Self-publishing wake-up call — reprise

Every once in a while I’ve been known to reblog one of my popular posts. I just went back to look at the stats and recalled the day this 2013 post (which I can’t reblog now because I must have already reblogged it) drew gobs of extra viewers. Why? Because I mentioned Amanda Palmer in it, Amanda saw it, and Amanda fired off a tweet to me. Her minions came a-callin’, one by one, till I had hundreds of new eyes on the blog for one brief shining moment.

Well, that didn’t last. But here’s the post (sitting on 465 views), and everything I said in it about self-publishing still stands …

6 comments on “Self-publishing wake-up call — reprise”

kingmidget
July 12, 2016

You’re right. Nothing has changed.

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- Kevin Brennan
  July 12, 2016
  
  Sad, ain’t it?
  
  Reply
  - kingmidget
    July 12, 2016
    
    I continue to struggle with my writing and I also continue to think “why bother” as long as I can’t see a decent publishing path forward. It’s a bit of a catch-22.
  - Kevin Brennan
    July 13, 2016
    
    I hear you. You know how they always say, “I write because I can’t not write”? There’s probably a moment for a lot of people when they can not write …
  - kingmidget
    July 13, 2016
    
    Yeah. For about ten years, I was exploding with ideas and stories and I was in the “can’t not write” category. Now I’m in the latter category it seems.
1WriteWay
July 12, 2016

I haven’t checked my blog stats in a long time (mainly because even I spend less time there than I used to), but I suspect that a lot of the “new” followers I’ve gained over the years are not reading my blog. They are “following” but to what end, who knows. I do suspect some of them as being bots.

It’s the entrepreneurial angle that hangs me up. The social media environment, the “whole nightmare media whore scenario” (as Angela Jardine so well described it), fosters an expectation that any self-published writer who really cares (said with sarcasm) will pull out all the stops to promote her book. Otherwise, she should just give it away. Seems like it would be a luxury to write, self-publish the book, put it out there and then turn one’s back and continue to write. To keep my sanity, I’d have to keep my self-publishing a secret, to keep well-meaning friends and family from f*ckin’ asking me about it all the time … sadly, yes, that would happen ;(

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