Space For Sale, Space Sold

In hard-copy or online, that's what we do. That's what we all do and always have, in some shape or form. We have blank space for sale, and we sell it with a clever application of stick-on text and graphics. Furthermore, we power up a measure of that in most of our daily actions, in print or out of print.

You want to receive all you reach for in this world? I'm told to think marketing. I agree.

Check your ego the moment you awaken. I'm told that, too. And I'm seeing it work for me.

And there is more.

I'm obviously in the writing business, and I'm often not believing my good fortune when King eneca runs another pack of my blather, never asking me to submit something else, or suggesting that perhaps I've finally launched myself straight off the roof in a headfirst dive at the cement parking lot.

So it seems to be a bit of a neat trick to observe oneself unloading all trace of ego and attacking the latest and greatest opportunities to market oneself and one's wares. It's a type of stepping outside oneself and honestly and accurately judging one's work and knowing when it's got a shine and magnetism, and when it's crapola.

The first step is to recognize that, and to let the world know that one is ready and willing and able to charge full-tilt into the world of marketing savvy. (Did I say that right?)

According to a relative, this is hen's-tooth rare in the world of novel writing. Oh, that manuscript is my precious baby AND DON'T YOU TOUCH MY BABY! Or, "I recognize it's your baby, but I see so many freakin' baby pictures, I'm too toasted to tell which one is about to blossom into a best-seller." Well, maybe the literary world has to somehow have a structure that'll recognize the fire and drive in an author as well as his or her baby.

Maybe I shouldn't speak for my relative. I have a safe and secure job, and he's still scrambling to enter the world of book publishing, despite some track record and experience with a nonfiction work.

Gee, is the world of novel authoring as fictitious as the product? Maybe it's his place--and not mine--to decide to be that snarky. Or not.

--K.H.