Welcome to this week’s Open Book Blog Hop.  The topic today is:

‘Would you like to be a bestseller or have a smaller, more manageable following?’

I already have a (very) small following which is totally manageable!  I’ve quickly decided I’d love to become a bestseller and to be able to earn my living as an author instead of writing as a hobby and working as a medical secretary.  However, there is one small stumbling block that all Indie authors have found…

Needing to find a literary agent who loves our work and who is able to send our books to one of the big 5 publishers. 

There have been two ‘maybes’ over the past 7 years, but the road to becoming a bestseller is paved with rejection letters.  I have enough of them to paper my two lavatories at home, and in fact rarely send any of my writing to agents anymore.  Of course, landing an agent doesn’t necessarily mean that you will instantly become a bestseller, but at least you’ll have a bit of a head start.

I did try to make the leap from hobby to bestseller by taking part in writing competitions and contests for screenplays, but it seems if you travel this road you have to deduce which competitions are merely money-making schemes for the organisers and which ones are actually genuine.  The big contests that are genuine more often than not require you to have been published in a known literary magazine, and these magazines are terribly picky as regards submissions.

So… perhaps it’s all down to trying to get your self-published book onto the shelves of public libraries and gain a following that way?  Good luck with that then… I’ve tried that particular road and it seems the stock teams prefer to buy traditionally published books by well-known authors who undoubtedly have literary agents.

The next road to travel down is local bookshops.  I’m in the process of trying that at the moment, so I’ll update you as soon as I’ve heard from the bookshop manager.  I’ve also tried author signing events, which cost a lot and reap little reward.

What a game it all is – a game that we Indie authors have but a very slim chance of winning.  Still… I do get a little thrill when people buy my book, and maybe over time those people that have enjoyed my work will tell others.  I can but hope!

Would other blog-hoppers prefer to be bestsellers ?  Click on the blue button below to find out:

Rules:

  1. Link your blog to this hop.
  2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
  3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
  4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
  5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!