Monday 3 December 2012

Marketing? I'm not a marketer!

I don't know how it came about but these days one is expected to do everything.  It doesn't make sense.  I like writing - that's what I do.  As a writer I'm a pretty introverted type of person - I live inside my head.  How can someone like that market and promote their own work?  I have an artist friend who is exactly the same.  I still cringe when someone reads what I have written - what if they don't like it?   What if it's not good enough?  I don't think it's unusual in a writer - I read somewhere that someone really famous (Hemingway?) felt the same so I'm in good company.  I'm obviously not putting myself in Hemingway's class - I just write stories.  When a story pops into my head I write it down.

So I go through the motions of trying to get my details on suitable websites, join groups and forums, and when I get frustrated or simply can't take anymore I retreat into my writing.  If things are really getting me down I write a poem.  That's my way of dealing with stressful situations.  I don't show my poems to anyone - they just sit there in a file on my computer but the act of writing, and especially of writing a poem is very therapeutic.   I can highly recommend it!

In the old days a writer had an agent and a publisher to promote them.    These days it's very very hard to go down that road unless one is already published.  A Catch 22 situation.  So what does one do?  Self publish on Amazon and just hope that someone will find the site?  Actively push one's work on various websites?  Not so easy. 

I have just approved the proofs of three of my books so they will be available as paperbacks on Amazon within a few days.  Number four got stuck because it seems I had uploaded the wrong version of the cover picture - the one where the author's name is too close to the bottom of the page, so hopefully that will be ready tomorrow or the next day.  I have learned so much in the process, assisted by my wonderful computer teacher who helped me with some of the formatting problems and is busy sorting out my computer and the way I use it  (it seems the slow round the houses way).  So I should be a whizz next time! 

Then I can push on with book number five, which I have set myself a deadline for finishing before we go to Singapore on 18th December (only 2 weeks - can't wait) to join our daughter and her husband for Christmas.  It's nearly finished so I should just manage in between all the Christmas preparations and parties that are unavoidable this time of year - parties for the school volunteers, the aqua aerobics group, the bridge clubs and so it goes. 

 My daughter has a wonderful word for procrastination - not sure if she invented it or found it somewhere.  It's wabbing - wab is an acronym for work avoidance behaviour.  So when I should be either finishing my book or trying to promote the ones that are finished and instead I am blogging I am wabbing at the same time!

Till next time:)

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