I didn’t write for money or sales – but now I am in a marketing jail.

“Best selling author” and “NYT Best seller,” and “Award winning,” 

Titles and badges, all thrown around like confetti at a wedding. I used to lift my head from writing to gander at the earned bragging rights, then smile and go back to writing. I was happy, content and truly submerged in my own little world where I could conjure up a house to my needs, a river to my precise measures, a valley and friends to my exact fancy.  I wrote for a year and a half, my books floated back and forth from the top seller’s lists and ranks – but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care for the analytics, I didn’t care for the numbers, and I didn’t care for the hurtful things that were flung my way during this time either.

Then one day, I lifted my head and a jailer stood there in front of me with a set of cuffs, a neck brace and a helmet stuck with electric devices akin to that used in old Frankenstein movies to dole out shock therapy.

“You have to market your work this way,” and “You cannot be taken serious  if you aren’t selling your work,” or “Don’t give it away, don’t be lazy,”

 

These were my charges. Of course, this came after the accusations of being too fat to write, and too illiterate to write, and do this or that… I pushed through it all, waded through it and now… Now I am in a jail and it feels like shit.

I cannot afford to pay someone to do my marketing  – and I am filled to the brim with inspiration for new works – but I have a responsibility to the community, the publisher and the fantastic team who rely on me. Well, that is what I tell myself.

I feel the world is now looking at me, waiting for me to screw up, waiting for me to make a mistake – none of them are truly there to see me succeed. Well, that is, at least, what I tell myself.

“Write a blog or you will fail!” – “Don’t write a blog, it will make you fail!” – “Spam Facebook!” – “Don’t spam Facebook!” – “Tweet this way!” – “Don’t tweet at all!” and so the list grows. Do this, do that, the reason why you are failing, the way to fail at marketing, the failure of authors who do not market, Fail… Fail… Fail… 

It all becomes a sea of clashing information, while the jailer laughs at me. I am drowning in a pisspot full of analytics. I am swallowing down the force-fed marketing methods from someone else’s plate. I am sinking in the bottomless pit with the ball and chain tied to my ankle – all the while, the jailer laughs, and the masses assemble to watch the spectacle.

And all I want to do, is write. Get rid of the cuffs on my wrists and write. Not write a marketing post. Not give some expert advice to which I am no expert. Not another list of ten things I should do, could do, will have to do, must do, because some  guru tells me if I don’t… I will fail.

The truth is, I am only now realizing, I have succeeded. I have actually managed to accomplish something I have only dreamt of: And now I must put a price on it. I have had the help of amazing people – people who I could never pay or repay for what they have done for me…  People who invested in me to achieve the goals of greatness they believe to reside in my work.

“Give up take-outs,” I am told in response to my problem of affordability, “Give up coffee,” and “Cut out luxuries,” and “It is only $10.” 

I am sorry to inform you, Mr. and Mrs. Marketing Expert, but the next step for me would be to cut my internet connection in order to save money. It would be to give up treatment, or food. It would be to negotiate with my child’s education. It would be to gamble with the need for medication. It would be to give up altogether – if, as you say, my success is only measured in sales.

In order to sell my dreams, I have to sell my soul and I am NOT okay with that. I want to write. I don’t want to be a marketing fundi, I don’t want to be a socialite, I don’t want to be an undiscovered gem. I want… to write.

I am sorry if what I do is not good enough. I am sorry if I let anyone down – but I am picking this lock, and I am freeing my hands so that my mind can be freed and my words can be unblocked.

And I know, for sure, that what I do do to ‘market’ my work, and the team I have in support – may not be instant in results, but it will be enough to garnish the ability for a future enlistment of professional services.

But I am also initiating a jail-break.

I am scribbling my name at the bottom of that pit, and marking each milestone with my own name signed: “Adri was here,” so that those who falls down there behind me, can see it is possible to get back to the top… And the top is not strewn with gold but with pages and pages of words on paper… Pages and pages of imagination poured from the depths of a soul with, or without, a list of what was done wrong, marketing failures and general judgment of the price to be paid for dreams.

Written by Adri Sinclair, romance Author of Hidden Carmina.