Some recent failures
Failing forwards again
I recently pulled my book from a platform I hoped to use instead of Amazon. I paid £70 to use it but the products my customers were receiving were damaged and taking weeks instead of the advertised days to arrive. It made my skin itch to know that people were sending their money and not able to give them clarity on when it would be received. I would chase in the background as soon as anyone let me know and in some cases, sent an additional copy I was so nervous of it arriving at all. They all did arrive in the end, but I was fed up with the anxiety of it. When the final book arrived it was damaged and that was the final straw. I went straight online and removed it.
This anxiety means I have not been proud to promote my book as I was nervous of the buying experience. So, for now, I have put some copies on to the merch page of my lesser known Bandcamp page.
Once they sell I will work out a new route for promoting my work that is less stressful than the one I have just left behind.
Speaking of Bandcamp, earlier this year, I recorded a chapter of my poetry collection and released it as a spoken word album. It has had 197 plays to date, which is so cool to me. I feel my work works best as a spoken piece and I enjoy the idea that I can connect my words with others in this way. It was made in a very impulsive way and I did something that big popstars do these days - I did no teasers , just ‘dropped’ it and made it live there and then. I did this as I never know when I will get bursts of time like that to ‘produce’ something creative. Any time I try to promote it by way of the algorithms and it goes nowhere. One thing I have noticed since I have been unable to perform live so much over the last 12 months, nothing works as well as in real life promotions and connections. But as I don’t have that luxury, I persist with technology.
Speaking of which…
I went on a little run of making reels for instagram of me saying poems. They aren’t high end fancy edited ones, but just me speaking to the camera, and they connected / reconnected me with some people, which is a lovely thing really. I am also doing this in brief snaps of time, so no time to overthink it all. The success is in the not overthinking it. The one thing I am overthinking is changing my handle. Before I did poetry I didn’t make my name public. When I wanted people to be able to find me I realised Lisa O’Hare is a big broadway & US TV star. 1 So ‘as a joke’ I chose ‘thelisaohare’ , to be pronounced with a ‘uh’ not an ‘ee’ sound at the end. Lisa of Broadway fame was the (ee) and I was the also ran ‘the’ (uh). The joke is not clear to anyone not in my own head. I probably should call myself poet in some way, or go fully incognito with an abstract username.
Back to what you came here for, failure! This one is substack related. After reaching 200 subscribers an 2 paid I decided to recommit to the paid offer, restricting my archive for free subscribers to 3 months and restarting the ‘Little Wonders’ newsletter just for them. https://oharelisa.substack.com/s/littlewonders But I have now realised the settings for a totally separate newsletter are different so they probably haven’t seen it at all when I pressed publish, so I will be working that out next and making sure they can actually see what I am writing for them. This newsletter is collection of things that have brought me a sense of wonder, from very small to a little bigger. It is really fun to write and is a little looser and a little more about me than about my poetry. Once I break through the technological hitch there will be more if you want to take a peek.
Thank you for reading. If you want to support my work you can upgrade to paid membership or head to my Bandcamp page2 to buy a track, an album or a book!
Really relate to what you're saying about taking advantage of the bursts of time and energy to produce creative work - which definitely aren't as regular as I'd like! And so much of the creative process and building a creative career feels like trial and error doesn't it