SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARTISTS!

This summer hasn’t been much fun. I suppose that some day I’ll look back and think about it differently, but today all I’m obsessing about is what I have yet to do to promote “East Garrison,” what I’ve already done and can’t “un-do,” and what I could and should be doing to get the word out about my book.

When I first started writing the story and developing the characters, I had no idea how much work it’d be after it was done, and that I was in the midst of the actual “fun” part…writing it. I imagine most of those who haven’t been through the publishing grind go through this, yet it’s like having children. No one told me how hard it would be every day. And so, this venture has given me an education—one which I didn’t want when I started on this road. (I’ve already paid my dues in college.) I thought the adventure would be like the biographies I’ve read about my favorite writers from the early 20th century. But that era is long gone. Being a hermit writer doesn’t work today, unless your desire is to write a diary.

In this era, in order to succeed in the publishing world, you must be good at marketing (a fancy word for selling), and promotion of your SELF. Not only that, but people don’t want to take a chance on a writer who hasn’t already hit the BIG time. In my experience during this summer of economic hell, the general public would rather spend three bucks on a corn cob on a stick, than ten for a book written by some unknown. And so, the dilemma continues. Just like the rich getting richer, the writers who’ve already made it keep cranking out their formula books, and the small time artists go on struggling, like the salmon swimming upstream to spawn, and eventually give up. Supporting your local artists is important.