So now nobody knows how it works. Used to be the old send out review copies and get reviews in the trades and start the buzz and bookstores order up and people see your book or they hear about it in a review in a newspaper and there was some order to the process. And this all started with an advance and a publisher who was going to build you up. Gone with the Wind in the new world of the internet and the new norm of Eat What You Kill.
And it is not so different from all those grads sitting at home because they cant find a job. Those jobs are gone too. The same digital revolution obliterated business as we know it and publishing got the double hit of the ipodifcation of books. So for the author the marketing became make it up as you go. You might send out review copies and you might not. You may just go straight to the internet and upload your book and hang out on the kindleboards. Or you may look for that traditional publisher and bank on the fact that some people still want to hold a book between their sweaty hands.
But the point is the rules are all gone. As a publicist said to me: you have to do everything now and as a web designer said to me: you basically take on the whole world. So you either sell or you don't. That is it in the rudimentary nubby bottom line. You can upload all you want but if nobody buys does the tree really fall. Probably not. And so you have to dig in and do those a million and one things and hope one of them hits the bell.
In the meanwhile, you just keep pumping in those nickels and playing the slots. It works in Vegas. Sometimes.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have
And it is not so different from all those grads sitting at home because they cant find a job. Those jobs are gone too. The same digital revolution obliterated business as we know it and publishing got the double hit of the ipodifcation of books. So for the author the marketing became make it up as you go. You might send out review copies and you might not. You may just go straight to the internet and upload your book and hang out on the kindleboards. Or you may look for that traditional publisher and bank on the fact that some people still want to hold a book between their sweaty hands.
But the point is the rules are all gone. As a publicist said to me: you have to do everything now and as a web designer said to me: you basically take on the whole world. So you either sell or you don't. That is it in the rudimentary nubby bottom line. You can upload all you want but if nobody buys does the tree really fall. Probably not. And so you have to dig in and do those a million and one things and hope one of them hits the bell.
In the meanwhile, you just keep pumping in those nickels and playing the slots. It works in Vegas. Sometimes.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have
