Please help me promote my debut novel!

Dear Friends,

After a very bumpy road for my debut novel, I have finally found a publisher who will take great care of it, and The Very Special Dead is coming out this October! So I'm trying to raise money to cover some of the promotional and touring costs that small independent publishers simply can't afford.

Publishing is really being squeezed right now, and nobody is feeling it as badly as independent publishers, who don't have the resources of the “Big Four” (Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins and Macmillan), who now own all the other mainstream publishers. That means writers have low or no budgets for promotion and marketing and their books are less likely to get reviewed, promoted and submitted to prizes because of it, which means they are far less likely to sell.

That's why I'm hustling for some funds to do some of that promotion, to give my books a better chance of being put in front of readers. They can't buy them if they don't know they exist.

Here’s what Booker Prize judge John Burnside has to say about The Very Special Dead in his endorsement on the book cover: “Lyrical, poignant and perfectly grounded in the day-to-day lives of a beautifully evoked New England fishing town, The Very Special Dead deftly weaves together a compelling drama of social decay and personal loss and an uncanny excursion into the twilight zone that sits between the world we know and that undiscovered country from which, so they say, no traveller returns.”

The amount I'm hoping to raise reflects the entry fees for a number of book prizes as well as to cover the costs of the book tour. These platforms and in-person events create general buzz around a book, which usually translates into greater readership when the book comes out.

If you would like to help me out with this goal, I would be so grateful. Any amount will help, no matter how small.

Thanks so much!

Best,

Christian