Merging Message and Medium By Nina Sadowsky
By Nina Sadowsky
When I sold my first book in 2015, I was cautioned against sharing my political or social opinions on social media. I was warned that being vocal about certain issues might alienate some readers. My response was a shrug. It was too late. I’d joined social media prior to my becoming a published author and my opinions were already plainly out there.
Besides, my work inherently tackles controversial issues as they are baked into my plots and characters. While my novels are internationally-set thrillers loaded with glamour and excitement, they delve into such arenas as gun reform, mental illness, drug addiction, the darkweb, whistleblower protection, human trafficking and domestic abuse. It’s always my hope that my books provide a thrill ride during the read, but also incite reflection about the topics they address in their aftermath.
My Burial Society series launched in 2018, and focuses on a woman with a weighty past who now runs a private witness protection program helping the most vulnerable members of society escape their dangerous lives and find safe new ones. Contemplating the release of the second book in the series, THE EMPTY BED (Ballantine; pub date January 28, 2020), I was wondering how I could both support the novel and take my messaging further when a friend suggested I do a pre-order promotion to benefit an organization about which I felt passionate.
The choice to partner with the Violence Intervention Program and it’s LGBTQT+ clinic The Alexis Project was easy.
VIP is an organization that helps the most vulnerable in our society; those who have been abused, assaulted, and mistreated find aid in the hands of Dr. Astrid Heger and her team. I was moved to support VIP because of their incredible work and also because of my many connections to VIP and its components: Alexis Arquette, for whom The Alexis Project was established, was the star of the first movie I produced. Rosanna Arquette, who has committed to action and change in her trans sister’s memory, was in the second.
My extraordinary friend Robin Sax is the project manager for The Alexis Project and has been an integral part of creating its mental health services. And I can only aspire to reach the excellence and impact of Dr. Astrid Heger, heroine of the organization and the savior of many.
VIP and The Alexis Project are the real-life realization of my own protagonist’s goals in The Burial Society series. While Catherine’s high-action adventures take us from Mexico to Paris to Hong Kong in the pursuit of saving the vulnerable, VIP does the work here, in our own neighborhood and for our own community, with tangible results that can give us all hope, providing everything from a fetal alcohol clinic, to medical care for thousands of foster children each year, to elder abuse prevention services.
I contacted VIP and my publisher and everyone was on board, which was exciting. Then came the challenge of figuring out what should this promotion look like—how could we bring the most attention to this partnership and therefore to the valuable work of Dr. Heger and the VIP team?
We decided on a pre-order promotion launching November 1, 2019 and ending on January 28th, 2020 (publication date). Three months seemed like a good amount of time to get the word out. And we were conscious that our promotion would be running through the distraction of the holidays, so continuing through January in order to give the promotion a last post-holiday push seemed ideal.
VIP agreed to promote the partnership to its constituency through its newsletters, emails and events, and actor and activist Rosanna Arquette leapt in to support by providing this statement:
“For many years, I followed the work of Dr. Astrid Heger: her incredible work as a child abuse doctor and how she helped so many women who had been abused, raped, and assaulted. At an event with my brother David, I heard Dr. Heger speak about the need for a separate clinic for the LGBTQ community; 50% of the kids she was seeing who were abused and raped were trans. Alexis Arquette, my beautiful trans sister, had died just a couple of months before, and I had just started a foundation on behalf of my family, the Alexis Arquette Family Foundation. We spoke to Dr. Heger, and she grabbed my hand and said to me, “We’re going to do this together. We’re calling it The Alexis Project.” We’ve been onboard ever since.
With powerful and empathetic characters driving the story, The Empty Bed gifts readers a rare delight: a page-turning blend of cinematic thrills and social justice. This novel is a must for anyone who dreams of righting the wrongs of the world, as Sadowsky’s covert band of operatives go undercover as the mysterious organization known as The Burial Society. Catherine and her team accomplish exactly what we set out to do with The Alexis Project: protect the ones who need it most.”
Next, I put together a bundle of digital “rewards” for promotion participants. Each person who emails a proof of purchase to EmptyBedVIP@gmail.com will not only trigger my personal donation to the organization, but also receive a downloadable bundle that includes a “How to Throw A Killer Book Party” guide featuring invitations, recipes, cocktails, and discussion questions.
Ballantine stepped in by providing promotional support and by arranging an attendant sweepstakes giveaway of a bundle full of new thrillers and mysteries.
We created a “one sheet” with all this information and launched on February 1st, 2019 as planned, sending the information to the folks on my newsletter mailing and list and promoting the partnership on social media.
Looking to further innovate, I decided to create a three-part “podcast” to support the promotion that will drop in January. The first segment will feature the extensive research I did with the FBI to craft The Empty Bed character Special Agent Maggie Guzman, the second will contain interviews with Rosanna Arquette and Dr. Heger, and the third will be a sneak peak of two chapters from the book read by actor friends of mine.
I hope I sell books through this promotion and I won’t pretend otherwise; every author wants to do all they can to make sure their words are heard. But I’m even more excited about the idea that this partnership will make people think about how they can contribute to making our society a better place, and even more importantly, take action to do so.
I’ll be doing a reading and signing of The Empty Bed at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove in L.A. on pub date, and I am excited and hopeful that I will be able to announce massive participation at that time!
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Nina Sadowsky is an author, filmmaker and educator. She has written numerous screenplays and produced such films as “The Wedding Planner.” Her debut thriller, JUST FALL, was published in 2016 and her BURIAL SOCIETY series launched in 2018 with the second book in the series, THE EMPTY BED, to be published on January 28, 2020. The Burial Society series is in development for television. She is also the author of CONVINCE ME to be published July 2020. She currently serves as Program Director of NYU Los Angeles, a “semester away” program for advanced students considering careers in the entertainment and media industries.
Sadowsky also serves as the Director of Educational Outreach for the Humanitas Prize, is on the Leadership Council of Creative Future, and is a founding member of the Woolfpack, an organization of women showrunners, writers and producers committed to community and mentorship.
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Catherine excels at helping desperate people disappear. But now she must use her unique skill set to find a missing woman in this electrifying novel from the author of The Burial Society.
Eva Lombard is being followed. Or so she suspects. . . .
Eva and her husband, Peter, are in Hong Kong on a romantic getaway from London when Peter wakes up in their hotel room to an empty bed, his wife gone without a trace. His worst fears are confirmed: Eva wasn’t imagining things. Suddenly, he finds himself the number one suspect in his wife’s disappearance, trapped in a foreign country with no one to turn to. He calls his boss, Forrest “Holly” Holcomb, who enlists the help of Catherine, his ex-flame and the enigmatic operator behind the darknet witness-protection program known as the Burial Society.
As a favor to Holly, Catherine sends her team of highly trained Society members on a dangerous chase through Hong Kong to find Eva—while Catherine takes care of pressing business at home. Not only is she tasked with a mission in Mexico City, protecting a family that knows too much from a vengeful pharmaceutical company, but an FBI agent tracking down the missing wife and child of a charismatic businessman is about to come dangerously close to exposing the Society’s secrets.
In these intertwining story lines that converge in unexpected ways, not everyone is who they appear to be—and not everyone who is lost wants to be found.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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