Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Book Publicity but Were Afraid to Ask with Taryn Roeder (via Zoom)

Unlock the Secrets of Book Publishing: A Hudson Valley Writers Center Exclusive Virtual Master Class Series, session 2/4. Learn from the pros! For anyone interested in the inner workings of the book publishing world, once a week starting Tuesday evening, July 9 through July 30, top executives at Simon & Schuster, Abrams, Disney Publishing Worldwide, and the Wiley Agency reveal their insider’s knowledge of the industry during this exciting virtual series.

July 9: Jenny Xu, Senior Editor, poetry and prose at Atria/Simon & Schuster

July 16: Taryn Roeder, Executive director of Publicity, Abrams

July 23: Matt Schweitzer, Director of Content Marketing Strategy, Disney Publishing Worldwide

July 30: Jacqueline Ko, literary agent at The Wylie Agency, representing poetry and prose writers

Sign up for all 4 sessions to receive a special discount or select individual sessions.

Tuesday, July 16, 7 PM ET via Zoom: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Book Publicity but Were Afraid to Ask with Taryn Roeder

Your book is slated to be published; now how will it find its readers? What constitutes a successful book publicity campaign, and how will you work with the publicist who has been assigned to shepherd your book into the world? How can you amplify your platform and strengthen your media savvy? Are there different strategies for promoting fiction and non-fiction? How important is budget to the publicity process? Does your book need to be named a “lead” in order to gain traction? All will be revealed in this engaging and upbeat session. Veteran book publicist and the Leslie Knope of enthusiasm, Taryn Roeder has more than 20 years of experience in book publicity and has led bestselling campaigns with all kinds of writers of literary fiction, memoir, and narrative nonfiction, as well as with leading figures in politics, science, art, and music. Taryn will help you find your elevator pitch for the book, and show you how to identify the best hooks and talking points. She’ll unlock secrets of the book publicity timeline, discuss the importance of creative press kit pieces, author tours, festival visits, placement of first serial and opinion pieces, and social media outreach.  She can also talk about how to know when you might want to hire a freelancer, and best practices for full publishing team cohesion.

Taryn Roeder is Executive Director of Publicity at Abrams Books, leading the publicity departments for the Adult and Children’s divisions. Taryn has over twenty years of experience in book publicity and has worked with leading figures in politics, science, art, and music, as well as on literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. Taryn was previously Senior Director of Publicity at HarperCollins. While managing a team of publicists there, Taryn worked on the instant New York Times bestseller A Sacred Oath by former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and the acclaimed Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by  Azar Nafisi. Prior to that, Taryn was at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for 17 years, rising in leadership to become the Vice President, Director of Publicity. She worked on New York Times bestselling authors Temple Grandin, Guy Raz,  and Sinead O’Connor,  and on Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which spent a year on the list. She led the publicity campaigns for many beloved debut novels including instant NYT bestsellers Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour and Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, as well as on Adrienne Brodeur’s highly acclaimed memoir Wild Game. While it is true that some books are easier to promote than others, Taryn swears she loves all of her authors equally.