POST-MORTEM, DAY FOUR

Don’t be embarrassed.

Seriously. If there are 100 entries in a contest with five winners, 95% of the contestants won’t win. I think there were closer to 200 entries, so that means that 97% of the contestants won’t win. Losing, in other words, is the default position; despite this society’s emphasis on winning, there’s no shame in that.

Early on, I pointed out that, win or lose, you should look upon the Inkshares/Nerdist contest as only one part of your artistic/life’s journey. As Richard Bach once said, “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” As I used to tell my students when I was a university lecturer, a career in the arts involves 30, 40 or more years of work with no guarantee of success. If you can see yourself doing something else with your life, save yourself the heartache and do it. On the other hand, if you can’t imagine doing anything else with your life, you won’t let a setback like not winning this contest stop you.

You did your best. If that wasn’t enough to win, do your own post-mortem and learn the lessons you need to learn from the experience so that you’ll do better next time. Another quote I like to bandy about in situations like this comes from the great 20th century playwright Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Failing better may not be all that inspirational. But it is a realistic goal.

POST-MORTEM, DAY THREE

Know your audience.

We were told going in that a substantial number of our preorders could come from other authors on the site. I have had a small number of people on the site preorder (and dog bless you for that!), but not many. And why would they? I write humour, one of a very small number of writers on the site who do. The novel I entered into the competition was weirdly structured and didn’t fit comfortably into any of the genres’ popular sub-genres. Perhaps worst of all, Both Sides. NOW! has ;* LITERARY PRETENSIONS *. I probably couldn’t have chosen a book less likely to succeed in a contest such as this.

;This is, of course, a good general piece of advice. The problem with me is that Both Sides. NOW! is not an anomaly; everything I write is like it. I was talking to another writer the other night, and I pointed out that, as far as I can tell (and my experience with this contest has confirmed), there doesn’t appear to be a natural audience for what I do. This means that I literally have to build my audience one reader at a time. At some point, I may reach a critical mass of readers that will grow exponentially (the cascade effect I mentioned a couple of days ago), but until that happens, I just have to grind out every reader I can.;

To make the point obvious: don’t enter a science fiction novel into a contest for romance novels (unless it has a romantic plot that really kicks ass). Again, if you’re honest about this, you could save yourself some embarrassment.