Shameless self-promotion

Booker prize winning author, and my uncle, J.G. Farrell had a habit of rearranging his books so that the cover, not the spine, was facing out in bookshops - a practice that I try to maintain on his behalf. Self-promotion is necessary even for prize-winning traditionally published authors.

There’s always part of your job that you don’t like and for me promotion is it. No publisher means no marketing department and no budget or promotional experience. Therefore, a new part of my ‘job’ as a writer is, what feels like, shameless self-promotion.

I am not alone. There is a cacophony of self-promotion by authors online – most of them doing a better job of being heard than me. I recently joined Goodreads.com, initially as a lover of books and recently as a Goodreads author. It gives me the opportunity to interact with other lovers of books, authors and, I hope, with future readers of Wild Rose. I have come across countless warnings against pushing your book on unsuspecting discussion groups. I am advised to be a lover of books first and hope that my contributions encourage other readers to have a look at Wild Rose.  It is a very long term strategy but feels somewhat more natural than the brash and bewildering world of Twitter. (@WoolleyRosie)

If you’ve read Wild Rose, you can help by getting onto Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, then rating the book and writing a review. If you’re on Goodreads.com you can do the same there. If you really enjoyed it you could even recommend it to your friends or add it to a list. If you haven’t read it…

As the new year starts, I am resolved to be out of my pyjamas earlier in the day and to meet other mums with babies. It feels like more shameless self-promotion and it’s hard work. Meredith loves being with other babies and children. But I am rusty at the art of making friends with strangers and it takes a long time to get beyond the trivia of how old your baby is, how cute she is, how much she sleeps, eats, crawls, cries.

Whether it’s as a writer or as a new mother, self-promotion is a long process that yields results gradually and sometimes only by chance. For someone who might prefer just to show my spine, I have to keep working at turning myself cover-out.

 Related posts: Hanstand on the edge of a precipice, Bad News, A private enterprise,

So, is it?

During my pregnancy I wondered aloud (over several months) whether writing a book really was like having a baby, as many seemed to say (www.likehavingababy.blogspot.com). I had the baby in May but it has taken until now for me to publish a book. Finally, after four years of writing, editing, re-writing, searching for an agent, submissions to publishers, proof reading and self publishing Wild Rose is available to buy as an EBook. (Amazon, Waterstones, Kobo, iTunes)

So, is writing a book really like having a baby? A few similarities suggest themselves in light of recent experiences.

You feel the need to tell everyone you've ever known. After weeks of anticipation, phone calls, texts, well meaning badgering, it was a relief to be able to tell people that our daughter, Meredith, had safely arrived. There was also a degree of parental pride. Similarly, I have been talking about the book I’m writing for years and asked almost as much about when it will be available to read, so when Wild Rose appeared first on Amazon this week I was quick to tell (almost) everyone in my email address list.

Your mother feels the need to tell everyone she’s ever known. My mother is a very proud grandmother to four grandchildren so far and Meredith’s arrival prompted no less enthusiasm for being third of four. The appearance of a book written by one of her daughters has inspired a similar zeal and I am very grateful for the promotional powerhouse that she has become.

You obsessively check their vital signs. When Meredith was first born it was easy to hear that she was breathing because she made little bubble popping sounds each time she breathed out. Once she was at home I spent many long moments with my own breath held trying to detect the tiny rise and fall of her tummy. Amazon updates sales ranks hourly and it is just too tempting to click on to Wild Rose’s page and see how it’s faring. (There are a LOT of books on Amazon…)

You thought it was the goal but it’s just the beginning. Throughout my pregnancy I was much more focused on the birth than the hours and days immediately following it. What had seemed like the goal was just the start of a long first day, an extraordinary first week, and an exhausting six months. I have wanted to celebrate the release of my EBook  but it is also just the beginning. Not only do I now need to promote the life out of it, I am also ultimately hoping to walk into a book shop and find my books on the shelves.

Writing a book is, then, quite like having a baby. And what I've learnt from having a baby is that with the joy and excitement there’s a lot of hard work ahead.

Related posts: Welcome There's no re-writing a baby Cheerleaders

Does baby brain exist?

Wandering into a room and wondering why you’re there. Filling the kettle and pouring the cold water straight onto your tea bag. Driving to the supermarket instead of the doctor. Apparently, being pregnant causes your brain to become confused and the sense of being addled doesn't necessarily go away when the baby arrives. In that case I've had a bad case of baby brain and it’s only getting worse.

I’m not sure I believe in baby brain. I don’t think my brain has been changed by having a baby; I think I’m just very tired. Pregnancy and caring for a little baby are exhausting and being exhausted makes it harder to function. There is also a lot more to think about at any one moment. A day with Meredith is great fun but it’s like patting your head and rubbing your tummy while jumping on a merry-go-round.

It is not that my brain is under powered, it is just over committed and easily distracted. My thinking is as sound as it was before having a baby but the creative process takes a lot longer. I might start thinking about how to make the call of the sea more evident in the opening chapters of A New World and a few days later I might come to a conclusion, a few days after that I might get round to writing it down.

This week Wild Rose has been with the brilliant EBook Partnership being made into an EBook. It has been a challenge to get my brain into action for providing a short blurb, a long blurb, information about the writer. It is difficult to concentrate while Meredith is playing next to me – or grunting endlessly for reasons known only to herself –and the thirty minute islands of silence when she is asleep have not been long enough this week.

Although getting everything done for the EBook has been hard work, being forced to take more time in the creative process is generally a good thing. It is not how I would choose to work but it leads to more considered decisions and properly ruminated writing.

Wild Rose will be available to buy soon. If you’re on Twitter, follow me @WoolleyRosie to get the latest news.

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An ambulance and A&E

This is cold season and Meredith is participating with gusto. One cold rolls into another and Meredith has been a snotty mess for a few weeks. This week, however, things got more serious. I noticed that she wasn't breathing well on Monday. We phoned NHS Direct for advice and they called an ambulance. Two trips to the GP and an evening in paediatric Accident and Emergency later she is much the same but David and I are shattered.

Meredith has bronchiolitis, for which time and patience are the only treatments. While mostly happy, she is panting like a dog straining at its lead and coughing like an old smoker. We were told in hospital that her symptoms could last for another two weeks, which when you’re only twenty six weeks old is a long time.

All the medical to and fro means that the already slow work on preparation for the EBook came to a halt this week. But I need to get going again if I am going to get Wild Rose out for Christmas. On the one hand I am more than usually exhausted by sleepless nights waiting to hear her breathe again after a coughing fit, on the other she is sleeping more during the day. So while I should perhaps be sleeping, I am (still) reading through the manuscript for one final time.

Reading a novel would be a glorious luxury at the moment. Somewhat like GCSE or A Level texts, however, when you’re reading under pressure the enjoyment is less. It will be a relief to finish and get the manuscript sent off. At that point, I think I’ll have a nap.

Related posts: Putting the baby to bed 

Putting the baby to bed

I still don’t know how I did it but as I made a tiptoed retreat from the side of Meredith’s cot, I managed to catch my elbow on the headboard. Crash: Meredith awake and crying.

As far as following parenting advice goes, we have followed some zealously, ignored some and with the rest wondered what species of baby they were raising. In terms of sleep, we have probably done almost all of the things that are warned against for fear of getting your baby into bad habits: cuddling, feeding, rocking, bringing them into bed, walking them…

Meredith’s eyes were open as she was passed to me at birth. She has remained wakeful and alert since. Getting her to sleep during the day has been a recurrent challenge of the past six months. And while neither fireworks, dogs barking, rubbish lorries, nor children playing seem to wake her, put your cutlery too loudly into the drawer and her eyes snap open upstairs. After watching her eyes droop millimetre by millimetre it’s frustrating to be sent straight back to the beginning to start the process again.

Having finished the final corrections on Wild Rose, I have persuaded myself to read through the manuscript one last time. I want to pick up any more errors I can spot, see that some additions I made make sense and just check one last time that it’s in a good state to publish. Going back to the beginning again is hard work. It means another long stretch of scrutiny for the manuscript. If I still read with my finger on the page, it would be worn thin by now. I am also impatient to get the EBook conversion process started and the novel onto the virtual shelves.

Related posts: An ambulance and A&E Some things you have to learn to love Preparation vs Inspiration

Handstand on the edge of a precipice

Some of the most impressive feats of athleticism I saw during London 2012 were the handstands in the diving competitions. For someone who can’t do a forward roll, the perfectly controlled handstands were a revelation. That they were performed on the edge of a ten metre high drop in front of millions of spectators all over the world was miraculous. What if, after all that effort and a beautiful handstand, the diver belly flopped into the pool? The failure would seem worse for the elaborate overture.  

As I prepare to release Wild Rose as an Ebook I feel like the diver in a handstand on the edge of the precipice. I started writing the novel in 2008; coincidentally, it was in America just as Barack Obama was campaigning for his first term. At first I didn’t talk about it because I wasn’t sure I could do it. Once the book was written and I began making decisions based on pursuing a career as a writer, I had to own up. Between that moment and now there has been a lot of talk about Wild Rose. After the long build up I am aware of the drop into the pool and the danger of a belly flop.

Another extraordinary dive was that of Felix Baumgartner who last month fell to earth from thirty nine kilometres up, breaking the sound barrier on his way down. I have no idea how he could bring himself to step off the platform and just drop: I can’t watch it without feeling sick.

However, there’s no point in the build up without the jump. I am standing on the platform. (If I could do a handstand I would.) It’s taken me a long time and a lot of effort to get there. Now I just have to summon up the courage to fall off.

Related posts: Bad news

Are you a perfectionist?

Before I started writing, I read several articles by writers complaining about their own perfectionism. One advised that when you were worrying about which word was exactly right and whether a comma should go here or there then you were ready to submit your manuscript. I was sceptical. If I ever got to that stage, I thought, I really wouldn’t care about a comma here or there.

 

I’ve always resisted proof reading. It is meticulous, which I am not. I’m much happier to have a go and live with the consequences. All through school I rarely read my work through before submitting it – much to the frustration of my teachers. Being critical so soon after I had invested that much effort into something was dispiriting: I wanted to tick it off the list, tell myself ‘well done’ and move on. Only after being a teacher myself and experiencing the frustration of marking ‘almost there’ work have I come round to the idea of proof reading. Now that I am trying to make a career of writing I am forcing myself to do it. 

Preparing Wild Rose to be made into an EBook, I am reading the manuscript more closely than I ever have before. It’s a new level of scrutiny. Now that I’m not reading for the story I see errors all over the place: sentences starting without capital letters, speech left lingering without closing speech marks, remnants of old characters long deleted. Then there are those pesky commas – here, there or not at all? The closer the manuscript gets to an audience outside my family, my agent or someone I’ve paid for critique, the more paranoid I become about leaving errors for critical eyes to find.

 In a sleep deprived state I also doubt myself. Late last night I spent longer than should have been necessary wondering whether it should be ‘pulled the door close’, or ‘pulled the door closed’. After repeating them too many times both options sounded like nonsense, like repeating ‘pyjamas’ over and over. But with limited time you just have to make a decision. Having few perfectionist tendencies makes this easier. I have to be pragmatic; there’s no point having a perfect manuscript that no one will ever see.

 I often wonder how perfectionists cope as parents. I try my best to work out what our daughter needs and how to balance cuddles with the washing up. But there’s a lot that slides by in the passing day. When bedtime comes and it’s shortly about to begin all over again there’s little time or inclination to review what’s already been done.

 

Which is just as well: there’s only so much perfectionism I can muster and it’s almost entirely devoted to commas at the moment.