One woman in the media
Bringing new writers to the publishing table.
Bookselling a Funny Woman
Book marketing and promotion is fun, especially if you are promoting Tina Fey.
Marketing & sales
The entirety of this class was spent analyzing how publishers—in a certain genre—promote and market their books. I came into this program with the goal of promoting women writers, so I obviously drifted that way. Our final project would be to create a marketing plan for a sequel to an author’s book. I chose Bossypants, by Tina Fey (Reagan Arthur Books, April 2011), and invented her follow-up: The Bitch is Back. In this sequel, Fey would discuss motherhood and go into more detail about being a woman entertainer and comedian.
For the final project, I also had to write a press release and cover letter to a potential book reviewer of The Bitch is Back. I wrote to Janet Maslin and thought up a Mother’s Day event where Tina Fey would discuss being a performer with other women writers and entertainers, including Kristen Schaal.​
Bradi seemed excited about my ideas (I endeavored to amuse the reader with the writing of this plan).
Also, for this class, I attended a reading that Anthony Doerr gave at The Little Church and wrote about it for the Ooligan Press blog, and for class.
In the Winter 2013 term, I took Kent Watson’s Bookselling class. With his encouragement of my final project idea, I made a sales kit for Elissa Bassist’s upcoming collection of humorous essays, which I entitled, Where You Think You’re Going, Baby. I had interviewed Elissa for my website (which I’ll touch on more in the Side Projects section) and my interest in her as a writer opened my eyes—once again—to the genre of humorous writing by women. Elissa herself was so irritated by the dearth of writing—especially humorous writing—by women that she created and edits the Funny Women column on The Rumpus, a literary website. ​
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After some research, I realized that the genre of humorous nonfiction writing by women was one of the most successful for women writers. In a sense, this genre levels the playing field. Consumers want to read snarky, bitchy writing by funny women. (Studies have shown that the average male consumer overwhelming prefers this method of interaction with humorous women.​)
Some images from this project are available at the right, below, and here.
I made a sales kit for a collection of essays from young writer, Elissa Bassist. These images are examples of the BLAD (book layout and design) that was part of my final project for Bookselling.
I made a sales kit for a collection of essays from young writer, Elissa Bassist. These images are examples of the BLAD (book layout and design) that was part of my final project for Bookselling.
My final project for Bookselling, in the Winter 2013 term.
My final project for Bookselling, in the Winter 2013 term.
Click on the images below to flip through the pages of these projects.
I made up a sequel to Fey's bestselling funny woman collection of essays and called it The Bitch is Back. The imaginary forthcoming book was to examine more of themes of working as a woman in the entertainment industry.
I made up a sequel to Fey's bestselling funny woman collection of essays and called it The Bitch is Back. The imaginary forthcoming book was to examine more of themes of working as a woman in the entertainment industry.
The art of the belly laugh