I just wanted to drop a quick note
to thank folks for their support after my 'failure' post yesterday. I’m overwhelmed with responses and love from you guys. From readers assuring
me I am not a failure, and from other writers sympathizing with me because they
too rode the Amazon fail bus all the way back home from the big dance.
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| Come and win some crap! |
It seems
I am not the only author who had their eyes on the huge stuffed animals on the
top row, but ended up having to choose anything in this general area, right in
here. Anything, below the stereo, and on this side of the Bicentennial glasses.
Anything between the ashtray, and the thimbles. Anything in this three inches.
Right in here, this area, that includes the Chiclets, but not the erasers.
I did want to assure you kind folks
that I wasn’t declaring myself a failure as a writer, just as a self published
one. And again, that success is measured by the numbers game alone. I could measure
it by other means, like the amazing readers I have met through self publishing
my work, or the fact that a talented young man willingly recorded an audio
production of the first chapter of The Cold Beneath because he loved it so
much, or that an award winning author declared my work in the vein of “Steinbeck
and Harper Lee at their best,” or another author was excited enough about one
of my novels to actually write fan fiction set in that world, or the times I
have sold out of books at a convention or some other kind of gathering. If I
measured it by those means, I count myself a very successful author indeed. In
the long game, these things are of more value to me than the bottom line. I
count my success as a writer based on these anecdotes, and many, many, many
more like them.
But, unfortunately, the bottom line
is what the rest of the world is interested in. And no matter how I dress it
up, I am not selling enough to call myself a “self publishing success.” Hence
the very raw and very honest post yesterday. Numbers, numbers, numbers. It
makes the world go round.
To the other writers who have
climbed aboard the fail boat with me, remember we really are all in this together.
Books are one of those products that folks seek out in multiples, and always
will. In fact, most folks want gobs and gobs of them to read and cherish and
share. While it is a competition to be the best we can be, we are also on this
journey together. From our imagination to the reader’s soul, hand in hand we
travel. Support your fellow author, and you will find they will shower you with
respect and love in return.
There have been some folks out
there who decided that my failure is pretty self-evident. According to them, my
work is shabby, my website stinks and the genres I choose to write in are
either too niche or just a matter of bad taste. No bother. I don’t write for
them anyways. I write for two people.
You and me.
You know who you are, because you
have picked up my work, read it, loved it and sought out more of it. You have
left me five star reviews and sent my work shooting to the top ten for the day
of any given genre list on Amazon. You have shelved me almost three thousand
times at Goodreads and rated me over five hundred times. You are awesome. Sometimes
I wonder who I am, but that is another reason I write, isn’t it? As long as we
enjoy the stories, as long as we get cold chills with every page or laugh out
loud or cry or get angry … as long as you and I are having a good time sharing
the things I have written, than I measure myself a great success.
I am Tonia Brown, and yes I am a self publishing failure. A well
loved, amazingly supported, surrounded by the best readers and writers a gal
could ask for, self publishing failure.
Later taters,
Tonia