My browser crashed, so I can't recall which writer on my flist wrote this some time yesterday, and don't have the spoons to look for the words, but their agent said something along the lines of 'if a new author doesn't have 500 facebook friends, we're not interested'.
Which *hurt*. I don't use FB much (too many privacy concerns) but I've kept the numbers deliberately low so I can read all posts, should I choose to read FB at all. I don't 'friend' people intending to block their content because I want to read my real friends' updates, and I don't have two hours a day to spend on 'building a platform'.
I'm a) working on earning a living and b) spending my time _writing_. You know, the thing where you put words on a page and then try to put better words on more pages? That. Despite being at this for a number of years, I am not there yet - partly because, well, getting there takes time, and partly because I don't write the kind of book where people see the synopsis and say 'this has a built-in audience' - if I want to sell, I need to become good enough that it will get bought _anyway_. I've reached 'love this, but can't sell it' with more than one person - and 450 extra facebook friends won't change that. Becoming a better writer just might.
Equally, agents tell non-fiction writers that they need to have a platform, need to be known, have engagements, spend their time building a career that a book will then be a part of-
.... whereas in the real world (I'm a copy editor. I market myself to publishers. I read publishers' websites. Lots of them. Most of them say 'if you have an interesting idea, contact us') there might be a small market segment where 'platform' sells books (cooking, self-help) but there *still* are publishers, even in those segments, who'll look at the content and the credentials and decide whether to publish or not based on that.
Yet, if you read agency websites, you sometimes get the impression that writers - people who spend their energy writing books - need not apply for a writing career. This isn't helping the industry, because ultimately, readers aren't stupid. They'll buy only so many bad books.
We know *exactly* how many copies pure self-marketing sells. Every self-published title proves it. To go beyond 500 copies, you need to have a good product, a book that other people *want* to reccommend to _their_ friends.
no subject
Which *hurt*. I don't use FB much (too many privacy concerns) but I've kept the numbers deliberately low so I can read all posts, should I choose to read FB at all. I don't 'friend' people intending to block their content because I want to read my real friends' updates, and I don't have two hours a day to spend on 'building a platform'.
I'm a) working on earning a living and b) spending my time _writing_. You know, the thing where you put words on a page and then try to put better words on more pages? That. Despite being at this for a number of years, I am not there yet - partly because, well, getting there takes time, and partly because I don't write the kind of book where people see the synopsis and say 'this has a built-in audience' - if I want to sell, I need to become good enough that it will get bought _anyway_. I've reached 'love this, but can't sell it' with more than one person - and 450 extra facebook friends won't change that. Becoming a better writer just might.
Equally, agents tell non-fiction writers that they need to have a platform, need to be known, have engagements, spend their time building a career that a book will then be a part of-
.... whereas in the real world (I'm a copy editor. I market myself to publishers. I read publishers' websites. Lots of them. Most of them say 'if you have an interesting idea, contact us') there might be a small market segment where 'platform' sells books (cooking, self-help) but there *still* are publishers, even in those segments, who'll look at the content and the credentials and decide whether to publish or not based on that.
Yet, if you read agency websites, you sometimes get the impression that writers - people who spend their energy writing books - need not apply for a writing career. This isn't helping the industry, because ultimately, readers aren't stupid. They'll buy only so many bad books.
We know *exactly* how many copies pure self-marketing sells. Every self-published title proves it. To go beyond 500 copies, you need to have a good product, a book that other people *want* to reccommend to _their_ friends.
Sorry for the rant.