Song and Music Video Promote Unpublished Manuscript

by Laura Backes (Write 4 Kids)

How does an author stand out from the crowd while he’s shopping his new adult/young adult horror manuscript to agents? Write a song about the book’s protagonist, perform it with a famous hard rock band, get the show posted on YouTube, then make a music video. Ken Derby, author of The Top Ten Ways to Ruin the First Day of Fifth Grade (Holiday House), is an American fifth grade teacher living and working in Budapest. He performed Natasha (named after the title character of his manuscript) with the popular band Superbutt at a Hungarian music festival in July. The site also contains a book trailer, the manuscript’s first two chapters, and a video of Ken being interviewed by MTV about his song and manuscript. With publishers putting more emphasis on authors’ social media platforms and how they’ll be able to publicize their books, thinking out of the box like this can only help in getting agents’ attention. And every time an author gets innovative, the bar is raised. So what’s your big idea?

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Efott Music Festival MTV Interview

Ken Derby is interviewed by MTV VJ, Greg Toth at the Efott Music Festival held in Szolnok, Hungary
The introduction is in Hungarian, but the interview is in English.