…at Liberty Hall this part weekend. A nice cliched piece of fluff, but it was fun. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get a story in under an hour, but I did  and that was a bit of a rush. I am very happy there was a picture given as part of the trigger, otherwise I’d have been nowhere.

eh, I suppose editors might not always be that keen on triggers (similar but not nearly to the same volume of slush as generated by themed anthologies maybe), but it is a good way to keep the writing muscles in practise and it’s rather challenging to write as well as you can in an hour.  So far, people interpret the triggers pretty widely anyways, so I don’t think the LH triggers will be that big a deal. Besides, it’s fun!

Couple of really interesting posts on the role of marketing in the writer’s life:

1) The viewpoint that marketing comes with the job description of want-to-be-writer (will write for food? sorry, couldn’t resist..).

2) The viewpoint that is not happy with that idea, saying the job of the writer is to write.

as always, the action is in the comments threads more than the posts.

This is not so much my area of expertise, not there yet. As always,  I think people should do what they’re comfortable with in doing. I don’t think you need to do the entire and full package of self-promotion (running it off like a checklist: blog, check; conventions at least ten this year, check; dropping the name of my exciting new book randomly in other people’s blog threads, check; etcetera), but it’s rather hard to escape the simple fact that if someone has designs to be a succesful (in the sense of financially successful, in which case it does become a job) writer today, some efforts towards promotion is needed. As always, no one should feel pressured into joining Second Life or Twitter or having a blog at all, just because it appears to be the thing to do. Do what you’re comfortable with (if you want to do anything at all. You can do nothing, but then don’t complain if the Philistines don’t read you. Likely, the unlettered masses do not even know you exist), do what you excel at and understand instinctively. I don’t do Twitter, because I’m too pompous and longwinded to be ideal for Tweets. However, if you’re the kind of person who can Tweet, who loves instant messaging and MSN Messenger and that kind of interaction, Twitter might be just the thing for you.

(I was going to link to  a post Paul Kemp had written, about how he mainly uses only the internet to promote himself and seemingly to pretty good effect, but I can’t find it. It’s lost somewhere on his journal.)

Perhaps promotion is a vile word - let’s call it signaling an awareness of your existence. And that…is probably something writers of every era have had to do. “Write it and they will come,” is a doubtful statement as to whether it was ever true. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, wrote anonymous fan letters to periodicals who published his stories, gushing about the brilliance of Mr. Poe.

Did it work? not in particular, he died a pauper. What’s more interesting is what it reveals - that Poe did it at all, although not exactly ethical, does seem to underline the fact that self-promotion and pushing for an acknowledgment of your existence is not a new thing at all.

We should probably be careful every time we start moaning about how things used to work “in the good old days,” it’s possible that the writers of the good old days would not recognize how we today assume the writers of ye olden days operated and worked.

Putting yourself out there in some way or other, seeking means to expand on the amount of people who knew of your existence is something most writers of any age has always had to struggle with.

Abba turned to music videos because they couldn’t tour every single country in the world. Now, music videos are almost a must-have, with its potential reach. Doesn’t mean the people who see your video are going to like what they hear; but you can reach them.

And that’s the thing - no amount of promotional effort can overcome disinterest from the audience. I tend to agree with Samuel Delany here, in that I don’t think writers can artifically create the signposts that will lead to success, success of both a critical as well as financial nature.

That, is the prerogative of the readers. Nothing is as powerful — and as slow — as word of mouth. Perhaps it comforts writers to think of readers as semi-literate buffoons, to dismiss them as not knowing what they’re talking about and that they respond to the brightest and shiniest apple out there. Perhaps it’s true.

I don’t think so.

The amount of novels that break out from nowhere, and the consistency with which guaranteed bestsellers tank is less evidence (possibly, I might be wrong) that publishers are clueless idiots who don’t know what people want and buy crud, as it is an affirmation that the reader public is not a singular amoeba personality prone to clever manipulation. It is possible, shockingly so, that they have minds of their own. And it’s a mistake to disrespect their intelligence and sophistication.

And now, a video. My favourite line (talking about myspace): “Yeah, I only have the one friend. Yeah, the guy with the T-shirt.”

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Tags: Abba, blogs, Edgar Allen Poe, Liberty Hall, music videos, Paul Kemp, promotion, publishing, second life, select, twitter, writing