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| Photo Courtesy of www.texarkanagasette.com |
It started immediately after the book was published. People started coming to me for advice. I've never been good at giving advice. Plus, I don't know what kind of tips I can really give any other person. Other than how to become a statistically insignificant blogger and an incredibly insecure author. Cause that's exactly what I've got to share. But, I'm totally flattered that there are people out there who think I have some book wisdom. Or any other kind of wisdom.
A few weeks ago, I got together with a friend who just started a blog to talk about writing. She'd read the blogging rules and wondered what I thought about them. And while I normally take a long time to consider all the options before dispensing advice, this was a no brainer for me. "The 'rules of blogging' are stupid. Fuck the rules! Write what you're passionate about." The world is cluttered with disingenuous bullshit. Authenticity is more important than anything else. Especially numbers.
The very next day, having just finished reading a marketing book I bought, I started to implement some of the things I'd read. Namely, joining even more on-line groups for even more social media. Which is why I joined a large indie author network with over 2,000 members. Passively joining, of course, is not enough, one must socialize. So, I asked for advice, wrote supportive comments here and there to other authors and tried to keep up with the threads about grammar, chapter size and marketing.
The thing is, whenever a group of people gets too large, the sense of connection that brought them together in the first place gets lost. Members can become distant, confrontational and desperate to prove that they are in some way an authority. On something. Somewhere. I sensed this immediately. But, I persisted. And I started to spend way too much time contemplating what to write and how exactly to write it. So as not to piss any of these 2,000 complete indie author strangers off.
It took me 4 or 5 days of this before I realized I was a total hypocrite. I had just told my friend to be authentic and yet, I joined this group with the sole purpose of marketing myself because some stupid book said I should. So, I quit. Not that anyone noticed. I was a number, not a person.
That's when I decided to fuck the rules, again. And follow my own damn advice already.
Authenticity is more important than anything else.
THE END.
And this is still why I think PBAU, though small, is such a great group. I guess joining a big group for social media and marketing purposes won't hurt and might be useful. But I would hate the one-upping and 'I'm the authority here' voices for sure. And seriously, if you ever feel like giving advice, you can always give me advice. Between us, you're more of an expert, that's for sure!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. And PBAU is the only writing group I've ever stuck with because of the small, supportive nature of it :)
ReplyDeleteYou had better clean up your language or I will have to stop following!
ReplyDeleteJK
ReplyDeleteOh, your word verification is almost impossible to decipher!
Takes me 3-4 tries.
Took off word verification and shortly I'll be trading in blogger for word press...
ReplyDeleteOh wow - so honored to be mentioned in a blog post by the famous (or should that be infamous?) Marie Loerzel! Even more honored to be friends with such an authentic and honest person. Also glad you'll be switching over to wordpress so now you can help me decipher more of the techy pieces of blogging! BTW - We will be discussing your book at our book club on Sunday night! :-)
ReplyDeleteGosh its such a ref lief to hear you say this - or read you write this...I've made recent endeavours to sell my soul also. It's working out well for me - not. It doesn't sit comfortably with me at all...fuck the rules!
ReplyDeleteGosh its such a ref lief to hear you say this - or read you write this...I've made recent endeavours to sell my soul also. It's working out well for me - not. It doesn't sit comfortably with me at all...fuck the rules!
ReplyDeleteI have come to the conclusion that there is only so much that we can do. As for me, my guilty pleasure remains Twitter. I just love it. I am not very good with interacting on FB groups.
ReplyDelete@ Paige-No, you'll have to help ME with wordpress I have no clue! And I love that we have forged a closer friendship :)
ReplyDelete@Janine-You have to try new things every once in a while right?
@ Muriel-I get overwhelmed on all of them sometimes and just need a bit of a break and to be in seclusion reading a book with a nice cup of tea to recharge.