Of course, I had no idea that actually writing the book was the easy part. All the plotting and planning, creating and describing was the fun part, everything after is work, Work, WORK. My background is in food, primarily creating it but I'm pretty good at most of the hospitality industry stuff (except for knife skills which have always been crap, I'm really great at not slicing myself open though). All of my prior publishing 'experience' was writing menus and taking them to the printer, so I did not go into this with a clear idea of all that it entailed.
But The Last Prospector is published now and now, the work just gets harder because I am one little voice in a sea of shouters all trying to get your attention. I am not well versed in marketing, actually I can probably only sing along with the chorus, but I do what I can do.
That's me with my stylish new Nine West handbag yesterday in downtown Sacramento being one of THOSE people, oh yes. Putting them on windshields was not my first choice, but few people that I asked would actually take my flier despite my friendly demeanor and Cheshire Cat T-shirt. At least it was a lovely day, so Clyde and I still enjoyed ourselves despite that jerk who made a rude face when I asked him if he wanted a flier, you can just say no rude sir because that face didn't need any extra uglifying. If you don't mind my saying so in print.
We started out on the far side of Cap Park where the parking was free. I briefly considered taping fliers to squirrels but didn't think the Scotch tape would hold long.
Our destination was Cathedral Square on K Street, the ice rink is open and I had the crazy notion that it would be teeming with people. I keep forgetting that the K Street Mall is downtown though and then I keep forgetting that downtown Sacramento is irrelevant on the weekends. Clyde and I did take note of the fact that the upper mall is much nicer than last time we were there, lots of new nightclubs and bars, but few actual people. Plan B struck me as we were walking back to the park past a small parking lot, I started stuffing them into windshield wipers (very carefully though, so I didn't set off any obnoxious alarms). It was better than nothing, in my view.
Outside the mall, people were much nicer and a couple of them took my fliers with actual smiles and well wishes of support. Thank you kind people! Since it was Veteran's Day, we stopped to listen to a speech at the Mexican-American Veterans Memorial and gave silent thanks to all the men and women who have served our country so that I could have the freedom to walk around speaking my mind.
After plastering every car window around the park, we were out of fliers and headed back home to West Sacramento (unofficial city motto: Hey we're not the state capital but we're 10 minutes closer to San Francisco!). We saw this guy just after we crossed the Tower Bridge to the Yolo side and I wish we could have gotten a better pic, but I loved his bike and you can see a small portion of the tall purple cycling machine.
So that was the first official chronicle of my adventures in marketing. If nothing else, it was a lovely date for Clyde and me, but I sure hope that at least one flier found welcoming eyes. Please take note that my blog is now 5x more bloggy, now that I've figured out how to add photos. Thanks for reading and if you have any wickedly clever ideas about how to market the book, please send them on.
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