My agent told me that marketing for your own work requires the gift of foresight.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoX801TsGhD
Anticipating reception is almost as important as writing the work itself. Sometimes it's easy if you're working within conventions. Outside of it, you need to fall on old lessons learned. I mean, one of the first things you hear in English Comp is the proper way to ask yourself motive: "Who the heck are you writing this for?" 225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6CHIkjtHK0
Know your audience--You know the maxim. 225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHpggsf3I8u
But what if you're coming at this from the back end? Fffffuuu... The work is finished and you've been told it's good (and you know it's good), but now you've got to figure out why the book 'works' in the first place before it goes off to an editor and your agent or your dashboard--wherever.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk0qjWLblRW
Self-actualization and self-awareness are hard enough to come by. Now, try analyzing a piece of your own fiction while remaining entirely impartial. What an unreasonable ask... but an ask nevertheless, and an important one to answer if you're to proceed with eyes open.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ZvM3VlMfy
Now, the downside with coming at this whole thing backwards is that you're going to discover pitfalls, flaws, plot-holes, and problematic truths about your own unconscious biases/opinions. This could generate more work, or merely provide insight into your own style. It could also prove something isn't ready to leave the cutting room floor.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCKEIomW7I4
At the end of the day, if you're not comfortable with the exposure of these things, you may feel obligated to change or cut those parts of the text. Everyone's different. Some people can answer to their little fuck-ups (--can even laugh with the haters), but for some, it's enough to keep them up at night, bumping depressing thoughts together fast enough to generate sparks. (So, for those with weaker constitutions towards la critique, I would not recommend your first sojourn into publishing be upon the back of a poetry collection. Fair warning, luv.)225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0W8MVlZjZy
But say you don't find any bad news. Say, whatever you do find about your work that may be construed as problematic is not without its merit or use... Then, you've got the basis for your marketing down, haven't you? You have the plot, but then you have the soul. You have the meat they come for, and the potatoes they stay for. You've figured out what makes your story tick, and you know how you would tear it apart if you were your own worst critic. And now you can fight fire with... er... more fire--anyway, before my metaphors start burning down--225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFmt9XGbAK7
Many people--perhaps because of debilitating Imposter Syndrome or overly inflated ego--are not keen on confronting their own ideas about something--even things as innocent as who-gets-hooked-up-with-who by the end of the book--nor are they prepared to defend those ideas.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb4DAcaDpqd
Ultimately, isn't any work we make an expression of an idea that interests us enough to sit down for hours and hours--days on end--furtively (often futilely) mining and chipping away at the rock and hardened clay of our stories, trying to reveal a glorious Adam beneath? 225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoaIEZAe3e6
Asking someone to distill their vague, often soft-edged, ideas down into ten strong words would defeat the purpose of creating a book about it in the first place, wouldn't it?225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3zfsMaWVWC
Oh, but we are talking about conventional genre fiction here... It is a medium that at once forgives the writer for not taking themselves or their text too seriously, while begging the reader otherwise--or visa versa, depending on the intent.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXCh4QOwL9v
So. Marketing. Audiences. Platform. The raison d'être within a piece's beating heart...225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz4xHWaji5X
Why do we create and sell these particular stories? Are we expressing ourselves? Sharing ideas? Trying to impact the youth? Staving off boredom? Profiting off the repressed? Empowering the oppressed? Validating the depressed? Codifying the suppressed?225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBqN9dXVu2o
I don't fucking know. Shouldn't it be different for everyone?225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC7bsyT5kPa
I write about things I want to read, and sometimes the things I want to read aren't too embarrassing to take to market, as such:225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFydXgweJKn
"I liked x, so I made a thing like it. So if you like x, you might like this thing I made."225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCxpfrr4IC4
Marketing is as simple, and as painfully obvious, as that.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwKVXBAM4dz
No foresight required.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiXNJhQs4nh
Cheers.225Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXakP2AtJzl
