Patricia J. Parsons

Putting pen (or pencil) to paper

Posted on 8 Nov 20118 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Do you ever write with a pen and paper? Hmm? Or are you forever hunched over the computer keyboard like most writers these days? If you only ever write at a computer keyboard, I think you might be missing out. Stay with me for a few moments all you tweeters.

I wrote a guest piece for our students’ new online newsletter Symmetry recently on the topic of creativity and how it can be leveraged in fields other than the traditional “creatives.” Some people think that writing creative pieces needs to be done by putting pen to paper – literally.

Ever since I discovered her work in the late 1980’s, I have considered Natalie Goldberg to be one of my major writing teachers. I’ve never met Natalie Goldberg. My writing is not one bit like Natalie Goldberg’s writing. But her early books on writing practice, most notably Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, were my signposts along the journey toward finding my own voice as a writer. And although I’m seriously dedicated to writing while hunched over a keyboard, Natalie’s approach to teaching writing has often given me pause to consider if there is a difference in the extent to which we might be able to mine our creativity when inputting words to a computer versus letting them flow onto paper through our writing hand.

Natalie’s approach to writing is that it is a ‘practice,’ and that by practicing, we improve our writing. We don’t have to publish everything we write. Writing is often for ourselves only. (To tell you the truth, I often read material that I wish the writer had kept to him or herself!)

I’ve talked about Nataile’s timed writing approach in previous posts, but her ideas bear further reflection. She tells us to just “go!” and “keep your hand moving!” That’s where the pen and paper thing comes in—you can’t do this kind of practice with a computer.

She also tells us to “lose control.” This is easier said than done, but I believe that this is how we mine our personal creativity. As writers, we put pen to paper and if we’re able to lose control and keep the writing hand moving, interesting ideas just seem to flow.

Lee Rourke wrote a terrific piece in The Guardian’s book blog recently. In it he refers to longhand writing as a “secretive pleasure.” He says he “can sit in a corner of a café unnoticed and write to my heart’s content. I’m less conspicuous than the iBook brigade, cluttering up London coffee houses and pubs with their flashy technologies.”

Of course, my personal obsession with writing journals is related to the notion of putting pen to paper. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit in a comfortable chair and think. Then pick up that journal and just write. Okay, I will admit that these days I often pick up my IPad and do this, but to tell you the truth, it’s not the same. I highly recommend a good dose of the Natalie Goldberg approach to writing practice – with that pen firmly planted on a piece of paper that (preferably) is contained in a beautiful notebook.

The virtual book tour: virtually useful?

Posted on 31 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Anyone who thinks that public communication about anything and everything has not changed much in the past few years is clearly living a life of denial. Organizations these days have learned this lesson – often the hard way. Now, in these days of do-it-yourself book marketing, authors need more than ever to be vigilant for new opportunities.

I’ve talked in the past about how book marketers at publishing companies seem to have a different role than marketers of other products and services. There is an urgent need for anyone who writes these days – and expects to be published – to be able to articulate clearly how the work can be marketed and to whom. And this isn’t just for self-publishers.

Traditional publishers these days are even requiring book proposals to have fairly well-developed section on exactly how this book might be marketed. This means that keeping abreast of the new approaches is vital for writers.

We’ve talked at length about book trailers and have yet to come to any conclusion about their effectiveness. The next newest approach to book promotion is the virtual author tour. It is much on my mind this week as I tackle such a plan for my latest book. So I thought I’d let my blog readers in on the research I’m doing and the action I’m taking. Maybe some of my work might help you.

Let’s start by defining the virtual book tour. Any kind of a book tour is a marketing technique that puts a writer front and center in public communication vehicles. In a traditional book tour, a writer moves from venue to venue giving interviews to media personalities – radio, television and print (newspapers & magazines). The traditional book tour (effectiveness notwithstanding) is generally predicated on the notion that the writer will tour around and talk about the book. In a virtual book tour, the tour is virtual (the book usually not!).

And there is a whole cottage industry that has sprung up around the notion of virtual book tours (also known as blog tours). There are even tour coordinators. Who knew? Precisely. The problem in my view is this: no one seems to know much about virtual book tours except the people organizing and implementing them. Excuse me for a moment, but I thought that the main purpose was to publicize a book to potential readers. If readers don’t know about virtual book tours or are not tuned into those pieces of social media where they take place, then what’s the point? I digress…

In his book Plug Your Book: Online Book Marketing for Authors, Steve Weber provides some useful guidelines for setting up these tours. In his view, these so-called blog tours are “especially valuable for authors unable to travel, uncomfortable with public speaking [remember my discussion about author readings?] or whose dispersed audience makes touring impractical.”[1] Of course, not only are book tours often impractical, they are expensive and the ROI (return on investment) is often not substantial.

My virtual book tour (because I told my publisher I’d do one) is currently in the planning stages. I’m following Weber’s advice and am doing the following:

I am first building a list of target blogs that might actually be read by potential readers of my book. I’m looking for content that is congruent with the kinds of things these readers might be interested in – since this is in the historical fiction genre, that’s where I’m looking. In this case, much of what I’m finding is book blogs – and there are hundreds of thousands of them. This is going to take a bit of time. If I were trying to organize a blog tour for one of my earlier non-fiction works, I think the job might be easier. The smaller the niche, the easier it is to find blogs whose owners might be interested in guest bloggers on their topic
are (especially if the guest blogger is an expert).
The second step that I’m going to take is to evaluate these blogs. I need to find out if it’s worth my time to even approach them. If the blog in question has only a trickle of readers, it’s probably not going to be worth it to me. I need to find those blogs spaces where large numbers of my readers accumulate. Weber suggests looking at not only traffic volume, but also reader involvement – this is what I’d call online engagement. (He provides details on how to accomplish this.)
While I’m doing the above, I’m working on the excerpt that I’ll offer to the blog and the Q & A author interview that some bloggers might be interested in using rather than sending along their own questions.

All throughout this process, I’m continuing to question the effectiveness of this marketing strategy. I’ve been looking for stats on this, but like in the case of the book trailer, no research yet exists on the effectiveness of these tours. Maybe one of my grad students will take this on? Hmm? Anyone out there listening??

[1]
Weber, Steve. 2007. Plug your book: Online book marketing for authors. Stephen W.
Weber, p. 87.

Book launches, Book promotion

Author Readings: Purposeful or painful?

Posted on 25 Oct 201125 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Last week someone asked me if I’d consider taking part in an author reading event featuring my new book. If someone had asked me this question twenty years ago when I first started shopping books to publishers, I would have been flattered. I would have jumped at the chance. However, many years of writing and publishing experience later have left me a bit dubious about these events. And discussing these kinds of events with
other writers does little to disabuse me of the notion that they are largely a waste of time – depending on your objective. So, what precisely are the possible objectives of an author reading in public?

From a publisher’s point of view there is only one bottom line objective, and that is the bottom line. Their objective is to sell more books. Publishers seem to believe that putting an unknown author in front of twenty people will result in massive book sales. Given the effort involved in doing a reading and the sales potential from such a small audience, one has to question the wisdom of this approach. Keep in mind, though, that there is no effort on the part of the publisher – only on the part of the writer and the organizers. And in fact, in Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts even offers grants to publishers for readings. Who knew?

From a reader’s point of view, it’s a free night (or afternoon) of entertainment. Sometimes there are refreshments and often there will be like-minded people attending. Sometimes readings are at bookstores, sometimes they’re in libraries or other related public spaces. When I was in New York city in July, I visited a gargantuan bookstore on Broadway where they had a more or less permanent dais and chairs set up for readings. Only in a large city would you ever see this! But, is an author reading really “entertainment”?

My most recent experience of doing a reading was at a “literary festival” where a number of authors would take part in workshops and do readings. This particular afternoon when I was scheduled to read from my memoir (it was about one month pre-publication at the time), I was on the agenda after three others reading from their varied recent books. What can I say? At the risk of being lambasted by fellow authors, my only conclusion that (painful) afternoon was that writers are crappy speakers. To say I was appalled would be an understatement. One after the other they took to the stage and monotonously read. Every single one of them. It was all I could do to stay awake.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a piece in the Globe and Mail titled “The season of readings is upon us, let the misery begin.” It was delightful to see that I am not the only one who cringes at the thought of authors reading from their work. Douglas Bell who wrote the article quotes Irish author Aidan Higgins. He says it so much better than I could:

“There’s nothing more calculated to cause a gritting of the teeth, a shudder of the spirit or even a rising of the gorge than to be voluntarily confined in a Function Room to endure an hour-long ranting by the author in person, of predigested matter now regurgitated, delivered in a monotonous drone. It is enough to make a cat laugh or a dog throw up.”[1]

[I beg you to click through and read the article – If it doesn’t make you laugh out loud, you have less of a sense of humor than I do.]

I’ve been teaching and doing public speaking for many years. I’ve taken the time to hone my skills and it was clear when I came to the podium and began speaking about my writing and then reading, that this was a breath of fresh air for the audience. They couldn’t get to me fast enough after the readings were over to tell me how much they enjoyed the presentation. But sell books? LOL.

When you spend so much solitary time with your work as writers do, I think it can be fun to share it with a live audience. But if you are a crappy speaker, just back away. Please. The fact is that unless you’re a celebrity to begin with or have a rabid following from previous books, the reading will not sell many books. And if you already are a celebrity or have a fan base, they’re going to buy the book anyway. So, the reason to do it has to be more than to sell books.

So, here are my tips for doing an author reading:

Don’t focus on selling books. Just focus on connecting with live people.
Prepare. Take the time to consider what you’ll say to put your reading into
context for the audience.
Consider your presentation skills. If you’re not a good presenter and can’t make your work come alive for the audience, either get some coaching or just don’t do it.
For the love of god, don’t drone on and on. Or you’ll have to carry a gun – to put the audience out of their misery.

[1] The Globe and Mail, October 15, 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-season-of-readings-is-upon-us-let-the-misery-begin/article2201498/