Please — A book marketing haiku
As you may recall, I’m not much of a poet. I hated poetry in college but now wish I’d listened to my 
advisor and taken more of it. In response to a reader comment, I did a post with several ideas for how to market your poetry. Then I came across this quote by Seth Godin, which is a nice reminder that most poets and bloggers are in it for the love of their craft:
“Just as we don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how
all those poets out there are going to monetize their poetry,
the same is true for most bloggers.”
— Seth Godin
I am tackling poetry again in today’s blog as a part of the 2012 Word Count Blogathon. Today’s is Day 21 in the 31-day blog challenge. The theme for today is haiku, which means … you guessed it. I’ve written one.
For those unfamiliar with this style of poetry, a haiku is a very short form of Japanese poetry that typically possesses three qualities:
- The essence of haiku is cutting, which often is represented by the nearby positioning of two images or ideas with a “cutting” word between them that serves as a sort of verbal punctuation mark signaling the break separating them.
- A haiku consists of 17 syllables or sounds: 5, 7 and 5 respectively.
- Haiku traditionally contain a seasonal reference.
According to WikiHow, “a haiku is meant to be a meditation of sorts that conveys an image or a feeling.” In reading many haiku (there is no plural word for haiku), you will notice they either present one idea for the first two lines and then switch quickly to something else, or they reference one thought with the first and last line, and another thought with the middle line. “Haiku has been called an “unfinished” poem because each one requires the reader to finish it in his or her heart,” the WikiHow article continues.
Like any writing or forms of art, haiku takes practice. I am not practiced at it. One of Marcie’s subscribers, however, is quite practiced: read Five Reflections’ daily haiku here.
OK – without any further delay, the unveiling…
To sell books I work
Branding and marketing them
Won’t you buy one, please?
Though there is no seasonal reference, I do think it hits the idea of conveying a feeling, a somewhat plaintive pleading to make all my efforts worthwhile. See, I can even tie in book marketing to a poetry challenge – and I’ll bet you can, too!
The idea is to learn to think like a marketer. Not that the first words out of your mouth when you meet someone new are: “Hi. I wrote a book. Do you want to buy a copy?” But that you keep marketing at a low simmer on the back burner, so that when an opportunity or idea you can leverage into an opportunity does show up, you will recognize it and be ready and able to act on it.
If you’d like to take a break from your own book marketing and try your hand at haiku, definitely read the WikiHow piece on writing a haiku.
Happy haiku!
MARCIE
SOURCES
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku
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Marcie Brock, Book Marketing Maven 