Doing the Same Thing

I keep a notebook of ideas for writing, promotions, marketing, website development: all the efforts writers are now expected to be able to do to further their careers.

Last week, I told my "business manager" I wanted to make more money. The response: "Market better."

Of course, I made a note of that...in my good ideas for marketing notebook.

If it is true that the definition of madness is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," I'm there. I have books and workshop notes, leaflets, pamphlets, bookmarked websites and follow marketing-writers' blogs.

There is a wealth of information, everywhere you look. And for a writer who used to be a "marketing professional," one might assume I knew what I was doing.

Not so. Self-promotion is no cakewalk in the park with a fashion icon. Self-promotion is more like staring at a mirror-image of a sleepless night after all three children have destroyed the living room furniture with permanent felt pens and explaining to their teacher why the youngest has multi-hued spots all over his face when all you want to do is curl up with a good idea, a few well-defined characters and the perfect setting.

Once upon a time, writers wrote books, sent them to publishers and rested on their laurels...or did they? The facts tell a different story. When I worked for a women's publishing cooperative, Honno.co.uk, the board members took on some of the responsibility for marketing the books we published but the onus was on the author to generate sales. This is not different from the traditional (legacy) publishers.

Although there may be an advance, promotion falls to the author unless the author is already so well-known the advent of a new book is enough to generate sales. Most of us do not earn out our advances, if we received them, and if that happens more often than not, the author will have difficulty finding another publisher.

But, help abounds! Take for instance, exactly what we do here at Classic and Cozy Books and several other author group blogs such as Avalon Authors (which came to an end when Avalon Books was bought by Amazon Montlake), Four Foxes One Hound, and any number of other opportunities that suggest writing articles, interviewing other authors, presenting workshops and networking.

I have recently joined the Indie Publishing Group hosted by the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. In a month, I will be giving a brief presentation about the ubiquitous 'Social Media' that many of us are spending so much of our writing time to pursue and conquer. In the previous century (I can say that now), authors were represented by agents, supported by editors and entertained by publishers. Now, we are in the position of doing much of this for ourselves.

And we are having a great time discovering all the fun we've been missing, as well as how amazingly capable we are, and how much work is involved beyond the wordcraft. Estimates are that most writers now spend at least 70% of their 'writing' time promoting their work, even those who enjoy the benefits of legacy publishing, which includes blogging, tweeting,  instagraming, pininteresting, tumblring, redditing, wattpading, as well as formatting, designing, proofreading or hiring someone to do all this while we strive to make a living and pay the rent.

I love my work!

Christmas Wishes

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

No, I’m not starting my 2015 Christmas list early. I’m still hung up on this past Christmas season, except that we really don’t have a Christmas season any more.

I can hear you gasping. No Christmas season? The stores fill with merchandise before Halloween, and the commercials earlier than that. Christmas trees bloom in parking lots before Thanksgiving. Christmas parties pile on and overlap each other like shingles. It probably won’t be long before Christmas and Back to School start stepping on each other’s toes.

That’s not what I am talking about. Merchandising campaigns are not a season. Christmas is supposed to be about loving and sharing and a celebration of family. (And yes, the religious celebration which is the reason for the season, but I’m not going to preach sectarianism or even doctrine.)

So what am I talking about? Now we have hysterical shopping, multiple parties, frenzied gift wrapping and, the culminating centerpiece, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is anticipation; children determined to go to bed for once (or stay awake and see Santa) and Christmas Day itself is a tsunami of shredded gift wrap and ritualized overeating. Then it’s over. Nothing looks sadder than a Christmas tree, denuded of packages but with its lights still blazing bravely, on the day after Christmas. Within days the tree and the wreaths and the Santas and the creches disappear, packed away until the following year. When I was a child, many people only took down their Christmas decorations on January 6^th.

But shouldn’t Christmas be more? More than an extended shopping spree, more than a gift-fest, more than even a day of church services?

To me Christmas transcends its religious affiliations and sacred symbolism. It is a time of hope and love and family and peace. We’re losing that to a mountain of merchandizing and parties. Most religions have some sort of midwinter celebration, a time when the year turns and the days begin to lengthen, bringing back light and warmth and survival. The basic idea seems to be one of renewal, of a restart of the life cycle.

In earlier times there was a lengthy Christmas season. It started with the beginning of Advent around the first part of December and went on until Twelfth Night (sometimes called the Night of Three Kings) which by our calendar is January 6^th. When I lived in Mexico, they still kept this schedule. Christmas Day was a time of religious celebration and the exchanging of gifts was done on the 6^th of January, when traditionally the Three Wise Men brought gifts to the Christ Child. Incidentally, some of my Mexican friends are now caught between cultures with their children expecting bounty on both Christmas Day and the Night of Three Kings! The appeal of marketing wins again. 

So what am I dithering about? Basically it is this : Christmas should be a season of joy, of peace, of fellowship and goodwill – things people can and should enjoy whatever their religion. While gifts are important, they and their attendant marketing should not be the sole focus of the season. I would like to see the Christmas season – with its joy and peace and all that – be extended from the beginning of Advent to Twelfth Night. Not more presents, nor more parties, just more good feeling and fellowship. We can only benefit.