Amazon Memoir? Why Not.

Self-publishing! It’s one of the few good things about the 21^st Century. I’ve been writing on this here blog for over ten years now, and when I look back over the many pages I must admit that I like a lot of what I see. Why not self-publish some of it on Amazon? It’s easy enough, and the price is right. The idea is so crazy that it just might work.

Not for money, God knows that I don’t write for money. It’s hardly possible anymore, for one thing, and a blog is not a tree to sniff around if money is your goal. Nor is Amazon self-publishing, for that matter. But for readers? Aye, there’s the rub. I have always maintained that I write for my own pleasure, for my own distraction, but that is not necessarily true. This blog has reliably generated over fifty hits per day for years now, and I must admit that I am pleased almost beyond measure to think that someone is reading the things that I write.  Once in a while I post something that generates Google hits in Russia or China, and my hit-count spikes to over two hundred per day. That’s a hallelujah moment for me! So yes, I am prepared to admit that I write, to some extent, to be read.

So, this year I am resolved to put together two collections of blog posts and make them available on Amazon. One in the manner of a memoir, and one more in the nature of general ruminations. I may even devote some resources to marketing these products. Leaving aside the lost dream of writing to make a living, all writers write for a very limited number of purposes. Sure, some write for art’s sake, that happens. Most write just to be communicating with other people. They find a need in themselves to communicate, and short of grabbing random pedestrians by the lapels and explaining things to them, writing seems to be the best alternative. Others write because the terror of unremembered death is just too awful for them to bear. Honestly, I think that I am guilty of all three. Something like 10/70/20. I’d love to connect somehow with others of my kind. I’ve never had any particular talent for connecting with my fellow man. Art? Why not? I love art, and I love the English language, and if anyone with a license to have an opinion thought that some of my sentences were artful, I’d be as pleased as punch. Remembered? Mozart is remembered. Rembrandt is remembered. James Joyce is remembered. Even Benjamin Disraeli is remembered. The rest of us can forget that dream, although the dream persists. 

Ah, it’s the story of my life. Great effort without remuneration. Let’s see how it goes. Desperate times call for desperate measures. If you are anywhere close to my age, you will certainly agree that these are desperate times.