Plea for 'Followers,' and Ruthless Self Promotion via Evil Cross-Marketing Strategies...

Hello my precious-es, glad to see your back already to check on my progressive study of our country, and the fine people and experiences contained therein. Its so nice to know that you care- it really makes me warm in the pants, and the heart and other such tender places of my anatomy, or emotions, or whatever. Anyhow, I'm not here to share my writing with you as I don't do nearly often enough, I'm here to harass you for a quick moment. I mean, c'mon, I put a post out last week for crissakes, what do you think I am, some kind of writing monkey here to amuse you? Actually, the reality is not too far off from that, depressingly enough... But that is why I feel justified to harass you a bit on two small points. I'll thank you in advance for taking the time to read this, digest the words remorsefully, and follow suit by doing what I am desperately pleading you to do for me.

   

1. New Direction for Art Blog (JOSEPH R. REEVES INTEGRATED ARTS)

   The first order of business, is really more of a self indulgent cross marketing scheme with the aim to inform you that I've made some changes to the way I am handling my formerly charming little art blog. In my devotion to delivering such riveting literary illustrations to you here at TLGaJ, I've really fallen off the wagon on managing my art blog, josephREEVES.blogspot.com. This would be okay if I had stopped making art, or if I had a consistent venue to be sharing my work with people- but the pathetic fact, is that I've been making art as madly and consistently as ever, and since I haven't had any time to put down quality writing about it on the art blog, I've been completely neglecting to share it with anyone. For an admittedly depressive and somewhat ego-maniacally bent artist who has come to terms with the fact that he desperately wants people to see what he is doing, this is an unhealthy place to be. So what I did, was, I went ahead and fixed the problem.

   What was formerly a thoughtful forum for my art, is now going to be re-shaped into a creative depository for any and all artistic endeavors I am pursuing. If I have time to write, I will, and if I don't, well, then I'll just be delivering the bare bones, and you'll have to suffer through seeing my work without my endless blabbing about such pretentious topics as "conceptual direction" and so forth. So basically, this site should be on point with delivering the actual products I'm working to produce, and will no longer emphasize the behind-the-scenes kind of commentary on such work, unless I have the time. I was simply being to "precious" with my posting, and it proved to be antithetical to my use of the blog as a format to showcase work. 

2. Become a "FOLLOWER" of this blog because you like my writing (but mostly cause you feel sorry for me).

   The implications of my asking you to become a follower of the blog here, are on par with asking someone for a compliment, which by the way, is twice as sad as fishing for a compliment. I don't know how I could be satisfied with the results of such a disingenuous action, but I'm done beating around the bush here people, cause it really comes down to an unflatteryingly professional strategy. Here's the scoop people. This is how it is. 

   I'm not only an unconventional writer aiming to publish a book about my adventures throughout the great states, I'm an unpublished writer. Both are serious obstacles to overcome in a pretentious industry. When I first set out on this journey, I though I could just write the book as I went along, which was nearly as silly as my thought that I could see and experience our country within one year. I wrote 120 pages or so in a span of maybe five months, and though it will still serve some purpose to me, I now realize that the beginning of the book can only be written when I have the vantage point of being at the end of the journey. I don't want to write a memoir, and that was good to learn. Since this realization I've focused on the blog here, taking avid notes, working on my short stories, and loosely composing an outline that will tell the story I want told. One of the best things about me having written so much in that first stint, was that it gave me the opportunity to test the waters of the publishing world, and see if it was indeed a realistic dream. I spent a month in the house researching the publishing process, and wrote an ambitious query letter so I could send to a bunch of publishers and see what kind of reactions I got. I sent twenty query letters out to a mixture of small and large publishing houses, and the cumulative results, were about seven requests for a "sample chapter." I sent a solid forty page sample chapter to these publishers, and from there, got a few rejections, and three requests to see a full manuscript. Two were from obscure little publishing houses, and one was surprisingly from a large publishing house. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. My travels thus forth were pursued with the notion in mind that I need to be creating fodder for what will at some point become a great manuscript. That's what I'm still doing, and I'm still convinced I can and will succeed. Call it part of my great "American Dream" if you will.

   I learned allot in my little experiment. Firstly, that I will need to work with an editor, because my passion for breaking conventions can work to my advantage, but must also be done with a certain finesse that I am willing to admit to lacking. Secondly, I learned that the more I can use the blog format here to prove to publishing houses that people do indeed enjoy my stories, voice, and writing style- the easier it will be for me to market this book in its final stages. What does that mean? It means it is time for me to put my pride aside, and INSIST THAT YOU BECOME A FOLLOWER OF MY FUCKING BLOG! It is free, you won't get bullshit e-mails from me or anyone else, and if I'm desperate enough to ask, then things must be getting pretty bad, right? Right. Oh, also, you'd like to help an aspiring young writer I'm sure too, right? Probably not...
   I was hoping it wouldn't get to this point, but the numbers just aren't adding up here guys. Out of the 20- 100 views I'm getting here daily (over half of them somehow coming from the U.K. oddly), I'm remaining entirely stagnant in my number of followers, and that is not cool. That is the one number that can potentially make publishers say, 'oh shit, people already like this kid- maybe we should give him a shot.' So do me a favor, and pleeeeease sign up. Not a facebook follower, a follower on "blogger." Though it says the word "subscribe," they are not charging you. I promise.
   I'll never be one of those deusch-bag blog nerds who starts selling crap on my site to blog full time. I'd rather kill myself. The only real reimbursement I get from this writing, is the satisfaction of knowing people are actually reading it. Please help me out here.
    More to come soon regarding the craziness of my jobs out here in N.D., near-future plans of using that money to get a van for this coming spring and the tentative NE tour, as well as my continued sharing of this last summers amazing experience in Trout Lake Washington.

Until We Meet Again...

Regards,
Joseph R. Reeves