Techno-resistant
In this world of so-many-people-writing, it is a wonder any of us unknowns gets published at all. So I was quite thrilled when I learned that Libertary Publishing in Seattle wanted to publish my novel Dove Creek and that they also wanted to re-release my collection of short stories, Summer of Government Cheese.
What I'm discovering, of course, is the work involved in getting a book promoted. Libertary has something called a "book manager" to help with the "viral marketing" and other areas of new-age book promotion, but it is still up to me to tromp around the countryside with a box of books in my car, trying to get the word around to book clubs and book stores and any place with a shelf big enough to surreptitously leave books behind. I have done this quite often over the years, starting with my poetry books--"accidentally" leaving copies in doctor's office waiting rooms, in restrooms, in coffee shops, airports, bars--any place someone might pick it up and say, "Hmmm," and recommend it to someone else. That's how "viral marketing" works as well (it's also known as "the dandelion theory" of marketing), basically a fancy name for "word-of-mouth."
I'm not sure what I think of all this. It requires me to spend more time online than I'd prefer. It's why I'm on Good Reads, why the press put up a Facebook page for the book, why I'm trying to figure out Library Thing, why I had to spent a month trying to figure out how to create a website before I finally gave up and asked my son how to do it. (www.paulamariecoomer.com)The idea is to get my name and Dove Creek to pop up as many times as possible any time someone Googles either of those things. Right now anyone Googling Dove Creek first brings up 5 pages of information about the town for which it is named.
Anyone who has read Dove Creek or glimpsed this author page knows that I come from pretty spare beginnings. Patricia Faye Morrison, the protagonist in Dove Creek, had much more meager beginnings than I, but by most U.S. standards, my family was certainly far from well-to-do. We'd lived for two hundred years in the same remote spot of earth. Mom and Dad were the first of their line to move up out of those hollers, both of them just after their 18th birthday. Which has always put me at a disadvantage. I've always felt as though I were about 200 years behind the rest of the world.
Which likely explains how out of place I feel with this world of online folks, folks who hold their book clubs in a virtual environment instead of coffee shops or folding chairs in the back room of libraries. Online readings? Online live author interviews? Who ever heard of such a thing?
BUT, as you may notice, I am trying. Which is why I'm writing this blog post. I'm trying to get myself used to the idea of shopping myself around virtually. It seems to be what all the world's authors are doing. If I am to spread the story that is Dove Creek--a story I sincerely believe needs to be spread--it is what I have to do.
So, here is to learning new media, learning self-promotion, and moving into the 21st century. Probably no one is surprised that I don't have an I-pod or an I-pad or a Kindle or a phone that vibrates in the middle of dinner. We don't have internet hookup at home. And we wouldn't have an answering machine if it were up to either of us.
But we do, suddenly, find ourselves looking at big TVs. Maybe, as the character Moose indicates to Patricia Faye in Dove Creek, it's the Indian in me.
OXOX
What I'm discovering, of course, is the work involved in getting a book promoted. Libertary has something called a "book manager" to help with the "viral marketing" and other areas of new-age book promotion, but it is still up to me to tromp around the countryside with a box of books in my car, trying to get the word around to book clubs and book stores and any place with a shelf big enough to surreptitously leave books behind. I have done this quite often over the years, starting with my poetry books--"accidentally" leaving copies in doctor's office waiting rooms, in restrooms, in coffee shops, airports, bars--any place someone might pick it up and say, "Hmmm," and recommend it to someone else. That's how "viral marketing" works as well (it's also known as "the dandelion theory" of marketing), basically a fancy name for "word-of-mouth."
I'm not sure what I think of all this. It requires me to spend more time online than I'd prefer. It's why I'm on Good Reads, why the press put up a Facebook page for the book, why I'm trying to figure out Library Thing, why I had to spent a month trying to figure out how to create a website before I finally gave up and asked my son how to do it. (www.paulamariecoomer.com)The idea is to get my name and Dove Creek to pop up as many times as possible any time someone Googles either of those things. Right now anyone Googling Dove Creek first brings up 5 pages of information about the town for which it is named.
Anyone who has read Dove Creek or glimpsed this author page knows that I come from pretty spare beginnings. Patricia Faye Morrison, the protagonist in Dove Creek, had much more meager beginnings than I, but by most U.S. standards, my family was certainly far from well-to-do. We'd lived for two hundred years in the same remote spot of earth. Mom and Dad were the first of their line to move up out of those hollers, both of them just after their 18th birthday. Which has always put me at a disadvantage. I've always felt as though I were about 200 years behind the rest of the world.
Which likely explains how out of place I feel with this world of online folks, folks who hold their book clubs in a virtual environment instead of coffee shops or folding chairs in the back room of libraries. Online readings? Online live author interviews? Who ever heard of such a thing?
BUT, as you may notice, I am trying. Which is why I'm writing this blog post. I'm trying to get myself used to the idea of shopping myself around virtually. It seems to be what all the world's authors are doing. If I am to spread the story that is Dove Creek--a story I sincerely believe needs to be spread--it is what I have to do.
So, here is to learning new media, learning self-promotion, and moving into the 21st century. Probably no one is surprised that I don't have an I-pod or an I-pad or a Kindle or a phone that vibrates in the middle of dinner. We don't have internet hookup at home. And we wouldn't have an answering machine if it were up to either of us.
But we do, suddenly, find ourselves looking at big TVs. Maybe, as the character Moose indicates to Patricia Faye in Dove Creek, it's the Indian in me.
OXOX
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