The Story about the Story Revisited
I’m in the marketing trenches now, preparing to launch Hannah, which means, strangely, that I’m reading books like Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars and I now actually know what The Long Tail is. The majority of writers reading this will probably think, “Marketing?! I’m not there yet. I’m still in the private stages of writing.” You’re absolutely right to protect your tender, beloved process. I’m with Rilke when he told the young poet: “You ask whether your verses are good… You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now…I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether…
The Story about the Story
I’ve known for a while and repeatedly told my students that writing continues to offer us invitations to spiritual and personal growth even after we’re finished. Publishing and publicity can become opportunities to deepen our integrity, expand our communities, and understand the world more accurately. Of course in the mess of book production and the exhaustion of marketing, it’s easy to lose sight of this. That’s why I keep returning to Seth Godin, who manages to stay steady, full of integrity, and intent on doing good in the world. The idea of his I’ve been chewing on lately is that marketers do best to create a story around their product, and to connect that story with the community that most needs it and is most willing to talk about it. We authors usually flinch when someone refers to our work as a product, but, hey—once a book is in the…
The New Market–with thanks to Seth Godin
Because I’m gearing up to market my first novel, Hannah, Delivered, in a bit less than a year, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what it means to put creative work into the world. Most writers I know, myself included, assume their job is to write. Writing is where we’re creative. Writing is what we love. Once done, we “succeed” by landing a publisher, we’re rejected by or we reject the publishers and print it ourselves, or we contentedly or discontentedly stow the manuscript under the bed. Because I’m gearing up to market my first novel, Hannah, Delivered, in a bit less than a year, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what it means to put creative work into the world. Most writers I know, myself included, assume their job is to write. Writing is where we’re creative. Writing is what we love. Once done, we “succeed” by…