My book stopped selling.
Correction: I stopped selling my book.
Correction: I never started selling my book.
My family bought copies. My friends bought copies. Many friends and many families coerced or encouraged others to buy copies. My ex-roommate’s cousin’s mom bought a copy. Residents of Canada, England, Ireland, and China bought copies.
Correction: I stopped selling my book.
Correction: I never started selling my book.
My family bought copies. My friends bought copies. Many friends and many families coerced or encouraged others to buy copies. My ex-roommate’s cousin’s mom bought a copy. Residents of Canada, England, Ireland, and China bought copies.
I never sold a copy. I never told anyone, “You will enjoy my book. My book has what you want. My book has what you need.” The people who bought my book bought it because (1) they were supporting me, or (2) they relented to someone supporting me.
My advocates surprised me. They came from corners I never expected. My parent’s friends. Friends’ co-workers. People I’d wrongly assumed hated me. People I’d never met.
I’m trying to learn to be my own advocate. Because of everyone who’s volunteered to help me, I’m the one who will never stop caring.
80% of my sales occurred within the first month after I published. I’ve saturated my current market. The people who’d buy a copy by nature of knowing me or knowing of me have bought their copies.
I need to find a new market, and I need to sell my book.
I’m trying to learn to be my own advocate. Because of everyone who’s volunteered to help me, I’m the one who will never stop caring.
80% of my sales occurred within the first month after I published. I’ve saturated my current market. The people who’d buy a copy by nature of knowing me or knowing of me have bought their copies.
I need to find a new market, and I need to sell my book.
So, I got a PO Box.
I’m setting up a mailing list.
I’ll be listing a Goodreads Giveaway (soon).
I’m going to publish a book of poetry (probably).
I should spend more time on Twitter and Instagram.
I should bring it up more often with people I meet.
I should enter contests and pay for some professional reviews.
I should follow up with that one bookseller who offered to carry it.
I’m setting up a mailing list.
I’ll be listing a Goodreads Giveaway (soon).
I’m going to publish a book of poetry (probably).
I should spend more time on Twitter and Instagram.
I should bring it up more often with people I meet.
I should enter contests and pay for some professional reviews.
I should follow up with that one bookseller who offered to carry it.
There’s a theme here: I’m jumping largely on what I can do by myself from my computer desk, and largely avoiding what requires me to engage with and interact with my potential audience.
I’m continuing to isolate and protect myself while getting nothing accomplished, rather than taking risks and being vulnerable and building a community.
I’ve also stopped writing.
I’m continuing to isolate and protect myself while getting nothing accomplished, rather than taking risks and being vulnerable and building a community.
I’ve also stopped writing.
Not too long ago, my computer crashed. My hard drive malfunctioned. I bought a new laptop and retrieved the majority of my files from week-old backups--backups I’d set up to be automatic and constant, but that I’d cruelly paused over that past week.
I lost writing. Good writing. Writing that made me proud. Writing that introduced a character I’d been aching to write for years. Writing that built out my world, that revealed new surprises, that began two characters’ journeys in my next book, Beware the Sun.
Less than 1,000 words in all, but a strong and dense thousand words.
I remember what I wrote. I believe I can replicate what I wrote. But I’m scared to try, to face that maybe I’d tapped into luck rather than skill, to face that the rewrite might be worse--even though rewrites are almost always better.
I knocked myself backwards, and I’ve been nursing my wounds, and it’s unbecoming if I’m serious about my trade.
Herein, I pledge to rewrite the scene and write more scenes after. I pledge to tackle Beware the Sun and obsess over it with the same despairing, self-mutilating, exhausting tunnel vision that motivated me to work on weekends and eschew mealtime.
I pledge to do better, to learn from this, to barrel through my anxiety and apprehension, to commit.
I pledge to take no prisoners.
Tune in next time for the hopeful products of that commitment.
I lost writing. Good writing. Writing that made me proud. Writing that introduced a character I’d been aching to write for years. Writing that built out my world, that revealed new surprises, that began two characters’ journeys in my next book, Beware the Sun.
Less than 1,000 words in all, but a strong and dense thousand words.
I remember what I wrote. I believe I can replicate what I wrote. But I’m scared to try, to face that maybe I’d tapped into luck rather than skill, to face that the rewrite might be worse--even though rewrites are almost always better.
I knocked myself backwards, and I’ve been nursing my wounds, and it’s unbecoming if I’m serious about my trade.
Herein, I pledge to rewrite the scene and write more scenes after. I pledge to tackle Beware the Sun and obsess over it with the same despairing, self-mutilating, exhausting tunnel vision that motivated me to work on weekends and eschew mealtime.
I pledge to do better, to learn from this, to barrel through my anxiety and apprehension, to commit.
I pledge to take no prisoners.
Tune in next time for the hopeful products of that commitment.
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