Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The random road to success...


If you are in the vicinity of the Polish Heritage Museum on Sunday march 24th around 4pm don't forget to pop in for my book launch of A Winter's Day in 1939. The book will be at the super special launch price of $18 (which is rather super special). The museum is a great place with lots of interesting Polish artefacts, traditional costumes and art. I hope I see you there.

People have been talking about the book and reviewing it which has been most exciting and I am trying to keep it all in perspective. I would love for the book to do well but as blogger Lexi Revellian says nobody really knows why a book becomes a howling success.  You can check out her blog here. She links to Wool author, Hugh Howey's, own article on what he attributes Wool's bestsellerdom to, and the J.E.Fishman article 'Hugh Howey and the Bestseller Myth' is also worth a look.

There are no sure-fire, guaranteed roads to the kind of success Howey has enjoyed. He's a little bewildered by it himself. But I liked what he said about 'gambling like he was drunk'. He did what felt right at the time when it came to making decisions and making plans. I don't know if I could be as brave and bold as he has been but I do do two things he recommends - I put my work out there. I'm happy and keen to try different routes to make work available. And I write all sorts of things. Whatever comes into my head that's desperate to get out again onto the page. I write widely and I think I've got an even bigger range of stuff still in me. I just have to be a writer, and I hope the harder I work, the luckier I get.  

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