Storytellersunplugged

When my first novel, The Unwelcome Child, was finally accepted by a publishing house, I thought I could finally relax, or at least get to work on another project. However, these days I find myself busy composing queries to reviewers, magazines, and websites, creating a website of my own, not to mention writing a monthly essay for this blog. Because I’m new to this business, I’d assumed that the publisher who bought my book would handle all the P.R., the promotion, etc. But then reality began to settle in, and I realized that if my book was going to have any chance of being read by other than friends and family, I had to be not only a writer but a salesperson, too. Now, for someone like me, whose favorite pastime is to sit in the dark and rock in my rocking chair for hours at a time, the idea of having to go out into the big world and convince people to buy what I’m selling is daunting, to say the least.

Because my background is in the theater, you’d think this would be a contradiction in character. After all, don’t most performers love to be the center of attention? In a way, yes. But to be the center of attention while pretending to be someone else is quite different from wanting that attention as yourself. In the theater, you become that character, and it’s not Terese Pampellonne you’re watching anymore. Instead, it’s a chain-smoking psychiatrist like that in Agnes of God, or a deaf starlet as in House of Blue Leaves. In those moments on the stage, I cease to be me, and that freedom can be exhilarating. Not to mention that understanding a character’s motivations requires a psychological flaying that many of us would be extremely hesitant to perform on ourselves.

And as far as audience reaction is concerned, in my opinion it’s easier for an actor to insulate a fragile ego from rejection, (though perhaps not canned goods, such as that time in Tunisia when the audience expected break dancing, instead of modern dance). An actor can blame the writer, the director, even their fellow actors for a flop. But as a novelist, there’s no one to blame but yourself if your book is deemed awful by the reading public. It’s your idea, your words, your execution of the storyline. No wonder writer’s use pseudonyms. But of course, none of this matters if no one reads your book, with or without a pseudonym, and that brings me back to my quandary: How do I, an introverted writer, make herself become a world-class self-promoter?

To be a salesperson you have to be out-going. But if I were an outgoing person, I probably wouldn’t be a writer. I’m sure I would hate the solitude, the lack of interaction with other people. But I do like it. It’s comfortable. There’s no one to challenge me but myself, the only conflict I have to deal with is between the characters in my stories, but perhaps what I appreciate most of all is that I don’t have to change. I can stay my introverted self.

And needless to say, if I do that it’s a guaranteed certainty that my book will never sell.

So, I’m trying to see this ‘learning to be a self-promoter’ as a good thing. A way of forcing myself to open up, and perhaps thereby expose me to a whole new world of possibilities (as well as the occasional tossed canned good, I’m sure). But I have the feeling it’s going to be slow going, judging by my attempt the other day.

For weeks I’d been casing a bookstore, wondering if they held readings but too chicken to go in and ask. I’d heard bookstores don’t like first novels because ‘they don’t draw a crowd.’ However, one day I decided to go in and get it over with. After browsing their minuscule Birthday card section for over half an hour, I finally got up the nerve to ask if they had a book reading series and if so, could my novel be included. The girl didn’t smirk and dismiss me as if I were trying to sell her a copy of Street News. Instead, she smiled and very politely told me, “No. Unfortunately, we’re just too small.” I can’t tell you how relieved I was. Not because there would be no possibility of a reading, but because I had at least asked, and wasn’t any worse off for the effort.