The tragic heroine of The House of Mirth (1905), Lily Bart, lingers at the broad staircase, observing the high-society people gathered in the hall below.
My former marketing strategy had tactical flaws similar to Lily Bart's plan for marriage.
As Mrs. Fisher remarks upon Lily Bart in The House Of Mirth (read as S. Marking) :
"An Italian Prince, rich and the real thing, wanted to marry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking step-son turned up, and Lily was silly enough to flirt with him while her marriage-settlements with the step-father were being drawn up. [. . .]That's Lily all over, you know: She works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes off on a picnic."--Edith Wharton
This is an exaggeration. I never had a big fish on the line, but each mistake I made while marketing somehow gave me confidence to keep making them. A kind of giving God God's edge. it's liberating to note mistakes in marketing and conceive the thought that here is God's opportunity to let this one fail. The writer is at liberty to be without fear of consequence this way and can say things to would-be prospects that could not otherwise be said. It must be refreshing for them. (It would be for me.) But it should go without saying that this does not apply to the writing itself. That you are doing for God (—or the muse if you like that better) and must be perfect.
The Editor tells me: at Marden’s—where salvage, unclaimed freight and seconds are sold—they sell good books by the lb.