Latest marketing effort

Another marketing drive coming up soon to try and get Falling some attention. Two different efforts, in fact, and they’re shots as long as it’s possible to take, but after all this time there’s no reason not to aim high. They can only – like almost everyone else I’ve ever tried – say no.

I’ve got two copies of the novel printed using Amazon’s publisher copies service (which in fact makes me Falling’s most prolific customer; they’re the second and third printed copies I’ve bought).

The first copy will go off direct to a publisher, something that’s incredibly hard to do nowadays. I had the good fortune to get his details in my day job as a reporter. Being a reviewer I know most of the publicity people, so when I asked a lovely lady I knew at the Pan Macmillan publicity department if she could suggest a publisher or editor who could comment for story she obliged, and I now have the name of a publisher there.

That means I can send him a copy and a letter with a distinct tone of ‘I know this isn’t the done thing, but as we have a mild preexisting relationship thanks to the interview for the story can I interest you in my Sydney-set ghost story for possible publication?’.

All of us in the arts know there are established methods to try to get published and abusing the privilege of knowing someone in a position of decision making power isn’t fair, but (and not to cast too harsh a judgment on it) f%$k that.

Ask all the children of Hollywood stars who are now Hollywood stars themselves if it’s fair while millions of people with real talent get nowhere because they can’t get their foot in the door. Ask the people who happen to be friends or colleagues of agents or publishers an subsequently have their ear if it’s fair.

And the second is Causeway Films, where I know absolutely nobody but which I have an address for thanks to my pro membership to the Internet Movie Database. If you don’t know them, you know their work. They’re the Australian production company behind locally made hits (distributed to great success in the US by prestige label A24) Talk to Me and Bring Her Back.

They’re Australian, and their screen stories have mostly be set in Australia. They know and love horror. They produce fairly inexpensive films, and even a casual glance at the synopsis of Falling makes it obvious it’d be a $200m epic.

But the long shot you’ll never know would have made it if you didn’t take is that they might be looking to expand and club together with other, bigger producers to make just such a big, expansive Australian ghost story.

The letter to them will say ‘I know this isn’t the done thing and I’m unagented, but you’re Australian, you love horror (etc etc)’.

I’m sure in a few months I’ll be reporting back despondently that the publisher at Pan Macmillan has emailed a kind ‘thanks but not thanks’ and the production company has sent it back with a generic ‘Sorry, no unsolicited submissions’ note (if they acknowledge it at all) and my fifty bucks worth of author copies will already be in recycling somewhere.

But I never wanted to be a novelist because I had thin skin and intended to let every setback and disappointment stop me. Look at all I’ve achieved by being resilient and persistent – I’ve already sold three books!