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At the end of all my books, I recommend stories by other authors to my readers. I want to talk about this, because it's important to me on a bunch of levels.
First, I'm not just a writer, I'm a reader, and, well, I want to share the things I like with other people. 1/?
First, I'm not just a writer, I'm a reader, and, well, I want to share the things I like with other people. 1/?
I also really, really like recommending books to people. I pride myself immensely for my ability to pick out books well-suited towards others' tastes and needs. I'm damn good at it, if I do say so myself.
But those are relatively minor reasons. 2/
But those are relatively minor reasons. 2/
On a much more important level, this is about worker solidarity to me. And make absolutely no mistake, writers are workers. We're highly skilled laborers producing art, sure, but laborers nonetheless. 3/
Writers of all sort need to stick together and have each others' backs. This is WHY we have professional organizations like the @sfwa , of which I'm proud to be a member. (Seriously, you've got no idea how ridiculously excited I was when I became a member. Lifelong dream.) 4/
These organizations absolutely serve many of the same functions as a labor union, to the point where even if it makes sense to legally distinguish them from unions, it makes... a little less sense to do so on a pragmatic standpoint. 5/
(I'm not saying that professional writers associations necessarily ARE unions, just that they fill a highly similar ecological niche as labor unions.)
They provide countless excellent services to their members, and even nonmembers. 6/
They provide countless excellent services to their members, and even nonmembers. 6/
(Oh, yeah, and #WritingCommunity. Sorry, haven't been using twitter super long, still finding my feet here.) 7/
Anyhow, special shout-out here to @SFWA's excellent Writers Beware, a service that warns writers about publishing scams, shady agents, small presses who aren't paying their authors, and all sorts of other stuff. (Huge props to @victoriastrauss.) 8/
"But John, what does this have to do with recommending other authors in your books?"
Well, basically: I don't have the energy or ability to run some amazing service like Writers Beware, or help out with @SFWA. What I can do, however, is boost other authors. 9/
Well, basically: I don't have the energy or ability to run some amazing service like Writers Beware, or help out with @SFWA. What I can do, however, is boost other authors. 9/
(And donate whenever there's a fundraiser or what have you, of course.)
I've had quite a few people refer to other authors as my competition, and I kinda hate that. Not just because I kinda hate the rhetoric about competition you hear so much, but also because it's WRONG. 10/
I've had quite a few people refer to other authors as my competition, and I kinda hate that. Not just because I kinda hate the rhetoric about competition you hear so much, but also because it's WRONG. 10/
Fiction authors operate in an unsaturated market. There are countless potential readers that don't read that we could be reaching. Even among readers, most of them aren't spending nearly as much time as they could be (or usually, want to be) reading. 11/
We're competing against television, videogames, and countless other activities. (Especially social media. THAT'S what we should be most trying to steal people's time away from. Which I say while using social media.) 12/
The amount of readers and the amount of reading done can all be increased massively. This is a FRACTION of the size that the reading public could be. It's about as unsaturated as a market gets. 13/
We're not fighting over slices of a pie. Instead, we're all standing in front of a small mountain range of pie ingredients, and we just need to get making the pies.
And, well, I've got a lot of personal data and anecdotal experience reinforcing my opinion here. 14/
And, well, I've got a lot of personal data and anecdotal experience reinforcing my opinion here. 14/
There are authors who, whenever they release a book, result in ME seeing a sales spike a short time afterword. (Most notably @WilliamWight and @TaelienSalaris). The reason why is pretty obvious- we write similar stuff, and when readers finish them, they want more! 15/
So if I can help readers discover new authors I think they'll like, I'm going to do it! And I do my best to be inclusive about it, too. In the backs of my books, I've recommended books from Big 5 publishers, indie novels, webnovels, webcomics- you name it. 16/
Because, as authors, we're ALL in the same boat. They're not my competitors, they're my collaborators, my fellow ship-mates helping keep the ship that is the literary world afloat. My individual contributions may be small, but... 17/
There's a lot of us writer types. Every little bit of authorial mutual aid helps.
Plus, doing nice things for other writers is a great way to have a bunch of positive interactions and make friends, and you can never have too many of either. 18/18
Plus, doing nice things for other writers is a great way to have a bunch of positive interactions and make friends, and you can never have too many of either. 18/18
