Nobody Knows That I'm Doing This

Well, that's not totally true, if you're reading this, you know there is some dude named Aaron Schultz out there in this world who writes a blog, and wrote a book about everything that annoys him. And everyone who has found my book, and seen my book listings and forum posts, know that I'm a writer as well. But what I'm talking about is that anyone who knows me personally has no clue that I'm doing this. You would think that I would be proud that I wrote a book and started blogging, and would wish to share my accomplishments with everyone I know. Which I normally would, but what if my book is so foul mouthed and raunchy that I'm not sure how everyone would take it?

Let me first say that I'm extremely proud of my book. With not going overboard with self-praise, I do think I wrote a very funny book. Yet, some of the subject matter is a bit risqué. It's one thing if I'm just some faceless guy to someone reading my filth, it's another thing if it's someone I know, who can look at me face-to-face and say, "I can't believe you wrote that crap, I never knew you were such a sick, disgusting person!" I don't mind offending all the strangers out there in Bookland and Blogworld, but I do try to avoid offending people in my immediate vicinity.

Worst yet, is that I wrote a book on everything that annoys me. Now, I did write the book for comedic purposes, so everything is exaggerated and over-the-top, and I did make sure all the annoyances I put in there were general and not specific. Still, I don't doubt that some people I know will think some of the annoyances I wrote about are pertaining to them, and they'll be plenty pissed that I put them in my book. The book is a composite about everything that annoys me everywhere, so I'm sure some of my annoyances are derived from people I know personally, but I can honestly say that I never singled out a person I know on purpose. This book wasn't meant for me to settle any grudges, just for me to write something entertaining that other people might enjoy. So if you happen to know me personally, found out that I wrote a book, went and bought said book, read something in that book that you think I wrote about you, became very pissed at what you thought I wrote about you, please don't find me and beat me up.

So, will I ever tell anyone I know that I'm a writer? Probably only if I become a huge success. That would be a great surprise if one day I could go to my family and say, "Hey, guess what, I'm an insanely popular, rich, and best selling author! And no, you can't have any of my money." I guess one day I could get "outed" by someone I know stumbling upon my book or blog on the web, but I don't think anyone I know spends time Googling my name. And it occurs to me that some of you might be asking yourselves while reading this: "Well, you dolt, why didn't you just use a pseudonym?" The thought did cross my mind, but I have to admit, there is a great thrill seeing my real name on the virtual bookshelf. I don't think seeing "I Am Annoyed" written by "Sterling Mangold" or "Hunk Billingsbee" would have had the same impact for me. And yes, those were the two names I considered for my pseudonym. Hmm, maybe I'll use one of those names for my next book.

SPAM A LOT

Spam, Spam, Spam, who doesn't like Spam? Personally, I just eat it out of the can, but, of course, it isn't the tasty precooked meat product that I'm going to write about in this post. After self publishing a book for the first time, the immediate next thought (or actually, what you should be thinking before you even publish the damn thing), is: how the hell am I going to convince anyone to buy it? Which brings me to spam.

Having a limited budget, which really means having no budget at all, I had to search for ways to promote my lovable book for free. There are some places that let you list your book with a brief description for free (bless these people), and there are many forums that let you post and mention your book. Seems simple enough, right? However, do this too often or in the wrong thread and you'll be labeled as a SPAMMER. A forum spammer is someone who annoyingly advertises his products in inappropriate places to people who could give a flying you-know-what about it.

I, personally, have never hijacked a thread with a post about my book. I've just posted in multiple "Promote your book here" threads in many different forums around the internet. And I've tried not to go overboard and mention my book in every single thread. I've also tried to write something different for each post. Yeah, the gist of it is pretty much the same: "My book is great, funny, hilarious, blah, blah, blah, please buy it," but I don't repeat the same thing verbatim every time.

So I don't think I've done anything wrong. Surely, I've done nothing to be accused of being a spammer. However, at certain forums, posting something about your book gets some of its members very testy. I guess even though these forums don't take the "Promote your book here" threads down, they're actually technically against their rules. I was unaware of this at the time, but just browsing some of the other posts, I saw many "senior" members getting bent out of shape at "newbies" posting about their books. Anyone promoting their books on these threads gets labeled as a "loser" or an "idiot," or yes, as a lowly spammer. That doesn't bother me, after all, I've been called worse, though, it seems that people can get overboard with their anger. I guess I can understand, if you're part of a forum that isn't supposed to have promotional threads, and your forum ends up being bombarded by every damn person who has recently wrote a book, it can be quite annoying, and as the guy who wrote a whole book on his annoyances, I should sympathize, but still, man, some of their criticisms are pretty harsh. I was tempted to respond to some of these criticisms with a light hearted post apologizing for my own transgressions, but I don't think any of my "humor" would be accepted by these hardened book veterans. Yep, they're pretty grumpy. So, once I was aware that promoting my book in certain forums was frowned upon, I simply stopped promoting my book in these forums. I also learned that it's always good to read the official forum rules before posting anywhere, no matter how many "Promote your book here" threads a forum has. Ignorance should never be an excuse.

All this did get me thinking, "Does any of this ever actually work?" Does anyone just go to the "Promote your book here" threads looking for new books to read? Or, is it everyone who has just wrote a new book that's going there, posting something their book, and then leaving to find some other thread or forum to post into? I have to admit, that's all I was doing. I may have glanced at someone else's post, but only to see their method for promoting their book. I clicked on a couple of their links, but, once again, it was just to see how their covers looked, how they worded their description, and how high their sales rank was. Needless to say, none of their books were ranked that high, so, again, I have to ask, "Does this really work?" I guess if it gets just one person interested enough to hit your link and buy your book, it was worth it, especially if you're just starting out like I am. And it doesn't cost me a cent to do any of this, of course. At worst, it's a waste of my time, and if there is anything that I do have, is a lot of time. In fact, I had enough time to write a whole blog on this subject in the first place.

Also, now I have a huge craving for Spam.

Yep, a Self-Indulgent Post About My Book, I Am Annoyed: One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World

"How do you get all of your great ideas?" is a question asked of me by absolutely no one. Still, since this is my blog (I promise to stop saying that), I thought I'd tell you the process of coming up with my first book, I Am Annoyed: One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World.

I've actually started writing almost twenty years ago as an outlet for my creative juices, such as they were. I wrote mostly bad poetry (basically a hundred variations of life sucks), kept a journal ( sample entry: Boy, does my life suck), and tried to accomplish what used to be my big dream: writing screenplays that one day would become Academy Award winning hits (a common theme in my screenplays: characters struggling with a life that sucks). I don't know if anyone remembers the show Project Greenlight, which was a contest where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (Batman!) would take someone's submitted screenplay and make a movie out of it. When I first heard about the show, I thought it would be my chance to write a great screenplay and send it in for my big break. Of course, I found out that writing a cohesive and awe-inspiring screenplay is tough to do. I came up with some colorful characters, but finding a good story to put them in wasn't that easy. I did end up writing a couple of screenplays that I thought were decent, along with a few that were horrible, but by then Project Greenlight was long gone. (Speaking of which, I wonder whatever happened to everyone who won?)

I pretty much given up on my writing dream until I started reading all these articles about people self publishing their own books. It sounded like a fun thing to try, and if I couldn't write a decent book, well, at least I gave some semblance of an effort to actually becoming a real writer. My first idea for a book was to dust off one of my old screenplays and convert it into book form. That wasn't such a bad idea, in fact, there is one screenplay that had so much voice over narration in it that it probably should have been a book in the first place. I am currently updating it and writing it as my first novel. While brainstorming for other book ideas, I went back to words of advice that I've heard many times from many writers: "Write what you know." And that's how I got my idea for my first book.

I've realized that in my life I'm annoyed a lot. I was more of an angry and moody person when I was younger, but as I got older, I've mellowed from anger to annoyance. So, while I'm not pissed off all of the time, I am certainly annoyed most of the time, and the thought just entered my head: that's the book, right there, write about everything that annoys you. Pick any subject, I'll find annoying stuff about it, from music, TV, movies, sports, politics, religion, people, places, things, animals, children, everyday life, childhood, and even my own annoying self. I thought that this was an unique idea, and if I wrote about everything in a humorous, satirical way, I could get an entertaining book out of it.

The thing is, I've got a very twisted and sick sense of humor. I figured if I was going to write a book about all my annoyances, I might as well go over-the-top in doing so. I used extremely foul language, wrote about some graphic topics, said many terrible and horrible things, and generally just let loose. I found out that a lot of the rants in the book were the same things I complained about to my family and friends for years, with a ton of exaggerations for even more comedic effect. Then, if something annoying happened to happen to me during the course of everyday life, it went right into the book, with some embellishments, of course. In fact, the book comes across to me as almost like a series of stand up comedy routines. Kind of like George Carlin, only not as funny, but still pretty funny. After almost two years of writing, rewriting, editing, and laughing my ass off at my own material, I finally self published I Am Annoyed: One Man's Rants Against This Annoying World on Amazon in December 2013. I must say I'm a little bit proud of myself and my book. No matter if the book ends up as a bestseller or if it collects virtual dust on the electronic bookshelf, at least I can say I actually wrote a book, which is pretty cool and not annoying at all. Well, this ends the self-indulgence for now, if this post about my book interested you in any way, you can click on the book cover on the right side of my blog and purchase my book right now. (How's that for a shameless plea for book sales?)

The Awesomely Self-Indulgent First Post

Hello to anyone out there in Blogworld reading this. I never would have thought that I would decide to write a blog. I'm a private person who usually keeps all the twisted thoughts that reside in my head mostly to myself. However, after I decided to start writing and publishing books (which I will discuss in another self-indulgent blog post), I figured a blog would be a good way to share all my thoughts with the world. And to help promote my books, of course. Yes, this is going to be another one of those blogs about a writer talking about his "process" of writing, and how he's navigating the waters of self publishing and promotion. I hope, though, that whatever I write about is done in such a way that it will entertain anyone who ends up reading it. And if it helps me sell some books, well, that would be awesome. Plus, since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, sometimes I'll write about any subject that pops into my head. So, to anyone who stumbles upon this blog, please join me on this journey, and we'll see where it takes us.

By the way, the "Awesomely" in the title is meant to be semi sarcastic.