...or maybe I have too much Rain Man playing in my head. (Three of my classes watched the first half today...a little comparison/contrast thing I do with Of Mice and Men).
Today at JA Konrath's blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, he interviews Karen McQuestion, a self-pubbed Kindle author with some serious sales numbers. Go ahead. Read the article. Be wowed.
I am. I tossed up The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories a few weeks ago, knowing short story collections are a hard sell in the real world, let alone via ebook. Thanks to you lovely blog-reader people, I've sold a few copies. Nothing to write home about.
It was an experiment. Still is.
And now I'm prepping another one. There are so many ways to fail as a writer, I might as well try them all, eh? With The House Eaters forthcoming from Virtual Tales and Loathsome, Dark, and Deep on sub with a publisher with whom I'd really like to work, I still have one decent novel floating around in a drawer. One I haven't really worked to hard too sell. (we won't mention the unmentionable books hiding in the darkest reaches of a hard drive)
Stay tuned...or not.
13 comments:
I've been fighting this internal battle for a while now. Do I join the dark side or stay in the light where it's relatively cofortable (for now)?
As much as I like and respect Joe, I've stopped following his blog and twitter feed because, at some point, blogging and tweeting your sales numbers is just bragging, and a clever marketing ploy to boot.
More power to him and all, but I just don't wanna hear it anymore.
Barry - It's a battle, all right. Who's to say what the "right" choice is?
Brendan - Today he's bragging about another writer, which is kind of refreshing. But I hear you.
I use to follow his site but also kind of stopped. I liked some of the things he had to offer, but there is a line between celebrating your successes and bragging. Sometimes I wonder if he knows the difference. But I will check out the interview.
Andrea - Sometimes, I can't tell the difference when I'm in the audience. When one is taught to sell their work, and has fought hard to do so, I'm sure it's hard to turn that off. I just take it for the numbers. He does kind of detail a how-to guide for self-publishing via the Kindle. That's what my devil is listening to. (shameful little fella)
So when will you be going into hard core erotica? ; )
He doesn't seem like a braggart to me, more like someone whose using numbers to back up his proselytizing of digital media rather than just talking about how theoretically awesome it is. Like everyone else. But it still gets irritating at times, I confess, if you focus on his pulpit-pounding too much.
But these are facts, is the thing. It can and does work like this, if quality and hard work are involved. That's heartening. (And not at all the case with big publishing, as much as I love and adore that for what it is, too. Different animal.)
*who's.
le sigh.
It was interesting and inspiring, although I think I'll just keep chugging along with submissions at the moment.
You presented a nice sampling of 'Loathsome' to us on your blog. I hope you have success with the sub...and reach into that evil corner of the hard drive for a future project.
Aaron, that was really interesting - the Kontrath interview about Kindle. I am forwarding the article to a couple friends of mine who have had all kinds of runaround with their novels... one came very, very close to being published. I think she'd be interested in taking that book out of her desk drawer. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Hey, and you always seem so down about writing! (so many ways to fail).
You're great! That Spider story was amazing. I loved it. You're good. OK? OK.
I am still confused about how things do become bestsellers and others don't. I have some darn good books on my shelves that no one else has ever heard of.
Interested to discover what this new experiment your prepping is?
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