Successfully shamed...

The blog did its job.

So much for the once a week plan.

But I'm here now and that's all that counts.

Varuna Kannon is now officially part of the running for the ABNA 2011 title of supreme being.

We'll see how that goes.

Currently slogging on a synopsis. I'd forgotten how hateful this task was.

Actually (warning, tangent alert) I was listening to KUOW today and one report was on how folks trying to stay relevant after losing their jobs have to market, market, market themselves. Have to make the connections, have to know what they're selling (themselves), have to know how to highlight all their pros and speculate future success of a company based on the skills they bring with them.

In so many ways it reminded me of the querying process.

At writer's group last night, we had a laugh over the fact we were all so far behind in self-promotion. Some of us have blogs to promote ourselves, but are we blogging/tweeting/whatever to promote our blogs? And if so, have we already established a wide potential customer pool before bringing our book to the publisher? No? Why not?

When one of my group members suggested that if she could sell 5-7k books on her own, then a publisher would likely pick her up, I had to hard swallow.

Somewhere at some point on some blog where an author who'd reached 'bestselling' status said they'd give the rest of us insight as to what that meant, she noted that a 5-7k print run was the 'recoup the cost' run, and not much more than that made it to bestseller.

I may be actually misparaphrasing her...my memory keeps trying to tell me as little as 5k sold can make your book a best seller.

Whatever. The point is, the 'publisher' isn't providing much of a service anymore if you have to bring 5k sold with you.

Unless your name has 'sales appeal', you're likely to get published and left to publicize your baby on your own...but the publisher/printer will still take a hefty cut, thank you very much.

Why would I share any of the profits at that point when I, the author, have done all the creative work and then all the business work?

That's kind of a rhetorical question.

All this points to just how in flux this industry is. Four years ago eBooks 'weren't going to make it'...ta-da...they are.

Now,self-publishing doesn't have the stigma it used to (vanity is so 2007). In fact, it's a better vetting mechanism than agents!

Sorry agents.

It's an ever curious evolution I'm witnessing.

Wonder where it will be when I finally break on through...

Peace
A Pink American