Having given approval to the formatted manuscript and the covers (back and front), I've now effectively switched effort-gears from "getting book published" to "getting people to read the book", even though it hasn't rolled off the Sunstone Books presses yet.
At this phase, where the book's availability is predicted but still slightly off in the future (January 2020, for benefit of the curious), the focus is on women's and gender studies programs at colleges, and LGBT community centers. I can be booked to speak at such venues even before it's possible to show up with a stack of the books on the table in front of me.
I actually did some of that in 2016-2017 when I had previously thought my book was on the verge of coming out. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Learned a lot, too. When I next have an opportunity to present, the presentation is going to be more closely focused on my specific type of gender identity and what it brings to the table. People like the "Gender 101" introductory material but I think I can encapsulate it in a much smaller portion of my talk.
Later, once the book can be purchased, I will add libraries and bookstores to the list of targets.
To be sure, a library or a bookstore, theoretically speaking, could also have a presenter or speaker before their book is available for purchase. But in the case of bookstores in particular, my research thus far indicates that they aren't much for "events", or at least not the kind of event that revolves around a gender-variant person discussing gender identity. Some of the new age and mystical / spiritual book stores do host events but they're most often focused on chakras and healing and the sale of gems and oils and other non-book substances that they market along with books on the subject. University bookstores generally don't do events at all, of any sort, and the remaining balance of independent bookstores mostly want the author's book to be available for purchase first.
Meanwhile, my publicist, John Sherman of Sherman & Company, is going to have an additional focus: getting my book reviewed. That, surprisingly enough (for me at least), is something that needs focused attention before the book's release date. Some important reviewers won't review a book once it comes out.
My day-job skills as a FileMaker database developer are again serving me well, just as they did for the querying process. For this publicity effort, I have 11614 records in my database (with many of them containing multiple contact persons to fire emails or snailmails or phone calls off to). Of those, 864 are college campus women's and/or gender studies programs; 412 are LGBT community centers, a mixture of on-campus and independent. Then I have 1552 academic libraries and a whopping 7263 public libraries, any and all of whom could theoretically acquire a copy of my book for their shelves. I have no experience pitching this possibility to libraries, but with any luck I will learn as I gain experience. Then I have 32 LGBT-focused bookstores (a declining phenomenon, unfortunately, although part of the decline may be that the subject matter is more mainstream and more often carried by mainstream bookstores), and 1351 other (generic) independent bookstores. The independent bookstores and libraries are dual-opportunity: they could book me to speak, and purchase copies of my book to stock and sell as well. Finally, I have 139 reviewers, bloggers, booktubers, and individual people who asked me to alert them when the book becomes available.
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