It's 9AM
You should write a book about your life, she said.
A comedy of errors, I told her.
She gave me a look.
Like she didn’t get it.
Or she wasn’t in the mood to joke.
She meant that I was some sad sack character, a loser that life just keeps kicking in the nuts.
Sometimes it feels that way.
Like trying something, and it not working.
Again and again.
Here was a plan:
Write some new stuff and get back on Amazon (because it is the world’s largest bookseller, and people go there specifically for books)
Plus get every book on the back list up on every other platform.
Build up a newsletter of people who have downloaded a free book, and let them know about the books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple and a dozen other spots.
Then, turn each older book into an audiobook, let the newsletter know so that folks who like to listen to the books go click play and enjoy.
Get that to a couple thousand bucks a month, then invest in ads on Amazon and Facebook to scale up.
Sounds like a good plan, right?
Except, Amazon changed the algorithm.
Again.
I think.
Because visibility for any new books tanked, and there was literally no lasting impressions.
Less than 1% of 1% of people who got book one in a series free, went on to get book 2.
So that plan didn’t work.
I had to come up with another one.
Cue: getting a “real” job.
Which I’ve had before, doing lots of different stuff, so my skill set is varied.
I applied to hundreds of places and got crickets.
Meanwhile, I’m being told that if you have sales skills, you can work almost anywhere.
I have friends who tell me that no one wants to work for their company or that their company can’t hire “good” people.
I tell them I’m open to work and willing to learn and ready to go.
And they say they don’t have a spot for me.
Which brings me back to the loser conversation.
I get called one almost every day.
A bum.
A loser.
Dumb. Stupid.
A few more that I say can roll off my back, but join the chorus of the voices inside my head to remind me of the long list of things I’ve failed at doing.
And that list is long.
Longer than most.
Why won’t anyone hire you?
What’s wrong with you?
It’s not them, it’s you.
Until it has all piled up and puffed up and frustration and fear and just dang “tired of it” turns into rage.
Impotent and heartbroken rage.
Rage that can’t be expressed, or can’t be spoken about, because then its “complaining” and “blaming.”
I was taught that everything is my responsibility.
Everything.
Even if I can’t control hiring practices that don’t like middle age white guys, I can control how I react to it.
Even if a partner spends hours demeaning and haranguing and taking each quirk and trait and turning them into character flaws.
It’s my fault.
It’s my responsibility.
How do I change it?
How do I make something happen?
Anything happen?
There’s the crux of it.
Because even if I “know” what to do, what I do doesn’t always work out the way I want.
Or plan.
It’s been ten years of this, she said.
It’s time for something to change.
And she’s right.
The choice of the change is out of my control at the moment.
Even if I’m responsible for the action and reaction of it.
My responsibility alone.
Folks, It’s 9AM might be sporadic for the rest of July as adjustments are made. My plan was for something different, but it didn’t work out the way I wanted.
Stay tuned;
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