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SEX explainedWe want to believe. And it causes us no end of troubles.
Many have emailed me, asking what I was doing with my SEX post.
In the last four hours of the day yesterday, I posted the one word, SEX, and two sexy photos. Nothing else. I tripled my existing number of visitors and far surpassed the highest day of the past month.
John Locke claims to know the secret of vast eBooks sales. I’m happy for him. But you don’t catch J K Rowling or Stephanie Meyers writing books on how to sell millions of books.
Why? Sometimes the lightning strikes. Sometimes it doesn’t. It rarely strikes twice in exactly the same way.
John is sure the key is to write “timeless” posts, twitter search who has spoken of your topic, then twitter them the link to your “forever relevant” post. BAM. Success is waiting to pounce upon you after that.
He wrote a post of his hero worship of Joe Paterno and his mother and followed his recipe for success. Lightning struck. The university which employs Coach Paterno chose Locke’s post as the blog of the month. Thousands of visitors poured Locke’s way. Fate’s spotlight sizzled upon him.
Locke had a backlist of books ready for the opportunity. He himself describes his books as lewd, shocking, disgusting, and deliciously bawdy. As yesterday proves, SEX sells. Amanda Hocking found out the same thing.
Can we duplicate that chance fall of the dice? Can we write something that will speak to the heart of an institution or international movie star so much that they will write of it in their blog or twitters? Lots of luck with that.
So far Stephen King hasn't written of me in his ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY articles. And I promised him a date with Olivia Wilde, too!
We all want to believe that there is a system. The casinos love those of us who cling to that delusion.
There is only the strike of lightning. Our responsibility is to have the best product we can craft should that lightning ever strike us. We can hold up the lightning rod all day, or we can continue to grow as writers. The smartest of us try to do both.
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