Looking Forward

This blog is approaching its sixth anniversary, and as I look back at the sad number of post that have accumulated here, I see for certain that I have no idea what I'm doing . . . at least blog wise.

The reason I started this blog six years ago was that I had a novel that I wanted to shop around, and like so many authors out there, I was deluged with advice on how to land a top agent.  I was told that I needed to sell several short stories to the top magazines to prove my writing ability and that if I wanted to land an agent I needed to have a following already established.  Blogging was the way to go to accomplish that.

And I swallowed it hook line and sinker.

Then, in early 2011 I decided to give up my exhausting search for an agent and self publish.  I'm not bad mouthing the traditional path.  It's fine if that's your choice.  It was just no longer the right choice for me.  I'll go into those reasons some other time.

It's been a little over a year since I published my novel Guarding the Healer.  You hear all these stories about self published writers skyrocketing to thousands of sales a month within the first year of going indie.  I am not one of those writers.

My sales are lackluster and the income my writing brings in monthly isn't even enough to buy my family a single meal.  Did I make a mistake self publishing?

In a word . . . no.

Don't get me wrong, I've made plenty of mistakes, but self publishing isn't one.

I think one of the major places I've messed up in self publishing is that I'm reaching out to the wrong people.  I joined Kindle Boards, found several writing groups on Facebook, most of my Twitter followers are other writers.

Now, while I do love hanging out (virtually or in real life) with other writers, they are not my key demographic.  I write fiction.  Mostly dark paranormal fiction.  Writers are great readers, there's no doubt about that, but they have their own works and agendas.  I can't read all of their work and they certainly don't have the time to read mine.

The people I need to reach are readers.  Plain ol' don't-write-squat, everyday average Joe/Joanna Reader.  If you look at it from a business standpoint they are known as the fat part of the bell curve.

Have I figured out how to reach readers yet?

No.  But I have some ideas.

First of all, I'm going to change this blog up a bit.  But I'll tell you more about that next time.