{"id":586,"date":"2016-01-04T19:26:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T19:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=586"},"modified":"2016-01-04T19:26:38","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T19:26:38","slug":"moan-moan-complain-complain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/04\/moan-moan-complain-complain\/","title":{"rendered":"Moan, moan, complain, complain …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"write<\/a><\/p>\n

Once again, I\u2019m inclined to write about the ability (or otherwise) of writers to achieve commercial success and \/ or recognition for their writing. This follows complaints from some would-be authors:<\/p>\n

a) An indie author complains that their books aren\u2019t selling enough to enable them to give up work and write full time.<\/p>\n

b) An unpublished author complains about continuing rejections from agents and publishers.<\/p>\n

Both complainants stated that they\u2019d been working hard for some time to produce the best books they could, and they\u2019d paid out for editing services – one of them, a considerable amount, well into four figures in dollars.<\/p>\n

I know, I know. I sighed, too.<\/p>\n

But the thing to remember? No one owes you a living. And the other thing to remember? The best books don\u2019t necessarily sell, and some bad books sell tons. Fifty Shades of Whatever-It-Was sold HUGE numbers, but everyone freely admits the writing was a bit dodgy. Dan Brown is a multi-millionaire on the back of his conspiracy thrillers. Quality of writing? Meh.<\/p>\n

If you look at the best sellers in any book list, you might be surprised at what you see. I\u2019ve just looked, but I\u2019m not surprised. The first fiction book (Girl On A Train) comes in at 14th\u00a0<\/span>. And it\u2019s the only fiction book on the list. The rest of the top 20 is made up of colouring books and food \/ diet \/ body and mind health books. How can you expect to make money writing fiction these days?\u00a0What can you do?<\/p>\n

I know.<\/p>\n

WRITE<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s simply that. Too much time is spent on whining about making money from writing, when time can be better spent actually, you know, writing. Because that\u2019s what writers do. And if you\u2019re already self-published, what\u2019s the best way of increasing sales? Write more stuff.<\/p>\n

Slowly, authors and self-publishers are realising that they\u2019re shifting away from the core desires that got them into this game in the first place. They want to tell stories. But self-publishing has turned authors into entrepreneurs. Even traditionally-published authors are requested to have a presence on social media, and run a website and blog, and update on Facebook. Although that is important for sales, it\u2019s sometimes tempting to do too much of that, and less of the storytelling.<\/p>\n

So make 2016 the year that you write some more new stuff. Novels, short stories, any creative fiction. You won\u2019t regret it.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t just take my word for it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Joe Konrath: http:\/\/jakonrath.blogspot.co.uk\/2016\/01\/pay-writer.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Kristine Katherine Rusch: http:\/\/kriswrites.com\/2015\/12\/30\/business-musings-the-upcoming-year\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Elizabeth Hunter: http:\/\/elizabethhunterwrites.com\/2015\/12\/28\/ten-things-i-learned-about-publishing-in-2015\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, I\u2019m inclined to write about the ability (or otherwise) of writers to achieve commercial success and \/ or recognition for their writing. This follows complaints from some would-be authors: a) An indie author complains that their books aren\u2019t selling enough to enable them to give up work and write full time. b) An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thinking","category-writing-on-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-9s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}