I’m aware of quite a few spots on the internet and ESPECIALLY on Facebook where the group leaders of their particular spots give wizardly advice on how to be a better author in this industry. I’m a member to a few of them and most of them are fairly informative if you can sort through the ‘Buy my book’ attacks.
I mostly trust the advice from a tiny-handful of sources on Facebook, my list of newsletters (http://www.desktopepics.com/blogs/top-9-1-self-publisher-essential-newsletters/) and Daphine Robinson (also on the list). I gotta put aalbc.com on that list. Hell, i have to update the newsletter listing with one other, too. Hmmm…
At the same time, I know a few others that are run with an iron fist and advice that transcends on a daily basis is usually from the owner and not someone particularly on the bestseller list to be giving advice in the first place! That’s like me giving advice about how to enter contests when, by now, you should know I do NOT enter contests and have no experience in doing so (unless you count those that I lost).
My point of view of the industry at this moment is one of ‘evolution’. There is no clear cut method or way to be a literary superstar and any means you try can be as successful or detrimental to your career. I’ve seen people win big by doing audio podcasts. I’ve seen people win big by writing their first and only novel. I’ve seen people win big by writing 40 novels in a year. We are in an anything goes literary world right now because the IPad, EBook, Kindle and the closing of imperialistic book stores are warping what use to be tried and true means to be a published author. The readers/buyers are not pigeon-holed to needing Barnes and Nobles as their only source of buying a book. Today’s bestseller cannot be accurately verified by New York Times anymore. Consider this: New York Times gets their data from book stores. How many book stores are left? You can be sure they get it from Barnes and Nobles, Books a million and one or two other chains, but do you think B&N would allow AMAZON to include their data to offset sale projections out of the stores? I believe the Bestseller List on the NY Times is skewered.
But that’s an example of advice from someone who HAS NOT been on the NY Times bestsellers list. So how secure should you be with that advice from me? Not very much at all. No experience and no books in-store (anymore) to give an accurate account.
That’s the problem with some of the folks on these groups. They pass out such heart-warming awe-inspiring “You should know your market”, “Consider where your ideas come from”, “Do this” “Do that” … and their own books aren’t necessarily flying off the shelves.
Again, I am someone who believes in trying all things and encouraging an author to explore out of the box thinking. Sure, I’ve been mocked for that kind of thinking, but I have verifiable ranking to prove what works and what doesn’t. So when I give advice, it’s based off of things that worked FOR ME and it’s up to an author to sample and see if it works for them. Blanket statements like “An author needs to identify their core strengths and stay the course” sounds like a daily horoscope: “You’ll find something to do today”: Vague and one-size-fits-all. You can identify your core strength and find out it still doesn’t work. Then what? Trust me … one thing I most definitely know about is being good at something (core strength) and it doesn’t do a damn bit of good except for yourself.
Here’s some advice that I have experience in: It’s great to be an author, even better to be a MARKETABLE author. You can write for yourself, auntie lou, cousin bob, mama cass and daddy doo all you want, but until you write where someone needs to PAY for what you wrote, it’s just a hobby. You may have identified your core strength as the greatest thriller writer on Earth and you’ll stay the course to it and sell one book to your daughter, once a year. Tell me about your core strengths now. Will you still stay the course or start adjusting your methods and find you may have multiple strengths and its time to blend them into a better thriller?
Adapt, change, evolve, think ahead, think differently and work hard. If you are serious about your work, you should be waking up seeing what works and what didn’t and going to bed thinking about it too. This is your work. Take off weekends if you must but being an author, unless you have a publishing house wiping your ass for you, is a daily grind that will stop cold if you do. And that means stopping cold in your creativity and marketing skills too.
Hate to put it in Kung-Fu terms, but you must be like water and adapt to the changes and flows of the industry, reading tastes, etc as you build your brand.
Non-Bonehead Advice Verification: This is advice coming from someone who (as of March 27th) started writing full-time, hardcore on January 1st 2012 and currently has two books in very good ranking on Amazon (under 20,000 out of one million) with a third slowly finding it’s legs and a fourth that’s dead in the water. I mean DEAD (Gravity Gone). LOL. It happens and I don’t expect it to do any better anytime soon. I am confident it can only get better from here as long as I continue to practice what I preach.
So I say to you, before you swoon over advice by people without verified proof of their success with the advice they give, take it all with a grain of salt: sample a little and do further digging. To those giving glowing, inspirational canned advice on a daily basis, I say to them it seems the best of their writing will be just that; to contribute to a narcissist lifestyle, but not really contributing to the growth of the author really trying to make moves.
Corey A. Burkes Author/CEO
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