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Welcome to the Tuesday Telegrams, a semimonthly newsletter from award-winning author Naseem Jamnia. You're currently reading a writing-related Telegram, where I update you on projects, offer behind-the-scenes looks, delve into craft, and other publishing and writing topics.

It is wild to me that on May 27, less than one month from today, my middle grade debut will be out in the world.

Something many don't realize—I certainly didn't—is that prepping for book releases are not created equal. I'm not talking here about whether a book is a lead title (the books that get the most amount of marketing money and attention) or not. What I mean is that depending on your age category and overall genre (and, probably, the press), the lead time on and approaches for marketing a book is vastly different.

To start the marketing conversation, a book should have its release date, cover and, ideally, buy links (i.e. what's linked in that blue button). That way, cover reveals can directly lead to purchases rather than adds on Goodreads or the Storygraph.

(What determines the release date is somewhat of a mystery to me. There are different publishing seasons that don't correspond with actual seasons, and they with varying amount of weights [fall, for example, is big in kidlit]. Likely, the bigger the book, the more favorable its release within a season.)

The Bruising of Qilwa released in early August from a small but established independent press. They got me the cover about a year (?!) in advance, and we had our first marketing meeting about nine months before launch to discuss the cover reveal (which happened at the end of January) and general marketing plans and timeline.

Qilwa was available for digital ARC requests on Edelweiss and NetGalley by the spring of its release year. We began to ask for author blurbs around that time

By the time Qilwa was released, I had at least a dozen of prepub reader reviews, a half-dozen or more author/bookseller blurbs, five trade reviews (including two stars!), and three or four marketing meetings with my team. I'd placed multiple articles at various sites, posted regularly on social media, was heavily involved in my debut group (we did weekly posts highlighting the debuts based on themes like "debuts about found family" or "debuts featuring plants"), and had multiple events, including conferences, planned for the coming months. Qilwa stayed in the spotlight for longer than expected since it made the rounds on the award circuits, but about a year after it came out, it had rumbled into the background.

(I am exceedingly grateful that it pops up for every ace/aro/nonbinary/trans week/day!)

I met with my marketing team (who do marketing/publicity for all of Simon & Schuster Children's) for The Glade in mid-March, about two months before release. They told me that unlike other books, middle grade books pick up after they're released. That's because the reader/consumer is different from the customer/buyer, and the customer/buyer—parents, educators, and librarians—wait to see how a book is received after it's already available. Furthermore, many state awards, they told me, require the book being in paperback, which happens about a year after the hardcover release. (Qilwa only had a paperback edition; Big 5s tend to have hardcover first, paperback second, but not always.)

Because I'm not marketing directly to the reader, I have to learn how to market to the buyer. For educators, that often happens via school visits. For libraries, someone has to reach out and ask them to stock it (though I imagine there's a higher chance that many libraries will purchase it by nature of The Glade being an S&S book rather than an indie).

My local independent bookstore told me that beyond graphic novels, MG doesn't tend to move in the store. I'm not surprised. MG seems to shine at those school visits, where a teacher might get a whole classroom a copy of the book. My team called school visits MG's bread and butter.

I'm going into this launch with potentially only one trade review and a half-dozen reader reviews. It freaks me out a lot! But I hope that things will pick up afterward. I'm still doing conferences, and I was accepted in to the Bay Area Book Fest, but now it's time for me to make connections with educators.

If you or someone you know teaches grades 4-6, has kiddos ages 9-13, or otherwise might dig The Glade, I'd love to connect!

Upcoming Events

If you're in Washoe County, I'm doing my launch event for The Glade on Friday, May 16, at 6pm at the Radical Cat! I'll be in conversation with local educator and superstar poet Griffin Peralta, and there will be cupcakes! (And because I have food sensitives, there will be gluten free and vegan cupcakes available!)

I'm also on the Fantastical Worlds and Beings panel for the Bay Area Book Fest! I'm looking forward to chatting with these amazing authors!

Solidarity Corner

If you have organizations or causes you'd like me to spotlight here, please send those links my way. We get through these things when we do so together.

• ​A list of charities grouped by recent events around the world
• ​Community-supported initiatives for recent events, courtesy of author Sarah Gailey's Stone Soup newsletter​
• ​CARE provides both ongoing recovery care for those impacted by Hurricane Helene
• A list of crowdfunding campaigns for displaced Black families, displaced Latine families, displaced Filipino families, and displaced disabled people from the LA fires.

To help Palestinians facing genocide (no aid has entered Gaza in seven weeks):

• Information from the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund on supporting Palestinians
• ​UN organizations helping Palestinians
• ​Gaza Funds spotlights current crowdfunding campaigns. Operation Olive Branch does similar work. (There have been some allegations against OOB, so definitely do your homework.)
• The BDS Movement calls for specific brands to be boycotted in order to be effective in their targeting, but we can also be discerning individually. Here is another list of companies profiting off genocide. The only ethical consumption under capitalism is when we trace where the money goes.
• A list of Palestinian-owned brands and Palestinian goods​

Other groups undergoing atrocities:

• Some resources to help Lebanese communities affected by Israel's bombings
• ​UNHCR's donation page to help Syrian refugees
• The International Rescue Committee's page on Sudan
• ​Oman Tigray and the IRC's page on Tigray
• ​IRC page on the DR Congo
• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has pages for these various conflicts (a term I'm using loosely)

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