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Neil D Ostroff

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Blogs by Neil D Ostroff

I just want to write!
9/25/2014 7:47:53 AM

If you follow my blog you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting about many promotions these days. Except for a few websites that have posted my books without informing me first, I haven’t been too visible for a while. Here’s why.

I’ve been writing ferociously for the last 35 out of my 45 years on this planet. Yep, that officially makes me a middle-aged man. You learn a lot about yourself and your needs and what makes you happiest as you get older. Things become clearer and sharper with age. You find yourself having deep, personal self-revelations about how much time you’ve got left on this planet and what you want to accomplish.

When I was a young author, I certainly wanted to be as rich and famous as Stephen King (doesn’t every writer). I spent tens of thousands of hours alone, writing, in pursuit of that dream. When I wasn’t writing I was querying agents and promoting myself any way I could. My twenties were spent entirely on my writing career.

In my early thirties I was lucky (or talented) enough to land a powerful New York agent. My agent was so well known he had his bio written about in the WD Guide to Literary Agents. He was always in the magazines posting recent sales. I thought I had it made and was relieved of the time spent looking for an agent and now could spend nearly all my time writing. I churned out several novels in the nearly four years we were together, but alas, none of them sold and my dream agent and I parted ways.

I was shattered and thought my dreams of fame and author’s riches were over. Then a miracle in technology, Kindle Direct Publishing opened up their worldwide distribution to any author who had a properly formatted book to sell through their site. To me, this was the phoenix rising from the ashes. I hired a formatter, editor, and cover artist to turn my seven completed novels into saleable merchandise. And I did, along with another three that I’d written in the last two years.

I jumped fully into the indie publishing revolution, joined every writer’s site imaginable, spent weeks downloading my material to anyone who would feature me, and did interview after interview on blogs, in print newspapers, and in magazines. My books sold, not in the millions that I’d hoped, but enough for me to hit the Amazon bestseller lists for a few days here and there. My name gained some recognition and I was invited to participate in prestigious groups and speak at book clubs. You would think this would have made me very happy.

As I said earlier, as you get older your perspectives become clearer. I’m beginning to realize the incredible joy I get out of writing fiction is seriously negated by the toils of marketing and promoting. I now dread the hours it takes to achieve notoriety and find it almost torture to spend hours downloading files, and my biography, and my book summaries, and their links. I just want to write.

I know many of you who are reading this will simply say that’s what it takes to hit it big, you must sacrifice, and sacrifice, and if it were easy to do than everyone would be a famous author. The problem is… I don’t know if I really want that anymore. In the height of my marketing efforts I was selling a lot of books and getting a lot of great feedback. It made me feel good that so many readers liked my material and that my old high school and college friends, and family were proud of what I’d achieved. I’ve even been recognized a few times from having my picture in local media. And after all this, I’ve discovered that what still makes me the happiest is sitting alone in front of my computer and living in the worlds I create inside my mind.

In conclusion, you may not be seeing my name so much on the hundreds of new writer’s and reader’s sites that are popping up every day. I just don’t have the energy to keep up. I’m still writing feverishly, I always will, but the hours a day of marketing torture are going to slow considerably. You’ll still read about me here and there, but I refuse to be a slave to the oversaturated global promoting machine if it’s taking away my joy in creating. I just want to write.

To learn more about my books and myself, please check out my blog: ALWAYS WRITING.

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

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More Blogs by Neil D Ostroff
• Beginning and end of everything! - Thursday, April 16, 2015
• Distractions - Friday, April 3, 2015
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• Writing and writing - Tuesday, February 24, 2015
• On Sale Now! - Thursday, February 12, 2015
• Everyone loves results! - Monday, February 2, 2015
• Blitz day two! - Wednesday, January 28, 2015
• Blitz starts today! - Tuesday, January 27, 2015
• To pay or not? - Monday, January 26, 2015
• What is God? - Sunday, January 18, 2015
• To my friends. - Monday, December 29, 2014
• Birth of a Book - Monday, December 15, 2014
• The Final Read - Tuesday, December 2, 2014
• State of Writing Today! - Sunday, November 23, 2014
• Winter Reads! - Thursday, November 20, 2014
• Hmmm… who is this Ostross she speaks of? - Sunday, November 16, 2014
• Emotion, emotion! - Wednesday, November 12, 2014
• Retrospective - Thursday, November 6, 2014
• Great review!! - Friday, October 24, 2014
• Results!! - Monday, October 20, 2014
• Promotion!! - Thursday, October 16, 2014
• Winter writing - Monday, October 6, 2014
• Author’s Legacy - Monday, September 29, 2014
• I just want to write! - Thursday, September 25, 2014
• Always Writing! - Wednesday, September 17, 2014
• More exposure and gaining momentum - Thursday, September 11, 2014
• Book of the week! Yeah! - Monday, September 8, 2014
• Great reviews! - Wednesday, August 27, 2014
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• Cheap promo - Wednesday, August 6, 2014
• Getting it done! - Tuesday, August 5, 2014
• Define Novel Length - Monday, July 28, 2014
• Big Feature Today! - Wednesday, July 16, 2014
• Being a writer - Tuesday, July 15, 2014
• Stand out! - Thursday, July 10, 2014
• The marketing secret! - Monday, July 7, 2014
• Five Books! - Thursday, July 3, 2014
• Origins of a novel - Monday, June 30, 2014
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• Still up there in rank - Thursday, June 12, 2014
• HAPPY! - Tuesday, June 10, 2014
• Good things come… - Monday, June 9, 2014
• Very Excited! - Monday, June 2, 2014
• Reviews for sale! - Wednesday, May 28, 2014
• Writing withdrawal - Thursday, May 22, 2014
• More marketing advice - Wednesday, May 14, 2014
• Is marketing worth it? - Wednesday, May 7, 2014
• What a great day! - Thursday, May 1, 2014
• Birthing - Thursday, April 24, 2014
• Never pay for a review - Friday, April 18, 2014
• Does blogging sell books? - Tuesday, April 15, 2014
• Creating characters from scratch - Friday, April 11, 2014
• Book 13 complete! - Monday, March 31, 2014
• The miracle way to sell more books - Wednesday, March 26, 2014
• Looking for feedback - Friday, March 14, 2014
• Getting on the bestseller list - Saturday, March 8, 2014
• Websites all writers should be on. - Wednesday, February 26, 2014
• Great book selling results! - Sunday, February 23, 2014
• Hitting the best seller list - Friday, February 21, 2014
• Don’t make these mistakes. - Thursday, February 20, 2014
• Little surprises! - Monday, February 10, 2014
• Bearing the writing soul - Monday, February 3, 2014
• Kickstarter - Friday, January 31, 2014
• A thousand thank you’s - Thursday, January 30, 2014
• My KDP story - Wednesday, January 29, 2014
• Will people still read? - Monday, January 13, 2014
• Write and get rich! - Thursday, January 2, 2014
• The new informed writer - Sunday, December 29, 2013
• Thank You, Anne Rice! - Monday, December 23, 2013
• No longer indie - Thursday, December 19, 2013
• The results part #3 - Tuesday, December 10, 2013
• The High’s - Wednesday, December 4, 2013
• Just proud, that’s all. - Tuesday, November 26, 2013
• It will affect you! - Monday, November 25, 2013
• What may work part # 2 - Saturday, November 23, 2013
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• My own reward - Saturday, August 3, 2013
• Never compromise or give up! - Thursday, August 1, 2013
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• Affecting readers! - Tuesday, July 30, 2013
• Best book promotion ever! - Friday, July 26, 2013
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• Change your outlook - Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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• Best interview ever! - Friday, February 22, 2013
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• So exciting! - Friday, February 15, 2013
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• Black Friday - Friday, November 23, 2012
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• Superstorm - Tuesday, November 13, 2012
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• Patience, oh man. - Sunday, October 21, 2012
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• Money to make money - Thursday, October 4, 2012
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• Writing the end - Monday, September 24, 2012
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• What next? - Wednesday, August 1, 2012
• Results! - Monday, July 30, 2012
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• Sleepless night. - Thursday, July 26, 2012
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• Can’t figure it out - Thursday, June 28, 2012
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• Worst ever! - Monday, June 18, 2012
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• Daily deal - Saturday, June 16, 2012
• Part strange - Wednesday, June 13, 2012
• Future is now - Sunday, June 10, 2012
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• Sleepless nights ahead - Thursday, June 7, 2012
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• creepiest killer - Monday, June 4, 2012
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• 10,000 books! - Friday, June 1, 2012
• What works - Tuesday, May 29, 2012
• Today's promotion! - Monday, May 28, 2012
• Writing vs. Working vs. Reality - Sunday, May 27, 2012
• Anything can happen - Monday, May 21, 2012
• World's creepiest serial killer - Friday, May 18, 2012
• The chill is live! - Thursday, May 17, 2012
• Check this out!! - Saturday, May 12, 2012
• The zone - Friday, May 11, 2012
• Creating Characters - Sunday, May 6, 2012
• Fresh month - Wednesday, May 2, 2012
• Creepiest ever! - Saturday, April 28, 2012
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• What will happen? - Tuesday, April 10, 2012
• Promo machine! - Monday, April 9, 2012
• High praise… I think - Thursday, April 5, 2012
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• Powerful, powerful book! - Wednesday, April 4, 2012
• Interview info - Monday, April 2, 2012
• Get the adventure free! - Saturday, March 31, 2012
• Millions upon millions - Friday, March 30, 2012
• Ye Old Query - Tuesday, March 27, 2012
• How’d this happen? - Saturday, March 24, 2012