How I Wrote My New Book, "Garden Disruptors," 20

Hey Y’all,

Today, I’m going to ask you creative folks to think, plan, and be a part of the strategy for making ‘Garden Disruptors’ a success.

The book will be ready in 2 or 3 weeks. I’ll share it here first — in big capital, yelling with relief letters. GARDEN DISRUPTORS HITS THE SHELVES.

Only those words are so old-fashioned as the first copies will not be on shelves but on Amazon.  A few weeks later, we’ll have copies and some local bookstores too.  But getting it to rank on Amazon is a key part of book success these days.

In the past, we’ve been a bit anti-amazon but this year, we hope we can use their website to push popularity. We worked with a consultant from Cornell Press to get a firm marking strategy. He called the first few weeks the ‘honeymoon’ phase on the website.  We’re going for it. Our entire strategy is tough to follow because most of it relies on bloggers’ and writers’ tastes and time. Also, magazines and corporate horticulture focus on books from the big presses.

Self-published authors like me rely on word-of-mouth support like you.

Here’s where I need your help.

• Buy a copy on Amazon as soon as you can. The way our publishing works, when you buy, that book is printed at a printer right in your home town, so it usually arrives a day later.

• Make a review on the Amazon site. Initial rankings are important. I’m open to criticism, and for this unique book; I fully expect lots. But please email that to me or bring it up on social media.

• Send a copy as a gift!

• Share, like, and restack the book release announcement you get here on Plant People Substack.

• On the top of each Substack email or the bottom of each essay (if you read these on the web), you’ll see the symbols below. Use them all. It’s a reach, but it would be awesome if Substack took notice and featured the new book.

• Watch for my post on Facebook. Please share those with a recommendation or critique.  Take a cool pic with the book and cup of coffee or a flower or your face!

• Make a review on goodreads.com

• I know it’s crazy, but within Tiktok, there’s a group called Booktok. Believe it or not, readers are the largest community on TikTok. Their videos got about books got 24 BILLION views last year.  The largest group of tiktoker book lovers are women 20-54. That’s an age group we’d like to cultivate.

Also, if you know a bookstore that would like to carry the book, please ask them to contact us directly. Our next step is to make it easy for bookstores to buy, but we’ll have to do that through personal contact at first.

Don’t worry, there will be more!  Like recommending to groups that I speak or read from this book. And soon enough, we’ll have copies to send and share in our fabulous hand-painted mailers.

Thanks, Y’all, from one garden disruptor to another! Let’s keep gardening wild, organic, free, and a bit radical.