The Value of Feedback

I think every author that wants to have success with his or her work will have to get feedback at some point. In the face of the many drafts it can take to get a real, publishable winner, everyone needs a little help.

Some people go to their friends for advice, and inevitably get flowery words of kindness that don't really help improve anything. Others look up professional editors, forking over the cash for it. There are writer's workshops as well, but it's tough to get much on more than a piece of your work. What we really need is a fellow writer who's willing to give honest feedback from start to finish.

So, across the internet, there are many places where we can ask for this (my personal favorite being the Absolute Write forums). But the funny thing is, it's just as important the other way too--if you need this help, so do the rest of us. Offering to look through and give someone an honest, thorough opinion is a great way to make friends in the writing community.

One of my fellow authors, Kat Mellon, just made a blog post on some of the best ways to band together with other writers. It's packed full of great information. She gives at least six valuable tips--all I have is this one, but it's definitely my favorite way of interacting with other writers.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have quite a few projects to go read and comment on.

Obscure Authors Alliance

Well, I've been talking about it for a while, and I finally did it. I've created a home for authors who are really struggling, who fight tooth and nail for every friend, follower, and book sale they make. I'm here to pool my resources with every other author I can find, whether they want to contribute posts, join in discussions, or just call themselves a proud member of this group.

The Obscure Authors Alliance is a Wordpress blog dedicated to all things writing. Eventually, I hope to create an article base that covers everything from character building to getting a sale, featuring the talents of as many authors as we can. In the meantime, though, we're a pretty small group, and I'd like to get to know everyone who's involved. Thus, I suspect we're going to have a heavy emphasis on chatting through comments at first.

Anyone can join this site and start making blog posts as part of the group. I personally believe that by contributing to a group effort, everyone benefits. The Obscure Authors Alliance has the potential to attract more readers than an individual's blog, and these readers in turn will see the individual members who write their favorite articles or are helpful in discussion. Thus, the more you participate, the more discoverable you become.

If you're interested in becoming a full-fledged author at the blog, all you have to do is fill out the form with your name and e-mail address, and I'll reply with an invitation as soon as possible. I can't do this alone, so I strongly encourage all of you to try your hand in this adventure. We're just getting off the ground, and every person can have a huge impact.

The Meaning of Obscurity

The blogging world has been a tough one for me. I'll save you the story of my failure to get into a "blogging tribe" (a small group of bloggers) since I don't care to badmouth other people in the community, with or without mentioning names.

Today, though, I saw a post about the "Liebster Award," where the writers of "small" blogs promote one another. Thing is, apparently their definition of "small" is less than 200 followers. Please, people. I have four.

Yup. Super tiny blog here. But I bet there are bloggers out there who don't even have followers at all. Is that because they're bad at blogging, or don't know what they're doing? No. It just means they haven't gotten to a point in the community where people notice them. At 25 followers, people start to have buddies they can partner with, and get the ball rolling. At 50, groups form.

But what about those of us who are still struggling to get to that point? We all want to reach out to the community, but we're so obscure that we can't even find each other out there. And believe me, I am working hard to try and find even a handful of writers who are languishing at the same level that I am. This is the hardest point for an author to be at, and yet it's the one where we have the least support.

After all, when you're where I am right now, you start to question whether you can really do this or not. I read success stories about breakout authors, and they all start along the lines of "I couldn't even sell a hundred books in my first year." You know how many books I sold in six months, print and ebook sales combined? Twelve. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those went to close friends and family.

I'm looking for people who have that same level of frustration--whether they've already written their book, are still working on it, haven't started or are years deep in the marketing rut. I want to form a sort of alliance here. Does that mean more popular people can't join in? No, of course they can. But only if they can set aside that bit of success they have, and work with us.