Publicity and the Writer, Pt. 1

Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home? – Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb is a Pink Floyd song from the album The Wall, which somehow seems appropriate because one of the hardest things to do as a writer once you’ve written a book is get through a wall of social media noise and figure out how to get people to read it. In many ways, it’s the biggest challenge facing authors these days, especially indie ones. How can people discover you?

Part of the reason that I’m thinking about this subject is that I (the Harry Heckel half of Jack Heckel) am going to be on a panel at Awesome Con in Washington, DC this weekend. This is amazingly cool, and I owe fellow author Wayland Smith for making it happen.

I’ll be on a panel at 2:15 on Sunday with Wayland Smith and Day al-Mohamed discussing how to build a knowledge base and use it for writing. I’m sure I’ll talk quite a bit about reading fairy tales.

All of this is good, even I daresay, AWESOME, but I should have announced that I was going to be at Awesome Con a month ago on this blog. Opportunity lost.

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Once Upon a Time with… Katherine Harbour

Welcome to the story-themed interview, Once Upon a Time with… where we interview a fellow author. Today, we’d like to welcome Katherine Harbour, author of the fantasy novel Thorn Jack and the upcoming novel, Briar Queen, both part of her Night and Nothing series from Harper Voyager.

Like any good fairy tale, we’ll begin with Once Upon a Time. What’s your “Once Upon a Time”? Tell us about your beginning as an author. Where did you live and what sparked you to decide to write?

I lived in Albany, NY and, in high school, I loved reading. When a teacher told us that writing was like creating a game, with characters and worlds, I thought it sounded like fun. So I began.

Sometimes a fairy godmother or perhaps a fae stranger appears to make dreams come true. In this case, the dream involves becoming a published author. How did your publication dream come true?