Sometimes being an author is hard work

I’ve had a difficult week. It has been really hard to get back into working after my ear operation and I’ve been finding writing really draining and taxing since returning to work full time. I’m not saying that my weeks are normally easy and that writing is a breeze. It’s always hard and I always work like a crazy thing, but it’s normally quite easy to keep plugging away with everything because I’m excited and enthused.

This week has been dreadful. I’ve been trying to write Her Demonic Angel to get it finished in first draft but it has been like trying to get blood out of a stone. I’m just not feeling it and my mood at the moment is dire. Being an author is often very difficult, but at the moment I’m really feeling it and it’s not so much pressure of writing a fantastic book as pressure of playing the popularity game.

I’ve never been one of the popular people and I think I broadcast a loner vibe that has most people not straying too closely. Only a brave few cross that invisible line around me to give me a go, and I’m actually quite friendly to those who do. I don’t tend to bite unless you ask me (or one of my heroes) very nicely. At the moment, everything on the promotion and platform side of things feels like a vertical struggle. Not even uphill. Just a vertical ascent. Like rock climbing, but without the handholds and the ropes.  Zero support and nothing to fall back on.

It’s the bane of all authors that we measure our success against that which other authors enjoy. It’s wrong of us, and we know that, but we do it anyway, because we love a bit of soul-crushing punishment. Nothing like seeing how well other people are doing, how popular they are, how their readers share their books and talk about them with each other, to leave you feeling down in the dumps. Well, I’m down… I’m in the bottomless pit with the Devil. That’s how far down I am.

I know many people reading this will just mutter things about how well I do and that I have no reason to gripe, but I’m a human being and we strive for success, and when we don’t feel we’re achieving it or doing well enough, we have a moan. It’s my blog, and I’ll moan if I want to. And honestly, I don’t feel I’ve succeeded yet. I’m far from a success story. I’m doing well, but I don’t think of it as success. Success is still a way off.

I know the reason I haven’t been able to find my writing mojo recently. It’s nothing to do with the book or fear that it won’t be well received or will be a huge fail. It’s my head full of business, promotion panics, book sales worries, and looking at other authors and wondering how the hell I get to be like that, that is stopping me from writing. I swear I’ve written out promotion ideas for most of the day hoping that somewhere in all my scribbles there’ll be a nugget of gold that will see readers promoting me to their friends, on their networks, or something.

I’m often left wondering whether I just don’t write the type of books that people want to talk about and that’s why word of mouth promotion eludes me… or whether it’s more along the lines of people think I’m doing just fine and I don’t need the help… or that authors don’t want me in on their gang and their little helpful hops to cross promote each others books because I’m totally unapproachable or wouldn’t be interested. I don’t know. The answer eludes me as much as the solution. Maybe I’m just bashing my head against the wall. It’s times like these that I feel like taking a step back from the internet but that would only kill my book sales and undo all my hard work. Believe it or not, it takes a crapload of effort to get the sales I do. I’m not one of those lucky authors who releases a book and it rockets up the charts, and everyone talks about how great it is, and more people buy it, and an agent or publisher comes knocking on my door with a bouquet of flowers and a fantastic book deal. Man, I wish I was though.

I’m drowning right now though and feeling very much like an island, not a part of this world. It happens in cycles. I’ll feel as though I’m doing fantastically at engaging people and like I’m part of the group, and then I’ll end up on the periphery and disappearing into obscurity again. I only wish I had people I can talk to about all this writing stuff and everything, but a lot of the time I don’t want to bother people with it and to be honest there’s only one woman who would probably listen to my moaning with an open and understanding heart, and hopefully not be quietly wondering what my problem is when I’m selling books and doing okay. It’s not about the number of books I sell, but about the whole social side of things. That’s my total fail. I don’t measure success in just figures. It’s a complicated equation and a lot of it is the social side of things and being included. I think this all harks back to what I said earlier about never being popular. You’ve all seen my bio picture, right? I’m sure you can figure out that I wasn’t the popular girl in school / college / university / the office. lol.

Yes, dearest author reading this post, it happens to everyone. We all want to be part of the group, one of the in crowd, or at least one of a close-knit group of authors who support each other and we all do fantastically because we’re looking out for each other… in reality, only a few of us will enjoy that and everything it entails, and the rest of us live like islands and wonder why no one wants to play with us. We all want to taste success too, but sometimes success is far harder to achieve than you think it will be and it turns out your measure of success isn’t just book sales. Perservere, dearest author, and maybe one day you’ll find that elusive nugget of gold that leads you to the success you desire… and if it doesn’t, you’ve probably already achieved some form of success through all your hard work and patience.

About Felicity Heaton

I'm a NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In my books I create detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, Larissa Ione, Kresley Cole, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will love my books too.

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