Guerrilla Marketing – Ms. Kreizman’s Debut Article for Literary Hub Is Brilliant! – Oh, And Fuck Trolls

Banksy rules.

Graffiti has arguably been around for centuries – I mean think back to the drawings on cave walls.

The modern concept of graffiti made its appearance back in the last century. Some say the 1960s. My first memory of a graffiti artist was Taki 183 – who was a Greek kid from 183rd Street and Washington Heights in Manhattan. He started tagging in the late 60s.

Graffiti started out as a cheap form of street self-expression. People or crews tagged objects when people weren’t looking. First they did it with street names, then it developed into full artistic expression.

In a way, graffiti was a guerrilla marketing methodology. Frustrated artists who wanted to be noticed took their art to the streets and posted it where the everyday citizens couldn’t miss it. Sides of buildings and subways cars were the canvases of my youth.

“Flick Lives” was often scribbled on the streets and public transportation of North Riverdale in the early 70s, to honor Jean Parker “Shep” Shepherd Jr.

As much as it would have pissed me off if someone tagged my house, I couldn’t help but admire the audacity of the street artists. And some were amazingly talented.

And some of those artists have taken their guerrilla street art to a whole different level. New York’s Jean-Michel Basquiat went from the NYC streets in the 1970s to SoHo galleries in the ’80s. Overseas, Blek le Rat took Paris by storm and who wouldn’t kill to come across the next graffiti posting by the British artist Banksy.

Now, as an old bastard trying to get noticed by the literary elite, I’ve decided to take a page out of the manifestos of the guerrilla street graffiti artists.

The one thing I’ve learned as I have tried to understand the ins and outs of marketing my books is that you need people to notice that the books exist. The internet has helped in my education.

There is a website where those book aficionados go to read extremely thoughtful articles by established writers about even more established writers and sometimes about the next new flavor of the month writers being touted by the literary elite among the Southampton and Hollywood set.

For fair use purposes, since this blog is both satiric and parodic, the following is the website’s banner:

Now I read Literary Hub with the same voyeuristic interest as those young boys in the Banksy graffiti are peeking through the shower curtain. (Shit, does that make me a Peeping Tom?!)

I have been reading the articles on this site since I started publishing my novels in 2021. The articles are always well written to the point where I can only seethe with jealousy over the writing and the subjects of those articles. Other established writers.

I mean, I’m only human. Well, barely.

But I’ve come to learn that I am not the kind of writer that the writers on Lit Hub will write about.

I get it. As a subject, I’m too old, too white, too male and too straight. The world has been there and done that, and bought the t-shirt. Nothing wrong with that, those presently represented writers are completely within their rights to champion others that are far more naturally interesting and fall within categories that may have been underrepresented during our country’s sometimes sordid but always positively evolving history. I have enjoyed most of the LH articles and have read most of those writers that are the subjects of the articles. And those subjects are all in their own rights quite talented. They all deserve their shot.

Lit Hub puts out quality content. Their web site is manned by talented writers.

But as I mentioned that doesn’t mean I’m not seething with jealousy. After all, who wouldn’t want the literary glitterati to say nice things about them on a well respected literary website.

So, what is this old BIC to do?

Well, during my latest visit to Lit Hub, my eye caught the headline of an article entitled (reproduced for fair use purposes)

Now, in what is heralded as her debut column for LH, Ms. Kreizman wrote a brilliant article that deftly discusses the ins and outs of the publishing industry, including the strategy behind some of the behind-the-scenes decision making, and she focuses on how and why this year she is faced with an overabundance of wonderful selections coming down the literary pike this March. In essence, she and all the other readers are spoiled for choice. Well done Ms. Kreizman. You knocked it out of the park.

Given that my latest book, Where The Ley Lines Meet, drops in April, I was fascinated by what I learned in the article, and yet a little sad that I may never see a mention of any of my best selling series, The Claire Saga, on this wonderful literary website’s references to “Great Books.”

Now Ms. Kreizman subtly made literary reference to Herman Melville in her excerpted quote (again reproduced for fair use purposes – this time educational):

As I have mentioned many times, when you don’t have Oprah, the NYT, the New Yorker, or in this case, Literary Hub, in your corner, word of mouth is all you can hope for. Indeed, it has brought me the little success I have experienced as a writer.

Suffice it to say that Ms. Kreizman’s debut LH article nailed it right out of the gate. I wish her nothing but success in all of her future endeavors, and will read all of her future articles on LH with rapt interest.

But before closing out of Ms. Kreizman’s debut article, my eye noticed that no one had yet left a comment, so I saw a once in a lifetime opportunity to be her first, while also using this canvas as a chance to post my own version of literary graffiti.

So I selfishly posted the following:

But after taking this shot at literary graffiti, I realized that I had forgotten to mention what a wonderful article Ms. Kreizman had written (and also misspelled “Ishmael”), and so I decided I would devote today’s blog to attempt to make amends.

Ms. Kreizman, you rock. My apologies for tagging your wonderful debut LH article without first singing its praises. It was selfish on my part. You deserve better.

May the remainder of the long literary career I predict lays before you be nothing short of magical.

You fine, five readers please go and read Ms. Kreizman’s article and post a complimentary comment in the place below:

Why is March 2024 the Best Month in Years For Books?

Now, I’m not all bad. I actually posted a supportive comment this morning to a Substack article written by Zibby Owens:

https://zibbyowens.substack.com/p/an-antisemitic-troll-tanked-my-goodreads

So, as you can see, I can get better at this.

And if you see Zibby’s book, pick it up in support. Fuck these trolls.

Well, that mea culpa behind me, I must turn toward towards my day.

Thank God it’s Friday!

I’m going to go cuddle some kitties and then do my rounds.

Then after a hair cut with the magical Anna the Barber, let’s see where the day takes me.

But no matter what we do, let us make today a great one.