it's February, let's get this show on the road

I'm impatient to get an audience because, well, I've written a lot of stuff, and I just think people should be reading it. The people are out there, I'm sure. I'm not sure if what I write is good enough to merit a big wide audience like the best of writers have. But I know that if I could make them aware of me, I'd have more readers than I do now.

In some ways I feel like my time is running out. I have a lot to write, still, yet marketing the way I do is time-consuming and life has its demands. It's frustrating to feel like I could be doing better especially if I paid a pro, but I really really don't want to pay a pro, don't want to spend more money on it than I have. I've become indie to the core. I've learned cover design (still a ways to go there) and gotten better at proofreading my own (harder than proofreading anyone else's). I've figured out how to maximize my time so I can get a few readers here and there, and keep lowering my ratings (they are much better now than they used to be, though, from the outside you could look at them and say, this guy has a ways to go). Some people are reading some of my work. It's rough though. And slow. I am so glad i'm not relying on this to make a living.

I am thinking of a Little Free Library program. It means, roughly, organizing my extra books (those whose covers have changed, and which I no longer sell) so that they all end up in Little Free Libraries. This is a bottom-up kind of approach. Get the paperbacks in the hands of people who might read them. I have no faith in the brick-and-mortar libraries, though I think that in the big picture they might work too. It's small-town America where people are dying for something to read to get them out of the boredom, the stifling nature of cultural expectations. Starting right here in western Illinois, I'll put my books out and see if it works.