marketing your work – John D Reinhart.com

An Intrepid Trek

You’re a writer. Writing is what you do. Here’s my advice: stick to that. Don’t try to build a media empire – just plain write like you mean it.

Earlier this year I got the opportunity to visit the Intrepid Museum in New York City with the fam.

As you know, or perhaps didn’t but soon will, I run another site called Marvelous Air Museums. It used to be called California Air Museums, but I kind of moved to the great state of New Jersey, where it’s much more difficult to visit the museums in California.

Anyway, never mind about that.

Well, actually, the purpose of this post is to advise you of this post: Intrepid Museum, which links to this video here.

But now I’ve given you, like, three links in the first, like, 100 words of this post, and I, like you, must find myself getting confused. What?

It could be a marketing blunder, like putting too many fonts in your online ad – makes you look like a rookie. I’m sure that’s true with links, too. Oops.

Anyway, never mind about that.

I put together that video for the Intrepid Museum in Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro, and it was a pleasure doing so.

As much as I enjoyed using DaVinci Resolve, and I truly did, the degree of freedom you get in working with After Effects is simply breathtaking.

The Adobe CC Suite is expensive – there is no doubt about that.

But, if you can bite that bullet, the leap is like jumping from one of those $29.99 department-store tool kits your parents got you when you moved out of the house to that sleek $300 Mechanic’s Tool Kit that you find at the big-box home improvement center. Put down those slip-joint pliers, my friend. There’s a socket wrench for that.

On another and related topic, I’m still running a website called Skippity Whistles. Back in the day, like, last year, my idea was to download all the stuff I had figured out how to do onto this website that you, the person stuck with the $29.99 tool kit, would find useful.

We, not the imperial we, but my wife, daughter and I, worked hard to come up with useful pieces of information for the site. As problems occurred in our real life, they would get solved and show up on Skippity.

In truth, nobody visited California Air Museums, and even fewer visit Marvelous Air Museums. But they’re swinging by good ol’ Skippity at a fairly good clip.

The difference between the sites is that there are more people who care about how to use a pair of locking pliers than there are those who care about an EA-6B Prowler.

Huh. Go figure.

Anyway, go take a look at Marvelous Air Museums and then go over to Skippity Whistles, and let me know what you think.

Although I’m a media mogul, I could use a little help sorting all this out…

Trust the Story Teller

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You’ve got a million ideas in your head – story lines, plot twists, character quirks – all waiting to hit the page one of these days. They’re like bubbles in a stew – a thick, rich stew redolent with bits and pieces of brilliant bones and perfect plot pieces. They bubble to the top and then pop. They’re gone. If only you’d had a tiny tad of time to tell them.

Recently, I drove from California to New Jersey. My task was to deliver my Outback to my daughter in Texas, and take her Prius to my daughter-in-law in New Jersey. The Outback will handle a Texas winter better than the Prius, and the daughter-in-law just needs to shuttle her kid – my grandson – to and from daycare. Easy peasy.

I was cruising through New Mexico, dashing down long, straight roads between breathtaking mesas and canyons and passing Indian Trading Posts by the dozen, trying to figure out the sequel to my upcoming Phineas Caswell novel.

Okay, so… what?

That fellow ChatGPT has assured me, you see, that August is the best time of year to release a historical fiction action/adventure/YA novel.

Repeat: What?

See, August is still summertime, still time to pick up a beach read, but also heading towards the school year, time to pick up some history. Something like that. See?

All fine and well. The novel is a diary, written by a cheeky 12-year-old boy in 1705, taken to sea against his will by his bumbling but well meaning uncle. Pirates, spies, war – all the good stuff. That’s my August-release book.

But it ends on a cliff-hanger. So, there needs to be a second book.

Flat-topped mesas whisk by the windows, shadows shoulder their way behind the deep canyon cliffs, and the next story plays out in my head.

There is already a short story I’d previously penned that takes place in a Portuguese port. A perfect place to start the new novel.

Armed with that one scene, and with nothing to do but look out the window and keep from crashing, the story plays out in my head.

This is new for me. I usually have to write the story down to tell it. But this new story simply rolls out, logical and lovely, as I fly down the freeway like an arrow bound for Albuquerque.

Of course you can’t drive and write – the cruise control’s good, but, come on…

So it comes down to my turning to trust my inner author. Rich scenes roll before my eyes – scenes I would have to remember. Scenes I could only see in my mind’s eye, hoping they caught the attention of my thought-keeper.

Here, seven weeks later, comes the task of finally putting to paper the plans I’d poured out in northern New Mexico. The images that exploded in my eyes remained, and the story simply poured itself onto paper as real and writable as it had on the highway.

Now I have before me an outline, nothing more. Scene after scene – this thing happens, then that. It’s the structure, the bones.

It occurred to me this morning that these sentences are nothing more than writing prompts, like those offered by every website that purports to power up your inner author.

You’re a writer. You know how it is. If someone asks you to explain why the silly snowman sits behind the bush, you know you can come up with a story.

The prompts, the outline, are space-keepers, aren’t they? Here’s a whole book, complete in its condensed form. Like a suitcase stuffed with springs, when the time comes to write it, you open the case, and the prompts pop out to create a full and fantastic book.

That storyteller, aged and ancient and ever hiding inside you, will sit down by the fire to weave his words into the best book you’ve ever penned.

Because you’re a writer.

Have faith.

Hitting Pause Again

Nobody tells you anything about anything, am I right? I mean, I asked for free advice from somebody who didn’t know anything and got a ton, but it was all, like, useless. I’m actually kinda ticked…

Here’s something you didn’t know, I’ll bet. Or maybe you did know, and I am the one who doesn’t know anything.

There’s a time of year to publish your book. Just like the little green leaves and the little buds and the birdies, yadda yadda yadda, there’s a season for your book. Can you imagine?

It’s all about the migration of people.

You don’t publish your book at the beginning of July, for instance. Why? People migrate away from book-buying and go on vacation.

HOWEVER, you DO publish your romance in May or June, because it’s a good vacation read, and you’ll catch ‘em before they migrate away. Crazy, right?

You don’t want to publish at the end of the year. It’s the holidays and nobody’s buying books, unless you’ve got a bang-up Christmas or Hanukkah book or something. People have migrated away from reading and are all about fruitcake.

But you DO publish in January if yours is a self-help book. The people have migrated back to reading again.

My book, my original Phineas Caswell novel, a piece of historical fiction, is perfect for late August/early September, when the leaves fall and folks are ready to cozy up for a good read.

Won’t take it to the beach, won’t use it to better themselves, won’t enjoy it as a scary thriller. Nope. Historical fiction – the kids are going back to school, time to read a good, interesting piece of history.

So, for all my book publishing plans, I have to hit the PAUSE button for a bit and wait for the year to roll around to the right spot.

That’s okay, because I have a lot of work to do in preparing the marketing materials. But who knew there’s a CALENDAR to this stuff?

Well, if you didn’t, now you do. I didn’t, but now I do.

Happy holidays, and put down that book.

Hoisting Anchor, Mate

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. A project gets into your bones and the world just seems to conform around it. Wow, I wish I knew what that meant.

Since last we talked, a multiplicity of whoop-dee-doos have collaborated to turn my life into a whirlwind of chaotic synchronicities. Not sure what that means, either.

First, let’s talk about Disneyland, shall we? I went all by myself (my much better half had to work) and had a terrific time.

The writer’s story in my little adventure is a ride called Rise of the Rebellion.

Before R of the R, my idea of a fantastic ride was Indiana Jones. In that one, you’re strapped into an open SUV sort of vehicle that physically bounces around through an epic assortment of hair-breadth near misses. The SUV lurches and throws you this way and that while simulated darts zip past you and a dragon breathes real fire. Awesome, awesome stuff.

Rise of the Resistance, however, changes the entire narrative of what a theme park ride can be. This ride combines that same physicality with stunning interactive graphics, physical theatrical sets, animatronics, and live actors to actually tell a story.

And not just a story, but one that includes you as a character. You don’t just see the story. You participate in it. The ride takes a full 15 spell-binding minutes to get through.

When it was over, I took myself to the Many Adventures of the Winnie the Pooh to calm myself down. Boy, that worked. Oh bother.

After that, I rode Indiana Jones. The ride’s scenario, for lack of a better word, is told while you’re waiting in the queue. It seems a busload of tourists got lost in the jungle. Your task is to find them.

The ride is still cool, still wild, but felt like a chaotic jumble of action sequences. I was thrown about and entertained, for sure. But you have to make several logic leaps to equate the ride with the scenario. I don’t think we found anyone other than Indiana Jones.

For us writers, the message is clear: stringing scenes and episodes together doesn’t necessarily tell a story. Then again, the story might simply be wild twists and turns, which can certainly be fun all by themselves.

Then came the kid’s birthday, that young man in New Jersey who just turned a year old. A dapper little fellow with 4 teeth and the sparkling command of a language composed of the words “duh,” “oooh,” and “nah-nah.”

My wife and I both want to be the sort of grandparents that are there to take him to soccer practice and give his parents a night out every now and again. Plus, when the kid runs away from home, we’d like him to run to our house.

Well, quite by accident, we stumbled across The House, a sweet little bungalow built in 1936 just a block away from the million-dollar houses that face the Arthur Kill. That’s the kill – okay, fine, the waterway – that separates New Jersey from Staten Island. Yes, THAT Staten Island.

The price is right, but the window of opportunity is very short, like, thirty-or-so days.

You know how it is with your parents’ house – it’s nice but needs a little sprucing up? That’s our house, except we’re sort of in need of an EPIC sprucing up! Roof, flooring, kitchen, paint – I’m sure I’ve left a dozen things out.

But, once we sort all that out, we’ll be hoisting anchor, mate. Bound for the East and truly parts unknown.

That’s one journey.

Another journey is me moving from being a 9-to-5er as I’ve been for the entirety of my working career to a part-time, remote contractor. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you I’m remote already.

BUT, and this is a big but, so to speak, there is one more journey that has already begun: my new book.

I’m using my business partner, a guy to whom I refer as JaPeetey, to help me market my novel Phineas Caswell: The String of Pearls. Here’s the book’s cover:

The cover the soon-to-be-released book Phineas Caswell: The String of Pearls.

I’m still working the details, but you can see what I’m about.

ChatGPT knows how to market indie books like this. Of course it does. It draws on all the successful marketing plans to give you answers. So, I’m using Chat GPT to help me lay out the marketing steps for my book. He’s my buddy, JaPeetey.

I’ve done everything so far to self-publish my books except to do it right. Now, with this move to the hinterlands of the Wild East, I’ll have the time to focus and concentrate and follow JaPeetey’s direction.

It ain’t rocket science. It’s Marketing!

If you’d like to help out and read an advance copy, I’d be delighted to offer you a free final copy in exchange for a review. Just fill out the form below and I’ll send you a PDF right away!

Thank you so much for reading all the way down to this point. It means the world to me.

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Why Writers Shouldn’t Talk

Hey, hello! Thanks for reading along! What follows this paragraph is the transcript from a video I shot today – it will be a podcast pretty soon. What’s cool about it is that the transcription process worked… you’ll see. I shot the video and then transcribed the audio at a place called TurboScribe. You get three free transcriptions a day. Here’s what I shot…

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.

Hello, I’m writer, author, and host John D. Reinhart. And you’ve stumbled onto this moment in This Writer’s Life.

So, before we go any farther, you may wonder, what’s the difference between a writer and an author? Well, in my head, a writer writes.

You’re a writer, you write. If you’re writing a book, you’re still writing. You write the book.

It is the authorly part of you that compiles all that writing into the book. Right, it’s the organizer kind of a guy. In a website situation, nobody writes a website, they author a website.

They bring their own written work or the work of other writers, they compile it all into a website. That’s the difference.

The host part, well, me and you, we’re looking at it.

So, here’s the thing. I’m in my garage. I’m doing the laundry.

And it occurred to me what I’d really like to be doing is writing a post for my website, because I feel like I should be doing that, but I can’t because I’m doing the laundry.

So, then I got the bright idea to say, well, why don’t we go speech to text, right, and take video-audio combo and make a post out of that. So, that’s what I’m trying.

And I will tell you the truth. Speaking what you want to say is so much more difficult than writing what you want to say.

I mean, I’m a good writer. I’m not such a good speaker. And this is kind of what I found out.

You’re a writer. You put things in order. You build the sentence that you want. And you realize, eh, that’s not what I want to say. You move things around. You come up with a whole new word. Flip it around, build a whole new paragraph based on that word. That is what writers do.

But think about impromptu speakers like President Obama.

He comes out there and he right off his cuff, makes these long speeches that people write down. Because when you speak impromptuly or however you speak, that’s what you said. And you can’t go back and flip it around and change it.

That’s the big difference between speaking and writing is that, as what I find, I’m not a public speaker. I’m not an impromptu speaker. In fact, I have to tell you this truth.

I’m using a script. So, this is text to speech to text. That’s how well this works for me.

Not my dog. So, if you don’t try something new, you don’t learn anything. So, that’s my little experiment on speech to text.

No, thank you, sir. Thank you for watching. I’ll catch you next time.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.

Yes, it’s a little weird, I know. It’s creepy to see how many times I use the word “so” when speaking impromptu, even with a script!

The upshot of this experiment, aside from a shameless plug for TurboScribe and a podcast episode, is that the spoken word works great for speakers, but us writers, we probably want to just keep on writing!

Thanks for reading along…

Too Much Free Time

Sometimes free time can be the best of times. Other times, too much free time can trick you into turning out turduckens like this little treasure!

My darling bride remains in NJ, although rumor has it she’s soon to wing her way back to the West, and none too soon, if this video is any gauge of what I’ve been doing in her absence!

What am I doing making videos like this? You tell me, bub, ’cause I ain’t got no idea!

We’re back to Shakespeare’s time, my friend. All the world’s a stage, and we are but mere players upon it.

Instead of displaying my deep dismay over the direction of our democracy, or horrifiedly hollering about the impending Alien Armageddon, I’ve decided to use the soapbox on my busy streetcorner to make a jolly jape, a gentle jest, a minute minute of merriment.

I truly hope you enjoy it, and breathlessly await your feedback!

Okay, so as not to waste this entire opportunity, wouldn’t you know this also a shameless marketing stunt? See, I’m tying my empire together – first WordPress, then YouTube, and even Instagram – bwah-hahahahaha!

Just as soon as someone visits one, I mean ANY, of my sights, I’m in like Flynn, my friend. In it to win it this minute! You gotta risk it for the biscuit!

Gorilla Marketing LIVES!!!

Fred Flintstone Calling

I’ve got this great idea, see. All’s ya gotsta do is get everybody in Uruguay to visit your site just once – they don’t even need to linger. That’s over 3.4 million views! Man, you are gonna rake in the dough!

So, the deal with Fred Flintstone – if you’re too young to know – was that he was a caveman, see, the head of a modern stone-age family. His wife, Wilma, and his neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, lived in the town of Bedrock. A town just like yours and mine, except made out of rock.

It was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series made in the early 1960’s and it was dopey fun.

Fred was every man’s everyman. He was living the caveman equivalent of the American Dream – good job, house in the ‘burbs, picket fence, nice ped-powered car.

A regular Joe, except that he had a penchant for making outlandish, foolproof plans to make a million clams. He was gonna quit the quarry and live the life of a millionaire, just as soon as his ship sailed.

“Barney boy, by this time tomorrow, we are gonna be livin’ like kings!”

Of course he never quite succeeded – Dino the dinosaur dog ate the proceeds, it turned out the ptero-chickens were all ptero-roosters, Ann Margarock had to be in Rock Vegas on the night of the big event, etc.

At the end of every episode, there was Wilma, reminding him that he already had everything he needed right there in his little family. And he always sheepishly admitted she was right. “Wilma, you are the greatest…”

If you’re reading this, and I imagine you are, you probably have an inner Fred Flintstone yourself.

You’re thinking there’s always a chance, a long shot maybe, but a chance that this one, this stupid crazy-ass scheme, this could be the one. One in a million chance, but, hey, somebody’s gonna make it… Ten bazillion books get published and read every year, why not mine?

So, I recently gave up on my inner Fred. I was a little depressed, maybe. A little tired. I dunno.

I decided that this is the dish, this life o’ mine: this is my someday. Someday I’ll have a nice house in the ‘burbs and a pretty wife and 2.5 kids and a good job with a decent salary. Hey, I have all of that, so this must be it.

All righty, then, Fred. It’s been fun. Good luck with your crazy schemes. I’m hanging up the bronto-phone now – I gotta go mow the lawn.

So, I go and tell my wife, the very love of my life, that I’m hanging up my bronto-spurs, and quote that line from All Things Great and Small where Herriot tells a fellow that someday he’ll be a millionaire, and the fellow replies with “Nah, it’s not in the cards. Was I to be a millionaire, well, I’d be one already, don’t you see?”

My darling wife replies “well, let’s not be too hasty about that.”

Whoa, whoa, hold on, there. That’s a Fred Flintstone line, not a Wilma line! YOU can’t say I’m gonna make a million clams, because YOU’RE the voice of REASON!

Like a bolt out of the blue, I was gobsmacked, thunderstruck, and over the moon in a tizzy of heaven for-fend, she, she, she believes in my crazy schemes!

To quote Goofy, “gorshk.”

So, I’m opening everything back up – Skippity Whistles, California Air Museums, even hauling The Book in for a rewrite.

Do I have a plan?

Heck no! I’m making it up as I go! Never quote me the odds!

My wonderful wife, she, she believes in me!

Wilma: “Oh, Fred.” (Sighs and exits)

Oh, uh, One More Thing

You probably remember Columbo’s trademark like “oh, and one more thing…”

It always came right near the end of the Columbo murder mystery series, back in the 1970’s. Peter Falk played this sort of bumbling detective who appeared to be misguided throughout the whole episode. But then, at the last, just as the murderer is about to get away with it, Columbo turns and says something like, “Oh, and one more thing. I thought maybe you could help me understand how, if the bedroom door was locked, your fingerprints are on the bedside lamp.”

Sometimes the murderer would say “Oh, you’re a clever one, Columbo,” or they’d stare at him, or they’d run. Sometimes they did all three. Of course, Columbo had all the exits covered.

So, I’ve been putting together a video review of the Estrella Warbirds Museum in Paso Robles for California Air Museums.

It’s a good video, featuring sections of our interview with author George J. Marrett, and looking at all kinds of stuff.

I got it all done, all buttoned up, and uploaded it to YouTube. If you haven’t done that, you have about four pages of questions to answer about the video, and you have to wait about 20 minutes for it to upload. You have to type in tags, and a description, and all kinds of stuff.

And then my daughter said: “You know, it should have subtitles.”

Ah. Subtitles.

So, for a five-minute script with lots of voice-over and interview, it takes about an hour to add closed captions. YouTube presents you with a transcript of your video, and the AI is pretty good, although it couldn’t figure out the name Paso Robles. Pasa Rubbles. Pa saw rabbles. So you have to correct it, and you have to manage the timing so that the words show up as they are spoken in the video.

Now we’re in for a buck-and-a-half, timewise, at YouTube.

“I think you should refer to the author’s books,” my wife suggests.

In thinking about it, I realized she was right.

Back to DaVinci Resolve to edit the video. Dug up some graphics, added some voice-over, inserted 30 seconds devoted to the books, reworked the music at the end, rendered the video out again.

Went back to YouTube, downloaded the subtitles file so I could add it to the new video, deleted the video I’d just uploaded (it actually warns you that this video will be deleted forever – I’m kind of surprised it doesn’t go FOREVER-ever-ever-ver-er-r….), uploaded the new video, answered the four pages of questions, and was just about to push the PUBLISH button again, when my wife cleared her throat in that way that she does when she has an idea that she thinks is brilliant but you might not like but you should because it really is a good idea.

“One more thing…”

All right, Columbo, what is it?

“What if we cut the guy’s the clever comment that opens the video and put it at the end instead.”

As she explains it, I’m nodding thoughtfully, although I’m thinking OMG you want me to shuffle the entire contents of the video ahead by, like, fifteen seconds? But my captions’ll be screwed! Don’t you ever want to get this published?

It took FOREVER to shift everything around in DaVinci. And I had to start all over again with the captions in YouTube.

But, it was a brilliant idea, and the video has a ton of charm that it wouldn’t have if she hadn’t played the role of Peter Falk.

All of this has a writer’s tale in it, as you can imagine. Even though we think of our writing as a closed-loop system: we sit in our cold stone garrets, frantically typing away, knowing they’ll never understand our sacrifice, in truth it can only ever be a system of give and take. Suggestions, comments, ideas come in, grudging changes go out, and the work is always, always better for it.

Oh, and, uh, one more thing… Thanks for reading!

Never Quote Me the Odds

So, I was shooting the breeze with this guy over the weekend… actually, he wasn’t just some guy, he’s a decorated test pilot, hero, and author, and I didn’t just shoot the breeze. It was an in-depth interview. Man, you can’t believe anything you read these days!

One of the best parts about being the author of California Air Museums, as well as being the host… just a quick stop here to point out to you marketers that, son a biscuit, that’s a nice link right there, right? See? Cross-platforms. It’s the way to go! Okay. Moving on… is that you get to visit some great museums, and meet some sincerely fascinating people.

George J. Marrett is the historian at the Estrella Warbirds Museum in Paso Robles, CA. An amazing individual, he worked for Howard Hughes, has written at least half a dozen books, has test-flown nearly every jet the United States produced since World War II, flew death-defying rescue missions in Vietnam, is building homeless shelters in Paso Robles, and happens to be just about the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet.

My wife and I spent a nice trio of hours talking with him about the museum, about Howard Hughes, and about the many aircraft he’d test-flown. The man is remarkably sharp, and, at 88, still flies. He said he’d keep flying until nobody wanted to fly with him anymore.

So many of the stories he told stuck with me, but there was one in particular that I’m still pondering.

During the Vietnam war, he flew fourth position in a flight of four A-1E Skyraiders – big, propellor-driven fighter planes produced right after the end of World War II. They were slow compared to the jet fighters, but they were robust, and they carried lots of weapons.

His job, along with the other three Skyraiders, was to clear the jungle around a downed American pilot by firing at the Viet Cong soldiers intent on making a capture, so that the Huey helicopters could come in rescue him. The big fighter planes would lumber over the jungle, firing a spray of machine gun bullets at anything that moved towards the downed pilot.

The Viet Cong often fought back. In one flight, George watched the plane in front of him get hit, watched the pilot parachute away, and then actually watched the plane spiral down to crash among the trees.

“It was an amazing sight,” he grinned. He had accidently applied his own air brakes, and was flying too slow to be safe. But it gave him time to watch the crash.

When he returned to base, his crew chief, the guy who takes care of the plane when it’s on the ground, told him he’d been hit.

“You got a couple of bullet holes in the wheel well,” the chief said. “You wanna see ’em?”

George thought about it for a moment, and then said “No. Don’t even tell me that.”

Focus on the success, right? Let’s not recount how close we almost got to failure. His first book, the one about those rescue missions, is called Cheating Death.

That’s a profound way to look at high-risk tasks, isn’t it?

I’m always, like, whoa, I almost crashed right then. Wow, I almost messed that up.

It reminds of the Star Wars line when C-3PO starts to tell Han Solo his chances of success…

“Never quote me the odds!”

So, how does this apply to us writers?

Well, the chances of your book getting picked up, or your article selling, or somebody reading your blog, are pretty much one in a…

Never quote me the odds.

Focus on where you’re going, not where you’ve been. I know George may have meant something far more profound that this, but we always apply the things we hear to ourselves, right?

So, when you’re submitting your book or your screenplay, or that magazine article, or whatever it is, and you hear that voice that starts to doubt the odds of your success, now you have an answer.

“Don’t tell me that. Never quote me the odds.”

You can learn more about the amazing George J. Marrett on Wikipedia and his many books on Amazon.

Happy flying.

Episode 4: No Guardians at the Gate

No Guardians at the Gate

Cops and robbers. Parents and kids. Bosses and employees. There’s an hierarchical order to things. Officers and crew. Master and Commander. Editor and writer… Wait – not so fast.

Back in the early part of this century, I was the owner of a struggling business. It was awful. If you’re not a business person, and you find yourself owning a business it. is. the. worst. Dreadful, I tell you.

Luckily, the Great Recession wiped us out! I was so thrilled!

But that’s not the point of this post.

Back in those days, the Internet was unfolding like a reverse-engineered origami swan, and it was desperate for content. Desperate!

Guys like me, without any nerve or experience, suddenly found themselves writing articles on this, on that, how to do this, how to make that, how to create… you get the idea.

And we were paid – sometimes a tenth of a penny per word – but we were paid. My weekly paychecks ranged between fourteen dollars on a good week and about 38 cents…

But that’s not the point of this post.

So, the world wide web was a wild west for wily writers. You could get published same day for just about anything.

I became the science editor for two or three sites – my favorite was a site called Triond. Oh, we got along famously. I wrote over 200 articles on the Moons of Jupiter, the Moons of Saturn, the Mo… you get the idea.

I’m sure you’ve heard the word churnalism? If you rewrite stories that have been written by someone else and add your own special spin to them, you’re not a journalist. You’re just churning up somebody else’s work – you’re a churnalist.

Ah, those were heady days, being a seriously underpaid churnalist, cranking out somebody else’s ideas and expected huge rewards. Sigh. How I miss them…

Fast forward to the Roaring Twenties, and now it’s all about books. You can publish your book for free!

I know, I’ve published two!

Smashwords, the company through which I’m publishing my books, has merged with Draft2Digital, a company that distributes your books all over the English-speaking world.

I’m enjoying the experience so far. Haven’t sold a copy, but mighty oaks come from tiny acorns.

And now D2D, as they refer to themselves, has offered to print my book.

What? Print? My name and likeness, right there on a paperback book? What? FINALLY?!?

My brilliant wife and I talked all about it, me on the oh-please-oh-please-oh-please side, she on the let’s-think-about-this side.

Publishers have editors that read books and decide what is and is not crap.

Who edited my book? What about yours?

E-books are often free, making them comfortably less than a dime a dozen. They consume digital resources, but that’s all.

Literary agents will tell you they get 10,000 queries a year. Based on what I’ve written, I know that by far the highest majority of those queries are from crap books.

Crap books.

So, D2D will print my book. They’ll print your book. They’ll print that guy’s book.

But that guy’s a crap writer (not like you and I).

So, here’s his shiny new book, right on the shelf next to ours. His opens with “This is how I spend my summers, over at uncle Bob’s house where my cousin Larry has like a big dog and this blue Toyota that doesn’t run so good. Anyway…”

Our books are good, earnest efforts with great plots and wonderful characters and creditable dialog.

But there’s nothing to separate them, no differentiator between our brilliant work and that guy’s joke of a junk book.

The buying public picks up that guy’s book, mutters in dismay, and quickly backs away from the book rack.

“Good heavens,” they gasp. “What a bunch of junk books!”

You and me, our books are great! Don’t judge us by that guy’s cover! But you know they will.

There we sit, side by each, our pearls, his swine.

My thinking is this:

In digital publishing, caveat emptor. Let the buyer read the description and download the free chapters and choose from there.

In physical publishing, that book had better be worth the ink and the paper and the resources to produce it.

Sadly, we know that that guy thinks his book is that good. But you and I know much better.

My wife is right. If there is no longer a guardian at the gate, no Random House holding sway over what gets printed, if the individual writer sets the standard for what shows up in paper, doesn’t it sort of feel like all is lost?

D2D doesn’t charge you anything to print your book. They make their money when the copies actually sell. But what happens to those copies that don’t sell?

I would imagine they go on sale, and then on super sale, and then on deep discount, and then on closeout, and then on clearance, and they finally sell for, like, a dime or something. Better that than throw them in the dumpster – at least D2D makes a little money on it.

Is that what awaits our books, yours and mine? We end up selling every printed copy for a dime each to some clearing house that shreds them up for the paper they’re printed on? All because of that guy’s crap book?

Congratulations! Your book sold 200 copies! Your share of the profits comes out to 6 dollars and 41 cents, because D2D took the first 15% of the dime and the bulk-book aggregator took the next 25%. Oh, and you won’t get a check until you sell $100 in books, but, hey, congratulations!

Call me a dreamer, a starry-eyed hopeful, but I’ll be building my audience the old-fashioned way – through digital publishing and advertising and doing nothing – until I’m discovered by an old-school publisher who has a strong editorial voice and a marketing staff that will just set the world on fire.

Wait, that guy sold 400 copies?!? Hey, wait a minute…

Episode 1: A New Venue

On Making it Big

First, let us be clear. Oh, so very clear. Clear like a mountain stream, like a windswept sky, like a razor in the eye (clearly painful…): I have not made it big. This is not about that.

The Island of Lost Brains

Oh, I used to have one, I promise. And it worked pretty good. But it’s gone now, that brain o’ mine. Been thinking about putting up posters on the light posts: Lost Brain, pinkish gray in color, answers to “hey, moron…”

Always Writing

You’re a writer, you know how it is. You write. You have to write, not because it’s your job, but because it’s like breathing.

Twinklings of the Past

You’re a writer. You know how it goes. You work your keester off writing something that you just think is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, the Maharajah’s… uh, well, you get the idea.

But life happens and stuff happens and somehow it just doesn’t seem to be the big hit you expected. And then, one day…

On Giving Up

When is giving up really giving up?

You’re a writer. You know how it goes. You work your keester off to create what you think is a great piece of art – and it is a great piece of art because you put your heart and soul and God knows how many hours of mindbending labor into it. And then you burned a gazillion more hours rewriting it – getting the characters just right, moving scenes so that it flows just as smooth as butter on a hot bun.

Branding Yourself

Despite the danger of flaming rainwear, I think I’d rather burn my logo into an umbrella than into a cow.

Lately I’ve been trying to nail down my brand. Unlike cattle ranchers that burn their mark into the hide of their cows, our branding isn’t quite so easy.

Facing Your Inner Fred

Do you think Fred Flintstone ever made it big? Do you think he owned an expansive place in the Hollyrock Hills, up next to the sign, and hung out with the likes of Dash Riprock, Stoney Curtis, and Ann Margrock?

And, do you think he ever expected to? That’s the big question.

Death of Some Salesmen

You’re a writer, you know how it goes. You published the book, and it just sits there, doing nothing except get annoying because…well, because nobody’s reading it.

No Errands for Fools

This is a very simple post. Not because we are simple people, my writer friend (although there is an argument in my household about my side of that equation), but because what you and I do is NOT simple. Not by any stretch of the imagination. As they say in France, it’s very difficult.

Five Years to Independence: Year Five – the Year of Independence

So, here we are at Year Five, the Year of Independence. This is the goal, the island to which we’ve charted our five year course, the one thing we’ve focused on and worked on and planned on.

So, like, what is year five?

Keeping Chin-ups

Remember when you were a kid, and you had to do chin-ups at school? OMG, that was the worst thing ever! I always cheated and took a little jump up, so I always got a count of at least one. That second one was murder. And the third? Forget it. Same with push-ups. To this day, when I think of push-ups, I see the unmoving gym floor swim before my eyes…

And so it is with marketing your own novel, as I am marketing mine. Which novel(s) do we speak of? Why, Droppington Place and Marigold’s End, of course. You’re a writer. You know how it goes.

Marketing is all about getting people to pay attention to you. You could make YouTube videos – tried that. You could make your own website – mine is right here: PhineasCaswell.com. You could make podcasts or something.

Whatever you do, you have to somehow drive traffic to it. That’s the key, the thing, the line over which you must cross to become the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

So, I’ve been posting oodles of posts about the famous pirate Blackbeard on my site (see the shameless marketing plug above). In particular, I’ve focused on his most notorious ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Beyond that cool name, there’s just not much information available about her, which I take as a personal challenge. Why?

Okay, sit down – you’re not gonna believe this. My next novel deeply involves Blackbeard. Whoa! Huh? Did not see that coming, right? Blackbeard was born in 1680. My character Phineas Caswell, hero of Marigold’s End, a Phineas Caswell Adventure, was born in 1694. Both were sailing around the Caribbean at the same time, 1706… See? Those gears are a’turnin’,right? Blackbeard was 26 – in command of privateers or something, right? And Phineas… well, I leave it to your imagination to link those guys together. Or, actually, to MY imagination…

Anyway, I just ran a Google search on the phrase Queen Anne’s Revenge. My website didn’t show up on the first page, or the third, or the seventh. I gave up on Page 15, certain that I’m just not out there in the world. In fact, my site would appear, if I could find it, after “great snacks for the kiddos” and “cool dog names.”

Sigh.

Just like in middle school, in gym class, it’s all a question of keeping one’s chin up. Someday. Someday I’ll cross some magical line and come up on the first page of a Google search. And then the angels will sing, and the heavens will open up, and somebody will click through, visit my site, and buy my books.

Or, I could win the Powerball. The odds seem to be about the same.

Going Responsive

Responsive websites? I always thought your website was responsive if you just answered your emails.

You’re a writer – you know how it is. You toil and slave over your book, you publish it yourself, you get your website, your Facebook page, your logo… and then, who knew, it’s useless if your website isn’t responsive. Useless. Who knew?

While, the standard, desktop, not-so-responsive website still has value if you’re a corporation that sells oodles of things that deserve their own big pictures and stuff, the little screen, however, is clearly the road ahead.

So, what does it mean to “go responsive?” It simply means that you scale your website to look good on mobile devices. That’s it.

Sort of. Once you scale your whole website down to that itty-bitty size, you realize that your whole outlook about your website changes. Gone are the stacked images, the carefully layered pages that had a certain snap to them. Gone are the cool, zoomy galleries of your favorite pictures.

Those big, splashy pages have been replaced with simple, easy-to-read, direct-to-the-point, cell-phone sized articles and galleries and images.

It’s great news if you’re a writer, which you are. All you have to do is write! You don’t have to be a web designer? You just write – that’s really what you and I do best anyway!

PhineasCaswell.com has been a desktop site for quite a while. I built it with Open Element software – free!!! But, Open Element doesn’t support responsive websites yet. Rats.

For around $30 USD, I found Serif’s WebPlus – I’m running x7, whatever that means. It has a set of really simple templates for making a responsive website. It was seriously easy to make the conversion.

I’m trying to sell my novel, Droppington Place. It’s aimed at the young adult market, which is comprised mainly of mobile device users. Market? Meet website. Website. Market.

As you know, I’m a big proponent of Gorilla Marketing – do nothing and hope for the best. I did a little something by going responsive, and now I don’t have to do anything else. My site is ready for the world to beat a path to my door.

Ah, success.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my other Gorilla Marketing project – you’ll like this. It’s called Soon to be a Major Motion Picture. All you have to do is download Droppington Place – do it for free, if you’d like. Encourage your friends to do the same. If your friends tell their friends, who tell their friends, who tell…you get the idea… why, we’ll be way over a gazillion reads, which is more than enough for any savvy movie studio or book publisher to jump on the bandwagon and make Droppington Place into a major motion picture. Brilliant!

So, download Droppington Place, and go tell all your friends.

This is gonna be great!

Goodbye, Baby

Stand by to eject bathwater on my mark.

Standing by, sir.

And…mark.

The bathwater is terminated.

Nice shooting, Lieutenant.

Roger that. The baby is outta here. Repeat: the baby is out of here.

Big ten four. Stand by for towelage.

Uh, negatory. Sorry. No can do.

Disregard that. Stand by to commence towelage on my mark.

Uh, sorry, skipper. No can do.

All hands, stand by. What’s with this gloomy Gus guff, Lieutenant. I believe I gave you an order.

Ten four on that, skipper. But, we don’t have, a, well…

Don’t tell me you ran out of towels.

Negative, sir. It’s just that, well, we ejected the baby with the bathwater.

Mongo Santamaria! You’re telling me we tossed the kid out the window?

Like a bullet, sir.

Well, there goes the towelage. All hands, prepare for battle stations. Angry mom at eight o’clock!

It turns out, writing a book is great fun. And it is great fun. Even though your imaginary friends, all those little voices in your head, drag you through the very depths of despair and pain and agony, the fact that you share that with them, that you are a witness to their travails – is an honor and a delight.

Oh, sure. That’s the cat’s pajamas, that part. Like ice cream for dinner every night of the week. Best of all, you tell all your friends that writing is the pits, it’s the worst – you feel like a zombie…hour after hour, typing, thinking, scribbling, coffee, beer, whatever. While, actually, your inner you goes “teehee, this is the best!”

Welp. The party’s over. They ate the pretty balloons. It’s crying time again, and you’re gonna leave me – I can see that faraway look in your eyes. Why must we get offa this cloud?

BECAUSE I PUBLISHED MY BOOK!!!

Yes, there is one more moment of glee, and that is when you join the Club of Shakespeare. All the world is a willing audience, hungry for your written words, longing for your thoughts, your ideas… and, once the book is published… Yo, lookit me, feedin’ the masses!

It’s a cerebral joy, and stunningly short-lived. I found no Disney at my door. Discovered Dreamworks dreaming of someone else. Ran across Random House randomly choosing someone else’s house.

No, the party’s over. Now comes the drudgery, the mind-numbing torture, of figuring out how to market this darned thing for real. It’s no longer a game, or a funny idea. Now it’s work, work, work, to get this product sold and out, into the sunshine where it belongs.

What? What’s that? How can you find it? Well, bless your generous soul, you have come to the right place. Let me pull your chair closer to the fire. Move it, dog. Make way for this most spectacular person.

Because you are you, and you’re a friend, I’ll let you have the book…for free!

No strings attached. Freebie. You go. Although, if you found it in your heart to write a dazzling review, I’m sure no one would be opposed to that…

Find DROPPINGTON PLACE here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/618049

Now, this is important: type in the coupon code NJ38D. When you do, the most wonderful book you’ll download with your free coupon will be yours – for free!!!

Of course, you could also visit the author’s site, PhineasCaswell.com.

Now, to find that baby…

Marketing with Castanets

Let’s be clear: I don’t like castanets. Those clickity-clackety chips of annoyance can only be played by Spanish ladies with fingers like hummingbirds. I can play a bunch of things: flute, guitar, piano, Pandora – but, those nasty little wooden clackers of doom must be powered by voodoo or something. Hate ‘em. Even that clattery little noise they make sets my nerves on edge… sounds like somebody playing a skeleton. However, they do pave the way for a lame pun. If you know me, you know I love those.

Anybody’ll tell you that it never all comes in one package. Instead of wishing for a ship to come in, wish for a procession of small boats… a flotilla of good-news-bearing yachts.

If a ship comes in, that’s only because you won the lotto, or Raspy Crackers won the third race at Del Mar. It doesn’t happen. If you think that your ship’s gonna come in… well, my friend, I hope it does.

In marketing, you don’t want your ship to come in. Stay out there, my seafaring friend, cruise around, spread the word.

Think of all the one-hit-wonders you’ve ever heard of – folks who made a killer splash all at once, but then were gone. Pet rocks. A dozen rock ’n’ roll bands that you can’t even name, but their song was pretty cool.

One ship. One big hit. A ton of cash today, but, tomorrow?

The fisherman that drops the hook is planning on bringing in a big fish. I’m gonna make a killer pile of dough on this baby. If the fish goes vegan, or saw what happened to cousin Wally in these very waters just yesterday, the line comes up empty.

The fisherman with the nets routinely feeds his family because he brings in many small fish over time. His plan is to score many, many small hits. The aggregate effect is the same, if not better, than his single-hit brother. Sure, the brother makes the occasional big buck, and laughs at the net-gathering sibling. But the folks at the bank smile at net boy, because he is constantly in there, making his deposits.

It’s not unknown for a tuna to wander into a small fishing net. At first the fisherman thinks it’s the score of a lifetime…we’ll eat for a year! But then the reality sets in: the net is torn, and the ability to gather tiny fish is lost.

You’ve read about those companies that make a nifty niche product, and one day find themselves approached by the likes of Costco or Walmart. Their production model changes, their business model changes, their focus changes, as they ramp up to meet the incredible demand of the super retailers. The dollars are nearly huge – our ship came in!

But next year, the big retailers turn away to another supplier, and the customer base, the loyalty, the little fish, are gone. Filing for Chapter 11 is seldom pleasant.

Your marketing, then, might do well if you consider casting nets… oh, there it is: castanets! My humble apologies.

You are the One – Bring Your Wallet

In the writing business… that is, the business end of the writer’s business, although the writer’s business isn’t business at all, but art – this gets so confusing – not the business of writing art, the business of selling the art, which is a business unto itself, but we’re not talking about that. Actually we are, sort of… you’re a writer, you know how it is…

Restart.

If you are a writer, and you don’t have an agent, you need one. Yes, you can self-publish your novel, but who is going to sell your book for you? You? You’re a writer. You need an agent.

Finding an agent, well that’s the business end of writing. But agents don’t seem to drop out of trees, even if you’re absolutely, fantastically talented. I know this from personal experience. That dog don’t hunt. That ship has sailed. You can’t handle the truth.

So, you advertise, in a million different ways. You blog. You join writer’s circles and clubs and chats, and comment your brains out on other people’s stuff. You work like a monkey to get your name at the top of an agent’s mystical list, the agent’s short list, the who’s who of writers in the agent’s Rolodex. Rolodex – boy, that’s a piece of history, huh? Raise your hand if you know what a Rolodex is… uh huh, as I thought. Paltry, paltry.

At the end of the day, you have to face it: you’re marketing – advertising – in the hopes of getting an agent to look at you and say “wow, now THERE’s a talent!”

In the world of Gorilla Marketing, all this effort, all this subtle, almost not work at all, is aimed at just one person. Millions of readers, or in my case, half-dozens of readers, see your blog and comments, read your name… and move on to something else.

It’s like being a daisy in the middle of the tall grass – oh please, Ms. Cow, pick me, pick me! You stand up tall, doing your flowery best to grab a little bit of bovine attention… oh, puleeze…. Of course, nobody wins in the cow analogy. Literary agents are insulted, and you get eaten if you win. But, you get the point.

The point is that if Toyota gets you to run down to your local dealership and buy a car because you saw a good ad on TV, it doesn’t matter if they wasted the time of 30 million other viewers, so long as you buy the car. No, you don’t suffer from incontinence, but some poor sap does, and those commercials might just be the ticket… say, I didn’t know they made underpants like that!

The point is this: you market your keester off, in the hope that one, just one, single set of eyeballs, sees your stuff and says a quiet “bingo.” And when that one sees your stuff and mutters and magic phrase, all your Gorilla Marketing effort pays off, and the future is yours to pave.

Well, here’s to you, my marketing friend. May you hear a whispered “bingo” soon!

Now, if you’re an agent, you can find the first two chapters of my book here: PhineasCaswell.com.

Thank you.

Gorilla Marketing – Again

If you’ve read earlier posts here, you’ll know I’m developing a theory called “gorilla marketing.”

It’s really quite simple: you don’t do anything, and people beat a path to your door. Usually they bring loads of cash, and things turn out great.

Well, you don’t do nothing, actually. You do some stuff – you know, little marketing things that get people reading you and believing in you and eventually giving you the oodles of cash.

So, here, without any ballyhoo or marketing phrasing, is my pitch: the second chapter of my novel, Droppington Place, is posted on the web, here. It’s totally free.

Read it now, as the price is sure to go up.

Take out your marketing pencils, kids, and let’s just do a little analysis.

Interesting proposal – check.

Product offering – check.

Call to action – check.

Free offer – check.

Dude, it’s all there, and we haven’t really done any work. See how easy this was?

Now, for you to do your part. This involves oodles of cash, so you might want to take some notes…

Just to recap: Chapter 2 of Droppington Place is now ready to read, and you got a nice, healthy sampling of Gorilla Marketing in action.

Wow. What a great day!

Pass me a banana, would you?

Old Friends and New Ideas: A Marketing Ploy

It’s not good to close doors. I mean, obviously, if there’s a bear out there in the backyard, you probably don’t want to leave the kitchen door hanging open. But, in general, a closed door means something’s wrong.

The gusty winds of life sometimes close doors you meant to leave open. You think things are swimming along fine, and everybody in your life is exactly where they’re supposed to be, but, whammo, out of nowhere, you find a door has been closed.

It could be the gusty winds of life, or the dusty gathering of old age. But, most likely, the doors swing shut through inattention. Yours. Yep. There it is. You have to look in the mirror for that one, and admit, uh oh, you fell asleep.

Uh oh, Mr. Van Winkle, the kids have grown up and moved to Barstow. How did this happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were all so chummy? Now you’re over there, and they’re way over here, and how did you grow so far apart?

It can take a lot of work to open an old door, but it will almost always be worth it. Unless that door leads to a cranky ex to whom you owe money, you’ll usually find a warm and welcome heart, one that is just as surprised as you that the door swung shut.

A door opening to a long-time-ago besty was the inspiration for this bit of news: DROPPINGTON PLACE, Chapter 1, has been rewritten, and is better than ever! Sadly, you won’t find it on this site. But you WILL find it over here, and you can have some fun while there.

The re-opening of a door that was never shut in anger, only through inattention, is a great cause for celebration, and you’re invited to celebrate, too. Enjoy Chapter 1 of Droppington Place.

Did you notice that clever piece of marketing work right there? Dang, that is some fancy voodoo. Your heartstrings are all tied up in little knots about that door thing, and, boom, your right into the novel. You have to admit, that’s the good stuff. Now, if there was just a way to make a nickel from that!

So, here’s your job for today: first, go read Chapter 1 of Droppington Place. It doesn’t have anything to do with opening doors, but will make me feel better. Next, think, think, think about a door you have let swing shut, and go open ‘er up. You’ll be glad you did!

Tales of Steel

It just can’t be that hard to be Superman. Yes, your home planet blew up. Yes, you have to hide behind those dorky Clark Kent glasses in a world that thinks you really can’t be recognized behind your Ray Bans. But you can knock the crackers out of anyone who disagrees with you.

More importantly, as a Super Person, you can approach every new situation with the knowledge that there is no one stronger, faster, smarter, yada-yada-yada. That must be a pretty cool something to have in your pocket. Say what you want, evil-doer, for I have all these nifty super powers.

But you and I, we’re writers. For us, publishing our work is like Superman going up against a bad guy. I don’t know about you, but when I look in my back pocket, I only see last week’s tissue and an empty wallet. Maybe a little lint.

Every piece we publish, even dopey pieces like this, put us out on that line of pass/fail, succeed/fail, survive/fail. Out here it’s just you and me, kid, and I’m not so sure about me.

With that cheerful thought, I formally announce to you, my writer friend, that Chapter 15 of MARIGOLD’S END is now on this site.

If you’ve been reading along, and I know you have, you’d know that Phineas, Louise, and Taylor have stowed away on the Marigold, only to find the ship in pursuit of their own Kathryn B. The weather has turned foul, and Captain Jaffrey’s a demon possessed, and things can’t possibly end well for the smaller ship. Phineas has to quickly piece together a very big, very serious puzzle, and despite a horrific loss, figure out what he’s made of.

I can’t give away the ending, but I can tell you that I recently read an account of an American frigate during the revolution that experienced almost exactly what happens in this story. It’s always nice to know I got the history right.

So, Super Person, dust off your cape, get out your Krypton Reading Glasses, and peruse Chapter 15 of MARIGOLD’S END. If you haven’t read the previous, that’s okay – you’ll enjoy this one. If you have, bless you child. Thank you for your generosity.

Is it paradoxical that the guys who started all those superheroes, back in the early days of the comics, took the same chances you and I, as writers, did? Edgar Rice Burroughs had paved the character road for them a little bit, and the newspapers carried comics, but you have to applaud the courage to publish an entire graphic magazine.

I wonder if those guys wore glasses…

Always Be Marketing

You noticed in my last post how I cleverly mentioned the name of my second novel, DROPPINGTON PLACE? Well, did you notice that I just mentioned it again? Boom. Right past you, there, huh? That, my friend, is marketing.

Well, actually, it’s not, because you are the only one reading this post. But, if I had, like, a million readers, boom… see?

Here’s another one: I put Chapter 14 on MARIGOLD’S END, my first novel, on the Pages part of this website. Huh? Did you see that? Huh? Right there. Boom.

The theory we’re testing here is exposure. Repetition. Repeating the name over and over. If you look over my posts, you’ll see a preponderance of pirate pictures. Ah, another part of the theory.

If the theory of repetition holds true, when I finally get MARIGOLD’S END pried out of the hands of my stalled editor and published, there will be a line of people waiting to buy it. It will virtually be a line… or maybe a virtual line. Maybe a hypothetical line. Maybe a line of one. Me.

But that’s the gamble of marketing, upsides and downturns. Read the chapter. Leave a comment. Boom. You are marketed.

Shameless Marketing

Go ahead, say what you will. Get it out of your system. Shameless, tasteless, bad form, bad ‘cess to it. Fie on thee. There you go. Are you through?

The cause of this invective, as you well know, is that I put together a cute little video about a model sailing ship, announcing its YouTube launch on a sister page, Droppington Place.

Nobody watches it, but, well, as you’re the only person reading this post, low ratings are no shock to me. Rather a low par for a very lonely course. You’re a writer. You know how it goes.

So, there were some little cranky-making nits and gnats in the movie – not enough to stop a would-be Steven Spielberg like myself, but perhaps enough to make a would-be watcher say dude, what was that?

Although no one has watched the move, there is still the profession to be honored. Plus, one never knows.

Hours under the cinematic hood resulted in this: TA DA!!!

Hey, you say, I didn’t watch the other video, but this video sure looks the same.

You, my hyper-critical friend, are only halfway right. Yes, the majority of images are the same. But, there are some pretty big deal changes.

Some of the images are taken from other photography sessions – one shows even an incomplete ship. Ho HO, did not see that coming, did ya?

But, here’s the shameless marketing part – one of the images, a 7 second segment, shows the cover of my novel, MARIGOLD’S END. The cover features the same ship model, dramatically blowing up in the background.

Genius, I know.

AND, if you look carefully at that one shot of the crew on the deck, some joker cleverly inserted the face of yours truly in the background. Oh, so clever.

Say what you will, this is a great example of cross-platform marketing.

If somebody ever watched my video, they might wonder about what that dramatic book cover is.. about… and Google MARIGOLD’S END, and, bang, zoom, the circle remains unbroken.

Not only that, but the casual reader of Droppington Place, and there is only one of those, now has a link to the video, which leads back to the book. Ah, the web, the web…

Obviously, with only one reader and no video watcher, the full effect of my marketing tour-de-force has yet to be felt. But give it time…-150-200 years or so, and then we’ll have something about which to converse.

So, the video is here: Black Swan by Zvezda, and the launch article is here: Hello, Hollywood!

Zoom! You, my writer friend, have been mar-ke-ted… see how easy it is?

Next I think I’ll write a song…Marigold’s End, the Theme from Marigold’s End, the Phineas Caswell Adventure.

Now that’s a catchy title!

I’m likin’ it!

Book Publicity: We’re Getting Somewhere Nice

If you’ve been reading the chapters of my book, MARIGOLD’S END, you’d know that I’m releasing it one chapter at a time onto this site. You could figure it out by reading my posts, of course, including this one, but I’m trying to make you thing “dude, I should be reading that book instead of playing Candy Crush Saga.”

Not that I have anything against Candy Crush Saga – in fact, I’ve given up all on-phone video games for Lent – or your reading habits. None of my business. Nope. Nosiree Bob.

So, there it is. Where is this going, you wonder. And well you should, for I do, too.

Here’s where: Chapter 5 is now on the site. My boy Phineas, 12 years old in 1706, is taken to sea against his will by his seafaring Uncle Neville. He’s had a narrow escape with murder (committing it), nearly been drowned, suffered through near-terminal seasickness, and now has learned about the superstition surrounding a “Jonah.” Ah, but the deep blue sea holds more adventure for our young man – he’s about to meet Taylor, a slightly older, terribly well educated sprout of a fellow, and Louise, the granddaughter of the King of France.

If you aren’t reading along, you’re missing out.

And don’t be expecting me to come on here and tell you the whole darned story – not going to happen, mate. Nope. There’s a big ending, but I can only hint about that.

Here’s the hint: it’s big. Another hint: it’s at the end.

You’re a writer. You know how it goes. The world doesn’t necessarily come looking for your book. You have to coax it, wheedle a little here and there, to generate interest and talk. Buzz. You gotta build the buzz. Sounds like a bumper sticker.

Your publicity should be gentle, but persistent. Nobody likes a showoff, and most people don’t appreciate self-aggrandizing fanfare. So you have to be nice, and, like me, terrifically humble. Okay, brilliant is in there, too. Did I mention brilliant?

You don’t have to read my chapter, but take a page from this forum (as you know, only the humbly brilliant refer to their soapboxes as forums) and think about being nicely, humbly persistent in publicizing your work.

Notice that the word ‘marketing’ hasn’t shown up anywhere in this…oops, there it is… because you and I, we no longer market our work. We publicize it.

Good luck in your publicizing efforts, enjoy the chapter, and be nice.

Publicity, One Chapter at a Time

Are you ready for the next installment of MARIGOLD’S END? I’ll bet you are – you there, my writer friend, sitting on the edge of your seat wondering, wondering, wondering whatever happens to Phineas next.

At least, I hope it’s you. Nobody else in the room, that I can see. Yep. It’s you. Try to form a line there, would you please? A line of one rather resembles a dot, doesn’t it? Well, please form an orderly dot.

Writing is a lonely business. Your garret, or office, or room, or swimming pool deck, wherever you do your writing, fills up with characters, talking, laughing, fighting, sleeping, doing whatever it is that they do. Then you turn off the word processor, and, voila, it is only you.

No one is very much interested in you while you write, because, frankly, you are uninteresting when you write. Not as a person, mind you, but as company, because you’re in the room filled with all those interesting characters. The real people around you just sort of hang in limbo until you snap off the word processor. Oh, THERE you are!

So you, my dotted friend – dotted by virtue of being a line of one – are the witness to the publicity and hoorah surrounding the release of Chapter 4. Hoorah!

Chapter 4 introduces us to the life of a sailor. Chapter 1 introduced us to Phineas, Chapter 2 to the perils of traveling by boat in the early 1700’s, and Chapter 3 to the indescribable job of seasickness. Now we’re past all that and exploring the Kathryn B, and what it means to be a sailor.

In MARIGOLD’S END, you learn about the new world into which Phineas is thrust only through his eyes – a challenge to write, but hopefully not to read. Like you, Phineas’ learning comes through total immersion. It be sink or swim in the briny deep. You’ll find it over there, on the left, under MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel. See, it sort of drops down, ready for reading’!

So you, dear dot of a writer-friend, are in for a treat.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a line, leave me a comment, send me a mental note.

If you are a new dot, please be so kind as to stand next to the other dot, thereby forming a line.

A line! They’re lining up to read my work!

I KNEW this day would come!

Now, if I can just get ‘em to pay!

Marketing Ploy: Chapter Added

Okay, no lies here. Only the straight up truth. Something inside says to publish the chapters of this book, one miserable week at at time, until the book is laid completely before you. So, submitted for your approval, MARIGOLD’S END, Chapter 3. You’ll find it over there, on the left, under the title MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel. See how it works?

So, why publish chapters of the book. Once you’ve read it, you’re not likely to buy, like, a dozen copies. Maybe you could – they make great Christmas presents and passable doorstops – but no one is holding their breath.

No, it’s something more fundamental than marketing. What is the WWW if not the marketplace of the world. What is the Internet, and the ability to publish whatever, whenever, if not a way to float ideas, to share thoughts, to trade our works of art with one another?

In Shakespeare’s time, he published his own work through a publisher, hoping that it would sell. But more than just hoping for a little quick cash, a little Elizabethan jingle-in-the-jeans, he had to write, had to publish, had to share his words.

You’re a writer, you understand. You do the blog thing as a way to express yourself.

More, this is marketing. While I want you to read this book, and DROPPINGTON PLACE, my next book, I really want to impress in your mind that my books are good and entertaining and worth the paltry shekels one shells out for them. I’m not marketing these books, but their children.

Which, according to gorilla marketing, means I’m not marketing at all, but publicizing. You, John or Jane Q. Public – isn’t it weird that John and Jane have the same middle initial? It must be Quincy – are not being marketed, but are reading a fine piece of publicity. No pictures, please.

So, go on over and click on MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel, and breeze through Chapter 3. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, and enjoy the publicity. No pictures, please.

Cliffhanger Marketing

When we left our heroes, Norman, Jake, and Wanda dangled over the boiling lava pit, suspended in the air by a single strand of dental floss.

“I believe it’s beginning to stretch…” Jake gasped.

The cliffhanger, the white-knuckler squeaker of a nasty dilemma that makes you just want to, makes you just have to, makes you just DIE to start the next chapter and see what happens, is an old, old way to sell stories.

Scheherazade used them to keep herself alive in the One Thousand and One Nights, remember? The king was going to lop off her head when she reached the end of her story, so she spun out cliffhangers, night after night, until he finally said “dude, like, cut it out!” That may be a loose translation.

The upside of cliffhangers is that you bring the audience back for the next chapter. It’s rather a component of gorilla marketing, wherein you don’t do anything, and let the story do all the work.

The downside is that your story becomes lurchy, if that’s a word, and rather roller coastery, if that’s a word. Your sensitive love story about a girl and her pet dragon must necessarily take a turn for the violent, or for extreme emotions: I HATE you, Nogard bellowed. The end.

Another downside is that cliffhangers become rather tedious. For goodness sake, can’t he AVOID the traps once in a while? The old Batman TV show had just 22 minutes to get out of a cliffhanger, tell some story, and get into a new one, making the Caped Crusader seem, I don’t know, rather cartoonish?

So, it is with a blend of cliffhangery, if that’s a word, and gorilla marketing, that you now find Chapter Two of MARIGOLD’S END here on this very site.

Taa Daa!

As you’ll recall from Chapter One, our troubled twelve-year-old, Phineas Caswell, points the loaded pistol, trigger-finger itchery (if that’s a word), squarely at the running-away back of Alfred Townsend, the unarmed bully that has made his life a living hell. Will he pull the trigger and end his woes? Will He? WILL HE???

Well, now you can find out. The second chapter, cleverly titled Chapter Two, now has it’s own page. Oh, and you’ll be surprised at the turn of events. I hope.

Now you can read the chapters, build up steam, get rolling in MARIGOLD’S END, and wait breathlessly for Chapter Three. Oops – I gave away the title!

Before you get all wormy-squirmy and palm-sweaty like you do in the seat across the car dealer sales manager (How am I going to get you into that car today, friend?), I must remind you: this is gorilla marketing. Don’t buy the book – you can’t!

But, let me know what you think, would you? Liked it? Hated it? Mondo disregardo? Your feedback, my independent writer friend, is most needed.

Now, I’m not desperate – I know that’s what you’re thinking. But, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. My darling editor is moooviiiing soooo slooooowly, think of this as Plan B.

Your input, spread out over the number of weeks over which I plan to release a chapter…let’s see, here, 18 chapters, take away the 2 I’ve already released…let’s see, carry the 1…should coincide with her completion of her editorial chore.

Badda boom, badda bing, and all I have to do is NOTHING! Now THAT, my reader friend, is gorilla marketing!

Elevator-Speech Dustcover Marketing

Don’t you hate those people who sum up their lives in, like, fifteen seconds? What do I do? Well, after I graduated with my MBA from Dogsnorton University, I became the sales manager for Incredible Products, the premier manufacturer of sodium-hydroxide based whisk-broom filaments with offices here and in seventeen other countries. Perhaps you should look into purchasing sodium-hyrdoxide whisk-broom fliaments. Your first thought: don’t these elevator doors ever open?

On the one hand, it’s nice to know what that person is all about. On the other, an elevator pitch invariably leaves you standing there saying “uh, well, huh, how about that?”

Sadly, this must become you. Wait, don’t go! …well, go if you must. But hurry back.

The fellow making his elevator speech to you is showing you a sign, paving your road, mentoring you, yes, you. Instead of muttering “you’re ticking me off, Phil,” you should take a mental note. Use a pencil if you have to.

This person is showing you how to market your book. He’s not exactly granting you permission to be annoying and mono-focused, but he is giving you a great example of how to sell. His elevator speech is guiding you in creating your dustcover speech.

When you buy a book, you don’t just read the front cover. You flip it over and read the paragraph on the back of the dustcover to see if the book has more than just a cool picture to recommend it. That guy’s elevator speech is his dustcover paragraph.

Here are two dustcover paragraphs on my book, MARIGOLD’S END:

The deep blue sea has haunted and hunted twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas Caswell ever since it took away his best friend and his father. Now, shanghaied aboard his uncle’s ship, the Kathryn B along with his new-found friends Louise and Taylor, he must face pirates, storms, and the secret of nations as he learns the meaning of trust and the value of responsibility.

…and…

Everything happens to twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas Caswell: his father and best friend are taken by the sea, he’s beset by bullies, and he’s dragged off to sea by his uncle. But, after learning the ways of sailors, after battling ruthless pirates, facing storms, and even determining the fate of nations, he realizes that life is not what happens to you, but what you make it.

So. Which book would you buy? – I’m sorry, “neither” is not a valid option. I’m still trying to decide which of these best describes not just the story, but the style of the book. Like the elevator speech, how you say what you say says what you need to say, too. Well, I say!

The second book sounds like more fun, but the first book might teach you more. I haven’t figured out which one I like yet – your input would be appreciated before you leave the elevator.

So, go out there and practice your dustcover speech. Who knows? Someday you might be on an elevator, and someone might ask what you do. You turn to them and say “Everything happens to twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas…”

Don’t these doors ever open?

Gorilla Marketing Phase I: In Process

At eighty miles an hour, hauling bananas down the freeway, the steering wheel of your new Yugo pops off the column and into your lap. Turns out the factory hadn’t quite gotten around to tightening the steering-wheel bolt. First, it’s a miracle your Yugo can go that fast, but, most important, you rather expect the thing to be complete when you find it in the showroom.

So, bringing the book to market.

Instead of guerrilla marketing, which takes advantage of evolving market circumstances and opportunities to quickly and effectively advertise a product, I’m using a technique called gorilla marketing, which takes advantage of overall laziness and general inaction with a grudging commitment to minimal effort. The gorilla marketing maxim: how much can you get done without doing anything.

Gorilla marketing is certainly affordable, both financially and time-wise, although it may not be as effective as that guerrilla thing in getting a book to market.

But, guerrilla or gorilla, you gotta do one thing: finish the darned book. Finish. It. Cross all of the T’s, dot the I’s, and get it done beyond done. Spell check it. Grammar check it. Re-re-re-read it once more.

I am happy to have an utterly brilliant editor very close by. My wife has a master’s degree in Russian literature, is an avid reader, and, most important, a mother of three terrific kids.

In the best gorilla marketing tradition, I didn’t even bother to print the thing out, but simply emailed a copy of MARIGOLD’S END to her. I just hear the boop as it arrived on her cell phone. That’s really close to doing nothing about marketing my book.

Jackity-crackers, kids, we’re working now. Although she is perhaps the slowest dignity-danged editor on the planet, she’s really good at it. And the price is unbeatable!

She will clean my clock on just about every sentence in this thing, and will make me rewrite the stuff that just doesn’t make sense to her, and we’ll have approximately 27 arguments over why Phineas says this and not that.

But, at the end of it, the MARIGOLD’S END that comes out will be the cat’s underwear.

So before I sent it to my editor, and in order to bring the number of soon-to-be-coming snarky comments to a bare minimum, I had to spell- and grammar-check it one more time. Found a couple of things I’d missed – who knew? The grammar-checker challenged my sentence structures – fie on thee, grammar-checker! Anyway, it’s done, and the missus has already said she regrets taking on the task. Cool!

Now, how to fix the steering wheel in my Yugo…

Vile Betrayer Marketing Guru

Back in the good old days, before color TV, rulers declared themselves despots, and tossed out anybody who didn’t agree with them. Those disagreers were labeled “vile betrayer”, and, boom, off they went to the desert on good days, off went their heads on bad.

“Be gone, vile betrayer,” was a pretty common phrase, back in the good old nasty despot days, so I’m told.

In marketing your book, you get to be a despot – a marketing despot. It’s a cool title, like those honorary doctorate degrees that colleges hand out to folks who chip in a bunch of money to build a new teacher’s lounge with a gymnasium attached. Except that this title has power to it.

For one thing, you can brand as vile betrayers those people who tell you that you should be writing with crayons. Be gone, vile betrayer. Or those who tell you they’ve read better material on the artificial butter tub. Be gone, vile betrayer. Or those who just simply tick you off – you there, with the white socks and Birkenstocks – you are worse than a vile betrayer. Be oh so gone.

As the marketing despot of your book, you have to have an iron will – or an iron George if Will isn’t around – to keep the success of your book foremost in your mind, in front of the windmills. You must cast out as non-believers those who don’t believe in your success, because, well, shucks, they’re non-believers – I guess that just sort of follows.

Why must you be so iron-willed (or Georged) despotic? Two answers:

You must be iron willed because you, and only you, are the champion of your book. If not you, whom?
You must be iron willed because faith is a tentative and fragile thing. And, really, all you have is faith that your book is marketable, is fantastic, and is something truly special. That it is your gift to the world.

The marketing guru chosen for MARIGOLD’S END turned out to be a vile betrayer. A non-believer. A nay-sayer. A neer-do-well-cad. A nervous Nellie. Be gone, vile betrayer, and take your encyclopedia-selling mindset with you. Be thankful you’re not banished to… to… well, banished! Be gone!

This is your chance to be the ruler you’ve always known you should be. YOU can take your book to stellar heights. YOU can build a literary empire. YOU could RULE the WORLD!!!

Or, maybe you should just concentrate on selling your book.

Yeah. Probably that.

Hissy-Fit Marketing

Nothing beats a good hissy-fit. You know the kind, where you pull your hair and stomp your feet and get so red in the face people think you’re a thermometer? That’s a really effective way to scare off bears and stray pussycats. I tried it at the office… not so effective there. I guess I can sort of kiss that raise goodbye.

But a wild hissy-fit might just be the thing that puts your book over the top. What would happen if, like, you started getting into the world’s grille about something – racism, climate change, dirty diapers, you get the drift – and made some sort of a big hissy-fit. Your fit gets on YouTube, you go viral, and, oh, hey, you also wrote a novel that now we all have to read because, goodness, what a vibrant person you are!

It could work.

Sadly, if you threw a hissy-fit over something really nice, like the West African success against ebola, you wouldn’t get any coverage at all because the world doesn’t work that way.

Sadly, if you threw a hissy-fit over the nastygram items listed above, you might get branded as a tantrummy sort of bozo, because that is the way the world works. Seriously, who wants to read a book written by a bozo, unless you are the REAL Bozo, and then, hey, that might be kind of cool. A book on clowns by the master clown himself – you could make it really scary…

Step One in the Gorilla Marketing Plan is to avoid Hissy-Fit Marketing (HFM), because it only garners negative attention. I get enough of that at work.

Step Two is to make things big, which is sort of a parallel to HFM. Make things big – broadcast yourself. Spread yourself out. Do LOTS of stuff, and tie it all together. Yes, it takes a little effort, which is anti-gorilla, but it simply has to pay off.

You are publishing your book online, right? What’s the magic word there? Nope, not bozo. It’s online, bozo. Search engines and crawlers and robots troll the WWW every single second, making links between this and that, him and her, it and, well, it. The more connections you have, the bigger you are.

You don’t stop dancing with the 600 pound gorilla when you’re tired – you stop when he’s tired. Dolly Parton wears those outrageous wigs to make her short little self not so much. Say what you will about the other parts of her, at least the wigs make her look taller.

So, no on the hissy-fit, yes on the broadcasting yourself all over the WWW.

If that doesn’t work, well, then, ding-dang it! What THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE??? WHATSA MATTER WITH THE DING-DANG STINKING WORLD…

Gorilla Marketing

Marketing your work is kind of like having kids – there’s a fun ton of work to be done before the happy bundle of joy… sort of … well I guess it’s really just a lot of work. But, like raising kids, it can be totally nerve-wracking. You’ve got decisions to make, and, most often, no one off of whom to bounce them.

Guerrilla marketing is smart, slick, creative marketing that takes advantage of niches and opportunities that present themselves. It takes a quick and agile mind to spot the chances to promote your product, and a lot of time and focus to jump on them when they pop up.

Gorilla marketing, on the other hand, doesn’t take a lot of time, or energy, and probably doesn’t even work…it’s my own theory. It involves trundling your product out before a lackluster audience – rather like the folks that visited PT Barnum’s circus for the free beer – and hoping that they will somehow generate a degree of interest that will result in million dollar sales. It’s rather like armchair quarterbacking – you don’t do anything and expect amazing results. So far it’s worked for me, in that I’ve done very little and have no results. At all.

But there IS a way to make gorilla marketing work. There is a way to spread your net, ah, yes, the spreading of the net theory, that will open the magic door for you.

Just for the record, the magic door is the one that pops open with a publishing contract for this book plus the next 300 novels and a movie deal for each. Kinda like the Muppets “Standard Rich and Famous Contract”. You might want to practice your signature for that one.

In my effort to act just like a gorilla and market my book, I have enlisted the help of a master ground-roots marketer. And when I say enlisted, I mean pled on bent knee and have yet to receive an answer. Puleeeeze help with my book. Puleeeeeeeeeeeeze….

The plan is secret, but, like a secret you tell a gorilla, soon to be out.

Okay, I’ll spill: if I can get the master marketer on board, he will be the linchpin that makes the whole shebang fire off like fourth of July mint juleps.

The net continues to spread, not from just this blog, but with other avenues that I’ve yet to exploit – oh, it’s coming my friend.

How does it work for you? Developing a growing cadre of readers, albeit only vaguely interested, builds the background for your book. Publish yourself all over the place, and don’t forget to mention your book. Then, find yourself a marketing guru to turn the key, so to speak. They are out there.

If my marketing master turns out to be a guru, I’ll let you know ASAP. And, you probably won’t even have to buy my book, or act like a gorilla.

Tips from a Marketing Guru

Gosh, that’s a selling title. Sadly, I sort of have the opposite in mind, but you can’t make a headline that says “I Need Tips from a Marketing Guru”, because no non-marketing guru will read your blog. And, although my children believe me to be an ATM, I was sort of hoping to get some advice on the cheap.

Here’s my bass-ackwards marketing plan, which needs serious consideration. WARNING: don’t do as I do, for I don’t know what I’m doing.

In the new world of publishing, the reader chooses the author, not the other way around. One way to build steam for your book is to offer it for free, or at least parts of it, to get it out there in the big old WWW. You build interest, you build potential readership, you build search linkages, yada yada yada.

In the new world of publishing, you must be brave, little Piglet, and put yourself into the market. But you needn’t do it all at once – it might be better to have a little cache of readers behind you. That’s the theory I read somewhere.

In my case, I’m a chicken. In my brave new world, we put chapters out and sort of test the waters. You sort of tentatively do things in tiny fits and starts just in case you’ve done something majorly idiotic. Hey, it could happen.

So, when you have a minute or twenty, if you wouldn’t mind, would you be so kind as to visit my pages and read the first and seventeenth chapters of my recently completed novel? I promise you’ll be entertained. Promise. Pinky-swear.

I also promise to keep you apprised of new happenings in this wacky adventure.

Especially if I hear from a marketing guru!

Stick a Fork in Me

Done like a ton of finished, like a taco casserole in a thousand degree oven I am done, done as the day is long, done. Finito. Wrapped it up. Did the deal, finished across the line with a big ol’ smile across my face. DONE!

72,584 words of pathos, humor, and history all wrapped up in a nice little package featuring my friend Phineas, who gives up, gets angry, blows his top, cries, and finds his father, all the while fighting a running battle with the sea. Phin, my boy, carped at by the ship’s sailing master, driven to near distraction by the French king’s granddaughter, and called every harsh, rude, hurtful name in the book, tries to find his way, figure out how he got thrown into the seagoing gulag that is the Kathryn B.

Not a spoiler alert, not here – you’ll have to read for yourself how this one turns out.

In fact, my next step is to find a reader. Someone who can be honest with me, but someone who knows a thing or two or three about the Young Adult Fiction business, what they’re looking for, what will float, what will sink like a stinking stone.

Really, my next stop is on the publishing wagon. Get this monster read by someone with brains, rework it to their thoughts, and then Wordsmash it or Yahoo it or Amazon it or something.

Really, the next step, which starts tomorrow, is to think about marketing. Building the old platformaroony that will carry this book into the bazillion dollar sales range.

You, my friend, need not worry. I will not try to sell you a book. You are my only reader, and I thank you for sticking with me. Stay with me, sail with me over the horizon of the publishing adventure. I promise to tell you everything. The rewards could be great.

For now, the goal is to simply enjoy 72,584 words of doneness. Finitoness. Ah, sweet victory, thy name is Phineas.

Make Yourself A Movie Trailer

Imagine that your novel is a major motion picture…it’s not that hard, is it? This movie has fantastic actors, a brilliant script, breathtaking cinematography: it’s a stunner.

Now imagine the movie trailer…you’re sitting in the theater trying to ignore that kid three seats away that keeps bellowing “mmmwaaa” like a drunk lamb (it turns out that they like beer…who knew?), and alternately slipping on spilled soda and sticking on some tacky substance that releases a regular waft of tutti-frutti. The theater darkens…the room falls silent.

“Mmmmwaaaaa!”

Except for that.

An image flickers on the screen. You gasp, dude, it’s your trailer…

“In a world gone mad…one man…one woman…one deli sandwich (extra pickle-lily no on the jalapenos)…from the people that brought you…”

The theater goes silent in anticipation.

“Mmmmwaaaaaa!”

Except for that.

That’s what your book is like if your are not…don’t have a…haven’t written a…

It probably never happened in history that some writer just sorta wrapped up a manuscript and dropped it off at a publisher’s house and went to bed to wake up the next day to find that he was a phenom and the Daily Enquirer had already saved column 1, page 1 for him. Of course not…the Enquirer is a tabloid.

All that to say that, mega publisher or no, don’t force your first book to stand on its own. Start today, right now…good heavens, you mean you haven’t started yet?!?…to build a name for yourself, make a coherent framework in your career into which the book will fit. It doesn’t have to be a huge name…the book will do that if it’s good…but it should enough oomph to fill out the dust jacket.

“Author John Reinhart lives in Ventura, CA with three dogs, four cats, five rabbits, and the ocasional sheep. He has a nifty collection of rubber bands and really likes padded socks. This is is his first novel.”

In the trailer, “from the author of nothing prior to this” just doesn’t fly. “From the publisher of Hairball dot com…” now that has something going for it.

In the good old days of Harcourt Brace, they took the nifty picture of you at the typewriter smoking a cigarette and looking authorly, and did all that behind-the-scenes Madmen stuff because they had invested a bunch of money in you.

The money’s gone, which means you, my dear, must do the Madmen stuff yourself.

“In a world gone mad…one man…one woman…one clever backstory to get you to buy my book…”

“Mmmmmwaaaaaa!”

Beating the Biscuits out of the Bears

What are you supposed to do when you’re hiking along a trail, happy as a lark in a predator-free environment, when, son of a biscuit, there’s a bear, like, right there, growling and frothing and pawing the ground like a bull, although he’s only seen those on TV because we know that bulls and bears only get together in the stock market, ready to have you, yes you, for lunch?

You don’t run, right? Run, and, bango, the bear’s looking for bread because he’s ready for a you-sandwich. No, no, no. You make yourself look much bigger than you really are, right? You need to suddenly grow six inches and six sizes and froth at your mouth and shake your head like, dude, there is something really wrong with you. If you do that, chances are pretty good that the bear will remember that he’s on one of those low-carb diets, and really, you look a little fluffy, like maybe you’re stuffed with mayonnaise, and well, gee, maybe he left the kids on the stove and, maybe some other time, huh?

In the world of online writing, the bear is the vast void of the Internet, the inescapable sea of voices, writers just like you, well, almost a lot like you, sort of, that yell dude, it’s me! Read my stuff! Just like the frothing fellow on the trail, this bear eats you – well, your work – and away it goes, and you find yourself looking down the path wondering how come you worked so hard but got nothing but bear-bite marks on your keester. And, just like the trail-growler’s lunch, you die, because, as writers, we all die when our work goes nowhere.

So, you gotta be big…bigger than big. You have to be a phenom. And maybe you’re just a tiny little phenom, like not so big a phenom that we read about you in the tabloids at the supermarket – really? Are you the batchild? – but big enough to have your voice heard over the moaning, bad-writing multitudes mewling for attention. Because you’re a better writer than that.

Bears live in creepy caves that most often have a boatload of icky spiderwebs. While the world wide web has nothing to do with bears, although, of course you and I know that it does, it, too, hangs out on servers, which are like creepy, sort of icky boxes of hot metal and plastic. But I digress. Don’t let that keep you from climbing across the world wide web like a thousand-legged spider, because that’s how it really, really works: all of the silken webs tie together, and you can use ‘em to catch more than just flies.

When you write for a publisher, look for ways to get the same piece published at other sites. Start your own site. Start your own blog. Publish the same piece in as many places as you can think of. Spread everything you write just as far as your imagination can take you. Each piece you write then becomes a web, and you become the spider at the middle.

The robots that look for similarities across the web see you, yes, you. Your name rises in the search rankings. Eventually, and this is no joke, you become someone. Yours is not the mewling voice, not the blather of the multitudes. Yours is the voice of authority.

Are you famous? Well, somewhat.

Because yours is the voice that beat the biscuits out of the bear.