The only way to make a living being an author in modern times is by pandering to the largest audience in your chosen genre. Do you want to make a living and be famous? Well, then you’re going to have to churn out books every few months, or pay huge social media influencers to claim your book changed their pathetic lives.
A lot of writers and authors pretend they write for themselves, then turn around and whine on social media about low sales. It’s basic business. To make money, you have to create the most popular product as cheep as you can, and push it out into the wild. Of course, there are always exceptions, but here’s a bit of cold truth, you are not the exception, and neither am I.
Decades ago I had an epiphany while watching an episode of American Idol. The show displayed a packed field of talented singers. This is when it became clear… no one is special now that we can see billions of people via television and the internet. A great singer in a rural farm town isn’t all that unique on the global stage. Singers are everywhere, and they’re all good, but none of them are particularly special. Again, there are outliers. Take Taylor Swift for example. She’s a great singer, but she has more than her voice. She crafted an entire business out of a persona that spoke to a wide audience of young women and girls. Pandering to her base, not her voice, made her a billionaire.
I will never be a famous author. Infamous? Maybe, but famous, never. It’s not that I’m unwilling to pander, I simply don’t know how.