Fried chicken

Remember the chicken? The cartoon I couldn't scan a while back? This had such a sad sad ending. I finally got Windows 10 to upload my contribution to this blog. I was jubilant! I felt like I was one of the truly sophisticated persons who paste images into Type M. I mean, like ALL THE TIME.

None of them even sweat it. They just go plink with their index finger and voila--witty entries appear that are actually illustrated.

I can do this now (well, minus the wit) but now my chicken is dead.

I had my newest entry ready to post on my Poisoned Pen Blog and Michele, the daughter who is editor-in-chief for Vegetarian Times informed me that it was a violation of copyright laws to post a New Yorker cartoon on the internet without getting all kinds of complicated permission.

That doesn't seem fair. But a number of PPP writers who are lawyers jumped in and said she was right. Anyway, I think I assumed that Rick would dash in and save us from doing anything that's inappropiate on Type M. I've posted a number of cartoons here too and now I must stop.

The cartoon was so applicable to what's on my mind: marketing. But I can tell you what the cartoon was about. A guy is walking down a hotel corridor carrying a chicken, knocking on each door, telling each occupant that he would like like for them to join his professional network on LinkedIn.

I thought it was hilarious because it summed up the sheer looniness of much of today's marketing efforts. The number of books being published every year is astonompical. Far too many for the market to absorb. The industry counts as a book a work that has an International Standard Book Number. No doubt there are many more that do not have this number. In fact, a good friend of mine just printed one on her home computer that will appeal to button collectors. It's doing quite well. She's an expert on this subject.

So the challenge is to get our books into the hands of readers. And therein lies the rub. Often, these mysterious readers are already taken.