A Newbie Mistake Many Have Made!

You've spent weeks, months, maybe even years writing that first book. Maybe you've had it edited, or tried to do it yourself. The cover was paid for, or again you did it yourself.

After all that's what indie means doesn't it?

Now you hold your book in your hand, the physical manifestation of a dream you've always had. But how do you get people to notice it. More importantly, how do you convince them that you, as a new author, are worth spending money on.

Every one of us wants to be heard, we all want that small spot on center stage, we dream of living the life of a bestselling writer.

Like most new authors we failed to take that one important step while we were writing our masterpiece, we forgot to make friends. Now in a mad scramble to make up for our failure we send out friend requests on all of the major social networks.

We follow up on acceptances with a direct message calling on our new found friend to check out our first book. If we're lucky someone with more experience in these matters will point out the error of our ways. If we're smart we listen to what they have to say, otherwise we continue to follow a path that will lead only to failure.


Sound familiar?

Over the weekend a new writer sent out a slew of friend requests on Facebook, immediately following up on acceptances with a message to their new friend to check out their first book. This of course is nothing new, many of the friend requests I receive on the platforms I use are followed up with a direct message to check out their website, newest book, or Amazon Author Page.

Just so you know, I usually ignore these. Before I became a writer I was a reader and I have developed  my own way of finding my next read.

Long story short I came upon a post this morning about the writer in question, and to be honest I was ashamed at the way these writers were bashing this new author. But heartened as well when I saw one writer come to the new writer's defense. Instead of hopping on the bandwagon to complain they  reached out to the writer in question and explained to them the mistake they had made.

I'm not going to name names but many of those complaining are writers I had a great deal of respect for. I say had because I don't anymore after the childish display of one up manship I witnessed. It seems some among us have forgotten that we were all newbies once, and at one point in our budding careers a more experienced hand had offered not only their friendship, but a bit of advice.