Guest Blogger: Bernadine Kennedy

Right now I’m tearing my hair out trying to write a couple of personal press releases that can be sent out to the media to prove that I’m really very interesting and worthy of a few column inches that will help promote my next book. You know the press releases I mean, they delve into the personal rather than the professional and are written to catch the jaded eye of the journo assigned that day to sifting through them all.

Once the crack-high of acceptance and publication has died down, there comes a stark realisation that the next step for one’s lovingly crafted book is for it to actually sell in enough numbers to keep the publisher happy. The loyal purchase of the first book by family, friends and curious colleagues (after the debut they lose interest) just won’t do it; the book has to be lobbed forcefully out into the big wide world and the general public have to hear about both it and the author and then they have to be persuaded that they really, really have to go out and buy it. Complex stuff.

This is where publicity and self promotion comes in. Publishers and agents will do some of the touting around but on the whole it’s down to the author to try and fire up some interest. Any interest.

Self-promotion is a necessary evil that even the most shy and retiring has to get to grips with but it can be a dangerous balancing act trying to find the happy medium between being ordinary and uninteresting and giving out ‘too much information’, some of which is possibly (accidentally?) exaggerated and which will one day return to bite the author on the bum. Trust me, there’s always someone somewhere ready to rain on your parade. So just how much personal information should you give out about yourself and your nearest and dearest in the quest for that ever elusive publicity? Where does a Joe Bloggs author, not normally in the public eye, draw the line between doing everything possible to get mentions and quotes, and going too far?

It seems to vary greatly from person to person; I cringe sometimes when I read an in-depth confession of something so deeply personal, tragic, humiliating or devastating it brings a lump to my throat and then see the little note at the bottom of the piece about the authors latest book that is out that very week.

Cringe I might but at the same time I can understand it. Authors want their books to sell and so do their publishers but in these days of gossip magazines and tabloid newspapers publishing increasingly salacious details about celebrities, being normal, ordinary and hard-working doesn’t cut it.

‘Happily married mother of two point four children who lives in a semi and works part-time in a bank writes a novel’ isn’t going to grab any headlines unless she was moonlighting as a high class call girl at the same time. (N.B.High class call-girl is good, heroin raddled street walker is bad).

Same as ‘Disabled dad whose wife ran off to Turkey with a toy-boy leaving him with five kids managed to find the time to write a heart-rending account of his struggle when they were in bed’ will have them all gagging for the details. Especially if the wife now wants her share. Bring on the tabloids!

So would I tell tales on my kids to get a two line mention at the bottom of a page? Would I rip into my ex-husbands who are also the fathers of said kids? Reveal personal details about my childhood, adolescence and marriages that will embarrass not only me but also everyone close to me? No I’m sure I wouldn’t. Well I haven’t done so far. But would I drag up something from my past that makes a good tale, doesn’t impact on anyone else and won’t come back to haunt me? Oh Yes.

All I have to do now is think of something catchy! Back to the drawing board of my ratchety old past!

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Bernadine Kennedy is the author of several books, the latest of which is Shattered Lives. She has a comprehensive (and rather pink) website and also a blog. She recently became a Grandma.

Comments

[liz]

All too true! Now waiting to hear what you drag up to reveal to the world!!!

Thanks for the insight.

[Jan Jones]

Rather pink? What sort of comment is rather pink, for goodness sake?

Regarding the actual article, Bernardine Kennedy makes a very good point about publicity damaging the people about you. Most authors plunder their past for incidents, feelings and emotions. There is, however, a difference between rummaging through old cupboards and having a yard sale.

[Anita Burgh]

Such a thoughtful article which has got me thinking. How far do you go? Have you the right to refer to others for your own good? It's the same with autobiography, do you tell it as it was or lie? If you agree to write it, and sign on the dotted, have you sold your soul, where does your loyalty lie? Gracious me!

[Susie Vereker]

Interesting dilemma for BernaRRRdine and all us authors.

[Sue Moorcroft]

Great article, Bernardine. The issue that faces us all: how to keep sales going and, at the same time, write another book that will also sell.

I suppose that, as fiction writers, we could simply make up fascinating lives!

My website is mainly yellow, in case anyone is wondering.

[Liz]

I'm rather wishing I'd invented an alter ego at the beginning of my publishing career. Some young, slender and beautiful who is touring the world by bicycle, balloon and elephant and sending chapters to her desperate editor from all points east Do they have cyber cafes in Katmandu?

Too late. They got me at 40+ year old mother writes romance and have been carefully adding the years on ever since.

[Kate Allan]

I refused to tell a newspaper my exact age, I just said "30s" and in the article that came out it had been rounded down to "30" so maybe I can start lying from now on. lol

[Bernardine kennedy]

Not sure about grandma? sounds very knitting and baking! Is that counteracted by pink?

I refuse to be drawn on age on principle, seems that local papers love this especially. Last phone interview I did he even tried to push the question over and over.....
Am now going to think about different genre and different name with matching raunchy background!

[Janet Woods]

Excellent blog, Bernadine. Someone once asked me why I played down my image with the - housewife/mother of four/left school at 15 and happily married to the same guy for 50 years - angle. I should write about my achievements, she said. Hell, those were achievements! It seems that the truth isn't trendy any more.

I'm now considering posthumous fame by having a book cover tattooed on each buttock in case I get run over by a bus! (there's room for several, come to think of it!).

[Chris Nichol]

In publicity terms I think you'd find the papers are as happy with 'heroin raddled street walker' as 'High class call-girl' - maybe more so if they've written a book. In fact given the derivative nature of publishing I expect this to come along soon.

[Stephen May]

... excellent article. And the self-publicity - however necessary - can leave the author feeling sorta dirty too. Writers often choose the medium because they are ill-at-ease with pushing themselves forward and so struggle hard with self-promotion (some don't of course). A generalrule - that journos should bear in mind - is that the less interesting the outward show, the more interesting the writer... be a bourgois in your life so you can be an anarchist in your art... as Flaubert said...

[Scott Pack]

'Rather pink' means what is says on the tin really. The website is, er, rather pink.

And apologies for the grandma comment, Bernadine, was just picking up on your delight from your blog. A fine looking bairn. Congratulations.