Alexander Neubauer is a poet who just published a new book with Random House to stellar industry reviews.
It’s called Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets, and The Washington Post calls it “one of the best books you will ever read on how poems are actually made.”
Back in March, writer friends told Alexander he should be promoting his book on the web, something which, like many creatives, Alexander didn’t know how to do.
When Alexander came to Solvate with a request for a someone to help him increase his online presence and refocus the social media efforts around his new book, we knew we had the just right talent for him:
Bridget Flannery-McCoy is an Editorial Assistant at Columbia University Press who had honed her skills at writing-focused nonprofit, 826NYC, before settling into the publishing industry where she edits and promotes books for academic markets.
Alexander got on a complimentary call with Bridget who talked him through his request and came up with a customized plan of action, complete with an hourly budget per week that Alexander approved himself. Bridget had worked on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites with multiple authors and immediately set to work creating an online community around Poetry in Person.
Alexander on Bridget:
“Bridget is amazingly informed about the literary scene and web networking, and has been a perfect match.”
Bridget on Alexander:
“Alexander is my first client with Solvate. I knew as soon as I connected on the call with him that the project would be a good one for me… I was excited to go back to my English roots, working on a book with so many great contemporary poets, and with an author who’d devoted so much time to putting the collection together.”
The work:
Bridget spends 5-7 hours per week, tweeting daily, with poetry news and commentary, highlighting Alexander’s new blog posts.
“Alexander already had a blog, a Twitter handle, and a Facebook page; my job was to fill those out and maximize their networking potential. I started by enriching the sites he had already, as well as amping up his Amazon presence and signing him up for several author- and book-specific sites, such as FiledBy. We have attracted some important followers and are becoming an increasingly recognized voice in the Twitter poetry community,” Bridget explains. The Facebook page, which Twitter and Alexander’s blog both feed into, has been gaining fans steadily and has proved a great platform for showcasing content from the book.
“Our goal is to keep building this solid foundation in order to have a focused and interested audience for the paperback release, and for any further work Alexander chooses to do in this area,” says Bridget.
Meanwhile, the author has been working on building some fascinating content on his site, including a new audio feature. Next up we’re connecting Alexander and Bridget with an audio engineer who can re-master audio files for his upcoming partnership with Audible.com.
Request to connect with Bridget
Extracurricular:
Susan Orlean’s recent New Yorker article about Social Media as a platform for discussions about books
