We'll All Write On Anyway

Today's blog topics include: Balancing marketing and writing; Neon Genesis Evangelion references; moving forward when nobody cares; assorted movie references

Tim Cody is currently:
Writing: Crimson Soul II
Waiting for: My new printer to arrive
Recently dreamed of: Aliens invading (after watching Falling Skies)
Watching on a nightly basis: Limitless


It's pretty easy to get caught up in marketing--especially when, just like fashion and FaceBook, it's never really finished. There are always going to be people who could be buying what you're selling, but aren't. And until they are, your job is not done, and you can't begin your next book.

A decidedly dark and dangerous road for a writer indeed. When you spend all your time marketing, you don't spend any time writing. Perhaps there's some leeway when your marketing doesn't seem to be going anywhere, maybe you can, maybe you should, be dedicating every single minute of your free time to pushing units instead of creating new ones.

But what about two weeks later, when you've spent the last 100 waking hours marketing, and you still haven't sold a single copy? Did you just waste two weeks, not writing anything new, and also not selling any books?

It's easy to become discouraged when you're not actually moving any units, primarily because you're not receiving any feedback. When you become discouraged, it's even easier to stop writing. When you stop writing, starting back up becomes forced--and then you turn out a less-than-polished product.

So how do you avoid this spiral of despair?

Well, there's the "Shinji Ikari" method--that's saying "I mustn't run away" 100 thousand times in a single episode. Sometimes fighting aliens amidst an extremely convoluted plot seems like it would be easier--and hey, we all get orange soda afterwards.

But if your EVA unit is out of weird womb-juice and thus out of commission, you just gotta buckle down and write. The internet is here to stay, and so is the data on it. The internet isn't going anywhere; social networks and marketing platforms aren't going anywhere; your book and the fact it's published and readily available aren't going anywhere. You just have to focus, and take time to write. Market some more later.

You never know when your sales will take off. E-books in particular, as long as you've made your outreaches, and as long as your channels don't go completely quiet, sales could happen years from now. And it only takes one, it just takes one customer, one word of mouth sale, to tip the first domino.

Think of how happy this will make some hipster who read your book when it was first published. "I read it before anyone else had even heard of it."

Just because you're not selling books doesn't mean you can call yourself a failure. A lack of sales, a lack of readers, doesn't mean you're a bad writer--it might mean you're a bad marketer, but not immediately.

To fail, you would have to have received negative feedback and not acted upon it. If you've received no feedback, positive or negative, it can be hard to tell which direction to take your next book in; but that's when you just have to trust yourself and your own talents, just like you've been doing this whole time.

You can't put your writing on hold until everybody reads your book. You can't stop writing because your best friends, your parents, your girlfriend hasn't read your book. If you were confident enough to write and publish the first one on your own, then you should have no problem moving onto the next.

You gotta keep moving forward and remember: "A writer writes, always." As long as you keep this in mind and live it as best you can, a failure you are not.

That's that and marmalade.

-Tim Cody