April 2022 Planning to Celebrate

Guess what day it is today.

Did you guess National Jellybean Day?

Yep, I thought you might have figured that out. But it may be less obvious why we are talking about this (though I could take a poll and see how many other households, like mine, do still have some leftover jellybeans available for sharing. But I digress.)

We all have noticed that there seems to be a national day for everything imaginable (and some unimaginable) thing someone wants us to commemorate or appreciate. This shows up reasonably often for fun or fundraising on social media.

Some of these days might provide interesting additions to your planning for the marketing of your book or business. You could be way ahead of me here but I’m going to share what I have been learning.

The big aha for me was how easy it was to find websites to help you find the celebration days. I found several, and the one that seems most helpful to me today is called nationaltoday.com. It says it lists more than 3,000 days. A couple of others include nationaldaycalendar.com and calendarr.com. The sites not only help you find the days, but some also offer ways for you to register new days.

This all just started for me when I caught a note on a social media platform that tomorrow, April 23, is World Book Day.

Oh that’s great, I thought, if you are an author, what a great day for finding a way to promote your books….but then reality hit. Because the time to think about World Book Day isn’t today or tomorrow, it was a while ago when there was enough time to plan something intentional and helpful.

But of course World Book Day isn’t the only day useful for promoting books. There’s National Book Lover’s Day (August 9), Read a Book Day (September 6), International Literacy Day (September 8), Author’s Day (November 1) and International Book Giving Day (February 14).

As well as National Thesaurus Day (January 18), Proofreading Day (March 8), Dictionary Day (October 16) and my personal favorite in this theme: Punctuation Day (September 24).

Or, maybe you want to find a day that ties more closely to your book title or topic. For example, science fiction writer Randy Dockens may want to note National Science Fiction Day, and JoAnn Vicknair writes as a grandmother, so she needs to note National Grandparents Day.

But my favorite so far is a note for Heather Carter, whose books are in a series called Soul Selfies. Knowing Heather, she already knows about National Selfie Day.

Of course the main take away here, even if you already know about all of these celebration day sites, is that marketing your book or business needs some planning and at least a few times during the year when you lighten up on your topics, plan ahead and invite people to notice you and engage with you in fun and winsome ways.

Take a look. You’ll find something to work with, whether it’s Get Over It Day, National Strawberry Ice Cream Day, Nothing Day, or Black Cat Appreciation Day. And for those of you now reacting because you do not appreciate black cats (mine is called Paxton, by the way) there’s always Say Something Nice Day.