Poetic Promotions

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These days I really try hard to build up a friendship base in the on-line community myspace.com. Purpose: I've my books to sell. One day when I've gained enough credibility as a decent netizen, and when I've really impressed others by my literary credentials, I'll ask all my friends to buy my books.

Sounds like dream? An incredible plan?

Myspace, or for that matter any on-line community, is a crowded marketplace now. "Buy this cell phone", "Buy that i-pod"-the whole community is congested to the capacity. Our bandwidth is exhausted. So, where is the patience? And how to get that credibility?

I've chosen an equally weird plan. Give them poems, they'll get attracted.

Is that workable? Is that easy? Let me suspend the questions for the time being. Let me post poems that I've scribbled during the last couple of weeks going right up to the profile space of my friends.

So is Our Telly
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Once we used to creep
Loudly, begging for choice
And that's the test of freedom
So do people say.

Now choice kills ruthlessly
Not the time alone, it's channel zapping,
There's a competition in every home
For the wonder instrument called REMOTE!

So is our telly
Has brought quarrel to our homes
Let the scene pass in a minute
I've other things to do.
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Soliciting
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I'm in a lovely mood now
Let my friends know that
I'd stop bothering them
with that trash called my poems!
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Lost Birds
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The birds that bothered me in my childhood
Crapping on my books or chirping close
They are now nowhere to be seen
And they're lost from my view.

They are gone with the green to recur in my dreams
And longings take me there when everybody is asleep!

Cool breeze is still there
to swish those sibilant whispers
I don't loose hopes, no, never
And the birds will be back there and right there.
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Growing Out
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Somehow I feel like
not growing more than a child
It's risky, it's lousy
to grow up and grow out.

Growing up has only one advantage:
difficult maths of primary days
appear easy and workoutable
And one feels like revolting against
all the words of the unkind teachers.

Growing up has nothing more to give
for all it takes thrashing out.

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By
A. N. Nanda

Bhubaneswar

05-05-2007
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Newsworthy?

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To order a copy of "The Remix Of Orchid", mail to nanda_lit@hotmail.com [nanda underscore lit at hotmail dot com]
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The other day a friendly fellow from a newspaper gave me to understand that a new book must have something of news value to get a coverage on the pages of his newspaper. In other words, it should earn its publicity through newsworthy means.

I was then reminded of a book I read years ago. It was one "The Almighty" by Irving Wallace and it underscored one point again and again throughout the book: "News is not to be collected; it should be created".

So there is a lot of truth in what the newspaper fellow told me, rather expected of me. I reflected. A book in order to be regarded a newsworthy object must have a few things at the minimum. Let me try to enumerate.

1- A catchy title catches. I've not given any catchy title to my book, like "Seven Ways to Hit the Jackpot", or "Who Moved My Kebab" or 'The Secrets of a Long Life". But then I've given it a name "The Remix of Orchid", and doesn't it sound a bit weird? So, if everything weird could be a style, won't it apply to my book?

2- The book must stand for something widely believed, or even go against it, say vegetarianism or Zionism, to get (appropriate) a stage already established. People have made names by writing on Indian poverty, animal rights, Yoga, or if I go back a century, on white men's burden. The literary fad these days, I'm told, is feminism, Dalit literature and Marixism. Then what does "The Remix of Orchid" stand for? Reading pleasure-does it subscribe to any belief or "ism"? Patriotism-does it make any substantial sense at present when thinking global is the fad? The struggle for existence-does it convey sense in an age when excellence, not existence, is the motto?

3- Sometimes what is written is not as important as who is publishing it or what he is publishing it for. Books are made to order. If it is to be marketed among women, make it a tear-jerker, say a mother-in-law troubling her daughter-in-law; a hubby hobnobbing with another "bad" woman. That's not all; I've read stories in the net involving father and daughters, not the step-daughter but the real ones, and they are such as would shock the sensibilities of one and all. There are gay themes, violence, drug abuse-to name just a few. All these have been written to write something fresh, to tread a path untrodden. As for "The Remix of Orchid", the book is not something that is made to order; it's just an expression of the writer's love for writing, expressing himself through text craft. So, should I expect a great success with such a traditional treatment of creativity?

I've taken some time from my newspaper friend to come back to him and explain him why he should give coverage to my book. Still I'm looking for an appropriate way to articulate. Possibly, I can't say that the book has a foreword by Mr Ruskin Bond and that's why he should write a feature about my book on his newspaper. Even before I could have thought of saying so, he has made it clear.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Bhubaneswar
08-04-2007
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A Suitable Boy

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Need a copy of "The Remix of Orchid"? Contact the blogger at nanda_lit@hotmail.com
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I promote myself writing a book; I promote the book writing a blog; I promote the blog writing SPAMs—is there an end to such promotion spree? Honestly, there could be no end to this when means of promotion itself needs to be promoted so doggedly!

I’ve a joke to share here. It’s a joke intended to blend writing with selling, something I should need now badly. The joke goes like this:

A writer is at his wits’ end, not knowing how to sell the unsold books. (Obviously he is one like me who has chosen the self-publication route.)

But one day he did something and all his books were sold out.

How?

He gave an ad in the matrimonial column. Yes, of all places he chose a matrimonial column to sell his book:

"Match needed for a successful software professional in a Fortune 500 company earning 10k plus and settled in the States with a permanent visa. The girl need not be an extraordinarily beautiful one; she may not be even highly educated; but she should have all the qualities of an Indian women, qualities that are beautifully portrayed in Shalini, the leading lady of the novel ‘I’m For U, Darling’ by Sam Sunder.”

No wonder “I’m For U, Darling” became a blockbuster overnight.

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By
A. N. Nanda

Bhubaneswar

23-03-2007
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