Episode 157 - Literary Citizenship with Jane Friedman
October 25, 2022
Jane Friedman talks about LITERARY CITIZENSHIP ... OR A RISING TIDE RAISES ALL BOATS. We discuss what literary citizenship is, literary citizenship on social media, conveying your identity as an author, the power of repetition, taking a strategic approach, and the importance of authenticity.
Do any of those topics pique your interest? Check out 2 MINUTES OF INDY, where over the week following the airing of the episode, you'll find brief video clips from the interview on each of those topics. You can also catch up on some highlights of previous episodes there. |
Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She’s the editor of THE HOT SHEET, the essential industry newsletter for authors, and has previously worked for Writer’s Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2019, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World; her newsletter was awarded Media Outlet of the Year in 2020. Jane’s latest book is THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WRITER, which received a starred review from Library Journal. She is also the author of THE AUTHORS GUILD GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING.
|
Download | Amazon Music | Android | Apple | Google Podcasts | Libsyn | RSS | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube
"You have to just watch yourself and ensure that you're not trying to manipulate in your mentions and that you're doing it from a place of genuine regard or admiration. At no point am I suggesting you should start flattery just to warm up a relationship. It has to come from the point of, even if this person doesn't acknowledge what I'm saying, even if there is no payoff, I'm still glad I did it." —Jane Friedman
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
Links
Jane's Links:
https://www.janefriedman.com/
https://www.janefriedman.com/limits-literary-citizenship/
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2020/08/03/10-ways-to-be-a-totally-epic-literary-citizen/
https://hotsheetpub.com/
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
https://www.janefriedman.com/
https://www.janefriedman.com/limits-literary-citizenship/
https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2020/08/03/10-ways-to-be-a-totally-epic-literary-citizen/
https://hotsheetpub.com/
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Jane Friedman. Hey Jane, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Jane: I'm doing well, thank you, Matty.
Just to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She's the editor of the Hot Sheet, the essential industry newsletter for authors, and has previously worked for Writer's Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2019, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World, and her newsletter was awarded Media Outlet of the Year in 2020. And Jane's latest book is The Business of Being a Writer, which received a starred review from Library Journal. And she's also the author of the Author's Guild Guide to Self-Publishing. And Jane was a previous guest on episode 75, Key Book Publishing Paths with Jane Friedman.
[00:00:47] Matty: And I recently ran into Jane at the Writer's Digest conference, and she gave a talk on literary citizenship, which I just loved so much that I asked her if she would come on the podcast to talk about it a little bit. I'm tentatively subtitling this because, you know, nautical metaphors, a Rising Tide Raises All Boats. So we can spend some of the conversation deciding if that is in fact a legitimate subtitle for this.
What is Literary Citizenship?
But Jane, I just thought we could start out with you describing what you mean by literary citizenship.
[00:01:17] Jane: Well, it's not a term that I originated. There's a little bit of disagreement about where it came from. Some say the term came from Rob Spillman, who is from the Tin House literary magazine and press in the literary community. Cathy Day has run a course on literary citizenship at Ball State for a number of years, and she says it perhaps originated with Dinty Moore, who's another professor in the literary community. And I mention this history because it comes from the literary side of the writing and publishing community, where I think there's more of a, let's say, distaste for marketing and promotion. And so the way that I see it is that literary citizenship is a way of talking about networking, marketing, and promotion, even branding, in a way that's more palatable, acceptable, understandable to people on the more literary end who are maybe more focused on the art and the craft.
How to Act on Literary Citizenship
[00:02:22] Matty: So I know that your talk at the conference was very much focused on how authors can use the concept of literary citizenship to get past that squeamishness about marketing. Can you just describe a little bit what the advice is that you give around that?
[00:02:39] Jane: So at its heart, literary citizenship is about focusing on celebrating the literary community, whatever that means to you. For most people who are in writing and publishing, you're appreciating the written word in some form, whether that's reading books, newspapers, magazines, whether it's in print or online. It probably involves bookstores or activities that relate to literary culture. And so literary citizenship, when you think about it, at least in a marketing and promotion standpoint, it's about being very public or visible with what you're reading and doing around books and literary culture.
If you're on social media, that could mean posting on social media, but it's not limited to online activity. It's also about showing up and being there for people in your region or in your city, like going to their book events or signings, patronizing your local bookstore or library. and just otherwise seeing who's out there and then being seen yourself.
So it is a two-way street in that by paying attention to other people, they're going to then pay attention to you, which is why it has this marketing and promotion effect over the long term. It's not a one and done sort of thing. You're going to be a citizen, I would expect for many, many years.
Literary Citizenship on Social Media
Maybe more citizenship the more advanced you get in your career. And I think that even though social media is not the only place one can practice literary citizenship, I think it's a good example. So can you describe some examples of where you've seen maybe people not practicing literary citizenship and what the result of that is? And then, a more citizen centric approach on social media?
[00:04:29] Jane: Yes, well on social media it's very easy to see the non-citizenship approach, which is mainly just a focus on me and my book and very little or nothing else. I find that this is much more prevalent early on, maybe even before someone has a book published. They might be thinking that they're going to get discovered somehow on social media and they'll just do a lot of posting about what they're doing, thinking, writing, asking if someone can help them find an agent, asking if someone would promote whatever it is they're working on.
And that's just not really what we go on social media to do. The equivalent in person would be walking into a cocktail party and blasting your business card across the room to everyone, just out of a cannon, and then walking away. That's not why you're there. You're there to have a conversation.
And I know that's kind of cliche to talk about social media as conversations, but when you can draw that parallel to how you would act in person, I think it starts to make more sense that you need to look for points of connection with others who are probably rowing in the same direction as you, there's your nautical metaphor, and learning from one another and then supporting one another as you go through this journey together.
Focus on the Valuable Engagement
[00:05:43] Jane: I think writing and publishing, the community, is special in that we're talking about goals and accomplishments that span many, many years. And so the relationships can become quite meaningful and deep as long as you're not just focusing on yourself and your own needs. And frankly I think that's why many people criticize social media, or they don't want to be on social media is they think it's full of narcissists and people who just focus on what they had for breakfast. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Don't focus on the bad actors when you're looking out at the community. Look at the valuable engagement that's happening and then focus on being part of that.
I think that if someone's working on their first book, or maybe they've just published their first book, then if they practice literary citizenship in the sense of going on to social media and flagging other authors and commenting on their books. I'm assuming this is some of the stuff that a good practice literary citizenship would do, recommending other books, then for the people who are out there, they're just another enthusiastic reader, perhaps, commenting on these things, and it's not doing anything overtly to position themselves as an author themselves.
Conveying Your Identify as an Author
[00:06:58] Matty: Can you give any advice about how people balance that need to identify oneself as an author if pointing people to your books is one of your goals, against being a good literary citizen?
[00:07:09] Jane: Well, as someone who's on social media quite a bit, when there is someone who is talking about my work or responding to my work or taking a picture of my book, in other words, spreading the word about what I do, I'm always curious about, okay, where is this person from? How did they find it? What did they get from it? And I almost always take a look at their profile or their bio or their website. Just it's simple curiosity.
So when you are engaging in these activities, you can count, unless we're talking about a huge blockbuster person, let's say Stephen King, there must be hundreds if not thousands of mentions of him on any social media site in an hour. But I'm talking about someone who would be more of a peer or a colleague or maybe just a few rungs up the ladder, not a blockbuster. In any event, people are paying attention to the mentions.
[00:08:04] Jane: And then you have to make sure that your bio, and to some extent your photo, too, is telling the story of who you are and what you do, and that you're being thoughtful and efficient in how you're communicating that. Some people, for example, will use a photo that's not of themselves, but it'll be something clever. I've even seen people use things that are like a flower, a glass of water. It has nothing to do with their work or with their writing.
So you want to be more direct about what you're doing on social media, assuming you do want to build relationships. Have a photo that somehow makes sense. Like I've seen authors who will literally hold up their book next to their face in their photo. You don't have to do that, but I think it works. And then usually profiles also have some sort of banner image, or there's some other complimentary visual, and that's a place to put your book or something that's related to your publishing career.
So that's just best practice regardless of whether you're engaging in literary citizenship or not. And I think a lot of people just, I don't know, they get flustered, or they feel embarrassed, or they don't know what to say about themselves or they feel like it's too marketing and promotion oriented to actually talk about their book in their bio, which of course is crazy. People want to know who you are and what you do, and so you tell them.
[00:09:26] Matty: I found that something I've enjoyed doing and with all this stuff, I just don't know how anyone can ever actually measure the impact, but I'm very diligent about flagging people on social media. So if I've read a great book by Michael Koryta, I'm reading a book by Michael Koryta now that I'm really enjoying, so if I post about that on my author page, I'll say, you know, just read this great book by Michael Koryta, and flag Michael Koryta. And every once in a while, they get back to you. Every once in a while, they say, oh, thank you for the nice note. And you hope that behind the scenes they're saying, oh, I wonder who this person is.
And I see a lot of people missing that opportunity. And completely independent of promoting themselves, they're missing an opportunity to give the person at the other end of that a little thrill, you know?
[00:10:11] Jane: Right, absolutely.
[00:10:12] Matty: To see someone happy about their book.
[00:10:14] Jane: It is very thrilling. And some authors realize this and are very active in acknowledging fans, readers, by liking or retweeting or doing something. And it instills even more loyalty typically when you get that acknowledgement. So when you're on the receiving end, I would encourage people to please acknowledge, follow back, whatever your comfort level is. It's going to be different for everyone.
Power in Repetition
The other thing I should mention is that there's a lot of power in repetition or in numerous impressions over time. So you can be more strategic with this, like this particular author you're reading and enjoying, if you end up reading lots of his books in a short time span, or even if it's a long time span, it doesn't matter, just being consistent in the mentions. And, this really helps grease the wheels if a year from now or several years from now, you reach out to this person via email or in some other manner and say, you know, I've loved your work and I was wondering if you would be willing to x, you know, some sort of I call it the ask, and I guess in market sales and marketing, we call it the ask. Like, blurb my book, or would you agree to an interview, or would you be on my podcast?
And if they recognize your name, and they know that you're not just some sort of drive by trying to take advantage of their visibility, they realize that your ask is genuine. It's motivated by actual knowledge of their work. And so this just makes it much more likely you're going to A, get a response, and B, get a positive response.
Take a Strategic Approach
[00:11:51] Matty: If you're contacting someone let's say for a blurb and you've been diligently liking and commenting on social media or whatever platform there are out there, is there a way you can increase the chances that they recognize that you're the same person who is doing that? Like it seems awkward to say, I'm hoping you'll blurb my book. And by the way, I'm that person who wrote 15 nice reviews about your book.
[00:12:14] Jane: Yeah, I don't know that I would detail for someone all of the ways you've supported them, because then it makes it sound like transactional and you don't want it to seem that way. Although I guess in some respect this is what we're leading up to, but it still comes from this genuine place of you enjoying their work. So you have to hope that they're going to remember, or you have to assume that the interactions have made an impression and that they're going to recognize your name.
I interact with countless people over the span of a month, and I definitely notice, since I'm active on Twitter, I often use Twitter as an example, but if someone has been retweeting or sharing my stuff on Twitter or saying nice things on Twitter, I almost always recognize their name when it pops up an email because I spend so much time there.
But if you wanted to be more strategic, you do need to think about, okay, where is this person that I want to build a relationship with, where are they most active? And making sure that you're consistent in how you, some people get really creative with their names on social media, so I would recommend if you're trying to be strategic, have the same name on your email address as you have on your social media accounts, the same branding, for lack of a better word, rather than having it all mixed up so that people can't tell if it's actually the same person or not.
[00:13:36] Matty: I know that I've had good luck with something that's kind of a combination of promotion and literary citizenship, and that is promotions for the podcast. So each time I put out an interview in the days following it, six days following it, I put out two-minute clips from the interview and I always flag the person and often they're sharing them out. And then I also make trailers. So I have a trailer of each five episodes, and I always flag the people that are in the trailers. I call it The Best of The Indy Author, and it's like the best two minutes from each of those episodes. And by doing that really regularly, I see the people, like The Alliance of Independent Authors, bless their hearts, is diligent about retweeting those posts, not only when it has a reference to somebody affiliated with ALLi, just in general. Now they're following me, and I see that they retweet or reshare my posts, which is very nice. And so I'm not hiding the fact that it's promotion, but I'm making it attractive to them to help me out in that promotion.
[00:14:31] Jane: Yes, yes. Most people want to be helpful, especially if they feel like there's something mutually beneficial there. So, when I see people tweet or mention my work or something related to me, it's very likely that I'm going to retweet it or share it in some other forum. So, yeah, I think that some people are just too shy or embarrassed to go there, but once you try it and see the effects you understand and you do it more, and it has this nice reinforcing nature to it.
[00:15:03] Matty: One of the poster children for literary citizenship, in my experience is the author Lisa Regan, and I'll send her a link to this, and this will embarrass her. But she is not only extraordinarily generous to her fellow authors, but she's also extraordinarily generous to her readers and it's all kind of a continuum. And one of the things she does is she occasionally puts out a call to name something in one of her books. Like, I need the name for a clerk at the Walmart or whatever.
And in one of them, her main character got married and she put out a call for a band name for the band that was going to play at the protagonist's wedding reception. And kind of as a joke, I sent her my husband's band's name. And then I was reading the book and there was his band's name. And so you can imagine, she sells millions of books, so the band members were super excited to see their band in the book.
And it started this whole chain of the band mentioning, the books and Lisa in their gigs. And then Lisa came to a gig, so she had a picture taken of her with Josie Quinn's band members, and that got in her email newsletter. It got on their social media. So it was just a super fun example, that was more related to readers than authors, but same kind of thing.
Yeah, it's the same, but it's reader engagement, audience development, and it fits in, into the whole circle here.
[00:16:26] Matty: Yeah, and she has been very generous about, for example, suggesting to her publisher that if she's doing a book event, that they ask somebody else, and she usually provides them with the names, to interview her. So, a number of authors in the Philadelphia area have been able to get some reflected glory from Lisa Regan's. I did one and at the end people were coming up and saying, oh, can I get a picture? And so I, as the interviewer, was kind of stepping out of the way and she was saying, no, no, come over here. I want you in the picture too. And that's probably not only good for my, book sales, but made me feel super, super special.
Right, and that's an important part of literary citizenship once you gain some success, reaching down and bringing someone up. So it's wonderful that she does that. Some authors forget, they're too focused on their own journey up that they forget to look down.
[00:17:16] Matty: Well, I think that's why literary citizenship for people earlier in their careers is so difficult because the models of where you want to get to, they're either like that, that they've forgotten little people or they, like Stephen King has no reason to plug his own books. He doesn't need to. And so if he's going to mention somebody, it's probably not going to be himself. It's probably going to be someone else. So there's also that sense that when people get to a certain level, it doesn't matter anymore to them. They don't need to promote their own books, so they might as well be good literary citizens. Are there any tips you would have for people who are struggling with that dilemma of looking to other people for the model?
So you're thinking about people who really don't have any influence as of yet, so their recommendation isn't going to necessarily be impressive to the authors that they're trying to build a relationship with?
[00:18:08] Matty: Well, I think in the terms of looking to authors that you want to model your own career on, and if you're looking to the very successful authors in your genre, for example, and you want to model on them, then there are two possibilities of what you're going to see. One is they're not being good literary citizens because they're too big for their britches, or they're nothing but good literary citizens because they no longer have to worry about am I going to sell my next book?
Looking for Comp Authors
[00:18:32] Jane: Yeah. What I usually do is suggest that you look for comparable authors who are about one to two steps ahead of you. So if you don't have a book published, don't look at other people without books published. Look at someone who's just had their first book come out, or maybe they're on their second. And you should be doing comp title research anyway. I know it's one of those tasks that authors tend to not like, but you can learn so much from a marketing and promotion perspective. Assuming you find a comp author who is engaged and doing things in a way that you can learn from.
So I think there are millions of authors and books out there, so you can definitely find a handful who are just a couple stages ahead, and that's who I would focus on if you're looking for a model to follow.
But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to look at Stephen King level person for how someone who's very well established and skilled, especially if they're outwardly focused, looking at some of the ideas that they're putting forth about how to bring acknowledgement or recognition to others. I think the principles still remain the same.
[00:19:52] Matty: You had mentioned comp authors, and I'm wondering if there's any advice about making sure that your literary citizenship is focused on the pool of people that you want to reach as your readers. So let's say you're a horror writer, but you also like gardening, and if you start posting on social media about your favorite gardening tips or pointing people to your favorite gardening site or your favorite celebrity gardener, I guess maybe you should be doing that on a different account than your author account.
[00:20:20] Jane: Yeah, so I've been assuming throughout this conversation that you're likely going to focus on authors working in the same genre where you would share a readership. There are some other interesting strategies to use, though, where you're looking for kind of cross pollination with people who have comparable values or care about the same things in the world. And those values might be expressed in the work even if you're in different genres.
Most people don't read in just a single genre. Certainly there are people who never stray. But I think there's also interesting opportunities when you look across categories and you can find all sorts of partnerships. But I don't want to overly complicate things and say, yes, you should go do that. Definitely it’s easiest to focus on your own genre or sub-genre first. But certainly once you reach a certain level, you may want to look at some of the interesting ways that you can partner with people a little outside your community.
[00:21:19] Matty: I was just thinking of another example. I'm not sure this would qualify as literary citizenship, but I thought it was so elegantly done that I thought it was worth mentioning, that a friend of mine pointed me to a Facebook exchange where she had commented on a book that she really liked and flagged the author, and pretty soon the author came out and said, you know, Jane, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed my book. I would be so grateful if you would consider leaving a review, and that's clearly very obviously promotional, but it felt more exciting than creepy, because it was so graciously positioned. So I guess extending that kind of mindset of literary citizenship doesn't preclude you making an overt promotional ask.
[00:22:00] Jane: Sure. I think that's fine. But I think it can get overbearing if it's the way that you answer every single person, especially if you're leaving like a trail of those responses on someplace like Twitter, it starts to look like, whoa, the only reason someone is here is to ask for reviews. So, there are definitely situations where it makes sense, but just be careful because people do notice that if that's the only thing that you're doing is asking for reviews, it can be a turn-off.
[00:22:28] Matty: Yeah, and this was a pretty big-name person, so I think that, fairly or unfairly, it was more exciting to see that name in that person's feed than it was creepy to see that person's name in their feed.
Literary Citizenship at Conference
You gave a really good example at the conference of how people can exercise literary citizenship at a conference is, do you remember what your advice was there? I remember suggesting live tweeting sessions or talks if you're on Twitter, using the conference hashtag, and taking selfies with people who are at the conference, because. Normally when you do that and you tag the other person and they see the picture, they're very likely to share it or save it, or it appears like on Facebook, it might appear on their profile automatically once you tag them. So a conference or any live event, even a virtual event, is just a wonderful way to get exposure to other people's social circles because of that cross sharing that happens.
[00:23:28] Matty: It was very interesting with Writer's Digest conference because right after that, one of the attendees decided he was going to accept the literary citizenship challenge, and he was doing exactly what you were saying. You know, lots of posts about, Jane Friedman just said this, and here's a picture of her on the podium. And his social media profile picture was very clearly him. And so I ran into the guy at the cocktail party, and I said, oh, you're the guy who's been tweeting all the literary citizenship things. It was very fun. And I wish I could remember his name. I would give him a call out. If he's listening to his podcast, please remind me so I can mention it later. But it was just a very feel-good thing.
And it landed him on my radar, I would probably never have otherwise found him. And it by definition, it's somebody I'm going to share some interest with because we were both at the same conference. So yeah, that was fun. I hope you saw that too, because I always think it's gratifying when you can see someone acting so immediately and effectively on advice you've given.
[00:24:24] Jane: It was wonderful. And look at how many conversations and connections he sparked. And I think the other thing I've learned, and certainly this probably only happens once you reach a certain level of recognition, it actually helps, like during every talk, I often say or give the advice to take selfies with speakers or with authors and post them because it helps everyone. And that gives people permission to come and ask, because many people are afraid, or they think, oh, she won't want to do that, or she's too busy, or whatever the reason is, but once you open the door, you have 10 times as many people doing it. And it helps me, or whoever is making the invitation, because now I'm getting 10 times as many posts about my stuff or what I'm speaking about. So all boats rising, as you said.
[00:25:18] Matty: The last question I wanted to ask about, or last topic I wanted to hit was, I believe that the original article I found on your website, Are There Limits to Literary Citizenship? was published in 2014 and then was later updated in 2020. And I'm wondering if you've seen how the concept of literary citizenship has changed, both over time and in the indy and traditional publishing communities, if those are the same or different in some way.
The Importance of Authenticity
[00:25:48] Jane: I think it probably operates much the same. I don't know that I see any meaningful differences. But when the literary citizenship concept became super popular, and this was like in the early 2010s, there were some skeptics, some cranky people who are mentioned in that post from 2014. And basically the cranky people were like, this is some scheme cooked up by traditional publishers to put the marketing and promotion burden on them, to ensure that their books sell.
This is not a game that was cooked up by publishers. Certainly publishers do benefit when their authors have stronger networks, when their authors have better relationships, when their authors are engaged. I mean, of course every publisher wants their authors to not be living in a cave and not engaging with other people. But I don't think publisher's commitment to marketing and promotion has changed as a result of the literary citizenship theory or who's adopted it.
[00:26:56] Jane: Now something I have noticed is that the literary citizenship thing can be taken to such a, what? To such a professional end, or it can be orchestrated in such a way that it no longer feels authentic, that it feels like it's just there to get like, okay, look, I'm scratching your back. I'm scratching your back. Aren't you going to scratch mine? Come on, come on. And you feel manipulated. So I have seen that. You know, you know it when you see it, it's that sort of thing, and it gives you this kind of gross feeling and people run away.
So you have to just watch yourself and ensure that you're not trying to manipulate in your mentions and that you're doing it from a place of genuine regard or admiration. At no point am I suggesting you should start flattery just to warm up a relationship. It has to come from the point of, even if this person doesn't acknowledge what I'm saying, even if there is no payoff, I'm still glad I did it.
[00:28:03] Matty: Great. Well, Jane, thank you so much. I was so happy to hear that talk at the conference and I'm so happy to hear a recap of it now. Please let the listeners and viewers know where they can find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:28:14] Jane: Yeah, the best place is my website, JaneFriedman.com. That will tell you everything you need to know about what I offer. I have a free newsletter called Electric Speed that a lot of writers subscribe to for digital tools and resources. That's probably the first step.
[00:28:30] Matty: Great. Thank you.
[00:00:05] Jane: I'm doing well, thank you, Matty.
Just to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She's the editor of the Hot Sheet, the essential industry newsletter for authors, and has previously worked for Writer's Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2019, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World, and her newsletter was awarded Media Outlet of the Year in 2020. And Jane's latest book is The Business of Being a Writer, which received a starred review from Library Journal. And she's also the author of the Author's Guild Guide to Self-Publishing. And Jane was a previous guest on episode 75, Key Book Publishing Paths with Jane Friedman.
[00:00:47] Matty: And I recently ran into Jane at the Writer's Digest conference, and she gave a talk on literary citizenship, which I just loved so much that I asked her if she would come on the podcast to talk about it a little bit. I'm tentatively subtitling this because, you know, nautical metaphors, a Rising Tide Raises All Boats. So we can spend some of the conversation deciding if that is in fact a legitimate subtitle for this.
What is Literary Citizenship?
But Jane, I just thought we could start out with you describing what you mean by literary citizenship.
[00:01:17] Jane: Well, it's not a term that I originated. There's a little bit of disagreement about where it came from. Some say the term came from Rob Spillman, who is from the Tin House literary magazine and press in the literary community. Cathy Day has run a course on literary citizenship at Ball State for a number of years, and she says it perhaps originated with Dinty Moore, who's another professor in the literary community. And I mention this history because it comes from the literary side of the writing and publishing community, where I think there's more of a, let's say, distaste for marketing and promotion. And so the way that I see it is that literary citizenship is a way of talking about networking, marketing, and promotion, even branding, in a way that's more palatable, acceptable, understandable to people on the more literary end who are maybe more focused on the art and the craft.
How to Act on Literary Citizenship
[00:02:22] Matty: So I know that your talk at the conference was very much focused on how authors can use the concept of literary citizenship to get past that squeamishness about marketing. Can you just describe a little bit what the advice is that you give around that?
[00:02:39] Jane: So at its heart, literary citizenship is about focusing on celebrating the literary community, whatever that means to you. For most people who are in writing and publishing, you're appreciating the written word in some form, whether that's reading books, newspapers, magazines, whether it's in print or online. It probably involves bookstores or activities that relate to literary culture. And so literary citizenship, when you think about it, at least in a marketing and promotion standpoint, it's about being very public or visible with what you're reading and doing around books and literary culture.
If you're on social media, that could mean posting on social media, but it's not limited to online activity. It's also about showing up and being there for people in your region or in your city, like going to their book events or signings, patronizing your local bookstore or library. and just otherwise seeing who's out there and then being seen yourself.
So it is a two-way street in that by paying attention to other people, they're going to then pay attention to you, which is why it has this marketing and promotion effect over the long term. It's not a one and done sort of thing. You're going to be a citizen, I would expect for many, many years.
Literary Citizenship on Social Media
Maybe more citizenship the more advanced you get in your career. And I think that even though social media is not the only place one can practice literary citizenship, I think it's a good example. So can you describe some examples of where you've seen maybe people not practicing literary citizenship and what the result of that is? And then, a more citizen centric approach on social media?
[00:04:29] Jane: Yes, well on social media it's very easy to see the non-citizenship approach, which is mainly just a focus on me and my book and very little or nothing else. I find that this is much more prevalent early on, maybe even before someone has a book published. They might be thinking that they're going to get discovered somehow on social media and they'll just do a lot of posting about what they're doing, thinking, writing, asking if someone can help them find an agent, asking if someone would promote whatever it is they're working on.
And that's just not really what we go on social media to do. The equivalent in person would be walking into a cocktail party and blasting your business card across the room to everyone, just out of a cannon, and then walking away. That's not why you're there. You're there to have a conversation.
And I know that's kind of cliche to talk about social media as conversations, but when you can draw that parallel to how you would act in person, I think it starts to make more sense that you need to look for points of connection with others who are probably rowing in the same direction as you, there's your nautical metaphor, and learning from one another and then supporting one another as you go through this journey together.
Focus on the Valuable Engagement
[00:05:43] Jane: I think writing and publishing, the community, is special in that we're talking about goals and accomplishments that span many, many years. And so the relationships can become quite meaningful and deep as long as you're not just focusing on yourself and your own needs. And frankly I think that's why many people criticize social media, or they don't want to be on social media is they think it's full of narcissists and people who just focus on what they had for breakfast. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Don't focus on the bad actors when you're looking out at the community. Look at the valuable engagement that's happening and then focus on being part of that.
I think that if someone's working on their first book, or maybe they've just published their first book, then if they practice literary citizenship in the sense of going on to social media and flagging other authors and commenting on their books. I'm assuming this is some of the stuff that a good practice literary citizenship would do, recommending other books, then for the people who are out there, they're just another enthusiastic reader, perhaps, commenting on these things, and it's not doing anything overtly to position themselves as an author themselves.
Conveying Your Identify as an Author
[00:06:58] Matty: Can you give any advice about how people balance that need to identify oneself as an author if pointing people to your books is one of your goals, against being a good literary citizen?
[00:07:09] Jane: Well, as someone who's on social media quite a bit, when there is someone who is talking about my work or responding to my work or taking a picture of my book, in other words, spreading the word about what I do, I'm always curious about, okay, where is this person from? How did they find it? What did they get from it? And I almost always take a look at their profile or their bio or their website. Just it's simple curiosity.
So when you are engaging in these activities, you can count, unless we're talking about a huge blockbuster person, let's say Stephen King, there must be hundreds if not thousands of mentions of him on any social media site in an hour. But I'm talking about someone who would be more of a peer or a colleague or maybe just a few rungs up the ladder, not a blockbuster. In any event, people are paying attention to the mentions.
[00:08:04] Jane: And then you have to make sure that your bio, and to some extent your photo, too, is telling the story of who you are and what you do, and that you're being thoughtful and efficient in how you're communicating that. Some people, for example, will use a photo that's not of themselves, but it'll be something clever. I've even seen people use things that are like a flower, a glass of water. It has nothing to do with their work or with their writing.
So you want to be more direct about what you're doing on social media, assuming you do want to build relationships. Have a photo that somehow makes sense. Like I've seen authors who will literally hold up their book next to their face in their photo. You don't have to do that, but I think it works. And then usually profiles also have some sort of banner image, or there's some other complimentary visual, and that's a place to put your book or something that's related to your publishing career.
So that's just best practice regardless of whether you're engaging in literary citizenship or not. And I think a lot of people just, I don't know, they get flustered, or they feel embarrassed, or they don't know what to say about themselves or they feel like it's too marketing and promotion oriented to actually talk about their book in their bio, which of course is crazy. People want to know who you are and what you do, and so you tell them.
[00:09:26] Matty: I found that something I've enjoyed doing and with all this stuff, I just don't know how anyone can ever actually measure the impact, but I'm very diligent about flagging people on social media. So if I've read a great book by Michael Koryta, I'm reading a book by Michael Koryta now that I'm really enjoying, so if I post about that on my author page, I'll say, you know, just read this great book by Michael Koryta, and flag Michael Koryta. And every once in a while, they get back to you. Every once in a while, they say, oh, thank you for the nice note. And you hope that behind the scenes they're saying, oh, I wonder who this person is.
And I see a lot of people missing that opportunity. And completely independent of promoting themselves, they're missing an opportunity to give the person at the other end of that a little thrill, you know?
[00:10:11] Jane: Right, absolutely.
[00:10:12] Matty: To see someone happy about their book.
[00:10:14] Jane: It is very thrilling. And some authors realize this and are very active in acknowledging fans, readers, by liking or retweeting or doing something. And it instills even more loyalty typically when you get that acknowledgement. So when you're on the receiving end, I would encourage people to please acknowledge, follow back, whatever your comfort level is. It's going to be different for everyone.
Power in Repetition
The other thing I should mention is that there's a lot of power in repetition or in numerous impressions over time. So you can be more strategic with this, like this particular author you're reading and enjoying, if you end up reading lots of his books in a short time span, or even if it's a long time span, it doesn't matter, just being consistent in the mentions. And, this really helps grease the wheels if a year from now or several years from now, you reach out to this person via email or in some other manner and say, you know, I've loved your work and I was wondering if you would be willing to x, you know, some sort of I call it the ask, and I guess in market sales and marketing, we call it the ask. Like, blurb my book, or would you agree to an interview, or would you be on my podcast?
And if they recognize your name, and they know that you're not just some sort of drive by trying to take advantage of their visibility, they realize that your ask is genuine. It's motivated by actual knowledge of their work. And so this just makes it much more likely you're going to A, get a response, and B, get a positive response.
Take a Strategic Approach
[00:11:51] Matty: If you're contacting someone let's say for a blurb and you've been diligently liking and commenting on social media or whatever platform there are out there, is there a way you can increase the chances that they recognize that you're the same person who is doing that? Like it seems awkward to say, I'm hoping you'll blurb my book. And by the way, I'm that person who wrote 15 nice reviews about your book.
[00:12:14] Jane: Yeah, I don't know that I would detail for someone all of the ways you've supported them, because then it makes it sound like transactional and you don't want it to seem that way. Although I guess in some respect this is what we're leading up to, but it still comes from this genuine place of you enjoying their work. So you have to hope that they're going to remember, or you have to assume that the interactions have made an impression and that they're going to recognize your name.
I interact with countless people over the span of a month, and I definitely notice, since I'm active on Twitter, I often use Twitter as an example, but if someone has been retweeting or sharing my stuff on Twitter or saying nice things on Twitter, I almost always recognize their name when it pops up an email because I spend so much time there.
But if you wanted to be more strategic, you do need to think about, okay, where is this person that I want to build a relationship with, where are they most active? And making sure that you're consistent in how you, some people get really creative with their names on social media, so I would recommend if you're trying to be strategic, have the same name on your email address as you have on your social media accounts, the same branding, for lack of a better word, rather than having it all mixed up so that people can't tell if it's actually the same person or not.
[00:13:36] Matty: I know that I've had good luck with something that's kind of a combination of promotion and literary citizenship, and that is promotions for the podcast. So each time I put out an interview in the days following it, six days following it, I put out two-minute clips from the interview and I always flag the person and often they're sharing them out. And then I also make trailers. So I have a trailer of each five episodes, and I always flag the people that are in the trailers. I call it The Best of The Indy Author, and it's like the best two minutes from each of those episodes. And by doing that really regularly, I see the people, like The Alliance of Independent Authors, bless their hearts, is diligent about retweeting those posts, not only when it has a reference to somebody affiliated with ALLi, just in general. Now they're following me, and I see that they retweet or reshare my posts, which is very nice. And so I'm not hiding the fact that it's promotion, but I'm making it attractive to them to help me out in that promotion.
[00:14:31] Jane: Yes, yes. Most people want to be helpful, especially if they feel like there's something mutually beneficial there. So, when I see people tweet or mention my work or something related to me, it's very likely that I'm going to retweet it or share it in some other forum. So, yeah, I think that some people are just too shy or embarrassed to go there, but once you try it and see the effects you understand and you do it more, and it has this nice reinforcing nature to it.
[00:15:03] Matty: One of the poster children for literary citizenship, in my experience is the author Lisa Regan, and I'll send her a link to this, and this will embarrass her. But she is not only extraordinarily generous to her fellow authors, but she's also extraordinarily generous to her readers and it's all kind of a continuum. And one of the things she does is she occasionally puts out a call to name something in one of her books. Like, I need the name for a clerk at the Walmart or whatever.
And in one of them, her main character got married and she put out a call for a band name for the band that was going to play at the protagonist's wedding reception. And kind of as a joke, I sent her my husband's band's name. And then I was reading the book and there was his band's name. And so you can imagine, she sells millions of books, so the band members were super excited to see their band in the book.
And it started this whole chain of the band mentioning, the books and Lisa in their gigs. And then Lisa came to a gig, so she had a picture taken of her with Josie Quinn's band members, and that got in her email newsletter. It got on their social media. So it was just a super fun example, that was more related to readers than authors, but same kind of thing.
Yeah, it's the same, but it's reader engagement, audience development, and it fits in, into the whole circle here.
[00:16:26] Matty: Yeah, and she has been very generous about, for example, suggesting to her publisher that if she's doing a book event, that they ask somebody else, and she usually provides them with the names, to interview her. So, a number of authors in the Philadelphia area have been able to get some reflected glory from Lisa Regan's. I did one and at the end people were coming up and saying, oh, can I get a picture? And so I, as the interviewer, was kind of stepping out of the way and she was saying, no, no, come over here. I want you in the picture too. And that's probably not only good for my, book sales, but made me feel super, super special.
Right, and that's an important part of literary citizenship once you gain some success, reaching down and bringing someone up. So it's wonderful that she does that. Some authors forget, they're too focused on their own journey up that they forget to look down.
[00:17:16] Matty: Well, I think that's why literary citizenship for people earlier in their careers is so difficult because the models of where you want to get to, they're either like that, that they've forgotten little people or they, like Stephen King has no reason to plug his own books. He doesn't need to. And so if he's going to mention somebody, it's probably not going to be himself. It's probably going to be someone else. So there's also that sense that when people get to a certain level, it doesn't matter anymore to them. They don't need to promote their own books, so they might as well be good literary citizens. Are there any tips you would have for people who are struggling with that dilemma of looking to other people for the model?
So you're thinking about people who really don't have any influence as of yet, so their recommendation isn't going to necessarily be impressive to the authors that they're trying to build a relationship with?
[00:18:08] Matty: Well, I think in the terms of looking to authors that you want to model your own career on, and if you're looking to the very successful authors in your genre, for example, and you want to model on them, then there are two possibilities of what you're going to see. One is they're not being good literary citizens because they're too big for their britches, or they're nothing but good literary citizens because they no longer have to worry about am I going to sell my next book?
Looking for Comp Authors
[00:18:32] Jane: Yeah. What I usually do is suggest that you look for comparable authors who are about one to two steps ahead of you. So if you don't have a book published, don't look at other people without books published. Look at someone who's just had their first book come out, or maybe they're on their second. And you should be doing comp title research anyway. I know it's one of those tasks that authors tend to not like, but you can learn so much from a marketing and promotion perspective. Assuming you find a comp author who is engaged and doing things in a way that you can learn from.
So I think there are millions of authors and books out there, so you can definitely find a handful who are just a couple stages ahead, and that's who I would focus on if you're looking for a model to follow.
But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to look at Stephen King level person for how someone who's very well established and skilled, especially if they're outwardly focused, looking at some of the ideas that they're putting forth about how to bring acknowledgement or recognition to others. I think the principles still remain the same.
[00:19:52] Matty: You had mentioned comp authors, and I'm wondering if there's any advice about making sure that your literary citizenship is focused on the pool of people that you want to reach as your readers. So let's say you're a horror writer, but you also like gardening, and if you start posting on social media about your favorite gardening tips or pointing people to your favorite gardening site or your favorite celebrity gardener, I guess maybe you should be doing that on a different account than your author account.
[00:20:20] Jane: Yeah, so I've been assuming throughout this conversation that you're likely going to focus on authors working in the same genre where you would share a readership. There are some other interesting strategies to use, though, where you're looking for kind of cross pollination with people who have comparable values or care about the same things in the world. And those values might be expressed in the work even if you're in different genres.
Most people don't read in just a single genre. Certainly there are people who never stray. But I think there's also interesting opportunities when you look across categories and you can find all sorts of partnerships. But I don't want to overly complicate things and say, yes, you should go do that. Definitely it’s easiest to focus on your own genre or sub-genre first. But certainly once you reach a certain level, you may want to look at some of the interesting ways that you can partner with people a little outside your community.
[00:21:19] Matty: I was just thinking of another example. I'm not sure this would qualify as literary citizenship, but I thought it was so elegantly done that I thought it was worth mentioning, that a friend of mine pointed me to a Facebook exchange where she had commented on a book that she really liked and flagged the author, and pretty soon the author came out and said, you know, Jane, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed my book. I would be so grateful if you would consider leaving a review, and that's clearly very obviously promotional, but it felt more exciting than creepy, because it was so graciously positioned. So I guess extending that kind of mindset of literary citizenship doesn't preclude you making an overt promotional ask.
[00:22:00] Jane: Sure. I think that's fine. But I think it can get overbearing if it's the way that you answer every single person, especially if you're leaving like a trail of those responses on someplace like Twitter, it starts to look like, whoa, the only reason someone is here is to ask for reviews. So, there are definitely situations where it makes sense, but just be careful because people do notice that if that's the only thing that you're doing is asking for reviews, it can be a turn-off.
[00:22:28] Matty: Yeah, and this was a pretty big-name person, so I think that, fairly or unfairly, it was more exciting to see that name in that person's feed than it was creepy to see that person's name in their feed.
Literary Citizenship at Conference
You gave a really good example at the conference of how people can exercise literary citizenship at a conference is, do you remember what your advice was there? I remember suggesting live tweeting sessions or talks if you're on Twitter, using the conference hashtag, and taking selfies with people who are at the conference, because. Normally when you do that and you tag the other person and they see the picture, they're very likely to share it or save it, or it appears like on Facebook, it might appear on their profile automatically once you tag them. So a conference or any live event, even a virtual event, is just a wonderful way to get exposure to other people's social circles because of that cross sharing that happens.
[00:23:28] Matty: It was very interesting with Writer's Digest conference because right after that, one of the attendees decided he was going to accept the literary citizenship challenge, and he was doing exactly what you were saying. You know, lots of posts about, Jane Friedman just said this, and here's a picture of her on the podium. And his social media profile picture was very clearly him. And so I ran into the guy at the cocktail party, and I said, oh, you're the guy who's been tweeting all the literary citizenship things. It was very fun. And I wish I could remember his name. I would give him a call out. If he's listening to his podcast, please remind me so I can mention it later. But it was just a very feel-good thing.
And it landed him on my radar, I would probably never have otherwise found him. And it by definition, it's somebody I'm going to share some interest with because we were both at the same conference. So yeah, that was fun. I hope you saw that too, because I always think it's gratifying when you can see someone acting so immediately and effectively on advice you've given.
[00:24:24] Jane: It was wonderful. And look at how many conversations and connections he sparked. And I think the other thing I've learned, and certainly this probably only happens once you reach a certain level of recognition, it actually helps, like during every talk, I often say or give the advice to take selfies with speakers or with authors and post them because it helps everyone. And that gives people permission to come and ask, because many people are afraid, or they think, oh, she won't want to do that, or she's too busy, or whatever the reason is, but once you open the door, you have 10 times as many people doing it. And it helps me, or whoever is making the invitation, because now I'm getting 10 times as many posts about my stuff or what I'm speaking about. So all boats rising, as you said.
[00:25:18] Matty: The last question I wanted to ask about, or last topic I wanted to hit was, I believe that the original article I found on your website, Are There Limits to Literary Citizenship? was published in 2014 and then was later updated in 2020. And I'm wondering if you've seen how the concept of literary citizenship has changed, both over time and in the indy and traditional publishing communities, if those are the same or different in some way.
The Importance of Authenticity
[00:25:48] Jane: I think it probably operates much the same. I don't know that I see any meaningful differences. But when the literary citizenship concept became super popular, and this was like in the early 2010s, there were some skeptics, some cranky people who are mentioned in that post from 2014. And basically the cranky people were like, this is some scheme cooked up by traditional publishers to put the marketing and promotion burden on them, to ensure that their books sell.
This is not a game that was cooked up by publishers. Certainly publishers do benefit when their authors have stronger networks, when their authors have better relationships, when their authors are engaged. I mean, of course every publisher wants their authors to not be living in a cave and not engaging with other people. But I don't think publisher's commitment to marketing and promotion has changed as a result of the literary citizenship theory or who's adopted it.
[00:26:56] Jane: Now something I have noticed is that the literary citizenship thing can be taken to such a, what? To such a professional end, or it can be orchestrated in such a way that it no longer feels authentic, that it feels like it's just there to get like, okay, look, I'm scratching your back. I'm scratching your back. Aren't you going to scratch mine? Come on, come on. And you feel manipulated. So I have seen that. You know, you know it when you see it, it's that sort of thing, and it gives you this kind of gross feeling and people run away.
So you have to just watch yourself and ensure that you're not trying to manipulate in your mentions and that you're doing it from a place of genuine regard or admiration. At no point am I suggesting you should start flattery just to warm up a relationship. It has to come from the point of, even if this person doesn't acknowledge what I'm saying, even if there is no payoff, I'm still glad I did it.
[00:28:03] Matty: Great. Well, Jane, thank you so much. I was so happy to hear that talk at the conference and I'm so happy to hear a recap of it now. Please let the listeners and viewers know where they can find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:28:14] Jane: Yeah, the best place is my website, JaneFriedman.com. That will tell you everything you need to know about what I offer. I have a free newsletter called Electric Speed that a lot of writers subscribe to for digital tools and resources. That's probably the first step.
[00:28:30] Matty: Great. Thank you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jane! Do you practice literary citizenship in your own author life? Have you benefited from your writer colleagues extending the hand of literary citizenship to you? I’d love to hear some examples!
Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!