Invisible

Writing is one of my favorite things. And now that I have discovered the secret to writing I do it all the time. The secret? Write all the time.

Part of my personal writers dilemma is that I want to share what I have written with the world. I want people to read my words and enjoy them. I don’t try to write anything with a deep message or attempt to change the world. I just like telling stories. I am sure that I am not the only one with this dilemma.

Thanks to the internet sharing your work is easy. Anyone can get use medium to share their stories and starting a blog isn’t that hard. But getting your writing to rise above all of the nonsense is hard.

Since I started writing fiction I have made about $1 from my writing. This is largely because I am not a marketer of my fiction. In fact I am horrible at marketing in general. I don’t know how to sell my work as a product.

This is the same problem I have when it comes to being a professional entertainer. I am really bad at selling myself. I would rather just show up and perform, or in the case of writing, write my stories and have people read them.

I think this is a common problem for writers. And from my extensive time spent reading writing forums, this is because most authors hate being around people. But I love people, so that can’t be it.

The problem with marketing your writing is that you are trying to get people to buy something that doesn’t hold any value. Books are not something that have the same meaning they did when I was a kid. I used to love going to bookstores because it meant I was going to get a new book.

Now with eReaders you don’t have that anticipation of shopping for books. You just go online and buy what you think you might like.

Also with the ease in which anyone can publish it is hard to make your book be seen through the murk. The best way to be seen through the murk is to shine brighter then the rest. But that is hard. And it is also no guarantee of success.

I don’t know how to stop being invisible. I don’t want to be the kind of author who just constantly hammers on his friends to buy his books, or to read his serial and like it, or tweets only about his books. But I do want to be read.

If I am lucky I will be able to sell a story or two this year. That way someone else can tell me how to market and what best practices are. Plus that will, in theory, open up some more doors.

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