Once upon a time, I opened our Instagram account and found a picture of Kristen Bell holding books by two authors that we are working with, Shelli R. Johannes and Kimberly Derting. The picture had been reposted by an indie bookstore in Michigan, McLean & Eakin, that we know. I knew EXACTLY how that book happened to be in the arms of the woman beloved for her roles in The Good Place, Veronica Mars, and voicing Anna in Frozen (not to mention many others).
We undertook a campaign to raise awareness and orders in indie bookstores for the latest book by Shelli and Kim, Libby Loves Science. It was a solid campaign and we were really excited as we rolled it out in late February and early March of this year. Then, you know what happened. We couldn’t in good conscience continue to follow up with our bookstore contacts as they closed their doors and tried to figure out how to weather the pandemic with curbside service and web orders. So, we moved on to other ideas.
On the day Libby Loves Science came out, however, we sent a shout-out about it to our bookstore friends and got a couple of responses. One was from McLean & Eakin, saying they’d love to feature Libby and her pre-cursor, Cece, on their Fireside Chat series. Great! We sent them information and the authors sent them some fun swag, including a copy of the last book to come out with Cece as a main character, an I Can Read series book called Cece Loves Science: Push and Pull.
When Kristen Bell in all her wisdom and glory decided to order some books from her home state of Michigan and chose McLean & Eakin, they sent her a few thank yous for the support including Cece Loves Science: Push and Pull and Cece Loves Science and Adventure. Again, Kristen Bell did something generous and thoughtful and took a picture of herself with the goodies that McLean & Eakin sent and posted it on her Instagram, which has more than 14 MILLION FOLLOWERS! More than a thousand people commented on that post, many saying they were going to add the books to their reading list.
So, if you ever are in a class with us, or hear us say that this work we all do is “building the invisible staircase,” this is what we mean. You do the work. You make the contacts and build relationships and act as a good faith literary citizen. You try. You don’t expect miracles. Then again, you never know where that staircase is going to lead. It might be to Kristen Bell. Or to a professor who resonates with your work and puts it on a reading list semester after semester. Or it may be smaller, profound connections that people feel to your words. You may never know about them, but they won’t exist without the work to build that staircase.
P.S. Also, #shopindie. Kristen Bell does.