Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Insanity

All authors must be insane.


All of us write books, query or self-publish, market ourselves, and start the process all over again. We do it repeatedly, hoping this time it will be different and we will sell more books. Like banging our heads against a brick wall.

I don't sell a lot of books right now. I self-publish, but I take it very seriously and hope someday that as I publish more, I will sell more. So basically . . . .


This is how I feel right now.

I don't work right now. My husband supports me and I was saying to him,"Maybe I should try to go into a different career."

A rational husband would probably agree. But an AMAZING husband would do what mine just did.

He told me,"No. You just need to keep working hard and finding new ways to market your books." He rattled off a list of ideas he had on how I can sell more books and he ended it with talking about going to book conventions. (Which we later couldn't find any of, but that doesn't matter!) And his opinions were actually good ideas, unlike most non-writers who try to give me advice.

He said,"I believe in your books so much that if it means we can't go to Comicon this year (even though we already have the tickets) because we're going to a book convention, I will miss it in order to help promote your books."

You need to understand that my husband is obsessed with Comic books. His one hobby is Comic books. He spends all his spare time reading them and studying them. We see all the super hero movies together. He even plays HeroClix, which is a game where you have little Comic Book figures that you place on a map and fight other people with other figures. And he said that he'd miss all of that in order to promote my books.

He's definitely a keeper. Good thing I married him!

7 comments:

Kay Kauffman said...

Aww, you definitely found a keeper! What a great guy! :)

Tricia Drammeh said...

Sounds like you have a pretty amazing husband. I'm in the same boat you are with not selling very many books. Last year, I lost money. This year, I've made a little money. Not enough to quit my day job, but at least I've sold enough to recoup my costs for covers, website domains, etc. My point is, I'm making progress and so will you. You just have to keep going and things will turn around.

E.B. Black said...

I will say that I am making progress, too, but it is very slow and this month was a very bad month for sales for me.

Faith Williams said...

What a nice hubby, to offer to give up his favorite thing for his favorite person! Definitely don't let go of your determination - keep writing and try new things to promote your stuff!

Anonymous said...

You've definitely got a keeper there!!!

I think summer there is a usual slump in sales. but then again, the genre you write in is a pretty hard nut to crack. Looking at statistics it's pretty obvious that amazon/self-publishing venues in general are great oulets for contemporary genres readers (predominantly romance and mysteries). It's been like that for years and there are clear signs it'll keep being this way for the near future. It's a sad fact, but old-fashioned demand/supply seems to indicate that the only way to make a living from writing is to write in a genre that people read voraciously in. . .Sure, there are plenty non-contemporary readers. They just don't seem to buy much from Amazon (unless it's big name authors).

:-(

E.B. Black said...

Hi anonymous! I've noticed that trend as well. I think maybe someday I might make a second pen name where I write more contemporary novels because of that trend. I've seen authors, in fact, who sell both contemporary novels and speculative fiction and the speculative fiction tends to sell poorly compared to the contemporary novels.

Speculative fiction has always been the genre that I am drawn to though, so I am going to continue writing it regardless. And we'll just see what happens in the future. :) As authors, we hold on to hope even if there is none to be had.

Unknown said...

There are so many web, but only that I think your website helpful, thank you


Obat Diabetes
Pengobatan Penyakit Kulit Herbal
Obat Infeksi Kulit
Pengobatan Nyeri Tulang Ekor
Obat Diabetes Insipidus