I No Longer Have One Thousand Readers

There’s a well known post by Kevin Kelly about how every creative needs 1000 true fans . Having said that…

My Writerly Process Might Have Looked Like This

• Write new book
• Upload new ebook.
• Tell newsletter readers.
• Tell social media readers
• Ask what percentage of main gardening newsletter respond to offer?
• Deduce — what’s the percentage of “true fans” on my list?

Repeat several times with different books to get a true picture.

And that number (for me after several decades of writing) my friends is no longer 1000 in the non-fiction world.

Pre-internet, it used to be but like a lot of things, that changed.

That’s been an interesting pill to swallow but if you doubt why I’ve moved away from the gardening world to other writing worlds, the reasons should be clear after you read Kelly’s seminal article.

For the record, I’m not depressed by this analysis of my sales. Rather, I’m disappointed.

But I also understand — more than you might think from this note — how most people see online gardening.

Most see no reason to pay for any gardening information they find online. There are so many gardeners sharing free information it reduces the need to buy information. As an aside, the quality of that information isn’t always the best but…. (Epsom salts do not help tomatoes btw.) ;-)

If I had a buck for every reader who told me they never buy gardening books or anything else because if it’s online it should be free, I’d be able to retire tomorrow.

It’s why 1000’s of people will download a free non-fiction ebook but only a handful will spend $2.99 on an ebook. Free is good. An ebook for the price of a cup of coffee is not so good.

Kelly’s concept is just a measurement albeit a useful one. And (quite frankly) understanding if I don’t have those 1000 true non-fiction fans by now, I won’t have them.

And that has become a blessing because it frees up my creative spirit to explore other horizons without guilt.

Plus I’ll focus on other things like building stone walls around my plantsman’s garden, carving stone, exploring the world of fiction writing, and spending more time on the back deck with friends over a beer or glass of good scotch. And I’ll explore the world of computer gaming. Plus I’ll blog here rather than on my own self-hosted site. Things change, and…

What a blessing that is!

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p.s. after a career as an award winning garden author, I’ve retired to write whatever appeals to me and blog (here) about other interests. My self-hosted Wordpress sites are no longer being supported.

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