Marketing a book in the Trumpocalypse
In retrospect, November seemed like a fine month to publish a novel. After all, the holidays are around the corner, and what’s not to like about a novel filled with family, love, loyalty and redemption. Who knew that lurking in the shadows was an election so acrimonious, so poisonous and soul-killing that people could hardly imagine gathering for Thanksgiving dinner without breaking into a fist-fight.
The publishing world is awash with such stories. My brother finished his brilliant Russian spy novel just as the Soviet Union was dissolving into a bankrupt puddle of countries no more capable of exporting spies than in paying their own armies or designing a laptop that didn’t look like a 1950s television set. Ann Coulter (a name so evil I actually have trouble typing it without expecting goblins to fly out of the floorboards and swallow me) published a book about the glories of Donald Trump’s take-no-prisoners immigration manifesto the same week he…well, changed his mind.
What is an author to do? There are four stages of grief. First, denial (until the sales figures start spiraling down). Next, a great deal of hand-wringing and negotiating (maybe if I keep hitting refresh on the Amazon sales page), followed by crying and finally copious amounts of drinking. I’ve heard there is a fifth stage, acceptance, but it appears to have eluded me.