Clarification on “shameless hussy” poetics of self-promotion
22 April 2008The etymology of “hussy” is “housewife.”
On “shameless”:
I think I am fortunate. I learned early on from my most generous, aggressive, and lively mentors that if I do not promote myself and my work aggressively, then I shouldn’t wait around for people to simply discover me and take on spreading the word about me. These mythical discoverers of me wouldn’t do it adequately, if at all, and not in the ways that I want to be aggressively promoted and publicly regarded.
“Early” means back when “my literary career” meant hawking my DIY (with the help of Downtown Oakland Kinko’s and a paycheck from my not related to literature day job) chapbooks out of my backpack at every single local community arts space/event I could humanly attend, and still being indecisive about whether to apply to MFA school or not. Actually, “early” is much earlier than all that, and includes editing and promoting the Filipino American publication Maganda, and performing “spoken word” at local arts spaces and political rallies, back when I was published nowhere.
I am thinking about all this now in light of an upcoming “talk” in which I am supposed to participate, regarding marketing Asian American poetry. Really, the “Asian American” part of the marketing question stumps me, since I really don’t have a good grasp on what mainstream American readers of poetry (is there such a thing?) expect to find in an “Asian American” poetry collection.
I was talking about this with Karen Yamashita, who is a very lovely person and was the kindest host for me, Jeff Tagami, and Shirley Ancheta at UCSC last week. Karen told me that I should mention my website, and web presence. For sure, without the website, I don’t know how people would find me. Or rather: without a solid web presence, including the website and this here blog, it wouldn’t be so easy to find me, and then people would have to work harder to find me, and I don’t think people really want to work that hard to find me, my work, or the work of any of us. They’ll just find someone else who’s easier to find.
A few years ago, I heard Shailja Patel speak at KSW’s Apature (currently accepting submissions!) arts festival about community artists self-marketing, and she held up a couple of her chapbooks, copies of which she carried around in her bag everywhere, as well as business cards. Nothing fancy, just cards with no bullshit contact info on it. Not being a university literature professor, I can’t use my day job work business cards, so I ordered cards printed up in glossy black with my website printed in pink, and the word “poet” (also in pink) in parentheses. That’s all the cards need. I used to have my (pre sexy loft) home address on my cards, but these days I only give my home address in my cover letters to prospective publishers, to folks who need it for IRS purposes, and/or to mail me honorarium checks and contributors’ copies of publications.
And finally, it’s helpful to have the guts to pull cards, chapbooks, whatever out of your hat at any given moment that a professional connection can be made. And it’s helpful to have the guts to maintain these professional connections, maybe even cultivate these for future projects. And it’s also good sense to professionally connect your professional connections to one another.
And finally finally, of course my publishers promote me via their websites, networks, via MLA and AWP Conferences etc., via distribution, book review copies, recommendations to educators for course adoption, printing up postcards, and so I am wholly grateful for this. I understand though, that I am also not my publishers’ only author, and my books and chapbooks are not their only products, which is why it’s important not to shy away from self-promoting.
“I think I am fortunate. I learned early on from my most generous, aggressive, and lively mentors that if I do not promote myself and my work aggressively, then I shouldn’t wait around for people to simply discover me and take on spreading the word about me. These mythical discoverers of me wouldn’t do it adequately, if at all, and not in the ways that I want to be aggressively promoted and publicly regarded.” right on, hussy! ;)
Nice. Me, I don’t think of it as “self promotion” but more as “spreading the word.” Either way, in the end, it all boils down to producing work of literary merit.
Hey Shanna, I knew you’d appreciate this :-)
Oscar, I am with you on the literary merit. BUT just because we create works of literary merit doesn’t mean anyone else outside of ourselves will go out of their way to promote us and our works of literary merit.
The problem arises only went bad work is heavily promoted and the promotion becomes more relevant that the work itself, which unfortunately has become common. It is expected I suppose in a society wrought with promotion for can-openers and the such. Builders and sellers of can-openers that don’t work well still sell, and often they play dirty in the “corporate” world as they say. Oh, this is in no way a reference to you or your work personally. Trust me on that.
Sheryl, I appreciate your comment and I agree with you, as I responded to Oscar’s comment. It’s interesting how both of you bring up or allude to the “bad” work or the work lacking literary merit. I agree with you both having seen and heard a lot of poets’ works which I find lacking or needing more drafting/editing, etc. sold really well to audiences, who are sometimes emotionally manipulated by a “powerful” performance or a charismatic performer. I don’t know that this is going to change anytime soon.
So, given what I believe we do have control over: it’s a problem when the “good” work or the work having literary merit isn’t pushed hard enough or strategically enough into the world, and into the consciousness and ideally into the hands of prospective readers. I am just saying that I prefer to take this “spreading the word,” as Oscar says, into my own hands rather than waiting for anyone to do this for me.
Bah, Shameless Hussy away. Let history determine who’s right or who’s wrong. But obviously, I speak from significant vested interest here. :) Destiny awaits, but every now and then needs a door opened for it.
[...] unnamed editors with these unnamed independent publishers, let’s just say that my “shameless hussy-ing” is making this possible, though I don’t know how well it’s “working” [...]