Summer term has been an exciting one for the Library Writer’s Project title, Court of Venom. The marketing plan is complete, the team has been working on the tipsheet, and we’ve been preparing for our pre-sales call. Our Copy Chief and the LWP Project Manager have also been busy sorting through submissions in search of our next LWP title, which will be published in 2023.

With summer term in full swing, we also welcomed new project managers, and I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself! My name is Wren Haines (she/they), and I am an avid science-fiction and fantasy reader. Outside of work and school, I spend my time reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons (and other TableTop role-playing games), and knitting on my back porch. I joined the publishing program here at Ooligan because I love books and book culture, and my dream is to work for a publisher such as Tor or Orbit or even a comics publisher like Dark Horse. As a non-binary person, I want to make my mark in the industry in terms of inclusivity, adding my unique perspective to the marketing and acquisitions teams to ensure the continued progress of inclusivity and diversity within the publishing industry.

Court of Venom is Ooligan’s first fantasy title, and the team, which is full of avid fantasy readers, has some incredibly creative marketing strategies in mind. We have been dutifully working on our sales kit, which has given us the opportunity to add some really amazing collateral to the project. While several things are being considered in terms of giveaways and collateral, nothing has been confirmed yet because the team is still working with the publisher on a budget and with the Marketing Manager on ideas. One idea that we are especially excited about is subscription boxes. Because Court of Venom is a fantasy title, we want to cater to our target audience as much as possible. There are a large number of fantasy-themed subscription book boxes, multi-genre book boxes, and non-specific fantasy-themed boxes that we are contacting in the hopes of getting Court of Venom featured in a book box during its launch month (April 2022). If this is successful, it could mean a great deal for our first print run and also be valuable as a marketing tool.

Now that our marketing plan is complete, our next projects include completing the tipsheet and finishing our sales kit so that we are prepared for the pre-sales call. The sales kit allows us to play around with some collateral ideas, and with this being our first fantasy title, we have some excellent ideas in store. Right now, nothing has been approved to move forward, so while those ideas are still in the works, the Fall update should be chock-full of exciting news! In the meantime, I will be working with our Copy Chief to find the next LWP title to be published in 2023 from the archive of excellent self-published e-books through the Multnomah County libraries.