A is for Author

A popular topic among authors, and particularly among authors who write spanking tales, is what is it that motivates us?

Nearly all beginners at the trade claim that they are writing for themselves - they just like putting their thoughts on paper for their own self amusement.

And that might be true - I know I once posted that as my personal opinion to a forum of spanko authors.

But if it ever was, it changes over time. 

The prime aim becomes to entertain the reader.   For those of us who publish for profit, the reward is in sales figures:  there is little in life to equal the joy of seeing a new work attracting a good volume of sales.  Nor the morose kick-the-cat down when a masterpiece to equal all masterpieces dawdles in the doldrums of reader rejection.

Those of us who do not seek commercial success, the venues for showing our works to the general spanking public range from subscribing to sites that accept works from all quarters, or setting up a dedicated site to share your tales, for free, for all who wish to come and read them.

Then there are two measures of rating your success:  how many times a work is read, and how many comments a work attracts from the readership.

Wanting praise from the readers is understandable:  but can sometimes cloud the issue.   A colleague once pulled his entire site off the web on the grounds that some 20,000 people had visited the site to read his stuff, and not one had left a comment.   The desire to be loved sometimes makes us forget that love not freely given is totally without merit.

Meanwhile, over at adaline's blog, she is also dealing with the first letter of the spanking alphabet...