Mark Terry

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

What I Don't Know

September 12, 2007
With a title like that, this blog entry could fill a library, but let's focus on writing.

1. I don't know how to intelligently evaluate return on investment re. book promotion versus sales.

2. I don't know how to convince the public to actually buy a book.

3. I don't know how to continue publishing novels. [Getting published was hard; staying published is harder. Sorry, it's the truth. I wish it wasn't.]

4. I don't know how people like Joe Konrath find the energy they put into book promotion. I include my friend Tobias Buckell in this category, too. [Toby does a ton, but Joe makes him look like a lazy slob].

5. I don't know why we think it's worthwhile to keep trying, just that apparently I think it is.

6. I don't have a clue what's going on in the head of my editor.

7. I'm not convinced I know what's going on in the head of my agent, either.

8. Some days, I'm not sure what's going on in my own head. Don't you hate that?

9. I don't know how to make a living writing fiction.

10. I don't actually know what my publisher's publicist has done. I'll keep assuming he's done stuff, but I don't actually know what it is he's done.

11. I don't know why some books get $100,000 advances and some get $1,000 advances. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for it.

12. At the book fair I spoke at Sunday, two separate people wanted to know why we had so much death and violence in our books (the panel was "Original Voices in Mysteries.") I don't know what panel these people thought they were listening to.

13. I don't know why so many people like and admire Oprah.

14. I don't know why so many readers apparently couldn't tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction when they bought Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." [hint: it's FICTION!]

Well, I could go on, but I don't know what to write next.

Cheers,
Mark Terry

2 Comments:

Blogger Spy Scribbler said...

LOL, I don't know why I like and admire Oprah. Perhaps because she's real, and she puts her raw self up there every day. There's a bravery in that. She struggles just like us, and she just keeps getting on with it.

Re: #4, I don't know, either. Yeesh. I can spend hours on the internet, and it seems like I only sold 1 book. That's like, fifty cents an hour after everyone else gets their cut.

8:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know what I can add to this.

I don't know why I thought that getting published would be the hard part and everything else would just follow.

I didn't know I wasn't the only person in the world who doesn't admire and like Oprah.

9:28 AM  

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