After writing, rewriting, editing, re-editing, polishing, and re-polishing, a manuscript could be ready for publication. The writer has agonized countless hours over description, color, setting, and dialogue. Job done. Now on to publishing the damn thing.
The writer lands a contract with a traditional publisher or decides to self publish. At this point, our scribe discovers that regardless of his chosen (“imposed” would be more accurate but I don’t want to be nasty) road, having the manuscript ready is only a tiny, almost inconsequential step on the publishing experiment.
Nowadays, as writers, we are expected to do everything but run the printing presses. This means to promote our books full time by using any means at our disposal, and exploiting family, friends or acquaintances—however loose or remote these may be. If you feel the unpleasant sensation that there is something uncouth about our shameless cries for attention, you’re not alone. I hate peddling my work like the door-to door brush salesmen of yesteryear. I’m not suggesting that selling brushes is dishonorable, but still feels at odds with the calling of literature.
So, we must promote or die. Problem is that means of promotion are running dry. Our friends, colleagues, and acquaintances are sick of being bombarded on Facebook, Twitter and other social gathering haunts with the cries of people trying to peddle their efforts, while our e-mail in-trays brim with spam from writers’ self-promotion. Seldom a day goes by that we don’t hear yet another complaint about writers spamming every address they can poach. But there’s a limit. The adage proclaims “you can’t have too much of a good thing,” which is a fallacy; no matter how much we yearn for fame and money, fact is that rich and famous people have a peculiar penchant for suicide. And when instead of “good thing” we get truckloads of indigestible trash, our masochistic bent soon wears thin. In other words: self-promotion practices soon hit the law of diminishing returns; we become inured to the same litany to a point where we ignore the great majority of promotional e-mails; they become background noise.
A few months ago, we tested the concept using a program which registers whether an e-mail had been opened (and supposedly read) or thrashed unopened. Out of three-hundred short messages sent to independent booksellers, seven were actually opened. Later, we learned that a two percent hit is about right for unsolicited (spam) mail.
What to do then? How to promote our work with a degree of success? The gurus out there suggest creativity. BE DIFFERENT! they preach. MAKE YOUR WORK STAND OUT WITH CREATIVE MARKETING! Good advice, but some writers may be taking it too literally. Take a news item from last month’s newspapers:
A man hitchhiking across the country writing a memoir called The Kindness of America was injured in a random drive-by shooting along a rural highway.
Ray Dolin, 39, of West Virginia, was shot in the arm as he approached a pick-up on Saturday evening near northeastern Montana's booming Bakken oil patch. He thought the driver was offering him a ride, said Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier.
A 52-year-old Washington man, Lloyd Danielson III, was arrested about four hours later near Culbertson.
You may think, what has this do with promotion? Come on, you can’t be thinking…
Yes, I am. A few days later, Missoulian com reported an item from Associated Press:
A West Virginia man who claimed to be the victim of a drive-by shooting along a rural Montana highway while working on a memoir called Kindness in America has confessed to shooting himself, authorities said Friday.
Valley County sheriff’s officials said they believe 39-year-old Ray Dolin shot himself as a desperate act of self-promotion, but they offered no further details.
National and international news services were quick to pick the item up. Barbara A. Schmitt reported in ABC News:
A hitchhiker who claimed he was shot while researching a book on the kindness of strangers has admitted to police that he shot himelf, authorities said today.
Ray Dolin, 39, admitted Thursday night shooting himself in the arm and making up the story about being shot by a stranger.
“Mr. Dolin made a full confession himself,” says Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier. Meier says the district attorney is investigating the incident and says charges could be filed.
Dolin, who is from West Virginia, said he was writing a book about the kindness of strangers.
The aspiring author was making his way across the country allegedly doing research for his book. Dolin told police he was wounded in a drive-by shooting Saturday night while hitchhiking along a rural Montana highway. The report triggered a massive manhunt for the shooter.
I would have thought that Mr. Dolin should change the book’s genre and its title to an autobiography: Idiocy in America: The Ray Dolin Story, but he may be too busy keeping out of jail. I suppose, he got the idea from the episode of the Sopranos where the rapper pays them to shot him for publicity.
Shooting yourself is a desperate act and it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, but standing-by while another human being takes the rap—even if it’s only for a few hours—reeks of mendacity and it’s unworthy of any writer. It doesn’t surprise me that frantic writers turn to hopeless stunts to promote their work, but I find it revolting that the news machine, instead of lamenting the arrest of Lloyd Christopher Danielson III for a crime he didn’t commit, plays Mr. Dolin’s game and satiates his thirst for publicity. I’m thankful, though, that Mr. Dolin had the decency not to use the racial card out and claim a random Black gangbanger did it.
Please, do not think this is a case of book promotion gone wrong; few would-be authors get their stories picked up by the Associated Press and circulated around the globe. As far as I know, Mr. Dolin's work-in-progress, Kindness in America, has not yet found a publisher, but some despicable pusher will offer him a book deal. Do you disagree? Wanna bet?
Login/Register to leave a comment, or Login using or
Post Comments
Edward Smith Tuesday, 24 Jul 2012 10:11 AM via Facebook
I cioach authors how to get on TV and yes, shooting yourslef will get you on TV and even get your book mentioned. Now of course I do not recommend this when there are so many better, easier and safer ways to get on TV with your book. Now granted fiction is harder to promote on TV than non-fiction, due to the smaller number of outlets covering fiction. The way around this for a fiction writer is not to talk about the book, but instead to establish yourself as an expert on a subject related to the book. Say the book is set in the 1800's; you could position yourself as an expert on what life was like then, and of course bring your book into it as an example. So holster your weapons and be confident you can still hit the big time on TV. Thanks and good luck, Edward Smith.
Post Comment (Required)
2000 Characters remaining.
Abuse Report (Required)
2000 Characters remaining.
Carlos Cortes Tuesday, 24 Jul 2012 03:56 PM
Thank you, Edward, for the sage and insightful advice. I agree; writing what you know is essential to have a chance of sucess, and expertise is a superb promotion platform. It my be a twisted sense of humor, or my condition as a foreign observer, but the supreme irony of writing "Kindness in America" and then shooting oneself to promote the thing is... memorable.
National and international news services were quick to pick the item up. Barbara A. Schmitt reported in ABC News:
I would have thought that Mr. Dolin should change the book’s genre and its title to an autobiography: Idiocy in America: The Ray Dolin Story, but he may be too busy keeping out of jail. I suppose, he got the idea from the episode of the Sopranos where the rapper pays them to shot him for publicity.
Tuesday, 24 Jul 2012 10:11 AM via Facebook
I cioach authors how to get on TV and yes, shooting yourslef will get you on TV and even get your book mentioned. Now of course I do not recommend this when there are so many better, easier and safer ways to get on TV with your book. Now granted fiction is harder to promote on TV than non-fiction, due to the smaller number of outlets covering fiction. The way around this for a fiction writer is not to talk about the book, but instead to establish yourself as an expert on a subject related to the book. Say the book is set in the 1800's; you could position yourself as an expert on what life was like then, and of course bring your book into it as an example. So holster your weapons and be confident you can still hit the big time on TV. Thanks and good luck, Edward Smith.
Post Comment (Required)
Abuse Report (Required)
Tuesday, 24 Jul 2012 03:56 PM
Thank you, Edward, for the sage and insightful advice. I agree; writing what you know is essential to have a chance of sucess, and expertise is a superb promotion platform.
It my be a twisted sense of humor, or my condition as a foreign observer, but the supreme irony of writing "Kindness in America" and then shooting oneself to promote the thing is... memorable.
Post Comment (Required)
Abuse Report (Required)