Category Archives: All about me

My Sales Numbers Reprise: My Scale is Broken

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So last Tuesday I posted a blog post about my sales numbers not being of the “fly off the shelf” variety and I got some wonderful comments from a bunch of wonderful people because the world is good and I am lucky.

True dat.

However, I gotta come clean. I measure success versus failure in extremes because I grew up watching WAAAAYYYY too much TV.  I don’t have a good grasp on reality. If I don’t post numbers like Stephenie Meyer, I’m a failure. If my fans aren’t Harry Potter crazy for me and my books, I’m a failure. If I don’t move millions of women ala Fifty Shades of Grey, yeah, you guessed it, total failure.

My numbers are pretty good, but for me, complete failure.  When I gost B+’s in school, I thought that was the end of the world.  To be better than average sucks, because I wanna be perfect. I want to be a god among men. I want to be adored by the masses. I want a stalker. But would I be able to handle all the fame and fortune at this stage? Prolly not.

A friend of mine said that the more I struggle, the more grounded I’ll be when I do become rich and famous. Like George Clooney.

My problem is that my scale is broken. Not one in a million is going to hit it big like Suzanne Collins. Ah, love that Katniss.

So I have ego problems. Yeah, who knew?

The punch line to all of this is that I have to claim my victories and celebrate even my smallest successes. Every day that I write, or sell, or market, or read the loops and try to contribute, that is a success for a guy like me. Guys like me quit and sit on bar stools and dream about doing wonderful things but then run away when it gets too hard.

Aaron signs a book for New York Times bestselling novelist Jeanne Stein

Once again, the secret is to enter into the struggle and enjoy what you can. But I do feel very lucky to have such nice writers around to support me.

My Sales Numbers

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I found something more cutting and disheartening than getting rejection from literary agents. My book sales numbers. I just got my Q2 numbers back and yeah, um, not the fly-off-the-shelf numbers I would have liked to see. At first, I was laid low. But then, I got some perspective. Very few authors are ever going to get the Harry-Potter-Twilight experience. Very few even get the midlist, big-publishing house experience. Most writers write a book, several hundred people read it, and ten minutes later it’s at the Goodwill for 10 cents.

However, instead of getting a dozen donuts and watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I went mountain biking. And I haven’t mountain biked in months. So there I was, huffing and sweating and puffing and cursing the mile I rode up the mountain, climbing, climbing, climbing, when a walker came by and I stopped, er collapsed, to let him walk by. And we had a typical exchange.

Walker: Hard work, huh?
Me: Yeah. Brutal, but fun.
Walker: Good for you though.

He went on by, I clipped into my pedals and continued the climb and it struck me; the writing game is good for me. All life is a struggle. That’s one of the themes in my novel, The Never Prayer. Maybe you are one of the lucky hundred to have read it.

All life is struggle, and me struggling in the writing game is valuable to me, to those around me, to other writers. It’s brutal fun. And it’s good for me.

The story doesn’t end there. So I’ve been watching a lot of House M.D. I’m struggling through season 8 to get to the finale and God only knows why they didn’t keep House in prison for half the season. House in prison was delicious.

So while I’m biking, I’m conceding that the writing game is good for my psyche, however painful and however much of a struggle it is, and I think about House M.D. and happiness. House believes that only people who lie to themselves can be happy. That life is inherently too difficult to be enjoyed.

That may or may not be the case. However, having a dream, having a goal, believing the lie that maybe, maybe I’ll be one of the lucky writers to break through and make it, well, it keeps me going. It doesn’t keep me happy, but in the better moments, it keeps me satisfied.

And maybe satisfaction is enough no matter what my numbers are.

Real Life Kills Blogger – Film at Eleven

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So, I was blogging all the time and things were good and I was rockin’ the party. I was getting literally dozens of hits. I know. I was big time. Next stop, Vegas, baby.

And I had the idea that blogging five days a week wasn’t a big deal. I could do this. I had help from the wonderful and dynamic Chris Devlin. Everything was coming up roses. And then summer hit. And I started traveling. And real life happened. And I was working on three books, one published, one in the final stages, and one a preemie little thing that I adore. And blogging dropped off into the void. Goodbye, Mr. Bond.

And now I’m having trouble getting back onto the blog habit and I’m even having trouble getting the gumption to schedule interviews and do a lot of things I was doing. I’ve gone back to writing. Like real writing. Like fiction.

I like to blog. It’s like exhibitionist journaling and I’m down with that. It’s kind of a nice break from normal journaling because heck, I’ve journaled the hell out of myself and how often can I write, “I didn’t eat well today and I’m watching too much T.V. and I probably need to get back on the wagon.” Yeah, it would be like reading Bridget Jones’ Diary, with her weight, cigarette consumption, and eating woes for twenty years.

But there are only so many minutes in the day and I only have so much energy. And I kind of like sleeping. Not enough to pursue serious sleeping but enough to miss it when I don’t have it.

So long story short, I’ll still blog, but not five days a week and not with the mania that I once did. I have books to sell, stories to create, and sleep to, er, sleep.

So, World, you’ll just have to enjoy me when you get me.