To market or not to market, that is the question.
My plan was always to start marketing the series after the second book was ready for public consumption. Since I am over half way to completing book two, it's time to rethink that plan. I'm not saying I am going to throw the plan out the window, but the time is approaching when I'll need to get serious about marketing to garner some sales.
OR
I need to start looking for a publisher or agent. That brings in a whole new set of problems (I could have said challenges, but let's be honest, challenges are problems). Do I want to start getting rejection letter after rejection letter hoping that someone, at some point, will see the potential in the books/series?
See, that's the rub when you get down to it. Self publishing is easy from the rejection perspective. If you write a bad book, it'll just sit there largely unnoticed. Even if reviewers don't like it, no one has to know because their reviews will sit there along with the unnoticed book. Those bad reviews would hurt personally, but an author could always pass off those bad reviewers as uninformed amateurs.
I've been fortunate because all of my reviews thus far have been somewhere between good and excellent. However, getting rejections from people "in the industry" would somehow seem official.
Harkening back ('harkening', only a real writer would use that, right?) to my youth and baseball playing days, I was pretty good. I thought I was better than that until, in my late teens, a "real" coach took me aside and explained to me that coaching was a rewarding way to continue to enjoy the sport. In other words, from an expert, my ball playing days were over. I didn't believe him until several other "real coaches" showed their agreement by sending me home before lunch.
My brain tells me that rejection really isn't that bad. Heck, in my non-writing profession, rejection is part of the game. Clients say "no", bids get sent back, and negotiations fall apart in the last hour. Plus, I was single for a few years and not every woman said, "Yes!"
Writing, though, that's different. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. The dream of writing books that people want to read ranks right up there with playing baseball for a living. Do I really want someone who knows the game to tell me that my fastball/character development skill isn't good enough for the next level?
You don't know whether or not you are good enough until you try but, after all is said and done, the radar gun doesn't lie. You've got it or you don't...do you really want to find out for sure one way or the other?
What say my fellow authors/reviewers? How do you deal with these things?
Splitter
