First, a big thank you to all those who opted into my newsletter through the Let’s Go!: A Kids Comics Studio Anthology. And a thank you to those of you who’ve been following me for a while.

This isn’t the post I intended to write, but I have two time sensitive opportunities I wanted to share.

The first is for kidlit graphic novel creators, or those who want to create graphic novels, or even anyone interested in marketing tips. Literary agent Janna Morishima is hosting a free masterclass tomorrow titled “How to Launch Your Graphic Novel” and today (Sept. 26) is the last day to sign up. Even if you miss this, she will be holding a in-depth course on the same topic, so follow her site for details. (Update, you can now access the full course at: https://kidscomicsunite.com/how-to-launch-your-graphic-novel/)

Second: The KidLitGN pitch event opens to agents, editors, and publishers in five days (Oct. 1). However, unagented and agented creators who have comics-style picture books, early/chapter, middle grade, or YA graphic novel projects can begin loading their pitches as soon as Sept. 28 at 8 a.m. The pitch window closes at 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 1.

Most of my original followers came from my picture book connections, so I want highlight the opportunity to pitch comics-style picture books (listed as Graphic PBs on the website) in the KidLitGN pitch event (think picture books with sequential art like Mr. Particular or Toys in Space).

I’ve been involved with KidLitGN‘s pitch event for five years ago. And I’ve learned a lot about marketing in the process. I was also involved with the marketing team for the Let’s Go!: A Kids Comics Studio Anthology, so I’m hoping to share more tips on how to market your work. For now, I’m going to highlight one aspect of marketing that I’ve found most successful–connections.

The internet is saturated with people selling something, so how do you even break through? Start by making connections. Join forums, such as KidLit411, which has a Facebook group and a website with gobs of resources, like this one that lists helpful blogs that you might be able to reach out to once you have a book to sell.

KidLitGN also a facebook forum where we exchange graphic novel questions and information. More importantly, you get to meet like-minded creators. People have found collaborators there and made connections that led to other opportunities.

Enter contests, even if you don’t win, you’re still putting your name out there and meeting people. Nicole Harwood and I met while working the the anthology and then entered the Tapas/Kickstarter contest together, which just expanded the number of people we met in the industry and the number who met us.

While working on the Kids Comics Studio Anthology, one of the biggest concerns for people was marketing. Some people had online presences, others didn’t, or had small ones, and weren’t sure how they could help market the anthology. The beauty of a collective project is that your audience grows by the number of people following each person in your project. Take advantage of that. Interview each other on whatever platform you have, do videos together to share on social media if that’s more your jam, take advantage of that collective presence to grow your own and each others’ audiences.

Expand that idea when your book is about to be published– team up with people in the same boat and help promote each others’ works. Picture book people have done this very effectively with debut groups and other similar marketing collaborations.

If you don’t see the connections you need, start them. Six years ago, I had a lot of questions about breaking into the graphic novel space because all my picture book ideas were too old or too long for traditional picture books, but still needed lots of art to tell the story. So moving my ideas into graphic novels made sense. But there wasn’t a lot of info out there on how to do that, let alone how to pitch your projects, especially as an author only. So I reached out on KidLit411‘s forum and asked if anyone wanted to start a Facebook group specifically for kidlit graphic novel folks. Tim Canny responded and set up our forum, which eventually led to creating the KidLitGN pitch event. Last year, KidLitGN hosted nearly 200 pitches on the website that resulted in 80 request by agents, editors, and publishers.

Making that one connection with Tim and then with the rest of the KidLitGN team was the magic sauce, not just for me but for all those people who found agents or editors through our pitch event. One connection on a forum has led to hundreds more connections and opportunities, like this one with Barney Smith at Story Comic–another great resource for graphic novelists, and another tool to get your work out there (See here for a generalized list of sites that promote all sorts of kidlit).

And, by the way, I met Barney because he was connected to Patrick Lugo who ran the marketing team for the Kids Comics Studio Anthology. And I found out about Janna Morishima’s Kids Comics Unite and Studio through another team member of KidLitGN, which eventually led me to the anthology.

So now we’re full circle. Connections really do matter and you never know where they will lead.

If you have any other marketing tips or useful promotional connections, drop them in the comments below. You can also enjoy Barney’s interviews with graphic novelists on his podcast: https://storycomic.podbean.com/