NOVEMBER SONG | Poisoned Pen Press

When I hit the Big Five-O, I shifted just a bit uneasily in my chair as I remembered that ?the days grow short when you reach September.? But when I crossed over to the shady side of seventy, a later line from the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson standard, ?September Song,? came into my mind. ?The days dwindle down?to a precious few. September?November? And these few precious days, I?ll spend -? how?

In my post of September 13, I observed that book promotions had changed a good deal over the 36 years since my first book was published. Those changes apparently have not gone down well with a lot of writers. I hear or read constant authorial howls to the effect that ?everyone tells me I have to keep up my web site. Blog regularly. Guest-blog whenever I can. Accumulate and cultivate friends on Facebook. Tweet. Link In. Appear on panels at conventions and conferences. Visit every bookstore that will let me through the door. Damn it, I don?t have time to write my next book!?

I get those promotional mandates myself, and when I do, I think of one of my literary heroes, John Jerome, who must have been born at seventy. Jerome wrote twelve books, none of which came close to being a best-seller because the author refused to promote them. For him, the writing was its own reward, preferable to money or fame. After Jerome died, in 2002, Bruce McCall wrote that he had been ?up and at the keyboard before sunrise every morning, as close to 365 days a year as he could manage?writing away the years as if he were being paid a thousand dollars an hour?He would have made a lousy celebrity in any event. He never met a cocktail party he couldn?t bolt in a minute, hated public speaking, cultivated no connections.? Not that Jerome was anti-social ? he had many friends, and was active daily outside his writing room. But as McCall put it, he ?was in the best sense, an old-fashioned kind of writer, inspired by solitude, soothed by privacy, a respecter of craft who couldn?t cut a corner or miss a deadline or tolerate a typo.? Mc Call labeled him ?hands down?the most successful writer I?ve ever known.?

Not many fiction writers support themselves by their literary efforts. Most either have day jobs or had spent a good part of their earlier lives squirreling away retirement funds, hoping to be able to afford to change careers ASAP. I chose the latter route, and for the past eighteen years now, I?ve basked in the pleasure of being a full-time fiction writer. To date, my corpus includes eleven published books: eight mystery novels and three nonfiction works. I have enough ideas that I could write till I?m 100.

But not many people get even close to 100.

How, then, should I spend these few precious days? Endlessly scribbling my name on confetti, then tossing the pieces from a window high above the faceless crowd at the parade in the canyon below? That?s not what I spent thirty years at tough labors for. I?ll go by the Jerome Doctrine. If I?m more comfortable in high button shoes than glass slippers, I?ll wear the old-fashioned footgear.

Not that I categorically refuse to promote my books. I?m glad to take some time to try to support independent mystery bookshops. There?s something satisfying about interacting with people I can see and hear. And I realize I owe my publisher a reasonable effort to help keep the firm afloat. But my comparative sales figures seem to indicate that by far the most effective promotion is to get a starred review in a major trade journal. No way am I going to do that by trying to squeeze my next book in between a panel appearance at a writers? conference and tossing off a tweet. That might work for others, but it won?t for me. And December?s coming up on my calendar.

To read Bruce McCall?s obituary for John Jerome, go to The Most Successful Writer. And if you?d like to sample the work of this most successful writer, I?d recommend?On Turning Sixty-Five to anyone of any age.

Source: http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/november-song/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=november-song

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