I answered a question incorrectly. Actually, it’s happened twice now. I’ve been interviewed on two different radio stations about my book, Swedish Lessons, and in both instances I was asked the same question: “Why didn’t you just leave?”
It’s a question I anticipated, as the full answer is the theme of the entire book. In the moment, during these interviews, however, I tiptoed around the weight of the question, instead listing some of the practical and logistical reasons that why, when things started really going off the rails during my time living in Sweden, I stuck it out, even as the situation got worse and worse. Those things are true, but they shouldn’t have been my answer.
Real Connections, Better Connections
Don’t you hate talking about networking? Oh my gosh, tell me an event is about networking, either overtly or indirectly, and I just don’t wanna. Don’t. Wanna. I get the importance of schmoozing and meeting people and building a network; we all need to make a living, and we all need to buy things from one another. I also genuinely enjoy being social and meeting people. But the idea of waltzing into an event where I am meant to sell myself to people and be sold on others is so unappealing. Ugh.
Pondering Amazon Matchbook as an indie author
Prostitution and hunter/gatherer notwithstanding, I would venture a guess that writer and musician are two of civilization’s oldest careers. I would also guess that this is the first time, over centuries of these careers, that a writer walked into the living room to ask her musician husband about the wisdom of bundling her ebook with the sale of her physical book for a discounted price. And for that musician to respond, “Just as long as it’s not free. Free is what ruined music sales.”
We live in strange times, is what I’m saying. It’s interesting to be doing something that people have been doing for so long but in a totally different way with so many different options. It involves making a lot of decisions about a tried and true business that are neither tried nor necessarily true. And as Mike pointed out has happened with music, if we as indie authors or the larger publishing industry makes some poor choices, things can get really screwed up.
Natalie Burg 