Increasing Popularity

I’ve written a series
of increasingly popular
how to write romance
blog posts.

At first,
I received a flurry of
“this is a super awesome post”
comments
from readers and aspiring writers.
Published writers ignored me.

As the popularity of the series increases,
I’ve been receiving more and more
harsh comments
from published writers.
They see the posts are popular
and they want to piggyback
on that popularity.
The easiest way to get noticed
is to slam the post.

The natural reaction
is to avoid this criticism
by posting something safer,
less edgy,
less interesting.

This is the exact wrong thing
to do.
Readers like these posts
because they’re different.

(In hindsight,
I would have written the entire series
at once
– this is the technique I use
with my romance novels.
Now, I have to force myself
to be as edgy, as daring.)

Criticism might not be a symptom
of poor quality.
It might be a symptom
of increased popularity.
Don’t change your product
if it’s working.