BOOK PR RESOURCES
If you have found this through our "Should I Know Who You Are? Book PR for the Modern Age" panel at AWP 2016 in Los
Angeles, welcome, and thanks for attending our panel. Bios (and contact
information) for our panelists are below.
Here are our recommended resources to get you started as you
contemplate or launch into promoting your book. Good luck!
We are all big, big, BIG fans of publishing professional
Jane Friedman!
Here’s her blog: https://janefriedman.com/blog/
These JF posts and articles are
especially recommended by Kelly:
Can You Promote
a Book Without Making Yourself Miserable? by Ed Cyzewski
The Online Presence That’s a
Natural Extension of Who You Are and What You Do. (Is It Just Fantasy?) by Jane
Friedman
Follow Jane on Twitter: @JaneFriedman
Here’s an agent blog about promoting/marketing that Lori
follows:
Rachelle Gardner: http://www.rachellegardner.com/
Lori suggests looking at the SheWrites.com site for
the resources and writer blogs: http://www.shewrites.com/
Lori has recently launched a new
blog there, “Lit Life,” with all things about the writing life: http://www.shewrites.com/profile/loriamay
Lori has written these useful articles:
Writer's Digest. "10 tips for making the
most of the MFA experience."
Kelly wrote this helpful article, Getting
Your Book to the Top of the Reviewer’s List:
I blogged tips about how to give a great reading:
Kelly likes “Website Tips For Authors,” by Midge Raymond, in
Author Magazine
Beth recommends this article about the client/publicist
relationship:
Katie suggests following:
Books & Whatnot: http://booksandwhatnot.com/
Shelf Awareness: http://www.shelf-awareness.com/
Ami Greko:
Here she is on Twitter: @ami_with_an_i
Here’s her “London Calling” book
newsletter: http://tinyletter.com/LondonCalling/archive
I definitely recommend Lori’s book The Write Crowd as
a go-to resource for thinking about the community: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-write-crowd-9781628923094/
(also available on Amazon or wherever you like to order books)
Bonus: The
Bloomsbury book page for The
Write Crowd also has some freebie articles and resources on a “Companion
Site,” found here: http://www.bloomsbury.com/cw/the-write-crowd/?pid=222377
Find us on Twitter:
Kelly Davio, @kellydavio
Katie Freeman, @foxyhedgehog
Lori A. May, @loriamay
Beth Parker, @beth_parker
Leslie Pietrzyk, @lesliepwriter
Bios:
Kelly Davio is the Senior Poetry Editor and US Publicist for
Eyewear Publishing in London, England. She also edits Tahoma Literary Review and directs the
poetry-focused PR consultancy Small Press Love. Her poetry
collection, Burn This House, was
released by Red Hen Press in 2013. More information: http://kellydavio.com/
Katie Freeman is the Associate Director of Publicity for
Riverhead Books, and has worked at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and
Pantheon Books. She has served on committees for the
Brooklyn Book Festival, PEN American Center, Words Without Borders,
Narrative 4, and the National Book Foundation and can be found online
@foxyhedgehog.
Lori A. May is the author of several books,
including The Write Crowd: Literary Citizenship & the Writing Life which
was named a “best book for writers” by Poets & Writers magazine.
Her writing may also be found in publications including The Atlantic, Brevity,
and Writer’s Digest. Lori is a faculty mentor in the MFA program at
the University of King’s College-Halifax and a publishing internship supervisor
with the Wilkes University MA and MFA writing programs. More information: http://www.loriamay.com/
Beth Parker has been working in book publishing
since 1999 promoting a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction authors ranging
from debut fiction to celebrity memoirs, YA, and more. She has worked on
numerous New York Times bestselling campaigns in all genres.
In 2014 she started her own PR firm, Beth Parker PR. More
information: www.bethparkerpr.com
Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day, and, most recently, of
This Angel on My Chest, a collection
of unconventionally linked short stories about the sudden death of her 37-year-old
husband. It won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published in
October by University of Pittsburgh Press. More information: http://lesliepietrzyk.com/