Since retiring from teaching in 2014, Carmen Baca has built a phenomenal new career as a writer of Northern New Mexico regional fiction and nonfiction. Her storytelling style combines English and the regional Spanish dialect. Her debut novel, El Hermano, was published in April 2017 and was a finalist in the NM-AZ book awards program in 2018. Her third book, Cuentos del Cañón, received first place for short story fiction anthology in 2020 from the same program. To date, she has published six books and over 60 short works in literary journals, e-zines, and anthologies.
What’s more, she’s become a wizard at promotion on various media platforms—something all of us authors could learn from.
Welcome back, Carmen Baca! I first interviewed Carmen here on April 29, 2020. I couldn’t resist another chat because there’s so much more to report! Carmen recently published a YA novel, Bella - Collector of Cuentos.
Ramona: Is Bella your first YA novel? It looks like it’s very successful! Do you have more YA novels planned?
Carmen: Bella - Collector of Cuentos is my first YA novel. Like with three of my other books, when I wrote the last chapter, the idea for a sequel and/or companion books arose. After it published, I wrote a short story about Bella after the book ends; it published from Latinelit in January and might be the first chapter of a sequel. I still have two books of a three-book series to write, as well as several other books already in differing stages of completion.
When I wrote Bella, I wondered how my loyal readers would feel about a book intended for a younger audience. So far, readers’ responses have been positive, though, so I’m relieved. It’s the regionalistic elements which appeal to my older readers, who grew up with the same cultural elements I did and which they identify with when they read my cuentos. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the book’s success so far.
Ramona: How did the wildfires last spring affect Cañoncito de las Manuelitas and your home? Can people begin rebuilding?
Note: Here’s a link to Carmen’s excellent essay “Los Norteños,” a personal account of how the fires affected Norteños. https://www.latinoliteratures.org/archives/1310
Carmen: The Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak fire affected our Cañoncito to a lesser degree than it did other locations which were completely destroyed. Our valley survived for the most part intact, but the mountains on either side, especially to the north, are completely burned. What the fire left, the burn scar floods demolished. I counted 13 last June through September before losing count; we’ve been told to expect worse flooding this year and more flooding for the next four to five years.
Personally, I haven’t seen many people rebuilding a whole lot yet. But I haven’t traveled the perimeters of the burn scar either. Going to Las Vegas and passing burn scars for the entire 20-mile drive makes me cry every time I leave my house. However, I have seen mobile homes take the place of ancestral adobe homes which burned. I’ve seen a few barns built, bridges and roads on private properties here and there, but the going is slow. FEMA has been here from the start, but it’s limited in what it can do. Our legislators and governor fought hard for los Norteños, but many of the people I’ve spoken to are either still tangled in red tape or didn’t qualify for federal assistance. The main reason for not qualifying—even though their forests are decimated, their well water contaminated, and their fields where they used to plant crops fell victim to flood waters—is that the property isn’t their primary residence. In any case, any rebuilding will take years, just as the forest will take 120 years to recover.
Ramona: In 2019 you wrote an article on Chuck Bartok’s website about “online marketing through trial and error.” Is there anything you wrote then about your methods that you would do differently now?
Carmen: I don’t think I’d change my marketing strategies, but I would change how I went about publishing because I know more now than I did then. I queried small houses for my first book because I write through regionalism. I succeeded in attracting publishers for it, but if I could start my publishing journey over, I’d have published as many short works as possible to have a CV of previous publications behind me. I might’ve aspired to attract an agent or a bigger publisher.
I have continued to use the same strategies because they’re successful for me. Advance promotion by targeting my readers through demographics on the platforms where I attract them still works—even more so with each new publication. Publishing reader magnets of multiple genres in e-zines, journals, and anthologies is proving to be an excellent method of gaining new readers and interesting potential publishers, too. Since it gives me more motivation to write more stories for publication and because it also increases my SEO, it’s my preferred method.
Ramona: For the March 2022 article on Elaine Marie Carnegie’s website, you listed Advance Promotion, Reader Magnets, and Lasting Connections as your key strategies. Can you expand on that?
Carmen: Because I’m retired, I have the time to devote to marketing. I find it fun because I get to play with photo apps, graphic arts, and animation. I promote each of my projects the moment I start writing them, whether it’s books or short projects. Since books take longer to write and publish, this means I promote them for a year or more. Not every writer has the time to do this. But I nevertheless advise authors with new releases, especially the debut novel, to promote the works in advance. It’s up to each of us to make sure we have readers anticipating our new releases.
I didn’t even know what a reader magnet was until I began writing and publishing short works and discovered how great they are for attracting new readers. Since my last interview with you, I’m proud to say I’ve published 71 of them in 21 genres so far. My favorites are short stories, essays, and (creative nonfiction), but I’ve recently added poetry to my publications.
This year, with the publication of my sixth book, I’ve also added to the connections element of my marketing strategies. This book, through reader word-of-mouth recommendations, has connected me with radio talk show hosts, podcasters, book clubs, librarians, and many more influencers who promote my works for me. That’s one of the best marketing strategies which attracts readers—when others appreciate what we write and promote our works on our behalf to their many followers.
Because Facebook is where I connect with my readers and attempt to attract new readers, I use the targeting features for my posts. The posts go to people who like my types of stories and they also go to a good number of Spanish-speaking countries.
As for attracting new readers, I’m doing that more with my reader magnets because I publish so many short works in 21 different genres from horror to nonfiction. The short works increase my SEO also. Anyone who googles me can find my works on over 80 websites so far, from e-zines to blogs.
Another platform which has come alive for me is Twitter. I began focusing on Twitter in 2020 to see if I could grow a following and attract more readers there. I started with 318 followers that year; now I have over 13.7K. I’m attracting readers by writing the daily #vss365 challenges. This means I post very short stories (most often with animated graphics) every day. I’ve lost count of the sales I’ve made through those practices. In fact, I attracted four publishers so far who asked me to write short works for their publications—all because they appreciated my #vss entries.
Ramona: Are your marketing techniques especially suited to your regional literature?
Carmen: I create visual posts with graphic arts which depict scenes from all my works for my social media platforms to attract readers. Since Facebook is my primary platform due to reader engagement, I target specific demographics who will be attracted to my regionalistic works. However, since I publish in a variety of genres, I vary my techniques when I want to attract readers to the other genres I write, like horror, speculative fiction, nonfiction, among others.
Ramona: Do you think your writing in this genre is filling a gap in Latino literature in the US?
Carmen: I like to think my storytelling through regionalism is entertaining, but I also intend it to be informative and educational for readers who don’t know about my people, los Norteños. We are Chicanos; we have little or nothing in common with Latino peoples. We are an insular people with roots in Northern New Mexico which date back centuries. Even our dialect is different and archaic; many of our words aren’t found in conventional Spanish dictionaries. But if any of us wants to publish literary works of any kind, our best choice is publishing with Latino/a/x publishers to get our voices heard. So if I’m filling any gap with my writing, it’s a very small one. Hardly anyone knows we exist.