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.
2 comments:
It's no fun is it, to have to sell all the time.
I hear you on the difficulty of marketing books or theater productions or anything . Who is the market that your books appeal? This question is not an insult just a question. When I select something to read, fiction or non-fiction, I check the reviews, of credible reviewers and other authors. Marketing of your books need to be talked about beyond your FB or Twitter page in my opinion which as you know I always have an opinion right or wrong.
One more thing I'm so sorry, if any of my comments related to the magazine cover caused you and stress or problems of any kind. I won't engage or share my concerns about the current political situation again on your wall. Please accept my apology for my posts that have distressed you in anyway. Always, much love and big hugs, H xxxxxooo
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