If you are writing, you are who this is for.
We do not draw a line between writers who have published and writers who have not. Whoever your publisher is, or whether you have one yet, there is work only you can do. PostShop is built for that.
Two plans. PostShop Relay, $29, is for a book that is out: the readers who loved it review it and ask libraries and bookstores to carry it, with no posting at all. PostShop, $99, adds being seen between books, one post a day across every platform you connect.
The people we built this for.
She is forty-seven and has had three books out over eleven years. A publicist opened an Instagram account for her during the second one; there are eleven posts on it and the last is a photograph of a conference lanyard. She knows this is a problem. She has known for years. Every time it comes up she feels the particular embarrassment of being told, usually by someone much younger, that she ought to be doing something nobody has ever shown her how to do.
He is fifty-three, works nights in a hospital pharmacy, and has ninety thousand words of a novel that nobody in his life has read. He has no readership to neglect. He has the opposite problem: nobody knows the work is happening, and if it carries on this way there will be no one standing there when it is finished.
She is eighty-one and has been writing poems since the sixties. A small press keeps four of the collections in print. She is certainly not going to start performing now — but she would quite like the few hundred people who love the poems to know that more of them are coming.
None of them needs to become better at social media. They need the part that is theirs — the noticing, the line — to reach the people who want it, without having to live inside an app to make that happen.
Published or not, we do not care. Writing or not, we do.
This is not a service for people with a book deal, or people with a platform. Almost everyone we have ever met says writing a book is on their bucket list. If yours is on the desk rather than checked off the list, you are in the room.
Where you might be, and what that looks like here.
Deep in a draftnothing to announce for a year or more
This is the stretch most writers go quiet for, and it is the stretch that decides whether anyone is there at the end. The marked page, the research rabbit hole, the morning you cut four thousand words that were not bad but belonged in a different book. One photograph and one line, most days. By the time the book is finished, the people following you have watched you make it. Best fit: PostShop
Coming up to a launchcover, proof, preorder, the day itself
These posts write themselves, because they are genuine turns: the cover arriving, the proof in your hands, the box of author copies, the empty chair before the first reading. Send them as they happen. Or set them for a day you choose, up to a fortnight out, if you already know launch week will take everything you have. Best fit: PostShop, then Relay once the book is out
The space afterthe book is out and the noise has stopped
The most expensive mistake is not a bad launch, it is going quiet the week after a good one. The last book is still finding readers, and the next one has already started. Both are worth showing. This is where a readership actually compounds, and where most of them are abandoned. Best fit: Either plan
Waiting on reviewsreaders say they loved it, and nothing appears
If you have trouble getting reviews for your book, this is for you. The readers are real; the gap is the four taps between the moment they tell you and the store’s review form. Scan your book once, and from then on a text brings up a QR code for a reader to scan. Their own phone opens your book’s reader page: Amazon’s or Goodreads’ review form, or your book at Barnes & Noble, and a way to ask libraries and bookstores near them to carry it. Not in the same room, the same page goes by text. Still reading, they set a reminder for the day they expect to finish. Best fit: PostShop Relay
Out, and not on the shelvesthe library and the bookstore down the road
Libraries add books their own cardholders ask for, and independent bookstores weigh what their own customers ask them to stock. Your readers are those cardholders and customers. Relay gives each of them a way to ask, and shows you which libraries and bookstores they asked. Text ADD and a phone number, and the family and friends you approve can put your QR code in front of readers too. Best fit: PostShop Relay
Not published yetand nobody knows the work is happening
You do not need permission and you are not waiting for a threshold that never arrives. Start leaving the record now and the room is built before the book is published. Nobody who has ever built a readership did it after the fact. Best fit: PostShop
A poet, an academic, a translatorwork that does not fit a marketing plan
Nothing here assumes a genre, a release schedule or a commercial ambition. If what you make is worth attention and you would rather not spend your afternoons chasing it, the arrangement is the same. Best fit: Either plan
Honestly, who it isn’t for.
PostShop fits if
- You would rather be writing than posting, and have been feeling guilty about it for a while.
- You have never really learned any of these platforms and would prefer not to start now.
- You want your readers to hear from you in your own sentences.
- You are willing to take one photograph on most days.
It doesn’t if
- You want somebody to invent content about your book and post it for you.
- You enjoy spending time inside the platforms, and would rather do all of it yourself, everywhere you ought to be.
PostShop Relay fits if
- Readers tell you they loved your book, but the reviews never follow and your library does not carry it.
- You would like your book on the shelves of the libraries and bookstores where your readers live.
- You meet readers in person, at signings, readings, classes or markets.
- Your book is on sale, or readers with an advance copy are ready to review it on Goodreads before publication day.
- You want no part of social media at all. Relay never posts anything.
Choose PostShop instead if
- You also want to be seen between books, one honest post a day, without opening an app.
- Your book is not out yet. There is nothing for a reader to review, but plenty worth showing.
A month, either way. PostShop includes everything in Relay. Five days free before anything is charged. No contract, no minimum term, cancel from your own account.