Adventures in Self Promotion

I wrote this email to the editor of the Ventura County Star:

Hi, Mr. Moore,
I'm an Ojai writer, and have been published a couple of times in the VC Star, first a Christmas essay about Santa needing a federal bailout. A year or so ago in the travel section, writing about a horseback ride into Lesotho. Now I've published a novel, and I am hoping that you'd be interested in either doing a review of the book, or an interview with me. Here's a link to the book: This is my fifth novel.http://www.amazon.com/The-Spy-Who-Loathed-Me/dp/0615767672/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362628107&sr=8-1&keywords=the+spy+who+loathed+me.
This is my fifth novel. They're all on Amazon. I'm also a television comedy writer, with credits on Murphy Brown and Baby Talk.
I would really appreciate the coverage, and I give good interview!
Telephone, if that's faster: (I put my phone number here. I'm not going to put it in the blog.)
Thanks for your consideration.
Chris Westphal

A couple of days later I got a call from Amy Bentley, a reporter for the Star, asking me if I'd be willing to do a phone interview. Absolutely. So, Amy interviewed me for an hour and a half on Monday, and the story should appear sometime before April 6, ahead of the Ojai Word Fest, in which I'm also participating. More on that below. 

What, you may ask, is the common thread of these two momentous events? It is this: I put myself out there. Now, certainly, I could have sat at home and waited for people to call me and invite me to do readings and be the subject of newspaper interviews. I have tried that strategy in the past. It isn't very effective. In fact, it doesn't work at all. 

My participation in Word Fest worked much the same way. I saw an ad for it in the Ojai Quarterly. I thought, "You know, I could probably do a reading or something for them." I called them a few minutes later, and one thing led to another. Now I'm scheduled to do a reading on April 6, from 2:30 to 3 at the library. I'll lead a humor writing workshop from 1 to 3 on Monday the 8th, also at the library. 

Today, up in the Bay area, I stopped into a bookstore to set up a reading. I've been here a week, and they haven't tracked me down on their own, so I figured I had nothing to lose. And they do seem interested. 

I have a collection of letters to prominent authors that I'll be sending out with the book in the next couple of weeks, asking them to blurb on the book in upcoming editions. It may work. It may not. Like most things, some of it will probably work, some of it won't, and some of it will transmogrify into something else entirely. It's very rewarding when one casts one's line and hooks something, but after a while the anticipation that something may bite is an exhilarating experience in itself. You never know what you might reel in. 

Exciting Multimedia News!

The exhaustive resources of Bagnoose Media International have been unleashed to create a media onslaught to promote The Spy Who Loathed Me.
Click here http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7S59A and you will be taken to my Amazon Author page. There, marvel at the The Spy Who Loathed Me puppet rap, the Bikini Kickboxer, and, yes, the talking Hostess Fruit Pie.  You can also order The Spy Who Loathed Me in paperback, or on Kindle.

The Spy Who Loathed Me can be ordered Monday, February 24 on Amazon, and through major chains! The Kindle version will also be available on that day. If you were a kickstarter backer, I am working on sending you the Kindle download code.

If you read the book, PLEASE review it on Amazon! This is one of the most important ways for it to get noticed. I will be setting up readings in the Bay Area, as well as in Southern California, in the coming weeks.

Thanks again for your support.

More news & information later.

The Spy Who Loathed Me, at the Kremlin! Word gets around.

Progress Report

Thanks to all the backers of my successful Kickstarter campaign, which concluded a couple of months ago. Since then, I've had the book edited, done extensive rewriting, had the cover and interior designed, and today I delivered to the designer the last of the corrections to the galleys. So, within the next few days we should be sending the book to Createspace. I'll get a proof from them and see if everything's okay. Then it's done, and all of my patient backers will receive their signed books. 

Next step is promotion. I solicited reviews on Goodreads, and those blurbs will be on the back cover. But I consider this first wave of books more of a promotional tool. I'll use it to solicit reviews from established sources, and to get blurbs from name writers. Today, I wrote letters to Jonathan Coe, Gary Shteyngart, Martin Amis, and Christopher Buckley, and TC Boyle, all of whom I admire greatly. It's something of a long shot, but I'm hoping they'll blurb. Once I get the books in hand, they'll go out to these writers, and a few others. I'll also send out review copies at that time. 

The beauty of POD is that I can make tweaks and changes. After all of the proof-reading I've paid to have done, and done myself, it would flabbergast me if there's a typo. But there probably are some. I can fix those. I can add quotes from prominent writers or reviewers. 

I'm also interested in doing readings in Ventura County and in the Bay area, where there were a lot of Kickstarter backers. If all the backers invite just a few friends to the reading, I should have a full house. I'm thinking I'll have a laptop on hand, too, and ask my backers do write a one sentence Amazon review on the spot. Getting noticed is all about reviews. 

I'm also hoping, with the assistance of my fine son Drew, to set up a reading in New York, thinking I'll be out there to visit him sometime in May or early June. 

Lastly, I went to fiverr.com, looking for promotional items I can buy. I commissioned an a cappella song about the book, and I'll post it when I can figure out how. 

Ciao

Getting my kicks

Launched a Kickstarter to fund publication of The Spy Who Loathed Me.

Here's a link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/426786889/the-spy-who-loathed-me-a-tale-of-love-lies-and-fru

Look at the Update videos, too.

So far, so good: 23 percent funded. Kickstarter stats indicate that if you reach 20 percent you have an 82 percent chance of the project fully funding.

Fingers crossed.

New Directions

I know New Directions sounds like a Christian publishing company, or a storefront therapy shop in some windblown strip mall. But, dear readers, it is nothing of the sort. I think I've espoused the view that traditional publishing is dead, so I am an advocate of electronic publishing.
The new direction I'm speaking about is launching The Spy Who Loathed Me as a trade paperback. Yes, for the long run I still believe that digital publication is the way to go. But how does one establish a market to begin with? I think I've found a way. Ten years ago, the only option would have been to fork over several thousand dollars to a printer, and weeks later take possession of several crates of books which would probably remain unopened in the garage, collecting dust and spiders.
We now have Print on Demand. One buyer. One book. No spiders.
More importantly, in terms of financing and cultivating buyers, we have micro fund-raising platforms like Kickstarter.
I know several people who have successfully launched their own creative projects with Kickstarter, raising $5,000 to $15,000, and I think this system is a very exciting trend in the arts. Call it micro patronage. It returns power to the artists, but it also confers some responsibility on them. That is, if the project is not interesting to buyers, it won't get funded... so maybe it needs some work. The beauty of it is, though, that through the Internet it is accessible to virtually the entire world.
People raise anywhere from $500 to millions of dollars. I saw today that Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and others films, has launched a campaign to raise $200,000 to finance a stop-frame animation picture. He reached his goal in a couple of days. Good for Charlie.
My goals will be more modest. I'm going to be seeking under $4,000, which will finance copy editing, cover and interior design, printing, packaging, shipping, and other expenses for the publication of The Spy Who Loathed Me. At once, I will have the book published, have some readers who I hope will write reviews, and, viola, I have launched the book.
So, if you're reading this, consider yourself an insider. I'm hoping to have it up by the end of August, so keep an eye out!