Let’s face it, nobody cares

For the longest time I’ve had a very valuable email. Once, when interviewing a minor movie personality, we corresponded in writing a little bit to talk about subsequent details of the story. I somehow ended up either in her address book in the wrong group, or she typed the first few letters of my name meaning to send a group email to someone else and I ended up in it.

So when it arrived in my inbox, it had the email addresses of about a dozen quite high profile actors and directors. Hardly Martin Scorsese and Tom Cruise, but names that are well known in the industry and casually known outside it.

When it came time to publish and start to market Falling I knew it’d be invaluable. As many everyday readers I get who enjoy it, public endorsement or professional enthusiasm from one big name in the entertainment industry would be a leg up the likes of which many authors spend their careers dreaming about.

And what a result. Four of the emails bounced back to me, the addresses apparently not in use any more, and the rest were met with the most deafening of silences.

I didn’t expect a busload of Hollywood pros to show up at my door with flowers and red carpets, but it was still pretty dispiriting. I’m smack bang up against the eternal conundrum that nobody looks at you until you’re proven and have a name, but you’ll never get a name and reputation until someone looks at you.

Mind you, I have heard from one or two everyday readers that they’ve enjoyed it. I can’t decide if they’ve really read it or have just scanned the homepage of this website and like me enough to do me a favour – I know how long Falling is and what a big commitment an 880 page book demands, and not many people read as fast or as much as I do, after all.

Maybe I’ll have to wait until I’m dead for it to be appreciated just like Edmund Halley, Vincent van Gogh or Ed Wood. Should I cut my ear off now or wait until after Christmas?

I might have a bit better an idea soon because after sending the free copy link to everyone I can possibly think of (email me if you’d like it instead of paying for it), I have no idea how many people have done so.

So I’ve started taking bids to set up a system to track the downloads. I’ll either get a pleasant surprise to find a lot more people have accessed it than I imagine, or there might be three downloads total (all of them mine).

I’ve also reached the end of the document I set up with every possible idea I could think of to market Falling, and it feels like there’s nothing left to try other than whatever opportunities strike me on the day. And with nothing left to try and without it being pushed constantly, I fear it’ll never go anywhere.

So it all just feels a little bit hopeless at the moment…