34 Comments
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Rebecca Spelman's avatar

A really interesting piece, I'd never have thought of some of this stuff! I'm currently writing my first novel so I've bookmarked this for when I hopefully have something to promote! 🤞

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Julie Vick's avatar

Fingers crossed for you too!

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Beverley Dickson's avatar

Hi Julie, just stumbled upon your article (Substack is so good for that). I’m subscribing because I haven’t got a clue about marketing and have just self-published 😱

I need tips like this. Thank you ✨

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Julie Vick's avatar

Congrats on the book and happy to have you. And the marketing part can be a lot to sort through!

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Delia Lloyd's avatar

Thanks. Super helpful! Will save...

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John Passadino's avatar

Thank you, Julie. Good food for thought. I find the business end of writing quite daunting. It gives me a headache. 🤕😌

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Julie Vick's avatar

I don’t think you are alone in that. I think a lot of it is about figuring out what works best for you :)

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Liz Alterman's avatar

You always share such helpful advice, Julie, thank you! (Now if you could just come to my house and make me do all these smart things! 🤣 )

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Julie Vick's avatar

You always do such great things to promote your books! I am guessing it’s a lot trickier to juggle with multiple books too.

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Liz Alterman's avatar

Aw, thank you. I feel like my energy comes and goes. But you inspired me and I sent a pitch this morning! Fingers crossed!

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Julie Vick's avatar

Yes, fingers crossed!

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Chris Stanton's avatar

This was so helpful, Julie. Thank you!

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Julie Vick's avatar

Of course!

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Andromeda Romano-Lax's avatar

Useful and interesting!

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Julie Vick's avatar

Thanks, Andromeda!

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Geoff Mantooth's avatar

Julie, thanks for sharing. Great hands-on details of marketing a book. I like how you found overlapping audiences, publications for introverts and for parenting. Resonates with my own forthcoming book on inventions and entrepreneurship.

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Julie Vick's avatar

Thanks, Geoff.

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Gila Pfeffer's avatar

this is so helpful and also validating given my recent experience launching my debut memoir

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Julie Vick's avatar

I'm glad to hear that, Gila :)

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Sarah Elizabeth Graves's avatar

Thanks for all the helpful advice, Julie! I have a funny kids' picture book coming out soon, so I find these types of posts super useful.

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Julie Vick's avatar

Of course and I'm excited to hear that -- congrats!

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Sarah Elizabeth Graves's avatar

Thanks!

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James Marshall's avatar

I like these kind of posts: what worked and what didn't work (and also 'Who knows what the heck happened?).

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Julie Vick's avatar

I think a lot does fall into that last category!

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Sarah Allen's avatar

This is amazing! And holy cow, you did so much work! My latest middle grade comes out in paperback in September and I think I need to use some of these tips and strategies.

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Julie Vick's avatar

Hopefully it helps, although I feel like things like author visits (which I know you do) are probably some of the more helpful things for middle grade? Do you feel like that is the case?

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Sarah Allen's avatar

Oh totally, I love reading ALL the publicity/marketing advice but it does take some adapting for kid lit. And yes, I’m also trying to get better at the school visit thing. It’s powerful, but can feel limited in scope and hard to manage the logistics, ya know? (Even if they’re always a blast and so fulfilling.)

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Julie Vick's avatar

Yep that definitely makes sense!

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Sarah Allen's avatar

I know kid lit authors who make their full time living traveling the country doing school visits and I just…how…

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Julie Vick's avatar

I can imagine it's a lot of work and obviously a different thing than writing the books.

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Elizabeth Rynecki's avatar

Hey Julie - if you’d like to participate in my Authors Answer blog newsletter project, I’d love to have you. 20 standing questions about your life off the written page. You pick FIVE you want to answer.

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Julie Vick's avatar

Thanks for asking! I would be up for it -- can you send me an email with more info? https://julievick.com/contact/

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David Perlmutter's avatar

Thank you.

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Julie Vick's avatar

Of course!

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