Being a small press author, I know how hard it is to get my name and my work "out there." For this reason, I've been so gratified each time I come in contact with a supportive soul who either buys my work or adds a link to my Web site from their own.

To keep the karma rolling, I post blurbs on my home page about other writes' work. And I've noticed something happening — their marketing efforts are driving traffic to my site.

For instance, if someone does a search on Ishle Yi Park's work or Roderick MacLean's novel, Tropic of Cubicle, my site is somewhere in the list of Web sites dealing with these subjects. Sometimes my site is # 1,012 and sometimes it's #3.

This not only supports the work of other small press writers and up-and-coming artists, but it allows my Web site to ride the coattails of their marketing efforts. And mentions of my work on their sites rides the coattails of my promotional work.

Posted on Tuesday 19 of April, 2005 [14:10:12 UTC]

My first book (As My Sparks Fly Upward & Other Stories) was published in 2002. By that time, I had always been the guy in the class who never raised his hand; the wallflower; the guy who sat through meetings at work letting everyone else gas on about their ideas.

But when I finally had a copy of my book in my hand, my inner Donald Trump came to the fore.

E-mail is my medium, and I took to my Yahoo! account with abandon, sending out a flurry of notices to local media, friends and contacts — anyone who would be interested in my book, and anyone who might not be.

In the end, my book received write-ups in more than half a dozen local publications, I was interviewed on three different radio programs, and even appeared on local morning television to promote my book. This was all quite fun, exhilarating. The radio and television people were pros and set me at ease.

The tough part was doing the readings.

In my city, Windsor, Ontario, there is only one major bookstore: Chapters. The folks there were extraordinarily welcoming, and not only did they order copies of my books (well over 100 copies by now), but they were very open to the idea of me doing a reading and booksigning. My wife and a friend of hers made up postcards with my book's cover at on the front, and we mailed out about 100 invitations to friends, family, acquaintances, anyone. My reading was well attended; we ran out of chairs for a quarter of the attendees.

I was nervous as hell doing the reading. Suddenly, the words on the page, which I thought had been so well chosen, seemed clunky and foreign. During the booksigning, I was delirious with excitement and nerves, forgetting the names of people I had known all of my life. Overall, however, it was a great experience. A worthwhile hurdle to clear, both personally and professionally.

On top of these efforts, I even contacted my local Costco. Again, my sales pitch was met with enthusiasm. I was stunned — even more so when Costco ordered 150 copies. This I managed by promising to buy back all unsold copies. This is a big thing when selling books. Bookbuyers have no idea what kind of barrell distributors have booksellers over. The only way to make this paletteable or workable is that distributors will take back all unsold copies of books. So, much as I wasn't inclined to do this, I made a similar promise, and this seemed to get the stores to take me seriously.

Months later, I found that Costco sold all 150 copies of my book. I had two different sales staff check this out in their computer system to make sure it was true. It was.

The bottom line is, no matter who publishes your book, it's up to the author to be the book's best advocate. If you don't believe in what you wrote enough to promote, who else is going to care about it?

After years of rejection slips from publishers and magazine editors, the acceptance and enthusiasm my published book received more than made up for the trials I went through writing and pitching it.

Posted on Tuesday 12 of April, 2005 [14:01:14 UTC]