Let me rephrase that. “Some” authors are like artists. I’m a Web business person. My end goal is to get more sales, leads and publicity for myself, my books, my products, etc…
An artist? Well, typically, they don’t have those same goals. They just want to make… art. I’ve tried to work with artists in the past only to realize that it’s a waste of time. Artists don’t think like I do. They just want to make their art and they don’t think about business models, and distribution and marketing. I get it. When you try to force an artist to think that way, you lose them. I know, I’ve tried. I don’t bother anymore. It’s a waste of my time.
I’m finding out a lot about “some” authors in my quest for learning more about why people write and publish. I’m finding that there are a lot of authors who think just like artists. They write for validation, instead of writing for business reasons.
I should say that the reason I write is not only about “making money”. I mean, I love helping people find success. I love motivating people. I would write books still if they didn’t help me “make money”. But for me, authoring books, right now, is more of a business project than a personal project.
My way, your way… either way is just fine. Do it how you want. Nobody has an issue with how you want to do it. I don’t.
Just own it. If you’re going to write for validation… own it. I admitted why I write. Why can’t you?
I’ve considered it fbleriy, but decided against it. Then again, I do not yet have a query-ready novel & could very well change my mind when I hit that process. However. I decided against it for multiple reasons.1. I don’t have the time to build the platform & market in the ways I would need to. Nor do I particularly want to. I want to be able to connect to people, build a friendly platform, and say hey I’m represented by [These People] and [This Company] offered me a book deal wanna hear all about it?2. Part of the biggest draw to publication was hitting those landmarks finding an agent who loves my work as much as I do, getting word a publisher wants to offer me a book deal, walking into a bookstore and saying I MADE IT HERE . It’s part of the excitement for me. I can see the pride & excitement from the other side but the appeal isn’t as bright & sparkly. I knew publication wouldn’t be easy, but that’s part of the challenge for me. Not only that, I’ve noticed you’ve mentioned the state of the publishing world several times lately, but I haven’t noticed a decline. Maybe because I write YA, the market is moving a little differently? The numbers I’ve seen show a very high publication rate. But what I’ve seen are people who persevere are rewarded with success (BY NO MEANS offense to anyone). There are plenty of books on the shelves that leave me wondering how they got there until I realized they were the ones who kept submitting even after hearing no thanks a million times.SO. I fully intend to pursue publication by means of the traditional route.