So I Got a Grant. Now What?

Awarded $3000 to finish my book, I had a choice to make: Hire a publicist or an editor? I came to the right decision, but the path leading there was twistier than I could’ve imagined.

“Congratulations!” read the email. “The RACC is awarding you $3000 for your grant opportunity.”

As the words sank in, I felt a quiet thrill run up and down my body. The money was a big deal; the vote of confidence an even bigger one. Now I could hire a publicist, maybe make a little bit of a splash. Sure, the manuscript still needed work, but I’d get that sorted out later.

Sigh. I bet you already know how this story goes.

Fixated on my desire for recognition, I followed a blind alley or two on the road to publication. Eventually, the money went where it was needed: Towards making my book as good as it could be. If I’d only listened to the people who knew better, I could have saved myself time and angst. 

I’ll share how the story played out for me, but I’ll start with a few key takeaways:

• Make the book / art / offering as good as you possibly can. Obvious-sounding, and yet surprisingly easy to lose sight of.

• Publicists can only do so much, especially for a tiny release. 

• Reviews don’t sell books.

• You are not your book.

• Again, obvious-sounding, but: Sharing art can be surprisingly tender. Safeguard your emotional and mental well-being, and prioritize your connections with the ones you love and who love you. You’re going to need them.

As you read, keep in mind that my circumstances may be different than yours. I’m a first-time author with no preexisting platform. And my book is a memoir and thus personal; I’m probably too close to the material to have clear-eyed perspective.

My hope is that if you’re in the same (or similar) boat, my experience might help you make wiser decisions about how, where, and why to allocate your resources and time.

To Publicize or Not to Publicize? That Is (Not) the Question

A couple of weeks after I shared what I was sure was the final draft of my manuscript with an early reader, she handed it back. “You want it to be done, but it needs more work,” she told me, with a gentleness I’d only appreciate later. “Maybe put it away for a while, work on some other things. And have you thought about hiring an editor?”

This was definitely not the answer I was looking for. I couldn’t hire an editor; I’d already earmarked the grant money for publicity. Okay, maybe the book wasn’t quite ready, but I was sure I’d nail it soon if I just kept working at it.

I turned to the question of publicity instead. I reached out to R., a former publisher who knows more about this arena than anyone else I’ve met. And what he told me surprised me.

“Don’t hire a publicist. There aren’t enough entry-level ones, and that’s really what you’d need. All the mid-level ones send out pitches to the same 150 publications over and over. As a first-time author on a tiny micro press, it’d be a waste of your money.”

I was crestfallen, but then he offered a suggestion:

“Hire a researcher to find all the people who’ve reviewed similar books and then pitch them, pointing out all the potential resonances.”

“I love it!” I said. “That makes so much sense. But…I could just do the research and pitching myself, couldn’t I?”

“Well…I think you should shield yourself from the process as much as you can. Very few will actually write you back. It can be pretty grueling.”

Spoiler alert: Those words would come back to haunt me.

Down A Blind Alley

At the same time I was readying the manuscript, was also co-founding a micro press in order to publish it. I’ll be honest: This wasn’t my first choice. But as I recognized that my chances of landing an agent and traditional publisher were vanishingly small—and as I heard and read how unsatisfying this route often is—I wondered if there were a better way. When one of my writing partners threw out the micro press idea, it felt a little like stepping off a cliff. Still, I knew it was a challenge I couldn’t refuse. 

Wanting to learn from other publishers’ experiences, I reached out to a handful of my peers. Most were kind and generous with their time, and when I shared R.’s researching strategy, I felt like I had something to offer in return. “Oh, that’s genius!” said one publisher. “I’ve never heard it put quite so succinctly.”

Thinking I’d found a secret weapon, I was confident I’d cracked the publicity code. What I didn’t realize was that my book stood virtually no chance of being reviewed. A Portland author I admire gave me some hard-won perspective:

“Look, the books that get reviewed in big publications are the traditional publishers’ top 3%, and here’s a little secret: reviews don’t sell books. My first book was released in a pairing with another author’s. Hers got a full-page review in the New York Times, while mine got no reviews whatsoever. When I went over the numbers with the publisher, I found that her review had generated 200 sales. That’s it.”

Huh. Okay.

“If I were you, I’d reach out to podcasts. Go small, go broad, and get audio and video snippets you can share later. I think you’ll get a lot more juice that way.”

In the meantime, I’d reached out to a local professor to see if any of her graduate students wanted to take on the research and pitching project. I was certain they’d jump at the opportunity for an easy $3000, but to my surprise, none of them did. As it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.

Help Arrives

My early reader—who’s published several book herself—was still pushing me to consider an outside editor. What I could barely grasp was that at this point—six years into the project—I no longer had the perspective required for me to pull off a meaningful edit alone.

Still, I felt conflicted. If no one even reads that book, what does it matter how good it is? Swallowing my ambivalence, I canvassed my contacts for potential editors. Some were booked months out, others just didn’t seem like the right fit. But when the email from M. arrived, only a day after I’d sent it, it got my attention:

“Thanks for reaching out. I happen to be interested in family memoirs, the Holocaust (I'm a Jew), and psychedelics, and anyone who comes to me via R. is of interest, so yeah, I'd love to talk.” 

I felt a funny sensation in my chest. It was the same one that’d appeared when a piece of information was about to be revealed to me—like during a stroll through Budapest when I stumbled upon a random snippet of film that turned out to be the key in the lock to my father’s Holocaust survival story. I knew it wasn’t wise to ignore it.

“Okay,” I wrote. “It sounds like you’re the guy. What will it cost?”

“I’m four cents a word. And you manuscript is about 73,000 words. So that’s…roughly $3000.”

It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it; in fact, I had exactly that much to spend. In that moment, everything I’d been telling myself—how important it was to make a grand entrance, to get the right eyeballs on my book—fell away. I saw that there was nothing to do but write the best book I could, and to detach from the outcome as much as possible.

A month later, M. sent me back an edit. He’d seen what I couldn’t, and I knew in my bones that my book was finally done. Finally, it was time to begin the research and pitching process.

The Rubber Hits the Road…and Gets a Flat Tire

Let’s cut to the chase: Pitching sucks.

R. was right. The process was grueling; even punishing. No one wrote back, not even people I knew personally. This was the moment I’d pushed aside all through the writing of the book: The fear that no one would read it, that it’d somehow all been a waste. I began to feel thin-skinned and brittle, and my neurotic tendencies kicked into high gear.

At the end of a particularly harsh day, I shut my laptop and recognized that something needed to change. I was being short and unkind to my family and friends, and I felt like a jerk. I thought about everything I’d learned during the writing of the book, how it had changed my life in truly foundational ways. That was the whole point, wasn’t it?

The next morning, instead of returning to the pitching mines, took my daughter and her friend out to a fancy café and ordered silly drinks. I played with the dog. I cooked nice food. I remembered how freaking lucky I was. And when I returned to my desk a couple of days later, I felt a welcome equanimity. I couldn’t force people to respond to me, but I could definitely change how I related to it.

A few positives followed. A writer who didn’t even know me connected me with an event space excited about my book. One or two tentative maybes from podcasts filtered in. Most of all, the recognition that yes, this is a hard road, and it’s also what I asked for.

So, what did I learn? Again, here’s that list from earlier, slightly tweaked:

• Make the book / art / offering as good as you can. You may be tempted from this path by promise of greater attention, but you ignore it at your own peril.

• Publicists can only do so much, especially for a tiny release. Start at the grassroots level by finding your community and speaking directly to what they want. Bonus tip: I don’t mention social media in this post, and there are no end of voices telling us we must post on Instagram / TikTok / Wherever. My takeaway—echoed by other, more seasoned people in this arena—is that you shouldn’t choose approaches you’re not personally excited by. If posting on Instagram every three days feels like a grind, it will be (and you’ll resent it). Instead, focus on the avenues that speak to you. Maybe that’s posting here on Substack, embedding deeper in your community by starting a local book / writing group, or making TikToks. The only secret is that it’s something you actually want to do and derive joy from.

• Reviews don’t sell books.

• You are not the book.

• Trust that your readers are out there. Share by whatever means are doable—whether that’s a newsletter or social media or hiring a skywriter—and don’t sweat the ones that aren’t doable. You won’t end up doing them.

• Last but now least: Hone towards what’s meaningful—meaning your emotional and mental well-being—and stay connected with the ones you love and who love you. 

Do you have any small press wisdom—or plain old life wisdom—to share? Leave a comment below. It helps all us of make it just a little bit further down the road.