Yep, you get me twice today. Why? I read this for one. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/01/22/25-hard-truths-about-writing-and-publishing/ by the amazing Chuck Wendig, and it resonated. And I quote from Mr.Wendig's blog:
5. About A Billion Books Are Released Every Week
As I write this sentence, 50,000 more books will be released into the world like a herd of stampeding cats. By now, I think the books are actually writing other books in
some self-replicating biblio-orgy of books begetting books begetting books. All
in a big-ass mash-up of ideas and genres and marketing categories (MIDDLE GRADE
SELF-HELP SCI-FI COOKBOOKS will be all the rage in 2014). Between the publishing industry and self-publishing, I think more books are born into the world than
actual people (and just wait till one day the books become sentient — man,
forget SkyNet, I wanna know what kind of Terminators Amazon is probably already
building). Your book is sapling in a very big, very dense forest.
Which, wonderfully though it is written, is enough to send anyone to drink. Anyone who writes that is. At which point you begin to think, why the heck should I even bother? Well the answer to that is quite simple for me. I would probably write if I had to do it on the used sheets of a loo roll. It is what I do. Not entirely 'who' I am, but a big part of it.
So this brings me to the 'angry' part. When I began the process of having my book published - No, it isn't self-published, and I don't have a problem with people who do - just sayin before anyone gets up in arms - I began with one simple idea. I wanted people to enjoy what I wrote. Innocent, naive little me thought it would do this all by itself. Well, I wasn't quite that innocent, but close. But as Mr. Wendig so cleverly says, mine is just a sapling in a very big, very dense forest. So I started looking at promotion and marketing, since, every one else and their neighbour seemed to be doing it. I listened to what other people had to say. I clicked on how-to tweets. I even *gasp* put out a link or two.
Then I saw what everybody else and their neighbours were doing. Honestly, I *do* understand that need to be read, or else why do we even try? I do understand that that little bit of income makes all the difference between how many hours we can 'afford' to write. But writing a novel doesn't give you some God given right to be read. It doesn't give you the right to constantly spam others or stand in a room and shout 'I am an author'. (While that may explain everything, that isn't the point).
How the heck did we get to this point? This point of constant spamming? There is a link on this website for my novel. You don't have to go there, you don't even have to read my blog posts. I do care whether people do or not. It is lovely when they comment, but you don't have to. It just... arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh if I see one more post about 'how to sell your book' I shall probably throw mine at someone.
Yes, you need to advertise, but, boy, there must be a better way than this?
End Rant
Photo of Toots because it seemed appropriate.