Consummate performers

I'm off to the Purbeck Literary Festival today as a guest speaker on a panel of the Deadly Dames.  I will be spending a couple of hours with some good writing friends being quizzed about my books.

These days, writers have to be their own publicists as well as creating the work in the first place.  One of the things editors and agents are looking for when they meet a prospective new client is marketability.

As a mature author, this term makes me bristle a bit.  What they really want is some drop-dead gorgeous young author with eye appeal who will look good on the front of a magazine or on a TV screen.  But the problem with that is that young people don't have the experience, and often lack the wisdom, to write the kind of breakthrough book that is likely to be bought.

So being marketable as an author is more about being a personality attractive to the media.  And the good news is that it's our individuality that makes us memorable.  We have to learn how to speak in public, and become comfortable with that, but beyond that learning it's all about letting our personality show.  And one of the advantages of being an older author is that we've worked our who we are and what we believe in.

We have to be our book's salesperson as well as its writer these days.  I've recently done a submission which required me to sum up my book in one sentence.  That's the ultimate elevator pitch.

Today I'll get a little longer than that to make an impression on the festival audience,  it's a nice sunny day, and I'm looking forward to the festival.  Perhaps I'll see your there this afternoon,