Success In Writing for the Self Published Author

When it comes to being a self-published author, it's not about learning and respecting the craft, it's about how many Facebook likes you can achieve or how many followers on Twitter you can get. The general opinion is that if you don't write well you'll never make it in the writing world. In traditional publishing that may be true. In today's world of self-publishing, it doesn't make a lot of difference whether you write well or not.

The problem with self-publishing is that there are about a gazillion authors in the same boat. All of them trying to get their books read so people will say nice things about it so more people will buy their books so they can eventually give up their day job and live in a world of fantasy. Sounds good, huh?

No one is born knowing how to write. It is a learned process. Especially when it comes to fiction, one should study how to show, not tell. What is passive writing and how to avoid it. How filtering distances the reader from the story. There are many techniques at a writer's disposal to create the best possible story and draw the reader in. But these are methods that must be learned and practiced. Instead, many of today's authors simply string 80,000 words together and, Shazam! They're an author.

I have read stories that I hated but have been able to appreciate the writing. Personally, I find it difficult to enjoy a story with poor writing no matter how good the story may be. That seems to put me in a minority.

Some time ago I read an author's debut novel and although she made a valiant attempt, it was nowhere near ready for the public market. She had a good concept, but any time the plot would begin to thicken, a coincidental miracle would come along and the problem would be resolved – time and time again. It ended up being absurd. There were other issues that made the entire book laughable. I suggested that perhaps she spend some time with a critique group only to be told by her that she was far too busy and she didn't have time to learn to write properly. So I figured I'd stand idly by and watch her fall on her face. However, instead of spending time learning the craft, she spent time Facebooking. As her number of 'Likes' grew, so did her number of five star reviews.

The thing is, once an author gets dozens of reviews, no one really reads them. You just see the stats and out of 100 reviews, 87 are five star, albeit generic or shallow. So the reader is led to believe it's a great book and buys it. But many of those 87 are stooges or the authors are just tit-for-tatting one another with five star reviews. And whether the book is good, bad or indifferent, most readers won't take the time and bother to leave a genuine review.

I've met loads of authors on FB and many of them have what sounds like an interesting story. So I'll go in and read the sample pages provided on Amazon and discover the writing is shockingly bad. You would think that because the mechanics of writing can be judges objectively, poor writing would be identified by reviewers. Sadly, it rarely is.

Most reviewers seem to focus solely on the story itself and ignore everything else. I don't object to that, but a book riddled with typos, punctuation errors, gaping plotholes and bad grammar cannot be five stars. Four if the story is really that good. Yet I see it time and time again, rave reviews for books written at junior high level.

The bottom line is: Get everyone to like you and you'll go far.