The Work
I was working today on promoting Into the Fire, and was struck by how difficult it is to do. The publishing paradigm has altered in the last decade or so, and more rapidly in the past few years than prior to that, largely due to social media and access to self-publishing (like that is news to anyone).
But the new arena is interesting to navigate, too. Today I went to set up a facebook page to aid in getting the book in front of people. I thought, “oh, this should be pretty easy.” Famous last words. I found that to really do it right, I need more artwork. Like a book cover shaped and sized for something other than a book. And also an overall image for the book series, Odd Job Mysteries. And a picture that represents me. And maybe one that represents the book. And so forth.
Not being an artist, I looked around for something suitable, but had no real luck. But I did get some inspiration, and so came up with ideas for the images I need. And since I own photoshop, and can read, I figured I can figure out how to generate the images and re-use my own work as I do (in case I want to change something later).
So I diddled in photoshop for an hour or two, and came upon what I want to do, how I want to do it, all that. There are still some questions about things like fonts, colors, and so forth, but nothing insurmountable. I suspect tomorrow or over the weekend I will get something together, and can begin getting my book more in front of more people (and this blog as well).
And then it struck me. This is the “work” part of writing for me. It takes time, effort, patience, all that. It is something that an author twenty years ago would never have done for themselves, nor probably could have for the most part. Yet here I am with the task of doing it in front of me. Previously, the work would be to get an agent to believe in the project. Now the work is different, but not necessarily less.
Then I realized that in a couple days to a week, I will have lots of this work done. It will be, more or less, what I want and will have been done all by me, without having to pay for someone’s time, communicate my idea, all that.
So then it struck me that even the “work” part isn’t too much work.
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