Your Number One Fan

Us indie scribblers are a hardworking bunch. We write. We read. We (try) to learn marketing. As well as that we get to poke our mostly non-techie brains with big sticks to figure out how to produce books and cover art that can measure up – and then some if you want to be noticed in a good way – to traditionally published works. And those who really want to get there inevitably do I reckon. The nicest thing for me about indie websites is always when the formal author disappears now and then, and up pops a wonderfully relatable to rant, or recipe for homemade bunion buster. Writers are creative souls, and so often share other parts of their creativity too. I love it all, and those are the guys who catch my eye, make me eyeball their book blurb, and generally buy them. My TBR pile is epically proportioned, but I’ll get to read all of them eventually.

One of my favourite things about Stephen King’s books have always been his lengthy forwards. Talking about his life and thoughts, and mundane things. His website though these days is a little clinical – only talking about new and upcoming releases – so as a new reader you’d have to buy one of his books first to get sucked into that King magic. Ann Rice has a fan base that would follow her to death into battle with plastic swords if she asked, because she chats to her fans every day. Those vampire lovers didn’t bat an eye when she embraced religion and wrote a couple of very un-vampire books.

These are the writers I follow, and find fascinating. There is nothing at all interesting about seeing blog after blog extolling the virtues of a single book for months and months. I like the real looks into my favourite author’s lives much more. I’m a peeper – I admit it – but so are most of us after all. Anyway.

I’m getting less and less fall down, head in the sand tired day by day, and today I realised that I must be on the mend when I decided to make up my own new LOL, ROTFL type thingys to confuse people on Twitter, just off the cuff as I go along. I’m betting nobody will call me on these things. #QBA

PS.  I will post a plastic bottle of my very own home-made, cranium exploding, but suspiciously addictive, chilli sauce to anyone who fancies procrastinating long enough to tell me what #QBA means.