giving up or letting go?

What do you as a writer love more than anything else? Is it the writing or is it compensation for the writing? I've had to ask myself this question many times during the past years. Yes, I love it when someone tells me how much they enjoyed one of my books and I also feel this pressing need for people to read my books! My books are at the local library now and knowing they will be checked out makes me feel good inside. So it isn't the money, although receiving money is a way to gage how much people like them--not a good way, but a way.

Everyone wants to be appreciated for what he or she does--it could be writing, it could managing a store, whatever it is, we humans need to know that others notice what we do. In the case of books we need to find our audience. How do we do that? We look for groups on Facebook that are interested in what our books are about--mystery groups, fantasy groups, historical fiction groups, readers who belong to book clubs--the list goes on. We can't spam them so how do we manage it? We can offer something for free or discounted, or make mention of our book in reference to another post, we can private message people. It's a game we all play and that's becoming a problem. Too many people in the marketplace all vying with each other! Better to share what we know--we're all in this together.

I do not give my books away--I think a dollar is a low enough price to pay for an e-book. Yes, I've had a zillion downloads when I have, but this has not translated into later sales. Maybe for you it has? If so, congrats. As I've mentioned in previous posts, FB ads has been my mainstay in recent months--however, when I go to KDP to see if the clicks have turned into sales, I've been sorely disappointed. I'm looking into how to do an e-mail list, but not faring very well--I thought perhaps people who 'like' my author page would be good subjects, but how do you get their e-mails? If you have an answer to this, please let me know. I've promoted on Bookdaily, Robin Reads and lately Fussy Librarian, if they accept my book. Bookbub is still a no-go for me...not sure why.

And so, as I hinted at in my last post, I am letting go of my worry about it all--I'll do things as they come up but I'm not going to spend hours banging my head against a wall for no reason--I have an affirmation up on my wall that reads: I KNOW MY BOOKS ARE WORTHY AND WILL FIND THEIR AUDIENCE. After all, they've been out in the marketplace for thirteen years! And if I don't pay such close attention I find that reviews role in despite whether or not I begged for them. I'm getting checks from Amazon--not large checks, but hey--at least I'm getting them!

Enough of this chit-chat--back to writing.

And thanks for reading!