My So-Called Life as an Author
A few days ago I posted about branding, and decried my own failure at branding myself as a writer. I was just looking at my "deep" numbers on Amazon and they are really horrible, embarrassing. And I have written and published four pretty good novels. Very little money has come from it. As a friend said, it's an expensive hobby, since you have to spend money marketing. That's why the indie publishing thing is so appealing, but it doesn't let you out of the marketing prison.
Content is king. Keep that in mind. Like anything else, there has to be a reason for people to buy your product, unless you just want to give it away. Writing is too hard to give it away, and I won't do that any more.
That said, other than writing a play that was well received at my college when produced but did not win a contest I entered (I don't think it was the kind of thing they were looking for--I think they wanted easy to produce, and mine isn't), I haven't written much creatively in the last three years, being in a doctoral program and taking care of my mother with cancer and working full-time. If and when I go back to fiction writing, it will be with a realistic eye: either try to make some money by writing the kind of thing that sells, or enjoy myself writing something good that approximates literary fiction, but don't expect much. I'll still put it out there, probably mostly epublishing but still trying to find real publishers for the good stuff.
Content is king. Keep that in mind. Like anything else, there has to be a reason for people to buy your product, unless you just want to give it away. Writing is too hard to give it away, and I won't do that any more.
That said, other than writing a play that was well received at my college when produced but did not win a contest I entered (I don't think it was the kind of thing they were looking for--I think they wanted easy to produce, and mine isn't), I haven't written much creatively in the last three years, being in a doctoral program and taking care of my mother with cancer and working full-time. If and when I go back to fiction writing, it will be with a realistic eye: either try to make some money by writing the kind of thing that sells, or enjoy myself writing something good that approximates literary fiction, but don't expect much. I'll still put it out there, probably mostly epublishing but still trying to find real publishers for the good stuff.
Comments