Book Marketing Now: N. Griffin
N. Griffin, author of YA thriller TRIGGER as well as hilarious MG detective series SMASHIE MCPERTER, talks libraries, Zoom, pitching, and building a writing community
Welcome back to Book Marketing Now, a monthly feature of Books, Marketing, & More where I share interviews with writers about their marketing and publishing journey as they share the inside scoop on releasing books into the current market!
Check out March’s interview with Lisa Stringfellow | Other past interviews and insights here!
N. Griffin is one of those rare writers who can write engaging, endearing, middle grade stories and heart-wrenching, harrowing, YA with the same pen. She has a distinctive voice that draws you in, no matter what age group she’s writing for.
Due to pandemic delays, she’ll be releasing one of each in 2022: her gripping YA novel, Trigger, drawn from her own experiences, about a teen girl whose abusive father teaches her the finer points of chess and hunting for his own sinister ends; and Smashie McPerter and the Shocking Rocket Robbery which revisits our favorite kid detectives during a planetarium field trip gone awry. {Full disclosure: we are big Smashie fans in this house!}
N. Griffin shares her love of libraries, the perils of Zoom, and the importance of connecting with fellow writers.
How did you initially market your books to your editors? Has that changed now that you’re marketing the books to readers?
Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I have two 2022 books and both were kind of easy in this regard because I already had strong relationships and experience with my editors. Trigger (Caitlyn Dlouhy, Atheneum March 2022) was a burst of an idea and writing that I called Caitlyn to kind of blurt about in a breathless and heaving way and then I sent her what I had written so far and she took it as a book. So maybe I would recommend breathless blarting?
The publisher is pitching the book as The Queen’s Gambit meets The Hunger Games. Take that as you will!
Similarly, but with less heaving, Smash McPerter and the Shocking Rocket Robbery (Karen Lotz, Candlewick September 2022) is the third in the Smashie McPerter Investigates series, which is geared for grades 2-5. What happened there was that I was in England (I KNOW!!) and so was Karen and she took the train to where I was and we drank tea and ate sweets and I told her my plan for the book and she said “Let’s do it!” Which was very nice. So in this instance I recommend England, sweets and an already present editor.
Who do you see as the audience for these books and how are you connecting with them?
For sure Trigger and my other YA titles (The Whole Stupid Way We Are and Just Wreck It All) are for teens on up. I know that in addition to publicity people, librarians are the best and most wonderful book champions. They have magic powers that let them find the perfect books for the kids they know and interact with. So, hugely and thankfully, librarians have helped kids and me find one another. Otherwise, in terms of direct connection, social media and, even more, my own website has been a great way to connect directly with people who’ve read my books and I love that the best. Also school visits. Talking to teens and anyone else who might connect with the book is wonderful and means a lot to me.
I would say the same is true for my Smashie titles. Only in my school visits for those, we do a lot of fun mystery and sleuthing activities I love to do with the kids and I think that connects them to the books in an entertaining way as well. School is the best.
How has marketing your current books been similar or different from marketing your earlier works?
It’s definitely a little bit smoother-feeling with new titles because the hope is that past readers might want to see what you have that’s new and new readers might come to you as well. So there’s less of that chest-constricting feeling of hoping that somebody, any single body, will read a word that you wrote. But it’s still important work to get your words into the world and into the hands of kids that need them or that will just love them, period.
Has the pandemic affected your marketing efforts?
I have, for the first time, seen that there are filters on zoom. This matters because EVERYTHING IS STILL ZOOM PRETTY MUCH and I am terrified I will make myself bathed in sienna like an Old West lady and it will really mislead people about the kinds of things I write. (I watched Deadwood back in the day but that’s as far as I go in terms of swinging-door saloon threats and such.)
Zoom IS such a challenge! It can make it hard to feel really connected to both your readers and your marketing partners. Any advice on that front?
In terms of marketing, I think relationships among writer friends are key. Who better than genuine colleagues to help and be helped by in terms of letting a wider group of people know about our work through social media and other means? I know I am thrilled to champion any wonderful book that comes my way written by someone I know, and I’ve been the beneficiary of such championing, too. For me this has been an informal, each-as-it-comes kind of thing, but I do know writers who have organized themselves into marvelous, supportive marketing circles for themselves, and I love to see it because I know it is based on genuine care and the books have a satisfying feel of having already been loved. So maybe gang up together with your writers group and conquer the world!
How do schools and libraries fit into your marketing process?
Every single where. They are everything. Schools and libraries are where so many of the readers are (though not all) and I love both spaces enormously. I worked in education for a shocking number of years and being with kids in school energizes me like nothing else. And libraries! They were everything to me as a child. Solace, escape, joy, learning. So I really like to make an effort to connect to kids and the adults who love them in those places.
Finally, what tea recommendation do you have to help folks get through the marketing process?
Coffee is very nice first thing in the morning but then a person must switch to a black breakfast tea with sweetener and sometimes a splash of whole milk. Skim milk is sad and makes for a gray and upsetting little drink.
To order Trigger:
Porter Square Books | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | IndieBound
To pre-order Smashie McPerter and the Shocking Rocket Robbery
Porter Square Books | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | IndieBound
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N. Griffin is the author of The Whole Stupid Way We Are, for which she was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Flying Start Authors of 2013, as well as Just Wreck It All and Trigger. She is also the author of the Smashie McPerter Investigates series, including Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of Room 11, Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of the Missing Goop, and the upcoming Smashie McPerter and the Shocking Rocket Robbery (Candlewick, 2022). She received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives with her husband and a lot of dogs.
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Happy reading & writing!
~Allison
Writer & Marketing Coach
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Allison Pottern Hoch has happily made books her life’s work. She spent four years marketing and publicizing academic titles at The MIT Press before she went to work for Wellesley Books as a children’s bookseller and event coordinator. She is now living her dream: putting her B.A. in Creative Writing to good use as a novelist and as a writing/marketing coach for authors. She enjoys science fiction, cupcakes, and a hot cup of tea.