For the month of August, about half of the queries I send out for my clients are responded to immediately with out-of-office (OOO) notifications. I know this will be the case every summer, and every summer, I still send out emails. After all, it’s impossible for me to know who will be on vacation when. I live in hope. I have to try. 

Some OOO replies direct me to someone else: another producer or editor. Some of my contacts say they will reply when they get back, which hey, they might. It’s happened. More often than not though, I think back to that post in the comms forum. More often than not, my contact will not, in fact, get back to me unless I follow up, which I generally make a point of doing. 

Overwhelmed, Not Apathetic 

I truly believe that the dearth of replies to OOO emails does not stem from apathy. Rather, people do not reply because they are overwhelmed. I can receive over a hundred emails on a given day. That’s not including DMs and texts and calls. I don’t even want to think about the influx of messages my contacts return to after they’ve been away for a week or two or longer. 

I’ve taken to calling this end of summer season in book publicity “The Blackhole”. Stuff goes in. Nothing comes out. Astronomically, I’m aware this is not a perfectly accurate metaphor. I am also aware it’s a tad dramatic, but I like it. So it stays. 

The question is then: what does one do for book publicity during this strange season? 

I’m getting there.

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The other reason I feel like a post about author Cam should be free is because that squeaky voice inside my gut tells me every author should have access to this information—whether they can afford a subscription to my wee platform or not.

The final reason it’s free is because, about time, right? When I started 3%, I’m pretty sure I mentioned free monthly industry insight blogs, and I’m not sure how often I’ve delivered on that.

So here we are.

I encourage you to read Samuel’s column.

Scamming published authors, however, is a new trick. A number of people have expressed wonderment to me: Why go after authors? We have no money. But that’s exactly the thing the scam is exploiting.

—Samuel Ashworth, Electric Lit, December 9, 2025

Have questions? Drop ‘em in the comments..

(A pic of one such unpaid event early in my career. I am in my early 20s here. I was thrilled to be asked to participate and probably would have paid the organizers to let me read.)

Before my first book was published, and in the first few years of my life as a published author, I did unpaid and underpaid events more than I do now, however. These days, I am relatively unlikely to accept an invitation unless I am paid to be there. This doesn’t mean the host organization has to pay. Sometimes, I can confirm my participation in an event due to grant funding or support from my publisher. 

My reluctance to do uncompensated work is not rooted in my lack of humility, gratitude, or an understanding that arts organizations and grassroots initiatives sometimes cannot afford to pay artists for appearances. And it’s not that I think that my time is worth more than that of anyone else. It’s certainly not because I never do free events as an author or lend my services as a publicist pro bono. I do. (You can search up the hundreds of unpaid author interviews I’ve done and proudly continue to do on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM and The New Books Network.) But I will say that at a certain point in my career, I stopped seeing the value in undertaking heaps of work for “exposure.”

I feel like after you’ve amassed a few years of working for exposure, it’s reasonable to hope that exposure will start paying off. Even just a little. Even just for once.

But doing events for free is a topic that often comes up when I’m speaking with my publicity clients and with author friends. 

When is it acceptable to be asked to do something without payment? Where do we draw the line? When are we being taken advantage of and when are we undertaking the necessary and vital work of giving back to our community and building a stronger literary landscape?

I’ve thought a bunch about these questions, and in this instalment of 3%, I’m going to share some of my takeaways.

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I’m not complaining. Even back then, I wasn’t upset. I understood why I wouldn’t be able to tour. Also, I didn’t want to tour. I wanted to stay home and as safe as possible.

I mention my idealistic vision of touring because eventually, I would have a second and then a third book published. And this year, my fourth. That’s four books in six years. I’m not arguing that’s a lot. I’m saying that it did not take me long to get to make my book tour dream a reality. My second book was a collection of poetry, Rebellion Box (Radiant Press, 2023). The title poem of this collection won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Prize for Occasional Verse the year before it was released so there was a bit of traction for the work before it was published. I launched the collection at my hometown bookstore. It was reasonably attended. I also did a launch in Toronto with two other poets who were local poets. I heard from a friend that there were people waiting outside the store who couldn’t get in. That night was a blur. It was exhilarating. I did another modestly attended launch in the Kawartha Lake region. I flew out to Victoria, BC to be part of the Planet Earth Poetry reading series, which was incredible and attracted a phenomenal audience. After that, I flew to Vancouver to visit family and did a segment on Global News. I decided not to try to do any bookstore event in Vancouver though.

I was beginning to see how bookstore tour stops could be fulfilling, but I was also realizing how, just as often, I left these events feeling a little bit defeated. My feeling had nothing to do with the bookstore staff, who were always amazing. Or with the people who showed up, who were supportive and engaged.

But by the end of my tour for Rebellion Box, I was better able to suss out my own limitations: how much I was willing to do for how much of a payoff. And when I say pay off, I’m not talking about any kind of financial recompense. I’m talking about the feeling I held in my chest when I left the events: was it worth it to me? Someone who lives with chronic pain and depression? Who is, by all definitions, an extrovert, but an anxious one with a fast draining social battery. Whose OCD is mostly controlled but who finds it difficult to keep my copper wire brain in check when I’m away from my home and my routines?

I did another fairly modest tour for my third book, a collection of short fiction called Widow Fantasies (Gordon Hill Press). Again, I was delighted with the reception of this book which was long-listed for the Toronto Book Awards and received reviews and features that still have me beaming with gratitude today. Instead of heading out west this time, I headed to the East Coast and had stops in Ottawa, Nova Scotia, and PEI. I met marvellous people. I’m so thankful for the bookstore owners and organizations who made my tour possible.

I’m grateful for the government grants that funded these tours. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere that required me to afford accommodations or more than a tank of gas. (I probably don’t have to tell you all that a life working in the arts is not one that can afford many luxuries.)

Crucially, I was also invited to reading series and festivals. 

When the dust settled, I once again reflected on what I wanted to be getting out of these tours, which I found exhausting. Yes, there were moments of immense joy. But there were also moments where I was cowered in tears in hotel rooms because I wanted to be home. I missed my family. Only a handful of people showed up to an event I drove 1000 km to do. 

Was it, I wondered, because I’m a hack? A loser? Do people only pretend to like me? 

Was it that my expectations were unrealistic? I mean, there are many wonderful authors who have events close to my home and I don’t make it to every single one of them. Life gets in the way. We have other commitments. What do I expect from people anyway? Nobody owes me anything. And if nobody owes me anything, why do I feel like I have to do these tours? Is it for readers or is it because I’m being held hostage by some idealized vision of what a book tour should be and some glamorous version of who I should be? 

That idealized world does not exist. And that glamorous me? Don’t know her.

To be honest, I don’t want to.

So with my novel, The Unravelling of Ou, which was released this year with Palimpsest Press, I took another approach to touring. It’s not an approach that will spare me from events where I turn up and read to the family members I bribe to come with me, the bookstore staff, and one idle shopper who takes a seat out of pity— I don’t think any of us are ever guaranteed a tour free of that kind of humbling experience (it’s part of the lore!) — but it’s one with which I feel I can live.

(Picture: the launch of my novel, The Unravelling of Ou, at Blue Heron Books.)

In this month's 3% installment, I’m going to share with you my general guidelines for book tours, for myself. They may appeal to you. They may not. Still, as a publicist, I’ve had many authors on tour over the years and I feel like a good number of them have come to hold similar views as mine. But to be clear: just because these are views I share with my clients doesn’t necessarily stop authors from wanting to plan a 25 stop cross-country book tour. And just because I may outline what I think might be the challenges associated with such an undertaking, it doesn’t mean that the juice won’t be worth the squeeze. For them.

I don’t share my guidelines here to change your mind, simply to share my perspective. 

Sound good? Keep reading!

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Blue Met is absolutely a literary festival to check out, and it was an honour to be invited to participate.

https://bluemetropolis.org

But the fact of the matter is many writers aren’t invited to festivals. Or at least, they’re not invited to every festival they'd like. My publicity clients usually have a list of festivals to which they would like to be pitched, and while I like to think I have good relationships with festival organizers, and while I attend pitch sessions and make strong cases for all the books I am lucky enough to represent, only a fraction of my queries result in invites.

There isn’t enough space in the festivals to accommodate even a third of the writers who want to be featured. At least equally important is the fact that festival budgets cannot accommodate more writers. With a few exceptions, festivals run at the mercy of granting bodies. Cuts to arts funding hit all of us hard.

Still, here I am waiting in terminal one for the call to board. I know how lucky I am. I acknowledge my good fortune. I also acknowledge that there are things I have done over the years that have perhaps made me more desirable to festival organizers. While I’d like to think that I’ve been solicited based on the literary merit of my work alone, I understand there are a lot of other factors playing into the decision. There are an enormous number of brilliant books whose authors have not been invited to this festival.

So today, I’d like to lay out a few ways I think authors can improve their chances of being invited to literary festivals. As with everything in publicity, there are no guarantees, but if we’re playing a game of increasing our odds, this is where I’d stake my bets.

Keep reading.

My teens are coming to Montreal with me!

• Also, please excuse any typos. Drafting on my phone!

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Part of the reason I’d struggle is because best practices for online marketing change so quickly. (Though best practices for publicity seldom do. )The other part of the reason is because I’ve done my best to expunge my mind of the forced fraternity of my corporate years.

Still, there is one workshop I remember and one lesson I carry with me. I wish I could recall the name of workshop leader because I’d give her credit, but I don’t. I remember her voice annoyed me a little: it had that compressed quality of fake enthusiasm. She said something, however, that has formed a foundational part of how I consciously approach my life as a publicist, as well as an author. The advice she gave boils down to basic etiquette and I think many of us practice it automatically. But she spoke metaphorically and I love a good metaphor.

(I admit this photo has very little to do with what I’m talking about, but I do think if I really force meaning, it could reflect the spirit of reciprocity that’s so important to being an author and a publicist. That aside, I love this meme.)

And while I know many of us are mindful of etiquette, judging by the amount of poor behaviour I see and personally experience in our literary landscape, I think many are not. I think the advice bears sharing.

Let’s get one thing established first: when I say “etiquette”, I am not referring to an archaic system of beliefs that only serves to limit the already oppressed and solidify the standing of people who enjoy a privileged existence.

When I say etiquette, I’m talking about the community practice of recognizing, respecting and even celebrating in the humanity of other people. That’s it.

Okay?

Okay.

Moving on…

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As I wander around digital and real life spaces, it occurs to me that there is one piece of publicity advice—a very simple piece of advice—that I should share with people who have books coming out.

I thought I’d share this tidbit today, because as short as I am on time, it’s an easy and powerful bit of insight that can help your book find more readers.

Keep reading!

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I often find myself dumbfounded by the way some authors behave online in community spaces. I read their posts. I watch their videos. I wonder what they hell they were thinking. I don’t think it’s news to anyone that things you say and do online don’t just disappear. The internet has a long memory, and so do bored and bitter people who lurk, waiting for a fight, in comment sections. Other authors have long memories too. I know authors who refuse to work with certain contemporaries because of careless or horrendous things they’ve said online.

I’m actually one of these authors.

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I suppose the final clincher for the idea I’ve had tumbling around in my brain for months came yesterday, when Dana Hansen, Founding Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Hamilton Review of Books, announced they were closing down. I wish I could say it surprised me, but it didn’t. As a book publicist, I work with editors at literary journals, and I work with reviewers who write for literary journals, and I have been an editor at several literary journals. I know how much work—often unpaid—that goes into these initiatives. I know how tiring it is and I know that it is usually thankless.

I felt particularly moved by Dana’s observation here:

When arts funding is scarce, as we know it is, and people are forced to volunteer their time and assume the financial burden of publishing a journal like ours, it’s simply unsustainable in the long term. Online publications are not produced for free, and they are time-consuming if done well. We call such endeavours labours of love or passion projects, and as lovely and romantic an idea as that is, the reality for those doing the actual work is quite different. To quote Hollay, “what are you willing to do to help create the literary landscape that you hope to thrive in?” Yes, what can we do?

You may have noticed that Dana quoted me there. Yeah hi, I’m that Hollay. Dana is referencing a social post I made in October where I encouraged people to support more literary magazines. You know: use it or lose it. My own post was in response to a post by Vancouver author Peter Darbyshire who made an Instagram reel about the closing of On Spec Magazine.

Most of the community of writers and readers who encountered that post were overwhelmingly and even enthusiastically supportive. There were a few who disagreed: not with the sentiment so much, but with many people’s ability to contribute to our literary landscape given how precarious financial stability is for so many of us and how short we are on time.

And this is a fair point. It’s also one I feel I addressed in my original post when I gave examples of many ways we can support literary journals and the arts in general for free, in mere seconds.

But the amount of energy I put into carefully creating that post got me thinking about how much time and effort and how much of my hardwon personal and professional insight I have funnelled into creating these posts for free over the last few years. And don’t get me wrong, I have no problem doing things for free.

I am a board member of the League of Canadian Poets (unpaid), the co-chair of the League's BIPOC committee (unpaid), and a podcast host on The New Books Network (unpaid). I’m also a host of HOWL—the literary arts show—on 89.5 CIUT FM (unpaid), and I write many book reviews for which I am not paid. But hey, I love books. I’m happy to do as much as I can afford emotionally and financially.

But my post and the small but vocal resistance to the ideas I was attempting to present (and this was not even close to the first time I encountered this resistance) made me rethink how I am distributing these ideas.

I want to be a value to people, I also don’t want to devalue myself. I agonized over some of the responses to my post. While 99% of the replies were wonderful and the people understood exactly what I was trying to say, I was troubled by some of the others. And I’m one of those people who already lets a lot of things trouble me. I won’t dwell on the nature of those troubles here, though. Not today.

I speak on industry panels about the state of book publicity in Canada, and I’m paid to do it. People and publishers hire me because, presumably, I’m good at my job. My book publicity firm, River Street, was created to help uplift Canadian books and authors with a focus on small press titles. We are incredibly affordable on an industry standard, and judging by our long relationships with publishers and authors, I think we do a pretty good job working within a desperately broken system.

We work in the arts, though. We don’t have rich benefactors. We are certainly not Scrooge McDucking it into a vault of gold coins.

Forget about my children: I have dogs, cats, and goats to support, dammit.

Considering that I have limited resources, why am I giving away my insights to people who aren’t receptive to it?

I realize that’s ungenerous of me. I should try to help people whether they are receptive to it or not. And if they don’t want my help or they don’t agree with what I have to say, that’s fine.

Of course, that’s fine. We don’t have to agree with each other. As all four of my children will readily attest, I’m not always right either.

But I don’t have to give everything away.

So here we are.

Cue 3%: A CanLit Publicist’s Diary. Moving forward on this platform, I will be sharing a combination of free but mostly paid content that shares my thoughts and insights from working within this industry as both a career author and a book publicist. To start, I will only post about once a month. Let’s keep it realistic, right? We’ll see where we go from there. I plan to invite other industry experts to contribute to this project, and yes, I will be paying them.

In my usual slip-stream fashion, my posts — whether written or video — will be informal, personal, and authentic to who I am and how I see the world. I’d love to encourage curious authors, fellow industry professionals, readers, and really, anyone who wants to discuss how we can more consciously engage with and build a better literary landscape to join me.

And what does 3% mean?

Some of you may already know. For those who don’t, you’ll have to wait until my first official post next month to find out.

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