Schizophrenia and Marketing

Hello Everyone

Well, the free book day is coming to an end, and as usual on these days I am slightly overcome by all the marketing.  I feel compelled to 'sell' as many copies of the book as possible on a free day.  I am not sure why.  I suppose because the main aim of the book is to help people, and making a profit from it might be seen as helping myself.  So I guess I have a guilt complex.  On the other hand, there is no point writing for no reward at all, because all that will mean is that I have to stop writing eventually.  And I need to write.  And hopefully the book will indeed help people, and already is.  In which case, it justifies itself.

Anyway, today I have been on Twitter, Facebook, etc, flogging my wares.  Which would be ok if I wasn't so obsessive about it.  If I do something, I want to do it properly - so not one tweet, but twenty.  In between, checking Kindle Direct Publishing to see how the 'sales' are leaping.  It is actually quite exciting - the high point of my day today was when the Chief Exec of Rethink re-tweeted one of my tweets.  But now I am tired, and it is nobody's fault but my own.  I can't seem to do things by halves.  I get obsessed.  Consumed.

Talking of obsessions, I have been reading a book called 'The Woman who Thought Too Much' - a memoir by Joanne Limburg.  The book is about her struggles with OCD.  It is well-written (it should be; the writer is a poet) but it worries me, because in places it seems a little self-indulgent.  As she points out herself, all memoirs must be, by their nature.  And I hate that - it is the only reason why I still occasionally wonder whether I should have fictionalised mine - because I would hate to be exuding an odour of 'poor me'.  Oh well, if I am I refuse to smell it.

I had a stroke of good luck today.  It came disguised as bad luck - I had almost finalised arrangements to set up a writing group based at my local church, but the lady I was liaising with told me on the phone this morning that they had miscalculated and could not offer me the room on a regular basis after all.  She was very contrite, but I reassured her that it was fine.  I had a few other options, and was just about to chase them when a friend phoned and enquired whether the group was set to go ahead next Monday as planned.  'Not since five minutes ago' I said, and explained.  She suggested an alternative venue, I went to look.  And it was incredible. 

I now have a beautiful room, at a low rent, furnished with an enormous table and plenty of comfortable chairs, with the most amazing view you could imagine out of the large picture window! And the group can go ahead next Monday as planned!  Howzat?!

Now, I am going to set myself a target - put the schizophrenia book to the back of my mind for the rest of this week, and concentrate on getting the writing group off to a good start instead.  And also do a little other writing for myself - I wrote a short story for Toddler for Christmas and he asked me to read it to him again today, and as I did I could see an awful lot of room for improvement.  So I will make that my specific task.  Chickenhouse Publishers have an annual competition, usually featured in the Times around October, so I might try to polish up Toddler's story to the point where it is printable and enter the comp.  That would be cool. 

Enough for now.  Hope you out there are flourishing.  If not, hang on; things will pick up.  They always do.

Louise x