The Greatest Folly for the Modern Author

Hello World,
First, let me apologize in advance for the length of this post... but it's not my fault. There's a big list down there that simply couldn't be helped. Feel free to just skim said list (in green) and actually read only the other good stuff.

 

Next, I didn't blog yesterday, nor did I write. However I was not a lazy, guilty author either.
:)

I was engaged in yet another long night of learning new tech.
:(

Here's a truth I resent but kind of geek out on: the modern author needs to be a salesman too.  With all the competition out there and the lack of connections most of us have, we are forced to do all the marketing ourselves. To prove how big of a deal it eventually becomes, here is a list of tech/ marketing I dove into, mostly in the past four years, and all solely in the hopes of furthering my writing career (presented chronologically for your amusement, starting in 1999):

THE LIST

-Reading the entire Microsoft Word manual
-Designing & printing flyers
-Designing & printing business cards
-Designing & printing bookmarks
-Researching portable wireless keyboards compatible with early smartphones
-Collecting a newsletter email list

-(Briefly) distributing an author's newsletter (this was before blogs existed)
-Designing & printing the proper page order in chapbook folio printings*
-Designing a website layout
-Working painstakingly with a web developer who frequently misinterpreted my website vision

-Researching proper formats for query letters to literary agents

-Writing & submitting query letters to literary agents

-Finding and attending a writers' convention

-Researching and submitting proper formats for short story submissions to magazines

-Following AuthorHouse formatting guidelines for my first book
-Designing book covers

___________________________________________________________________________

________________[demarcation line marking the year 2009... 4 years ago]_______________

-Learning to promote myself verbally to friends, family, & coworkers

-Creating and maintaining a short story submissions presence on Duotrope

-Creating and maintaining a Facebook author page

-Creating (and soon deleting) a Twitter author page
-Following Createspace formatting guidelines so as to make an actual profit with abovementioned book
-Establishing a valid PayPal account

-Attempting (and failing) to sell books on eBay

-Attempting (and failing) to sell books on Craigslist

-Researching and creating Facebook advertisements

-Following Kindle formatting guidelines & uploading Kindle content

-Following Nook formatting guidelines & uploading Nook content

-Researching and learning movie creator software

-Creating book trailers

-Creating a YouTube channel to display abovementioned book trailers

-Creating and maintaining an Amazon author page

-Creating and maintaining a Goodreads author page

-Creating (and soon deleting) a Pinterest page

-Creating (and soon deleting) an Etsy page

-Creating (and soon deleting) a Figment page

-Conceptualizing, designing, and launching a magazine for teenage authors

-Establishing a publishing company so abovementioned magazine retained legal standing

-Creating and maintaining a website for abovementioned magazine

-Bringing on board first one, and later a replacement, assistant editor for abovementioned magazine

-Collecting, reading, rejecting, accepting, and offering kind suggestions to all submissions to abovementioned magazine

-Publishing several issues of abovementioned magazine

-Marketing abovementioned magazine on various paid advertising platforms

-Making the hard decision to close abovementioned magazine

-Coding a new author website all by myself

-Finding, attending, and becoming a regular participant in local writing groups

-Creating and maintaining an author networking presence on LinkedIn

-Designing a table of marketing display material for author signings

-Choosing and practicing the perfect excerpt to read aloud at author signings
-Learning Windows 8
-Heading up my own local writing group
-Researching best audiobook recording procedures
-Purchasing proper audiobook software and hardware then recording, re-recording, editing, and uploading my first audiobook to the proper platforms
-Creating and maintaining this blog
          *This one was probably the biggest waste of time in my life. A genuine pain in the ass to figure out and very little gain. Chapbooks fit four pages of text onto one piece of paper (two on front/ two on back). But the front is pages 2 & 3, and the back is pages 1 & 4. Then you fold the paper in half and voilà! a little book. But when you add multiple pages it gets REALLY complicated... Paper 1= pages 1&8/ 2&3, Paper 2= pages 4&5/ 6&7. And then to have to copy/paste sections of your manuscript to match. Yes, I know there are now programs that do this for you, but they didn't exist in 1996. I did it all manually in order to print a small collection of short stories. In the end it took me about two months of effort and I sold exactly 3 copies for $3 a piece.  

So about that list... kind of insane, right? That's exactly the point. If you didn't read it, I don't blame you, but know that none of the above is actually WRITING A STORY! None of it is me doing my day job or having a social life. All of it was done in my spare time, and most of it involves the dreaded learning curve...which in itself frequently means scouring FAQs and user forums or dealing with incompetent or unavailable tech support. All of that takes even more time behind the scenes.

What's worse is that this dreaded learning curve seems to go on forever.

 

Example: last night all I wanted to do was find a way to do a giveaway on Facebook for reaching 500 fans (an unofficial Facebook milestone). I researched and found out there are legal issues with Facebook and to avoid having your page deleted you must use a third-party vendor such as an app. So I researched apps and found 3 popular free ones. Then I tried them all out, chose the one I liked best (I chose ShortStack for all you other aspiring facebookers out there), and set about creating an account and creating my first giveaway. It worked, and I look forward to seeing the results, however it totally took up my whole evening. 

 

And this kind of thing happens all the time. 

 

One positive result of all this is that when I do a Google search for "K. Edwin Fritz", my name and books totally dominate the first three pages of results and most of the next six pages as well. That wasn't true five years ago. Hell, it wasn't true TWO years ago. That's because search engines base their results on overall internet presence. It seems I'm finally making headway. Maybe one day in the near future somebody in the publishing world will get my query, submission, or free copy and actually recognize me. If so, all those months and years of work may actually turn out to be worth it.

 

In the meantime, I have a book calling me and I really must be going.

 

[Insert plug begging for comments/ followers/ sales/ etc. here]

 

Virtually yours,

-K.

 

Ps: Yesterday's writing results: no new words or revisions, but I did get that app up and running. Additionally, the day before I successfully revised about 700 words of "Women Scorned", that pesky second novel I keep blathering on about.