I’m a tinkerer by nature so when I see something that isn’t working exactly as I want, I try to fix it. My writing “career” as it currently stands, needed a little examination to see if it needed some improvement. It did, but as I discovered, not in the ways that I originally thought. I’ve adjusted keywords, updated descriptions, rewrote blurbs; all the usual things to get the stories noticed.
As I updated, it occurred to me that I was spending more time adjusting what was already out there instead of the one thing that was most important: writing and releasing new material. Stories have limited shelf life and after a while, no amount of effort will improve them after a particular point. They run their course and have to be let go in favor of new material. That’s just the way of things.
I’ve read that a following doesn’t truly start until at least the fifth book and since Lights and Shadows is my fifth book before I jump back into The Parallax Trilogy, I take heart that although my current sales are less than stellar, I’m on the right path.
A lot of times, the success does lie in the backlist. Good luck and glad to see you back!
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Thanks. I always intended on coming back and the only way I knew how to exorcise the Doubt Demons was to write them away. One of the things that surprised me the most was how much I preferred the act of writing good stories and getting them out there over rising in sales ranks and accumulating royalty checks. It’s hard to distress over something you’ve not had a lot of…hehe.
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Hey Wallace, glad to see you again. That’s an interesting tidbit – that the following doesn’t start until the 5th book. I’m about to release the 4th… I better get busy, then! 😀
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I came across that while hanging out on Amazon KDP’s forums. I would take it with a grain of salt. 🙂
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