Okay, if you hate whining or pity parties....you
might want to stop reading.
Maybe it's the change in seasons...fun and sun
summer to short days, cold nights autumn, or could be all the news I hear about
other authors making it to #1 with a first book or a previously published book
(not that I'm not happy for them, this is a tough business), but I'm starting
to feel as if, maybe this whole writing thing isn't in my cards.
I completed my first book ten years ago, after
spending five years studying and learning everything I could find on how to
write and sell a novel. It took eight years to get that baby published,
although I had published a novella three years before. When I got that call I
thought....this is it. I'm going to be famous (in a Nora Roberts kinda
way)....believe me I'm not the only author to think that...delusional as it is.
I didn't get too discouraged when it didn't happen, I figured, it's a short
story, not many people will buy it but maybe I'll get enough of a fan base to
want more work. Then, in 2011, I sold my novel, Forget Me Not.
Since I'd barely made enough money to put gas in my car with the novella,
I wasn't expecting much from the new book, so I was very pleasantly surprised
by my first royalty check. I figured, hey,
people actually want to read my work. So I got to work cleaning up book
three so I could get it published while I was also completing book four and
beginning book five. In 2012 I published
Dark Obsession with a new electronic publisher who
had a major publisher backing them. Then I really thought....okay....I should start making enough to pay off my credit card and put gas in my car. Needless to
say, after being on sale for 16 months, that didn't happen...in fact I never surpassed
double digits with any of my royalties. Is
the publisher to blame? Partly. Am I to blame? Partly. Are my readers to blame? Definitely! Hah,
just kidding.
On the advice of another author who is raking in
the dough self-publishing, I self-published my fourth book House of Cards.
And while reviews are amazing and it even WON best book in the mainstream
suspense category with RomCom, sales haven been....horrible, for lack of a
better word.
The thing is, I feel like I've done
everything I can to get my name and books into the hands of readers. I've
lowered the price, I've given them away, I've bought ads, I'm on Facebook,
Twitter, Goodreads and several other social sites....I've done everything short
of begging (okay, maybe some begging)...and
still, readers don't even know I exist. It's very disheartening (to me and my
muse and makes me feel like a child again) and I have to wonder, is it worth
it? Am I deluding myself thinking my books are worth reading? That I can even
write another book? I mean, surely
readers aren't being too subjective when they put books like 50 Shades of Grey
or Dinosaur Erotica at the top of the charts....should I just start writing
that kind of crap? Tell me. What do I
need to do to get my work in front of readers? Or....do my books really suck
and people are just being nice?
*sigh*
Well....this blog didn't make me feel
any better.
No comments:
Post a Comment