Rick Soper's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-vs-promotion"

I recently read Russell Blake's latest blog "I care a lot" which you can find at http://russellblake.com/i-care-a-lot/ I Like Russell because he has a tendency to say what's on his mind, which in most cases can be quite outlandish, and sometimes very funny. This blog was talking about giving advice to other writers and I found what he said valuable. I'm a new writer, so I read a lot of what other people have to say, some of it is good, but a lot of it is crap. Russell Blake makes the very good point that if you just write a good book then an audience will find you, because people really don't like reading bad books, in fact if they're anything like me, they hate reading bad books, they in fact get angry and end up throwing the books against the wall if they're that bad, which if you're reading on an iPad mini can get expensive. So I avoid bad books and bad authors. And I try and write good books. But as you're starting out it's really hard not to fall into the trap of Twitter, Goodreads, YouTube, and the rest. You find yourself spending far too much time with the websites trying to promote your books instead of using that valuable time writing your books. I think there is happy medium between the two, but it's a medium that you have to work to find. Self-Publication is a great thing, it allows you to break out of the old guard book industry, and it allows you to get books out there that the old guard might not buy into because they are only interested in producing hits and justifying the huge cut of profits they take from every book sold. But if you were with the old guard they would promote you, they would set up book signings, and book tours, and websites and all of that stuff. Being self published means you have an entire extra workload that old guard published authors don't have. Regardless of the extra workload though, at the core of any writing success will always be the ability write a good book. You still have to get it in the hands of readers which means taking the time to write blogs, Tweets, do videos, and all of that other stuff. But in the midst of all that promotion, remember first and foremost you're a writer, so write good books, make sure they're edited well, create good covers, and take time to make good blurbs. Get the package of the book wrapped up, done well, and when you think it's the best it can be, run that baby up the promotional flag pole and go crazy. I could be wrong, but it seems to make sense to me.