Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Tentative suspicions

I'm maybe a third into the experiment of the summer but I already have some tentative suspicions about what I'm going to learn from all this.

  • the process sells more books. My sales at Amazon, a trickle before, are a much larger trickle now. All this marketing activity does sell more books.
  • the system greatly favors those with self-promotion skills. In my experience, the best writers are often introverts without such skills. The present system works against them.
  • content is given mere lip service, if mentioned at all. No one ever talks about what is IN the book. It's always about the title, the cover, the social media networking, the email pitches. I haven't read a single word from any marketing guru about content.
  • you can't get into big sales at Amazon without Amazon support. It is not easy to get it. Good sales gets it, but then it becomes a chicken and egg issue.
  • none of this activity has anything to do with why I became a writer. 
  • I would not become a writer today, or at least not a "public" one. 
Maybe some of this will change. Maybe not. We'll see.

3 comments:

Mike Gold said...

So it's all style and no substance? Do you think e-book fiction will always be that way, or will it change for the better over time?

As for being a writer... well, what if you just have to tell stories... build worlds and create characters. I mean, personally, I don't care what the market is like. As far as I'm concerned, the public doesn't know what it's missing.

Charles Deemer said...

I'm not saying ebook fiction is that way at all. I'm saying the MARKETING is that way, not only of ebooks but of all books.

Charles Deemer said...

p.s. you have a good attitude re your own work. Don't lose it.