“This planet is information” the Mayor says. “All the time, never-ceasing. Information it wants to give you, information it wants to take from you to share with everyone else. And I think you can respond to that in two ways. You can control how much you give it, like you and I have done… Or you can open yourself to it completely”
Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men
I think, no matter the dream, there’s always something involved in its requirements that we hate. I’ve wanted to work in major corporations, but every time I was little more than a cog that could and would be ignored or discarded. I’ve always wanted to make it into space, but it’s easy to idealize a colonist’s lifestyle when you’re so far removed from it. Plus, we didn’t move nearly as quickly on this thing as I’d hoped. And, of course, I’ve always wanted to be a published author.
Back when that dream first set upon me, I was young and naive. The industry was what it was and I honestly had no clue about it. I just had a dream and the drive. Now I’m old and naive. The industry has changed, and whether I like it or not – I don’t – social media is involved.
The “old way” of entering the industry – researching and petitioning agents, engaging in talks with them, working with industry editors, etc. – is alive and well, of course. I doubt that will every go away completely. However, the advent of self-publishing has shaken things up. People can bypass the gatekeepers and go directly to the public. The vast majority of the time this leads to nothing, just another drop of content in an endlessly expanding ocean, but every so often someone makes it big on self-published sales and the agents take a keen interest in that person.
As with everything, publishing is driven by sales. That’s only natural, don’t expect a business to spend time and money on something without the prospect of a return. That principle hasn’t changed. What has is the calculus on that prospect. Now, social media content creators have a hand on the scale. They have followers. They have engagement. They have presence and sway. Even if what they produce isn’t all that great, when they come to an agent they come with a portfolio of people already willing to buy. There is a degree of subjectivity to an author’s work. Followers and engagement numbers are all objective. It’s easy to see why this helps.
Which brings this back to me. I hate social media, or at least what it’s become. Vapid, self-indulgent navel-gazing. I know, after a sentence like that it’s a pot-kettle situation, but whatever. There’s something about the one-off casual posting of random thoughts just for the sake of engagement that drives me up a wall. I’m not a public person. I tend to keep things pretty close to the vest. But, if my goal is to be on a shelf at a book seller, I’m not sure I have much of a choice in the matter.
I gave in. For the time being you can find me on Twitter and Minds. I’ll probably be expanding over time, but I figure these were good enough for now. At least until I figure out what the hell I actually want to write about. I’ve just made a couple of progress updates, but that, again, seems incredibly self-indulgent for someone with no actual content in the wild.
This all began as a means to force myself to meet deadlines in the most public-facing way possible and to get over my fears of people judging my work. This article marks 20 weeks since I made that commitment, and I think it’s safe to say I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. As much as I hate to say this, I think it might be time to begin focusing on expanding and engagement.
I don’t expect this request to go anywhere because, well, I’ve never bothered to get people invested, but if you’ve made it this far I’ve got a question for you. What sort of content would you find engaging on places like Twitter from an aspiring author? I don’t plan on making changes to my regular weekly articles here, but eventually I’d like to add more to this site as well.
All right, I’ve started meandering. Thanks for indulging me here, and if you’ve got any ideas, give me a comment here or on one of the sites listed above. Until next week.
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