Following Every Rabbit Down a Hole: The Endless Search for All the Marketing

I started reading an article about how Amazon search really works and why authors need to know this.

I had to look up “lemmatisation” and shortly thereafter my eyes glazed over and I gave up.

this is not that

Maybe I’m a lazy slacker. Maybe I just want to write and then hope books sell themselves.

Maybe there’s only so much one person can do.

I watched a webinar by a multimillion-selling author yesterday. In 50 minutes I learned exactly nothing. Simple, basic, obvious writing skills. Obvious to me, at least. But then, I grew up in a storytelling household. I knew from childhood you don’t open your story with a description of the ancestry of your main character and a topographical map of where they live. You give just enough detail so folks will care when your character’s world comes apart at the seams.

In an online group someone post about their new training course for folks in the industry we share (they’re a virtual assistant, something Best Beloved and I wrote the book on.)

They have 2 years’ experience and they plan to charge $500 for the online training they offer.

Everyone is an expert. Everyone.

Used to be that those who couldn’t do, taught. Now, everyone’s a teacher, too.

There is an infinite amount of information on any subject.

There is an infinite amount of information on writing, on self-publishing, and on marketing your books once you’ve self-published them.

There is not an infinite amount of time. Of energy. Of brain space.

All we can do is make the best of what time we have, of our energy, our brain space.

Practice your craft, and learn wherever and whenever you can.

Share your writing with anyone who’s interested. Give it away. Grow a following.

Learn some marketing. Ignore most of what you read about it. Learn, instead, how to listen to what people want, and if what they want is a book like the one you wrote, tell them about it.

You can’t do it all. No one can.

Do what you can with what you have where you are.

And please, have as much fun as you can while you’re doing it.

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