Writers of books are now, it seems, required to blog on schedule, buy copious and expensive advertising; schedule, promote and run around to "events;" and handle all their own merchandising and marketing. The latter isn't new. BTW. Besides catalog placement, even the Big 5 have never done very much in those lines for authors, unless said authors are already huge. Nobody really knows how to connect with the reader, and it's mostly a matter of luck. BTDT.
But...but...but...isn't the proper job of a writer of books to write books?
Well, yes. And that's what I've been doing. Book Three will go to its editor next week, after a rest involving some travel and dental work (Implant, Part Two) on my part, and a final review.
It's not over, though. There will be revisions. There will be line-editing. There will be copy editing. There will be illustrations. There will be the writing of front and back matter. There will be formatting and cover work, which I have to review. These are part of writing a book, and it has ever been so. Then, finally, there will be publication.
With this third book in the series, I find that all the non-proper-job things are mere distractions from my real work. This poses a problem for which there is no easy solution, especially in the days when the "industry" has revamped itself to take money from writers by promising reviews and advertising and do not promise results in terms of sales because they actually do not deliver those sales. It's also a problem because so many writers toss out first drafts which need serious editing and revision at best and it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Especially since all of the pay-to-play exposure forums are accessible to anybody with the cash. What to do?
I keep on with my proper job. I write books. And here I am, back on the blog trail for a while until I head off to Japan for, among other things, research for Book Four.
It's enormous fun, the books are professionally published, and damned good, so my proper job is what I plan to keep on doing.
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The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy
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