Saturday, February 25, 2017

SELL, SELL, SELL

I'm tired, bored, sick of posting book covers, sell-sell sell links, sentences, summaries, but no one will read my books if I don't keep sell-selling 'em.



I'm NOT a saleslady.

Yes, I put in a lot of time promoting my blog, promoting my novels, but ...

Yikes, I AM a saleslady!!!!!!! 

Dancer Em, in her youth, learned to SELL her looks, promote her resumé, make brochures, flyers, write ad copy, and SELL exciting, varied, choreography.

Yes, you are a secretary writing letters. You are a phone operator making and answering calls. You are a file clerk, typist, bookkeeper. And errand girl, messenger service, cleaning girl, shopper, chief cook, bottle-washer -- PLUS the do-everything-gal-Friday, every day of the week.

"Success" becomes SELLING more so, SELLING harder.

As you mature, you become a CEO, boss, leader, personnel manager in charge of hiring helpers and professionals to create fancier ads and brochures, while you are SELLING tickets to performances, SELLING agents on selling you and your ever larger organization, -- all this while you are mothering high-and-low level employees such as dancers, actors, musicians, or seamstress, tailor. chauffeur, floor mopper. 

You SELL-SELL promoting your various doings -- projects that are a big hit or not a big hit -- turning them into smash hits in ads, at interviews, lunches, cocktail parties with critics and your peers, SELLING yourself gracefully, humbly, honestly, eloquently as you are transforming yourself into a successful, sophisticated "somebody."

Sell applies to everything Em created: "Cyrano" (made money), "People in Show Biz" (lost money); "Shattering Panes," Off-Broadway, and "Kings" On Broadway.(lost money); all the other plays, projects, readings, showcases, (even the book about Em that a sports writer wrote), required publicists, PR agents, producers, fund-raising, and SELLING.

Even giving away tickets, padding the house requires SELLING. That's reality.

Like a salesclerk behind a counter, like a poor flower girl, you continue to SELL YOU -- your ideas, your stuff, your talents, in order to acquire the very best manager, top notch lawyer -- yes, even a maid.

Then, only then, confidently, knowledgeably, humbly, honestly, you write your first novel, and while you're selling it, write another and another, and another.

'Tis reality -- more or less the end of Em's story
of how to attain and maintain, without fear, an everlasting career, plus fun, and a modicum of glory. 








Tuesday, February 21, 2017

(VIDEO) JOHN CULLUM'S THREE WISHES

Talking about one's wishes is an easy, fun topic. But John Cullum surprises his wife, Emily Frankel.


He is apparently not in the mood. Their discussion becomes an argument that she tries to smooth over but can't smooth over. Can they resolve it?