Why Some Free Doesn’t Work
This is a sad story about a writer who, for right now, isn’t making it.
What’s she doing wrong? How can I criticize her approach, when I’m advocating giving the fruits of one’s labors away for free? Simple: she and I are talking about two different approaches. Now, I feel for this girl, I really do, but her present circumstance–“broke and unemployed,” in her words, after quitting her job to travel the world–is entirely of her own making. And no, this isn’t one of those situations where someone gave it their all and things didn’t work out. This is, rather, a situation where she sat back and waited for a miracle to occur.
Somehow, she was “just going to become” popular and in turn parlay her newfound fame (as a blogger) into cash. “Somehow” was the part she never worked out. And a vague sensation that “other people appear to have done this” isn’t a plan. Nor can one really categorize her efforts as the “hard work” she claims. Because they largely constituted her having lots of hard-partying fun and then writing about it. She, in short, traveled for herself and did what she, herself thought was interesting and expected everyone else in the world to be just as interested in her as she was.
Blogging can sometimes translate into money. But, as with any kind of writing, there has to be a plan. The plan I propose in Indie Success, which is essentially what I’m doing with this Wattpad experiment, is to get people interested in my writing so that they buy my other books. It’s the same reason I offer sample chapters of all of my books here, on my site: so they can decide, for themselves, whether they’re interested and if they are buy my book. Telling people to “buy my book” works about as well as knocking on doors and trying to get people interested in Greenpeace. While naked, smearing yourself in dung, and singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
“I find my own travels fascinating, therefore you should to” is the blogging equivalent of tweeting ten (or more) times a day about how your book is fabulous and everyone should buy it. I have friends who do that, on Twitter and Facebook; I’ve unfollowed them because spam annoys me. Yes, I get it. You want money; you want me to give you money. But there’s that hitch: what’s in it for me?
There has to be some rhyme or reason to the plan other than, “I really, really want this to work for me.” There has to be an end game. With free book promotions on Amazon, etc, my end game is pretty obvious: the first hit’s free, and all that. With Wattpad, like I discussed the other day, my primary goal is to reach a new audience. I have enough confidence in my work to think that, if people are exposed to it, they’ll like it. And no, I really don’t plan on making any money off of this particular book. Although I do plan to eventually release it as a real book, through Amazon and all the usual channels, I’ll also most likely be leaving it up on Wattpad. For some time, possibly forever. There’s no gimmick; free is free and everyone who wants to read it should be able to.
Which would be a terrible idea…if Book of Shadows were my only book, or the last book I ever intended to write. Which it isn’t. My next book, after BOS, may also begin life on Wattpad or I may introduce it directly through Amazon, as I’ve done with all my previous books. But, however I do so, my goal is to do so with a new and expanded audience that I otherwise wouldn’t have reached.
