Since the release of my
latest book, BANG, in March, I've been in limbo, waiting for it to
make a big splash, at least in America, where guns and violence are
an obsession.
Like thousands of other
indie writers around the world, I sat, week after week, wasting my
time and money, “getting the word out”, and feeling let down as one promo
copy after another disappeared into the black hole of self-promotion,
never to be heard from again. Day after day spent in a listless
world of self-doubt. Uninspired and just plain tired of the whole
game.
Until today. Until just
a few minutes ago. And No, I did not just get a call from a publisher
or the New York times. And Yes, BANG is still dead in the water.
It was Facebook, and I
was, as usual, scanning and commenting on the endless posts by
desperate writers, hoping to “make it big” with their latest
book, or at least pay a few bills.
As I thought about how
much time, energy and money we all waste, trying to squeeze a profit
out of something we really loved to do, a dusty file drawer, in a
back room of my cluttered old brain, creaked open and I remembered a
piece of advice I gave another artist over 40 years ago. We were at a
county fair and I was teaching her how to airbrush T-shirts, an art
form you won't often find hanging in many galleries, but very
profitable and fun. Working mans art.
She was really down
because her real love was ceramics, and she'd spent many years in
training, including an art degree. Now she was thinking of giving it
up because it couldn't even pay her bills.
My advice at the time:
keep your day job!
I told her to keep doing what she loves, making
pottery, and use a more profitable art form like T-shirt painting to
keep the bill collectors in check. Simple but effective.
So now I'm taking my
own advice and going back myself. Going back to writing and
illustrating kids books, just because I have fun doing it, and
supporting that fun with any number of “profitable” art forms,
like T-shirt painting, that I have done over the years.
When and if my books sell, I'll be thankful for the extra cash and notoriety, but I won't
waste any more time on promoting them. Life is far to short to waste
counting beans you don't have.
Just for the record, at
my peak as an airbrush artist in the late eighties, I made more cash
painting T-shirts at one show than all my kids books have grossed,
total....and I had a great time doing it.
Think of that the next
time you are slogging through your next email list, hoping someone
out there buys your book or even notices you. Think of how much you
are getting for all those hours on the net, yelling “Here I am”.
And think how much the effort sucks the joy out of whatever you write
or draw.
So, do something else to pay the bills you should be lowering as
you go, let the promoters, promote and the bean counters, count and get back to the thrill of writing.....
Krash
Place Mark Books
Krashs Place
Krash
Place Mark Books
Krashs Place
