Musings on Writing and Publishing
I suppose it is a quandary all indie authors face. Here we are, brimming with words that threaten to choke us if we don't type them out fast enough. Words that torture us with the promise of creative fulfilment that would be ours if we could only get those brutes out of our heads and onto paper. I tell you, these words in our heads - they have minds of their own. But these words, ah, they aren't content with merely coming out of the author's system. They are mightily egoistic beings who want to be recognized for their worth, applauded for their profoundness, loved for their splendour.
Now here lies the problem. How do these words, these naughty germinations from a fertile author brain, blithely assume they have the worth, the profoundness, the splendour they are seeking recognition for? Does the author, their creator decide that? Ah, no! That timid, unfortunate creature, the indie author, is far too wrapped up in the cloud of his self-consciousness. Those words - they aren't merely words, they are parts of him, parts of his soul, that have burst out of him because he could hardly contain them. He's scared what unmentionable square millimetre of his thoughts has been revealed by these words. No, the assignment of worth must come from others.
Er, others, did you say? Which others may I ask? For an indie author always bears the cross of rejection sensitivity. What if, he asks of himself, what if that trusted friend of his was too bored reading what he wrote and is too polite to let him know? What if he wrote sheer junk and the literary agent sent the manuscript to the shredder without bothering to pen him a reply? What really lay behind the publisher's politely worded rejection letter?
They say the reading public is the best judge. True - but where is the reading public? With attention deficit rearing its ugly head, with video content streaming on everyone's bandwidth, are there enough readers? And if there are, what are they reading? Are they likely to read what the indie author is writing?
Oh dear, and here it is that the poor indie author applies brakes on his thoughts. Was he designing a product for a market? No! Wasn't he allowing his literary instincts a free rein? Herein lies the conflict - an introvert author moonlighting as a flamboyant marketing executive?
G B Shaw had famously said that "I write for the same reason a cow gives milk." Well, cow milk is sold. But females across the 5500 odd mammal species on the earth give milk. So does it become the indie author's job to - well, I apologize as it sounds gross - not only produce the milk but also market his milk so skilfully that he destabilizes the demand for cow milk? Or does he just live in the hope that someday at least some people's preference for milk will change?
Now here lies the problem. How do these words, these naughty germinations from a fertile author brain, blithely assume they have the worth, the profoundness, the splendour they are seeking recognition for? Does the author, their creator decide that? Ah, no! That timid, unfortunate creature, the indie author, is far too wrapped up in the cloud of his self-consciousness. Those words - they aren't merely words, they are parts of him, parts of his soul, that have burst out of him because he could hardly contain them. He's scared what unmentionable square millimetre of his thoughts has been revealed by these words. No, the assignment of worth must come from others.
Er, others, did you say? Which others may I ask? For an indie author always bears the cross of rejection sensitivity. What if, he asks of himself, what if that trusted friend of his was too bored reading what he wrote and is too polite to let him know? What if he wrote sheer junk and the literary agent sent the manuscript to the shredder without bothering to pen him a reply? What really lay behind the publisher's politely worded rejection letter?
They say the reading public is the best judge. True - but where is the reading public? With attention deficit rearing its ugly head, with video content streaming on everyone's bandwidth, are there enough readers? And if there are, what are they reading? Are they likely to read what the indie author is writing?
Oh dear, and here it is that the poor indie author applies brakes on his thoughts. Was he designing a product for a market? No! Wasn't he allowing his literary instincts a free rein? Herein lies the conflict - an introvert author moonlighting as a flamboyant marketing executive?
G B Shaw had famously said that "I write for the same reason a cow gives milk." Well, cow milk is sold. But females across the 5500 odd mammal species on the earth give milk. So does it become the indie author's job to - well, I apologize as it sounds gross - not only produce the milk but also market his milk so skilfully that he destabilizes the demand for cow milk? Or does he just live in the hope that someday at least some people's preference for milk will change?
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