2008 Marketing the Muse: Online Workshop #t 1

Marla's Road to Publication

It seems appropriate to offer my own road to publication story as MarketingtheMuse.com's first tutorial.  

My marketing workshops began as a result of failure--mine. I had a book that should have sold millions--not because I wrote it (though I’m still proud of every written word)--it should have sold because the market was there. I just couldn’t get to it. After spending sufficient time licking my wounds, I regrouped and wrote a six page marketing workshop proposal aimed at sharing information I learned the hard way. Santa Barbara Writers Conference, www.sbwritersconference.com,  founders and dear friends, Mary and Barny Conrad, said "yes" to my proposal and in 2003, I taught my first workshop titled The Nuts & Bolts of Getting Published.

Over time, it morphed into Marketing the Muse because that’s what we do when we replace our writing hat with a marketing cap that rarely fit as well.  We are writers. By definition that means most of us like working alone. Leaving our writing sanctuary for the loud, noisy marketplace of bookselling is not an easy outing for most. I empathize. I relate. I also say “GET OVER IT!”  If you don’t sell yourself, no one else will. Even if you do all that you can, you still may not end up on any bestseller list which brings me to the condensed version of my road to publication story.

Unlike many writers, I’m not shy. I have a broad base of experience that ranges from health care, teaching and successfully mothering 3 great girls to freelance writing and radio show co-hosting. My only published book so far, All American Girls: The US Women’s National Soccer Team was bought by Simon & Schuster  the first day we shopped it. My agent was new on the job. I was new at being an author. Together we made mistakes newbies make—we jumped at Simon & Schuster’s offer before shopping elsewhere.

Mistake Number One: Don’t be seduced by celebrity. During the post mortem, I discovered several publishers that specifically sold my kind of book. Publishers that might have helped market more than this publisher did. All American Girls sold well considering I was the only one selling it. The S & S marketing juggernaut did little for this first time author. The famous team I profiled did even less.

Mistake Number Two:  When you get a famous entity to say "yes" get them to say (in writing) that they will help you promote it. I was so grateful to hear the word yes, I didn’t ask for anything else. Sound familiar? For six months prior to and after its debut, here’s the truncated version of what I did to sell All American Girls: I got the book in the hands of many NPR booking agents. Several booked me to participate in panel discussions about youth and sports development, etc. I appeared on much regional TV morning news shows as well as FOX TV and CSPAN; all trips subsidized by me. David Letterman held up All American Girls right before the U. S. Team appeared on his show the night after they won the World Cup at the Rose Bowl –a game viewed by almost two billion people world-wide.  The Chicago Tribune, LA Times, OC Register and too many others to list referenced All American Girls in stories about the team. I snagged a youth sports columnist gig on Oxygen.com. I attended several major book expos armed with books and my pitch which included glowing reviews from School Library Journal and Kirkus. I did not snag the coveted Publishers Weekly review because I did not know it was coveted. However, my editor at Simon & Schuster did. She quit the company midway through the editing process and by the time my new editor came onboard, the window for submission was closed. My newbie agent never mentioned the importance of a PW review. When I asked about this error, she told me it wasn’t an agent’s job “typically.”  Each time I contacted S&S’s marketing department to report my latest good news, they responded with appropriate  "Go get ‘em, Marla" cheers.

Finally, from pure exhaustion and personal crisis-my mom died unexpectedly six weeks after All American Girls debuted- I closed the cover on this book that I still wish more youth athletes could read. The extraordinary Gold Medal, World Cup winning team profiled in All American Girls blazoned the trail for little girls with big dreams of becoming super stars on the field. I don’t like to think I’ve ever given up before a game ended but looking back, this time I did.   

Posted by Marla Miller