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What is the hardest part of being an author?
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Hands down, the toughest part of being an author for me is the promotion side. It's just not very fun trying to get people to read my books when marketing isn't something that comes natural to someone like me who has no shame in saying he's an introvert. I'd much rather pound out my next masterpiece on my word processor (self-proclaimed masterpiece, I know!), than sound like a used car salesman screaming in all caps "BUYMYBOOK, BUYMYBOOK, BUYMYBOOK!!!".It's why I've given up on the hard pitch. I rather just hang out with readers on sites like this one and talk about my favorite books. Hopefully, they'll want to check out my books. If not, I know I'll make some cool friends along the way.
On the other hand, the easiest part of being an author is actually writing the book. It's the only part of the process in which the author has full autonomy (except for the cases where an author chooses to go the DIY approach in producing their books). For me, nothing beats watching my characters come to life on the page. Well, getting the occasional five star review from readers don't hurt either. ;)
I agree. Advertising it the hardest part. If I had several books under my belt and some cash to work with advertising wouldn't be so bad. I don't, I have zero cash down, so it all comes to me to sell it.
Yeah marketing is what seems to be kicking my butt as an author.
I'm really not trying to promote my blog here but I cannot remember the list of stuff I've tried so far. http://nicholasforristal.blogspot.com/Check it out, maybe there's something in there you haven't thought to try. I update quite often. Again, not trying to promote it, just offering some suggestions I cannot remember off the top of my head. :)
I totally agree with Kevis - in fact now my marketing efforts all go towards writing my next book! ;-) BUT I'm also slowing down, meaning if I'm not totally happy with a book and betas found faults and things like that, I won't put it out immediately. But then, last year I had books ready that only needed editing and proofreading, this year I'm improvising a little more... but still having fun!Whenever I stop having fun in getting digital, I'll stop. But as I love writing, I doubt I'll ever stop. So you're stuck with this prolific writer here! ;-)
Trying to get readers to find my book amidst the millions of other titles out there.
Writing is hard. Editing is harder. Getting published in nearly impossible. Getting people to read what you've written? Mildly difficult. Getting people to pay money to read what you've written? Now that's hard, especially when you're one author in a million and nobody knows who you are.
Trying to get people to see my writings is the toughest part. With the ability to self publish, there are millions of books to compete against and that number will only grow larger as time goes on. When it gets to billions to one, the only way to be seen might be through a publishing house, just like like it use to be. If you have a good advertising budget at your command you can still do it yourself. I think that trying to make yourself unique thins out the competition around you but at the same time it also probably thins out your chances of being seen.
I'll say without hesitation - marketing. It's really a tough call in self publishing.
Yeah, another vote for marketing. It's brutal. As I've mentioned elsewhere, if you look at sales online then compare them with the indies you love, you'll find the best indie authors are often the lousiest marketers, and the more time the author has free -- because they don't spend much time on writing -- the more they tend to sell.It's a very slow build with enormous amounts of work. The upside is, even if you're an antisocial cat like myself, book folks are usually decent people.
Barbara has effectively outlined my strategy for this business. When I published my first book, I made the critical mistake of spending more time attempting to get people to buy it than working on my next novel. I learned quickly that this is not only the path to madness, but also low book sales. You want to have a career in this business? Look at what all successful authors do. They write books. Lots of them!I know an author whose debut novel stayed in the top 100 paid books on Amazon for more than a year. She made a killing on that novel. But imagine how many more books she would have sold if she had another book available for repeat customers? Eventually, she, too, figured out she had made a mistake focusing on her one published title instead of finishing the ones she had sitting on her hard drive.
Truth is, no book we publish is guaranteed sales. The trick is to keep putting them out hoping that one, or preferably some, of them will take flight. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
The hardest part I would say is promoting. You have to have a supportive helping publishing company behind you, the right tools, know some people, target the right audience and get things setup where you can make an impact. I myself have done alot to promote but know I could have and could do alot more but the key is to make good on the things you do have to promote and when there's an opportunity it should be seized.Editing can also be a pain. First you have to go over it yourself and you can do this many times but your very likely to miss something so then you have a friend of family member look it over and then you get a professional editor to go over it and then comes the fixing stuff or finding things that should be changed, taking suggestions and fixing it up to where the final draft is flawless. So the good part is after countless edits the work will be good but the process of getting there is the pain.
I wont touch on Reviews because we all have been there before..getting them or there lack of..enough said lol.
I would agree, Justin. I've found that getting beyond my circle of family and friends has proved to be a challenge, although I did have some success just today. It's my first "break," and it'll be interesting to see if it drives more traffic to my website(it's a guest post on Indie Author News - www.IndieAuthorNews.com.I've realized that there is a HUGE learning curve when it comes to tackling issues like marketing, targeting a specific audience, getting page views (likes, retweets) etc. Ugh! I'll keep you posted on how I fare with my "break." If it's helpful, it may be something for you to consider?
TBH, I spent a year trying to promote ODS1 and what I discovered when I finally burnt out and downed tools was that it made no difference to my sales at all!! They were the tiniest trickle before and continued to be the tiniest trickle with no marketing at all.Then I brought out a short freebie and the trickle got a little bigger; and with Book 2, the trickle has got a little bigger again. It's early days yet but as far as I an see Barbara and Kevis are absolutely right to say that multiple books sell books better than marketing.
Besides, there's a very fine line to tread between marketing and spamming, so that can be quite draining and time consuming. Me, I've given up on the marketing entirely and though my life is too mad to allow for significant writing time, I manage an hour most weekdays and have just finished the first draft of another short, am working on the first paperback, and potentially could finish up to four shorts and the third book by the end of the year. I'd expect to see the difference at that point!!
So to get back to the OP, now that I've ditched marketing, the main difficulty is finding time to work on it when I'm not gibbering tired - mostly my lunch hour and my commute home at the moment, though I occasionally miss the stop if I get to an exciting bit and get too into it!. The easiest bit is the actual splurge of the first draft, when the characters simply do their thing and all I do is watch and record...
And that has the biggest kick to it too!
JAC
I am trying to write my first book. I believe going with the freebies and or. 99¢ kindle singles will get me some popularity. Then release a book. please if you all have a second. be so kind and check out my two stories here on Goodreads. leave a comment. bad or good. THANKS
Promoting the book and asking for reviews. It's mental hell, especially the getting reviews part. And Kindle Singles was no help for me (spell double rejection!). On the easy side, writing and editing is the easiest because I'm spilling my creative aura into the MS Word Processor.
Agreed. Getting your book noticed is the hardest part. It doesn't help that publishers/agents seem to only be going for a specific formula of novel (when it comes to YA anyway) which is why there is so much of the same thing out.They seem to only want stories that have:
1. Love-triangle/insta-love with a supernatural element.
2. A plot that sounds good in summary.
3. A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or as I call it; Katniss/Bella syndrom. I.E. A tough, independant heroine that turns to goo as soon as a hot guy shows up.
Nipaporn wrote: "Promoting the book and asking for reviews. It's mental hell, especially the getting reviews part."When I published my first book before ebooks took off a few years back, it was relatively easy to get a book review. What's funny is that back then most reviewers and bloggers wouldn't look at an indie book. Now there are more blogs and reviewers than ever before and it seems darn near impossible to get them to review your book with the never ending deluge of new books raining out of the sky.
It doesn't help that some authors are muddying the waters by attacking readers and reviewers who dare to say they don't like their books. Way I see it, few things are more precious for an author trying to build a fan base than the people who take the time out of their busy lives to comment on our books. I, for one, don't take them for granted and would advise other authors not to either.
Kevis wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "Promoting the book and asking for reviews. It's mental hell, especially the getting reviews part."When I published my first book before ebooks took off, it was relatively easy to..."
You're not kidding. Have you seen this? - Vanity author rampages again
Wow. I thought I'd seen it all before. But that's one of the worse cases of author abuse to a reviewer I've ever come across. That's the kind of behavior that gives every indie author a bad name. That author deserves every bit of scorn she gets. No wonder it's getting tougher to get reviews. Who would want to put up with any of that nonsense?
The same sort of people that sound like a cat being strangled when they sing infront of the X factor judges then complain when they aren't accepted through to the next round?
S.L.J. wrote: "The same sort of people that sound like a cat being strangled when they sing infront of the X factor judges then complain when they aren't accepted through to the next round?"Yet another example of the societal cancer known as the entitlement mentality.
Hehe, one of my characters has that. :P
As long as your character doesn't plan on writing books, he or she should do just fine. ;)
Kevis wrote: "As long as your character doesn't plan on writing books, he or she should do just fine. ;)"Nah, she plans on killing everybody. :P
Don't worry, It's a paranormal YA/Urban Fantasy and she's not human.
S.L.J. wrote: "Kevis wrote: "As long as your character doesn't plan on writing books, he or she should do just fine. ;)"Nah, she plans on killing everybody. :P
Don't worry, It's a paranormal YA/Urban Fantasy a..."
Ha,ha. Sounds like one of my characters. I think she'd get along nicely with yours. Then again...
the hardest thing for an author is to write a original story. just look at your bookcase and i believe you would have a hard time to find more than 5 book of these, especially if it is trad. published.
Something I've been having to deal with is that I'm writing a monthly series of stories and I have to market this with a summary. If this was a full on book it would be ten times easier because it's all contained in the one book. Instead, I have to summarize a piece at a time without giving anything away AND make it sound appealing.I'm hoping, in the long run, that this series will slowly be picked up and a fan base will come of it. Works for comics and television.
Kevis wrote: "S.L.J. wrote: "Kevis wrote: "As long as your character doesn't plan on writing books, he or she should do just fine. ;)"Nah, she plans on killing everybody. :P
Don't worry, It's a paranormal YA/..."
LOL. Uh-oh! Another ship!
One thing I think might help is if Goodreads took the IMDB approach which allows for reviews before a release but not ratings.
Books at aren't out until 2013 already have 5 star ratings and some have 1 star ratings even though nobody has actually read it yet.
I don't think it's very fair and again makes it harder for authors to get their works off the ground.
S.L.J. wrote: "Kevis wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "Promoting the book and asking for reviews. It's mental hell, especially the getting reviews part."When I published my first book before ebooks took off, it was rela..."
It's people like that Vanity author that gives Self Published/Indie authors a bad name.
Nicholas wrote: "Something I've been having to deal with is that I'm writing a monthly series of stories and I have to market this with a summary. If this was a full on book it would be ten times easier because it'..."I've done that with my short stories. I published them in a "book+magazine" form on Smashwords, and promoting every story was so hard, and to get 3 bad reviews and a 2 good reviews on one issue (I'm not the type of author that attacks reviewers) I gave it up. Publishing the stories in one 200k-word book and promoting it is much easier, plus the good stories outweight the bad ones, but there's also a drawback to it (like everything else).
Patrick wrote: "the hardest thing for an author is to write a original story. just look at your bookcase and i believe you would have a hard time to find more than 5 book of these, especially if it is trad. publis..."It's fairly easy for me to write original stories. I do it all the time **cough**spacedragons*cough.* I think/believe most authors only want to cash in on a trend before it leaves and people tire of it. I can name a few:
Magic school trend, initiated by Harry potter
Vampire and Wolf trend, initiated by Twilight
Paranormal shifter books, initiated by Erotica and Twilight
Dystopian crap, initiated by The Hunger Games (the addition of the word "crap" is for comedic effect)
and soon it will be DRAGONS, or SPACE DRAGONS or DRAGON SHIFTERS or Alien Dragons, a trend I hope to initiate (but I also don't want it to become a trend, because it'll tire and I'll hate it)
Nipaporn wrote: "Patrick wrote: "the hardest thing for an author is to write a original story. just look at your bookcase and i believe you would have a hard time to find more than 5 book of these, especially if it..."I thought Dystopia was still popular...and angels.
What I'm wanting to do is publish as a monthly series, but once I reach a certain point in the main plot I'll issue that set of episodes as a paperback. This way my audience isn't just e-book readers, and to (hopefully) grab the attention of people who don't think short stories are worthwhile. After all, there's not a huge difference in a short story series from chapters in a book.I may have over thought this as well. :P
Nipaporn wrote: "Patrick wrote: "the hardest thing for an author is to write a original story. just look at your bookcase and i believe you would have a hard time to find more than 5 book of these, especially if it..."You're totally right about the cyclical nature of book trends. That's why it's best to write what you want. Even if think you're writing for a dead market, eventually the world will come full circle and catch up to you. Then Voila! Your books are already on the market and all ready for the next trend. ;)
S.L.J. wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "Patrick wrote: "the hardest thing for an author is to write a original story. just look at your bookcase and i believe you would have a hard time to find more than 5 book of these,..."I think before vampires it was angels and demons. I'm not entirely sure what made angels and demons popular.
Nipaporn wrote: "S.L.J. wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "Patrick wrote: "I think before vampires it was angels and demons. I'm not entirely sure what made angels and demons popular. "
The Bible? I know. Bad joke. :P
Kevis wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "S.L.J. wrote: "Nipaporn wrote: "Patrick wrote: "I think before vampires it was angels and demons. I'm not entirely sure what made angels and demons popular. "
The Bible? I know. ..."
That made me chuckle.
Nicholas wrote: "What I'm wanting to do is publish as a monthly series, but once I reach a certain point in the main plot I'll issue that set of episodes as a paperback. This way my audience isn't just e-book reade..."You might want to try the Subscription Book genre. It's something I made up and still in the experimental stages. Each month I add a story to the main book I am writing, and people are notified of this update via email through Amazon. I advertise the book's newest update like as if it were a standalone book. You should experiment with it, too. It only works for loosely linked stories, but I'm sure it'll work for you, too!
Promo. It's horrible. Torture. I just want to write. If I spend my time on promo, I'm not writing!
I'm going to concentrate on getting my next book out there (due at dev ed's late July--to be released hopefully Nov this year). Then I'll consider promo, possibly...But then again I'm trying to release the final two novels in the series in 2013, so maybe the promo will just have to wait until I'm finished. But then I have the synopsis written for another novel (Terra), which I've been busting to get into for years...
I'm going to concentrate on getting my next book out there (due at dev ed's late July--to be released hopefully Nov this year). Then I'll consider promo, possibly...But then again I'm trying to release the final two novels in the series in 2013, so maybe the promo will just have to wait until I'm finished. But then I have the synopsis written for another novel (Terra), which I've been busting to get into for years...
I get so annoyed by my day job. Seriously. i just don't have time... :)
The promotion and marketing are by far the hardest part. I hate marketing. I just want to write! From what I hear, everyone says focus on finishing the next book and then worry about marketing. I'm trying, but still it would be nice to sell a couple books now and then. Of course, sometimes the writing itself is like opening a vein.
Cindy wrote: "The promotion and marketing are by far the hardest part. I hate marketing. I just want to write! From what I hear, everyone says focus on finishing the next book and then worry about marketing. I'm..."It is especially hard when you don't have the necessary tools and know people who can help cause then its like your trying your hardest which isn't much, at least thats my experience. The best thing is to do what you can and when an opportunity comes to promote and market seize it, best thing.
Another thing I think is hard is preparing your work. For instance, I have my 2nd work planned out and am working on it but getting it just right where I don't have to keep going back is annoying! I find myself asking is this enough? Did I cover everything? Should I add something? Maybe thats just me but I know when I'm done I'm going to be going back and editing the crap out of this thing haha
J.D. wrote: "I get so annoyed by my day job. Seriously. i just don't have time... :)"LOL! Yeah, we all want to quit that - such time-waster for our writing time! :-D
And we will get there eventually, just remember it's a marathon, so keep your strength for the long run! ;-)
I think it's tie between editing and promoting. Editing isn't really hard as it is painful. :)
Writing the book, editing the book, trying to get someone or self publish the book, promoting the book, asking readers to review the book, not responding to scathing reviews, etc.
On the opposite side, what would be the easiest? (In comparison to the other things.)