Anywho, I'm compensating with what the 'normal' people tend to do in these situations, by drinking hot chocolate and trying to de-stimulate my brain... I am currently in a state of de-tox in terms of alcohol, so I can't fall back on that to knock me out alas.
Ladies and gents, I've drunk my hot chocolate, I've watched silly (yet amazing) comedy, in the form of Absolutely Fabulous, all evening, and I found my eyes beginning to droop...
Alas this wasn't to last as, as soon as my head hit the pillow, my brain, which hadn't been stupified as it usually is, decided that this was the perfect time to do an all out PR brainstorming session on how to publicise my new book...
I know, I know. I can pretty much hear you all screaming at me over the fault in this particular situation...
... It's true, 'Brainstorming' is no longer considered a PC term for bringing out ideas in one session, as it runs the risk of offending those with epilepsy (true story, I actually had to sit through a seminar that spent 30 minutes covering this particular subject), the correct term is something like 'Idea fishing' or 'Thought catching' or something like that...
That being said, I have decided to risk the possible offense I will cause the people attending my *shock, gasp, I'm going to say it again* 'Brainstorming' session, as (as mentioned earlier) at the moment, it consists only of myself, my air conditioning unit and my stuffed Eeyore, all of which I've had testing for epilepsy and all of which have come back negative as well as scoring 'no offense taken' when I handed out the questionnaire on whether or not they would be offended if I went ahead and used that phrase... You're all rolling your eyes right now and thinking that this is a ridiculous tangent I've just gone on, but I ask you, is it? Or am I actually the kind of person who would write up a questionnaire for my stuffed toy and other such inanimate objects in my room, on the off chance that I end up with a HR complaint in my little publicist company? I'll leave you to answer that question.
Anywho... I've written a book... yes, it is all I can talk about.
Here's the link to where I talk about how I wrote the book a lot and milk it for all it's worth.
Here's the link to the book, which is called Utopia and is written by me... Lisa J Harries. (If you are purchasing this outside of the UK, you may need to access the version of this on your country's local Amazon site)
Now, I've gone down the road of self-publication in terms of getting my book out there. I've done this for three very valid reasons:
1. In this day and age, before you get seen my a publisher, you need to have an agent. Each agency receives about 100 - 300 manuscripts a day and take only a handful of new authors a year. It requires some serious amount of selling yourself in an almost prostitutionly manner which involves a lot more effort and self-worth than I am currently capable of.
2. If you've found yourself an agent and publisher who accept you and want to turn your baby into an actual book, you end up with about 15-20% of the royalties of each book, if that.
3. I'm just about pro-active enough to write a book but too lazy to actually do anything in reason 1.
So, I decided to do the whole self-publication thing, which led to seeing my beautiful little scrumptious baby of a book on the Amazon book shelf for anyone to digitally buy. It really is amazing to see... Sometimes, when I find myself with nothing to do, I just open up the page where my book is being sold and gaze at it lovingly... I've never seen a more good looking announcement of the impending apocalypse in my life.
All this being said, I have fallen upon a few little snags by choosing the do-it-yourself option...
1. All the editing in the world still results in the sodding thing being published with mistakes dotted around the book like some infested little disease ridden plague that physically offends and repulses me, each time I come across one.
2. I do not have the luxury of having some massive firm publicising my book on billboards around London and on the side of buses and instead must make do with my own little version of advertising...
Now due to this complete lack of professional advertising, this has been the thing that my mind has decided to focus on when it should be letting me sleep and is the thing that is causing me to sit at my computer writing on my blog in the vain hope that by writing down my thoughts, it will give my brain some form of relief and let it rest...
The problem lies, however, in that I am not the best person to deal with compliments/love/nice feelings/seeking attention really... It's not that I don't like all those things, I do. It's more that when those things are directed towards me, I tend to either crawl into the fetal position or throw up on the persons shoes.
After a long period of thinking, I have decided that therefore, my advertising campaign shall be the "What the hell is that about?" campaign. The 'Brainstorming' (I am so hardcore) for this has been as follows:
1. Walking around the streets of London with a few volunteers, all wearing sandwich boards that say 'The end of the world is nigh... ish... possibly... I don't know.' Finding street corners and giving speeches that hold no definitive answers about how that I'm sure there might be a possibility that somewhere down the line the world might decide to just give up possibly, in a way that could happen by the sun overheating or loads of ice melting or the air becoming toxic or monkeys taking over or something... possibly... I'm looking into it.
And then of course, when people come up and want to hear more about the breaking news we are imparting on them all, there people will be with flyers that just has the link to my book on it. (Seriously, if people want to go ahead and do that without me, I'm totally fine with that).
2. I make T Shirts... in true Lgalaviz fashion... except I will actually make them. If people are prepared to wear them, I'm even pretty certain I will give away the first 20 T shirts that people want... as soon as I get around to making them. All of them will have slightly bizarre yet completely open statements on the front that will cause the reader to go 'What the hell is that about?' At which point, the wearer will turn around and point to back of the shirt, where the link and image of my book will be available... The statements I have come up with so far are:
I've read it, have you?
Hands up if you know what Danel is.
(You might need to have read the book to get that one)
I bought a book that saved the world... and it wasn't even the bible. What have you done?
Before I read Utopia, I was ugly.
Utopia saved my marriage.
And so on and so forth... you know, I'm just spit balling here... feel free to leave your own suggestions.
And that is all my brain has managed to think up... I briefly considered coming up with more advertising ideas to flesh out the blog some more, but then I figured that would pretty much defeat the object of the whole 'trying to get to sleep' prospect anyway...
Many thanks to everyone who has been so supportive so far of my book. I've been so touched and completely nauseated (in the most complimented and loving way) by it all. So much so, that should you know you are close to bumping into me at any time, I suggest you wear shoes you aren't too fond of.
A little shout out to Roxie who, come rain or shine, no matter how erratic I am being on this blog, always has something to say that usually picks me up... your comments are always welcome, thank you for your support! Also to Ayra who even went as far as devoting a whole blog post to my book, you are awesome and I was overwhelmed and touched by your "every little help" (I know that doesn't technically make sense, but let's pretend it did).
Thank you to everyone who has helped, you are all wonderful and further publicising would be amazeballs covered in honey (or as The-Family like to call it, 'Bee-Wee') soaked in scrumptious stuff that my brain can't think of because I think I've actually managed to knacker it out and it finally wants to go to sleep... we'll see.
Overall, just thanks, everyone. You've made a simple little gal from London, very happy.
Peace out my lovelies.
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