As we continue our journey through The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published—and we’re just on page 9—we’re examining the marketability of Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.^[1]

The question posed by the authors is Is Your Idea Publicity-Friendly?  The short answer is, “Are you kidding me?  Just watch this!”

First of all, Lichtenbergianism is the antithesis of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I am the anti-Marie Kondo.  Instead of sternly ordering you to touch everything you love and to scrap everything that you don’t, I give you permission to admit that SLACK is critical to your creative life.  You’ll know when you need to give away that pile of lumber scraps that you thought you might turn into a garden sculpture… one day.  It doesn’t have to be today.  Or tomorrow.

So right away we have a media hook that would intrigue outlets looking for something to separate their content from the current fascination with “tidiness.”  Ride that pendulum, baby!

TED Talk?  Me, talk to an audience and charm them?  Without even trying.  You can book me for your garden club too, if you like.

Articles for blogs/magazines?  You mean like this blog?

Interviews?  I am one of the best subjects you will ever interview—I give good quote.

Now, I imagine that most of the publicity gigs will focus on the first Precept of TASK AVOIDANCE, because that’s the most amusing part of the whole book.  Plus which, time is always limited when one is speaking to the Rotary Club or the American Crafts Council convention, so trying to outline all nine Precepts would be a bit much—why not focus on the oddly counterintuitive first bit, and let them buy the book if they want to know more?

It looks as if my degree in theatre could finally earn me an income after all.

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^[1] No, it doesn’t drive me crazy to type these long titles—thank you for asking—because I have set up macros to do it for me.  I use a program called Keyboard Maestro, and it can automate just about anything your Mac can do. I can type Lichtenbergian or Lichtenbergianism or Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy with four keystrokes each: l-l-l-l gives me Lichtenbergian, etc.  Likewise, the footnotes—after seeing how the footnotes from a Word document translate to HTML, I set up macros so that I can do it practically automatically myself.  It’s a magical world.