How to try to get your forthcoming book attention in 4,231 simple steps
1. Two years before you write the book, get your mother to plant amaranth. Amaranth crops sustained people all the way from Guatemala to the southwest. The staple grain has more protein than quinoa and requires just 2 millimeters of water to survive. Colonialists stamped out the fields to force Indigenous people to rely on European, water-needy crops, like wheat.
2. Publish an essay in the New York Times that goes semi-viral. Assume this will make it easy to sell your book. Feel betrayed by both asses and u and me.
3. Campaign for reproductive rights in Florida, DC, and Arizona—the rendered experience becomes the ending for the book that will become How to Plant a Billion Trees,
4. January 2025. Find the kindest agent in the world. One that doesn’t mind if you email her five asking if she’s heard anything since going on submission earlier that same day.
5. Wait with agent. Try not to think what presses will say yes.
6. Or manifest: Try very hard to think about presses will say yes.
7. Zoom with your agent and a few presses.
8. Post about the process on FB, including the press that wanted me to have 100,000 followers on Substack. (I have 100!)
9. Freak out when two different arms of Bloomsbury say yes to two different books. So exciting! Also, how will you finish two books in a year?
10. Fortunately, How to Plant a Billion Trees was nearly finished. Writing the Hard Stuff was sold on proposal. Fortunately, it’s about the writing of How to Plant a Billion Trees, which you had just finished, so now you can write the Writing the Hard Stuff book which is due September 1.
11. Put together a panel called Writing the Hard Stuff with colleagues and graduate students for the Desert Nights/Rising Stars conference in Phoenix.
12. Submit companion essay. Publish in Craft!
13. Be grateful you’re invited to present on two AWP panels: Writing Gender-Based Sexual Violence Is Difficult Enough, So How Do We Teach It? And Writing Unashamed: On Resisting Shame & Silencing.
14. Write like the wind!
15. Travel through the west for research about an entirely different, future book.
16. Revise Billion Trees, especially chapter 4, thanks to advice from editor.
17. Travel to Alaska for research about an entirely different, future book.
18. Be grateful AWP panels are accepted.
19. Submit both books to Bloomsbury
20. Attend Sex Trafficking conference to understand how to give some context to A Billion Trees.
21. Ask mother-in-law to harvest amaranth.
22. Writing the Hard Stuff is to come out on November 27th. Thanksgiving Day.
23. Talk with your who have hired publicists. Wonder if it’s a good idea. Look at bank account. Friend gives great advice about podcasts and bookstores. Think, “I can do this myself.”
24. Post cover of Writing the Hard Stuff.
25. Write column about Writing the Hard Stuff
26. Forget that one has three other jobs besides being publicist for one book.
27. Bring postcards to Desert Nights since Writing the Hard Stuff isn’t released yet. Make postcards as substitute.
28. Teach the ideas around Writing the Hard Stuff. Students write an object lesson and braided essays. Share publishing process with students—hope both are useful!
29. Start contacting friends with whom you’d love to present at bookstores.
30. Copyedit first and only draft of Writing the Hard Stuff
31. Email bookstores to see if I can read with friends over the next few months.
32. Submit companion essay to the New York Times. Place it in Brevity!
33. Buy a 3-day subscription to Listen Notes to search for podcasts that might be interested in interviewing you.
34. Draw up list of potential blurbists.
35. Write to potential colleagues at campuses across the country about book to ask about visiting their colleges.
36. Email editors almost as often as you once did agent to see who is going to blurb the book.
37. Start a Substack.
38. Zoom with publicist who will help get the word out about the book. Hope he has the strength and connections.
39. Worry about blurbs.
40. Write Substack post about Donald Trump being a sex Trafficker.
41. Meet with greenhouse manager about collecting trees to give away at readings
42. Copyedit the first draft of A Billion Trees.
43. Order matchbooks with the cover of A Billion Trees. Stuff some of them with pinenuts. Some with amaranth. Leave most matches to distribute at book events.
44. Substack post about writing postcards to potential voters in red counties.
45. Check in with book events hosts and co-authors.
46. Read books of friends with whom you will read at book events.
47. Copyedit second draft of a Billion Trees.
48. Substack post about witches.
49. Email publicist, marketer, editors about plans for the release of A Billion Trees.
50. Email potential blurbists.
51. Post cover of ABT without blurbs.
52. Worry about blurbs.
53. Substack about the terrible film After the Hunt
54. Email publicist, marketer, editors about plans for the release of A Billion Trees.
55. Proofread 1st round.
56. Substack about One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This
57. Make digital postcard for book tour.
58. Email editors of Writing the Hard Stuff about marketing plans.
59. Substack about Wright Thompson’s The Barn
60. Proofread A Billion Trees. 2nd round.
61. Post cover of ABT.
62. Write Bio Mass Index email to editors.
63. Joyful thank you to blurbists.
64. Proofread A Billion Trees 3rd and final round.
65. Email publicist, marketer, editors about plans for the release of A Billion Trees.
66. Collect books of fellow authors to read for book tour and Zoom talks.
67. Write 3 companion essays
a. Girls Are Not Your Millennium Falcon
b. Look Down. Look Around. Look Everywhere.
c. Impossible Books
68. Complete Questionnaire for Memoir Monday.
69. Wait to hear back from companion essay editors.
70. Prep for AWP.
71. Email Gmail contact list about both books.
72. Submit companion essays to more editors.
73. Make Bingo Cards for reading at AWP
74. Make postcard for ABT
75. Make postcard for individual book store visits/readings.
76. Plan California book tour.
77. Update website!
78. Post individual blurbs with huge thanks to blurbists
79. Collect trees from greenhouse. Plant in pots to give out to winners of Bingo game.
80. Strike a match from one of the publicity matchbooks. Hope the book sets the metaphorical world on fire while the regular world seems to be burning down.
Tired just reading this. And, there's 4,223 +/- things to go.
Love this! It's so true it hurts.