Patience young grasshopper...

                                          

           This is something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately not particularly with NNP and their authors but I’ve been seeing it just the same. I’m not lecturing anyone because we as writers all have days when we think to ourselves that we want things to move to the fast track for our careers. We want one of our books or short stories to be discovered by the masses, without having to lift a finger, we want it to be turned into the next big thing. When this doesn’t happen immediately we tend to blame it on a few different things.

One, it wasn’t this particular book’s time. Trends happen in everything in our lives, clothing, interior design, hair styles and entertainment. Last year it was Help, this year it was Fifty Shades of Grey, two vastly different books, next year who knows. It might be your book and it might not but for it to be the book of the year…well you would have better luck of getting struck by lightning and a bus at the same time. Focus on moving forward instead of wondering why this one wasn’t it.  

Two, we start to look outside ourselves and our books for someone to blame. It isn’t our fault, its everyone else’s. Usually our publishers are the ones to take the brunt end of this particular jab. When this happens you typically blame your publisher for not getting the books out fast enough. Okay, first off, do you want the job done quick or do you want the job done right? I’m sure a publisher would love to see one more book on the shelf…they need them there if they are ever going to start paying off the debt generated by getting it there. It costs them money, a bigger gamble than we ourselves as authors make; you in turn need to remember that patience is key. You’re worried about one book, they are worried about twelve.

Three you’re not promoting enough or your promoting too much. For some people promotion is a joke and they choose to do the bare minimum to get by. They choose to focus the majority of their time writing new stuff. Other’s will promote a single title so hard that they’ve stopped writing all together. Now this is where it gets tricky. Like everything in life there is a happy medium and it is your job to find what that is. If promotion didn’t work, thousands of companies, musicians, and writers wouldn’t be wasting their precious time and money on it but it’s far easier to get a fan base and multiple sales if you have more than one thing selling at a time. Wal-Mart knows this. Are you going to get more notice with one book or ten…simple math, so keep writing and keep promoting.

So in conclusion my humble opinion on the matter and advice to anyone looking at writing to be as easy as winning the lottery…dream on because the chances of that happening are about the same. Slow and steady wins the race. It takes years of hard work, patience, love and above all dedication to the craft to become the writer you want to be. You want everyone to buy your book, so do I, so does he and so does she, we all want that but glory goes to those who work hardest and outlast the rest. Think of that the next time you want to quit.