Why is it so difficult to get noticed online?

I mean, I know I write good stuff. I’m ahead of the curve, I’m dedicated, I’m interesting, I’m on Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, you name it, but no joy. I feel like I’m doing the equivalent of jumping up and down, waving my arms around and screaming, but I’m one voice on one rock in the middle of a massive ocean of humanity that moves in huge, ten-million man strong waves, surging toward everything but what I’m doing or what I’m interested in.

I know I’m not the only person out there who’s having this experience, and I know that I’m not the worthless excuse for a human being that the occasional person out there tries to convince me that I am (heck, read the other entries of my blog– you’ll see. It’s all me here) but right now I feel like even if I suddenly plastered every page I could get my hands on with pictures of my backside, the only person who would notice would be some guy back at Google who wouldn’t really care, but would be obligated to respond by casually (in a very sterile, detached manner) clicking some magic button that would disable my adsense account and send me the form letter equivalent of a coup-de-grace, effectively obliterating the meager fistful of ad revenue I’ve garnered (but of course have no access to– got to wait until it hits the $100 mark!) for attracting almost 100,000 people to my collective pages over the last couple of years.

I know writing isn’t about money, but it shouldn’t be about starving or taking a second job while you bust your butt trying to find that one magic topic that the world will fall upon in its fickle way either. With as many people as there are out there on the internet, is it really so much to ask to be heard?

4 comments:

Henry Baum said...

Hey! I'm reading (came here from Twitter) and I hear you. There's just so many people vying for the same attention that it gets tough.

E.S. Wynn said...

Thank you Henry! You're awesome!

Jan Oda said...

Heya!
Don't despair! Eventually the people within your niche will find your work!
However, I believe there are a couple of things you could do to be found sooner. I noticed you haven't got a post or page about your story on this blog, I would highly advise this, so people who aren't on deviantart can find out a little more before they click on the first episode.
I've also noticed you haven't listed yourself at the Web Fiction Guide yet. The WFG is a listing site which is bound to get you more readers and even some reviews. As a last piece of advice I would add some navigation links to the next and previous episodes on each chapter, so non deviant-users can find the next chapter easily.

Best of Luck!

http://webfictionguide.com/

Robin David said...

I'm reading too -- I found you through a link to your "21 Tips to a Successful Life" article. I feel in the same boat as yourself. I'm trying to give my book away for free on my website, but there's such an enormous crush of others out for the same attention, that I feel like I'm literally fighting for each individual reader. And the paradox is, nobody's said a bad word about my writing. I've only received compliments and encouragement. So where are all the readers!

I've followed Jan Oda's advice and signed up for webfictionguide.com -- I'll see how that goes -- but so far, a big source of my readers have come from social bookmarking sites, like reddit.com. Oh yeah, and whenever people do google searches for "Mistresses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania" -- honestly.

Dave (http://www.latethursday.com)

Post a Comment

Thoughts?

Blog Archive