You're a writer? So how are you going to stand out from the crowd?
- because, like it or not, you may well have to...
Of course that presupposes you have a desire to find a readership / sell books… And let’s face it, the old notion of ‘if you build it they will come’ is no more than a clichéd fallacy…
Having said that, it could be that you’re content to have a modest presence on Amazon and - perhaps thanks to KDP - are thinking ‘that’s job done!’ Or maybe you have no commercial ambitions at all: you might be writing a memoir for yourself or for your family, or producing an historical record of some kind. All of which is absolutely fine, isn’t it? Note: I discuss writing motivation - ‘Why do you write?’ - here:
So you think you're a writer?
As a creative writing mentor I am often asked to define the ‘right way’ of doing something, especially when people have a preconceived idea in terms of what it is they have to write. The latter is most commonly evidenced in the people who believe they must write a novel. If they don’t, how can they possibl…
But what if you do have commercial aims..? Or ambitions ‘to be read’?
Recently I was at a discussion group with seven other writers whose experience, writing genres, and general goals varied considerably: the published non-fiction academic who was writing their first novel; the genre writers, some of whom were published and had agents; the person embarking on an entirely new challenge. During the meeting I was struck most forcibly by two things.
The first was how each of us were operating in our own ‘bubble’. Yes, there was undoubtedly commonality, but it was a comradeship constrained by our individual frames of reference. The metalanguage we were using to communicate was shared and understood - ‘publisher’, ‘agents’, ‘Amazon’, ‘AI’ - but contributions were given context by via specific personal experiences and ambitions, not something broader. On the face of it we were sharing, but there seemed to be invisible guards which prevented the ‘I’ from morphing into the ‘we’. Perhaps there was more talking than listening.
The second thing which struck me was how ‘static’ most people seemed to be. It was as if that same invisible guard was not only jealously protecting their individual experience, but also generating a barrier beyond which they could not traverse. Or perhaps they had no wish to traverse. That’s not to say they weren’t talented or committed - i.e. ‘good writers’ - far from it; but it felt to me as if there was something elemental missing.
As I drove home I used the experience to hold up a mirror to my own efforts. How much was I like - or unlike - them? On one level how could I not be like them, after all in the grand scheme of things perhaps we might be regarded as ‘amateurs’? None of us was ‘a name’.
Which is where this post - and the notion of needing a ‘writerly USP’ - came from. My conclusion (which may of course be fatally flawed!) was that in order to ‘stand out’ in any way, there is a need to be ‘different’ i.e. not simply someone who sits in their garret and sends files off to Amazon once in a blue moon.
Isn’t that how life works anyway, ‘the different’ standing out? And of course ‘the different’ can be ‘the already known’ - enter the cult of the ‘celebrity’ author.
Hard on the heels of my ham-fisted amateur psychological analysis came the bigger question: as a writer, am I doing enough to be ‘different’? How is the CV holding up?
I write - lots. I am a pathological writer. If I was similarly addicted to some other less benign drug then I’d either be locked up or permanently in rehab!
Through Coverstory books I publish a great deal (and not via KDP!); not only my own work but also occasional books for others, plus international anthologies of both poetry and prose e.g. six editions of New Contexts and counting.
I lead a Poetry Society Stanza Group, and run my own international poetry group, Contextual.
I mentor at UK writers’ retreats.
I am trying to ‘perform’ more having had a slot at last year’s Ripon Theatre Festival for a long poetic monologue, Crash; I have also landed two slots at this July’s ‘WordFest’ where I now live (one is a second performance of Crash).
I run a poetry competition roughly once every two years.
And I have this Substack site which is a vehicle for as much as I can think of to throw at it!
Surely that’s not an average portfolio?! Short of a podcast for the BBC or the like, what else is there? (I have tried a podcast; some readings salvaged from it can be found here.)
And yet. And yet.
Is there something else needed to turn casual readers into committed buyers? Or am I fated to rely on a slice of luck to be able to take that next step? I gave up on the notion of ‘genius’ - for anybody - long ago; it seems such an outdated concept.
Of course I may never achieve my goals; that’s the reality I never shy away from - and which propels me on every day. Writing until the light goes out, you might say…
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
There are more readers than writers - this on the basis that every writer reads, but not every reader writes. So there must be. Flawless logic, right? But if that’s the case, there will be thousands of writers asking “where are these readers?” - or more specifically, “where are
Ian, a contemplation I must wade through nearly every day in some fashion. How to stand out in the crowd? It's an unanswerable question, I'm afraid, because it evokes, in my estimation, quite complicated answers involving platforms, social media, how modern readers read, disposable income, the over all state of the publishing industry, and doubts about your own work. And there's more and more and more. Because of this, I no longer sweat the promotional work. I do what I can for the work I'm currently focused on and employ strategies that make sense and show promise. In the end, I want my work, my writing to be the best it can be--that's first and foremost--so I put all my efforts there and hope the rest of it, which is sometimes out of an author's control, is going to somehow open a portal to the answer to the question of how best to find readers.