tidwell « Robin Writes

The short answer is this: I’ll be darned if I know!

The long answer, however, is this: Many, many factors.

First, you have to have a good story, and/or a book with wide appeal. Second, it must be well-designed. Third, you have to get it to market.

A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Something to hook the reader and let him in, hoping to discover more and wanting to know more.

A book with wide appeal is something to which many people can relate. In fiction, that can be all over the map, so to speak; in non-fiction, it could be as simple as cooking, or self-help, or entertainment, or information on a common illness or disorder.

That simply means that it must have universal appeal—a book about your family will be interesting to your family, but not necessarily anyone else (unless you’re famous). A book about something you overcame or your own life story may be intriguing to some, but not to many (unless you’re famous).

And of course, you can’t price it too high.

Timing helps too—you don’t want to release a holiday book in the spring, for example.

Then you have marketing. This means exposure. If you don’t have a website or do nothing with it, if you don’t have a blog or never post new material, if you only market to other writers, etc., etc., you will not sell books. If you never do events or festivals or appearances or speaking engagements, you will not sell books.

If you do all these things, consistently, you will sell books. Probably.

The single biggest factor for marketability is luck.

Just stop and let that sink in for a moment.

You’ve all seen really crappy books, or even just a short story sold as a “book,” that climbs the Amazon charts. Ugh. And good ones, from unknown authors, that just sell and sell and sell.

WHAT THE HECK?

Luck. Pure and simple. Like winning the lottery. I can’t explain it and neither can you—if you have the awesomest story ever, and the most brilliant illustrations, but sometimes that just can’t compare to this type of luck.

What does this mean? Not a thing. It certainly doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t write or draw or try to sell books—that won’t get you a darned thing, and that’s for sure. Keep trying, keep working on it—why?

Because that’s who you are.

Boy, it’s been an interesting week around here. I won’t go into the whole long, sad story because unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re familiar with the details and the start of this fiasco.

In spite of underlying racism, however, if Mike Brown had only followed directions when Officer Wilson told him to move out of the street, things could have been very different.

Since our illustrious prosecutor decided, for whatever reason, to wait until after dark to announce the verdict, and our idiot governor was basically useless, a lot bad stuff went down. Riots, arson, looting—and you can say, all day long, that “most” of those arrested were from outside the area, well, someone let them in; someone said, hey come on down and let’s do some shit. And just because “most” arrested were not from here, it doesn’t mean local peeps weren’t involved.

Like Louis Head. Mike’s stepdad. What a loser. Nope, I’m still not racist—by any definition, he’s a loser. Mike’s dad, Mike Sr., well, he’s a good guy as far as I know. Jury’s still out on Lesley McSpadden—I’ve heard a lot of things, but I’m not impressed. Yeah, jury. No pun intended. Ha.

Why bring up Mike’s family? Because they’re front and center:

Mr. Head incited a riot, calling for arson.

Mr. Brown called for peace.

Ms. McSpadden, well . . . She got all up in people’s faces over T-shirt sales; she went to Geneva to talk about torture (WTH?). I get the grief, the horror, the loss. But good Lord, woman, grieve already—take the time to think about your son, get him a headstone for crying out loud, and get the hell out of the public eye.

Sorry, but I have to think that if it were my son, my first move wouldn’t be hiring an attorney and starting a bunch of crap. Nope. Seriously—why hire an attorney?

And that guy? Well, I’ve heard him speak. Seems like a nice guy. But he was griping about not being notified of the decision ahead of time. Um, dude. It’s not a civil case. It was a criminal case. That means that the state prosecutes (if it does) on behalf of the state; the parties are the state and Officer Wilson, not YOU and YOUR CLIENTS. Duh.

So, we still have peeps running around yelling, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Even though, according to the official report, that didn’t happen. Whatever.

Look, all this rioting and looting and marching and chanting and stopping people from working and traveling and everything else does NOTHING. And we’re all sick of it.

Learn to write, learn to speak. Stop blaming everyone else for every single thing. Get a job, go to work, be smart about your money. Run for office. Just know that there are no shortcuts, you don’t just make a difference because you WANT to, you have to work for it. It takes time. You can be angry all you want, but you can’t just fly off the handle. Leaders don’t do that. Be a leader. Work behind the scenes, or go on TV—but if you’re going to represent, be rational and reasonable and actually do the work.

It’s important.