I have been suffering from writer’s block. My latest effort is stalled. Part of me wants to go in one direction; another part wants to take a completely different tack. This is massively unproductive. I feel myself moving toward a resolution. I should be writing again soon. Writing a novel is like buying a lottery ticket. The odds of being published are only slightly better than winning the billion-dollar jackpot. We bought a lottery ticket on Tuesday. If we win, you may not hear from us for a while.
I’ve decided to go for traditional publishing. That means I have to find a literary agent before anything else can happen. Unfortunately, literary agents are no better than real estate agents. Their job is to sell books to publishers. Authors are just laborers who beg to get noticed. I’ve had no luck getting an agent to pay enough attention to my work to bother reading the first ten pages. Grrr!
You could argue that I’m not a good enough writer to warrant the attention. Maybe I’m not. You can decide for yourself. I’ve written more than a million words in blog posts here.
The reason I’m not self-publishing my novels is that I can’t afford to promote them. Amazon will publish a book at no charge. It will appear on the website. However, you won’t see it on any search unless you get very specific in your search request. Advertising on Amazon and Facebook is expensive. There’s very little chance book sales will cover the cost of the ads.
There are other ways to promote a book using social media influencers. I don’t know how to do that. Even if I did, the chances are very good that my results would be disappointing. Over 200,000 books are published every year. See what I mean about lottery tickets?
This has nothing to do with male chastity or domestic discipline. As I’m sure you know, most of my life isn’t occupied by those things. This is one of those posts that lets me share what else is going on in my life. If you know any literary agents, maybe put in a good word for me.
