Becoming an active ‘literary citizen’ and gathering endorsements, as I discussed in Chapter 6, were the start of the book marketing process. And alongside those, I was also trying to strengthen my reach on several social media platforms.

Having left X a while back in protest, I was trying to build followings on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn but although I rationalised the content, it was still time consuming. I kept a time series of follow numbers so I could check what posts seemed to gain most traction. I also tried posting a video for the first time on TikTok which was more fun than I expected, even if I didn’t have any followers at this point.

In the run up to P-day, the social media assistant in the marketing team produced some fabulous bespoke Wild Pavement images which I used as banners on my social media. I also made the decision to cut down on other commitments over the next year so I could focus on working with the wonderful marketing team at Flint Books. My working strategy was that I wanted (almost) everyone in Britain who might consider reading my book to at least have heard of it, even if they then read it and weren’t keen.

In discussion with the marketing team, I agreed on an initial list of bookshops, festivals, prizes, podcasts hosts, press and broadcast media outlets to target. We then added #BookTok influencers. To help keep track, I clarified all these in a spreadsheet with who would be leading on the approaches. While some of the initial approaches would be made by the marketing team, where appropriate I approached the key people directly and we needed to be careful not to duplicate efforts.

Plans for a launch at Stanfords bookshop in Covent Garden were put in place and I started working on what I was going to say on the night.

Ultimately the aim was to try and fill the 12 months following publication with a diversity of Wild Pavement book tour events all over Britain (and hopefully at least one in Belfast too). Some of these would be traditional book events – a Q&A and book signing but we were also offering a ‘Wild Pavements walk’ as an extra hook and I agreed to deliver a lunchtime webinar hosted by the University of the West of England for a science communication network and to teach a Wild Pavements writing workshop for Bath Literary Festival. It was tempting to design a book tour t-shirt.

The first event – a couple of weeks before publication – was a webinar for the Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Network. In readiness I created a Wild Pavements slide-pack which I could adapt for each event. It was a fun evening and the positive feedback I received for this first event was an encouraging start to the book tour.

A box was delivered and I made an unboxing vid for my social of the unboxing to reveal my author copies. This was the first time I’d seen the final book in real life. It was an emotional moment, and it wasn’t even the launch.

[I’ll be adding to this post as the book tour progresses.]