Celebrations and a bit of panic

[elingregory]

First *flails* the publication date of "Alike As Two Bees" has been brought forward to March 2nd instead of April 6th. ANY advice about publicity or marketing or whatever would be most gratefully recieved because I really couldn't sell sun screen on Bondi!

Secondly I had this email at work today:

Welsh Dignitaries Make LGBT History



For the first time in Wales, leading dignitaries will declare their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people at the opening event of LGBT History Month Cymru 2012.
Every February the contribution that LGBT people have made to history will be acknowledged by a series of celebrations throughout Britain.
In only its second year, LGBT History Month Cymru will see leading names from the world of politics, heritage and the arts attend the Senedd in Cardiff.
The 2012 launch will be held on February 1 at the Senedd, from 12.45pm to 3.30pm with Welsh government minister Huw Lewis opening proceedings, followed by speeches by Kirsty Williams AM, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Lindsay Whittle, AM for Plaid Cymru.
The event will be concluded by Gillian Clarke, National Poet for Wales, who will read a new poem written specially for the occasion. This is the first time anywhere in the world that a national poet has celebrated LGBT people in a nation’s history.
The events at the LGBT Excellence Centre will be followed by an exhibition from March 7 to 27 at Cardiff Bay’s Pier Head, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, where visitors will be able to see a celebration of notable Welsh LGBT people.
Housing, Regeneration and Heritage Minister, Huw Lewis commented: “LGBT History Month is an opportunity to reflect on how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have contributed to Welsh culture and heritage. I am delighted to be asked to speak at the launch event in February and look forward to meeting members of the LGBT Excellence Centre.”
John Davies, a leading authority on Welsh history, will also be speaking at the event. He said: “After the mute centuries, it is an honour to have the opportunity to stress that LGBT people are part of the story too.”
For more information about the launch event and the exhibition, please visit the LGBT Excellence Centre at www.lgbtec.org.uk where ten pages of LGBT Heritage in Wales, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, can be viewed at or call 029 20 451868.

So what do you think? Anyone fancy going to the exhibition?

Comments

[elin-gregory.livejournal.com]

I think that lady has a point. If I'm going to spend 2 hours a day on social media sites I'd much sooner spend it interacting with people I actually like for real, who have interesting things to say and who, I hope, quite like me for the same reason. On the other hand publishers expect us to be - what's the word? - proactive? in getting our names and our books titles out there where readers can take note of them. Social media sites are by far the cheapest way of doing that.

But it's difficult. We're so fixated in this country on not blowing our own trumpets that we are naturally handicapped.

I'll email with some thoughts :D

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I don't know - every day it seems I get inundated with floods of authors pushing their books, and I generally decide not to read any of them *because* they disturbed my peace with their uninvited and tedious promoing. Maybe a bit of diffidence is a good thing?

[elin-gregory.livejournal.com]

Then it comes down to quality of product and reputation, which you have in abundance. :D I'm planning on sticking to the places where promo is actively encouraged like the homopromo yahoo group and the special days on LRC. I'm assuming that most of the people who go there will be other writers on a similar errand but there might be a few readers amongst them.

But constant bleats for attention on Twitter or Facebook - no. that's self defeating.