Writers: Are you waiting to be discovered?

Out of curiosity I visited Amazon.com to see how many books were being sold (I chose Amazon because it is the largest sales platform for books online). I scrolled to “Shop by Department” and found the “Books” section. The numbers were mind boggling. As of today August 2^nd, there are about 25.5 million paperback books, close to 8.9 million Hardcover and 1.4 million Kindle Editions.

Screenshot from Amazon.com

 As a reader, I was overwhelmed that there are so many books available for sale just on Amazon, and competing for readers’ attention. No wonder most readers get their books through recommendations from family and friends (See Pew Research and graph in blog 1). I started this blog topic because I wanted to talk about:

Issue 1: How some aspiring authors like me are singing exclusively in the shower but hoping to be discovered on American Idol (metaphor if it isn’t obvious);

Issue 2: How some authors are relying solely on sales platforms e.g. Amazon or expecting traditional publishers to provide comprehensive marketing for the public to discover them.