My friend Seth emailed this to me about my last post, about writers not having the outlets for promoting themselves that musicians have:
The equivalent for writers playing shows I think is capturing an audience and building a fanbase online even before an author has a book written. That way when you have a book you already have a built in group of people who want to buy it.
Yea, and so t’was. That is only recently, though, through the automagical incarnation of the internet. What about before blogs? Writers got known through short-story publications, chapbooks, knowing someone in the right place, or the “how could this be interesting” public readings?
Back in my guitar-playing days, a friend of mine said the best guitarist in the world is probably has a desk job somewhere, languishing in obscurity. I wonder if the next best writer is working twelve hour shifts, pushing buttons in a factory.