a self-published author
After about 5 years of writing when and where I can I completed the first novel in a series titled Motive Black. It’s a shocking, proactive series aimed squarely at unveiling the mechanisms driving evil and the temptations into doing so. Needless to say, beginning with a setting blatantly satirizing the LGBT, and without restraint, has made it a controversial and thereby niche novel at this time (2024).
Once completed, I spent 6 months querying as many as 50 agents who I believed would suit representing the word and faced 3 rejections and 47 non-responses. With the climate as it is in the literary industry, being quite liberal, I expected as much. So I decided to self-publish on Amazon.
What I’ve learned in this time is the state of the self-published author today. Traditionally writers seeking any sort of financial success were (still are) gate kept by literary agents who are then gate kept by traditional publishers with the connections and financial backing to sell your novel. They have the contracts, the industry reporté, and influence to claim high profile reviews, precise demographic targeting for readership, and the internal tools to craft an authors manuscript for him, or her, to make it as sellable as possible.
That is a self-published authors competition.
How can we get our work to be seen by readers in the midst of the powerful marketing push of traditional publishers?
The answer is we really can’t, and only by a miracle can we really.
I’ve spent a sum within my constraints on advertising primarily on Facebook and Twitter, not for sales necessarily, but for the public to even know my work exists. There are indie publishers, but due to the restraints of their own resources, they have to risk averse in their choosing, making a work like mine less than a consideration.
I began Motive Black with a sense of pursuing art, self expression and a real desire to entertain, shock and encourage thinking, all the while being naive in assuming a book like this will simply sell once it’s on the market. This isn’t true. It’s not even close.
As a writer, as for who I am, I can only write what I know and I can’t compromise on this. So I face the challenge. And any authors of my feather will face the same.
Innovative authors do not give up. We have a place somewhere, it’s only a matter of finding it.
Once completed, I spent 6 months querying as many as 50 agents who I believed would suit representing the word and faced 3 rejections and 47 non-responses. With the climate as it is in the literary industry, being quite liberal, I expected as much. So I decided to self-publish on Amazon.
What I’ve learned in this time is the state of the self-published author today. Traditionally writers seeking any sort of financial success were (still are) gate kept by literary agents who are then gate kept by traditional publishers with the connections and financial backing to sell your novel. They have the contracts, the industry reporté, and influence to claim high profile reviews, precise demographic targeting for readership, and the internal tools to craft an authors manuscript for him, or her, to make it as sellable as possible.
That is a self-published authors competition.
How can we get our work to be seen by readers in the midst of the powerful marketing push of traditional publishers?
The answer is we really can’t, and only by a miracle can we really.
I’ve spent a sum within my constraints on advertising primarily on Facebook and Twitter, not for sales necessarily, but for the public to even know my work exists. There are indie publishers, but due to the restraints of their own resources, they have to risk averse in their choosing, making a work like mine less than a consideration.
I began Motive Black with a sense of pursuing art, self expression and a real desire to entertain, shock and encourage thinking, all the while being naive in assuming a book like this will simply sell once it’s on the market. This isn’t true. It’s not even close.
As a writer, as for who I am, I can only write what I know and I can’t compromise on this. So I face the challenge. And any authors of my feather will face the same.
Innovative authors do not give up. We have a place somewhere, it’s only a matter of finding it.
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