Post #75 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Business – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
It's not a cake any more...it's a towering inferno!
Well tomorrow is the big day. I turn 60. And while I know everyone says this, I’ll echo the popular sentiment…I simply don’t know how it got here so soon. I certainly don’t feel 60. I didn’t feel 59 for the whole last year either. But there it is. My only recourse is to repeat that other popular adage…it’s only a number. Oh, and I can’t forget, you’re as young as you feel.
In truth, my birthday tomorrow will be very anti-climatic because thanks to the fabulous efforts of Matilda Butler and her husband Bill Paisley, I had the most incredible send off possible. This was the perfect trip for three writing, art-loving, music-appreciating, museum-junkie foodies like us.
In our whirlwind foray through the Berkshires and Hudson River Valley (and believe me, we covered a lot of ground), Matilda, Bill and I paid respects at the homes of Edith Wharton (The Mount), Herman Melville (Arrowhead), Robert Frost, Frederic Church (Olana), Daniel Chester French (Chesterwood) and Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt. We gazed upon the fabulous collection of Norman Rockwell paintings in Stockbridge, MA; discovered the dramatic wall drawings of Sol LeWitt on display in the MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA); and even squeezed in a musical retrospective of Irving Berlin hits (I Love a Piano) at The Mac-Haydn Theater in Chatham, NY.
We got in touch with the simpler things in life when we visited the Hancock Shaker Village–a must-see when you’re in Pittsfield, MA.
We ate well, too. Since Matilda’s a gluten-free vegan, we chose our restaurants carefully. Indian and Thai are usually good choices for her, and you won’t hear Bill or me complain either. But the pièce de résistance was the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, which gives a whole new meaning to the initials CIA. We had lunch in the American Bounty restaurant. The food was delicious–I had soft-shell crabs, a personal favorite–and it was fun watching young chefs learning to work with the public and run the “front of the house.” A very knowledgeable recent graduate gave us a tour of the pastry wing.
Let Your Memoir Have Elements of Surprise
And speaking of our CIA tour guide, I have to say that we were struck with the professionalism of all the guides. In every case, they truly knew their subject. They weren’t speaking from a script or stumbling through the rooms in an ad hoc fashion. But the real key to their presentations was their ability to interject the unexpected. We, the audience, felt as though we were getting the inside scoop…little details that the general public will never know. As writers, I think we can learn to treat our readers as honored guests who get inside knowledge, an element of surprise and the benefit of our insight.
What Makes Your Memoir a Success
As much fun as we had, I think the thing that we all appreciated most was the way different disciplines and the perspectives of others challenged our thinking and gave us many new ideas. Some of what Matilda and I learned will show up in our teaching and books. We were so inspired and filled with fresh concepts that I think we talked about ideas from the time we got together in the morning over breakfast until we said good night. Our eyes, ears and brains were on sensory overload alert. It was fabulous, and I highly recommend every one of you give yourself the gift of a getaway that stimulates your writing.
My One Big Takeaway
The Berkshires and Hudson River Valley are filled with the homes and museums of successful artists, musicians and authors. And, yes, you can say they were lucky and represent the exception rather than the rule in art. I’ll agree with you, but I was struck–listening to the tour guides–that every one these people had business sense. They didn’t cut themselves off from their audience…their market. They created for themselves, but they also created with their audience in mind.
Too often I hear struggling memoir writers complain that marketing their book takes them away from their art. They dream of turning their manuscript over to an agent or publisher and waiting for the checks to roll in. You can imagine their frustration when it doesn’t happen, they struggle to get published and the money doesn’t materialize.
But the great artists we celebrate never thought like this. Case in point: Daniel Chester French would create a life-sized model of his sculpture, and before he sent it out to be recreated in bronze, he rolled it outside so he could observe it the way it would be displayed. He actually had a track and rolling platform built into his studio floor. He looked for flaws, optical illusions, light that reflected off the figure’s lips or nose and looked funny. He wanted his audience to see what he saw, and not be disappointed because the studio with it’s controlled environment and light wasn’t the real world.
Frederic Church selected scenes that he believed would attract crowds. His iceberg paintings were on display for the pleasure of huge audiences that, in the 19th century, probably would never see a real iceberg. Church painted for his own pleasure, but he was forever mindful of the need to reach, to connect, with the money-paying audience.
How to Build an Audience in the Internet Age
If you follow my writing here on Women’s Memoirs, you’ll know that I like to talk about the importance of building a platform for your writing. And, furthermore, it’s critical that you start building it before you’re ready to take your manuscript to an agent or publisher. Even if you plan to self-publish through a Lulu or Author House, you need an audience that knows you exist and whose appetite is whetted for your book.
You have to be found. You have to build a following. You must capture the interest and imagination of others. It’s the ONLY way you’ll succeed in selling your memoir to an agent, a publisher or a reader. You must make marketing and platform building part of your writing process.
I implore all aspiring authors to start their blog THE SAME DAY they start writing their book because it takes time to be discovered. The Internet is vast and getting bigger by the day. And unless you come to the Internet with a well-established following, you won’t get found overnight. You need to write online regularly, apply the tricks of SEO (search engine optimization) and reach out to new people via the social networks.
My wish to each of you is that you become a modern-day Frost, Church, French or Wharton. Embrace the promotion with the same enthusiasm you have for your writing. Remember, success is not in the writing alone; it’s in our ability to reach a reader…and that’s true whether the reader is your mother, sister or the stranger who finds your book. I’ll be writing more about this.
And Matilda, Bill, thank you for the best birthday celebration ever! You’re dear friends, and I’ll never forget our wonderful week together.
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