I posted a finding
in a writer group.
I had numbers
behind this,
had done this ‘experiment’
twice
with two very different books.
Posting this information
didn’t benefit me.
It was a give back
to other writers.
As soon as I posted it,
a writer and her minions
told me I was wrong.
I asked her to share the numbers
behind her findings.
One of her minions told me
to look at this writer’s Amazon rankings.
That was proof enough.
Yesterday,
I found out
this writer has been spending
3 times her revenue
on advertising.
She hasn’t made a profit
EVER
with her writing.
Her spouse has now been laid off
and she is in a panic,
trying to figure out
how to earn a living
with her writing.
Her rankings were purchased.
I don’t care about that.
Most of us ‘buy’ our customers
in some way.
But I DO care
that she was using these rankings
to silence other writers.
“Loud voices
are drowning out
useful ones.
It’s difficult
to determine,
sometimes,
who is accurately collating
and correlating
experience and reality
and who is simply
making stuff up
as a way to distract us,
to cause confusion
and to gain influence.”
One tip to distinguish
between the loud
and the accurate
is…
the accurate usually have numbers
behind their information.
If you ask them for these numbers,
they give them to you.
If you ask them for the methodology
behind these numbers,
they give that to you also.
The loud merely become louder.
Base your decisions
on REAL numbers
whenever possible.