Day two of the 500 words challenge. One of the immediate benefits
from doing this is that I joined a Facebook support group for the challenge and
have already had contact from other writers. That alone is worth the challenge.
As I have said, writing 500 words a day is
not my challenge as I already write far more. It's more about writing this blog
for you guys, and the challenge again is not in the quantity of words but in
the quality of what I write. Usually I write a blog once a week or so (scuffs
toes in the dirt - yes I know it can be longer than that) and I have a subject
to write about. Mostly that subject is me.
But I can't write about me every day for
the next thirty-one days, you all will get bored and leave me – plus that would
mean thinking of thirty-one, twenty-nine now, things about me that will make a
blog post. So my challenge is choosing a different topic each day. The Facebook
page has a list of ideas and I will be using them I am sure before this
challenge is over. It also has many posts from braggers (no not really but, you
know, I'm on day two) on day 478 or so. Ok guys, let me catch up a bit!
Well sorry if today – and just
remembered word count and I should do this in word so I’ve just moved you all
to Word. Huh, 233 words. Back to my thought process; sorry if today you were
hoping for a different subject. Today the subject is me, the next blog post I
was going to do anyway. Tomorrow I’ll choose something random I promise! Like
one of those radio shows where they are given a topic and have to improvise for
three minutes or so. Except written and not spoken. And not as amusing, or as
immediate.
Today I’m talking about writing. Not about the challenge or the
blog but about writing seriously for a living. Because it’s me and I want to
make a living from books I’m talking about writing books.
When you start out writing you
can access a whole slew of articles giving advice on writing, and books also.
The books tend to give general and good advice on writing while the articles
often focus on how to build a strong social media platform. You need your Facebook
page, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, you should have a YouTube channel and
write a blog and guest write on other blogs. In short, you should spend so much
time on building your social media platform that your actual writing time has
to be compromised.
Once you’ve been going along for a while you start to realise that
a great deal of this advice is out of date. Yes, a few years ago it was good
advice, so good that loads and loads of writers took it. Now the market is
saturated with writers, good bad and indifferent. How can you the reader
possibly tell from all of these which ones to follow, which ones you will enjoy
reading?
I have a Twitter account and I’ve cheated somewhat by having my Facebook
post for me. I have followers, I don’t know how many and I follow people. And
you know on that Twitter feed I have mostly dross and rubbish. I hardly ever go
and look at it, I have to scroll through so much rubbish to find anything
interesting. So I have very little faith in Twitter as a platform to build my
brand.
I have an Instagram account and I post the odd picture there. I
always get likes from people named #get100000followersbydoingthis or something
like that. So I don’t have a lot of faith in that either. I have never gone onto
Pinterest and I don’t have a YouTube channel. Someone will buy my books from
listening to me rabbit on about them? I find that hard to believe, mostly that
anyone would even find my channel.
I do have an author page and a Sabrina Street Cat page on
Facebook. That would be great if Facebook didn’t severely limit the reach of ‘business’
pages to around 4 or 5% of people who liked it. You want to reach everyone who
thought you were worth reading? Well come along and pay our massively wealthy corporation
to ‘boost’ your post to those people.
So none of these things really work now. I’m coming to think that
the only way to make a living from writing these days is to write, write, write.
Write book after book after book and self-publish it. You may be lucky to find
a traditional publisher who will take a chance on you, but just like
television, publishers go with the tried and true or the socially famous (Kim
Kardashian selfie book?).
The more books you have the more findable you are on Amazon and
other eBook stores. You can use CreateSpace to give the option of paper back
for those who do not like using a Kindle device. Don’t waste precious writing
time keeping up with all your social media. Don’t try to use them all. Maybe
for you Twitter is brilliant and if so use it. Use whatever form of social
media you enjoy.
For me that is Facebook and this blog. I love writing this blog, I
love that you all keep coming here to read me. I’m dirty on Facebook for
limiting my posts but I’m going to keep on with it because I enjoy building
those author pages. And I’m not on social media to tell you all to buy my books
(but buy my books!). I’m here to share myself with you, to give to you my
readers a part of myself and hopefully to connect with you.
The final thing I was thinking was about those people who used
social media back when it was much easier to get an audience and when you didn’t
have to buy one. Some of those people have ridiculously high numbers of
followers, like in the hundreds of thousands. I follow a few of them myself.
But I wonder, how many of those, even with their hundreds of thousands of
followers, have made the transition to serious author?
Well I have no idea. I can only speak for the ones I have read and
the ones I follow. How many of them? None. Only the ones that were already
successful authors have made it and they already had so they don’t count. Of
the others, and remember this is my own observation and is based only on the
ones I have seen, not one has made it as an author.
Yes, they still have their bazillions of followers who hang off
their every word. They write regularly, for free, for these followers. But are
they published, even self-published? No. Have they written a book even? No.
Why? What are they waiting for? I read one who was talking about how he was
still waiting to be approached by a publisher with a nice fat advance to write
his book. Pretty sure that will not happen. Maybe it did in the past, maybe
with other bloggers/Facebook page owners/whatever, but not so likely today.
Yes I did see one who as part of a group of Facebook page owners
wrote a book and got it published. And they did quite well because between them
they have a fan base of probably millions. But what if she writes a book on her
own, not one comprised of hers and the others’ status updates, but one all on
her own? Well she hasn’t done that. Not to say that she won’t and that if she
does it won’t be wildly successful. It probably would. But she hasn’t.
Again – disclaimer- I am talking ONLY from my own observations. I
have no doubt that there are successful authors who got their start from
Facebook or blogging. But I haven’t seen any. I’ve only seen the ones who are
waiting for it to happen. The lesson to me there is don’t believe your own
publicity. Write that book, don’t be distracted by social media to the point of
not actually writing your book. You may be a huge star on social media, but
that does not make you famous elsewhere. And that does not write your book.
Now, if you know people who have made their millions in books from
their start on their Facebook pages or Twitter or whatever that’s great. Like I
said I’m sure it happens. But I think it happened more often a few years ago
and is far less likely now. So I’m going to do what my instinct is telling me
to do. I’m going to write and write and write. I know I can write a full length
novel in three weeks, I’ve done it. I know too that they will not all write themselves
like Letters did.
So first up I’m going to self-publish Letters, I’ll post here more
about that as I get it ready. Then I’m going to continue on with the second in
the Defender series and get that published. After that will come the next book
from Letters, a spin off if you will focusing on the main character Cassie’s
best friend. It became apparent to me while writing Letters that Saffron also
has a story to tell. Then it will be on with the third book in the Defender
series. Along the way I have to find out more about how to get the shelter book
written in a way that will appeal to publishers and also not forgetting the
adult colouring book.
And I will continue to write this blog daily. So come see me here
every day. I can’t guarantee the time of day and in any case you all are spread
all across the world. But I will post daily and if I’m not going to for any
reason I will let you know the day before.
1 681 words. Quantity was never my struggle, quality – well you
can judge that. See you here tomorrow, probably different time but same place J
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