Well, I've been doing this professionally for more than 12 years now. I've talked to a lot of people, been to the panels, listened to the interviews, and there is a single thread that runs through every, single one of them. You have to be lucky.
That's it.
 |
| So roll the dice... or don't. But you can't win if you don't play. |
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!
An Echoing Refrain
The first time I ran into this was when I was in my mid-20s working as a reporter for a small local paper and trying to break into fiction as a writer. I was given the opportunity to interview a local author of cozy mysteries and romances, and I jumped at the chance. At best, I figured that if I made a good impression maybe she could help me out. At worst, maybe she could give me a few pointers. And when I got to the question where I asked her how one got a publishing deal with a major company (she'd started off with Viking, if memory serves), she just shrugged and gave me an answer that boiled down to, "Right place, right time."
In short, yes, she'd written a romance manuscript. She'd worked really hard on it, done all the editing, cleaned it up nice, etc., but the major reason she got that first book in was it just so happened to be the kind of romance the company was looking for in that very moment. If she'd submitted it a few months earlier, or a few months later, they probably wouldn't have taken it.
She kept writing books, kept doing the work, kept trying to keep her place... but she had no idea why her books sold or didn't sell. No clue what would work. In short, she lucked out, and was doing her best to stay in the position that luck had gotten her by keeping her momentum as a writer going.
 |
| All right... well... that's an anomaly, right? |
That was kind of a disappointing answer, but I did my best to take it in stride, and to ask other writers I met along the way how they managed to find success. A handful of writers who started later in life told me they just wrote while living off retirement, and they were able to finally write something that caught on with an audience. Others mentioned that their book's themes just happened to coincide with some trend that put a lot of attention on them. A few writers talked about how the success of someone else's book spilled over onto them, and they rode someone else's coattails.
And then I started looking around, watching trends, and comparing notes. There are a lot of big YouTubers out there right now (Markiplier is one that comes to mind) who got in early-ish on the platform, but who happened to catch on with over-the-top reactions, particularly to scary games and scary content. There are authors who became the subject of BookTok reviews, and it blew up their name and signal without their knowledge or understanding. Chuck Tingle was basically nominated as part of the Sad Puppies scandal, and while I won't say he didn't have a fan base before his name got dragged into that shit show, it definitely catapulted him into the faces of a lot of people who would never have seen his work otherwise, much less bought a copy of a book like Scary Stories to Tingle Your Butt: 7 Tales of Gay Terror.
That is a real book. Seriously, go check it out!
This point was driven home to me once again while listening to this interview with the monster creator Trevor Henderson. Now, you might not know him by name, but you're likely familiar with his most infamous creation Siren Head. A monster artist whose work speaks for itself, he is one of the more influential creators of Internet-based horror, and he currently creates so many scary things that it can seem hard to follow.
But when he made Siren Head he was working a retail job and just trying to squeeze money out of art. He was working hard (he mentions in the interview that he'd come home from shifts and force himself to draw even though he was exhausted), improving his craft, and making interesting things... but his fame came from an outside source. A video game designer came across Siren Head, and asked to use it in his game. Trevor agreed, as long as he was mentioned... and that game showed up on Markiplier's YouTube channel, to bring things full circle. This led to an explosion of popularity for the monster, and a big audience of people who were now aware of Trevor's work, as well as the designer who made the game. And that spring-boarded the two of them in a very big way. But it took 3 years between him finishing that creature's art, and it just exploding onto the scene like that.
Also, shoutout to The Wrong Station's YouTube channel. Go subscribe, and listen to them on Spotify or something. Their show is a LOT of fun!
Now, what I'm not saying is that any of the people I have mentioned, either obliquely or by name, didn't work hard. I'm not saying they don't have talent, or that they haven't refined their craft to create the best things they can. That is always the take away that people have when they reach this point, and it's because there's a very specific lie that so many people believe, and you believing this lie actively harms all of us.
Do you want to know what it is? It's the belief that talent and hard work are rewarded.
You can work as hard as possible, and you can make amazing art that deserves to be seen, and everyone who picks it up devours it, thoroughly enjoying every part of this thing you made... but if your signal doesn't grow via word of mouth, and no one lets a big enough audience find out about it, you won't sell copies, get views, or increase your subscriber count. And on the flip side, someone can write absolute drek, create the most low-effort music, or just crap out a few images, and if those things happen to strike a nerve with a current trend, if they become a subject of Internet conversation, or if you happen to be related to, dating, or already a minor celebrity for some other reason, you'll go gangbusters.
If you're a creator, get that lie out of your head right now, because it's going to convince you that if you just work harder, write more, etc., that eventually you have to succeed. Marketing and creating aren't the same thing, and you can't assume the quality of your work will grant you some kind of special dispensation that will spontaneously get you noticed by the public.
And if you're not a creator, you also need to get this lie out of your head because we're depending on you. You are literally the ones who decide whether we succeed or not.
You Have The Power, Here
I've said this before, and I sometimes feel like a broken record, but I'm going to keep saying this until people get it. Artists do not have any power to make ourselves succeed. Yes we can write books, make videos, draw things, and yes we can try to leverage social media to get attention, but we ultimately cannot force ourselves to be successful just by working harder.
The only thing that helps creators succeed is you. The audience. The people we are making things for.
 |
| If you don't cheer, we die. |
I've used the gladiator metaphor since the beginning of this blog, and it's apt. Because gladiators who got famous were showered in money, they got endorsement deals, they have goddamn merch you could buy at their matches. But the fighters who didn't have that following? Who didn't get the cheers? They got nothing. Didn't matter how good the show they put on was if no one was paying to see it, no one was betting on them, and no one was paying attention.
Your cheers matter... but in this digital age we're living in, they can take a lot of different forms.
If you just want to turn the wheels and help the creators you love get numbers, and get noticed, do the following:
- Read/Watch/Listen to Their Content: The more reads an article gets, the more views a video or podcast episode gets, etc., the more likely the algorithm will push it out to other people. So consume the content (especially the free stuff), and share it on social media platforms to boost the signal.
- Subscribe and Follow: This dialed-in audience is a big factor in who sees us, hears about us, etc. If you have a million subscribers on YouTube, Facebook, etc., the algorithm treats your stuff very differently than if you just have 1,000. Fill the seats, make the arena look full, because it helps us!
- Leave Comments, Reviews, and Ratings: If you're watching a video, hit the Like button. If you're listening on Spotify, leave a 5 star review. If you bought a book, leave a rating and review. The more of this stuff we get, you guessed it, the more likely we are to be seen by others.
- Buy Our Merch: Whether you're buying books, TTRPG supplements, tee shirts, or just using the discount code we get from a sponsor, all of that puts money in our pockets... but more importantly, again, when the numbers go up, the algorithms, sponsors, etc., treat us better. If I get a top-selling book on Amazon, Drive Thru RPG, etc., those sites are going to tell everyone about it because they want more sales... and the numbers to become a bestseller are so, so much smaller than you think...
Again, I'm not saying you have a moral obligation to support all creators. I'm not saying you should spend more than you can afford just to boost someone's signal. I'm just explaining how the machinery works. If you want a creator to succeed (any creator), then pull the levers I just described. Pull as many of them as you can, as often as you can. If you can afford to buy books, buy them. If you can't, don't. But consume all the free stuff, check in on social media, hit the buttons, make the comments, follow all the followables, etc.
If you cheer, we rise. If you don't cheer, we die in obscurity. This isn't even a metaphor... it's literally how the industry works. Period.
And the only way any of us get famous is if our audience grows so big, and so loud, that the wider world finds out about us and what we do. So please... raise your voice, and be that noise.
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)
- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!
That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.
No comments:
Post a Comment