A Re-Introduction

Rory McClannahan

I’m not famous, although, in my mind, I have a small amount of renown. I’ve done some things that gained a little bit of attention. I was in the newspaper industry for more than 25 years and was known. I’d won national awards and served on the board of the state newspaper association. My newspaper was widely read throughout the communities we served and I was known by the folks at the chamber of commerce. I’d even been a go-to interview subject for a pair of radio DJs in England. I delivered a commencement address at the local high school’s graduation ceremony.

My fame was even broader, though not by much. I am also a writer of fiction and have published five books, three of them novels. They were not best sellers by any measure, but there’s a couple thousand people out in the world who have read my work. You can even buy a signed copy of one of my books for $9.75 on ebay.

This was a decade ago. I published my last book in 2016 and ended my newspaper career in 2017. Also in 2017 was a divorce after 22 years. Any momentum I may have thought I had in creating and releasing stirring fiction stopped cold. Even the essays I enjoyed writing became sporadic.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to write. I still have the same number of things on my mind and at least three projects I could take on at any time. I just haven’t really shared that much with anyone, it appeared that I had become a hermit. In some ways I had. I had found I became anonymous again and I pretty much cut a lot of people out of my life, both friends and passing acquaintances. It’s difficult to tell someone that it’s nothing personal, but I had some stuff to sort out. I came to realize that it was all part of a middle age crisis. Even though I hate the notion of a “middle age crisis,” the only conclusion anyone could come to was I had a crisis of middle age.

In the space of months, I had lost two-thirds of what had defined me. I had to go underground for a while. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t writing. I never stopped and probably never will. I also started working on a new book. I didn’t realize that this was going to take nine years to finish and would turn into a two-book effort that only came together in fits and starts.

Now I am in the end stages of these two books and will soon send them out into the world. While I tend to write for myself, I would like people to read them. I think they are some of the best things I have ever written. These two books are funny and exciting and sexy and thoughtful. I realize I have a bias, but if there is one writer I should like, it probably should be me.

Despite the bias toward my own writing, or perhaps because of it, I would like other people to buy it and enjoy it. I know that I’m not ever going to get rich off my fiction for numerous reasons, but a couple of bucks wouldn’t hurt my feelings. In order to get those few bucks and the acclaim that I deserve, I need to tell people that I’ve written something, and, by the way, it’s pretty good.

That, my friends, is called marketing.

Unfortunately, I truly hate marketing. As a consumer, I constantly hate that every active or passive interaction I have in life seems to contain a pitch to sell me something. There’s a quote in Cameron Crowe’s movie “Say Anything” that pretty much sums up how I feel. When Llyod first meets his girlfriend’s father, the older man asks him what he wants to do with his life. Llyod says, “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.”

Now, if I want people to buy my books, I have to sell something. I have to sell Rory McClannahan, Author. I’ve never been very good at sales. Ask anyone. I have a hard time with it even if it is a product I produced.

That said, I am putting together a marketing campaign, and one of the first steps is to introduce myself to my future adoring fans, as well as reintroducing myself to anyone who may be thinking, “Whatever happened to Rory?”

Just because I don’t like marketing doesn’t mean I don’t understand its concepts and I can learn about it just as well as anyone. Plus, what little I do know is based on the way things were 20 years ago. Nowadays, you have to know about social media and the online world, because that is where the vast majority of goods and services are bartered.

The basics of marketing still exist, and everything starts with the product. In this case, it is a pair of books I have written and wish to sell. There are the books themselves. The first, which has a tentative release date in the first week of September, is called “Shadow-Man,” which as Amy, my editor, has pointed out is grammatically incorrect. It is, but is a tip of the hat to Spider-Man.

The name of the second book is still being workshopped, but goes by “Second Shadow-Man” right now. Hey, I know it sucks, but I have to label all those folders and documents with something.

I’ll get more into what these books are about in another essay, but right now it’s best to describe them as humorous, science fiction, Cold War spy thrillers. I didn’t really set out to genre hop, it just kind of worked out that way. You know? From a marketing standpoint, it makes it more difficult to find an audience.

Here’s the thing, though, if I was interested enough about the stories to write it, there might be folks out there interested in reading them. Right? I guess I’ll find out.

The thing about the products I will be trying to sell in the coming months, is that it is tied to a personality. Again, marketing stuff. Something I’m not real fond of, but acknowledge its existence. Sometimes the success of any media produced is tied to the personality of its creator. It’s essentially the company branding. I don’t have to explain branding to anyone in the room, we’ve all been online.

So, I’m teeing myself up as brand Rory McClannahan, teller of tales and writer of books. If you have stopped by and read this far, feel free to hop over to my Amazon page and browse some of my past work. You can find me on facebook and reddit. I have a substack page, which may have been where you first read this. Of course, there is my website, rorymcclannahan.com. At each of those places you can find an email address to reach out if you feel so inclined. I love to hear from readers and writers and anyone who enjoys curling up somewhere and reading a book. I like those of you who sneak a couple of pages of reading while you are standing in line or waiting and the dentist’s office.

I will warn you, there will be a pitch or two in hopes that you buy a book. I’m also trying to build an ARC team, which I only learned about last week. ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copies and an ARC team is a bunch of folks who receive advanced copies of a book with the implication that these readers will leave a review for your work, except there is no expectation for a review. I’ve known this since forever, but reviews are very important for independent authors. The more reviews, the more attention from Amazon and other online sellers. Buyers also tend to buy books that have more reviews.

If you are a reader or a writer and are interested in being part of my ARC team, please drop me a note. If you are a writer, I’m open to being on an ARC team, so feel free to send me a pitch.

For these overt efforts at marketing, I apologize. We all get way too many ads shoved at us and I promise to be as unobtrusive as I can. Also, everything coming from me will be sincere. I am not going to pretend to be something I am not just to sell a book or two. This all kind of reminds me of a scene from the movie, “Singles.” A guy comes up to a woman in a club and introduces himself saying that his friends tell him that he has to have a line but he figures that just being himself and saying hello is better.

She responds, “I think that, a) you have an act, and that, b) not having an act is your act.”

While, yes, I will contend that I am not trying to market to you, but this is, indeed, marketing. Regardless, like Popeye the Sailor, I am who I am. Whether that is marketable or not remains to be seen.

One important thing in terms of branding a person is that a biography has to be written. It’s extremely helpful to write a biography that contains facts, but it’s not a requirement. Anyone who thinks writing a biography about yourself is easy should try and write one. You want to have the right amount of confidence without sounding arrogant, so you need to mix in a smidge of humility. In short, you have to make yourself sound special and competent without bragging about it.

What you end up pretty much sounds like a LinkedIn profile. This is what I’ve got:

“Rory McClannahan was born and raised in the Rocky Mountains, but now calls New Mexico's high desert home. He spent more than 20 years in the newspaper industry as a reporter and editor, and does his best fiction writing in the middle of the night when the kids and the pets are asleep.

McClannahan has published five books with the sixth and seventh due in 2025.”

I’m not in love with this bio, but it accomplishes what it is supposed to. I mean, I could go more into growing up in Los Alamos and living in central New Mexico, but no one really cares. I go immediately to my newspaper career, but I am almost far enough away from it to the point where it is irrelevant. I leave it because it gives me some credibility as a writer. I threw in a joke about writing in the middle of the night. In truth, I write just about any time of the day and I haven’t had to worry about whether the kids are asleep for years.

In truth, my life is not that interesting and I like it that way. I live in a modest house and I go to a modest job every weekday as a tech writer and proposal manager. The work I do for a paycheck isn’t really inspiring. My two sons, both in their 20s, live with me, but they are getting ready to jump out of the nest. I have a dog that afraid of lightning and thunder and up until last week, my greatest source of annoyance was an infestation of prairie dogs on my property.

I have an incredible woman who laughs at my stupid jokes and swears she enjoys spending time with me.

If you stick around long enough, or if you go check out some of my past essays, you will learn a lot more about me. If you become a regular reader, you will be regaled with stories about my life and some of the things that crowd my thoughts throughout the days. I have very strong political opinions, but I generally don’t write about them. You can find your own echo chamber and don’t need validation from me.

For more than 10 years back in my newspaper days I would write a weekly column. Many of those pieces focus on the people in my community that I would meet and talk to. I don’t get out as much as I used to anymore, so my essays tend to be more personal these days. Sometimes I will be serious, but for the most part I like to keep things lighthearted. As I have gotten older, I’ve found that too many people spend too much of their time being angry about something. So, I have a tendency to enjoy writing about things that amuse me or make think. It’s nothing real earth-shattering.

As for fiction, I tend to lean toward speculative fiction. I know most people just consider that to be part of the science fiction umbrella, but if you are looking for hardcore space operas about far away worlds, you won’t get stuff like that from me. Reading my fiction is closer to enjoying an episode of “The Twilight Zone

There you have it. That’s brand Rory McClannahan, which happens to be a lot like the non-branded edition. The work I produce and put online is something I find interesting. I hope you find it interesting as well, but it won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t. If my books and essays are something you really enjoy, I encourage you to share with your friends and family. If you hate what I do, for God’s sake, please just move on.