(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

The main reason Amanda Hocking gave for going pro-publisher after making a zillion dollars as a selfpub author is that she was tired of doing her own publicity. For real, selling oneself is hard.

I'm still working on marketing research but I'm also realising I should be managing my existing online assets with slightly more aggression. I feel somewhat ridiculous about it, like I'm pretending at being a Real Author, but it's reached the point where entropy no longer smooths over the chaos on its own. I keep a clippings file, but that's about it, so today I got on LibraryThing and added tags and cover images to my books there. Is anyone running a Sam's Cafe group on LibraryThing? Imma fire one up, if not, but I didn't want to supplant anything already in place.

And just in case anyone wasn't aware, you can follow my (very rare) tweets at ouija_sam on Twitter. I'm on Google Plus under Sam Starbuck, and technically I'm on Facebook but I never log into Facebook. There is a Sam's Cafe group there, however.

My hand to god I will stop talking publicity soon. I'm just incapable of processing things silently when I have the internet to talk to.

Comments

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm trying to think of book publicity campaigns and the only things that come to mind is that one old guy years back who self-published a biography and then rented a storefront and had a bookstore that only sold his book.

And the kerfluffle over Katie McAllister's Steamed 'trailer vid' using photos of steampunk costumers without their permission.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL a single-book bookstore. Oh my god.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Did a little googling, and there seems to have been two of 'em:

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20113659,00.html

is the guy I was talking about.

And this guy in New York

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/a-bookstore-thats-book-singular/

And...it seems to work in that the idea is so weird it gets picked up as a human interest story in the mainstream media.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

You know, I have to say, I'm really glad Walter Swan sold a lot of books. He sounds like a nice guy!

And Kessler sounds kind of pretentious but also very thoughtful about what he's doing, and I can't say I dislike the idea of books as installation art...