Strength




What can one do to beat the odds in today’s publishing world? What does it take for an author to make it big?
The first thing you must have is the strength to face the daily rounds of promotion, to go to the day job, and to write late at night, after the family is asleep. You need strength to stare at your rankings on Amazon and wonder why you can’t do any better. You must have strength to face another round of “anyone can be an author” and you need to be very strong whenever people say you don’t have a real job.
Yes, the twenty-first century author has discovered there is no longer a promotion person to take care of the daily advertising. In most instances, there is no budget for that except what you can afford to pay out of pocket. Your first lesson in strength comes from devising promotional tools to present your book to the right audience.
It’s very easy to stare at those rankings on Amazon every day. You’re trying to figure out if you made a sale or no one wants your book any longer. Many an author has lost their time to write a new story by obsessing on this. Hint: ignore the numbers. Promote your book and move on. If you get a sale when you weren’t looking, cheer, but don’t obsess. You’ll never write another book.
Ah, the people on social media and their naiveté. They’ll proclaim anyone can be an author. All it takes is a computer, or a phone these days, and sitting down for an hour or two to write a book. Smile. Graciously accept their misunderstanding and move on. Don’t engage these people. Don’t challenge them to write a book. Simply ignore their misconception and keep on writing your current book. If they do decide they can write a book, they’ll soon discover the truth.
As for not having a real job, I will challenge you on this. A real job has set hours. It has a paycheck you can count on being enough to deal with life’s expenses every week, two weeks, or month. Their security isn’t something the author has. We’re literally standing on the edge of a cliff. Very few authors depend on their income from writing to make real money. Most of us have day jobs and we squeeze our writing in between dealing with a home and family.
So, authors, you must learn to ignore the rantings of those on social media who claim we have an easy job. We must ignore the memes that show us as we appear to others. Instead of standing in front of a mirror putting on makeup and doing my hair every morning, I’m busily plotting my next book while sipping coffee. While others fight traffic going to and from work, I’m squeezing in another paragraph or three while preparing dinner. Housecleaning, kids’ sports, family entertainment—all of this is part of a day where I’m the author first and everything else comes between spurts of that new plot being made into a wonderful story.



About K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.                                                                                                  She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game  plotting a new story.

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Published on March 30, 2018 00:00
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