Deanna Zandt's Extra Helping

Something tells me I’m not the only one experiencing this, but it’s one of those things that falls into the “do not complain, you’ll sound all ‘oh poor me’” department. It’s a serious request, though, because I know I have a lot of work ahead of me in the coming months.

I didn’t quite realize the general emotional/energetic toll that writing a book would have on both my work and personal lives. Well, I knew the writing would, yes. And I learned quickly that the editing and revisions would. But all the other things that rolled in after the final manuscript was turned in… I mean, I knew they were coming, since my publisher does a really good job of providing schedules, updates and the like. But still, I found myself surprised at how much work I still had to do: reviewing the copyedits, reviewing the edits to the copyedits, reviewing the layouts, reviewing the proofread copy, making last minute changes from nightmares I had, reviewing/editing/rewriting the back cover copy, gathering endorsements, picking endorsements’ placements, reviewing it altogether, approving, denying, etc. You get the idea.

It’s now about ten weeks out till the publication date, and this is where I should be kicking off my mega super duper marketing schemes to take over the world. I’ve got to finish planning (and figuring out how to pay for) the book tour, make sure all the pubs who need galleys are getting them, starting blogging in earnest again, devise clever tactics and what-nots to make sure my splash is big.

Certainly my publisher is doing their part—that’s definitely not my complaint. But I’m under zero illusions that the bulk of the work is on my head, in my lap, if this thing is going to reach the people it needs to reach. I feel like authors who have organizational support can draw on those resources in times like this (am I wrong?), but as a solo-flyer, I’m already pooped. And I’m starting to use up favors and boil away my social capital way too soon.

And I have clients clamoring to have the work I promised completed.

This sounds like one big pity-party, I know. But I’m putting it out there in the hope that some of you can offer some advice from the trenches—what worked, what didn’t, what you wish you had and hadn’t done. I need a boost, and soon.

In response to Jeff Pulver on Twitter’s lessened relevancy at SXSW this year—at least in the swarm documentation end of things… I likened my experience to feeling like a fortune teller while on Foursquare all weekend. It certainly made following the live action more direct and facilitated movement, but some by-products of checking in also emerged.

First, on the downside, there was the ghost-chasing. You’d look to see that 6 of your friends checked in over at a venue, and you’d wander over to meet them… only to find out they’d left by the time you got there. Foursquare needs a check-out feature.

Then there was using Foursquare to determine the relative health of a party via the number of check-ins there. And the perception changed over the course of the festival: Day 1, if there were a jillion people at a venue, that’s where you wanted to be. By last night, seeing a jillion people checked into the closing night party made many of us cringe and look elsewhere for something low-key.

Finally, clear party pioneers emerged and could be seen as tipping points for gatherings. Depending on what you were looking to do, they acted as swarm leaders for different types of events. This was either a Good Thing (“Yay, so-and-so just checked in, this is gonna get fun”) or a bummer (“So-and-so just checked in on the other side of town, this is clearly not the cool place to be.”) That last bit sometimes made me wish I didn’t know what else was going on—I found myself a couple of times getting too obsessive about locations, instead of just enjoying where I was.