It has often been said that Madonna is the Queen of Reinvention as she has managed to reinvent herself time and again, continuing to hold her original fan base and finding a way to grab newbies. This means she learns how to take on a new approach in image and audience, and I need to do the same. I need to Madonna.
That’s right. I just made a celebrity into a verb. I can do that sort of thing because I’m a writer. Shakespeare made stuff up all the time. Comparing myself in any way to Shakespeare may seem like sacrilege, but that’s part of my point. Reinventing myself means I may need to add a little sass and sauciness (as the bard would say) to my approach.
Don’t worry. I don’t plan to strap black party hats onto my bosom and vogue or anything, and in fact that would be quite inappropriate for my target audience, but I’m going to be bold and reach out with a new confidence to them. As far as I can tell, adults are the ones who have been reading my book, which is great because of its nostalgia factor, but the feelings and emotions of the book are better suited for current middle school girls, which keeps my book more relevant to them than adults. This also means they are more likely to want to pass on a recommendation to others, since it is more impactful to them, thus keeping my book in the spotlight.
Of course, I don’t really hang out with a lot of girls in middle school, so I need help from those adults to pass the info on to daughters, cousins, young sisters, neighbors, random kids in the grocery store- whatever. That’s part of being bold: asking people to spread the word, like asking you to share this link with someone you think might enjoy my book Memoirs of an Ordinary Girl: The Middle-ish Ages.
Another part of reinvention is that my confidence in my product must be obvious. Drew Hotchner is one of my favorite young women ever, even if she is a fictional character, and I’m proud of the witty voice in my book, so I need to create awareness of this, probably by sharing short excerpts or one-liners, like the one a friend of mine brought to my attention that other day as one of her favorites:
“After all the time that had passed with Danny and I flirting and calling each other, I was still no closer to making him my boyfriend than Milli Vanilli were of singing their own songs.”
See, that’s good stuff, so I’m going to start tweeting, facebooking, and tumbling this stuff until I’ve completely Madonna-ized my book by giving it the attention it deserves.
Rant and self pep talk complete. I feel much better. Carry on.
caverns of my mind 