Omar Musa
Interview with Lauren Briggs
Self-promotion. It almost seems like a dirty word. It implies a large ego and a boastful nature, or someone with tickets on themselves. As writers, we would love someone else to promote us-hopefully a large publishing house after they've signed us up to a lucrative contract that allows us to write without distraction-but the reality is that it probably won't happen. If we want to make a living as a writer, we will have to encourage, sell, spruik, and promote our work. Or put another way, we will have to 'hustle'.
This is what Queanbeyan poet. playwright. musician, and novelist Omar Musa calls it in our interview. Hustle. The word rolls nicely off the tongue. It means to push roughly, to jostle, to move and hurry (possibly unceremoniously). It's a word with energy and attitude.
When I approached Omar about our interview, he was on the other side of the country at the Perth Writer's Festival. This meant that a sit-down interview was out of the question. And, he was so busy that a telephone interview would have been difficult too. So, it had to be done over e-mail, as he was: "flying around like crazy but I'm sure I'll get some time in an airport to type up some answers". When I chased him up a week later he was at the Adelaide Festival and was busy applying for an arts grant. Yet, he still managed to find time to answer my questions, which is not only an indication of his generosity, but of his dedication to his work and to the hustle involved in promoting it. But as he says, it's not just about the writer's ability to hustle. The quality of the work is the most important thing.
How important has promoting yourself been to your writing career?
Crucial. You can't ever take it for granted that your work will be published or that people will even hear about you, so getting your work out there in an inventive way can be crucial to making a living as a writer, if that's what you want to do.
I find the concept of self-promotion daunting. Has it come naturally to you or is it a challenge?
I'm completely shameless so it comes easily. No, it does take a bit of a toll at times because it takes time and energy which I'd prefer to pour into my art, but it's so necessary for expanding my audience. A bit of a necessary evil, perhaps.
What sort of things have you done to promote yourself and your works?
A combination of live performance and social media. Doing a good reading/performance of your work helps sell books. I also realised early on that I could use facebook, YouTube and MySpace as good and more importantly, free avenues to promote my work. In around 2008, when I started trying to make inroads into the poetry scene, I noticed that no Australian poets had ever utilised video in a major way, so I wanted to promote my poetry with video the way a band or a hip hop act might. I took a lot of what I learnt in the hip hop world and applied it to poetry.
Is self-promotion something you have to constantly be aware of and constantly doing?
No. There’s a time and place for it, but the most important thing is the art. Quality art is the most important thing. Once that exists, the self-promotion can follow.
Do you find yourself having to say yes to any and all opportunities to promote yourself, or are you selective in what you do? If you are selective , what guides your choices?
No. You simply can’t say “yes” to everything. You have to pick and choose. I have said no to some rather big, lucrative public opportunities because I didn’t think they fit in with my artistic vision and because I also want to have a private personal life and these particular ones impinged a bit on that. It probably means less exposure, but I went with my gut. It’s a balancing act.
Do you think an author must have an online and social media presence these days?
No. You don't have to, but it depends on your situation. I know authors who don't have a social media presence and sell boatloads of books, but that's a fairly rare, privileged position to be in. I know that personally there's no guarantee anyone will buy my books/albums, so I want to do the utmost to get the word out there about them.
Do publishers put enough effort into promoting authors and works, or is this something authors are expected to drive themselves?
I can only speak from my own experience. Penguin Australia has a dedicated team and they put loads of effort into promoting my book online, but I was still expected to drive a lot of it myself. It can be a tricky thing, but if done in the right way, the audience responds a lot better to the artist posting content than a publisher or record label. It can also go the other way, where if a person is really annoying online, it will hinder them and not help them.
In a congested literary market, do you think it's the author who can self-promote the best that gets ahead or does the quality of the work itself dictate success?
I think the quality of the work must be there. That is essential. But if you then have a good hustle, it's an extra bonus. A person with good hustle and bad quality of work can definitely get far, but then people will be a tad let down when they realise the work's no good. But a person with good work and bad hustle won't get as large an audience, unless they happen to luck out and their product just hits and takes off. Again, it's a balance.
You're a poet, a playwright, and a novelist. Do you promote yourself differently for the different writing formats?
Not really. I see them as branches of the same tree, so I promote them the same way-with visual/video content and live performance. It makes for interesting cross-pollination.
What are the benefits and pitfalls associated with promoting yourself?
Benefits: Getting more of an audience. Selling more. Having closer contact with your audience and them feeling like they get to know you better.
Pitfalls: You're constantly in the public eye and easily accessed, so the more hateful elements of society can contact you just as easily as the fans can (it's a gift and a curse in that way). It's also very tiring and can take away from the time you devote to artistic practice.
Omar Musa's music, words, and news can be found at http://www.omarmusa.com.au/.
Lauren Briggs is a writer and research Masters student at the University of Canberra, studying literature within Young Adult fiction.
This piece first appeared in ACTWrite Vol.21 Issue 3. April 2015
