ROYALTIES
The email came this week, one of those wonderful moments when money drops from the sky. My former agency was writing to tell me that I would soon be receiving a royalty check for Into Africa. I wrote the book in 2001. Published in 2003. It was a sudden cash bonus for words I put on the page before my grown children were teenagers. So long ago that the first season of Survivor hadn't been aired. George W. Bush was barely president. 9/11 actually took place on the day I sat down to write the first chapter. I left my office to get a glass of water and the Today Show was projecting images of a plane flying into the first tower.
CREATIVITY
"Creativity is contagious. When we spend time with other artistic people we absorb and exchange a way of thinking, a way of looking at the world," writes Rick Rubin in The Creative Act. I'm still tiptoeing through this very patient treatise. It's one of those books you read slowly and thoughtfully, not rushing through each line to better absorb each word.
BLURBS
MARKETING
You'd think I would know the difference between marketing and publicity after all these years writing books. This is probably why I've never excelled at marketing, something I'm going to correct with The Long Run. My publisher's marketing team has already put together some great images to promote the book. I'll be putting them up on my socials and in this space very soon so you can have a look.
But what else must be done? Specifically, what can I do to become a better marketeer?
SCATTERED
"I read your blog," Calene told me the other day. This is news. Callie doesn't read my books and doesn't always venture into this space. It goes with the territory. Jerry Seinfeld says his wife doesn't think he's funny. Author's wives don't need to read our stuff because we (at least me) download about it verbally all the time.
"What'd you think?"
"It sounded scattered. Like the way you've been acting lately."
SOCIALS
I've got a Twitter account. I still can't call it X with a straight face. Ideally, if I'm trying to sell a book or build a following, it seems there should be a singular theme to what I post. Look at Three Year Letterman's satire or Amy Lofgren's ongoing crusade. But my feed is a random emotional purge, sometimes happy and sometimes funny and very often angry when I mean to be funny.
PLAYTIME
Sorry the blog's a little late this week. Sunday was a road trip and Monday was an intense writing session. My editor correctly saw the need for three well-placed new chapters for The Long Run. Between morning and afternoon practice I found a sweet groove and wrote those chapters in one sitting. That's a lot.