You might be thinking that writing is the hardest part of writing a book, and while certainly not easy, writing is actually the best part. What’s hard, and what I’m trying to change my attitude about, is the marketing of a book. I used to call myself the Marketing Whore when I publicized a book I’d written, because that’s how it felt, and I was trying to make a joke of it. But this is ridiculous. You spend a lot of time writing a book, and you write it because you believe it offers something to the world – entertainment, or information, or wisdom or whatever and then to get all wimpy about pushing it out into the world makes no sense. So instead of the Marketing Whore I have become the Marketing Warrior.

I have a book to sell, folks. The book jacket is above. And @newworldlibrary, my publisher, did a brilliant job of editing, design et al. It’s an anthology of poetry and memoir excerpts of the best writing on grief. (This is what got me through my own grief when my husband died six years ago.) It’s also a great gift book. It says to the person you give it to that even if you can’t find the words to comfort them, you understand the depth of their grief.

Dear reader, if you are writing a book, even though it may feel unseemly and possibly crass, figure out your marketing plan. (Which you’ll need when you try to interest an agent or publisher in it. ) I’ll be writing more about some of the marketing stuff I’m doing. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.

I should mention that my book’s title is The Language of Loss – and Abigail Thomas, Richard Blanco, Erica Jong, Jacqueline Winspear and Joyce Maynard all gave it wonderful cover blurbs. And poems by Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, W.H. Auden, Charles Bukowski, Rumi et al are in it. Plus prose by C.S. Lewis, Patti Smith, Joan Didion, Bill Hayes, Elizabeth Alexander et al. (The writers and poets in it are so wonderful that grieving or not, the book is worth reading.)