{"id":659,"date":"2012-07-16T15:30:53","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T15:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2012\/07\/16\/blog201208\/"},"modified":"2012-07-16T15:30:53","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T15:30:53","slug":"blog201208","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/blog201208\/","title":{"rendered":"Write a Better Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read an interview recently where a writer mentioned how much emphasis is placed on marketing these days, as though marketing will sell your books. She went on to say that better writing was more important. There are a lot of people who are linking and tweeting and tagging their brains out, but haven\u2019t written anything worth publishing. That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not published, of course. It just means that what is published is unreadable, even if you know very little about writing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"write-good-01\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the insane part: most people don\u2019t know anything about writing well. They just know whether or not they liked the story. Maybe that\u2019s all it\u2019s about. Maybe writing isn\u2019t about art, it isn\u2019t about writing well. It\u2019s about getting the blood pumping inside a teenaged girl\u2019s heart, or teenaged boy\u2019s adrenaline flowing, or some old pervert\u2019s sex drive humming along.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hear so many people (and read them online) complaining about writing versus marketing, vampire stories versus literary stories, Kindle versus print, large press versus small press. I want to scream, \u201cWho the fuck cares?\u201d I know we all want to make a living. I know we all think our shit (or writing) doesn\u2019t stink. We think we have the next Twilight<\/i> or Harry Potter<\/i> or that we\u2019re the next King, or Grisham, or that somehow God is shining His flashlight on us and that we should be next, next!<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, get in line. Here\u2019s the truth: marketing helps, but if you\u2019ve written a book that no one wants to read, it isn\u2019t going to sell. In case you haven\u2019t been paying attention, anything goes\u2026or doesn\u2019t go, all dependent upon the moon\u2019s phases, the stars lining up, your marketing genius, the number of hours you spend on twitter tweeting your fucking brains out, etc. I\u2019m just saying, if you want readers to spread the word about your book, then you might want to consider writing a better book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"TPersun_IPPY2012\"<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Terry Persun<\/strong><\/span> writes in many genres, including historical fiction, mainstream, literary, and science fiction\/fantasy. His latest novel, Cathedral of Dreams is a ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year finalist in the Science Fiction category. His novel Sweet Song just won a Silver IPPY Award, too. Terry\u2019s website is: www.TerryPersun.com<\/a> or you can find him on Amazon at: http:\/\/amzn.to\/gpWf3L<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an interview recently where a writer mentioned how much emphasis is placed on marketing these days, as though marketing will sell your books. She went on to say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c40-myblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}