One of the givens of small press publication is that most of the book marketing stuff you do yourself (and, from what I’ve observed of the press side, production is largely a DIY hustle as well). Once I got past several months of extreme overwhelm, I’ve actually found this kind of fun, in the way most DIY stuff is. Years spent working at various nonprofits have taught me a number of skills I never knew I was acquiring at the time (graphic design, press releases, website maintenance, social media stuff, and more recently media production), all of which have come in handy.
Like, for instance, did you know that YouTube has a function where you can set an uploaded video to premiere at a certain day/time? I did not. I’ve had a YT account for like 15 yrs and have pretty much used it only for making wacky playlists (“Music to Poop To“) and writing short stories in response to Bette Midler videos. Only the other day did it occur to me that it’s a sort of an artistic medium in its own right, or at least a medium for sharing artistic stuff. But then, the idea that you might actually want other people to look at artistic stuff you did occurred to me only very recently as well.
So. Here is the book trailer I produced with Greg, who has a natural knack for the audio/visual. You can’t watch it now–it premieres Sunday, January 3 at 4pm CST. YouTube says to tell you that you can click on the little bell icon to get a reminder just before it airs.