Tell me! -- No! Shh, don't tell!

There is a lot of literature on the web about how to self-promote your writing.  Particularly how to build a platform and use it to shout across the web.  Sites like Kristen Lamb's Blog (which I find fascinating) explain how to use social media to your advantage -- effectively, she instructs you on how to do the digital equivalent of enunciating when you speak.  But for as much noise as the make-noise-brigade, um, makes, there is a quiet backlash of people who don't want to tell anyone that their publications even exist.

This weekend, Dinty W. Moore posted a fab little article on the blog of his online magazine BREVITY.*    Moore is also a faculty member of the Ohio University graduate program in creative writing.  He's noticed recently that he has students who won't tell people their work has been published.  It's not that they're shy wallflowers -- in Moore's story, he was the one offering to make the announcement, he just needed specifics from the student -- it's that they don't want to share.

I understand some of the backlash.  There is such a thing as overkill.  Or being tactless.  I don't want you to spam me about your new book, but I do want the opportunity to find out about it.  Publications are not CIA agents, they do not need to blend in and accomplish tasks that only a select few will ever know of.  But neither do we want our publications to be politicians or Paris Hiltons, always looking for the photo op or thinking about what they could do to get a sound bite on Entertainment Tonight.

Moore points out that Facebook can be nice, or it can lead to spamming.  It's all about tact.  I've read blog articles because someone has multi-posted the subject and link on Facebook and Twitter ... but I've also been put off when a find a person's entire feed is them posting links to blog entries again and again (as in, multiple links to the same entry, or suggestions to "catch up" on their old blog posts).

I got frustrated last fall when no one in the department knew that I'd gotten two short stories published because the publications had happened over the summer.  Their "not knowing" didn't bother me as much as them behaving like I was still unpublished.  I had an awkward conversation with a faculty member who told me I'd feel much better about myself once I got something published.  Awkward because I didn't feel like I could interrupt her to explain I was published, and awkward because I didn't feel any different before my publication than I did afterward.  But more to the point: we had that conversation because she didn't know.  In fact, she couldn't have known.  I wasn't cray-cray girl running around telling everyone that I had a story pubbed, but neither had I exercised the channels in place for department promotion.  Because, to be honest, I didn't even know those channels existed!  So run out and do that now: locate the person in charge of your department newsletter and find that email address.  A quick blurb will tastefully disseminate that information without being cray-cray girl.

To make it more palatable to those who would otherwise stay silent, Moore breaks it down into "sharing" vs. "promoting," with "promoting" being the creature that maybe you don't want to ride to the finish line.  He also points out that often publications (particularly independent presses and magazines) don't get bought without word of mouth sales.  "Sharing" your publications contributes to those publications audience base.

Here are Moore's six rules of sharing:

1.     Self promotion is when you spam all of your friends and those who are barely friends and repeatedly say “buy my stuff,” or “look at my stuff.”  We don’t need daily updates.
2.     Self promotion is NOT when you share good news with fellow strugglers (like grad students in your program, or the faculty who are rooting for your success).  That’s just being part of a supportive community.
3.     To my mind, even a link on Facebook, or on your blog, or as a signature line in your e-mail (subtle, not blaring), is NOT self promotion, at least not the bad kind that folks want to scorn and avoid.  Certain people wish to know your good news, or read your poem, or buy your book, so it is fully acceptable to tell them that the work is now available.  It is, in fact, inconsiderate not to tell them.
4.     Tell them once, of course, not fifty times, and give them a clean link rather than e-mailing PDFs of everything you’ve ever written.
5.     If you assume your friends would hate you for your success rather than be pleased for you, maybe it is time to look for new friends.  Or look at yourself.
6.     Writing is not bad.  Publishing your writing is not bad.  Don’t treat it as if it were.

If you're interested, I recommend the full article.

Oh, and btw, I just got a story accepted at Enchanted Conversation! (eeee!) That was an excited noise.  And I will be posting when the issue goes live.

* I love BREVITY's nonfic mini-essays ... I just wish they'd publish one of mine.


Photo credit: Sasha Wolff at SashaW

How to be a professional and a self-epublished author

Perhaps I could have titled this post simply "how to appear as a professional when you publish" and left out the distinction of self-publishing -- but presumably, if you publish with a house they are at least going to advise you on publicity if not provide you with a small amount of it.

(Not book tour publicity, but at the bare minimum all of the following information.  And most likely, they'll do some of the work for you.)

One of my good friends is a theatrical publicist who likes the same kind of fiction I do. Last week, when the Amanda Hocking headlines and chatter were strong, I mentioned the situation to my publicist friend. She read the article I sent her and began scoping out "this Amanda Hocking woman."

Speaking as a publicist, my friend declared two things to me: (1) Ms. Hocking might be making a good deal of money but she's not a professional and (2) Ms. Hocking absolutely needs a publicist.

(1) Ms. Hocking might be making good money but she's not a professional. This declaration comes from the notion that one must dress for success if one wants to succeed.  That to be taken seriously you must put your best foot forward: you don't show up to court in fluffy slippers or chew gum in front of the Queen.  When in Rome, behave in a way that makes the Romans think more of you, not try to kill you before you get back to the Tardis.

Mixed metaphors aside, what I mean is that having a web presence is not the same as having a professional web presence.

I thought about getting into a discussion of the differences between person, personal, and persona, but I think that is another post all in itself. For the sake of this post, I'll say that your web presence should not be "you" it should be your "writer-on-the-internet persona."

With that in mind, I get to things the publicist told me:

• If you're selling something (a book, a watch, your cupcakes, your skills as an actor, tiny pieces of your soul), your presence on the internet should not be just a blog.  You must have a website.  Should you also have a blog?  That's entirely up to you.  But your blog should be in your website not in place of it.  
• If you're working toward publication and don't have a novel to promote, then a blog is a great platform building tool. You can chat with other writers and develop connections.  And someday when you have a novel to promote, you can incorporate your blog into your website.
• There are many free and easy ways to create a website.  Engage them.  If you're selling something (as in making money from sales), upgrade to the low level package which doesn't run ads.  The low-level upgrade on sites I've checked out like webs.com has a monthly rate that's about as much as a grande latte.  Or at very least use wordpress to create a site that looks as little like a blog as you can make it.  Unfortunately, as much as I love blogger, a blogger.com site will always look like a blog.
• Your website should have separate pages for your publications, bio, press kit, and news.  
• Publications: where you list and link your novels.  Use cover art.  List and link your short stories.  Use the magazine's cover art.  
• Biography: write it in the third person.  It's a biography, not an "about me."  Look at the "About the Author" in the back of your favorite book -- it's written in the third person, not the first.*  
• Press kit: pertinent facts and cover art for those who may be interested in reviewing, interviewing, or writing articles on you/your books.  
• News: not what you ate for lunch.  This page should list and link all the places you've guest blogged; list and link all your favorable reviews and all reviews (favorable or not) from big venues; articles written about you/your book; places your press release has appeared; places you have or will be appearing, lecturing, signing, or teaching; and future release dates. 
• Don't put your direct, personal, non-professional email address on the site.  "She's got her hotmail listed!" my publicist friend shrieked when she poked around Ms. Hocking's blog.  "First off, it's not professional," she told me.  "Second, you don't want that kind of email going into your personal account.  Third, it should be going through a publicist or agent or at least your mother."  Then she amended the statement further: even if you-the-author manage this account, it shouldn't be your main account and it shouldn't sound like your main account.  It needs to sound professional because it's @authorname.com (not @hotmail or @gmail or @yahoo), and it should be something like contact@authorname.com or publicity@authorname.com or the like.  Something that does not suggest OMG we can be bffs if you stalk me and send me a :) email after you finish each chapter of my book and an lol mssg after each of my #CharlieSheenIsAnAss tweets!

(2) Ms. Hocking absolutely needs a publicist.

Lastly, hire a real publicist.  No, don't run out and do it now.  But if you find yourself in the prized position of having local and national news media interviewing you and reporting on your success, or if you find yourself getting nominated for national awards, then don't try to do it all yourself.

A publicist is not like a personal assistant; she takes on many clients at once so you don't have to have oodles of work for her to do all the time.  But for a media blitz, she's worth having around.

Ms. Hocking posted last week that she had spent several days doing nothing but answer emails, and it frustrated her because it was taking time away from her writing.  Hopefully that made her see that she needs to hire help (at least temporarily) to deal with her sudden fame.

A real publicist would advise her on all of the above and more.  A real publicist would weed through the emails.  A real publicist would provide someone for the press to contact instead of contacting the author directly and having honest-to-god interview requests getting mixed in with fan/stalker/plz-tell-me-the-secret-of-your-success emails and ignored for lord knows how long.  Most importantly, a real publicist would take care of publicity and let the writer have time to write.

Photo credit: madaise

*Where a bio should be written in the third person, I've been assured that a blog's "about me" should be in the first person. Your choice between the two depends on what persona you want to bring to the table, a professional writer with published novels, or a personable blogger writing about her journey.