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Navigating Literary Publicity

Wednesdays: Oct 2 - 23
7:30 - 9:30 pm EST

Led by LAUREN CERAND
w/ guest authors Andre Banks, Dan Sinykin, Kathleen Schmidt, and Sonya Chung

$400

In a contemporary literary landscape with ever-shifting trends, how can writers chart a clear course to achieve publicity success that evolves with your goals? How do you create buzz for your work when there are simply not enough high-profile reviews to go around? How do you stand out in a noisy social media environment?

In this course, leading literary publicist Lauren Cerand will show you how to craft a message and communicate it to your ideal audience through media. She will provide a fundamental understanding of what publicity is and how it functions. She will also offer practical strategies for publicity operations in a variety of contexts, from presenting yourself as an author to attracting and keeping the attention of an audience, and what publicity work entails on an everyday level in both creative and technical tasks.

You will come away with an understanding of how to achieve effective publicity, whether you're a writer trying to build a platform and attract an agent, or are a few books in and are looking to get back in the game.

About the Instructors

This course is led by leading literary publicist Lauren Cerand, and will feature guest appearances by Andre Banks, Dan Sinykin, Kathleen Schmidt, and Sonya Chung.

Class Schedule

Each of the course’s four sessions features a distinguished guest with a range of expertise and insights, and in-class exercises designed to incorporate new knowledge and immediately apply it to your publicity needs. 

The first session features campaign strategist Andre Banks, who has spent the last 20 years organizing marginalized communities that have been left out of public discourse. We will explore questions such as: What is the story you’re actually telling? How can writers use political messaging to communicate more effectively with many possible readers?

In the second session, Dan Sinykin, author of Big Fiction, will help dispel persistent myths and fantasies about the structure of the publishing industry. You will gain strategies from Dan’s non-fiction book campaign success and investigate why you should learn about your competition and how to promote your work in the context of seismic shifts in the marketplace.

In the third session, Kathleen Schmidt will provide insight into how publicity operates in-house: how publicity is assigned, how you can understand what the publisher is going to do for you, and her perspective on building Publishing Confidential on Substack, her successful newsletter with over 7,000 subscribers.

Finally, Sonya Chung, novelist, critic, and director at Film Forum, will help us understand how to develop an audience beyond reviews, including strategically cultivating relationships with organizations and how to "fill seats" for your work.

Details

This course will take place on Zoom on Wednesdays October 2-23 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterward. We cannot offer refunds once the course has begun. Please email courses[at]offassignment.com with any questions.

FAQs →

Financial Aid

The full price for this course is $400; a limited number of scholarships are available.

Please send a brief statement outlining how and why a scholarship would impact your ability to attend to courses[at]offassignment.com by September 10th and we’ll get back to you by September 20th.

 
 

Instructor Bios

  • Lauren Cerand is a publicist with more than twenty years of experience running her own thriving global communications consultancy, driven by an intensive personal focus on each client’s needs and desires, a vast network of relationships, and unparalleled expertise and creative ingenuity.

  • ANDRE BANKS is founder/CEO of A–B Partners. With 20+ years of polictical communications and agency experience, Andre brings best-in-class creative strategies and deep expertise in social movements to move critical voices from margins to mainstream. Andre’s portfolio includes philanthropy, criminal justice reform, international human rights, LGBTQ rights, voting and civil rights, sustainability, & media and culture. He was founding partner at Purpose and the co-founder and former director of All Out, a global campaigning organization with more than 2.2 million members leading the global push towards LGBT equality.

  • SONYA CHUNG is the author of The Loved and Long for This World. She is a staff writer for The Millions and founding editor of Bloom. Her work has appeared in Tin Hour, The Threepenny Review, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, Short: An International Anthology, This is The Place: Women Writing About Home, & more. Currently, she is deputy director at a nonprofit arthouse cinema, teaches in Warren Wilson’s MFA program, and is Writer-in-residence at Skidmore College.

  • KATHLEEN SCHMIDT is a well-respected voice in book publishing with in-depth experience in all aspects of the industry, including as a publicist, literary agent, acquisitions editor, & ghost writer. To date, she was worked on fifty New York Times bestsellers, and her clients have continuously appeared in top-tier national print, broadcast, and radio outlets. Her newsletter, Publishing Confidential, shares her wealth of inside knowledge to demystify the book industry.

  • DAN SINYKIN is an assistant professor of English at Emory University and the author of American Literature and the Long Downturn: Neoliberal Apocalypse and Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature. He co-founded and co-edits the Post45 Data Collective, co-edits the Culture Industries section at Public Books, and is a reviews editor at Critical AI.

Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses on in-depth writing topics that harness the perspectives and craft tactics of a lead instructor plus celebrated guest lecturers, such that participating writers gain a wealth of input while benefiting from the cohesive leadership of one renowned writer in a particular niche of nonfiction.