How I Promoted my Book Under the Surface

Sharing how I hustled my booty off to make this book a bestseller... at the cost of my well-being. Read at your own peril, honestly.

Ever since Under the Surface launched in August 2024, fellow authors have been asking me for details on how I promoted it, even offering to pay me as a consultant. While I’m truly flattered each time, I can’t charge anyone a consulting fee for this.

Why? I firmly believe that 95% of the time, traditionally published YA authors can only move the sales needle so much if they don’t have strong distribution support from both their publisher and B&N, unless they have a huge platform already. Especially these days—sales are down for most kidlit books except those with exclusive edition treatment. Without strong support, success is a lightning strike. A lotto win. No amount of hustle can guarantee it. So until I can validate my strategies *do* work to accomplish *my* goals in a different age category or circumstance (e.g. self-pub), it feels disingenuous to position this as “advice.”

But since people keep asking, I want to have something to point folks to. And do I have this thing I wrote Aug 2024—a chronicle of how I promoted the hardcover launch, a journaling exercise from when I was severely burnt out. I journal blog-style to synthesize experiences like this thanks to a decade-long career in B2B content creation, but I cannot be more clear: this is not advice. It’s just a log. I added the “results” section the week after launch Aug 2024, then edited it down for Substack (boo email length limit!) and added footnotes May 2025.

While I dislike gatekeeping, I’m putting this behind a paywall because (1) it’s the only way I feel comfortable being transparent about certain parts, and (2) I don’t want this to circulate in a manner that makes any authors feel pressured to do all this. I’d never want anyone else to feel how I felt in 2024: like the husk of a burnt out shell. But if you REALLY want to know what I did, this is how you can find out. I hope that feels fair.

My goals with sharing this are:

1. Give you ideas for some book marketing tactics you can try, with zero guarantees, and to have something to point people to when they ask for my strategy.

OR

2. Free you from the pressure you’re feeling to do EVERYTHING. I tried. It wasn’t enough.* Be free. Write your next book.

*Pre-paywall footnote: While it was enough to get me on a regional indie bestseller list—and I’m truly proud of that—I don’t think my results were commensurate to the effort I put in (due to distribution/print run limitations).