INSIGHT INTO AN INDIE AUTHOR'S IN-IN-INKSOMNIA
I wonder if I can get from 70-100 sales. This indie author malarky feels like climing Everest. Hold fast! Don't look up! I look up. Noooo sigh of the summit, just jagged ice-covered rocks. More adept authors than I surge past with the assurance of flies scurrying up a window pane. How do they do it?
Fear refluxes into my throat. I gag. This is intensely physical. Each morning, the same: log on, hit dtp.amazon.com, go to 'reports', hit 'sales this month', the same, no change, cling on in grim desperation. Welcome to the 99cts 77p ebook cage fight.
A YA fantasy writer scrambles over my back with 10 new sales. I feel their foot on my shoulder as they subordinate me. A historical romance writer catches hold of my ankle, pulls herself over my contemplative liteary fiction body. She uses my rib cage like a ladder. She has 15 new sales today. I see them bulging in a sack on her back. She's tweeting with her left hand, txting with her right, while an indie camera crew is doing an arts docu of her 'Indie Author Experience'. The presenter stands on my head as he does voice to camera.
A shrill scream makes us all freeze. A broken-hearted childrens writer hurtles past us as she fall, fall, falls from somewhere up above. I catch a snatch of her parting cry: '..see what your bitchy review has made me dooooooooo..' And then she's gone, vanished, never to be heard of again, perhaps to take up yoga-golf.
The film crew move higher, their skinny arses vanishing into self-declared success. I have my nonentify to myself. I cling on. How much longer will this nightmare run and run? Will I, too, fall the fall of your wannabe talent? I should tweet, but dare not move. No money on my phone. Ach, no phone. I tweet you not, I am a mess.
AGGGGGGH-OWWWWWWWWWWWWW! MY FRACKING STORY'S JUST STUCK IT'S SPURS INTO MY KIDNEYS. BREATH COMES FAST N HARD. I LOOK UP .. 71 .. i reach up .. my weight pulls, pulls, pulls me back .. ANOTHER KICK! WHEN WILL THIS never END? .. i reach up, grab, miss .. up, grab, miss .. pant .. up, grab, miss .. HOLD FAST! My mouth is dry. I lick the water drippling down the rock. Water? This is no water. The bodily fluids of thouuuuuusaaaaands of toiloing writers high above me stream over the rocks. They offer no relief. Why wld they? I am their enemy, albeit a pathetic sub-literal to the majestic Mexican sombrero of their greatness.
I gag. The slipperyness of this place terrifies me. My story Watching Swifts (amazon.com 99cts amazon.co.uk 77p) falls asleep. I read the tattoo on its happening arm: 'Warning: this story WILL bite.'
I sigh in relieved disbelief. Time for a shave and a shower, to go into the world, to forget all this .. blissful desperation .. with the latest best advice of a reader ringing in my 50:50 hearing: 'put more S&M in (or even M&S)' .. and that other comment from the unsmiling Brazilian woman '..it's all about winning Ron..' The lack of M&S in said story is clearly a greater flaw than the lack of S&M, my image action analysis consultant intern, Biggles Gutz, informs me, sales wise.
And so, let this chRONicle of wasted time show, I look up and focus on 71. 'I will have you,' I snarls. 'I WILL have YOU!'
Another broken writer hurtles past me .. hundreds and hundreds of sales won spill said fading talent's sack. I shut my eyes and whimper in thrice distilled terror. A warm stream runs down my trembling leg.
Now what? What ifresh torment be this? A metallic HeiRONymous Boch demon with eight reticulated egos, scurries down and shines a beam in my eye. It shakes it head. It sees no worth, moves on. A kickass London literary agent for you.
Up above, I hears the dragon helicopter once more. There are cheers, a band, P.J.HARTLEY? champage storks, the sound of shortlists being formulated. Said dragon-copter flies back to the publishing houuse in the burning tower.
I press my cheek against the sheer rock face of creative death. My eyes meet those of a mocking nutrino just a-passing on through... 'Check this new yoga-golf offer out, dude,' yells said nutrino. 'I TWEET YOU NOT! You just won't believe the suite of seven star benefits we've made standard in one easy-to-own enhanced premier membership package, just for youza.'
And so, no arse knowingly unlicked, UNLESS YOU BUY Watching Swifts NOWZA! I *WILL* POST MORE HERE. i TWEET YOU NOT!
And if you have already bought said Watching Swifts feel how, behind this flamless flim I love you deeply, eternally, AND! sincerely. I really do. *bows* Licks your ankle and peers up with imploring puppy dog eyes .. please, o please, please, please, can you get your best friend to invest in Watching Swifts or your worst enemy for that matter as that wld be the very best way for you to reciprocate the warmth of this gigantic love I have for you *licks other ankle in the sheerest supplication to your 10-candle genius, wit n brilliance*
Fear refluxes into my throat. I gag. This is intensely physical. Each morning, the same: log on, hit dtp.amazon.com, go to 'reports', hit 'sales this month', the same, no change, cling on in grim desperation. Welcome to the 99cts 77p ebook cage fight.
A YA fantasy writer scrambles over my back with 10 new sales. I feel their foot on my shoulder as they subordinate me. A historical romance writer catches hold of my ankle, pulls herself over my contemplative liteary fiction body. She uses my rib cage like a ladder. She has 15 new sales today. I see them bulging in a sack on her back. She's tweeting with her left hand, txting with her right, while an indie camera crew is doing an arts docu of her 'Indie Author Experience'. The presenter stands on my head as he does voice to camera.
A shrill scream makes us all freeze. A broken-hearted childrens writer hurtles past us as she fall, fall, falls from somewhere up above. I catch a snatch of her parting cry: '..see what your bitchy review has made me dooooooooo..' And then she's gone, vanished, never to be heard of again, perhaps to take up yoga-golf.
The film crew move higher, their skinny arses vanishing into self-declared success. I have my nonentify to myself. I cling on. How much longer will this nightmare run and run? Will I, too, fall the fall of your wannabe talent? I should tweet, but dare not move. No money on my phone. Ach, no phone. I tweet you not, I am a mess.
AGGGGGGH-OWWWWWWWWWWWWW! MY FRACKING STORY'S JUST STUCK IT'S SPURS INTO MY KIDNEYS. BREATH COMES FAST N HARD. I LOOK UP .. 71 .. i reach up .. my weight pulls, pulls, pulls me back .. ANOTHER KICK! WHEN WILL THIS never END? .. i reach up, grab, miss .. up, grab, miss .. pant .. up, grab, miss .. HOLD FAST! My mouth is dry. I lick the water drippling down the rock. Water? This is no water. The bodily fluids of thouuuuuusaaaaands of toiloing writers high above me stream over the rocks. They offer no relief. Why wld they? I am their enemy, albeit a pathetic sub-literal to the majestic Mexican sombrero of their greatness.
I gag. The slipperyness of this place terrifies me. My story Watching Swifts (amazon.com 99cts amazon.co.uk 77p) falls asleep. I read the tattoo on its happening arm: 'Warning: this story WILL bite.'
I sigh in relieved disbelief. Time for a shave and a shower, to go into the world, to forget all this .. blissful desperation .. with the latest best advice of a reader ringing in my 50:50 hearing: 'put more S&M in (or even M&S)' .. and that other comment from the unsmiling Brazilian woman '..it's all about winning Ron..' The lack of M&S in said story is clearly a greater flaw than the lack of S&M, my image action analysis consultant intern, Biggles Gutz, informs me, sales wise.
And so, let this chRONicle of wasted time show, I look up and focus on 71. 'I will have you,' I snarls. 'I WILL have YOU!'
Another broken writer hurtles past me .. hundreds and hundreds of sales won spill said fading talent's sack. I shut my eyes and whimper in thrice distilled terror. A warm stream runs down my trembling leg.
Now what? What ifresh torment be this? A metallic HeiRONymous Boch demon with eight reticulated egos, scurries down and shines a beam in my eye. It shakes it head. It sees no worth, moves on. A kickass London literary agent for you.
Up above, I hears the dragon helicopter once more. There are cheers, a band, P.J.HARTLEY? champage storks, the sound of shortlists being formulated. Said dragon-copter flies back to the publishing houuse in the burning tower.
I press my cheek against the sheer rock face of creative death. My eyes meet those of a mocking nutrino just a-passing on through... 'Check this new yoga-golf offer out, dude,' yells said nutrino. 'I TWEET YOU NOT! You just won't believe the suite of seven star benefits we've made standard in one easy-to-own enhanced premier membership package, just for youza.'
And so, no arse knowingly unlicked, UNLESS YOU BUY Watching Swifts NOWZA! I *WILL* POST MORE HERE. i TWEET YOU NOT!
And if you have already bought said Watching Swifts feel how, behind this flamless flim I love you deeply, eternally, AND! sincerely. I really do. *bows* Licks your ankle and peers up with imploring puppy dog eyes .. please, o please, please, please, can you get your best friend to invest in Watching Swifts or your worst enemy for that matter as that wld be the very best way for you to reciprocate the warmth of this gigantic love I have for you *licks other ankle in the sheerest supplication to your 10-candle genius, wit n brilliance*
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