Monday, September 26, 2011

To Write or Promote--That is the question.

I've been deep into my next story, and feeling guilty for not doing more to promote BBB. What is more important for my career plan, doing guest blogs or getting another title published? It's the writer's chicken and egg question. (And that whole thing just blows my mind.) If I write it they will come, right? (No sexual pun intended.) I am a big fan of Field of Dreams. Build a baseball field in the middle of Iowa and people will just wake up one morning, get in their cars and drive straight to the cornfield to watch the ghosts of Baseball's past play ball. Yeah, uh-huh, right.

Word of mouth sells books, or so I've read about a million times. But you have to lead the mouths to the story before they can start yakking right? (No offense dear readers, I'm sure you don't yak.) I read The Tipping Point, a few years back and found it fascinating. It starts with a few people thinking something is cool, nerdy shoes for example, and then a few more people decide the same thing, and then something miraculous happens, and it becomes a major trend. (Okay there is more to this, as 'what's his name' did write a whole book on the subject.) I enjoyed the book. When his next book came out I picked it up at the bookstore, read a few pages, and wasn't wowed. I left it on the shelf. My daughter read an essay in school written by the book's author. She said he was whining about all the reasons his second book didn't succeed. He blamed everything except THE WRITING.

So, the moral is: If I write it WELL they will come. Unless of course, they've never heard of me or my story, in which case I should be out there PROMOTING. Sigh.

I know, no one ever said this was going to be easy.

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