A few days ago, shortly after I predicted – with considerable accuracy I should add – the death of Patrick McGoohan, my muse whispered something in my ear about the staggering similarities between authoring a book and offloading crap auctioning merchandise via eBay.
Instinct suggested that Sharon (my muse) was, perhaps, off on another planet that day – she’s inclined to such space travel. Well, I set about investigating, and must say that I’m rather surprised to discover that Sharon’s feet had in fact been well and truly entrenched on planet Earth.
First off is the most obvious point: eBay take a cut of the sale price, so do publishers.
Continuing, eBay has its Community Question and Answer Board, novelists have their critique groups. Writing on either often results in derisory replies about grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Upset, annoy, or offend the wrong person on the eBay forums and there’s a good chance that they’ll purposefully buy from you just to leave negative feedback. Upset, annoy, or offend the wrong person in a critique group and there’s a good chance that they’ll slam your book with a bad review – if it’s ever published (ouch at some Amazon reviews).
Wait, you say, the discerning eBay seller knows not to post on forums using their selling ID, but to use a posting ID instead. Ah, but novel writers were several steps ahead of eBayers there – and yet again the similarities are striking. I refer, of course, to nom de plumes.
The link still holds with the general eBay feedback equation (good feedback = good sales), which is no different to the general book review equation (good reviews = good sales). And, obviously, the reverse is true in both instances.
NARU – Not (or No longer) A Registered User. eBay’s delicate terminology for suspending someone’s account after some minor policy infraction also has its novel writing parallel. A deadline is missed, something in the book is offensive, factually incorrect, or plagiarised. All of these can result in the writer being dropped by his or her publisher or thrown out of a writers’ society (NAFU – Not A Registered Fellow).
So all of the evidence suggests it’s true – selling on eBay *is* like writing a novel. But, you’re no doubt wondering about the situation when an eBay item doesn’t sell – how can that possibly have an equivalent in the writing world? Well, surely you’ve heard of self-published books…
Some “humour” to finish. Why didn’t Erwin König win the eBay item? Because Vasily Zaytsev sniped him.
I should be on the comedy circuit, I really should….
