Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Nobodies
The Blood Red Pencil Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Who knew that being an author could be so difficult? As if it’s not hard enough to write a book—and kudos to all those who have or will in the future—being taken seriously as a writer is sometimes beyond your control, even if you write a good book.
Exactly what does that mean? Certainly, the best way for people to want to read your books is if they already know who you are. If you have a platform and you’re famous, even locally, you grab the attention of an agent who knows part of her work is already accomplished. A writer with built-in name recognition can parlay that into bookstore signings, panels at conferences, interviews, and reviews by the big review sites. Many TV personalities have developed a major revenue stream from their books, using their programs as prime advertisements. They’re lucky, because most of us plug away in the silence of our offices, knowing that writing the book is just the beginning.
Networking is an important part of name recognition. That means going to multiple conferences, getting to know other writers, giving them support in exchange for the support they give you. The problem is conferences cost money. Lots of money. There’s the price of the conference, travel expenses, hotel, and if you have a job, which many writers need in order to survive, time off from work. Maybe you can juggle vacation time to offset the loss. Good for you.
Are you famous yet? Probably not, but if you can manage the cost of all I just mentioned, you have one step up, no, a whole flight of stairs up on those of us who can’t.
So what’s a Nobody to do, especially one who self-publishes? Years back, that would be the kiss of death. It meant you weren’t good enough to get an agent and a publisher. Not so much now, though there’s still a question of legitimacy. Many writers prefer to self-publish. A writer has control of his/her work, reaps more of the financial rewards (if there are any), and can’t blame anyone else for her lack of success. Many make more money than traditionally published authors, though the latter have garnered that elusive legitimacy by being published traditionally in the first place.
Internet social media, Facebook and Twitter, are of major importance to those of us who can’t swing the expense of a publicist or conferences after we’ve paid for editing and cover design. We post information about reduced pricing, good reviews, make friends, and realize a million others are doing the same thing. It’s also tricky. If all you do is self-promote, it turns people off, so we have author pages on Facebook and intersperse book information on our personal pages, hoping it’s not overkill. We tweet, which I’ve stopped doing because I felt I was preaching to the choir, though a friend who has over 60k Twitter followers, swears by its success in promoting her books.
We blog, blog hop, spend a lot on how-to books, advertise, have sales, promote, write and write some more, and sometimes we wonder why we’re doing all this to remain anonymous. Yet we keep doing it because most of us will say we can’t NOT write. It’s a conundrum, but it also makes us writers.
Who knew that being an author could be so difficult? As if it’s not hard enough to write a book—and kudos to all those who have or will in the future—being taken seriously as a writer is sometimes beyond your control, even if you write a good book.
Exactly what does that mean? Certainly, the best way for people to want to read your books is if they already know who you are. If you have a platform and you’re famous, even locally, you grab the attention of an agent who knows part of her work is already accomplished. A writer with built-in name recognition can parlay that into bookstore signings, panels at conferences, interviews, and reviews by the big review sites. Many TV personalities have developed a major revenue stream from their books, using their programs as prime advertisements. They’re lucky, because most of us plug away in the silence of our offices, knowing that writing the book is just the beginning.
Networking is an important part of name recognition. That means going to multiple conferences, getting to know other writers, giving them support in exchange for the support they give you. The problem is conferences cost money. Lots of money. There’s the price of the conference, travel expenses, hotel, and if you have a job, which many writers need in order to survive, time off from work. Maybe you can juggle vacation time to offset the loss. Good for you.
Are you famous yet? Probably not, but if you can manage the cost of all I just mentioned, you have one step up, no, a whole flight of stairs up on those of us who can’t.
So what’s a Nobody to do, especially one who self-publishes? Years back, that would be the kiss of death. It meant you weren’t good enough to get an agent and a publisher. Not so much now, though there’s still a question of legitimacy. Many writers prefer to self-publish. A writer has control of his/her work, reaps more of the financial rewards (if there are any), and can’t blame anyone else for her lack of success. Many make more money than traditionally published authors, though the latter have garnered that elusive legitimacy by being published traditionally in the first place.
Internet social media, Facebook and Twitter, are of major importance to those of us who can’t swing the expense of a publicist or conferences after we’ve paid for editing and cover design. We post information about reduced pricing, good reviews, make friends, and realize a million others are doing the same thing. It’s also tricky. If all you do is self-promote, it turns people off, so we have author pages on Facebook and intersperse book information on our personal pages, hoping it’s not overkill. We tweet, which I’ve stopped doing because I felt I was preaching to the choir, though a friend who has over 60k Twitter followers, swears by its success in promoting her books.
We blog, blog hop, spend a lot on how-to books, advertise, have sales, promote, write and write some more, and sometimes we wonder why we’re doing all this to remain anonymous. Yet we keep doing it because most of us will say we can’t NOT write. It’s a conundrum, but it also makes us writers.
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