I really appreciate two TikTok thirty-somethings have realised titles like "New York Times's Best Seller" is meaningless when it's an overused, overhyped title designed to make a book an actual best seller. Given how most promotion for celebrity and politicians' books can be overinflated with their rich friends buying boxes of them, and how Hubbard used the same method, demanding the church goers go out in droves to buy his books, that nobody actually liked, how can anyone trust if you have legit numbers now. It's a numbers game that can be rigged, especially by Amazon, the way reviews can be fudged, how many best sellers have you seen in an average person's home? Who is actually buying all these books? I know ebooks do contribute but not to this extent, actually they aren't counted at all in lists as Amazon is ultimately the only one with access to that info if it's sold as a Kindle book, so KDP authors can't even consider their sales as considerable if nobody counts their numbers outside Amazon. The title becomes about as meaningless as the one I wasted 100 bucks on. Readers are the ones catching these less scrupulous authors out, usually by way of reading to see what the hype is about, realising the book is shit then smelling a rat. I wouldn't do that, even if I could afford it, I just put stuff out there and let it fall where it may.
All I'm grateful for is that people younger than me have pulled back the curtain on this and refuse to take anything at face value. These are people for whom real numbers do matter. You can't tell if bots are comprising your follower list, I even got paranoid they were downloading my books. It's the people who believe those bots amount to real users who they can proudly boast as part of their massive follower bases. People only followed Trump for the lols. His list is easily majority bots, even on his own platform.
The List is a Lie.
I'm not going to make a new post about how another TikTok comedian is coming out with a book. I don't know how to build a brand to make myself compatible or interesting to any publishers. The guy who was in the Room is releasing another book after the Disaster Artist (which he co-wrote with someone else). So even making a semi-bad life decision will put you on a publisher's radar.
I don't have the energy to endure any of that shit on any level. Getting physically unwell when you're dealing with even low grade depression adds to the general lethargy, I can't cope with excitement or any kind of heavy emotions. The only reason I'm not panicking as much is the primary source of panic has been removed. I don't know whether to say I'm unemployed as yet because I haven't resigned officially. Everything's in motion. I don't know if I'll ever hear back from Writing WA or if I even want to. I can't go through the process of looking for a new job, I physically cannot cope with that process. Applying for disability support will probably be as emotionally taxing as trying to find employment. I have to find a provider and apply and wait for them to decide if the suggestions made will give them any bang for their buck i.e. it's designed to either make you a productive member of society or to theoretically support anyone who's incapacitated. I never said I wouldn't work. I don't know where to go other than to show up with the employment agency I recently met and see how far I get.
