Literary Citizenship: The Feel-Good Way to Market and Promote

Literary Citizenship: The Feel-Good Way to Market and Promote

Worried you're not all that good at marketing, or that you don't have the time, energy, or skills required to do it well? You're not alone: most writers have anxiety surrounding how to market and promote their work. Fortunately, there is a remedy that doesn't require perfecting the hard sell or becoming a professional marketer. It's literary citizenship.

Literary citizenship is a concept from the literary writing and publishing community that is useful to all writers no matter what your background or genre. It essentially advocates lifting up and bringing attention to literature, reading, books, and other pursuits that are intrinsic to authorship and publishing. If you like books and you read books, you can practice literary citizenship. It's simple to understand and can be applied across all forms and mediums (online and offline). The only requirement? You'll adopt an abundance mindset. You're not competing with other authors, but collaborating; when others succeed, you will succeed too.

Jane Friedman has 25 years of experience in the media & publishing industry. She is the publisher of The Hot Sheet, the essential newsletter on the publishing industry for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2019. In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses (How to Publish Your Book), she is the author of The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. Jane speaks regularly at conferences and industry events such as Digital Book World and Frankfurt Book Fair, and has served on panels with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund.