Whore (or how I found out how to market myself)

I've just had the most fascinating evening. Usually when I say that sort of thing I'm being sarcastic - y'know, the kinda thing where I'd write it as 'I've just had the most *fascinating* evening,' or use italics or something equally patronising like asking you to read it in the style of Stewie Griffin, but this time I'm being genuine.

Really, I am.

Why? Because I've just been to one of the events at the Kingston Readers' Festival, an annual, month-long series of events geared towards people like you and me who actually still read rather than sit around getting bladdered every night and happy-slapping people. In recent years I've been to a number of events at the festival, the most memorable being an evening with Danny Wallace, which was hilarious and ended up with him naming me Timbolina for reasons I shan't discuss. 

To be honest, I'd actually planned to attend another of the festival's events at the end of last month called How to Manage Your Time as a Writer, but I'm pretty poor at managing my time (as shown by the fact that I still - I mean *still* - haven't finished my book), and forgot about it.

Anyway, the event I attended tonight was entitled How to Market Yourself as a Writer, and was conducted by a real writer named Alison Baverstock. I'd probably have felt a little ripped off if they'd just used some random off the street, but she was definitely a real writer so that was OK. I was all on my lonesome because both Willowc and Yaz who'd planned on joining me dropped out - Yaz because she's feeling a little under the weather (described as feeling like she's "constantly pushing an invisible person along in front of her"), while Willowc was off doing something exciting and dramatic like engineering a perpetual motion device using only a mid-1980s portable television and a hyperactive kitten. Not to worry though; I rocked up reasonably early, was promptly ignored by an elderly fellow on the door who actually turned his back to me and had to be told to give me a flyer for future events by an elderly lady to his side (possibly because I wasn't wearing my Sunday best), then secured a good seat.

I'll cut to the chase: for what could've been an incredibly dry, boring subject, this was a thoroughly interesting evening, so much so that I actually hung around at the end to thank Alison for the quality info she divulged. The gist of it is that in this cutthroat world we live in, authors really need to put themselves out there; you need to be interesting, articulate, and eager to promote your work. You can't really just write something then be all reclusive like J.D. Salinger - unless of course you're J.D. Salinger.

What I really found useful, though, was the fact that I've actually already got a few things going for me aside from studly good looks, toned pectorals, a quick dry wit, and modesty. Why? Because I've already been published! OK, magazines aren't quite fiction, but the point that Alison was trying to make is that someone has actually put faith in your work - you are, in essence, already a 'successful writer' if you've actually managed to carve a niche, however small, for yourself.

So that's cool - as  is the fact that she mentioned a few other things I've already been thinking about and which I'm definitely going to act on. Another interesting point she made is that in this celebrity-worshipping culture we exist in, authors are themselves a marketable commodity above and beyond their book; imagine, for example, that some crack-whore hauls herself off the street to write an acclaimed account of her hardship - her real life is a key component of what makes the book. Your own families, relationships, hardships - they're all fair game in promoting your work. So now I just need to get it on with a celebrity. Um, Autumn…?

Anyway, to sum it all up - I feel positively energised!