La Bene Vita

Campus

I keep calling it a store, but I need to change my lingo. When I open my next MTMS   location, it will become the Westerville (or Pickerington or Pataskala or Bexley) "Campus" - not "store". And if you're keeping track, the next campus is planned for fall of 2013.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been thinking of looking up literary agents again. I don't want to do the work beyond writing the books - blog tours, promotions, physical sales, blah blah blah. Book signings, okay. Not all the other crap. I just don't want to. I'm not good at it, because I'm not focused enough, so I can't be consistently witty on Twitter or fascinating on Facebook or anything but boring in my blog. It's a failing, I know.

So I looked up blogs for Stephen King, JK Rowling, Nora Roberts. Steve's was dry and last updated in 2009. JK and Nora don't have blogs, that I could find. But these authors didn't get readers by writing blogs. They got readers by connecting with the right people, the people who had the business know-how and drive to promote and sell their first books.

Steve and Nora, incidentally, happened across fledgling genres for their times and thus gained notoriety as pioneers. Rowling is an enigma, unless maybe she hit a new target market with her cross-generational appeal, but there's no doubt she sells books, not blogs. Their kind of fame might be unattainable, unless some new, untapped genre or target market waits to be discovered.

The business person in me cringes at the thought of a book debut that might lose money, so I think I want to do it right, by hiring an agent who knows the business. The problem is, who is that person? And how does one go about capturing the attention of that person? Research? Interview agents who express interest to make sure their clout is sound?

It almost seems like finding a literary agent is just as much work as the crap I'm trying to avoid by hiring an agent.

And so we return to the age-old question: agent or self-publish? I know enough about how business works to know it takes time in before you get money out. In most accepted business models, time in equals eighteen months. Eighteen months of hard work for no pay before you break even on a business. I wouldn't consider one book an entire business, unless it's the first book, which, in my case it would be. So, I shy away from self-publishing because I figure I should expect eighteen months before I see a profit.

But here's the thing: "Campus" or not, technically, I own a retail STORE frequented by kids and parents. I could sell stuff there.

Stuff like books.

Just sayin'.

*ponders*