I accomplished absolutely nothing that I had planned to do over the weekend other than finishing Duma Key by Stephen King (good book by the way). Having said that, today I did some things that I intended to do over the weekend which was mail two copies of my book off, one to a reviewer in Maine and one to an independent bookstore in Alaska in the hopes that she will like it and will carry it on consignment in her store. Keep your fingers crossed for me on both of those. I've sent out a TON of email across the United States and even to Canada to help get the HUB brand and my name out and I know that with much effort and hard work good things HAVE to emerge from it. I still have a few more states to work through.
I feel like a rapper/MC sometimes because the roads traveled are pretty much the same. At first no one knows you so you're independent and you're trying to get your name out (selling records out of your trunk for rappers, putting books out on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, etc... for writers) in the hopes that people will eventually take notice and then a major will come sign you (a label for the rapper, an agent/publisher for us writing types). So we continue to hustle, building a buzz, not really making a lot of money but we don't do it for the money - we do it for the love. The money is great - don't get me wrong - but there are plenty of other things to get money than write.
It takes a LOT of self confidence to be a writer and it's a "slow burn". I would even say it takes a bit of arrogance as well. I have to believe that I have something so good to say that, when I write it down, people will pay to read it (same thing with music). So we put ourselves out there, never knowing how it's going to be taken - will people love it? Hate it? Consider it blah?? Who's to say but we do it anyway because we believe in ourselves - all we have is our faith in ourselves to get us through because if we don't believe then how can we expect others to?
A lot of it is the spirit of competition. As a hip-hop head I'm all about the battle. When I hear that one of my friends on Twitter or Facebook sold xxx amount of books I'm 1) happy for them but 2) thinking in my mind that I can do better than that. I hope that makes sense. It's not that I'm hating on what they have done, I just want to be better. I love all my writing peers and wish them all success - anything I can do to help them get the word out about their project or even sell one book, I'm all for it - but I still want to out do them. I want to win at anything I do. I want to be bigger than Stephen King one day because, to me, he's the man at the top of the mountain.
Got back to work on Head Above Water today at work during my lunch hour and I plan on doing more work on it tonight while I'm watching the Red Sox game. Last night we had heavy winds that damaged my fence and sent my trampoline that was in the back yard flying OVER the fence to the other side (true story) so I have to work on that when I get home so that the dogs can be able to go back in the backyard.
I try to not think about H.U.B. Volume 4 much but I can't seem to help it. I keep having these ideas in my head and I may have to start work on it sooner than I thought because I would hate to lose these ideas that I have in my head. I think that I think about it so much because writing this series has been SO FUN for me. Never have I had this many ideas floating around in my head and had something SO EASY to write. I can only hope that people enjoy this series 1/10th of the amount that I've enjoyed writing it.
I feel like I'm rambling and bouncing all over the place so I'm going to wrap this up. One final note, on April 14th be on the lookout for a special GUEST BLOG post from my good friend and fellow writer Reena Jacobs on why she decided to go indie. I'm looking forward to it and you should as well.
More later. Peace! Go Red Sox!!
I feel like a rapper/MC sometimes because the roads traveled are pretty much the same. At first no one knows you so you're independent and you're trying to get your name out (selling records out of your trunk for rappers, putting books out on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, etc... for writers) in the hopes that people will eventually take notice and then a major will come sign you (a label for the rapper, an agent/publisher for us writing types). So we continue to hustle, building a buzz, not really making a lot of money but we don't do it for the money - we do it for the love. The money is great - don't get me wrong - but there are plenty of other things to get money than write.
It takes a LOT of self confidence to be a writer and it's a "slow burn". I would even say it takes a bit of arrogance as well. I have to believe that I have something so good to say that, when I write it down, people will pay to read it (same thing with music). So we put ourselves out there, never knowing how it's going to be taken - will people love it? Hate it? Consider it blah?? Who's to say but we do it anyway because we believe in ourselves - all we have is our faith in ourselves to get us through because if we don't believe then how can we expect others to?
A lot of it is the spirit of competition. As a hip-hop head I'm all about the battle. When I hear that one of my friends on Twitter or Facebook sold xxx amount of books I'm 1) happy for them but 2) thinking in my mind that I can do better than that. I hope that makes sense. It's not that I'm hating on what they have done, I just want to be better. I love all my writing peers and wish them all success - anything I can do to help them get the word out about their project or even sell one book, I'm all for it - but I still want to out do them. I want to win at anything I do. I want to be bigger than Stephen King one day because, to me, he's the man at the top of the mountain.
Got back to work on Head Above Water today at work during my lunch hour and I plan on doing more work on it tonight while I'm watching the Red Sox game. Last night we had heavy winds that damaged my fence and sent my trampoline that was in the back yard flying OVER the fence to the other side (true story) so I have to work on that when I get home so that the dogs can be able to go back in the backyard.
I try to not think about H.U.B. Volume 4 much but I can't seem to help it. I keep having these ideas in my head and I may have to start work on it sooner than I thought because I would hate to lose these ideas that I have in my head. I think that I think about it so much because writing this series has been SO FUN for me. Never have I had this many ideas floating around in my head and had something SO EASY to write. I can only hope that people enjoy this series 1/10th of the amount that I've enjoyed writing it.
I feel like I'm rambling and bouncing all over the place so I'm going to wrap this up. One final note, on April 14th be on the lookout for a special GUEST BLOG post from my good friend and fellow writer Reena Jacobs on why she decided to go indie. I'm looking forward to it and you should as well.
More later. Peace! Go Red Sox!!
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