Trapped!

My choir’s holiday concert was last night, and afterwards we went out and caroled around the neighborhood. Caroling on street corners (rather than at people’s doors) has always been something that I really enjoy. People stop, and smile, and enjoy the music, and it restores my faith in humanity a little.

It brings to mind something that I’ve been thinking about in terms of self-promotion lately. (I’ve been haunting all the con panels on the subject, since that will be me, very soon) It strikes me that it’s amazing what people will try when they don’t feel trapped. When we carol on the street, we never pick up huge audiences, maybe 5-10 people in each place, but they’re often people I doubt would ever think to come to our concert. If they came inside, they’d have to sit for the whole hour or disrupt the singers rudely by sneaking out. What if they don’t like the music? Better not to trap themselves that way. Out on the street, though, people can walk right on by (and do) and we don’t mind. It’s amazing how many people, knowing they have that option, linger instead. They got the opportunity to try the music without being trapped, and lo and behold they liked it.

Marketplace, on NPR, has had various stories about charities for the season. One mentioned scientific studies of which kinds of appeals by charities were most effective. A good one, apparently, is to have a box to check on the donation form that says “don’t contact me again”, so that you know they won’t put on their mailing list for endless pestering. What the study found was that people donated more…and often didn’t check the box. Having the option and knowing that would be respected was the important part.

I think of this in terms of writing whenever I do a reading. Cons all have different set-ups (and authors obviously rarely have control where they’re scheduled) but it’s always struck me that I’d love to read in the open somewhere. When you read in a room and someone always inevitably closes the door (because someone always inevitably has to hold their loud conversation in the hall outside programming rooms) you have the same trapping situation. People have to know going in that they’ll like the author enough to stand half an hour of them, and that’s rarely the case when you’re not famous. I’d rather people have the option to duck out, so that they’ll give me a try.

I also know that I’m much more comfortable reading or speaking in front of groups than some, where the distraction of people coming and going would make them that much more nervous. It’s something I plan to experiment with, though, whenever I have the chance to maybe leave a room door open and see who stops by.