What I'm Listening To: Miracles Happen-Mya
I'm still recovering from an awful bout of carpal tunnel, but I should be fine within the next few days. I just wanted to update you on my website overhaul. I am so excited about it! I have spent the last few days outlining marketing plans, budgeting proposals, figuring out photo shoots and the book cover design and am absolutely exhausted. Who knew that publishing had this much math/work involved? (And if you only knew how awful at math I was, you would understand my dismay). I guess that's what has happened over time. At least writing the book is the same, but those days of writing the book and sending it off for the tell tale stork to drop onto a publisher's doorstep are over. Now you have to be somebody to get something published. Well, technically you don't really have to be somebody, you could be anybody, but it's a lot easier if you are somebody. Like Oprah. Or Howard Stern. Or Snookie (kidding, I don't even watch Jersey Shore but I guarantee you that Snookie would get a deal before I do because she has a platform.)
What is this elusive platform you say? Apparently it's something that authors have to built on, so it helps if you are somebody. It's kind of a catch 22--most people are trying to become published authors to be somebody, but in reality you already have to be somebody to become a published author. Now isn't that a regrettable instance of reverse psychology? And literally, you could be any somebody, as shown by celebrities like Tyra, Hilary Duff, and Lauren Conrad with Lo Bosworth from The Hills who tried their hand at publishing. And they all got the deals, not because they definitely had the talent (that is TBD...kind of) but because they were considered famous and mostly everyone in the U.S. knew about them (last part might be debatable).
So here is my stab at trying to be somebody. It kind of takes a ton of hard work and a little money to be somebody, as I am finding out. Somebodies have websites and blogs and have friends. Apparently I don't have enough of the latter, so I'm going to make 50 new friends in every one of the fifty states of the U.S. and hope that they will like me as a friend so much that they will tell their friends. And then their friends will tell their friends. And since friends like to know what other friends are doing, they'll learn about the books. And possibly want to read them. I should add this into my 5-year marketing plan. It could work with a lot of effort. Then I'll go by continent. Basically, Noah Lukeman, a literary agent that you've probably heard me brag about, told me (or rather wrote me in one of his books) to be somebody and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Maybe then, he'll want to be one of my new friends and want to take me on as a client. Maybe so?...ah wishful thinking
