While I'm sitting here, half-watching a biography about Johnny Depp on a Saturday night and looking at people's Facebok posts, there's a lot of talk, as always of course, about the state of publishing.
Publisher's Weekly just gave great kudos to Fifty Shades of Grey for revitalizing the publishing and erotica industry.
There are a lot of very jealous authors and publishers.
I watch fades come and go, I'm that old now. Having been a vorcacious reader as a child and teen, and actually right up until my kids hit the school age, I always had my finger on the pulse of publishing trends. I read the paper every day, subscribed to a million magazines and read a book a day pretty much. Now I read on the internet, and rarely a whole book in a month as I'm always writing one when I'm not doing pr and looking for more work.
When some of us have been on the hamster wheel driven by the demon obsession of the fine arts, hoping that if we keep going and keep working hard enough, that we will eventually find success, it's not hard to dream that we will indeed be rewarded with a big karmic prize. We'll finally be able to pay our bills every month and own a home. We can buy our kids cars and education. So we keep trying and trying.
It doesn't matter which discipline you're in, I've heard from all art forms. People go to school and work and practice and hone their techniques and "pay their dues" and try to be in the right place at the right time for Lady Luck to smile on them. And they have some success but not enough to quit the day job...
Then along comes the superstar.
The flash in the pan.
The Next Big Thing
Sometimes they spring from nowhere and other times, they are hard working souls who finally found their ways off their own hamster wheels.
As they sell buckets of their work, people scream, "he has no talent," "she's a hack," "he's derivative," and so on. I've seen it over and over again.
Someone somewhere thinks they have something to offer. Millions, do in fact, and so the new flash is recognized and sometimes burns out quick. Others keep working and ride the wave of their instant fame as long as they can until the next wave comes.
Tornadoes are probably easier to predict than "the next big thing."
As jealous as I sometimes can be when someone manages to grab the super duper brass ring with far less blood, sweat and tears than most, I also say, "Good for them."
So what if I've written a bucket full of erotica. Obviously what I wrote didn't appeal to people in the way that Fifty Shades of Grey have caught people's attention.
I've written a couple of vampire books but none of them were about teenagers and it was teenagers the machine wanted.
We just have to keep trying.
I would say most of the people being published these days have some sort of talent. And as we know, sometimes talent or even a good looking product doesn't matter. Obviously they somehow resonated with their patron.
In the end, it's about your art filling a hole, filling a void in the market.
Like Pet Rocks, no one knows why it turns out to be THAT at this time but there it is.
Just keep running on that hamster wheel.
Maybe one day they'll buy what YOU'RE selling!
All pictures are copyright by Sephera Giron and are not to be shared or copied without written permission from Sephera and the models.
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