Why Good Catholic Girls Should Never Try To Be Famous

...or even recognized. Okay, that’s an exaggeration and I’m not really that good anymore... or Catholic. Or even a girl. But the point is, if you were a good Catholic girl raised in the fifties like I was you were taught to be modest and self-sacrificing and to do for others and put your own needs last. Well, I was never particularly good at that last one. I always knew what I wanted, even if it changed month to month.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because I am trying to think of ways to promote my book, my business, my publishing company, etc. and it is really difficult without sounding like I am being too pushy and self-involved. I know it needs to be done and, if I was working with a publicist as many writers do, I’d be embarrassed by the amount of “self” I’d have to put out there.

Over the long weekend I had set myself two goals — to get some press releases written and sent off and to think of ways to attract more people to my web sites. It took me two and a half days to get the press releases written for the simple reason I was having trouble telling the world why they should want to buy my book (well-written, good characters, lush settings, blah-blah-blah). It all sounded so self-aggrandizing. No matter how many times I read Marianne Williamson’s poem that I keep in the sidebar of this blog, I still felt like I was being pushy to try to shine that much.

But I got them done. Whew.

So it was on to getting more traffic on the sites. Some years back I had toyed with the idea of having photography offered as part of Valentine-Design. I’ve never considered myself a photographer — I just take pictures. I know too many good photographers to call myself one (are you reading, Ray?) But I’m a pretty good picture-taker and people often asked for copies of my photographs. So, since I had a half-begun photography section on my site, I decided to change it into an e-postcard service where people could come to my site, look at the photos and send them as e-postcards to their friends.

I took the idea further by deciding to add snippets of text from my book and from Mark’s to enhance the photos (and also promote our books.) I talked it over with Mark and he thought the idea was great. So the next challenge was to find a good e-postcard script and install it. HA! Easier said than done.

I found an attractive and customizable script from Postcard-Direct but getting installed was another matter. Major confrontation with my own inability to follow directions. Fortunately, being a good Catholic girl, I also learned to be persistent — or stubborn, take your pick. Well, it took half the night and I have lots more to do to add more postcards but it is working. Whew, again.

The thing is, Marianne Williamson is right, who are we not to shine? Or at least glow. I have the temerity to think I have something to say in this blog. I have the courage to write a book and start a business so I must think I have something to offer the world. Why is it so hard to promote it? My friend Susan Fader of Ditto Editions in Marblehead has a business called My Art Marketing Coach. She teaches artists how to promote themselves. She knows better than anyone what difficulty creative people go through.

So, anyway, I’ll be adding new postcards soon! In the meantime, take a look and send a postcard to someone you like: Parlez-Moi Postcards

Thanks for reading!!!