Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: No TV for You
So you’ve got a new book out, and despite all attempts at humility, you secretly believe it is the coolest thing invented since smart phones. The whole world would love to read it – if you could only get those jaded, cynical, world-weary, keepers-of-the-gate to give you a little television air time. Forget it.
I briefly worked as a newspaper reporter, and I married a television news producer. I made a side trip through the land of promotion, working as a publicist for a couple of authors, for a few years.
So, believe me when I tell you, forget what the perky little “You can do it!” how-to promotion articles tell you – unless you are Stephen King, Anne Rice or a celebrity already – you are NOT going to get television coverage for your magnum opus of fiction.
Let me explain why you aren’t going to get television coverage, and so, should not waste your valuable and probably-limited personal publicity funds on it.
Look at the word Tele-vision. The Vision part is key – there must be something to see. No matter how pretty your cover art; there’s no movement, no action to it. And there’s no way to change that fact. Therefore, your book is of no interest to the television reporter – or to the television station’s viewers. Even if those viewers read ten books a month, when they turn on the television, they expect to see something visually entertaining.
Thursday, July 30, looked like one of the odder days I had lined up at the Fantasia Festival. I’d head down to the De Sève Theatre early on to catch a new American science-fiction film called Synchronicity, then go to the screening room to watch a dialogue-free horror film called The Dark Below. After that, I’d go back to the De Sève to catch the Irish black comedy Traders, and finally wrap up with an event called Méliès et magie, an event presenting some of the classic short films by the first master of fantasy cinema. It looked like a varied day, though in the end it was less so than I’d expected.
