One of my favourite authors was and to some extent, still is, Jack Higgins and I remember reading an article about him back in the day, I think it was around the mid eighties when he was in the height of his fame. The article stated that he had humble beginnings, which I could relate to, as the same is true for myself and he had aspirations of becoming a writer. He set out to write thrillers and chose a few pen names along the way and landed a publisher for his work. Back then the best seller lists were populated by actual writers and not a list of celebrities who could cook or happened to do something that someone thought was interesting or were simply famous for being famous, for this I refer to those who populate so called Reality TV. Let’s face it people, this is as far from reality as it gets, they work to a script and are put into situations specifically to garner some reaction. Instead of Reality TV I think it should be called Car Crash TV because at times its like watching a car crash, you know its going to happen, you know its going to be gruesome and yet you still watch.

but I digress.

Jack Higgins hit the big time with a book called The Eagle Has Landed written under his pen name of ‘Jack Higgins’ He went from earning a modest living writing his previous books to earning a six figure income relatively overnight. The article went on to say that he earned six figures alone from royalties from his previous novels without writing any other books as his popularity was so high. Now back in those days a six figure income, to me anyway was something you could only  dream of. Here was a man who very few people knew anything about except what we learned of in the rare interviews he gave or we read about on the inside of the book jackets that covered his books, books which were read and loved by millions of readers throughout the world and yet you could walk past him in the street and not recognise him.

This was just one of the reasons I took pen to paper and began to write.

Nowadays though with the advent of social media people crave to know every intimate detail of celebrities lives, what they eat, what they wear, where they go to holiday, to shop, everything. Authors too have to embrace this culture of celebrity to some degree at least. Social media means readers can access an author’s life like never before, or so it would seem. The more security conscious of us still keep a modicum of privacy veiled over us. On the downside of that though is the reality that if you are not a million seller, who cares?

The sad fact is nowadays even with the advent of social media and the influx of Indie authors to the business, to build a readership has become that much harder. Before when Jack Higgins was in his prime the publisher would market the work and he was left to write the next book. Now only the few big publishers who have best selling authors on their books will market their work, organise book tours, signings and so forth, if you are an Indie, good luck with that. Book shops won’t stock your book if it’s POD so a book signing is out of the question and unless you have your readership then you probably won’t sell many books. Marketing a book from a relatively unknown author, and I class myself in this group even though I have self published fifteen of my books and had another published by a small press, is a full time job just to keep treading water. To get anywhere you have to be outstanding in your field or be noteworthy in some respect. A bad example of this was the author who recently tried to copyright the word ‘cocky’. It stirred up a whole lot of press and probably sold her more books but for all the wrong reasons and as readers the public can be fickle so that kind of strategy is only for short term gains. In a year no one will even remember her.

I did everything that the advisors of Indie authors advise you to do, write more books, I’ve done that, like I said my tally now stands at fifteen books with more in the works, write a blog, well this is evidence of that, have a Facebook page for your books, I have two, one for my sci fi series and one for my thrillers I write under the pen name of Jack Dillon. I’ve done everything that those in the ‘know’ tell struggling writers like myself to do and more and still I am where I am.

The truth is, and I know there will be a lot of writers who claim this to be not so, that’s if they ever bother to even read this, to get ahead in this business you have to get noticed. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter how or for what as long as you get noticed. People have to know you’re out there, and as obvious as that sounds it is true. The hard part is getting noticed.

I read somewhere that Amazon publishes thousands of new books daily. If that is even remotely true then how does a writer stand out from that crowd especially if you work a day job to survive and have limited time to market and an even more limited budget? It would be easier to stand on the bank of a river during salmon spawning time as the salmon swim upstream and try to pick out just one particular fish to eat for your supper.

After almost two decades of writing and publishing I am faced with the reality check that I will never make a living from writing books. I know they are good, all the reviews say so but for them to sell in volume is like swimming upstream in spawning season and as I get older my arms are now beginning to ache from the continual strain. I remain the eternal optimist though, I still look through publishers websites searching for the right one to publish my work, I’m hard at work writing with three books in the works which will be out soon so although this might sound like I’m giving up the reality is farer from the truth than it would seem from reading the first part oft this article. I love to write, to tell stories and as I continue I notice that I am getting better at the craft with every new book, every new article so I will continue.

I think my expectations are now just that little bit closer to reality though than when I started. I know now that I’m not going to be the next Jack Higgins. I am content to be the first me.