about your Big Publication Date, plus snippets of advance reviews touting your book’s brilliance (and links where to pre-order it, including a signed copy for posterity, or at least your bank manager), this is the response you are likely to get from me.
Dear XYZ,
And I want to let you know that online serialisation of my new novel Corvus will be beginning shortly. I won’t be reading it in bookshops, because I dislike that sort of self-promotion. You will also not find me discussing my fiction in public. It should speak for itself.
Naturally, I hope you enjoy reading Corvus though I don’t expect that you will do so nor recommend it to a friend or your book club. Published writers tend to disdain those like myself who prefer their independence to corporate publishing. It’s quite surprising how little respect lit bloggers afford those who are in fact their colleagues.
Many thanks and all best wishes,Lee
Now why should I be defensive? I’ve just heard that I’m shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, heh.
Irritated at these mass mailings, actually. And just as irritated that people assume I’m defensive. Most simply do not believe that a thoroughly committed writer might not be interested in traditional publishing in her heart of hearts.
I think what I need to do is burn a publishing contract in a public square the way we once did with our bras! Ah, the 60s stories I could tell …
Sounds a little defensive and defeated, to me. 🙁
BTW, I’ll send you more comments on Corvus this weekend. 🙂