 Right around Thanksgiving, people start looking for wedding coordinators, wedding books, and wedding officiants. In the flurry, I'm reminded of the months I worked with my Dad, learning how he officiated at weddings.
Dad had an insatiable interest in human beings, great curiosity about what made them tick. He coupled this with a sense of calm authority and warm humor, and his wedding clients found this combination irresistible. They trusted him right away, and formed longstanding relationships. A few sent him cards years later, and came to his memorial service. Dad loved the theater of a wedding. "It has everything," he explained to me. "lights, costumes, music, scripts." He loved orchestrating, and he also enjoyed sitting back and watching the other professionals, the wedding coordinator, the florist, the photographer, the DJ, do their work. Dad taught me to bring a sense of calm to the wedding. He taught me that you never know what will go awry at a wedding, but you can count on something, given that weddings are large groups of diverse people, with agendas, agreeing to show up at one place and one time. And that as long as the couple are married, everything else is really small potatoes. He maintained that calm when a groom swallowed his own wedding ring during a drunken rehearsal (it did show up, cleaned, at the wedding). He even held his equilibrium during a hot air balloon wedding. Finally, Dad taught me how to keep on being surprised by the ceremony, even as he performed more than a thousand weddings. It's easier to do this when you tailor the script to your couple, but still! "You've read your words lots of times," he would say, "but for everyone in front of you, it's the first time they really hear it. So don't rehearse it too much, and enjoy it." And I did.  A week before the book was to launch, I grew so restless. I paced and fretted. I had completed every task I set out to do for the book. What would the launch look like?
Every day that week I watched the title rise in Amazon ranking from about a millionth place to as high as 131,000. It went down a lot, too! So I stopped watching before it became too stressful a habit. On December 2, at 12:30 in the morning, I woke up and learned what the launch looked like: Satisfaction. Joy. All alone in the dark, I felt a very steady sense of accomplishment. The book is published and can live on its own in the world. Later in the day I checked back in with my feelings, over a latte and pear-ginger croissant. Yep, that steady warmth was still there. That evening I had some dear friends over and we laughed and chatted over lasagne. I opened a couple of tins of blackfish caviar, and a few bottles of Sofia sparkling wine. That good feeling? Still there. Still here. Hallelujah.  Promotion on social media is full-time work. Here’s how I’ve gone about it.
Massive research I read eight books about promoting books. I underlined and tagged them, and kept a notebook with a page dedicated to each element of the publicity strategy: biography, elevator speech, ideal city-tour plan, etc. Lots of lists. I repeatedly worked through a 26-page online list that Chronicle Books offers authors as I came up to speed on social media. Creating physical space A month ago it was hard to work in my home office. Looking back, no wonder! The space was crowded, especially with things that weren’t actually mine, and at the same time, scattered. The sight of them siphoned my attention from The Wedding Officiant’s Guide. I removed what didn’t belong (including seven bags of books), and sorted what remained to align with one purpose: promoting this book to the best of my ability. Setting up posts in cyberspace My web site. Amazon. Goodreads. Twitter. An account at Chronicle Books. Pinterest. Facebook. Step by step I set them up, and then began many weeks of "checking my fences" and making the adjustments. Sorting and listing action items In the newly calm, airy space, I set up two whiteboards. One tells me what to do. I list tasks for this week, and also incoming ideas. On Friday, the task list is mostly erased, so the incoming list becomes next week’s tasks. The other whiteboard records the seeds I’ve sown, sprouts to tend, and little miracles. And I list angels, people who have shown extraordinary support in this venture. My heart is full of gratitude for these publicity angels Stephanie Wong, my publicist at Chronicle Books who valiantly connects copies with reviewers and pitches with the media. What an amazing Grace. Jennifer Randolph, my publicity coach. We’re going to an Oprah event and bringing business cards! Jenny Walicek, who is extending her hand to me from high on the social media learning ladder saying, “Reach up and grab hold, you’ll be fine!” Cathleen Miller, whose weekly two-pagers and kind words grew my blogging muscles. And whose example of organized book writing is positively inspirational. The splendid writers and teachers Kate Evans, Mary Reynolds Thompson, and Kyczy Hawk, whose brave examples show that if I take simple steps from a heart-led space, I, too, can become a citizen of their caring, committed, literary world.  Last Thursday I got one of the most exciting e-mails of my life. "Hello," it began, "I’m an editor with (a wedding magazine) and we’ve decided to feature your book in our review section of the winter/spring issue. . ."
At the fall equinox in 2014, it’s almost hard to remember June of 2012 when I signed the contract with Chronicle Books and sat down to write The Wedding Officiant’s Guide. I sent my huge, messy draft to Doris Ober late that year. Doris is a meticulous independent editor as well as an excellent author. The rewriting took another nine months, and then I began to polish the story with Lisa Tauber and Dawn Yanagihara, my wonderful editors at Chronicle Books. Gradually, the book rose out of my hands and flew off to live with the editors, designers, and producers, and I sat alone at my dining room table surrounded by vast silence. The book publishing process moves glacially when you are used to blogging. I countered the loss by creating a wildly improbable publicity scheme for myself and biting my nails. Special cross-marketing events, national touring, knocking on Martha Stewart’s door. . . none of this has happened yet, and it probably won’t even be approved when I do get my fifteen minutes with the publicist at Chronicle Books. But something happened off of my radar, something marvelous. The publisher sent me a handful of author copies of the actual, adorable little sky-blue paperback, which I wrapped (as you see in the picture above) and mailed to all the people I interviewed for the book. But at the same time, Chronicle sent a bunch of the books (50? 100?) to reviewers and magazines. Seeds were sown (have I mentioned how cool it is working with Chronicle?) and now I’m seeing tiny green leaves breaking the loamy surface. |
Photo: Anita Scharf
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