How Fast Can You Pitch?

Publicity is hard work. I’m not kidding. First, you have to either be real media savvy to find people to pitch your book to or you have to hire someone to get them to you or you to them. The book bloggers convention this evening was the perfect place to meet bloggers who are reviewing books and in my case YA books. But if you’re like me, you might have to push yourself to get in there, meet people and … give them your pitch. Julie and Marissa (JKSCommunications) made it easy by ushering me over to folks they wanted to introduce me to when I was standing by myself eyeing the carpet. But they can’t do the pitch for you so take a breath and dive in. One thing that made it easier was there were so many YA book bloggers in the room to talk to. I had no idea the YA community of reviewers was so big. It seemed like everyone I bumped into was into YA. It was also great that bloggers were a little nervous about the whole meet and greet thing too. If we’re going to be uncomfortable we might as well be uncomfortable together. Common ground of discomfort is a wonderful thing.

I learned a lot about bloggers today and met a lot of really nice people who love books. What a great transcending factor. I haven’t talked so much about books … ever. And I really enjoyed it. Finding out why people blog (lost job, in school, bored, looking for community, love books and wanted to talk about them to somebody, English major and wanted to read and talk about books outside the curriculum, because they love books) was fascinating. And YA bloggers read an incredible number of books (from 100 on the low-end to over 300 per year – and I heard a rumor of almost mythic proportions that some read over 500). That’s an amazing amount of reading and writing of reviews. It was hard not to get caught up in people’s excitement in the work that they do – and for no pay other than their love of the written word.

How cool is that?

Looking forward to my son’s third grade play tomorrow then… author speed dating at the BBC.