We Need A Break

My author friends and colleagues and I need a break.

We're the struggling authors; the un-famous, ignored by press, public, and Hollywood, and we're tired. We write our novels, revise them, send them off to be picked down to bare bones by critique groups, agents, and editors. We organize and attend events to meet eager readers, share our stories, sell a few books--and then no one shows. Or they show and don't buy. Large chain bookstores shoo us away, holding out for the few superstars. Bravely, we appeal to independent bookstores only to find they are ignored by most of their neighbors in favor of a deal on the internet. We spend more money than we make on promotion, traveling, cases of paper. and toner.

Yet, we continue to write, submit, revise, promote, and show up to sign our books against the stacked odds not in our favor.

Exhausted, sometimes demoralized, we continue to dream--and do.

So be kind--post a tweet, write a letter, send an email telling us not-so-well-known authors how much you enjoyed our books and that you look forward to our next work, and that you'll tell your friends to read it.

You just might save a writing life.

Char