by C.S.E. Cooney

The question I had to ask myself beginning this blog was, “How is abook of unabashedly fantastical poetry at all interstitial?”

In a way, How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes is the exact opposite of interstitial – at least, the way I understand the word “interstitial,” though I wouldn’t be surprised if my understanding was a bit dim. This little book can actually claim a genre, for better or worse, as it dances on the graves of Shakespeare and Ogden Nash, pickax in hand, wearing little rainbow wings and curly horns, with its forked tongue tucked firmly in its cheek.

But I got to thinking about the origins for some of the poems, the whole reason I wrote them, the purpose they were to serve – before they served in chorus as a collection. That’s where we get interstitial, I think. That’s where we can start saying, “Sure, it’s a goofy rhyme, but it’s also X and B and Q and a cup of PG Tips too.”

This is the Age of Communication. What this means for me, personally, is that most of my best friends and dearest family are miles and states and countries and oceans away, and they are also at my fingertips. Email, Facebook, LiveJournal and other blog sites keep my interest and affection firmly tethered to people I might’ve otherwise let drift off into the ether of forgetfulness, wishing them happy while waving firmly farewell.

But these days your friend might announce, from a different time zone but with her text full of stress and tears, “I’m having a Terrible Day, because…” A.) Job Trouble B.) Boy Trouble C.) Thesis Trouble D.) Car Trouble, and it hurts your heart to read of it. That tough but tender organ is squeezed in the vice grip of human sympathy! “The world’s more full of weeping,” et cetera, but what can you do?

You could write a little L emoticon in their comments section. Or you could write a poem. Lavish them, loudly and in public, with rhymes and ballads. Let them see themselves as you see them, with swords at their sides and moons in their hair and lips like strawberries and hearts like supernovae.

In this way, I guess, the poems of this collection aren’t only poems. Sometimes they slip sideways and behave as kisses and shoulder rubs and all the dinners you can’t make when your friend has a cold or your mom has a migraine. The title poem of the collection was one of these, as well as “Sing Hey Caity-Hey.”

Then there are the times your friends are making things like jam. And trading their jam for the jam of their friends. Except you, the author, have no jam. Because not only do you not garden, you wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to make jam if you did, and even if you did, you’d probably wouldn’t out of sheer laziness. Nevertheless, you want jam. You’re desperate for it. And your jam-making friends grin evilly and say, “What do you have to barter?”

You tell them, “I will rhyme for jam.” In which case, the poem isn’t a poem anymore, no matter how it may look to a stranger coming fresh to it. No, that jumble of metaphor and meter itself becomes a metaphor. That poem is blackberries and peaches and apricot, sealed up in glass jars and sent to you in the USPS. Delicious. And they say you can’t eat your words. Or if you do, they say it tastes like crow. Not so.

But the most interstitial of all the poems (if I’m using interstitial correctly, which I doubt) is The Sea King’s Second Bride. Let me tell you about it. The roots of it go way back to my fourteen-year-old self who had a big, not to say GINORMOUS crush on a fictional construct, who happened to be the King of the Sea. We probably all have an equivalent. A Hades, a Beast, a Neptune. Something from the dark and the deep. Well, mine stayed with me. I used to have delicious serial dreams about him. Gone now, sadly. But I’ve been a bit in love with Sea Kings ever since then.

So, in my late twenties, along comes singer-songwriter S.J. Tucker with her song “Neptune.” Now, her Sea King and my Sea King aren’t the same Sea Kings, but they are like enough that I sang that song obsessively while washing dishes and going for walks on windy days. It’s just that kind of song.

Possibly because I was pretty vocal about my love of Tucker’s “Neptune” and also about my hot Sea King dreams (vocal as I mourn the loss of them anyway), poet Nicole Kornher-Stace brought my attention to a painting by John Bauer, entitled “Agneta and the Sea King,” sometimes called “Coronation of the Sea Queen.” This was from a story by the same title, in a collection of Swedish Folktales, edited by Polly Lawson. (http://www.amazon.com/Swedish-Folk-Tales-Polly-Lawson/dp/0863154573). Straightway, I pined for this painting. I drooled. I panted. I coveted. I did all those things reasonable people don’t do. And it paid off.

You know why? ‘Cause my girls – Nicole Kornher-Stace, Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick (the latter two being the editrices of Goblin Fruit magazine) – put their wallets together and bought me the print for my birthday. After that, I couldn’t just tell myself that the hardcover of Swedish Folk Tales was too expensive for my blood. I blew my wad on that book. Amazon.com sent it to me so fast I could hear the breeze of its passing.

When I sat down to finally read – at last, read!!! – “Agneta and the Sea King,” I was staggered to see not only the painting I so adored (which now belonged to me), but also three more illustrations just for that story. My love knew no bounds. Except it did. As I was reading, I was conscious of a great, dreadful rage of red leaping to my cheeks. My heart pounded. My mouth curled into something less like a grin than a grimace of… WTF?

Another stolen bride story! With a pitiful, lonely, beautiful but also clueless and cruel and totally tyrannical Sea King, and his pure, passive milksop of a lily maid just sort of bending to his every will until she can escape him and flee headlong into Religion.

Okay, it worked for Agneta. But it would not work for me!

It was very late at night. All I had at hand were a ballpoint pen and a magnetic memo pad. But I needed to have this conversation with the story, and the only way to talk to a story is either to do some high end Lit Crit, which alas is not my bag, or write my own dang story.

I threw everything I had into it. I even threw in a reference from Tucker’s “Neptune.” I wrote what I couldn’t have imagined writing at the age of fourteen, when I’d've given my teeth, eyes and arms to be Agneta. I was declaring myself, at last, to the Sea King of my dreams, about whom I could no longer dream. I was also standing up for hundreds of years of stolen brides tales and pale katabasis maids and overbearing underworld lords. And speaking for myself, as a woman of the 21^st century, with all the longing and expectations and pressures upon us.

That poem, weirdo tangle of conversation and collision that it is, was the best thing I’d ever written. It won the Rhysling in 2011. But I was and am acutely aware that it never would’ve made it even to the scribbling stage without Tucker’s music, Bauer’s art, Nicole’s Googling, pretty much every WisCon I’ve ever attended, and three poets pooling their resources to give me a birthday present. I had to stand in the interstices of all kinds of art forms and pathways of communication to find my way into the writing of it.

To crown it all, Rebecca Huston, my artist friend, who illustrated my poem collection, paid homage to Bauer’s style in her illustration of “The Sea King’s Second Bride.” My cup spilleth over. We come full circle. I hope one day to lay a wreath of white lilies on John Bauer’s grave. But I don’t know if he even has one. I read somewhere that he died at sea.

C.S.E. Cooney is a fiction writer, poet, blogger, and web mistress. She attended college in Chicago for college, where she received her degree in Fiction Writing with a minor in Theater.

Her fiction and poetry can be found in Apex, Subterranean, Strange Horizons, Clockwork Phoenix 3, The Book of Dead Things, Ideomancer, Goblin Fruit, and Mythic Delirium. She has novellas forthcoming withBlack Gate Magazine, where she is currently Blog Mistress. She keeps her own blog athttp://csecooney.livejournal.com/.

His music is hard to describe (and this from an enthusiastic audience member who has heard him perform many times) because it always changes and is always new.  Like many interstitial artists, Earl has faced an uphill battle for recognition because his music doesn’t fit recognized categories. He recently described it this way: “It’s not a soundscape because it’s not a terrain, not a sound world, either, but more like a crowd. Sometimes you focus on one part, sometimes another, sometimes you are near, sometimes far away, sometimes it is about getting from one space to another.”  Critics sometimes struggle to define it, because it doesn’t move the way written music usually moves. Earl believes they are challenged because “The music does have rhythm and melody, but not in context, nothing resolves itself, structures are continuously morphing. Things relate to themselves, new material comes in because there is no reason why it shouldn’t.”

His music spans the gamut from solo improvised soprano saxophone to soundscapes for opera to complex multi-instrumental works like Superstrings, his upcoming premiere.  This new work will feature Wu Wei (sheng, erhu), Allan Jaffe (guitar), Miya Masaoka (kotoa) Ernst Reijseger (cello), Mark Dresser (bass), Harris Eisenstadt (percussion), as well as Earl on the Kurzweil K2600.  Earl has gathered these musicians from around the world because they are all skilled in microtonal techniques, have developed methods for playing non-pitched or noisy sounds on their instruments and reconstruct their instruments’ original, traditional voices. In Superstring this group will explore stochastic music, polyrhythmic counterpoint, and melodic curves.

Although his music is hard to describe, the beauty and excitement it offers is not; the composer maintains that it does not create a world, but I might challenge him on that.  It creates a world where the expectations are different and untraditional, and explorers of new lands are welcome. (As Earl says, it is “very positive music, but relations are not clear—I’m not interested in making sure you know where you are all the time!’)

If you would like to hear it for yourself, and you are in New York City this weekend, you can come hear the Earl Howard Ensemble at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave. (corner of Atlantic and 3^rd Ave).

Publicity: The Final Frontier

You know what publicity is. You know about the basic tools and how to use them. So what else is there? Not much, really, besides a recap and a few more concepts.

If you are fortunate enough to have a publisher, producer or other benefactor, you don’t have to go it alone; try to work with them. Ask how you can help. Ask if they’ll share media contacts or if they’ll support you if you set up activities on your own. Don’t call your contact multiple times a day or require them to come up with detailed plans for you or you’ll piss your contact off; they have their own internally dictated priorities, but will be happy if you’re willing to pitch in and share the effort.

Every call plan you make, every call you take has to have a reason. There are tons of cool, attention-getting things you can do, but you must have a reason for everything. A release should be about something specific and actionable: a book for review, a dance performance for a listing or something specific and timely you can talk about in an interview.

Know your goals. Do you want that event listing or review or do you want to get the reputation as the go-to expert in your field? Maybe you have a new fashion line or some other consumer product. Whatever it is, you need to be clear in your own mind before you communicate with a member of the media.

Be realistic. Seriously. Know what you can and can’t influence. I’ve had authors berate me because I didn’t get their midlist space adventure on the New York Times bestseller list. I’ve also had writers become upset because I didn’t get them on Oprah or the Today Show. It’s great to aim high, but important to think about the art you make and if things like it get New York Times stories or invitations from David Letterman. Ever.

Like space, publicity seems infinite. You can keep going and going and going, like the Eveready Bunny. You can stop after one release, so the question is how much is enough? As with everything else, there’s a balance, in this case between being annoying and invasive, and being unforgettable, in a good way. Fortunately, there are a few useful things to keep in mind that can guide you.

The Rule of Six (sometimes referred to as the Rule of Seven) simply means that a target (your audience) needs to be exposed to your message a number of times (six or seven) before it sinks in. It’s a bit like learning arithmetic in second grade, when you have to fill out a little workbook with all the ways to come up with a specific number; the number of reviews, ads and listings are variable, but the end number is not. The primary thing to remember is that your message becomes sticky after a person has encountered it a half-dozen times or more. The second things to remember is that these iterations are cumulative: the first message doesn’t have 1/6 of the total impact, but each time the message is encountered, it carries more impact. When you send out those releases or press materials or whatever you’ve decided to do, keep track of your positive responses and remember that you want at least six.

Seemingly at odds is The Law of Diminishing Returns. If it sounds like it should refer to economics, not publicity, there’s a reason for that: it is an economic concept. It can also be explained fairly easily, and it’s something that we all take into account every day. Can you tell the difference between a $5 bottle of Ripple and a $10 bottle of table wine? Of course you can. A $20 bottle of wine and one that costs $40? Probably, but it’s less dramatic. How about a bottle of wine that costs $80 and one that costs $160? Even if you can taste the difference, it may not taste twice as good to you. You want your message to achieve saturation, but you can get to a point where you’re spinning your wheels and you won’t get additional benefits. Unfortunately, there are so many variables that I can’t give you an easy rule about when to stop, but it goes back to knowing your goals, and knowing your media. If, for example, you’ve hit all reasonable review media for your book, and have yes or no answers for each, well, you can start submitting information to less relevant sites, but it’s unlikely that it will do much more for you.

Be mindful of the signal to noise ratio. You want to be known for your art, not for being a personality or wearing great shoes, and you want whatever message you send out to be interesting and command attention. You don’t want people do tune you out like that previously mentioned bad flash ad. Stay on point. Be aware of diminishing returns. You’ll be fine.

You may wonder if you should hire a pro. Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t answer that for you, but you can. You have a primary job, in relation to this site and this blog post, and that’s to create art, whether it’s poetry, prose, drama, painting of something else. You may also have a day job and a family. If you are unable to make art, do your job, or take care of your family because you’re so busy with DIY publicity, then yes: you need to hire someone. Publicity is cumulative, and while you can hire someone to write releases or a plan, and you can hire someone to get limited media for an event, a full-fledged campaign takes time; most professionals will insist on a three-month contract, at least, because that’s how long it takes. So as with every other aspect of publicity, be clear, both about your own goals and about how realistic they are.

Here’s the thing: Publicity is not that hard. It’s not rocket science. It’s not neurosurgery. You’re not closing the debt. If you mess up, no one will die. Science will not be set back 200 years. World economies will not crumble. The worst thing that happens is that you don’t get enough attention, which isn’t great, but at least it’s not lethal: when you’re publicizing your own art, it really is all about you.

Publicity is complicated, with lots and lots of moving parts. It also requires good communication and people skills. You get good at it by doing it and learning judgment. If you’re the sort of person who is very linear and wants to finish something completely before moving on to the next thing, it will drive you insane. If, on the other hand, you’re a parent, an emergency medical worker, a journalist, or always the calm in a storm, you’ll be fine and possibly enjoy the process. But even if you make mistakes, that’s OK; the only thing that will come back to bite you is being mean or condescending; today’s intern is tomorrow’s editor, and people can have long memories.

So, work on that 30-second pitch. Remember that you only get to make a few points. Make information (book title/performance date/venue, etc) easy to find, and be pleasant and friendly. You’ll be fine, and at the end of the day, reward yourself with a cheerful cocktail; you’ve earned it.

Eleanor Lang is a publicity and marketing professional and much of her experience has been working with writers. She spent many years in (primarily) science fiction publishing, working for Tor, Ace, and Del Rey Books, where, in addition to public relations duties, she founded the Impact line of seminal reprints. She has also worked with technology, games and comic book companies. Lang has worked with several start-ups, including the now defunct Manifesto Games, and in that capacity has worked on business and marketing plans, written web copy and been a liaison with investors. She lives in Brooklyn and is now a freelance writer and PR/media consultant.

“There is a long lineage of artists who, quite literally, created spells via drawings on the floor, scrawls in books, lines cut into wood or stone…The well-placed glyph can bless a birth, or curdle mother’s milk. A ring of certain characters can summon a demon, and the right number-grid can allow communion with the angels…As such, the works in Sigils & Signs are agents of change. By using occult symbols from various traditions and times, each artist explores what it means to be a magician in the modern age: to emblazon sigils upon the energy field; to make magic marks. While these artworks may be appreciated for their aesthetic value – and oh how valuable they are – the viewer is invited to engage with each piece on the immaterial level. Whether protective or contemplative, refueling or revealing, these “wall spells” are cast with careful beauty and the intention to transform.”

Opening reception: Friday, April 27th, 7-10pm, FREE!
543 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY

Show on view April 28th – June 17th, 2012
Gallery Hours:
Thursdays & Fridays 3-6pm
Saturdays & Sundays 12-6pm

Publicity 101: Things that are not, strictly speaking, publicity, but you should know about anyway.

Fifteen or so years ago, I wrote the first version of Publicity 101 as an internal memo. The start-up game company I worked for lost funding and eliminated all positions and departments that were not essential to the actual design and programming of games, including mine. I’d put a lot of work into creating a PR department and I didn’t want my efforts to go to waste, so I wrote that memo in the hopes that an overworked programmer charged with sending out a release wouldn’t screw it up.

Fifteen years ago, Mosaic was just changing the way we looked at the Web, literally. Social media didn’t exist and blogs were written by a few and not read by many more. Everyone was looking for the next “killer app,” the thing that would drive people to computers and be a game changer just as much as e-mail. The need to communicate is an ancient and basic human need, one that was enhanced by e-mail, and developers and programmers were eager to find any and every possible way to exploit it. E-mail remained the killer app, the one thing that everyone used and was the backbone of the Internet, until social media.

You’re reading this online, and on a site devoted to the arts, so you’re already pretty sophisticated about the ways of the Internet. You know how to go online, use e-mail, do research, use social media and many of you probably maintain blogs. In just a few short years, social media has become so ingrained in the way we interact with one another and gather information about the world that it would seem that there’s little for me to say, except for some seemingly obvious pointers. That’s OK; common sense is a highly underrated commodity. Anyway, there’s a difference between using social media to be, well, social, and using it effectively to increase the profile of your art in general and you as an artist in particular.

There are dozens and dozens of social media sites. Some are enormous and some quite small. Some are very specific for a particular area of interest or geographic community and some aggregate other sites. Unless you have infinite time and love the process, your efforts are mostly likely best focused on the two 800 pound gorillas: Facebook and Twitter. Their relationship is similar to the party games Taboo and 25 Words or Less. In the first instance, you can be as verbose as you like. In the latter case, you have a finite number of words you can use and you get points for being clever and using even fewer than are allowed.

Twitter is excellent for transmitting information quickly and succinctly at fairly low bandwidth, and allows users to search for content with particular hashtags, the # symbol. This is why it’s been an indispensible tool for grassroots movements like Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. However, it’s not an effective tool for dialogue or conversation, and the half-life of a tweet generally ranges from 5-25 minutes, depending on your degree of influence.

Facebook allows you to connect and have conversations (and arguments, if you’re so inclined) in detail, at many words, and with as much embedded media (videos, graphics, and links), as you like per post. You can control the degree of accessibility and posts can and frequently do gain momentum after a half a day, a day or even longer.

A few things to keep in mind:
-You can send tweets to Facebook, but you can’t do it the other way around.
-Whether you prefer social media in long or short form, the basic rules of creating written content still apply; keep it simple and don’t make your audience work to figure out what you’re on about.
-On that subject, if you link to content in Facebook, the article, video or site is clearly obvious, usually with a headline and thumbnail. If you link to content in Twitter, it’s not. If you want people to click on your Twitter links, tell them what the link contains.
-As with everything else in life, balance is everything. You goal is to increase your reputation and the reputation of your work, but the strength of social media is that people feel a personal connection with you. You want to focus on your work and similar subjects/type of work, but you need to intersperse enough of “you.” Look at the people you pay attention to online for guidance, if you’re not sure what’s your best mix.
-Do not endlessly repeat yourself. Sure, if you have a reading or a performance scheduled, you want to mention it a few times, but you don’t want to keep tweeting, for instance “The flying spaghetti monster is a threat to third world countries,” with the same link. People will tune you out like a bad Flash ad. Don’t be like a bad Flash ad.

About Blogs: You don’t have to keep one if you don’t want to. If you do, information about your work, and where to buy it or see it should be easy to find. That information must be updated as frequently as it changes. Actual written content, blog posts, should be updated every other week, at a minimum, if you want to gain and keep momentum. When you update your blog, you can and should post that information, along with the link, to Facebook, Twitter and any and all other social media or appropriate online groups where you have a presence.

All of this leads to branding which sounds highly impersonal or like something you do to cattle, but it’s just about creating a consistent image. As I’ve said before, you don’t want to be known for your shoe collection unless you’re a shoe designer. Similarly, you don’t want people to say “I think she does some sort of writing,” but rather, “She writes complex stories set in a far future in which evolved elephants are the dominant form of life.” Or whatever it is. If you’re writing a blog, use a consistent voice. If you use social media, keep to a tight, core set of subjects, preferably those that relate to your art or major themes. If you have a Web site, a line of merchandise or any other visual material, keep to a consistent design and/or set of colors. You want people to be able to identify you easily. That’s all.

Some people like using promotional items. They can be fun and are especially effective when they relate to the project you’re promoting. They can also be a waste of money. I once worked with a writer who had teabags imprinted with the name of his book, which had nothing to do with tea. On a more positive note, I once sent out bags of catnip imprinted with the name of a cat mystery. They were a hit, and at least one major reviewer called to say that she would have overlooked the book except for the catnip. It’s fine to think outside of the box, but promotional items should somehow be tied to the thing you’re promoting, should create an instant and positive association for the recipient, and should keep the demographic of your audience in mind. One of the best ways to use promotional items is with a contest, which can be simple: the first five people to e-mail you with the name of your novel in the subject, or the first five people to send a tweet with the name of your play. You don’t even need a special promotional item, but can offer a copy of your book, tickets to your play or an invitation to the opening night of your gallery show.

The next and last blog post will recap everything to date, talk about the signal to noise ratio and the rule of six, and discuss how to know when and if you need to hire a pro.

Eleanor Lang is a publicity and marketing professional and much of her experience has been working with writers. She spent many years in (primarily) science fiction publishing, working for Tor, Ace, and Del Rey Books, where, in addition to public relations duties, she founded the Impact line of seminal reprints. She has also worked with technology, games and comic book companies. Lang has worked with several start-ups, including the now defunct Manifesto Games, and in that capacity has worked on business and marketing plans, written web copy and been a liaison with investors. She lives in Brooklyn and is now a freelance writer and PR/media consultant.

Publicity 101: The Next Step

Last week, I defined publicity and talked about some basics for creating and sending information and developing contacts. Every piece of information you send out, whether a physical copy or electronic from, might as well be thrown into an abyss without follow-up. In the best of all possible worlds, your follow-up should result in a decisive “yes” or “no,” and while sometimes the reality is no reply, this brings me to a key point: keep notes, with the date you send out information, the dates you’ve followed up and any results.

It’s a cold, cruel world. You know that your novel, critical essays, art, film, play or performance is the best thing on the creative scene in maybe forever. It might even be true; those of you concerned about interstitial arts are probably coloring outside the lines more than most. That’s terrific, except that the listings person, producer, journalist or editor who has received your information doesn’t know that. They’re not going to, either.

I once attended a presentation given by an editor at a major magazine on packing books for review submission. This editor explained that he received hundreds of books a week, and a mailing envelope that got packing debris all over his office, or a staple that caused injury were enough to toss the offending item into the discard pile. Anyone receiving your information is similarly inundated. People receive more material than they can use and are looking for ways to narrow down submissions, but there are some basic methods to make it easier on everybody.

When to follow-up, either by phone or electronically:
Call or e-mail within a week to ten days after sending your initial material. Earlier, they probably haven’t looked at it. Later, they’ll forget. If you’ve left a message or send an e-mail to follow up and haven’t received an answer, Call or e-mail again in 2-3 days. In both cases, if you’re leaving a message of any kind, keep it brief and let the person know that you wanted to make sure they received your information and are checking their interest.

How to pitch information when you’ve connected with a person:
- When you follow up and have the opportunity to talk to an actual person, speak quickly but clearly. Adjectives like “brisk” or even “clipped” come to mind. People are pressed for time, and probably don’t want to talk to you at all, so don’t waste their time.
- We’ve talked about the elevator pitch. When you talk to someone, assume that you have no more than 30 seconds and can make no more than three points before they tune out. People who write 30-second commercials or news spots get paid a lot of money. It’s not easy. Prepare what you’re going to say and practice. It helps to have “talking points” and/or the material you’re referring to in front of you, when possible.
- If someone asks you to elaborate, be prepared to do so, but remember to stay on point.
- Stay positive. Don’t tell them how much your competitor sucks, but do tell them what’s good, interesting and unique about your art.
- If you’re talking to someone who says they haven’t received your information, don’t argue. Just offer to resend and ask them if there is a particular format or address they prefer.
- If you’re talking to someone who seems rushed or like they’re not paying attention, offer to contact them later at their convenience. Make sure you remember to call them at that time.
- If someone asks a question you can’t answer, don’t hesitate to say, “I’ll get back to you,” but bee sure to get back to the person quickly. This is particularly important when doing Damage Control
- Finally, much of the above is a judgment call. It’s feel and intuition, and takes practice. Instincts are good, and usually to be trusted.

The Interview: If you’ve achieved a goal of getting one off of the listings/review page, there are a few things to remember.

- The elevator pitch is always a good rule of thumb. You won’t get a chance to make more than three points. Even if you do, an audience won’t remember more than that, so think about your message and stay on point. You want to talk about why your art offers something unique.
- Anything you say can and will be used against you. Seriously. I’ve seen inadvertent offhand statements end up as enormous pull quotes in high circulation publications. You don’t want that, so watch yourself.
- Everything stated before applies.
- If you are being interviewed in a visual media and you are a woman, wear lipstick. This may seem silly, but people look at your mouth when they listen to you. Defined lips make it easier to follow.

Damage Control:
Everyone has done something they don’t want to talk about. Everyone has said something that doesn’t portray them in the most flattering light. Some people have done really bad things. I once worked with a writer who shot a man, and a well-known sculptor once killed a dog. If you’re just trying to get your event listed, whatever darkness is in your past may never come up, but if you’ve achieved any sort of prominence or have a work of a controversial nature, it might. At the moment, I can think of a New York Times bestseller who is constantly being hammered for some fairly minor issues.

NEVER LIE. NEVEREVERNEVER. Seriously. People joke about how publicity is all lies, but it isn’t true. You can only do it once and then your credibility is gone. If you get caught with your pants down, come clean, right away, and get back to point as soon as possible. If you are caught in an awkward situation and don’t know how to handle it, offer to get back to the writer/producer in a defined amount of time, and do so, with your reply. Be prepared. Think about anything that might reflect badly on you and be ready with an answer, if you’re asked. And finally, if that awkward pull quote makes its way to a major publication, don’t pretend you didn’t say whatever, or that it’s the journalist’s fault. Apologize for any offense and for being unclear in the first instance. Clarify your point, and stop right there. Drama should be performed by trained professionals, preferably onstage, and has no place in the world of publicity.

Next week I’ll talk about promotions, special events, blogs and social media.

Eleanor Lang is a publicity and marketing professional and much of her experience has been working with writers. She spent many years in (primarily) science fiction publishing, working for Tor, Ace, and Del Rey Books, where, in addition to public relations duties, she founded the Impact line of seminal reprints. She has also worked with technology, games and comic book companies. Lang has worked with several start-ups, including the now defunct Manifesto Games, and in that capacity has worked on business and marketing plans, written web copy and been a liaison with investors. She lives in Brooklyn and is now a freelance writer and PR/media consultant.

Publicity 101 : Why you want it and how to get it.

This, the first of four blog posts about publicity, is about the basic concept and the most basic of functions, getting attention for an upcoming publication, performance or product. Other topics, including the grey area of social media, will be covered later in the month.

Publicity. Everyone wants it, even if they’re vague about what it is. Here’s something it’s not: free. Never. Publicity is earned editorial media coverage. It’s also unpredictable. Advertising is purchased. You buy the space and decide the image, text and message you want. Your money, your choice. Publicity in its purest form is editorial. If you could buy it, the cost per unit of measurement would far exceed that of an ad. However, editors and writers are under no obligation to say what you want them to. Once that book has been sent or the reviewer is watching your play, there is nothing you can do to control the outcome. Relax. Seriously. You can control your own work, but not how an audience will react to it. Do your best work. Think ahead. And down the line you’ll want a plan for damage control, but not this week.

It’s said that all publicity is good publicity, but unless you’re Kim Kardashian and you just want to be famous, this isn’t true. You want to be known for your fantastic novels or your thought-provoking films, or whatever you do, not for your shoes. Unless, of course, you happen to be a shoe designer. Be clear about why you want publicity. Maybe you have an upcoming book or event, or you need to increase your name recognition or status in your field because you’re applying for a grant or submitting your work for a juried award. Maybe you want to move backlist or revitalize a lagging career. Whatever the reason, think it through; anything you do in publicity or marketing should be done for a reason.

Refine your message. In business, there’s something referred to as the elevator pitch. If you’ve ever gone in search of grants or funding, you’ve done it. This is how you explain your concept in the time it takes an elevator to get to a high floor, maybe 30-45 seconds. It’s not just that people’s attention spans are short, which they are, but you need to be that confident, that sure of your message. You want your message to be consistent, even if your work is varied. This is also important later, when you pitch and follow up. Talking to editors and journalists is like speed dating the media; you get 30 seconds to prove that you’re worth another date.

Assuming that you have an upcoming book, product or event and you’ve thought about your message, you’ll need basic materials to get the word out. The most basic unit of information is a press release. Witty prose and brilliant writing are good, but for the purposes of the release, short, preferably no more than a page, and containing clear information is more important. Both contact information and event/publication information should be in an easy to find and clearly identifiable place. No one wants to read three paragraphs to figure out the name of your book. If you haven’t hooked the editor in the first paragraph, some say the first sentence, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll continue reading. It’s speed dating all over again, but in writing.

You’ll want a pitch letter to go with that release. Again, short and to the point, but this is your opportunity to customize it, reminding the editor of where you met or pointing out the connection to an upcoming holiday or an ongoing and timely event. Think of it like a cover letter for your resume.

Depending on whether you are looking to be included in the listings for events or if you’re looking for interview or feature coverage, you may want additional materials as well. Common materials include a Q&A, quote sheet and/or past reviews and material about your particular subject or area of expertise. This is a judgment call and there is no easy rule to follow, expect that you don’t want to overburden an editor with too much paper or too many attachments, and you should be ready to send more information if asked. Once again, have a clear assessment of your publicity goals and be realistic.

If you’re wondering whether to send that concise, informative and interesting release by e-mail or the United States Postal service, well, it depends. In many, if not most cases, editorial contacts will be clear about their preferences for receiving submissions. Do what they want and be prepared to resend or send additional information via another method, if they change their minds.

Your message, event and your well-crafted release are worthless if they don’t get into the right hands, so you’ll need a contact list, and you’ll need to keep it current. You probably already have an idea of the most important publications in your field. For an event, you’ll want a locally based list of publications and the events and review editors, who might or might not be the same. If you have a particular subject, arranged marriage, for instance, you’ll need to think beyond the arts page to figure out what media people might be interested. You’ll need to do research. Here are some good steps.

-Learn your industry, if you don’t already know it. Find out which publications cover serious games, for example.

-Buy newspapers, magazines or look at online publications. Take a look at the masthead to find out who the editor or writer is for your area of interest.

-If it’s not obvious, or even if it seems to be, call to confirm. Increasingly, publications don’t want calls and if a number isn’t listed, send an e-mail inquirery. Phone or e-mail, keep it short and to the point: “I just wanted to know who covers dance events for your publication. Thanks, and you can reach me at this e-mail address.”

-Ask if your publisher or event sponsor will share contact information if you’re willing to do the work.

-If you’re feeling a little flush, consider professional media databases. Cision and Vocus are the gold standards, but they’re expensive. On the plus side, all information you could ever want is available to you online and it’s possible to generate lists by category, location or many other combinations and preferred method of contact will also be listed. You can do an electronic mailing from these lists directly from your computer. On the minus side, they’re expensive, and you may still need to call or e-mail to verify potential contacts and the areas they cover.

Different publications have different lead times, and you’ll need to be aware of that as well. Again, Cision and Vocus will list this information, but it’s common sense. A monthly magazine will have a several month lead time, so you wouldn’t contact them for a theatrical event next week, and an online publication updates frequently, so you wouldn’t want to contact them today for something that will occur three months from now. Readers, like editors, have a short attention span and many things competing for their attention and their money. You want your information in the hands of the consumer close enough to the date of the release or event to generate excitement, long enough to plan. Depending on the type of art you’re publicizing, you probably want readers to see your information a week or two in advance.

A final note for today is that bestseller lists are always a function of sales in relation to time, which is to say that if you sell 100,000 books in a year, you are unlikely to make lists. Sell 100,000 in a week and you’re a bestseller. This is why bibles and cookbooks seldom show up on general bestseller lists, and once again, it’s a reminder to know your goals.

Next week I’ll talk about the pitch, the follow-up, media training and damage control.

I unfortunately found out about the Atlanta Fridge too late to alert you of regular submissions. (There are alternate ways to perform, including Bring-Your-Own-Venue and the Free Area.) But I did want to point you to the festival’s Fringe Radio station, which is accepting submissions until March 30th, in the three interesting categories of Radio Plays, Storytelling, and Sound Art. Check it out!

Their submission methodology is unusual. They are accepting 25 submissions per category: first-come, first-served. Audience members will purchase passwords to listen, and based on the number of clicks for each show, the artist will be paid a percentage of the radio fees. So — a “crowd-curated” show? What do you think of this method? Do you think there should be an initial screening process? Or do you think first-come, first-served best serves the artists?

These whimsical, macabre works evoke the eccentric subjects of English symbolism, sinister figures of the renaissance, the anthropomorphic tableaux of Victorian naturalism and the Dia de los Muertos style of South America. Come drift among these eerie creations and realize the “ever-evolving narrative that is revealed as one spends more time with each environment.”

Colorado-born artist Lin Esser has been fascinated with illustration ever since watching his father, a mechanical engineer, craft intricate exploded drawings and cross sections of elaborate multi-cogged machinery. Like many interstitial artists, he has worked across disciplines as a double bass player, a Broadway sound designer, a film composer, a magazine illustrator, and a cartoonist. He was the Director of Sound and Music of the Actors Studio under Paul Newman, and his tableaux are featured in Dave Davidson’s short film Contacting the Living.

Artist Lin Esser

This is a fascinating, highly-recommended exhibit which you can preview here. Don’t miss it: the full collection will only be on view for three weeks. Please note that RSVPs are necessary for the March 3rd event!

On Exhibit at the AFA Gallery:
Lin Esser: Unconventional Tableaux
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 5-7 pm
54 Greene Street, New York, NY
212-226-7374
rsvp@afanyc.com

Biyuu: Interstitial Soundscape and Dance

The work of sound sculptor Liz Phillips has always been interstitial, ranging from works with famed choreographer Merce Cunningham to installations at the Whitney Museum and in situ pieces working with the natural environment. Right now, she is engaged in developing a particularly exciting new interstitial multi-media venture called  Biyuu  (a Japanese word describing the sound of bamboo bending in the wind). In this piece, soundscapes will be transformed through the controlled and conscious movement of the human body in live performance.

The Dancer/Antenna

Liz is currently working with Mariko Endo Reynolds, a Butoh trained dancer, to create Biyuu, exploring and recording the movement of the body in both potential energy fields in the sound lab and at Edith Read Animal Sanctuary. In the studio and on stage Mariko’s body becomes an antenna as she shifts shape, moving near ground and reaching out.  Her body is a conductor and the space around her is activated, responding in sound and light changes. Liz measures and accumulates the activity and the memory that an action or inaction can leave behind. They then combine Mariko’s dance movement with Liz’s decades of work with live processing for interactive installations, usinf new and old methods of live digital and analog processing of the camera that Liz has been using in weather balloon installations and in her bicycle balloon workshop.

In the sanctuary (first recorded on video and binaural audio) birds respond to wind in the branches and to the artist’s movement in the bamboo forest.  In performance, Mariko will break through a wall of amplified translucent paper, creating a new sound and visual dimension that will expand onto the stage. The artists have found that silence, stillness and phase are important in making the images and sounds dimensional, allowing them to shift scale, move and scatter.

Speakers Created by Mother Nature

In  Liz’s sound constructs, objects radiating sound are natural filters, each with its own voice; a long sheet of rice paper, a shell, a bamboo pole, a brass ring, a wooden plank, a bowl, a water pool can be a speaker.  A sound will morph as it spins through this air and then falls into water and vibrates making resonant wave patterns. That sound mass transposes as it plays, when the bowl fills. The seen and unseen waves, water, sub audio, audio, radio frequency, ultrasonic, infrared, light become tactile material. Liz translates, transposes and shifts spectrums, activating water, sound and color formations, creating a hyper miniature ecosystem using electronic tools.

The Audience Experience

When the work is performed live later this year, the audience will sit on two opposite sides. Two projections will fall on 3-D coil forms that hold translucent paper scrims. Mariko, wearing a conductive thread-laced costume, will move the coils, reconstructing the landscape of the stage, evoking the bamboo, water and tall reeds. With metal snaps, she will become a transmitter of an electric field in different places on stage. Each change in focal area will signal the unfolding of a new sonic and visual responsive environment.

Crowdfunding

Biyuu is also a new venture for both artist as they are experimenting with crowdfunding through USA Projects, which, if she reaches $8,925 by February 22nd, has pledged to match the donated dollars to support the premiere of the work at Roulette in Brooklyn, New York, in 2012. The funding will support a large studio to build sets, dance and coordinate sound, staging and balancing events.

Enjoy this video of this amazing project: Biyuuu!

And stay tuned for an interview here with Liz Phillips in March!