Everyone Begins Somewhere

Short Stories are wonderful promotional tools. I have no problem with printing a 1000 word story onto 10 sheets of  A4 – I make sure my contact details are clear to see, I put it into an envelope and on which I have written an address  –  ‘Love Story’  –  ‘Murder’  –  ‘Confession’  –   As I travel the city on public transport I leave the envelope story on the seats of buses. Like messages within bottles, cast overboard from ocean liners, I have no idea if the story has been read or not. Once in a while I receive an e-mail, the words ‘I found your story on a bus…’ make the process worthwhile.

Very often I will record the story and burn it onto a Cd, the process is the same. On the disk I print a picture with the title and my contact information – http://www.iantimothy.com – For every 50 Cd’s I receive one e-mail about the story. You may say what a waste of money – I answer ‘Its cheeper than a social meal and for me 100 time more enjoyable’ who knows how many have spent a few moments in my imaginations?

There is no concern for content. A love story, murder, spy, theft or comedy. So long as the story is short, its going to be placed on the seat – Recently I crossed the Atlantic and I hid some my Cd’s and short story sheets in the magazines provided by the airline, I also left a Cd in the loo with a printed title ‘Listen to me later’  There is no knowing if the recordings were listened to.

My favourite giveaway is the Zine. This is a self printed small magazine which is either sold or given away – I will print in runs of 20. This is my favourite form of self promotion, it also receives the most feed back – The zine above is part of my new promotion of the Assassin’s Notebook which is available as a Kindle download. I have received varying feed back about the Assassin and I receive email’s asking me about how I came to write this ‘Noir’!  When someone asks me about this little book,  my dark side stirs, its a voice in my head saying ‘People like me Ian .. they like the way my imagination kills people..’ And its seems to be true there are many who desire to read about crazy characters.

Yes, effort is required. You may ask is it justified? It is, self promotion works, the writer should never stop believing in their work. Everyone begins somewhere and never has the writer had more technology available to let the world know what’s happening, effort = reward