Friday, August 17, 2012

I am a Lazy Author!

Tip of the Day: Don't work out three times in one day. You will not be able to move when you wake up the next morning. Trust me.

You know super-bestselling, uber-famous, author Sue Grafton, right? She writes those murder mystery alphabet books. She thinks self-published authors are lazy. Yes, in an interview with a Louisville news outlet, she said this, "Quit worrying about publication and master your craft. If you have a good story to tell and if you write it well, the Universe will come to your aid. Don’t self-publish. That’s as good as admitting you’re too lazy to do the hard work."

Bein' lazy & pickin' my nose!
It's true. I'm super-lazy. This summer I hired a babysitter and paid her $10 an hour so I could write pick my nose while playing on Facebook.

When my kids go back to school next week, I'm going to use my free time to write play World of Warcraft for a few hours each day before my soap operas come on. Then I'm going to edit bake a cake and eat it all.

I bought an iMac earlier this year. It makes it much easier to market create You Tube videos. Oh, and those SCBWI conferences and workshops I've paid to attend so I can learn more about craft? Shhh....don't tell, it's just so I can hang out with friends and score some food.

Working on my stank face for my crunk routine
After I close my eyes and type gibberish until the little indicator says I have 50,000 words, I slap my ebook up on Amazon. Why edit? That's lame. And it takes up too much time when I could be perfecting my crunk moves with last week's episode of So You Think You Can Dance.

I'm one of the few solely self-published authors in the world with PAL status within SCBWI. Usually it means Published and Listed. In my case, it probably means Pathetic and Lazy.

I'll make six figures this year. But that's easy, yanno, for us lazy authors. I wonder how much money the ones who work hard make?

If you're lazy, like me, you might want to consider self-publishing. Phew, I really dodged a bullet by not going traditional, didn't I? All that work...I can't even imagine what it's like.

ALL AUTHORS WHO WANT TO SUCCEED, REGARDLESS OF PUBLISHING PATH, WORK THEIR ASSES OFF.

-end rant-

***After I wrote and scheduled this post, Ms. Grafton wrote a response to the outcry from indie authors. Read it here.   Ms. Grafton was educated rather quickly, and while she still admits she doesn't understand self-publishing, she knows she spoke too soon on a topic outside her expertise.

My blog post doesn't make fun of anyone but me (my favorite person to make fun of!), so I left it as is.

I also hope the readers of this blog know that I am a very sarcastic person who would never, ever pick her nose or crunk ... in front of a camera. Let's not discuss what goes on when the camera's off. ;) ***

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber


2 comments:

Walter Rhein said...

Nice response! I'm sick of the anti self-published author attitude myself. After all, the great majority of books throughout history were self-published.

I've gone both routes and I'm still undecided about what is best. Also, it makes a lot of sense for an established author with a book that has finished a print run to throw it out there to be available in print-on-demand. I mean, why should only used bookstores be able to make a profit on the name recognition you have earned? If people want your book, make it available to them.

I do feel there is a little bit of compromise involved with traditional publishing. My publisher is great, but there are some things I want to say which I wouldn't expect them to put their name on. I understand it's a business, but making money isn't my primary goal as a writer.

Thanks for your post!

Megan Duncan said...

Fabulous rant! :o)