Oprah's Book Club (Official) discussion

Established popular authors release several new books each year, usurping the space on websites such as Amazon, where their publishers buy the top billing and pay thousands for pre-release reviews, etc. Book clubs, libraries, book stores, and on-line book sellers merely promote big name authors leaving no space for a new author without funds to "buy popularity." Librarians and critics only read (supposedly) and recommend "best sellers" before they are best sellers and they become best sellers because they are so highly recommended. How can a new author get noticed?

I suggest a social media platform, advertising on Amazon, and writing articles. that has helped me get "above the radar" in a fiercely competitive--and sometimes nepotistic industry!

Covid-24

Is being a good writer enough to get your book read?

Unfortunately, the short answer is NO.
Why not, I hear you asking.
The sad truth is that you can be a mediocre writer, talk about any irrelevant thing about your life that most readers cannot begin to relate to and still become a bestseller.
Talent apart, it all boils down to who you are and the people you know. Take for example the books of Michelle Obama, Tyson Fury or even Elton John and ask yourself, would they have even made it to the bookstores’ shelves at all if it wasn’t for their names and relations? Which brings me to my second point, publishers.
The dogmatic publishers nowadays are the dinosaurs of an industry that one day woke up dead and cannot afford to make mistakes if they were to avoid inevitable extinction. In the old days they took risks with new talented writers like you, instead they prefer to minimise their losses by betting on marginal returns from boring, and mostly irrelevant stories about self-proclaimed authors.
My third and final point relates to what people like to read. Surely It has nothing to do with latent because people read only what other people read. The drive here is social status. You look better with a bestseller book under your arm than an unknown but talented storyteller.
So, you are good and hopefully entertaining when it comes to tell your story, but no one seems to notice you. You spend ages researching and tweaking your lines to the point of sublime perfection and still no one ever read them. You blog your guts out to bunch of strangers you couldn’t care the least for only to get noticed and in exchange you receive all sorts of condescending comments about your work along the way. If after all that you still think talent if enough to get your wonderful book read, you are delusional.

Take my novel called #Covid-24 for example. Modesty aside, it is a very good read. Well written, funny, full of action, compelling plot, and above all it talks about a sensitive subject from a fictional point of view. #Covid24 could rival any of the hundreds of mediocre books you see on shelves. Hey, it is even perfect for a film like The Martian, but it will never be read by more than a few hundred people (mostly friends and friends of friends) because I was delusional thinking that talent was all I needed to get my book read.

You nailed it. But no, not going to shoot myself just yet. I'm living in la-la land, an impossible dream. Aren't we all. That's our saving grace.

Ronald wrote: "You nailed it. But no, not going to shoot myself just yet. I'm living in la-la land, an impossible dream. Aren't we all. That's our saving grace."

La-la-land is a nice place to be. Just don't stay there too long.