Champagne and Socks

Cross posted from the Twelfth Planet Press blog:

Twelfth Planet Press is looking to develop a new line of dynamic, original genre novels. Twelfth Planet Press novels will push boundaries to question, inspire, engage and challenge. We are specifically looking to acquire material outside that which is typically considered by mainstream publishers.

We are looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime. We will consider borderline literary, new weird, steampunk, space opera, hard science fiction, soft science fiction, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, military science fiction, young adult, paranormal romance and everything in between.

From Chapter 5 The Double Standard of Content:

Critics who are too sensible to succumb to some version of She didn’t write it and too decent to resort to the (always rather snide) She did, but she shouldn’t have can often find other ways to dismiss the tuneful yodelling and graceful ice-sliding of those wrongly shaped – or wrongly tinted – Glotolog who somehow persist in producing art despite the obstacles arrayed against them. Motives for the dismissal differ: habit, laziness, reliance on history or criticism that is already corrupt, ignorance (the most excusable of all, surely), the desire not to disturb the comfort based on that ignorance (much less excusable), the dim (or not-so-dim) perception that one’s self-esteem or sex-based interests are at stake, the desire to stay within an all-male, all-white club that is, whatever its drawbacks, familiar and comfortable, and sometimes the clear perception that letting outsiders into the club, economically or otherwise, will disturb the structure of quid pro quo that keeps the club going.

- How to Suppress Women’s Writing, Joanna Russ, University of Texas Press, 1983

I’ve been trying to develop a particular topic/theme as Pet Topic for Galactic Suburbia for over a month now and it just hasn’t worked out. It needs a lot of research and a lot of thinking and I just haven’t had time to prep it for any of our recent episodes. It is though something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, off and on for a while now.

I’ve described before marketing and promotion of fiction as being akin to standing in a stadium filled with 30 000 people and shouting your name and hoping to get heard. Something that interests me, and a lot of others, is finding a way to get heard. There are many examples of people who have managed to successfully carve a message out over the white noise. We can all think of examples of writers who have managed to gain a platform and use that to successfully advance their own, and others’ careers. And there are many many more examples of those who purport to know the formula to replicate these. Some offer this advice for free and others for a small fee. But the thing I’m really interested in is, of course, what works? And why? And more importantly, which work more than once? Which were one off novelty techniques that will and can only be successful once – that any replication of can only ever be imitation?

A lot of advice I’ve seen around is that if you want something for yourself, you should first give back. The whole “pay it forward” idea. Giving something back benefits not just you (writer/editor/reviewer/publisher) but contributes to building and improving the community you want to be a part of. And supports the idea that to move forward (or upward) we must all move forward and upward – that the community/scene is better and stronger because you are a part of it. Rather, than, I guess, taking what you need from the community and what it has to offer.

The thing is, just because you contributed your time and passion and worked hard, doesn’t mean that you’re owed or deserve anything in return. The reward you get for contributing is in the act of doing it, itself. In the learning all the things that participating or trying something new has to offer. And if you aren’t enjoying the doing, you shouldn’t be doing it. Or in other words, if you’re contributing solely in order to advance your own career, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. And ultimately it shows. The speculative fiction community has so much to offer, is filled with so many talented, inspiring, intelligent and fascinating people and there are so many facets to the publishing industry to discover and learn. If you volunteer for something with the narrow vision of how anything you do must pay off your own career objectives, it’s likely that you will shut yourself off to the serendipitous learning opportunities which might mean nothing to you now but some time down the track might prove valuable. And um, getting to work with smart, cool people is … well, damn cool.

The other thing I’ve noticed in some corners of the internet is a culture of encouraging and rewarding faux-expertise. I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, reading blog posts and visiting websites purporting to be offering advice on the industry only to find much of it basic and uninsightful. I’m not sure it’s beneficial for writers who have never sold a novel to be blogging advice on how to sell a novel, for an extreme example. It’s a Catch 22, I suppose. If you want to gain a platform, you have to kinda just get up on one and start speaking.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these two things. And I think, when it comes down to it, the trick is that there is no trick. There is no quick pathway to fame and fortune. There is no formula for career progression. Blog, don’t blog. Sit on panels at cons, don’t go to cons at all. Write reviews, join a writers’ centre, join a forum or write alone in your room for years. There’s no right or wrong way to make a sale. If you’re genuine and open, people will respond to that. And if you aren’t, they will respond to that too. We’re all well experienced in what it feels like when someone is trying to sell you something you don’t want. Everybody’s story is different and there are many roads up the mountain, what works for one person may never work for anyone else. And sometimes, it’s not how hard you work or how long you work at it, sometimes it comes down to luck and being at the right place at the right time, and there’s no formula for that.

I do think that these days, as a writer, you can no longer get away with relying on your publisher to promote and market your work alone. Big publishing houses have very short timeframes for deciding the sales success of a book. Small publishing houses work on tighter budgets and are understaffed. I’ve observed in my own press the financial difference in sales between books by authors who rely solely on my own marketing machine and those by authors who share the role with me. (It’s more fun in the second instance too.) Which of course means I’ve argued myself round in a circle. How then, can writers/editors/publishers/reviewers shout above the din and hope that pays off in terms of sales and career progression? I still think it comes down to being genuine about who you are. And doing things that you enjoy that also happen to work as marketing and promotional tools. And that that’s the bit that has no formula and the balance of tools to use will be unique to each individual.

I think in the end, I’m arguing that rather than replicating what worked for others, take the time to throw yourself in the deep end and see what you enjoy doing and what brings it’s own reward. Because there is nothing more interesting and contagious than someone having fun.

Yesterday I got a phonecall from reception informing me that I had “received an urgent parcel” and could I please come down and collect it right away? Reception is a fair walk across the campus here and I spent the time wondering what in the hell I’d received that could possibly be urgent? I hadn’t any proofs from printers coming, I couldn’t possibly be being served for anything, could I? Maybe, just maybe, somebody sent me flowers? Though really? Why would they do that to work? I freaked out, just a little, cause I’m a bit sensitive at the moment. But I headed down and behind the reception desk, I did spy some flowers. And then I told them who I was and the flowers were indeed for me! And the “urgency” was that they would otherwise have snaffled them home for themselves! I think they loved being in on the conspiracy. And to add to it I said, “I have no idea who they could be from!”

Which in fairness, was kinda true in the moment. I’ve been sent flowers before – lovely friends and aunts who knew I was feeling down, or when I was sick in hospital, and wanted to show me how much they love me. And receiving flowers is always a special treat! But I’ve never been with anyone who sent me flowers before. And as I was walking away with my beautiful bunch of flowers, I opened the card and found the most romantic and meaningful words inside. Of course C sent me flowers! He knew how sad I’d been the night before and how I’ve been feeling. Of course he was thinking about me and wanted to tell me how much he loves me. (That I actually get to have love in my life still surprises me) And his card made me melt. We’d had a meaningful conversation the night before and the four words he wrote spoke back to that. And reminded me that I am loved, by a great man who sees me, really sees me, and loves me still.

I’ve had a really rough month. And months before that I spose. Speaking to a lot of people who have gone before me, I understand that it takes months to recover from running a convention. I’m at least glad that the nightmares have finally ended. I’m very slowly recovering back to something resembling who I was two years ago before I started out on this particular journey. Though I have learned a lot along the way – most of it not pleasant, or if not that, then hard lessons learned the hard way. Those of course are the ones that stick the best but still, why do I always have to choose the hard way? But now as I start to get some distance, and hopefully some perspective, I’m thinking a lot about all that happened, wanting to glean what I can, learn from it and make the pain worthwhile. Because it was painful. And a lot of hard work. And it can’t be for nothing.

I think possibly the single most important thing I’ve learned is that the only thing you can control is your reaction. And this alone is a very very powerful tool. When you’re the public face of an entity, be that a convention or a publishing house, then how you behave represents that entity. That means that no matter how much you want to shout and scream or argue, those may not be the most productive ways to resolve or fix a situation.

I learned a very important skill these last two years, and I owe this one to my friend Amanda, that the best way to respond is to not respond in the moment. To go away and cool off and think about it and to come back and always always be polite and diplomatic. No matter how you were addressed or what was said about or to you. (I think I drove her a bit over the edge for a good six months before I got the hang of this.) I can’t count the number of times that my initial response would have been one out of defense or justification or matching in rude/terse/blaming/inflammatory/critical tone but a cooling off day later became a polite response and or offer to help or fix, which _then_ moved the whole issue positively further along.

I learned that much more can be achieved by giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, by trying to resolve an issue in a generous way and by choosing not to respond in kind even if the “in kind” was not itself so. I learned that I need to have the final word on everything and that actually lots of things don’t need or deserve a response. That in the past I have done so _in order_ to have the last word. And doing so achieves very little. Most people can see the elephant in the room. I don’t need to point to it and call it so aloud. And not needing to have the last word helps reduce the email inbox _a lot_ (who knew?). Wins for the sake of winning aren’t really worth the energy of the fight. And I also learned that not everything can be resolved. Sometimes there are no solutions, there is no compromise and some things are irredeemable.

And I learned who my friends are. These are the people who I want to be like when I grow up. That they weren’t always who I thought was a very painful and hurtful process. Of course. But that’s life. But the flipside to that is that I discovered who my friends are and how truly awesome a group of people they are. These are the people who push me, inspire me, energise me, celebrate and cry with me and fuel my creativity. They are why I do what I do and are the how I do what I do too. Because no one could do all the things I’m involved with alone! And every day I am blown away by the amount of support I receive – the people why buy and read the work I publish, the people who lend a hand or offer advice and the people who just are there, smiling at me in the rain.

This month has been truly mentally grueling. There have been days of great struggle for me. There have been days when I truly questioned why I was here, why I do what I do, why it was ok to be attacked like an intangible idea rather than a person with feelings and why, after all was said and done, no apology seemed necessary for my hurt, distress and harm. This month has had me thinking a lot about bullying and victimisation. And where the line lies between these two. That if the only thing I can control is my reaction, then … how do I learn to control my reaction?

Because the truth is, with all this grappling with why do I do this anyway?, I realized/remembered why I do. I love science fiction. I love reading it, I love finding new talent, I love being confronted by new or uncomfortable ideas, I love being stimulated to think about things deeply, I love working with writers on new projects, I love the synergy and creation and the coming together of a vision. I LOVE publishing. And I love the privilege of talking about it and working on it with the brilliant, talented and inspiring people I get to work with and hang out with every single day. I love every part of publishing from the conception of the idea, to the development of the project, to the production of the work and the marketing and promotion of the finished product. I love keeping up with what everyone else is producing and from that being inspired to work on my own next project. The answer to where do I find the time to do all this is simply that – I love it. My soul feeds off it. And I grow every single day by being a part of it and by contributing. I love getting to be involved. And the more I am, the more I want to be. And the more I learn, the more I take with me to everything I do, not just science fiction but my life at large.

This month I had to dig deep and backpedal hard against the pull of the abyss. There were moments where I wasn’t sure who was going to win. Really really rock bottom moments. But in that struggle I forced myself to look for the light, and I found a lot of it, shining all around me. Thank you to those of you who turned on a light. It’s meant a lot to me.

I’ve been working on marketing and promotion for the Twelve Planets this week. A book doesn’t finish when it arrives in bountiful copies in numerous boxes on your (mother’s) doorstep. In some ways, it’s only just the beginning of the process. This realisation is a hideous one after the months spent working on finetuning the contents.

But it’s the way it is. So this week I have been working on some media releases (Nick, I can call it that because I *am* sending them out to actual real media outlets ). I sent my draft to a couple of people for comment and both of their individual responses were “dude, if this is what you do when sleep-deprived, OMG” (I paraphrased slightly, whatev).

And that had me thinking about a couple of things. I’m dog-tired. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in well over a month and before that too. I feel run down, I’m in post-con crash and emotionally I’m very fragile. All true. But I’m also a small business owner. And there are no days off or tired days or emotionally fragile days when it’s your own business. There’s no sick leave, no annual leave and no holidays. It’s my own hard-earned day job money that I’ve invested in this business. And the outcomes are mine to wear. I could have spent the money on a golf club membership or several trips to Paris or many other expensive pursuits. But I chose to invest it in this project of mine, this idea that I believe in and that I think, if I work hard enough at it, might just, one day, be something.

So media releases and promotion and marketing go on. And so does the beat.

And as I sit in full life reevaluation mode, questioning the direction I want to choose for my future, wondering if I’ve backed the right horse, I still plug away at the night job. I don’t even question it. The programme works if you work it. But you have to work at it every single day. Every day, I make sure that in some way I have promoted or publicised a title. No matter what else I do in the day, I make sure I’ve told someone new about the work I’ve published.