I’ll participate in a panel at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Literary Festival called “Becoming a Writer,” in which I should talk about my experience with self-publishing and all the steps of the seemingly infinite ladder towards making one’s name emerge in a very crowded and noisy market.

Of course, I’ll talk about having the book on lulu.com, more as something anyone should do if they’re not going through getting their work torn apart at an MFA program to shake them out of their bad habits. We always question that, we, the beginners. We don’t like to have our egos deflated as an exercise. Perhaps that distinguishes the hobbyists from the wannabe professionals.

All the same, I feel that with the Internet and people’s changing habits, an Internet presence is necessary if you want to be an author and it doesn’t seem you’re in line any time soon for major recognition. Anyone can start a blog like this one on any free service currently available (if you don’t like google, try wordpress). The harder part is to figure out how to integrate audio and perhaps video into the equation. People download lots of mp3 (even to their cars, I gather), and it would make sense to get your work in that format.

Just today I found this article in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook section about a writer who records his stories into free podcasts, hoping that he’ll have enough of a following to get them to buy actual books. It may work. By the way, he’s a graduate of the Iowa program, and I was surprised that he didn’t get an automatic book deal out of that.

Here is the article:

Take my book. It’s free.
Giving away books as podcasts is new way to promote sales

One also needs to get his name (and especially his web address) out there to get people’s interest. That may even be a healthier lifestyle than that of the typical writer hiding in his chamber with a raven. Perhaps it means you get your name out there by writing (part-time) where it will be recognized.