Yup, this is the end of the blog. I came to this decision way way back in February, so it's not a surprise to me. I wasn't sure how far I'd get this year. I actually copied and pasted a whole bunch of old blog posts for Tuesdays thinking I'd run out of stuff for Two Cent Tuesdays, but I managed to hang in there until pretty much the end, so yay me! A lot of the book reviews I just copied off my book review site, picking them at random and dumping them on so I wouldn't need to bother coming up with new reviews unless there was something new I thought worthy of writing a review about. Pretty much all the Everyday Heroes I dug up back in February; the same for the Comic Captions, though I added a few Marvel ones later in the year when I started to use that site. The Phony Photos obviously I ran at the start of the year. So a large chunk of the blog has been running on autopilot for about 10 months. Which really people who complain they can't post often enough (ahem, Rusty) just find some time one day early in the year and bang out a whole bunch of posts for the year!Anyway, since this blog isn't selling many books for me, there's no reason to continue it. I'm not sure what I ever did wrong, but it never could get much beyond the five or so people who regularly frequented the Grumpy Bulldog Blog.
What I can say is the grand social experiment here failed. I'm sure most of it is I'm not a salesman. I never have been. I never will be. And I can't really abide small talk either. Some of the worst people in my book are those who have to yell "Morning!" and "How ya doin'!" at everyone and God forbid you don't answer them back they'll repeat it even louder like the fate of the fucking world rests on you exchanging stupid pleasantries with them despite that they don't even know my name and obviously have no fucking interest in how I'm doing. Even worse are the idiots who have to say, "Hey Patrick!" if I'm in a two block radius of them, no matter if I'm looking at them or not, as if it's some big accomplishment they can remember the name that's on two placards by my desk. Honestly about 90% of human interaction is absolutely pointless. I haven't any idea why we have to engage in these stupid games except stupid people can't stand to be alone with their thoughts.
So you can imagine I don't like going to 300 blogs a day and saying "Thanks for sharing!" on the off chance you might come read my blog and say "Thanks for sharing!" back. By the same token I don't like going to a blog and not having much of anything beyond that to say. Some of you could help me out there by having better posts! Except the people whose blogs I frequented regularly; they obviously passed muster.
I know, I'm not sociable. That's why I'm a fucking writer, people! So I can sit at my table at Arby's with my big noise-cancelling headphones on and type on my netbook and tune the rest of the world out. Which really this is always the dumbest part of the system to me. When I was just getting started, I thought you'd just be able to get an agent and they'd do all that marketing bullshit for you. But that's not what an agent does at all, apparently. I'm not sure what they really do or why we really need them except publishers don't want to be swamped with millions of shitty query letters. Basically I think I just needed the money to hire a publicist and an intern to do all this PR shit I can't stand.
I kind of had this idea after it got accepted by a "publisher" that the Scarlet Knight series would be an easy sell. I mean the two top grossing movies in 2012 were superhero movies. In 2013 superhero movies were 2 of the top 3 in the "summer" season and I'm pretty sure "Iron Man 3," "Man of Steel," and "Thor 2" were all in the Top 10 for the year. But those are all established characters, some for 75 years now. And they're put out by multi-billion dollar conglomerates who can advertise everywhere.
I thought female readers (who make up the majority of readers) would appreciate a female superhero who isn't just boobs stuffed into a leotard. I suppose first female readers would have to know the book exists. When your "publisher" does nothing for you and you don't have the means to do much advertising yourself that becomes problematic. Three of seven Amazon reviews are presumably written by women and two of those only gave it 3 stars. Probably they would have liked it better if she just stood around sighing and let some dudes with six-pack abs save her. Your loss, ladies.
Anyway, before this turns completely into the last part of that Eminem song "Stan" (though I'll have you know I don't have any girls tied up in the trunk of my car), I'll just wrap this up. Thanks for reading, those who did. What a long, strange trip it's been.
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| Sadly Blue II passed away before my blog. |
PT Dilloway
Grumpy Bulldog
Rogue Mutt
Eric Filler
Claire Lachance
Paul L. Madden
BJ Fraser
11 comments:
Farewell, my friend! While I didn't comment as often as I would have liked, I enjoyed your posts. I'm going through the same thought process myself. I enjoy blogging, but I wonder if there's something else out there. Good luck to you!
PT:
You were one of the first bloggers I discovered when I started my blog two and a half years ago and I've enjoyed our friendship. I will miss you, but I hope you'll take time to reinvent yourself and come back to us. You're a remarkably talented fellow and an excellent writer. I have a good friend who recently published her novel and she's having difficulty marketing it. I keep telling her she needs to write stories on her blog to get folks interested in HER and maybe that will translate into book sales. But it is a brutal business. Please don't fade away completely.
Sort of like Grant Morrison and Damian Wayne. Requiem, bro, requiem.
Yes, I kept expecting you to wrap this up with, "And so I'm re-opening the Grumpy Bulldog blog' or something. But you're just planning of dropping off the digital earth? You going to at least contribute to the Indie Writer's blog that just started? At least that, right?
Anyway, I kind of suck at marketing too. I think it's that most bloggers are writers moreso than they are fans, so it can be hard to talk about your work because fans aren't visiting, well, they might be visiting, but if they are, they aren't commenting. I always wonder about that, my pageviews seem to run quite a bit higher than my comments indicate, I like to think I have a bunch of die hard fans that lurk and stalk me online, and I tend to ignore the alarmingly high number of 'fans' I have that live in Romania, where I've never sold a single copy of anything. No way they're spammers who want to sell me prescription meds for cheap, or want to market sunglasses. Nope, all fans.
So, I will miss you if you're really gone. But if you just move around to something else that I can follow you with, then it won't be so bad.
This is funny. Most blogs are not worth reading. I have a number of things to say on this kind of topic but I won't. It's not worth the effort.
Have a happy new year.
Well, rats.
This is the first blog on my list of bookmarks. It's the first blog I check out, every day. I seriously DID wake up and think "I've got to get my Box Office Blitz picks in," even though then I'd forget about it because: life.
Unlike my rant the time you were going to quit writing, though, I will try to accept this bravely. Perhaps I will find something else to fill the void in my life. Perhaps I can devote the time I spent writing inane comments on your well-thought-out posts to reading your books, instead, and making inane comments about those.
I hope you don't drop off the face of the earth, digital or otherwise. We need people like your voice: grumpy but not horrible: it's a dose of realism.
Plus, you did actually inspire me: My listing of stuff in 2013 was partly because you monthly do that.
And your superhero writing made me try one superhero story before and then start another superhero story now.
So I hope at least I'll see comments or the Indie writer blog or something. Until then, fare thee well, oh Grumpy one.
Here is the song I associate with endings, now:
http://youtu.be/E5H8DwJI0uA
I have never been able to come up with ideas to keep my blog going..so it's rather horrible. I can easily recognize the drive by comment too...I get lots of those. I should close mine as well, but all these blogs are also like everyone's little spot on the internet where you can display book covers, awards or whatever..even Sims. So a blog does serve as a website. There have been a few times readers have contacted me through it. That's the only reason I keep it...and it's free.
Anyway..my favorite of your blog was Two-Cent Tuesday. I really enjoy when fellow bloggers talk about writing or publishing, but of course they say that doesn't draw readers. I will miss your blog.
Well, I know we've had our problems from time to time, but I hope you don't just disappear completely. That would be unfortunate. I'm hoping that the fact that your name is up on the other blog means you will be participating there on a regular basis.
Ditto the above comments....I hope you don't just drift away. Frankly, I didn't comment as often as I probably should have because, and I'm ashamed to have to admit this....I rarely read fiction/action type books. I didn't know HOW to comment on your content. That's not your fault, it's mine. Sorry. Anyway, please don't just disappear. You're too well thought of. Take care friend.
S
I've been gone for about a week and a half, to find this out is saddening.
I hope you continue to write regardless of the circumstances.
Stay Grumpy My Friend!
I'll miss the Box Office Blitz but if the blog isn't meeting your goals then another strategy is needed I guess.
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