A guest post by novelist P.R. Johnson
You’ve finally finished your novel.
Good for you. It’s only taken X amount of years and Y amount of re-writes.
You’re an amateur writer; it’s not as if you’re relying on this novel, your
baby, to earn your daily bread. You know it’s unlikely to be published the
traditional way, but that’s OK – you’re pleased you can avoid those king-making
submissions editors. You’ve reconciled yourself that for your baby to see
light, you’ll have to self-publish. And again, that’s OK – the thought of YOU
being in control is alluring.
You’ve proof-read your novel countless
times and designed a nice book cover. You’ve successfully opened an account
with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and you’ve got your head round formatting.
A click of a mouse button and there she is: your novel, the cherished fruit of
your labour, a genuine product for people to buy with genuine money. Congratulations
on the new arrival.
Now all you need do is shout from the
rooftops so people may come and pay respects. Ah, I knew there’d be a catch. It
might turn out that you’re a terrible salesman. Maybe you don’t want your
friends and family to read the book to avoid any possible embarrassment. Perhaps
that’s why you wrote under a pseudonym: so people would not lay blame at your
door. Maybe, despite your best efforts, the novel is drivel and deserves not to
be read. But without that critical feedback, a truly unbiased opinion, you don’t
know either way. You need to be a certain type of cretin to laud a product when
you have no idea of its worth. A bit like a parent at a child beauty pageant.
So, you put your marketing on hold.
You tell yourself that positive feedback will be the catalyst to fuel the inner
salesman. Until, of course, you realise that a self-published novel will not
sell without some encouraging reviews. And books that do not sell will receive no
reviews at all, positive or negative. The circle of life is caught in a
temporal loop.
It seems as though you’re stuck, just
you and your damned baby. You love her, undeniably, and accept she might not be
the prettiest infant in the world (some babies are downright ugly). All you
need is for one random stranger, one honest soul, to look into the pram and
smile: ‘Aye, that’s a bonny wee lass you have there.’
My name is (or isn’t) P R Johnson.
You can find my novel ‘Life In Parks’ here:
Life In Parks eBook: P R Johnson:Amazon.com: Kindle Storeor, for U.K. readers, here:
Or else you can follow me on Twitter.
