The marketing plan
Lesson #1: The publishing industry is in a tailspin. It would be imprudent for any publishing house to invest in a title that can’t promise a decent return on investment. I need to convince prospective editors that a) I have cred as an environmental writer, b) that there is a large – or at least large enough based on some book publisher formula – audience out there clamoring for this book and c) that I will be a (one-woman sales) force relentlessly and creatively nagging every member of that audience to buy it.
Truth be told, the a) part wasn’t really working for me. I could point to my masters degree in aquatic ecology and the fact that I had grown up along the Passaic. I also had more than 25 years as a journalist going for me. But in all that time I had never written about environmental issues or rivers, so I couldn’t claim the all-critical “platform;” meaning, I wasn’t a recognized expert on the subject. Plus, I didn’t live in New Jersey anymore.
Still, I wasn’t too worried about the platform problem because I was convinced that there’s a huge potential market for a Passaic River book out there, and I felt confident I could tap into it. When my agent asked me to work up a “marketing plan” that she could send to editors along with my This American River manuscript, I jumped right in:
“More than 8 million people live in New Jersey, nearly half in the Passaic River watershed,” I began. “But all Americans know a river. Be they humble hometown creeks or the mythic giants of literature, art and song, America’s rivers anchor American life and narrative. They power our homes, our industries and our imaginations, and like the Passaic, they are all at risk.”
I was just getting warmed up.
“The Passaic,” I went on, “is New Jersey’s longest, crookedest, foulest and most historic waterway. Its untold story is the tale of urban rivers everywhere: loved, abused, neglected, forgotten and sadly misunderstood. This American River is a mea culpa of sorts to all the Passaic Rivers out there. In its blend of recollection and reportage, the book becomes a narrative meditation on the wonder of rivers, the enduring ties of family and the power of water and loss.
“’Our tools are better than we are,’ wrote naturalist Aldo Leopold in his 1949 classic A Sand County Almanac. ‘They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.’
“This uniquely human conundrum confronts us to this day. How will we resolve the struggle between development and open space? Can we strike the proper balance between exploitation and stewardship? What, in the end, does nature really mean to us anyway, and who will we be without it? Will the disappearance of the natural world, of its wild places and creatures, bruise our souls the way the loss of loved ones breaks our hearts?
“Elizabeth Kolbert wrestles with these questions in her book Field Notes From a Catastrophe. So does Bruce Barcott in The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw. So too does Michael Pollan, albeit from a slightly different point of view, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. They are the questions of our time. They haunt the baby boom generation today and threaten to plague all the generations that follow. How do we live on the land without spoiling it? My great grandmother had a saying: don’t shit in the nest. This American River is an object lesson in what can happen when we ignore that simple, salty advice.”
What’s not to love?
As for how I’d sell the book, I boasted about my media connections and about how the sprawling, active network of Passaic River advocacy, research and recreational organizations was a “readymade vehicle for viral promotion.” I promised to hawk This American River at the Nereid Boat Club’s annual Passaic River Regatta and at this year’s Passaic River Symposium at Montclair State.
I offered to arrange readings at river advocacy organizations, parks, businesses, community centers and libraries in each of the 45 Passaic River communities. I said my large New York/New Jersey network of family, friends and colleagues would host home readings to “introduce This American River to a diverse audience in a series of intimate settings;” and that my teacher pals would arrange high school and middle school readings “to reach the younger, environmentally conscious crowd.” I talked about my plans to seek funding (from the Geraldine R. Dodd Foundation) to develop an interdisciplinary curriculum around This American River; and how I’d contact every editor at every local newspaper in each of the 45 cities, towns and municipalities that borders the Passaic. And I meant every word.
When I emailed the marketing plan to my agent, along with the final draft of This American River, I was feeling pretty confident that it was a winning combination.
