On Being Rich and Famous

Good day readers. Steve Schneiderman here. I have survived my first Boy Scout camp out (hold your applause, please). It was, um, interesting. We made catapults and rockets and ate Sloppy Joes and listened to the coyotes howl while we tried to sleep.

Which brings me to an ongoing argument my wife and I are having about the word "coyote". Coming from NYC, I say it has 3 syllables and is pronounced CAY-YO-TEE as in the famous cartoon character Wiley Coyote. My wife, coming from the Central part of the US, says it is pronounced COYOT -- the "e" is silent.

I further argue that COYOTE rhymes with PEYOTE.

These arguments are important! What say you?

And as I was writing this update, my 11 year old daughter came home from school and told me she wants to start a band with her girlfriend. She wants to grow up to be a rich and famous singer ... or sculptor ... or ballet dancer ... anything so long as she is R-I-C-H and F-A-M-O-U-S.

What is it about being rich and famous that gets everyone's heart a flutter? Do you write to be rich and famous or to share your voice and knowledge?

When I first started writing, I wanted to be Stephen King or Woody Allen. I sent all of my horror short stories to the same magazines and editors that made Stephen King famous. That did not work.

Then I thought I would focus on humorous pieces (I always wanted to be a stand-up comic).

Are you ready for the ultimate irony? I could not get my stuff published if my life depended upon on it. Then an old professor called me and asked me to write a "student" essay on cause and effect for a new thematic reader he was compiling. A few days later and $50.00 richer my essay was accepted for publication in his book, American Voices, published by Harper & Row.

OK, ready for the ultimate irony? My humorous cause and effect essay entitled "Artificial Stupidity" was published between essays written by Stephen King and Woody Allen! My two favorite writers.

So I didn't get rich or become famous, but I did get sandwiched between two rich and famous authors. That counts for something, right?

What about you? Why do you write? For fame? For fortune? To share? A lot of people I meet online believe they have written the next million dollar book. And when it does not sell magically by itself, they point the finger of blame towards everyone but themselves. They figure they did ALL
of the work by writing the next million dollar book, so someone else should do all the work promoting it.

Yeah. Right.

It doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did because then we would all be rich and famous. So we need to find other ways to achieve our goals.

EbookoMatic is certainly one way to get your stuff out
there.

I think there are two ways to pursue fame and fortune. It all starts with writing something that truly is very good and very commercial. That means it is well written and people want it.

Then you either need to share it simply to develop an audience who wants more of what you have or you promote it through as many different vehicles as possible. That means distribute it everywhere.

I remember when Stephen King first experimented with the ebook in 1999 with The Green Mile. He started giving away chapters to the ebook for free and then started selling the follow-up chapters for like a buck a piece. He made $500,000 almost overnight! See what I mean?

Why not join EbookoMatic and then start feeding the public your next great work in chapters. Give them away for free and then make them buy the rest of it? It could be a cheap way to get your name and work noticed and you might make a few bucks doing it, too.

All my best,

Steve Schneiderman