Meandering Post about Forums and the Drug of People Reading my Books.

I've been reading the forum boards at KDP again.  I had this idea that I would jump back in and be social and do some networking.  Then I read the boards and remembered why I stopped going there.

Oh, I'm sure there are many fine people who post on those boards.  I can see them.  I also see the not-so-fine people, though, and they make the experience more of a headache than I am willing to subject myself to.

This time it was a person slamming self-published authors as being particularly stupid because why would anyone spend all that money on editing when you can't possibly hope to recoup it.

Then there was the person slamming anyone who is enrolled in Kindle Select as being particularly stupid because it's so limiting and Amazon is the anti-christ or something.  

Maybe I am particularly stupid.  Wouldn't be the first time.  But then I remember each time I see someone read an entire book's worth of pages on Kindle Unlimited, or the whole damn series one after the other, or my entire backlist.  And my heart soars and I know someone somewhere is reading words I put down.

It's like a drug.  People are reading my words.  And they're enjoying them enough to read the whole book or the whole series or all of the books.  Now, there's a high.  And it's one that doesn't dull my senses or muddle my brain or make me drive like an asshole or make me do stupid things.  (Unless you're among those who count self-publishing as a stupid thing.  In which case, I say to you: Bugger Off.)

Sure, I wish more people were buying and reading my books.  I wish everyone who read one enjoyed it so much they were excited enough to buy more.  Or that they could afford to buy more.  (I get the whole budget thing.  I'm living it.  Which is why my books are as inexpensive as I can make them without screwing myself.) What writer doesn't want more people reading their books? 

Anyway, I'm off of reading the boards again.  So much for being social and networking with the ultimate goal of selling more books.  I don't have the intestinal fortitude for it anymore.  I'd rather spend my time writing books, editing books, and publishing books.  The readers will come somehow or other, and I will revel in them.