The Marketing Maze

Okay, so you’ve written your book, then rewritten it again, a few times, edited it a few times more and then sat on it for another month or so - or in my case, fifteen years - deciding whether or not it’s ready to be read by anyone else.

When you’ve had one or two stern conversations with yourself, you finally, and rather naively, press the upload button. Upon preview your file looks like it was written in several different languages in numerous fonts. Your serial-abused PC suffers yet more verbal assaults as you reformat your book for the tenth tedious attempt.

Some time later, much later, your preview gets a little tick alongside of it and the deed is ultimately done. You are . . . elated? Popping Champagne corks? Ringing your friends?

Wondering what to do next?

Then your little bubble of self-satisfaction pops upon reading the phrase, ‘Marketing your book,’ and you realise that self-publishing is a little like pulling a loose thread on a sweater.

Everywhere you look someone ‘in the know’ states that you should begin marketing your book at least six months BEFORE you publish! Your attention is momentarily diverted to the copy of ‘Catch Twenty-two’ on your book shelf.

 Ah well, one step ahead you think, no one will have to eagerly await anything.

You read all the blog and author resources pages your sore eyes can handle and sign up for a twitter account.

You gaze vacantly at the little blue bird as the cursor blinks with monotonous impatience, waiting for you to tweet something. You’ve just written a 140,000 word novel, but the seventeen word maximum renders you a drooling fool.

You start a Facebook fan page and offer swapsies with your Linked In groups to ‘Like’ your page. You spend a day religiously perusing hundreds of fan pages, reading profiles, hitting buttons etc, then wait eagerly for reciprocation and hundreds of encouraging comments on your fresh new page.

The numbers look like a death row reunion party.

It can’t be because they don’t like the book - Google stats tell you that so far, NOBODY has read it yet! Well of course they haven’t, because you haven’t SOLD it.

You try and keep from picking up your copy of ‘Catch Twenty-two’ in order to avoid the issue of self-publicising after self-publishing.

And then it hits you. Until someone - a complete stranger - reads the book and reviews it, you may be deluding yourself you can actually write worth a damn.

You need an impartial review from a respected source; preferably someone who has a penchant for your genre/subject matter. Google works overtime for another few hours and you bookmark a number of review sites and blogs. Most of them are not accepting submissions at the moment. Those that are have a backlog of titles before yours comes to the top of the pile.

The cruel trill of marketing demon laughter echoes somewhere in the recesses of your bewildered mind.

Ultimately, there is little point in looking or hoping for shortcuts. The maze beckons, but as I’m beginning to discover, you meet some very interesting people navigating the same route.

An upside at last!

Inspiration

That elusive and most necessary thing we all need; no matter what the occupation. And when we most crave the spark that could develop into a work of genius, or at least something worthy of a self-congratulatory pat on the back, it remains irritatingly beyond reach.

Conversely, when a shiny bright idea strikes, it tumbles out voraciously, demanding immediate chronicling.

Some insight, however, sneaks in subliminally and takes a while to recognise.

The Toy Sorcerer inveigled its way into my consciousness after twenty-odd years of vividly persistent night terrors.  Like most people I forget the majority of my dreams shortly after waking, but there are some images that remain as dramatic as the full HD late night features that invade on a regular basis.

As a child I was terrified of the nightmares that wouldn’t let me out; repetitious horrors that forced me to participate, despite my being aware that I was dreaming. Decades later I learned that they were lucid dreams. Had I known how to control them as a child, I might not have woken up to a sweat-soaked imprint of my entire body in the bed sheets. When they raid now, I turn the tables and go where I want to, after a fashion. It’s very difficult to describe the boundaries of what you can and can’t manipulate within a lucid dream, but essentially, one creates an entire ‘realm’ with a single thought; almost as though the thought itself is the architect of the landscape. From that point on you interact with and design more dreamscapes. When you finally exit this state, it manifests as an indistinct transition between sleep and consciousness; sometimes taking a while before you can be unequivocally certain that you are actually awake. I occasionally go through a déjà vu stage where I dream that I have sat up in bed and am about to switch on the light etc. It’s only when something mad happens that I realise I’m still caught up in the maelstrom.

Lucid dreams took a bit of getting used to, but I actually look forward to them now. I haven’t yet managed to trigger one, but I know there is a way to train your unconscious to respond to certain stimuli, such as a flashing light or rhythmic sound at the REM sleep stage. Nevertheless; my realm adventures come to me when I most need them and that’s good enough for me.   

It took years of self-analysis to figure out that my nightmares were the symptom of an abyss of repressed feelings. And it took years more to fathom out what to do about it, but once I did, The Toy Sorcerer was born. There is always a little of the author in every fiction book; either in a character or characters, or in their experiences, but Alice is one projected facet of me. Through her I heal myself.

Self-analysis, as opposed to the professional third-party kind, might be considered a cowards way out; hindered by egotistical bias and denial. But even the most tenacious psychoanalyst can never be certain they’ve penetrated the murky depths of their subject’s inner miasma.

Only I can be sure of what is true and real. Dealing with that truth, however, is an entirely different matter. Fortunately for me, I write. And these outpourings have proven to be my salvation.

But I’m still barking mad, thank God!