There was a time when the business world made sense, back when you needed chickens and I had some, and I needed a coat of paint on my fence. Then we just exchanged – chickens for painting the fence. Business isn’t like that anymore. It’s too big and there’s too much money and the tax ramifications are too complicated for it to be that simple. But still, that’s how my brain works. What makes sense? Let’s do that.
Writing fiction as a career may not be sensible, but to me, it makes sense. Everything I write is more real to me than when I put together complicated business deals. And the marketing – in this day and age when the longstanding traditions of book marketing have flown out the window, doing what makes sense … well, it just makes sense.
But what makes sense in a world where I am bombarded with book marketing services charging me anywhere from $3 to $5,000 for a few day run? I will admit making some mistakes at first. I tried a couple of the “popular” services even though I suspected that the bulk of their “subscribers” were other authors who had purchased their services and not the readers I wanted to reach. But I finally realized it comes down to basic business – the exchange of a chicken for a painted fence. Now I look for those services whose interests are aligned or at least complimentary to mine – those that screen the quality of the books/authors they accept, those that track and show the results of their services, and those who charge based on the success (sales) of using their service.
I completed a bunch of tax forms yesterday which has left me thinking today about how little sense they made to me – taxing some money differently than others based on the legal fictional name the money was given. That experience has left me very grateful that I live my life in a different world – one where I get to do what makes sense, pretty much all the time.