2020 and 2021 have been a very strange time in publishing -- a time when the way that publishing a book works has changed rapidly and in unexpected ways. At the start of 2020, the expectation was the year would proceed as usual -- and then only months later, as covid spread, authors and publishers scrambled to adjust plans as everything that would'…

So your book has been published! It is now in out in the world for everyone to read.And now . . . what happens? Do people mostly come to find your book organically? How do you make sure people are still reading your book in a year . . . and what can you do to make sure that they're still reading your book in five years?We talk to Julia Pohl-Miranda…

Your publisher has called you to tell you that your book has a publication date! It's coming out! In the future!What . . . do you do in the meantime? You want everyone you know -- and also everyone you don't know -- to be the most excited and to buy your book when it appears in stores. How do you work with your publisher to make that happen? What d…

Publishers! If you've got one, they're involved in all the parts of making a book -- from negotiating a book deal to contracts, editing, design, marketing, publicity, sales, and all the bits where you work to get the book out to readers.How do you make sure that your relationship with your publisher goes well -- and that they're on the same page ab…

Headlines! Radio segments! Feature pieces! Your comic might be in one of those spaces one day. But . . . how?Today we're talking to Petra Mayer, the editor at NPR Books, about consumer-facing media outlets. What do they do? How do you work with them? And how much are national media outlets interested in comics and graphic novels?For more about Petr…

Conferences, conventions, and festivals! As a comics creator, should you go to them? What should you do there? What's the best way for you to work with all the very different public event spaces there are to promote and support your comics and your career?Today, we talk to the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Toronto Comics Art Festival, Chr…

Social media! Authors are there, talking about themselves and their books, all the time. What goes into thinking about how to do that in a successful way and manageable way?That's what we explore in this episode of Graphic Novel TK. We're delighted to be discussing the ins and outs of having an online presence with Ngozi Ukazu, the author of webcom…

We interrupt our regular arc of Graphic Novel TK posting to bring you a new feature: Graphic Novel TK Backmatter. Where Graphic Novel TK follows a book through its publication life from book deal to post-publication, Graphic Novel TK Backmatter focuses on specific topics in comics publishing. We'll be sporadically bringing you featured episodes on …

On the last few episodes of Graphic Novel TK, we've been talking to booksellers, comic book sellers, teachers, and librarians about how they work with graphic novels in their spaces.But how do those industry professionals hear about graphic novels? How do they know what to buy, what to get excited about, or even what's coming soon?One of the first …

Comics can help young kids learn! But what about after those kids go to college? How are comics used in an academic space?Today we're delighted to talk to Professor Margaret Galvan, from the University of Florida, to explore college courses, academic research, and how comics and graphic novels enter into and interact with students and teachers in t…

More and move all over America, comics are being used in schools -- in classes, in school libraries, in book reports and reading requirements. How are teachers working to bring comics into their classrooms?We talk to educator and graphic novelist Cathy G. Johnson about her work teaching comics to elementary, middle, and secondary school kids and te…

Libraries! They're in every town in the United States -- and many of them have comics and graphic novels in them.How did that state of affairs come to pass? And how do librarians support graphic novels, both with buying them and adding them to their collections, and with promoting them to their patrons?In this episode, we talk with Robin Brenner, T…

Distribution!What stores is your graphic novel in, and where is it displayed? Is it reaching the school and library market? Is it featured in museum stores and gift shops?Those questions are in part answered by what kind of graphic novel you've created, and what kind of critical acclaim it's receiving. But there's another major factor that goes int…

One of the jobs most shrouded in mystery at a publisher (at least for an author) is that of a sales rep. Who are they? What do they do? Despite the fact that editors, marketing, and publicity people spend a lot of time talking to sales reps, often those reps don't interact at all with authors directly.Sales reps are responsible for being the interm…

We've talked about bookstores and comics stores before on Graphic Novel TK -- in fact, in our two episodes immediately prior to this! But how are bookstores and comics stores different? Are all their differences encompassed by the fact that one has books and comics and the other just comics? Or are there things that are different about the way they…

Bookstores! They're so full of . . . books. But what about comics? What's their place there?How can people who make comics work to try to find their work a home in a physical space that mostly reaches book readers? What is the audience like?Today we talk to Greenlight Bookstore co-owner Jessica Stockton Bagnulo about how she thinks about comics in …

You're going to be an author!But how do you get your books to actually sell? After you've told your friends and family that your book exists, you still have to convince the rest of the people in the world that they should buy it. And your best allies on that front can be bookstores and comics stores, who spend all day every day talking to people ab…

Media! Reviews!It's amazing when you make a book, and then people start talking about it -- online, in print, on the radio, and sometimes even on television.It can seem like that happens spontaneously -- a book gathering praise like a snowball rolling down a hill and accumulating snow -- and that can sometimes be the case. But there's also someone …

Marketing is making sure that the people who would be excited for a particular book know about it, and about how great it is. How does a publisher makes sure that happens? Generally they employ someone whose job is to figure it out.Today we talk to Tucker Stone all about marketing. Until recently, Tucker ran the marketing, publicity, and sales at N…

Your editor will edit your book!But what else does an editor at a publishing house do? They're the first person at a publishing house to get excited about a book and how amazing it is. How do they work with all the rest of the people at the publishing house -- their boss, the other editorial and design staff, and the marketing, publicity, and sales…

Paper + ink = book!But how does that paper combine with the ink to make a book? What dread machine combines the two -- and how does it get them to look like a comic in all the right colors in the correct trim size and with a cover that has spot gloss in the right place?Today we take a trip inside the printer to find out the answer to all these ques…

Sometimes when you pick up a book, you'll find a quote from an author (not the one who wrote the book) on the cover saying how great they thought the book was. That's a book blurb!And in this episode of Graphic Novel TK, book blurbs are the focus: we talk about how to get them, who to get them from, when to get them, and why (and if) they're import…

Making comics full time is the dream for a lot of people in the comics industry!But what does being a full-time cartoonist mean practically? What do you do every day? And can you make enough to live on?We're excited to talk to Jen Wang, the creator of the graphic novels Koko Be Good, In Real Life, and The Prince and the Dressmaker, about exactly th…

Can you judge a book by its cover?That's what cover designers aim for -- creating a cover so amazing that the people who would want to read the book are drawn to pick it up. And covers are probably the most-seen parts of books -- the book's visual identity.Today, we talk to Colleen AF Venable, Art Director at Odd Dot, about why cover design is impo…

How do books get made?You might think that's a comprehensive statement about the theme of our podcast -- but for this episode, we're focusing specifically on how physical books actually get made: the process of working with a printer to produce physical book objects. Turns out: it's fascinating! And also complicated.Today we talk to First Second's …