I don't know about the series of L.A. hits over the last year, because you guys seem to be coming from several different publishing companies judging by the phone calls, but I just wanna say that even when I am being a snarky b*tc# about it, I actually do appreciate being told that my content is good enough to want to pick up and make money on yourselves.
I really want to be transparent about how yes, I know some of what I write is pretty decent, because there are things I've written on blogs over the last 17 years that have gone a bit viral around the world, even being translated and republished or used in other writeups and stuff, and my content being on my own blogs has allowed me to see this directly in real time via pingbacks, linkbacks, contacts across several mediums, but mainly just loads and loads of lurkers that I used to be able to verify, with paid trackers, were return readers who would sit and read everything I ever wrote. (This paragraph is awkward, I'm not going to fix it, whoever it bugs, deal with it.)
When I first set out to create a blog fleet, I was amusing myself as much out of boredom and depression as anything. I thought it would be fun to Easter egg my content and drive traffic around, like a big game (can't do that in a book), but I've never seen that blow into such a big combing all the blogs frenzy as this last year. I finally opened up and really wrote stuff over the last couple of years, and I guess it's a big deal now that I've dared to openly challenge 'the narrative' with my actual real life.
I used to be happy with 40 impressions on any random tweet. I'm not clever with social medias, and I often wish I'd done things differently. But one thing I've been is honest. I can't definitively say that is the magic ingredient, but a random tweet sample pulls up several hundred impressions nowadays, and that's me being very careful NOT to hasthtag, @ anyone, or quote tweet trending topics, on top of my followers almost never, ever retweeting or even liking. My twitter looks pretty dead, and yet... impressions. Do you know why I like that? It makes the content more important than me. I'm clearly not hustling for hits like I used to make a game of.
Honesty can come back to bite, but it can also propel readership. I think the range of publishers I've been mildly complaining about bugging my phone over the last couple years has been interesting, but more interesting is how many of them lately are calling me from Los Angeles. I can't even guess if I'm truly being noticed or simply just a phone number being passed around.
What do I do with that? I hardly take myself or any of you that seriously. Do you guys SEE what is going on in the world nowadays? There is so much more important stuff than publishing a book by Janika Banks, or sadly misconstruing that I've already been properly published when I haven't.
I can't tell if you guys are for real because of THAT. That one thing. Why do all you guys lead off voice mails and texts with a book I've already purportedly published? Because I have never published a book. How can I take any of you seriously when not one of you gets it right? If you guys keep saying I wrote an amazing book but never mention what I actually really do and say, I feel like publishing is just a racket, a scam. Wonder why I don't respond? You don't know me. I am all over the internet, people read my stuff all over the world, and you cannot seem to get what I really do.
It has been really tempting to get a paid tracker on my blogs again, but I keep not letting myself do that. I used to be able to see street addresses and earth maps, look up realtors and see floor plans of your buildings. I could indulge myself, but I don't think that's healthy. Stats are my aspie train obsession, and I really don't need to go back to that level of stalker games. I guess I'm mildly pointing out that if you aren't who you say you are, I could conceivably still find you and see if someone in your areas would be interested in checking out whether you are really legit for me. Wouldn't that be a fun game to play... I could Easter egg the results across random blogs...
Some of you can't be found by your phone numbers alone, though, which is concerning since you are calling as hopefully legit businesses.
And it's interesting that so many of you across North America seem to have my UNLISTED number somehow.
- Janika Banks
:edit: THIS is what is published. Pic clicks to post.
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