And just saw this - HELL NO YOU ARE NOT SCUM! ...I wish I could bold, italic, and underline that. You and your stories got me through one of...
That squeaking noise you just heard was probably me. This is the best kind of fanmail I could ever have received and could ever receive.
There’s times when I doubt myself and my abilities. You were just witness to one such. I tried self-advertising the things I made… and got no results.
A rare reblog-on-request, but no expected storm from my followers with comments on how that story or this story made the reblogger smile when they were blue or realise how they could turn their life around or whatnot.
People download my free stories like crazy. Do they read them? I don’t know. There’s no comments. No reviews. Six hundred and forty-seven people downloaded Hevun’s Rebel and I have one review. ONE.
And it’s worse for the paid books. Hundreds of people download the free sample and go no further. That means I’ve failed to make them want more.
RTFM, my first Amalgam Station story [published 2012], has had a hundred and seventy-one sample downloads and three actual sales. Dropping the price to $0.99 has done nothing to improve that score.
It’s frustrating for me. When I hear how Stephanie Meyer got a movie deal before she finished the fourth book… or how some other housewives are writing insipid modern supernatural fantasy romance and selling books by the ton… I can’t help measuring myself by that yardstick and wondering what the hell I’m doing wrong. You know, apart from not writing insipid modern supernatural fantasy romance…
Yes, I have lovely followers. I adore the fact that I have lovely followers. But none of them seem to be sharing me around. And worse, when I ask to be shared around, the only message that gets shared is the one asking. No matter how often I try to explain that this is a blanket rule… it’s just that one thing. And just that day.
I need buzz to pay the bills. And I can’t make people buzz about me. I’m in my third year of writing on a pro level, with seven to go [The theory goes that one has to be consistently doing a thing for ten years before the world notices that you’re doing the thing], and I’m wondering if it’s worth it. And yet - I can’t not write.
And the highlight of my career to date is referencing Monty Python and MST3K in the same book whilst simultaneously creating a situation in which that’s (a) perfectly normal and (b) only hilarious to the humans, thus confusing the aliens. While I find that something to be proud of, I’m wondering if anyone will ever find such literary easter eggs.
And I’ll be really cross if my only best seller is next years’ project - Kung Fu Zombies. A novel which I will not be taking at all seriously in the slightest.
But I labor onwards. Slogging my way through The Amity Incident at five hundred words a day [except Sundays]. Best to struggle in hope than to languish in defeat.
I just really want to know what I’m doing wrong. Or not quite doing right.
Maybe I need to write a few more books and then complain. Terry Pratchett wasn’t in his swing until Mort. J.K Rowling swung and missed at six other publishers before becoming an “overnight” success by the third book.
Or I could try my hand at insipid modern supernatural fantasy romance and let everyone watch the resultant train wreck. Tentative title - Vampires Suck!
I’ve already decided the Werewolves are the good girls. [Of course werewolves are girls. That time of the month and all…]
Once again, thank you. And thank you for reading all of this rather extended rant. Sorry for going on and on and on…
