When
I told my husband I wanted to put a butterfly garden in our backyard last
summer, he looked at me with his typical patient expression and
said, “Sure, why not?”
Please
realize that, at the time, neither of us knew jack about butterflies or what to
plant in this type of garden. But when we finally removed a large strip of
over-grown mock orange shrubs from our yard last year, we knew it was time to do
our part for the planet and provide a safe space where threatened insects like
monarch butterflies and bees could roam free of pesticides and predators.
We
tilled the soil, read up on nectaring and host plants that butterflies like, listened
to the experts at a local butterfly farm, planted, and then waited and watched
as our first group of caterpillars emerged.
We
learned a few things during that first summer: that monarch caterpillars will
eat our milkweed plants to the ground, that most caterpillars don’t make it to
the chrysalis stage, that even those that do make it are sometimes attached by
predators like tachinid flies, wasps, and lizards, and that when a single caterpillar
makes it to the chrysalis stage, it’s something of a miracle.
Our
first summer, we had a few butterflies visit our garden. None of our
caterpillars survived.
But
we didn’t give up. Instead we lovingly tended our garden through the winter,
nurturing the existing plants, replacing those that were too damaged or thinned
out, getting additional advice from the experts at the butterfly farm, and adding
new plants to make the garden more inviting to butterflies.
This
summer, in our second year of butterfly gardening, we’ve had multiple
butterflies visit the garden daily. Caterpillars have appeared on a regular
basis, eating their way through our milkweed and fennel plants, and a few of
them have already successfully transformed into beautiful butterflies.
If
I’ve learned anything while putting this garden together, it’s that it doesn’t
take a lot of initial knowledge to try something new. And with a little
research, effort, patience, guidance, and love, we can be successful in our
endeavors.
I
like to remind my publicity clients, especially those who lament that they know nothing
about promotion, that these same gardening values – research, effort, patience,
guidance, and, yes, love – can help them
to be successful in their book marketing efforts. Initially, the first attempt
at promoting may include a learning curve, where the response may not be great,
readers may not come in droves, reviews may be thin or grudging, and sales may
be slow to non-existent.
But
the next time you promote a book, you’ve learned some things about yourself,
your writing, and what works and what doesn’t when you promote. You make
adjustments, adding new material, asking experts (like publicists!) for advice,
considering new avenues for marketing, and learning more about the process.
And
then, the next time you do it, everything changes – that first group of readers
and reviewers remembers you and buys your new book, reviews start to come in a
little quicker, speaking appearances are easier to book, bloggers offer you
spots on their pages, opportunities for marketing begin to broaden, and promotion
and publicity gets easier. If you are dedicated and take what you’ve learned to
heart, the results can be astonishing.
Like
creating a butterfly garden, promoting a book is a labor of love. The first
time around may be disappointing. But when authors are willing to put in the
hard work and be open to learning, to making adjustments, and to loving the
process, the groundwork set during the first effort pays off. With research, energy, patience, good
guidance and a whole lot of love, your book publicity efforts will thrive. 
