b300 LHP Intern: The Business of Post-Publication
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LHP Intern: The Business of Post-Publication

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    Spring 2014 Literary House Press Intern, Samantha Gross '14
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    The Book of Scented Things, to be released October 2014

Location: Rose O’Neill Literary House

May 01, 2014
2014 Literary House Press Intern, senior Samantha Gross, takes us behind the curtain of the soon-to-be-released poetry anthology, The Book of Scented Things—showing us the work that follows the printing of a new book.

So, you have the freshly published book sitting on the table in front of you and about 500 copies sitting in cardboard boxes that you, your boss, and the unfortunate Pegasus intern have lugged up to said boss’s office. All the work is done, and it’s time to sit and admire and marvel read and high-five. 

Wrong.

Oh, no. I would say publishing the book is maybe the midway point between being “done.” The printed book represents the first half of your efforts—those of brainstorming, soliciting, hoping, planning, editing, proofreading, communicating, and creating. However, it also represents cataloging, marketing, publicity, and advertising. And yes, those words spring to mind a certain phrase we often forget about in writing: business. Time to shift from the art of creating a book to the business of making sure those 500 copies don’t sit in your boss’s office from here unto eternity. A book can be the next best thing in the literary world, but no one is going to hear about it until someone gets the word out there. 

So firstly, you’ve got to handle the little details you wouldn’t normally consider. Those little numbers by the barcode on the back? Or the ISBN sign you see on every single book you’ll ever read in your life? Those are important. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and every book has its own unique one consisting of 13 digits. Unless you want to keep your book super private, you need an ISBN code. This process involves quite a bit, particularly when there are a little over 100 contributors like we had with The Book of Scented Things. Aforementioned boss had to enter in every single one of those contributors manually.

After you’ve established that your book is a real book with real intention of distribution, you need to get it copyrighted with the Library of Congress. This will, thankfully, be a little easier than the ISBN documenting, and will take significantly less time. It is, however, still very much necessary in the process of getting your book to market!

After the tricky details, comes the fun part (or at least fun to me since I am a business minor): marketing and advertising! Our first level of marketing is to send out copies of the book to potential reviewers (we won’t say who!) in the literary world. The idea is that they will review the book in a formal matter and, in essence, continue spreading the word. We also sent out copies to perfume bloggers and perfume boutiques to add a unique twist to our classic marketing. After all, there are 100 perfumes mentioned and analyzed in this little anthology, plus the cover is both chic and simple. Can’t you picture a small selection sitting in a perfume boutique? 

Next we brainstormed even more ideas to get more attention to the book. After all, and not to sound too biased, it’s a fantastic anthology that has the potential to do incredibly well. Perfume and cologne are reminiscent of everything elegant and chic and classic, and who doesn’t love feeling that way? I began listing ways we could publicize online some more. I came up with a list of more perfume and literary blogs while also looking into general beauty blogs. 

However, my biggest thing is social media (call it a symptom of my generation!). I love the idea of using Instagram and Facebook to start a hashtag to generate conversation about different topics. I also am a great lover of blogging, so you might just be seeing some upcoming posts to complement the anthology. Maybe more information about a certain perfume that inspired your favorite poem? I know I’m checking out Atelier Cologne and Jo Malone after this… I may or may not have saved a lot of perfume pictures just in case our next intern develops a bit of a perfume interest as I have these past few months.

With that said, this is my ultimate post on my last day as a Literary House Press Intern! It was an amazing experience working with Lindsay and Professor Dubrow (and Lola) and getting to make a little home in the Rose O’Neill Literary House, and I will be eternally grateful for all they’ve taught me! Any of you English majors near graduating and still here, make sure you stop by and pick up your free copy of The Book of Scented Things!


Last modified on May. 1st, 2014 at 12:29pm by Lindsay Lusby.

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