Wednesday, January 16, 2008

subversive marketing

So... End of the Line is coming out next month. Remember End of the Line? Yeah, I'd forgotten, too.

Anyway, I got a wild hair and decided maybe I should do some promoting. Do readings around town, that kind of thing. Since it was close to work, I went over to Borders at lunchtime and asked who I had to bribe to do a reading in their store.

Long story short, they only schedule readings for authors/artists who have a product they can stock on their shelves. Since mine is electronic, I'm SOL.

I can kinda see the logic for this, but it also seems to me that any warm bodies in their store would be a good thing, plus while my book may not be in print, Baen publishes plenty of other authors who ARE on their shelves. I pointed this out to the marketing manager, politely, but she was unimpressed.

So now I'm considering subversive ways of putting myself in their store, anyway. Go hang out in the coffeeshop, wearing a bustle dress and hat, sit and write and hand out cards to the curious. I wonder if they could kick me out for doing that. I suppose they could, but only if they noticed. I could always say I was a seamstress and gave a business card to the nice lady who admired my dress. Which would be true.

I hate territorialism. Anyway, I plan to chat up the local bookstores, and the comic book stores, too, I think. The geeks might be more receptive. And I met a guy who teaches at the art institute who offered to put me in touch with some marketing people there, who might have space/publicity I could use.

It's exciting, but it's tiring, too. I have the soul of a cat; I can be deadly for the few moments when my attention is engaged, but most of the time I'm committed to eating, preening, and lounging.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

Love that soul of the cat bit. I'm the same way.

Where can I get End of the Line? If it's going to be available on Amazon and BN, you could make sure you're Amazon author profile is up to date. BN also has discussion forums. Thta might generate some sales for you.

Holly said...

Bless you, Lisa.

EOTL is a novella, a long-short-story. It's coming from Baen's Universe, as on the sidebar. So it's part of the magazine, not a stand-alone. (Although now I'm wondering if they offer a podcast of it? I think they do a podcast of the magazine... must check on this.)

Baen's released a Best-of hardcover last year. With any luck I'll make it into a future edition.

EOTL is also a stand-alone in a larger work, The Curse of Jacob Tracy... which I haven't worked on in a year and some change, what with all the divorcing and remarrying and moving. Gah. I almost miss the writing part of my life.