Insights from the 2025 Lit Youngstown Fall Festival
This past weekend was the last multi-day conference on my agenda for 2025, the Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival. It was my first time attending this conference, as well as my first visit to Youngstown, and I was thoroughly impressed and delighted by both the event and the city. Similar to other events that I went to this year like the In Your Write Mind Conference, it featured a huge variety of panels that covered topics ranging from craft advice to marketing strategies for authors to how to get published. I presented a panel on tips for submitters, which is a topic I'm always happy to geek out about. What was extra cool was that I got to share the panel space with the team from Chestnut Review, another publication that I very much enjoy and respect, and it was very cool to hear how they approach the editorial process.
While I spent much of my conference time in the book fair representing Scribble House and After Happy Hour (and having some excellent conversations with the folks walking through, including a chance to geek out about Appalachian folklore and the ruins around Mérida), I was able to sneak away to hear a few other folks talk. My brain is mostly focused on the book publicity and marketing process at the moment, so that's what I focused on. I figured I'd pass along some of the things I learned in case it's also helpful insight for other folks out there!
1. Focus on the human connection when you're marketing yourself as an indie author.
In the one panel I attended, there were two bookstore owners, an author who runs a podcast, and a magazine editor, all of them offering advice on how to make connections with book sellers or other sources of publicity as an independent author. One message resonated across all of their talks: they're much more likely to say “yes” to someone they already have a relationship with. This applies to getting your books on bookstore shelves, securing an author interview or book review, or finding places to hosting events like launches, signings, or readings.
This isn't just nepotism or favoritism. It's a practical move. From an editor's standpoint, for instance, they're more likely to assign stories to writers they know will deliver the article on deadline and up to their quality standards, because that makes their job easier and helps them put together a high-quality publication. Same deal for bookstore owners. Their goal is to sell books. They might also be passionate about supporting local authors—but their first priority is their store and its customers. If they already know a writer, and know that person will either bring in local readers or will actively work to promote their book and the store, then they'll feel better about giving that person shelf space.
So what's the “actionable advice” part of this suggestion? Be an active part of your literary community even when you're not currently publicizing a book. Buy your books through local bookstores and attend their events. Listen to the podcasts you might want to become a guest on. Read local publications that might be places that could promote your events or review your book, and maybe contribute a few things for them like local even write-ups or reviews of books from other local authors. Just in general, the more you engage with and support your local ecosystem of publishers, readers, and writers, the more likely there will be people eager to help you out when you want to get your stuff in front of more readers.
2. Start small when you're pitching to someone for the first time.
This is another piece of advice that can apply broadly. It was first given in the context of sending pitches or book reviews to publications like newspapers and local magazines. When you're reaching out to an editor for the first time, they only have your pitch letter and your clips to go on. Those can show your writing ability, but the editor still doesn't know your work process or communication style, how well you meet deadlines, or how you respond to feedback. It's less of a risk to give you a shot at a 600-800 word book review than a 2,000-word feature.
The same is true whenever you're making an initial ask. When you're approaching a bookstore, ask to try out just a few copies on consignment. If you want to join the staff of a journal or local writing organization, start with a small volunteer role like a reader. This lets both sides test the waters before making too much of a commitment.
3. The literary ecosystem is always evolving.
The final event of the conference was from Rescue Press editor Caryl Pagel, who gave a very cool talk on “Small Press Ecologies.” She highlighted poets like Gwendolyn Brooks who chose to publish with small presses specifically to build and amplify platforms for otherwise unheard voices. She also talked more generally about the role that small publishers have played in the growth of literary movements and how they're continuing to do that in the present day.
One point that Pagel made during this talk is that it's common for small publishers to fold, or for local literary organizations to dissolve—and that's not always a bad thing. As she put it, that clears out space for new voices and projects to step up and fill that gap. This is something we've definitely been seeing in Pittsburgh lately. A lot of cool projects have unfortunately died away over the years, and the literary landscape was looking especially sparse in the 2020-2021 era. But over the past year, there's been an explosion of cool new reading series, open mic series, book festivals, book clubs, and other events where writers and readers can connect, and it's been very heartening to see. Lately, I've regularly had the problem of having two or more events I'm interested going on at the same time—and, honestly, that's a very good problem to have, from the standpoint of the Pittsburgh literary community.
4. Don't sleep on your local literary scene.
One of my biggest takeaways from my brief visit to Youngstown was that it's a fucking cool city, and one I definitely want to go back to soon. From a cool things for creative folks standpoint, the city has a gorgeous library, free world-class museums, and an active calendar of readings, open mics, and other literary happenings beyond the lit festival.
I've seen the same thing when I've visited other cities for conferences lately. Places like Youngstown, Wheeling, or Johntown—or even bigger rust belt cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh—aren't necessarily thought of as creative hubs. But there's very cool stuff going on there, and I think that's true of small cities across the countries. Granted, I do think the Appalachian region is particularly rich territory for storytelling traditions, but I don't think our area is unique in having a lot of smaller creative communities that often get overlooked. The more support and attention these smaller creative communities get, the more they’ll be able to grow and thrive.
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