My best advice for my fellow authors is to continue to create if a book fails to thrive. If you must, hang up your notebooks and computers for a time, but in the tradition of ‘getting back on the horse’, return to the sanity of work and hunker down. After all, creative work is an artist’s center. Dry off, gird your pages, and keep on writing. Do not go gentle into obscurity.

A novel may be a hard ship to launch, but hardships aside, it’s the greatest ‘show-and-tell’ on earth. Be forewarned, or is it foreshadowed – a cautious toe in the waters of self-publishing barely creates a ripple, and it takes a ripple effect to create even the smallest splash. One would assume that Big splashes from little splashes, grow. Realistically… hardly ever. Such is the reality of a writer’s life. Treading water is mandatory. Water wings can’t hurt.

There are specific times for splashing out and mindful times to withdraw and listen. In any case, writing a bestseller is not the goal. The goal is to write the best book you can. A novel has to incubate, and while it matures, so must the savvy writer. We are advised to write ‘hot’, edit with a ‘cool’ head, and then, eyes open, step off the cliff. Surprisingly, not as foolhardy as it sounds.

Nevertheless, still-waters often run shallow for unknown authors, lured off course by the false promises of predators. Books often run aground, dashed on the rocks of business. But then, the love of words has its own rewards which is just as well… the odds of making a huge publishing splash is mercurial.

Welcome to my wading pool: https://www.amazon.com/V-Knox/e/B0094K0Q7Y