Mixing Art and Sales to Concoct the Magic Elixir

Have you ever wanted to learn the ways of the infamous snake-oil salesmen of the medicine shows of yore? That’s what it feels like to knock on doors (via email) and stand in the town square (FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram) to perform my enthusiastic pitch to get people’s attention in order to sell them something they didn’t even know they wanted. Ah, the underbelly of being an artist. Sales!

These last couple of weeks has been an education in learning how to get new eyeballs on my writing. If a story is published and nobody is around to read it, is it truly manifested? Learning the marketing side of writing has been personally enlightening, to say the least. The joys of my retirement plan included carving out time for fiction writing, not learning the business of book marketing; and, it’s not like I haven’t accomplished much in that department:

I managed to complete an 80,000 word draft of my forthcoming novel “Eat Your Warrior Fish” (Of course, it sits on my shelf crying out for a major revision.)

I managed to complete five short stories for middle grade and adult readers (Nobody outside my critique group has laid eyes on these.)

Started drafting the plans for a collection of short stories set in and around growing up in the New Jersey Bayshore area (Still just an outline.)

Actually mustered the guts to participate in an event where I read aloud “Not for Children” to the attendees of the CWA writers conference in March (It took a couple of glasses of wine to get up to the mic because it still needs more revision.)

Started a crime/suspense story set in the Jersey Pine Barrens and Chicago (Planning to publish excerpts in my newsletter, but that’s just a plan.)

This week I’m targeting my teacher friends, hoping they will help me to attract middle-grade teachers and librarians to subscribe to my newsletter. If any of you, who are reading this now, know of someone who would enjoy a copy of my forthcoming short story single “Tomo Saves the Day,” please send them to my subscribe link: BIT.ly/slovenz-subscribe .

It’s the work of selling that is taking up so much precious time now, that I feel I’ve been neglecting my fiction writing. All will be well by next week when I finally launch “Tomo Saves the Day” through my newsletter that goes out to my subscribers, who will each get their own copy sent to their email boxes.

Wish me luck. I need all the help I can get.