Promo Blackhole
October 25, 2007 by Melissa
As a published author, promo is the dirty little five-letter word no one told you about before signing the contract. I don’t mind signings or group days, because I get to hang out with authors and readers. But the paperwork makes my eyes bleed. There are mountains of it, and plenty of times I feel like I am buried under it. It has gotten worse since my prints started coming out with Samhain because I have to learn how to do different promotions to reach out to print readers. It has been a delicate balance that sometimes has me falling head over heels into a pot of promocrap.
My main problem, and something you can probably tell from this post, is I have a slight degree of ADD. Never been diagnosed, but if you spend enough time with me, you can see it. I use it to my advantage in writing. I can work on two projects at once, edit another and plot a fourth. This hero isn’t doing what I want…move on to the contemporary. That isn’t working, do the edits I have waiting for me.
But when it comes to paperwork and ordering things, my mind starts to shut down and wander–and nothing gets done. I hate dealing with it, hate the irritating feeling that I have to get things done on someone else’s schedule. Maybe I’m just a self-centered jackass.
Okay, I am a jackass–but that’s beside the point. What was my point? Oh, yeah. Promo. Yesterday, I spent most the day preparing some things to mail out and designing an excerpt brochure. My writing and throwing world class fits are the only two creative outlets I have. Oh, and cooking. So I have three. But, designing brochures and dealing with what should go where is just irritating and time consuming. And, I was itching to start back at writing and that slowed me down. So, all day I spent bitching at my screen working on the brochure and not writing. It was something that had to get done–because when you have a bookseller say that is what my readers want, could you send some if you have them, you do it–but I alloted only one day to get it done. Why? Because otherwise I fall into some kind of blackhole that threatens to throw my writing schedule completely off track. Granted, I could try and convince Les to do it, but then I want it done MY way, and we tend to end up arguing because he is a hard headed German(and it has nothing to my stubborn Italian personality). But, promo isn’t something I can ignore, something that MUST get done. I usually spend the weekends or nights catching up on this stuff, but since I was gone this past weekend, and just finished up the first project, I decided to force myself to do it. With my ADD, I have to set a rigid schedule to get these things done or I can’t function as a writer.
Now, I am ready to get back to work today. I did do some edits last night, but I am ready to bust out my 2-3K today and see where that takes me. I am moving on from my contemporary short story into a futuristic novella. After this is done, I just have a contemporary BDSM erotic romance with a touch of romance.
See, I make ADD work for me and it can work for you too.
Good writing vibes to all my fellow sweaters:)
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Agh, promo drives me mental!!!
Necessary, but very, very evil and a monster gobbler up of writing time and energy.
Portia,
Yeah. I hate doing it and I think I am really slow when I do it because I DO hate it. So, like an idiot, I just string out the pain more. lol