Word Count, Volume 2:  14371

News:  Great week!  With two copies bought by my friends, I’ve sold 15.  S. King was once asked how he defined talent and he responded with a writer who can pay one of his/her bills.  Since my last electric bill was $33 and change, with the few filthy 108 book sales, I’ve cleared that by a little bit, so I have vaunted to an important step by Mr. King’s criteria:  but only with all with your guys’ help.  THANK YOU! 🙂  (Never mind that I’ve paid 5x more for book art, I’ll actually get to why I’m fine with that in a sec).

When I started marketing this book a couple weeks back, I became depressed.  Why?  Well if you guys have marketed your own books then you realize it’s a little soul-crushing.  How many of you have gone on twitter and just been attacked with ads soliciting books, free reads and general hawking of wares?  (I’m not saying I’m against that, I’m actually giving booktweep a trial run to do exactly that for me), but I realized that to be on the giving end of it is tiring.  It’s draining; I don’t want to pander and plead for people to read my book.  So I decided on a more personalized approach from my end, inspired by the controversial and accomplished artist David Choe.

So I do daily outreach like everyone, I follow or friend a certain amount of people, but I create and personalize myself and my writing, not just my book.  When asked for marketing advice by a published author, I couldn’t articulate what I was doing, but now I’m going to attempt to.  In a nutshell, I’m just going to give of myself.

Every ad I write will be an attempt to be funny, insightful, exciting, whatever.  Every blurb and poem will attempt to be the same.  I’ll try to do three short facebook pieces a day, (plus thank yous and maybe a break on the weekends) and just write write write.  Give give give.  I’m even going to attempt to be entertaining/insightful/articulate in my responses.  I am going to just GIVE with my writing.  Everyday I will write my core product, Echo and the Rarefied Tightrope, but I will also write-just to write-on facebook and wordpress to showcase my wordsmithing.  I’ll leave booktweep to throw out the mass ads, but when I do ads, I want to not just be asking to receive, I want to be freely giving as well.  That’s how I’m going to do things from my end.  I feel that’s the key to counteracting the drained feeling I get when I straight up market the traditional way (there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just how it affects me).

As far as money goes, it’s going right back into art.  If I can cover that, it’s going into better art. If I can cover that, it’ll go into more advertising.  If I can cover that, then my bills, and so forth.  I’m going to do my best to put myself last and create a quality product for all you awesome readers who decided to give me a chance-that’s what comes first in my mind.

So, maybe not business savvy, maybe not the corporate model, but I’m not a business or corporation, so I’m going to do things on a personal level with as much love as possible.  If I do become incorporated or my own business, then I’ll want this fundamental approach to permeate all levels.  I want every ad to offer something to the readers in and of itself, not just through the product.  I want every exchange and word to impart insight/thankfulness/amusement.  Everything I make I want to have value to whoever sees it-doesn’t matter if it’s only an ad.

Anyways, sorry to wax overly long.  Back to writing!  To all you writers, I wish you inspired drafting and insightful editing!