Getting Noticed

During my recent interview with Alan Dean Foster, he brought up a point that is the key sticking point, in my opinion, for writers looking to break out into the open – getting noticed.

Let’s acknowledge that unless your name is LeBron James or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, you need some modicum of talent for people to care enough to read your work.  Let’s further acknowledge that being a best seller makes more best sellers easier.

What I’ve spoken of in the past about getting noticed is the need to have a viral moment of some kind.  Justin Halpern got it when Rob Corddry found his Twitter account and his views exploded.  JK Rowling got it(sort of) when a publisher’s 12-year old daughter read the first chapter of HarryPotter and immediately demanded more.  Neither was an active bit of marketing on their part.

That’s not to say actively promoting your work is worthless.  It can be necessary, and it takes hard work, but I’ve discovered that the harder I work, the luckier I tend to get.  But there’s just so much volume that everything blends into noise unless there’s some kind of distinguishing factor.  What causes one work to stand out versus another?

Unless you have enough money to really market yourself – I’m talking Bill Gates type of money – you almost have to rely on getting someone of prominence to notice you.  It becomes a game of standing on the shoulders of others, whether they’re writers or not, but you have to find someone with lots of people paying attention to them so you can hopefully get a few of those people to notice you too.

Maybe a targeted approach would work – carefully target a few folks with high numbers of followers that might be open to your forays.  But that can usually only be done in the context of a relationship.  Those with stature are, quite rightly, wary of those looking to glom onto them for their fame.  Most want folks to be with them for them, not for what they can do.  So tread lightly.

At the same time, do not eschew all contacts just because you want to “make it on your own.”  That sounds great in a movie, but it rarely works out I real life(just being honest here based on nearly five decades on Earth).  If you have a relationship with someone that might be able to boost your visibility, see if they’re open t that.  That’s part of what networking is about.  After all, maybe they have you around for a reason.