Tweets to Book Deal: Matt Stewart

Wondering if all the hype about authors using social media to get noticed has any basis in reality? Matt Stewart is a telling case in point.

Recently, Matt decided to broadcast his novel, The French Revolution, 140 characters at a time via Twitter. And his creative promotional strategy worked—Soft Skull recently acquired his debut novel.

Here, Matt checks in with Editor Unleashed to offer a few suggestions to writers looking for innovative ways to promote their work.

So can you please explain the premise of your novel, The French Revolution, for us?
It’s a story of a modern-day San Francisco family forging its place in history. I crafted a multi-layered plot loosely structured on the extremes of the historical French Revolution—repressive aristocracy moving to radical chaos and swinging back to Napoleonic empire, concluding in national defeat at Waterloo. It’s ultimately a story about identity.

The spiel: Esmerelda Van Twinkle, a failed pastry chef turned wretchedly obese copy shop manager, stumbles into motherhood after a semi-intentional liaison with good-natured coupon distributor Jasper Winslow. Born on Bastille Day, their twin children Robespierre and Marat revolt against archaic rules imposed by their autocratic grandmother, surmount radically misguided parenting, navigate factional infighting, and combat wars in the Middle East to achieve great personal gain. Just as the family is on the cusp of achieving meteoric success in politics, business, music, and gastronomy, fissures from the past crack open spectacularly, derailing their bid for long-lived power while cementing a reputation for the ages.

The French Revolution reminds a lot of readers of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunce—bouncy, larger-than-life characters; unstoppable imagination and a soulful American city woven through every scene.

“…when in doubt, hitch your star to a speeding comet.”

What made you decide to start tweeting the book and how did you go about doing it?
In early July, I’d run into a lot of exuberant rejections from publishers who’d reviewed my novel—basically, they said The French Revolution was terrific, funny, a page-turner, etc, but it wasn’t a right fit for their lists.

There were some consoling factors—it’s a crap economy, debut novels are a tough sell, and my book isn’t a safe bet, seeing how it’s loaded with bawdy characters and big imagination. Still, I got tired of the excuses and tired of waiting for my ship to come in. It was an extremely frustrating process.

One morning, in the shower, the idea came to me. I’d been using Twitter more and more frequently for my day job in marketing, and realized that there’s a huge demand for short, punchy, Twitter-ish communications. Busy people actually read them—because they’re short—and it felt like there could be a market for quick shots of literary job throughout the day. And hey, a lot of people are talking about Twitter these days—when in doubt, hitch your star to a speeding comet.

I ran the idea by a few savvy friends, some of which are pretty conservative about trying new technology, and all of them loved the idea. My agent gave the idea her blessing, so I recruited my friend JJ Schultz to build a tool which automatically breaks up long blocks of text into shorter blocks, then adds tags and allows for scheduling. I set up a website and talked to a few friends in media. On Bastille Day, I hit go.

And how exactly did those tweets lead to your book deal with Soft Skull?
Soft Skull made it very clear to me that they wanted The French Revolution because it’s a terrific book. They were considering the book before I started tweeting it out, and I’m thrilled to say they bought this book for all the right reasons.

That said, building a market and community for The French Revolution through Twitter probably sweetened the deal a little. I love that Soft Skull values my Twitter experiment, and I can’t wait to work with them on more cool ways to connect with readers.

How long had you been shopping The French Revolution? Is it your first book?
Back in July we’d been shopping The French Revolution for a few months, with several publishers still looking at it. I got tired of waiting and started tweeting it anyway. Publishing can be a viciously slow industry, and I’m not programmed for huge quantities of patience.

This is my first book, but I’m hammering away on the next one—follow me at @mjfstewart for the latest.

What’s you best piece of advice to other writers who are looking for innovative ways to promote their work?
If you have an idea for a new way to get your work out and build a market, go for it. If it fails, nobody will notice, and will usually give you credit for trying. And if it works, the sky’s the limit.

Follow the story at @thefrenchrev or Tweeting the French Revolution. Matt welcomes and appreciates your thoughts and feedback.

-Maria Schneider

Tagged as: author interviews, social media