Niche-less

This book writing thing was so simple, just sit at the word processor and let the ideas flow until you have enough for a book.

But now, once it is done, there are all kinds of difficulties.

Okay let’s start at the beginning. My writing guru Lawrence Block said, and I believe almost everything he says about writing, you might just as well write what you like because the likelihood of getting published is so remote you need to enjoy the work.

Now to me that makes a whole bunch of sense. You are going to spend a great deal of time with the work so you’d better like it. Writing a book even if you are colossally productive is a long-term project. At my best speed, (Okay so I do type with two fingers), is only around five pages a day. That may sound like a lot, thirty days by five pages equals one hundred and fifty pages or a good-sized novel, but the last three books I wrote ran over eight hundred pages each so that’s at least six months work--

But then life has a nasty way of getting in the middle of things and the dog needs to be let out and the cats need to be fed and then there’s the cat box, and sweeping, (Did you know that cats are not neat animals and can with little or no effort scatter litter all over a room in seconds), groceries, yard work and laundry and even though the Long-Sufferin is sure that she does all of it, some of it makes it way on to my plate.

So getting thirty days straight to write is a lot like finding the Golden Fleece, it takes a boat-load of heroes and a deadly foe to get to the reward

Really the only way is to carve out a little bit of time each day, so maybe that five pages is a bit ambitious.

So that is what I have done for the last lo so many years, I’ve taken what time I could and wrote what I’d like to tell and stayed with it until I could write The End.

And now, at this late date I find that all the Indie gurus say no, pilgrim, write to your niche. What the hell is my niche?

Well it turns out you should have one even if you didn’t know you should and finding the right one is paramount to getting your book noticed and adored and sold.

Gee, that makes it pretty hard if you never knew you needed a niche in the first place and what if your idea doesn't fit into any niche and how bad is it to be niche-less?

Apparently it is doom. That’s right, after all the years and months and hours spent writing the damned thing it doesn't have a niche.

Well you can imagine my horror. My poor darling sitting out there all alone, niche-less in a world of nichies and no hope of every finding an audience.

What do to, what to do?

Nothing as it turns out. I wrote the thing the way I wanted to tell the story and it is a damned good story full of action, drama, violence, humor, tenderness, passion and did I mention drama?

So here it sits all alone and niche-less and maybe no one will ever read it and that would be a crime, (Actually it is a crime novel), cause Ole King and the boys are fun guys to hang out with. And I should mention that Dakota Dallas the sizzling strawberry blonde and her pals, Moll the Doll Mackenzie and Maize do stir up some trouble.

Oh yeah, Harry Ray is going to try to pick up a horse, there are Brownshirts plotting against the governor, World War I vets left drifting and penniless, a prominent industrialist with a not-so-secret affection for the ponies, an old Chinese gent, a christening, a pick-pocket, a twelve cylinder Cadillac and then there’s an explosion.

But the poor ole dear is niche-less so maybe all of that won’t interest anybody.