Dear Black People
I have been away for a while and I have missed you –you are a constant reminder to me that the impossible is only made so when you agree that it is in fact impossible.
I was very recently given some well intended advice: when you stop writing you are finished, only mail your manuscript to those that are looking for you, never self publish it sours your ability to get mainstream attention and to be taken seriously, in order to be taken seriously you willneed two to three unpublished novels ready to go when you find anagent/publisher/editor to go mainstream I call BS on most if not all of theabove
(Mainstream) Publishers are only going with what they consider to be a sure thing. There are more mainstream books published in 2009 than were published in 1999 BUT with all capital letters there are fewer new writers being brought to the mainstreammarket. Publishers are afraid to takethe risk on a new writer with a good story. IT IS TRUE! They would prefer totake a bad story (or a rehashed rejected one) from an established writer (DeanKoontz is a great example) and throw it out there to the reading public. What it takes to market a book and get it readby the avid reader is herculean in proportion to what the word of mouth will dofor a good book.
Harlequin Romance novels did quite well as a house wife’s secret for many decades. Avid readers are spoiled on buying new books – I mean it makes sense why would you spend $9-29 on a book when you can wait a year and by it anywhere from $2-5 on theused or clearance table at the grocery store. The market for a new writer is not the existing or old audience, it istruly found in the audience that does not avidly read. As a writer if you were to give your book tofive 18yo high school seniors in your area the local buzz alone would bring yousome attention via email and a few local sales.
A new first time writer were able to sale seven thousand retail copies of their book within the first twelve months of print it would be considered a successful outing – if a writer could grow their audience by 10% over the next four releases they would be on their way to some reasonable andnotable success.
Based upon that formula and wisdom your personal goal is to get ten thousand people to give you one dollar each in the course of a year can you do it? To be exact it is 10,248.7 people in one year. I believe that weall have it in us to ask a complete stranger for $2 of profit, that is a smallprice to pay while being allowed to enjoy our art projects that we present toone another.
I got $2 for all 1035 of us that are members of this group – the sad thing is that it will cost me an additional 22% of that amount to put the stamp on the envelope to get it to you. That is still a small price to pay to give you the encouragement tocontinue your art.
In closing I say: park your ego when receiving honest and well meant criticism, yell from the rooftops when you have something to share, accept compliments properly (say thank you, never say I don’t deserve that) when they are given, know that you are the master and the reader is the studenttherefore teach them well. If you writefor you others will enjoy it too.
Say something good, a mouth that says nothing good must be saying something bad.
Thinkingcaveman -
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