college, and even at a bookstore that hosted me for one book but
loved the other and promoted both in one night. The turnout at these events has
averaged around twenty-five to thirty folks, but one event had close to eighty.
One way I
used these first two books to complement one another was by creating marketing
materials that featured both of them. Bookmarks and business cards show book
covers and author blurbs for both books, and now for my novel, Cherry Bomb. I created fliers for each
venue, sent them to the bookstores or event hosts, and posted them on Facebook
and Twitter. Afterwards, I blogged about each event and again posted photos on
social media. It’s been a busy but fun spring!
With the
release of Cherry Bomb this summer, I
moved forward with another marketing push, starting with the launch on August 8
in my hometown, Jackson, Mississippi, at Lemuria Bookstore, and followed
quickly with my appearance as moderator of one panel and speaker on a second
panel at the Mississippi Book Festival on August 19. More events are scheduled
for the coming months and into 2018, when my fourth book will be published.
Another anthology I’m editing, Southern
Writers on Writing is coming in spring of 2018 from the University Press of
Mississippi. Featuring essays by twenty-six southern authors—thirteen women and
thirteen men—I’m sure some fun book tours will be in the works. Stay tuned!
________________________________________________________________________________
Susan
Cushman was Co-Director of the 2013 and 2010 Creative Nonfiction Conferences
(Oxford, Mississippi). She was also the Director of the 2011 Memphis Creative
Nonfiction Workshop. Her memoir, Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s is about
the decade she spent long-distance caregiving for her mother, who died from
Alzheimer’s in May of 2016. Cushman is editor of a collection of essays by 20
women authors, A Second Blooming:Becoming the Women We Are Meant To Be, (Mercer University Press, March
2017). Her novel, Cherry Bomb, will
be published in July 2017 by Dogwood Press of Brandon, Mississippi. She is editing another anthology, Southern Writers on Writing, to be
released in 2018 by University Press of Mississippi. Cushman also has ten published
essays in various journals and magazines and four anthologies. Susan’s web site
is www.susancushman.com (which
also contains her blog, Pen and Palette). Follow Susan on Facebook and Twitter. Her
Amazon author page is here. A native
of Jackson, Mississippi, Susan has lived in Memphis since 1988.
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