5 Reasons Authors are Divas!
Number 1
No one ever told us how much marketing we'd have to do when we published our book. Seriously, that shit wasn't laid out there in the beginning. We had no idea we'd need a degree in human psychology and social media interaction to make anything of ourselves in the book world. Now that we've found out, we lament the loss of our writing time. It makes us grouchy on the best of days (no matter how many cups of coffee we imbibe). We're tired, frustrated, and downright pissed off most of the time because we don't have the magic formula, and when we find something that works, it's suddenly inundated with 5k other people doing the exact same thing. What happens then? We have to go back to the drawing board and pray whatever we try next works, and then wash, rinse, and repeat.
Number 2
It's literally all about us. All the time. We have to be our own biggest cheerleaders, and that makes our heads swell whether we want them to or not. When a person spends all day talking about themselves on social media, it's hard to step out of that mindset and remember how to focus on other people. Just know that most of us don't do it intentionally. Narcissism is a byproduct of marketing yourself.
Number 3
When a person sacrifices so much of themselves, both physically and mentally, to accomplish a task with the magnitude of publishing and marketing a book, they feel like they deserve some kind of reward or acknowledgement for all that they gave up to make it work. To put it simply: This shit ain't easy. Authors give up time with their families, time they'd spend on themselves, and even time to pause and eat something, for the cause. Do we want to take the time to go get mani-pedis? Hell yeah we do! But unless the nail person can come to our office and do our toes under the desk as we write (I still haven't figured out how the manicure would even occur--Dragon?), we're shit out of luck. I hear people say there need to be more hours in a day. That statement makes me laugh. We'd still use those hours to write or market. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and if we're not producing books, or talking about our stuff, we're screwed.
Number 4
We give a lot of stuff away. Why? Because this is what we've been told will make loyal readers. For every few dollars we make, we're probably spending ninety percent of it on giveaways and marketing. Hours are spent setting things up so readers have the most fun at our parties. Then, we find our books on pirate sites, posted by someone we gave an advance review copy to, or we get a one star review from someone we gave several prizes to, only to have them say they'll never read anything by us again. I mean, holy shit, Batman! Do you have any idea what that can do to a non-diva mindset? Yeah... So, we have to hold our heads up and say it doesn't bother us, put on a brave face, and forge ahead. Otherwise, we go down in all-consuming flames of depression and give up.
Number 5
We're tired of hearing how easy it is to write and publish a book. Seriously. So damned tired of it. We're also sick of people shunning us because we're not worldwide bestsellers with a million bucks in the bank. We freaking work hard, and we have to have an attitude about it because we know we've done something all those mouthing bastards who talk about how easy it is haven't done. If they had, they'd never spout all that bullshit to begin with. Rather than berate or negate us or our work, they'd genuflect. Regularly.Writing is a job. When someone works for themselves, they don't have 9-5 like regular folks. Authors usually work 10-18 hours a day. So do small business owners. Guess why? Yep, because being an author is the same thing as owning a small business.
At this point, are you wondering why we do it? If you are, just know it's because we love what we do. Writing books is what our insides tell us we must keep doing in order to stay sane.
Are you an author? Do you know one? What are your thoughts on the above?
Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!
Jo
