AWP 2

I'm going to do this in chronological order as closely as possible. So, the first panel I went to was about Shamelessly Promoting your Book. It was fun and really informative and practical. I'm just going to put my notes on here, incomplete sentences and inconsistencies and all.

Promotion is communal, fun, a lot of people involved. Twitter. "No sale yet but bravely planning for inevitable success." "Who's excited about what you can do on your own? Who feels beleaguered and confused?"

Jon Spayde- Living the Dream. book: How to Believe: portraits of Christian believers. Don't draw a foolish line between creation and commerce. "rapidly morphing and who-knows-what's-next publishing world" is more interesting and creative every day. Mini-connections instead of major outlets. Reaching out begins with idea and continues all the way to blog, blurb, podcast, reading, coffee house artist residency. Book morphs from static object into one stage of a complex process of communication. Communication and connection are the point. Better sales are a by-product.

Margaret Hasse- Premeditated Promotion. Freelance worker, consultant to nonprofits. Successful promotion requires a creative visionary thought-out tangible PLAN. Consult heart's desire and others.
1. Plan should have a context--statement--what you do as a writer and why. Mission--process, philosophy, passion, breadth, durability, challenge, distinction
2. picture of what will be different in community because of your writing.
3. PRODUCT--what you make and do that people might want to know about and make use of.
4. PEOPLE. Whom do you want to engage? Qualities of prospective readers who would like your book if only they knew about it.
5. PLACE. Where will you and readers find each other? How wide to cast net?
6. price. consider list price, advance. Charge for services like reading, etc., and think about what to volunteer your time toward. "Finance is a footnote to my story."
7. Promotion--how to reach and inform and inspire the people you've identified. Paid ads, profiles and interviews and reviews, website, email and direct mail, personal, trade shows, events
8. definite course of action--timetable, maybe budget. "You will hit some dead ends and turn to new adventures."
plan--from drawing on flat surface--also connected to Plant. Planting seeds.

Todd Boss. Get Committed. poet.
Poetry for popular audience. It should not be shameful for a writer to seek an audience--it's our privilege and duty, our contribution to the world. In other countries, poets are household names! It's perceived as belonging to all audiences, a public resource.
Let's commit to 2 assumptions:
1. The world is our audience.
2. It is our duty to give the world the poetry it craves.
How to act on it:
1. Commit to a public role. Become a poet laureate. Assert your leadership, assign yourself a role as a local public figure with a constituency.
2. Make a website. Make it yourself so that you can use it and update it easily, move with it nimbly. Use iWeb on a Mac.
3. Make audio. "Audience" comes from "audere--to hear." The world doesn't just crave poetry, it craves the sound. Without it, you're giving the world only half of the poetry it craves. When you sign a book contract, reserve electronic rights.
4. Encourage commissions. Offer on your site to write poems in praise or gratitude toward someone, from someone else. Create a new market based on emotional necessity, urgency, and deep artistic commitment.
5. Collaborate across media. Call for collaborators on your website. Think of yourself less as a writer and more as an artist. Chances are you're a filmmaker, librettist, and playwright too.
Commit to a poetry-craving public in as many ways as you can think of. It will make traditional promotion obsolete.

Marisha Chamberlain. The Good-Enough Book Tour.
Weariness and bitterness can seep through in readings, especially from the financially successful authors.
Touring may make you poorer--you will be paying your own travel expenses. Could be considered delusional.
Achieving profit goals makes people more tense and jittery, not less so.
Tour for reasons other than book sales. Not about me, not about my book, but about a few brave souls who celebrate literature. Sometimes bears no resemblance to the idea you have of a book tour. Your publisher might not send enough copies, or any!
It's not a do-or-die effort, it's good enough. To be all together and alive in the same room caring about literature.

That's the bulk of what Squad 365 said that morning. I have two more pages of notes from the Q and A portion, which I'll put in another post. I hope this is helpful for someone who's reading this. If nothing else, it's good for me to further digest it by typing it up. More to come; writers and non-writers alike, stay tuned!