AUTHOR'S CORNER;

LIVING THE DREAM

It's wonderful being an author, great to have your book out there and on the shelves, circulating the literary world.  Yes, it is fantastic being able to call yourself an author, a creator of fiction, the puppet master of characters in your very own special world.  Clever you! God knows you've worked hard enough for it, suffered long enough for it, watched with great envy as one new author after another graced the shelves of the high street bookshops.  Sighed dreamily at the television when ever an author was interviewed on the morning shows.  You've toiled away patiently at your keyboard, tap, tap, tapping away into the early hours of the morning, creating, painting, furnishing your pages with tantalising story lines and interesting characters!

You have smiled humbly at the mountain of rejection letters that you have received from agents and publishers, reassuring yourself that your time will come.

 And through all of this, through all the hardship, rejections, nights of writer's block and days of editing and re-editing your work, you have kept yourself sane with one single notion....THE DREAM!  you have kept your eye firmly fixed on that big white fluffy cloud in the distance and knew that just behind it lay a rainbow and with it your time to shine.

 

 And finally your dream arrives; wrapped in a pink bow and a party popper for good measure!

You are published my friend, and you ought to be dead proud!

The years of waiting are over, the long lonely road which is tread by struggling writers has come to an end!  You are now officially a writer, not just someone who is aspiring to become a writer, not some deluded person with a word processor and idle time on your hands!  Not a dreamer, not a sad, lonely person who thinks they can write!  No, you have been promoted to the ranks of the creative, the talented, the insightful literary type!  Soon, people all over the nation will learn your name, read your words and praise your mind!  Soon you shall grace the high streets across the land and in each bookshop your book shall reside....soon?  Umm...not quite so soon!  

REALITY CHECK....

Because you now have the task of selling your books in order to promote your books....umm, aren't I supposed to have my books promoted  first in order to sell them?

Which came first; the chicken or the egg?

And how are people going to buy my books when they have not heard of me?  What's that you say, sell them first and then promote?  REALLY????   Oh and by the way, you need to introduce YOURSELF to the bookshops!!  Not enough that you have written the book, not enough that you have it in print, published by a proper publisher, no, you need to try and convince the bookshop manager that you are actually a writer!

AND IT'S A LONG ROAD MY FRIEND!

If you think that the road previously travelled was a long one, think again!  The previously travelled road was a walk in the park.  This road takes a lot of grovelling, much persuasion and an awful lot telephone calls!  

You will find that you will be spending at least 40 percent of your time a week on the telephone ringing up bookshops trying to arrange a book signing!  And no matter how polite, how well spoken or how clever you sound, it will be like trying to draw blood out of a rock!  With the exception of a few kind managers and event people, you are basically chasing your tail! The manager or event person is not remotely interested and treats you with the sort of contempt one would treat an unwanted guest!

Even though you will effectively be boosting their sales with no added cost to themselves! They doubt that you are actually any good and even though they can actually see your book on their website, they can see the glowing reviews that a few good people have left, they are doubting that you are actually who you say you are, and imagine that if they should allow you into their store, that you as THE WRITER, will somehow frighten off all their customers!  Hello, this is a bookshop!! 

Because the question that will always arise, is who the hell are you?  Unless you are in the charts, unless you have been on television, to them you are....well, to them, you are not here!

You will find yourself explaining yourself an awful lot to the bookshop people, trying to convince them why your published book is any good, or even why it was worthy of publication in the first place!!

SOMETIMES, YOU WILL ALMOST BE REDUCED TO BEGGING....

This, my friends, is never a pretty sight!


And all the while, you, as the writer seem to be fading away out of the limelight! Self doubt will ensue! 

More pleading phone calls follow, more polite fobbing off on the manager's part will take place and you will...you will resort to phoning public libraries and local reading groups in a bid to get any recognition!  



You will find yourself debating helplessly with those who have the power to make or break you

ALL RESULTING IN THE CHIPPING AWAY OF THE SELF...  ALL RESULTING IN ONE SURE THING.....

The spiritual death of the writer!!  No wonder it's called dying for your art!