Trying to get yourself and your books noticed? Try bashing a famous author online!

There are literally thousands upon thousands of books out there. Several thousand of those fall in my genre/ sub-genres. Celine hasn’t preformed as well as I had hoped, but I hope that with the rest of the series being released, I may get a bit more noticed. However, I am not going to blame Stephenie Meyer or Charlene Harris for my lack of sales. They are famous authors who have had huge success with vampire romance novels. Their book sales make mine look like a few pennies in a fountain by comparison. Do I think for a minute that they should stop writing so that my books have a chance? No because what good would it do? There are so many vampire romance novels out there that even if those two pulled their books from store shelves, pulled the movies/ TV show, merchandise etc., my chances of getting noticed are still slim to none. Does this get me down? Maybe a little, because that does kind of suck, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to give up faced with that thought. I have the determination, so why stop now?

I read an article today that really sparked the idea for this post. Lynn Shepher, the author of the article, basically said that J. K. Rowling should stop writing so that other books have a chance because she is already famous. What good would that do for the author of the article? Little to no good because there are still thousands of authors out there trying to be the next Rowling. I don’t understand why one person’s success should be the subject of another’s bitter ramblings. I don’t know of many books that could rip Harry Potter from its place among the greats, and nothing that J.K. Rowling has done since has done quite as well, but where does it say that she has no right trying pursue other genres? Unless it’s in some publishing company manual somewhere not accessible to those that have self-published.

This little quote from the article bothered me as well.

I did think it a shame that adults were reading them[The Harry Potter Series] (rather than just reading them to their children, which is another thing altogether), mainly because there’s so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds.

As a New Adult author who actually enjoys YA novels, I found this quote beyond rude. Adults have every right to read a novel, regardless of genre or audience. Since we, as authors, have the obligation to get people to read, what kind of sense is there in trying to belittle people?

Of course, in writing this post, I had to do a bit of digging myself to see what kind of reviews and attention Ms. Shepherd was getting on her novels. (Reviews of her novel are only available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads.) Ms. Shepherd has less than flattering numbers, granted most are in retaliation of her article. However, from those that were actual reviews, I gathered that Ms. Shepherd struggles with formatting and her stories are more like geared up fan fiction than actual independent ideas. She has a thing for the Victorian era and makes an attempt to give a Dickens like feel to her books. After seeing that, I think I get the reasoning behind her article. When you think you have a niche and you think people will pay good money to read it, it is kind of disheartening to have people not like it. But throwing a tantrum on Huffington Post not only leaves you open to scrutiny, it will further drop your ratings and sales, and makes you look like a child. I do wish her luck, but I think that perhaps if she cares about writing, she should stop.