Discovery: Our Holy Grail

Writing a good story, getting it as close to perfection as you can and sending it out into the world is the least of it. Promotion is the biggest challenge we face.

My advice: Be Everywhere.

This bit of advice is still theoretical. I have no results to cite. It’s only this past week that I’ve started to seriously push my books, crafting brief but information-filled headlines and key words and placing mentions on a wider variety of sites. So far I’ve kept to here and Facebook and my own personal (little visited) publications on Medium.

A fun image and a cute blurb do for Pinterest, but you don’t have the space for an article. You must provide a link to another locale. I am not eager to create another website, with a new look tailored to a new project. My solution for the time being is to link to the full piece on medium.com.

I just posted there in an established publication, having been advised that a known quantity improves discovery. I was accepted as a contributor to ‘Creative Café’ a year ago but never posted because I didn’t want to hand over anything that is part of a series. Friday night I looked for a way to submit to an editor for approval but found no gatekeeper, as is the routine with other Medium publications. So I hit ‘Publish’. I’m waiting to see I’m thrown out on my ear.

A drawback: Medium’s format gives you the choice of a square or a landscape image as the introduction to an article. I’ll have to think about how best to present a figure to avoid the opening peek being of the midriff region.

As far as Pinterest goes, to be exposed in the feed, I’m told you must post new content several times a week, and you’ll wait a month or more to see results. But each listing has the ‘You may also like’ section below, and I am pleased that when I open my ‘Maisie in Hollywood’ pin the below images are heavy with mice and rats, a high percentage of them in skirts and pants. So when people open a pin of Napoleon Bonaparte Rat, they may see my silent screen legend Marcelline Mulot. That’s encouraging.

I just sent what may be the second tweet I ever tweeted on Twitter. (I seem to have sent one to Dire Straits the year they were tapped for the R&R Hall of Fame.) Anybody on Twitter? What do you do with it? (In terms of promotion.)

My strategy (as always): Anything Goes.

I have my website (MyGuySly.com) with a few teaser chapters and art, including my paper dolls. I intend to have them printed, and to sell them on Etsy and Ebay. There is a sizable community of paper doll collectors (forty years ago, I was part of it). I may make a bit of money, and it is another way to introduce my books to an audience.

Common knowledge is that a series is useful in building a following. If someone reads one book and likes it, he may look for more of the same. Curtis has this covered. Amanda Hocking and Hugh Howey got to where they are by this same route.

My methods (exploiting my visuals) may not help most of you. My main point is: keep at it. Try this, try that. Jim Webster posts short pieces on Facebook with art that he hustles off the web. His often centuries-old images pair with his text in marvelous ways. They seem to have been created for the story. I’m sure it takes considerable time to hunt the things down, but this is something any of us could do.

The big thing is to project a personality, otherwise known as a brand. My brand is Wise-Ass-Animals-in-Pants. What’s yours?

You’ll find my intro to a zany biography of the delightful Marcelline Mulot at: https://medium.com/@mimispeike/maisie-in-hollywood-64f0924b46f3

This week I approached a publisher in Maine that specializes in paper dolls. There seems to be only two such these days. Forty years ago there were several. Dover is the biggie, the one that publishes the celebrated (in paper doll circles) Tom Tierney. Their specialty is celebrity dolls and dolls depicting fashion through the ages. Not my kind of through-the-ages, no animals. Mae West, Greta Garbo, etc.

I got a graceful brush-off. Paper Studios Press is, like Dover, fixated on celebrity dolls. (Their publications are included in the Turner Classic Movies online store.)

Marcelline Mulot is the celebrity paper doll I can get into. Those folks in Maine have their niche. I have mine. I’ll keep chugging along my own track, under my own steam. Like I’ve always done.

Above is a quick mock-up of the front and back cover for a paper doll book that will double as a tabloid-size poster. The figures will be rodents. The poster in the upper left corner will read: Rudolph Rodentino / Marcelline Mulot in Secret of the Siren Sands.

My BFA in Costume Design wasn’t a total waste of time after all. I’m going to have fun with this.