The Shocking Truth About Viral Blogs: Why They Could Be Killing Your Book Deal Dreams

THE RECKLESS WRITER

Every now and then as you’re scrolling through the pages of writer advice columns, you come across the story of the plucky little writer who went viral and inherited the world. I guess the rest of us are fools for spending decades honing our craft and gaining a lifetime of experience. All you have to do for a book deal is share your grandmother’s recipe for chicken gnocchi soup with twelve extra pages of tedious and disjointed musings.

The trouble is, the story of the plucky little writer is a complete fantasy. It’s a marketing tool.

I’m sure some of you are already thinking, “Wait, I’ve heard of a few cases where it has happened.” That’s because this is the kind of feel-good blip that is regularly featured on insufferable morning shows. But the hosts never give you the whole story, they never go into the details.

It’s they same as how they never overtly mention that the publishing house is an affiliate of their station.

The truth is that unscrupulous people like to make big promises about what might happen if you sign up for their writing class. If somebody else was able to turn a blog post into a million dollars, you can to. The first step is joining the cohort for the bargain price of $100.

My advice is that you keep your money.

Scams always start with big promises

Do you really think serious literary agents are so short on reading material that they have to scroll through blogs to find talent? That just doesn’t make any sense. Also, the folks in power are well aware you can’t just give a platform to just anyone.

We like to believe that the world is open to quality work and revolutionary ideas, but that’s not the case. The problem with revolutionary ideas is that they threaten the status quo. That sounds appealing to you and me because we’re struggling in this economy. But there are some people who are living the high life off of the profits of injustice, and they don’t want to…