My Weekly Roundup

When I think about it, I'm no slouch when it comes to time spent marketing. Often I spend four hours a day! Obviously, most of that is research time. No matter what my latest obsession is, it involves finding matches for it. I confessed to falling into the black hole of writing contests a while back, and that required reading a lot of fine print to determine whether a particular contest was worth it. (Pro Tip: Scan the page for a dollar sign before bothering with the fine print.) If the entry fee was within my budget, I would go on to read the requirements. Naturally, I also wanted to know if there was an actual prize involved (not that I expected to win). I wasn't about to waste my time if the "prize" was a gold seal I could paste on my website. I don't want to guess the number of hours I wasted on this pursuit, only to find later that I'd uploaded a version of my manuscript that was missing a crucial section. Winning!

Then I found myself mired in researching book review blogs. Exhausting. It took me a while to figure out that I needed to check the date of a blog's most recent review before proceeding further. Unfortunately, most of the online lists of book bloggers are out of date, even the ones that specify 2025. Some of the blog addresses even lead to a dead link. I grew impatient with the exercise. Most of the blogs were closed to reviews, and the ones that were open weren't generally fans of my genre, even though the list makers claimed otherwise. (NOTE: There is a huge difference between women's fiction and romance, idiots.)

The few blogs I came across that seemed like decent matches (and were accepting submissions) often weren't welcoming. I get it; I'm sure they're inundated with review requests, but that's the biz they got themselves into. There's a nice way to say things and a grouchy way. The all-caps "DONT's" go a bit overboard. If a reviewer comes across as a jerk, I don't bother with them. On the off-chance they agreed to review my book, they'd hate it.

I did get one acceptance, which, when I think about it, isn't a bad average, considering how picky I was. She didn't even ask me for money!

The one blogger who initially responded and informed me that if I didn't want to be among the losing lottery (she randomly reviews one book per month for free; otherwise, I needed to pay her), did require a subscription to her newsletter, and I did, thinking I may need to rely on her in the future. Her newsletter isn't too bad, actually. One of them included a link to some "professional" review sites, and I checked them out. Most only review pre-published books, which rules mine out, and most require payment, but there were a couple that were both free and had no pre-publishing stipulation. 

Funny story about one of them. Yep, they're definitely hoity-toity, and they definitely make a lot of demands regarding submissions: one glowing professional review with attribution (they check, they warned), specific genres only, a thousand-word excerpt from the book, publish date of no more than three months prior to submission. They're quite clear that they reject almost every book submitted. So, naturally, I submitted. Why? Because that's how I roll. I have a particular distaste for people who condescend to me. Of course they'll reject me, but that's not the point. I wasn't about to be intimidated. 

Finding a thousand-word excerpt wasn't easy, though. My novel is heavy on dialogue (really heavy), and pasting in some context-free snippet would be self-defeating; but I had no great soliloquies to lean on. I finally narrowed my choices to two, then said the hell with it and just went with my gut. Again, it really doesn't matter. It's the principle.

 

I checked in with Goodreads, which I rarely do, because the site is the devil's handiwork, but I was curious if there were any relevant postings in the few groups I joined. (There weren't.) Then I found myself clicking on a few book links from authors who were begging for readers and/or reviewers. As an author, I think it's good to find out where one lands in the landscape of "good writing". (And, to be honest, I wanted to prove to myself that I'm better than most of the other self-publishers.) What I found was, most of the writing isn't bad. It's sufficient. Not "wow!", but okay. Others would probably say the same about me.

The big (big! big!) deficiency they all had in common was their openings. Openings are something I've worked hard on; they're that important. You screw up your opening, you can kiss your sales goodbye. (Okay, my sales record notwithstanding, but my failure is due to other reasons.) People, and I include myself as a person, make snap judgements. Do I want to read on? In all but one case of the previews I read, the answer was no. 

Here's an example: One book, which is a regular old thriller, not sci fi or fantasy, where prologues are common (I hear), begins with a prologue, and I didn't recognize it as such at first. I began reading and thought, "What the heck? This is really arms-length. There's nothing to latch onto." Another book's first line is in the present, but it immediately shifts to a flashback before a reader is even grounded in the story. One more goes on for pages and pages about the main character waking up.

I'm not trying to pick on people. I'm sure each of those books sold more than mine. But whether the writing is good or not, I as a potential buyer will never know, because I'm turned off by the previews. I know that self-published authors on Reddit are all, "Just pump 'em out, bro!", but to be a writer, a real writer, one has to put thought into their story. Believe it or not, a story doesn't consist of, "this happened, then this happened."  

I haven't looked at any book blurbs yet; that's for another day. And whereas I'm good (not great) at openings, I'm obviously terrible at writing blurbs. No potential reader even gets to the point of reading my preview, because they're bored by the blurb.

I'll add "blurb study" to my several-hours-per-day of marketing time, because a blurb will either lift you or kill you. So far, mine has killed me.

 

The good news regarding this past week is that I managed to spend zero money! Someday, when my ship comes in 😜 I'll throw some money at trying to move my book. Right now, the ship is so far out in the ocean, I can't even see it with binoculars. (Another good reminder for me to buy that lottery ticket.)

I hope this post came across as upbeat ~ I'm not actually feeling upbeat, but I'm a little tired of the whining. Don't get me wrong; I'll whine some more tomorrow, but today was a good time for a break.