Chapter 7: Promote
I wanted to write, not speak.
Ann wrote this about a meeting with the editor of her first book. She admitted to the editor, “I’ve never spoken anywhere,” but she said she was willing to learn how.
Oh, Ann. I’ve never spoken either. I do dream about it sometimes. I do friends who speak, who I’m sure would be willing to advise me.
But that’s not the biggest part that worries me about promotion. It’s something Tina Fey wrote about in “Bossypants.” She talked about how writing for a weekly TV show, “Saturday Night Live,” meant that if a sketch was great, it had the same shelf life as a sketch that was awful. You couldn’t gloat for too long, and you couldn’t wallow in misery for too long either.
I don’t write for a weekly publication, but it is monthly. As January winds down, the February issue is at the printer, and I start planning the March issue. So when my book comes out, it will feel weird to talk about something that old. Oh, that thing I wrote way back in 2014?
But I will admit that after I finished reading this chapter, I spent the rest of my journal brainstorming ideas for promotion.
