Contemplating marketing, writing, and all the madness it entails...
Genre Confusion. It’s like gender confusion but without the cool clothes and support groups.Some of you out there on the magical interweb may have noticed a few threads linking me, EJ Bouinatchova, and a mysterious flower-faced lady with the unlikely name of Eve. A Floriste. See, when I started putting my writerly aspirations on the internet I was faced with a conundrum: do I market where I came from or where I am going to? I had taken a wee bit of a direction change in my writing. What had I written? A bizarre, contemporary memoir about sexuality, violence, and madness. What did I want to write? The same stuff I love to read: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Mystery, Horror. Yeah, that’s a weird mix.
I know one author that’s bridged this fiction/nonfiction gap successfully: Tony Bourdain. So, if I was mega famous and had millions of dollars and fans and TV shows, I think I’d just say WTF and write what I want, marketing be damned. But no, I sure ain’t him. Many writer’s resources that I read said that “Author Branding” was important. People have to understand what you’re about; send a simple message, don’t hit ‘em with too much at once.
After pondering this for a while, I decided I’d have to split my identity. So I now maintain two not-entirely separate social media and marketing profiles. You know what? It’s kind of fun! They’re both me. They just focus on different aspects of me. Then the worst thing happened. Someone wanted to publish me. (OK, it’s not really the worst thing, more like the “Holy Crap I’m so excited I could plotz!” kind of thing). So the question became, which “me” are they publishing?
My publisher’s head spun around a bit as I explained my situation. His feeling? “Just be yourself. You’re cool. F**k the marketing.” WHAAATT? How can I be me, when there’s so much me to be?(Ooh, that’s good, I’m gonna tweet that). But I thought about it, and said, you know what? What the hell. He’s right. We finally settled that I’d keep the separate profiles for a sort of first-look marketing approach, but not try to hide the fact that they are, in fact, one person. So there it is. I am a giant nerd who loves all things SF/F, and I have also been a crazed, hypersexual florist struggling not to self-destruct. Say, that sounds like it’d make an interesting book. Oh wait, look, it DID make an interesting book: Go check out the self-published, rough version of my twisted memoir, get ‘em while they’re cheap! Fresh Cut will be republished as a real, professionally edited book in June, by the amazing folks over at Open Books.
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