Inside Scoop: Lisa McMann Tells It Like It Is

Once a month I'm a guest "speaker" on the Backspace forums. That's where I met Lisa McMann, author of the bestselling YA novel, WAKE. Like many authors, Lisa was apprehensive (read: terrified) at the prospect of going out on tour and speaking to groups of strangers.

I gave her some presentation tips and told her to read NAKED AT THE PODIUM: The Writer's Guide to Successful Readings--and do every single exercise in it.

Lisa returned the favor by mentioning me in a Writers in Profile interview with Kelly Spitzer. Better still, she tells exactly what she and her publisher did to publicize WAKE, and offers terrific advice on promotion in general. For example:

...if you want to succeed, you definitely need to market yourself – it’s not just about the writing.

I think it is absolutely vital to have a web presence if your goal is to sell books or be read. If your goal is simply to say, “I have a book published,” then no web presence is necessary.

There are millions of people who would give anything to be in your shoes. How badly do you want this? Enough to step out of your comfort zone and go get it? Enough that you don’t want to have to start this process over again because you were too afraid to promote your first book and it’s failing? If you want it, if you want this life as an author, if you ever want to sell another book, your goal needs to be this: You must do everything in your power to make this book succeed, because if you don’t, and this book fails, nobody gets fired...except you.