Goldenrod and cross-promotion

I'm going soft today.

I'm been working up to something bigger,something more outraged, as the result of yet another maddening meme I saw on Facebook this weekend, but I'm not quite ready to go there and I don't want to start my week off with aggravation. Instead, we'll go with something a little more "feel good."

Locust borer on goldenrod

As you may or may not know, I write a monthly column for a local newspaper. It (the paper) publishes once a week; my column once a month. While I enjoy the work, it often causes me stress, as I regularly find myself scrambling to beat deadline. And, much as I do with this blog, I will frequently spend several days banging my head against the wall on a column, only to change topics at the last possible minute. This month's column was one of those. After struggling for the better part of a week with...well, I don't even remember what I was trying to write about now...I switched gears at the last minute and wrote about my favorite fall wildflower, goldenrod. You can read that here. (Quick note: local papers tend not to do much editing, except for the headlines. All errors, grammar mangling, and leaps of logic are my responsibility)

In the week or so since this column was published, I've had several people tell me they loved it. Four of them were people I know (though I did not walk up to them and say, "Did you read my column, huh, huh? What'd ya think?" These were unsolicited comments.); one of them was a random lady in the bank who must have recognized me from the picture that goes with the column. Seems I am not the only person who appreciates goldenrod. And, I have to admit, it's nice to hear these kinds of comments. The ego needs boosting once in a while.

I mention this not to toot my own horn, because I hate tooting my own horn, but because it's important to know that, even in this digital age, people still do read things like newspapers. And they listen to the radio. When my organization has a big event coming up, we make a point of going to the local radio station and going on air for a few minutes. The number of people who call or register for programs as a result is impressing. In fact, two days after the goldenrod column ran, I was representing the organization at a local timbersports event and was interviewed live on air. Literally five minutes, someone looked at me and said, "Didn't I just hear you on the radio?"

Maybe it's a function of where I live--a predominantly rural, media-starved county with spotty cell/wifi and cable service that still doesn't reach all areas. The point, however, is that if you are an author (or any kind of  business person), you shouldn't be sitting around waiting around for Terry Gross or The New York Times to call you. Start local. There are people listening, and reading.

 (Photo by me. The locust borer is a harmless beetle (harmless unless you are a black locust tree, that is; then it could be a problem) commonly found feeding on goldenrod in fall)

Being Heard Over the Band

A week ago tomorrow (no, that's not awkward at all, is it?), we ran an event. Let me first say it went pretty well overall, thank you all for your comments and best wishes. Let me also add that I barely got through this week. Monday afternoon, I felt the scratchy throat coming. On Tuesday, I made it to work but probably should have stayed home. Wednesday and Thursday were better, and today is better still, though colds have a tendency to linger, and I still feel a bit like I'm under water. Anyway...

The event was pitched to me as an 'awareness raiser'. It wasn't a fundraiser, but we didn't want to lose money, either. What we wanted was, to borrow a phrase from the movie, Slap Shot, "Let them know we're here." To that end we had our name on everything that went out--the posters, the press releases, the ads in the paper, the ad on TV. When it came to setting up the event, we had more tables than anyone, and had the primary place in the exhibit tent. You couldn't swing a dead cat around this event without seeing our name somewhere.

This was NOT our polka band

Yet at the end of the day, I don't know that it worked. Oh, we had a couple hundred people come out, and most people--attendees, exhibitors and vendors--seemed to have a good time, but as an awareness raiser? As a generator of new memberships? Not so much. You see, it seems the principal draw on the day was--wait for it-- the polka band.* Yes, that's right, the polka band was the big attraction. They were a rock-n-roll polka band who have been around for years. A lot of people came specifically for them. I talked to people who said things like, "We saw them in Norwich last night," and, "These guys are great; I follow them all over." It was like talking to Deadheads back in the day, except these folks were even older than the band. These people came down, they paid their money, and they spent almost all day in the entertainment tent listening to the band (and there was some dancing, too). The good thing is they left happy; the bad thing is, they probably have no idea who we are as an organization.

And so I find myself thinking of the struggle of writers. Whether we're agented or not, self- or traditionally-published, or not yet published at all we hammer away. We write the best stories we can and we send them out, or we publish them ourselves. And we try to build a name. We blog and we tweet and we Facebook, and we do this even if we're fortunate enough to have a publisher that puts time, effort and cash into promotion and marketing, and we do even more if we don't have that sort of publisher. We even do it when we don't have anything published, because we hope it will pay off some day. All in the name of recognition and sales. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

In looking back at last weekend's event, and thinking over much energy (and money) went into pulling it off, part of me thinks the best approach is to let the organization's works speak for themselves. Rather than creating an event specifically to get our name out there, maybe we should just go on doing what we do, and send out press releases when we do something noteworthy. At this point, I'm no longer sure about the connection of this post to writing, except that the powers that be tell us we need to start building audience, name recognition, and--dare I say it?--platform before we're published. That way, when we have our book launches and cover reveals and all that stuff, people will say, "Oh, I've heard of him! Let me check that out." It's a nice idea. The problem is, until we get to that point, we're just one person of many trying to be heard over the polka band.

Have a great weekend, all!

Image of the Bavarian Sauerkrauts
*I should point out, while it's kind of fun to make fun of polka, the band was actually very good, and the music itself--the traditional and non-traditional polkas both--are quite catchy.

Extendo Characters

This post was originally conceived back at the beginning of July. For some reason I kept putting it off, and off, and off--hopefully not because I knew on some level it was a bad idea!

Authors do a lot of things to promote their books. We see those efforts played out in the blogosphere with blog tours and giveaways, cover reveals and interviews, and it spills over into Facebook and the Twitterverse so that, some days, it seems you can't turn around without running into this person or that one promoting his or her book. Now, there's nothing wrong with this, except for the potential for burnout for both the promoter and the promote-ees, and let's face it, I hope to be one of those promoters myself some day. It's just part of how the book/author world works these days.

Now, I certainly don't mind this, and as I said, I hope to be on that ride myself one day. There is, however, one particular type of promotion that I don't think I'll do when I get to this point. I'm talking about the character interview and related types of posts.

You know how these go--maybe you've hosted one on your blog. Maybe you've done one for your book. In the character interview, you answer questions from an interviewer--as a character from your book. I've read some of them, and they can be fun, sure, but as I've read them, I've always found myself thinking, "Wow, that is so NOT for me."

I can't really explain why I feel this way. It's not like I don't like my characters. I do. I like them a lot, even the bad ones. They are my creations, I've lived with them in my head for months, maybe even years. I know them inside out and upside down. I know what they love and what they hate and what they fear. They are, in many ways, quite real to me while I am writing them, and I hope that some day, they can be quite real to you and thousands (hell, go big or go home, right? Millions!) of others. Stephen King is still asked about Carrie White. John Irving is still asked about T.S. Garp. Maybe twenty-five, thirty years from now people will still be asking me about Chris Burke or the Barton family, etc. It would be an honor to have that sort of impact on people that they would want to talk about my creations long after the fact.

Yet talking about them is different that what happens in the 'character interview' posts. There was a post Sophie Masson did at Writer Unboxed last month (Extending A Character Through The Internet And Social Media) where she talked about the success she had with this. Ms. Masson created blogs, Facebook pages--she even had musicians create music for a fictional band she wrote about in one of her books and did videos on Youtube! She had a lot of fun with it, and her fans (and publisher) loved it as well. In her view, it was quite a success, and I'm sure it was.

That's not for me, however. The thing that comes most quickly to mind is something Jerry Garcia said when asked why the Grateful Dead allowed (encouraged, even) audience member to tape the band's shows: "When we're done with it, they can have it." It's the 'done with it' part that sticks with me so much. Characters exist pretty much within the framework of their story; when the story is done, so are they. I don't spend much time thinking about literary characters and wondering what they would do in this situation or that, or if they like the same ice cream I do.

This is not to say in-character blog posts, interviews, pinterest, etc., is wrong--it's just wrong for me. What about you? How do you feel about Extendo characters? I'd love to know. Thanks, and have a great weekend!

And We're Out!

Breaking with my usual posting schedule to point out the anthologies, Summer's Edge and Summer's Double Edge (featuring my short, Last Man Standing) are now available from Elephant's Bookshelf Press! Featuring 25 stories about short-term relationships from gifted writers (and familiar names from the blogosphere) such as Cat Woods, Mindy McGinnis and Jean Oram, and assembled under the watchful eye of Matt Sinclair, the stories should be great fun to read. I'm looking forward to it.

The books are available at Amazon and Smashwords as e-books, and will also be available in Print-On-Demand format via CreateSpace (that link is not currently working, I'll update when it is).

Summer's Double Edge on Kindle, Smashwords

Summer's Edge on Kindle, Smashwords

Now to learn to walk the fine line between subtle, effective promotion and shove-it-down-your-throat-until-you-want-me-to-go-away-already excess. I think I'll fade into the background until Friday, when I will try to post something related to all this that doesn't make you want to hurl.

We Interrupt This Silence

I try not to break with my Monday-Friday posting schedule, because I know how we all like routine. A break from routine is upsetting, and I don't want to upset you--or me, for that matter. Still, I figure this is worth a break in the routine.

Last night, Matt Sinclair, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer at Elephant's Bookshelf Press, sent over the cover images for the summer anthologies, one of which will contain my short story, "Last Man Standing." Since I know how much we love cover reveals, I thought I'd share them with you.

I said 'them' because there will be two. Matt received an unexpectedly large number of quality submissions and decided that, rather than go with one super-huge edition, he'd go with two. Twenty-five short (or not so short, in my case) stories from familiar names, such as Cat Woods, Mindy McGinnis, Jean Oram, and many, many more, exploring the short-term relationship. From the Elephant's Bookshelf blog:

As much as we all like to think about what might have been, we all know that not all relationships were meant to last. For you, perhaps it was a May to September romance that still tastes sweet, or a one-night stand that lasted too long, or maybe the haunting pain associated with a parent or child who died too young.

 I'm certainly looking forward to reading my fellow authors' takes on this one. And now, without further ado, here are the covers:

Spiffy, eh? "Last Man Standing" will be in Summer's Double Edge. Release date is July 15, details on where to find them forthcoming. And now back to your regularly-scheduled silence....

Shameless Plug Day!

Self-promotion has never been something I'm especially good at. I'm just not overly-comfortable touting myself. Still, here goes: I'm thrilled to say that my short story, Last Man Standing, has been selected for the Summer's Edge anthology, coming soon from Elephant's Bookshelf Press—Woohoo! The theme behind the anthology is the short-term relationship, "a love or relationship that is or appears to be short-lived or not long for this world." That certainly describes Last Man, which was a lot of fun to write. More details on publication date and availability will be forthcoming, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Second, this is indirect self-promotion, based on the notion, "If it's good for my wife, it's good for me." If you've been hanging around this place for any length of time, you know I believe platform for fiction writers is either misunderstood or vastly overrated. I'm not going to get into that whole thing again, at least right now. Despite my repeated rantings against 'platform', I do believe a website is quite important; I just think writing comes first, especially when you're new to the game and trying to break in and break through. Enough about that. Anyway, my wife designs websites, does web to mobile conversions, text message programs, and…other stuff that, technophobe that I am, I really don't 'get'. She's bugged me from time to time about doing a website, but I feel like it's not time for me to have one yet.

But that doesn't mean it's not time for you! If you're at the stage where a website is something you need (or really, really want), and you don't know where to start, or you have a website that's not really doing what you want it to do, why not give her a call? Check out some of the sites she's designed. Her rates are very competitive and she's great to work with!

Can I list myself?

Third, Lisa Regan has a new book, Aberration, coming out on June 6th. Rather than do another exhausting blog tour, Lisa has decided to try a blog hop. The Aberration bloghop will run on June 6th and 7th. From Lisa: "All you have to do is list your top 5 choices for the most aberrant characters in fiction, television or movies. Also, if you're a writer, you can then include a short paragraph about who you think is the most aberrant character from your own work."

There will be prizes! It will be gruesome fun! Hustle over to Lisa's blog and sign up now!

Finally, my alarm went off this morning to this song. It went off on Friday morning to this song. There's a strong chance this song will be playing when my alarm goes off tomorrow morning, too. One of the saddest things about the evolution of radio is how you can set your clock to it.



That's it for me, what's new with you? Have anything to plug? Feel free to share (unless you're that guy trying to push the sunglasses on me. No thanks)