Maybe I'm the delusional one. I see lots of Reddit posts from young writers who are much more concerned about where they should publish their book and how best to market it than how good their book is. One even posted the other day that he "hates the writing part".
The delusional part is that these people will sell more books than me, which isn't a wild prediction. I don't know anyone who's sold fewer books than me.
My downfall might be in focusing too much on the "writing part". I naively assume that I need to write a good book first before I start worrying about marketing and publishing. Okay, boomer.
The other factor, besides good writing (which is an afterthought, really), that makes a book successful, is, of course, genre. I've been rightfully critical of romance, but man, it sure sells. And romance writers are prolific! It's nothing for them to churn out a new novel every thirty days. Imagine the income! This write-by-formula gig pays dividends. If only I, too, had no self-respect I could be a best selling author.
But alas, I can't seem to view writing as a commodity, and that's where I go wrong. I''m hopelessly old-fashioned. I never imagined that people got into writing strictly for the money. To me there are many, many easier ways to bring home dollars. But apparently writing is easy when it's just a minor step in the process.
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