Postcards From Across the Pond

I’d like to apologize to my readers—all twelve of you—for banging on about The Series.

Yeah, it’s quite an accomplishment, and yeah, I’m really chuffed about having finished it, but I’m starting to feel like an overly proud grandma who keeps pulling out photos of her dear little granddaughter and shoving them under the noses of everyone at the Knit and Natter every Thursday afternoon.

I get it, and, surprisingly, I’m already starting to feel a bit chagrined about the whole thing. I’m done with the books, and now they’re like an ex-girlfriend who decided we could still be buddies and keeps hanging around even though it’s awkward for both of us. It’s the same feeling I got when I finished Finding Rachel Davenport: I look at the books and it seems like someone else wrote them; I don’t know how I did it, I’m not sure if I could do it again, but I do know I don’t want to try.

And the Big Publicity Push? Well, Reality punched a hole in that. (Hence the Pssss… in the title. It’s supposed to represent air leaking out. Use your imagination. I can’t do everything for you!)

After much thought, I ended up doing pretty much what I did for a few of the books in The Series, which amounted to nothing, so I can only expect that these recent efforts will return similar results.

I did briefly flirt with the idea of Facebook ads, due to my having been suddenly targeted by other self-published writers who wrote their own time-travel series. My initial investigations seemed to indicate that I could send these annoying ads to targeted people (the sorts of people who were sending them to me, no doubt) for a reasonable amount of money, but a closer look revealed I really didn’t want to do that, no matter what the cost.

The ads for these books are blatantly, embarrassingly hyperbolic. Claims such as “What a page turner, I was gripped from the start,” and “A chilling new series from an internationally best-selling, award-winning author” remain unattributed, while accolades like “Better than Harry Potter,” and “The best fantasy series since Terry Pratchett,” are obviously the opinion of no one but the author.

I agree that entrepreneurs need to sound their own horns, but there is a line between being a champion of your work and telling out and out lies about it.

I won an egg-and-spoon race at a Fourth of July picnic when I was nine, does that make me an Award-Winning Author? And I once had a look at my stats on a particularly good day when I sold a large number of books. Should I extrapolate that to say my books are Best-Sellers?

No, is the answer. I’d rather keep my integrity intact than flog a few books.

I admit to pimping my books with the line, “I chose to self-publish for a number of reasons …,” which, although true (I wanted to have control over the series, so that all the books looked the same), fails to note that the number-one reason I self-published was because I couldn’t find a publisher.

It’s akin to saying, “I chose to have a relationship with this blow-up doll because she doesn’t mess up my apartment and she never nags me,” when the basic truth—you simply couldn’t find a girlfriend—was what forced you to make that decision in the first place.

And so, The Series is out there, being dashed to-and-fro on a sea of self-published stories so unsure of themselves that they feel the need to make grandiose, and obviously false, claims. And hyperbole on my part is not going to make a bit of difference to sales.

The truth? The ugly, naked truth about self-publishing? The books I placed with actual publishers—Postcards and Finding Rachel Davenport—sold, literally, in the thousands. The Talisman? Excluding those I bought myself, or the few purchased by friends who kindly volunteered to beta-read them for me? The aggregate total of all eight books in the series sold is ZERO.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time to deflate Blow-Up Bethany, pack her away, and start making myself—and my work—attractive enough to snag a real girlfriend … I mean, publisher.