Georgia Writers Hall of Fame author Janisse Ray to present book marketing workshop
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From staff reports
EATONTON — Have you recently published a book? Are you working on one? Did you publish one that didn’t go as far as you had hoped?
The average book in the U.S. now sells less than 200 copies per year; a self-published book without a strong marketing plan will sell less than 100 copies. Yet more than 650 million books sell each year. The average yearly spending on reading is $113. So, books do sell. And you don’t need a degree in marketing to get your book out into the world.
Georgia Writers Hall of Fame honoree and best-selling author Janisse Ray is offering an intensive workshop on book marketing and publicity. The 2½-hour Zoom session will be held on Sept. 29, from 6:30-9 p.m. Cost is $99. Register at ifeyoudream.ticketleap.com/t/GWM. Interested persons are asked to se this link only. Fifty percent of the ticket price supports the mission and work of the Georgia Writers Museum.
Ray has been promoting books for more than 20 years. She has published a dozen — some with major publishing houses with marketing departments, some with small presses, some independently. During that time, where and how books are marketed has dramatically changed, and she has made it her business to keep up. Some new authors mistakenly believe the book publisher sells the boo.! Not unless you are already a famous person.
This workshop is designed for published authors, writers who want to publish, writers with a book under contract, professionals in public relations, and friends helping writer friends. If you’re ready to show up for your book, this is a workshop perfect for you.
The workshop will include a multilevel approach to marketing books, ways to crush social media, secrets Ray has learned over many years in the business, a chance to ask questions and get solid answers, a blank marketing interview (where everything begins), a template for a marketing plan, and all of this in a handy e-booklet.
Ray is the author of “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood,” a memoir about growing up on a junkyard, which chronicled the disappearing longleaf pine ecosystem of the southeastern U.S. It won numerous awards and was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Book All Georgians Should Read. Ray went on to publish five other books of literary nonfiction and two collections of poetry. In 2021, Trinity University Press brought out a collection of her essays, “Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonder in a World Beyond Humans.” This fall she released her first novel, “The Woods of Fannin County.”
Ray has won a Pushcart Prize, an American Book Award, a Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, among others, and has been inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. She lives and works in the coastal plains of Georgia.
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