To Market to Market – by Ruth Bonetti

Hands up who loves Book PR? 

Quite… Don’t rush me. 

 

Let’s try a new slant. 

Create opportunities to interest potential readers. If they don’t know about your books it’s no wonder sales languish. 

 

Opportunities for a live book launch dried in past years. Many creative authors offer virtual book launches. Offer prizes. Showcase. 

 

BOOK SIGNINGS

Talk with book shop colleagues like Kirsten Hart, Store Manager at Koorong Books Toowoomba. Where Anne Hamilton along with others and myself  will share a signing session on Saturday April 29 at 11am, Centrepoint on James, Shop 3, 37 Prescott St, Toowoomba.

Get together with writing buddies to brainstorm how you can create an event. After such a productive session, fuelled by much coffee, Brisbane Omega Showcase emerged. Put August 11-12 in your diary for a writer's conference that showcases local talent and is also a learning experience. At the Coopers Colonial Motel at Acacia Ridge. Look out for some announcements, TBC. 

 

MULTI-TASK

Is it just me, or is this normal? Do we all burn pots on the stove while cribbing a little creative time? Deadlines like this blog by 5am Wednesday…If only authors had time to focus on the next w-i-p! Reality is bread and butter work intrudes. I reassure myself that my subconscious ticks away while I’m busy preparing for music performances next weekend with Noosa Orchestra. 

If you are able, come surf at Noosa (while I crib last minute practice) then enjoy uplifting music after.

 

PEOPLE TIME And family time. 

The demands vary as offspring grow older, as some are blessed to embark on grand parenting. So that book baby can wait. To everything there is a SEASON.

And so it is for any creative, whatever their medium. Indulge me while I share our excitement for eldest son’s break-through world premiere of his composition in the Sydney Opera House. In a glowing review: “Paul-Antoni Bonetti’s The Bright Day Clarion Calls the Quaking Earth, premiering as part of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's 50 Fanfares Project that commissioned new music from 50 Australian composers, was an unexpected gem...a powerful, cinematic, and instantly likeable piece of music that didn’t feel out of place among these American greats."

                                                        Photo Credit: Megan Bonetti

 

This is the son who initially didn't pursue music teaching – until he met his lovely wife and embraced fatherhood and a mortgage. Who doubtless pulled many an all-light vigil to complete and finesse his composition. 

 

The Chinese bamboo tree during the first five years of its growth, puts out a tiny shoot which needs regular watering.  In that time, all of its development is underground and, to all intents and purposes, it seems like absolutely nothing is happening. However, at the end of five years, it suddenly puts on a fantastic growth spurt and in a space of five weeks, it grows to over 30 metres tall.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. 

And TRUST YOUR SEASONS  

ABOUT Ruth BONETTI 

ABOUT Ruth Bonetti

Ruth's many earlier books give practical support for confident performance of words and music, drawing on a lifetime of experience as a musician and educator. Her Trilogy Midnight Sun to Southern Cross has won awards including the CALEB Nonfiction prize. 

Available: Amazon, Bookdepository etc. Autographed copies from ruthbonetti.com and http://www.ruthbonetti.com/burn-my-letters/ 

Facebook: Ruth Bonetti
Burn My Letters: Karl Johan Back
Blog (occasional)
Ruth founded Omega Writers in 1992. 

Clutter Bust into the New Year – by Ruth Bonetti

Do you embrace or resist making resolutions as you pass that annual threshold? My goal is to declutter. Not just the old year, but past decades.

It's not easy. Mess with closets and mere muddles inflate into chaos.

Breathe. Do it. Breathe.

Believe that beyond the pain threshold lies freedom, lightness of being.

Biff the business cards from superficial network functions, whose goal was to spam victims with PR. Switching computer systems messed my contacts database. So it's time to delete people I met 30 years ago for three minutes and now wouldn’t recognise.

WORDS AND MUSIC

Bin early book drafts and failed Varuna Residency applications, online publisher Manuscript Monday and Friday Pitch submissions. Rejection led to resignation led to self-publishing with the cover, content and style I chose.  

Bury those dead manuscripts in the bin. That children’s book Pipi the Pirate Parrot never found wings. What about a How-To-Get-Healthy? An early vent called Mothers Can Stay Human! Life’s caravan moved on. Now, jigsaw pieces must be hidden from crawling grandsons. Good riddance to a puzzle untouched since last Christmas holidays whose fiddly trees wasted table space. Send it to Lifeline for a retired person with time to fill. 
With boxes of dusty books and colleagues’ unplayed handwritten compositions. Decades of writing and of Clarinet and Saxophone magazines. Will I keep photocopied cut-and-paste “The Squeaker Speaks” volumes that I edited back in the 80’s? No.

WHAT YOU WILL EAT

• How to use that fiddly appliance?
• Will I ever find time to bake bread?
• Crammed cupboards invite cockroaches, weevils and mould. Look on use-by dates and despair!
• What healing did the medication and vitamin supplements promise?
• Might I bake Christmas cakes to use evil white sugar packets left by a jam-making son years ago? Aldi is easier.

OR WHAT YOU WILL WEAR

Because I commute across two venues for work and for occasional recreation, I need gear for all seasons. Clothes, shoes, handbags. Last time I vowed “I’ll never wear that style again!” it came back into fashion. So my closet jumble repels.

Do I need so many multi-skilling hats? Or do they make me look harried, worn? 

I draw a tree of my life. Erase a branch that flags effort for little gain. Why push through holiday heat and lethargy to organise and deliver that pencilled seminar? Later, when the time is right.

I enjoy pulling weeds and “farmer’s friends” that clog my garden.

What of those in my head? My heart?

Let it go. Even though pruning can hurt, and empty spaces feel vulnerable.

But how else to move forward?

Every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes so it may become more fruitful. Those that do not bear fruit wither, are thrown in the fire and burned.

This cleansing process opens space for a new thing, that way out of a wilderness of fizzled plans and failure wastelands.

Wait and hope for rivers in the desert.

Trust that new shoots will spring up. In due season, the green blade will rise from the buried grain. Rest in the Lord of the harvest.

What have you found hardest to let go of? Did declutter free you for your next ventures?

Author-wise, Ruth Bonetti is (largely) resting after her decade’s effort to publish her Midnight Sun to Southern Cross saga. The first book of the series, Burn My Letters was Nonfiction winner of 2017 CALEB Prize. She is decluttering old research for her earlier published books that help people present confident Words and Music. Available via Book Depository,  Amazon and her website http://www.ruthbonetti.com

http://www.ruthbonetti.com/burn-my-letters/

Thanks to author colleagues for reviews! 
Facebook: @RuthBonetti @ruthbonettimusic 

Ruth’s blog: http://ruthbonetti.musicabonetti.com

Ruth founded Omega Writers in 1992.