It’s fascinating to watch social trends as they unfold, shift, and pave the way for the ones to follow. People are pack animals, most following the leader wherever he or she might take them, allowing popularity alone to dictate their own choices in taste and opinion. I think about the whole Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon, how just the right people decided the series was worth shouting about and somehow turned a mediocre-at-best collection of fan fiction into a bestseller. More recently, J. K. Rowling flipped the fate of her recent mystery novel, taking it from nowhere to the top of the charts by outing herself as Robert Galbraith.
It gets a person like me, a relative nobody, thinking about what it actually takes to stake any real claim on the author’s frontier. Moreover, how many exceptional books are going unread by the masses simply because they were never discovered by one of the ever-influential pack leaders? Popular brands sell. Stephen King could write a story about a haunted fig tree and it would sell millions.
I’ve never been popular on any front. I was the loner in school, the kid picked last in dodge ball, the girl who couldn’t start a trend if her life depended on it. How many others are there who are just like me, with much to contribute but no pack leaders touting their merits? How many potential Stephen Kings are out there who will never realize their potential simply because they lack either the right connections or the right luck to be read by someone influential enough to put them on the map?
I know nearly every author out there has faith in his or her writing, so I’m not unique in that regard. I’m not unique in feeling that I deserve my fair shot. I’m anything but unique in my desire to make my mark in the literary world.
What I am, however, is unique—period.
Is that alone worth your readership … or are you waiting for the pack leaders to tell you what the next big trend will be to follow?
I’ve never been popular on any front. I was the loner in school, the kid picked last in dodge ball, the girl who couldn’t start a trend if her life depended on it. How many others are there who are just like me, with much to contribute but no pack leaders touting their merits? How many potential Stephen Kings are out there who will never realize their potential simply because they lack either the right connections or the right luck to be read by someone influential enough to put them on the map?
I know nearly every author out there has faith in his or her writing, so I’m not unique in that regard. I’m not unique in feeling that I deserve my fair shot. I’m anything but unique in my desire to make my mark in the literary world.
What I am, however, is unique—period.
Is that alone worth your readership … or are you waiting for the pack leaders to tell you what the next big trend will be to follow?
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