Another Reason Writing More Books is Better

One of my Twitter friends mentioned how worked up she is about her new release. She asked if authors get used to it and how long the excitement lasts after release for more-established authors. A week? Two?

I replied to her and we had an interesting conversation about it. Then, yesterday, I saw on Goodreads that – overnight – over a hundred people had added Platinum to their “To Read” lists. This is a really fun thing to wake up and see. I Tweeted about it, wondering why the sudden surge. Several people suggested possibilities – very likely that it was cited on some high-traffic list – but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Then I went back to work on the Phantom book.

And this, I think, it what makes all the difference between authors of one books and authors of multiple books. The more books you have out there, the more books you’re writing, the less ability you have to obsess over one.

For example, with Goodreads, when I log on – and it’s one of my default pages for when I open Firefox – I have a sidebar that shows my stuff. At the top is my Author Dashboard, which shows my most recent publication. That’s Platinum right now, which is why I immediately notice the numbers. It shows me the cover, how many people have added it, how many rankings and how many reviews. To see more detail than that, or my other books, I have to click and go to the page. I rarely do this, because I think it’s putting my attention on the wrong things. (The main reason I have Goodreads on default is to remind me to update my status on whatever I’m currently reading – also in the sidebar.)

Now that Platinum pops up on that home page, I don’t see the Rogue’s Pawn ranking and review numbers anymore. It makes me move on, regardless of how well a book is performing.

The other thing I notice, now that I have seven fiction publications out there, is that different readers like different stories. We all go into this *knowing* that, but it’s difficult to keep in mind when a reader doesn’t like YOUR book. The perspective gets infinitely better when they don’t like this one, but do like that one.

So, all those times industry folks say the best thing you can do is write more stories? This is yet another reason why.