Maria C. McCarthy is a writer and editor, and runs Cultured Llama Publishing with her husband. Maria was born in Ewell, Surrey in 1959, and raised by Irish parents. Her Irish heritage features strongly in her poetry, stories and her columns for BBC Radio 4’s Home Truths (written and broadcast as Maria Bradley). Her first poetry collection, strange fruits, was published by Cultured Llama in 2011, followed by the short story collection As Long as It Takes in 2014, and more poetry in There are Boats On the Orchard in 2017. You’ll find Maria’s website at here.
There are Boats On the Orchard is incredibly moving. In in, a sense of sadness and reminiscence for a lost past merges with a strength gained from the everyday. For the reader, the book is a journey from one state of mind to another; it records changing landscapes and the way specific places change but also retain, deeply embedded, elements of their past selves. The collection has a gentle, lyrical style, so much so that the sadness at the diminishing of the Kent orchards creeps up on you and stays with you long after you’ve read the book. The locality and provenance of the book, and the sense of process – the journey of the narrator recording her environment – are all important, but I also felt idea that ‘the personal is political’ coming through strongly or perhaps ‘the local is global’. The themes explored in There are Boats On the Orchard are global ones.
I asked Maria my ten questions about book marketing.
Can you tell us a bit about you and your work? What are you working on at the moment?
I write poetry, short stories and memoir. I am working on a short story that I started over two years ago, and last edited about nine months ago. It’s a ghost story of a kind, so outside of my comfort zone; I’ve not written one before. I already had two versions saved as ‘final’, but it turns out they weren’t. I looked at the ending that I was so pleased with back in January, and cringed, so I am doing a major rewrite.
How do you approach marketing your work, on a practical level? For instance, do you schedule it for a particular day of the week, or use a different desk, or make time for it every afternoon?
I market for both my own work and for Cultured Llama Publishing, which I co-run with my husband. I only schedule marketing my own work when I have a book out, and it tends to be planned from week to week. For Cultured Llama, I work three mornings a week, and schedule in some marketing during that time. Again, that will often coincide with having a new book out, or when we receive a review, which I share on social media. I did used to have different desks for different work – I had a writing shed at our last house, from which I banished the internet. I only did admin and marketing work at a desk in the house. I no longer have that luxury, so I have to be disciplined to protect my writing time.
Some creative people treat marketing as if it’s creation’s evil twin. Is there a way of making friends with it?
I did make friends with Twitter when I had my first poetry collection published, strange fruits, in 2011. I was persuaded to join, and though I was reluctant, I got hooked very quickly. It has been a great and a terrible thing. I connected with lots of writers and readers; I even had the offer of a free author photo, via a Twitter follower, which turned out to be valuable contact. We used the same person to do some press and marketing work for one of our books. Twitter, I think, can be a good reciprocal place if you meet the right people. But I have had to limit my use of Twitter, as it got rather addictive and ate into my writing time.
Do you think about marketing before, during, or after writing, or is it ongoing?
I never think about marketing during writing. I know that a lot of my work will not get published, or if it does I will not get paid for it.
How do you tend to market your work?
On Twitter, Facebook, my personal blog, the Cultured Llama website, plus Mailchimp newsletters or email shots.
Would you spend a substantial amount of time on a piece even if you knew you wouldn’t or couldn’t publish and sell it?
Yes – see above re the short story! I am a slow writer and tend to revisit work to edit several times before I consider it finished. I have a chronic illness, so slow suits me.
Do you use any of these for marketing purposes: school visits, workshops, readings, video book trailers, seeking press coverage?
I have run workshops to coincide with book publication, readings too. I have also arranged a kind of variety show of poetry and music in a small theatre, inviting other artists, and book signings in cafes, where I will read bits of the work on request, or just chat and sign books.
For my latest work, There are Boats on the Orchard – a pamphlet of poems on the disappearing orchards of Kent, I have held some events in community orchards. This works best when it is part of an arranged day, such as Cherry Day at Lynsted Community Orchard. I have had local press coverage, including a great piece on As Long as it Takes, my story collection, but I can’t say it led to any sales.
I once heard someone dismiss a career in book marketing by saying ‘he might as well go and sell fridges’ – is selling books really the same as selling fridges?
Marketing books is difficult, and few writers or small publishers have any financial resources to put behind marketing. In my experience, poetry and short fiction sell mostly by personal contact with the author, so arranging an attractive launch or other events is the most successful way to go. And be bold – carry copies of your book with you, get into conversations about it. Make it easy to get hold of a copy, either person to person or by having commerce on your website.
There’s a lot of marketing jargon around, such as ‘find your niche’, ‘create a sales funnel’, ‘engage with your audience’, ‘create a platform’ – do beginning writers need to engage with it from the start? Has that changed since you started writing?
Hmmm, for myself, I just write and see where it takes me. I have never thought of creating a sales funnel, and am not sure what it means! The only time I have written specifically for an audience was my brief spell as a columnist on BBC Radio 4’s Home Truths. I got on that with bare-faced cheek, emailing the programme with a piece, and pretending that I had broadcasting experience (well, I had been interviewed on a local radio station!). Sadly, the programme came to an end, and though I would like to write for radio again, I think my ‘niche’ has gone. It’s a shame, as it paid well and I found the columns relatively easy to write.
Any examples of book marketing you think worked really well?
Anna Maconochie did some great work promoting her book Only the Visible Can Vanish.