So you want to be a best-selling author?

Lately I've been inundated with ads from firms that promise to promote my book and transform it into a bestseller.

In truth, I have no one to blame for this flood but myself. I was the one who initiated it, after all, by inquiring about these businesses in the first place. I was feeling discouraged about the fact that my one self-published collection wasn't selling well (actually, wasn't selling at all!). And I was dealing with a writers block of sorts myself, so I wasn't producing anything new. Poking around the edge of the self-publishing world was am amusimg distraction. And, as it turned out, an informative one. And one that helped me reset my priorities.

First, "publishing house" is a misnomer. These firms (and they are legion) do take a manuscript and format it so that it can be bound into a book. They also claim that they edit the text that the would-be author submits. They also promise to market the book, which will usually mean the creation of advertisments for posting on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, "X", other, similar social media. They'll put together blurbs or summaries that are loaded with words and phrases that will be picked up by the algorithms of the media I mentioned above. They'll provide artwork and cover design. And that, to a lot of people, sounds like publishing.

Although putting a manuscript into print form is something legitimate publishers do, what these various self-publishing houses do is more accurately described as marketing. Judging from my own research, I'm safe in saying that few, if any, of their "creative team" actually read the manuscript. Instead, analysis and feedback is AI-generated. And evidently, the AI platforms that these places use are predisposed to analyzing fantasy, horror, mystery, romance and the like, under the general category of "fiction." The graphics are similar, and all bear the glossy hallmarks of artificiality. The verbal descriptions are a word salad of buzzwords and catch phrases.

Unhappily, I fear, probably accurate representations of the books they're intended to promote.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade. If I've offended anyone, please be sure that that was not my intent.

But if you've read any of my stories, or perused my website, you know that my aim is to write fiction that is not so much thrilling than it is thoughtful; less dramatic than it is unsettling. I don't write about heroes. A humble, ordinary person who is struggling to make sense of a confusing, arbitrary existence is more likely to be found in my stories than a mystery-solver or a dragon-slayer.

But to get back to my original point, there's a tremendous difference between writing in order to be read and writing because there's a story that is aching to be told. Even if only a few readers come across my efforts, read them and are moved, or intrigued, or perhaps even inspired by them, than I am rewarded. I hope that you, reader, will be one of them.