Thursday, February 4, 2010

What Would You Do? by DL Larson

Last week I was interviewed by a local newspaper of a neighboring town. I wasn't interviewed as a writer, but as a person in our community. The question was "what draws folks to small towns." A friend of mine was also interviewed for her involvement with the organization called Friends of the Library. I was at this interview to support her upcoming project on Valentine's Day, a Victorian Tea. The benefits made from this project will help fund the children's department in our library.

I answered questions as best I could, keeping a positive twist on living in our small community. A few days later the paper's photographer stopped by the library to take pictures. That's when it hit me; I never talked about my writing career to the correspondent. I spoke of the nice, safe commuity I live in, the wonderful people, the many great organizations and churches, but not about my writing. This paper has a circulation of about 4,000 - 5,000 daily. My article would be a part of their weekend "hometown" section. I'd just given up a perfect opportunity to blow my own horn and I never mentioned the tiniest comment about being an author.

The article came out last Saturday as promised. I received lots of comments about being in the paper and what good things I said about Earlville. Then the questions came, "I thought youw were a writer ..." "I was expecting to hear about your next book..."

So my question is, how should I have worked the topic of being a writer into the conversation? Or was it okay not to wave the flag of oh, did I mention I'm an author? Part of me wishes I had spoken up, the other part is rather proud I focused on the topic and let my personal agenda stay quiet.

What would you do if if this happened to you?

Til next time ~

DL Larson

3 comments:

Morgan Mandel said...

They say any publicity is good publicity, so it has to help you just getting your name out there. I hope someone did mention your name.

I'm always trying for angles to get my name out, yet sometimes I miss the obvious. That's when fortunately the DH steps in and tells folks. It's so much easier if someone else does the talking, yet we can't always rely on others to do our marketing.

Maybe you can use it as a springboard to further publicity.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

Gayle Carline said...

I think sometimes you can promote and sometimes you have to hold back. In your position, I probably would have made certain the interviewer knew my bio, but wouldn't have worked my book(s) into the talk. That would have been too blatant. On the other hand, if someone interviewed me about MY small town, I WOULD talk (briefly) about my book because I used my town as the setting. But I'd still try to make the interview about life in small towns, and not hijack it to make a sales pitch.

Deb Larson said...

I think holding back this time was for the best - the article was about our community, not me even though I was the one interviewed.
Thanks for sharing.