Fame Breeds Fame

When you talk to a full-time, professional writer, you will often hear tales of how incredibly difficult it is to get into that position. The problem is that you have this nasty Catch-22 working against you. Nobody wants to publish you because you're a no-name, but you can't gain any recognition because nobody will publish you. The same thing occurs in almost every job field that requires experience.

The general advice is to start small, pay your dues, and work your way up the ladder. Eventually, you build up enough notoriety in one field to move up to the next rung. I suppose it is still good advice. It isn't the only option out there, what with self-publishing and self-promoting online, but the traditional print publishing isn't dead yet, so I won't discount it.

Of course, when you self-publish, you still have similar problems, mainly with promotion. The internet is a big place, it takes a great deal of effort to even be a blip on a radar. If you're on the internet and nobody has heard of you, nobody cares about you.

And that is one of those strange things I've found about life: Fame breeds fame. It is damn difficult to get a lucky break, but once you do, all you have to do is keep your momentum (I admit that's an oversimplification). Once people hear about you, they check you out, they talk about you, and the word spreads. Now you've got enough notoriety that small news sources report on you, which then feeds into larger news sources. Although it seems like your work and your continuing quality and improvement are what are attracting more viewers and bigger reporters, it is moreso a case of you being famous because people are saying you're famous.

Now, I also don't want to say that fame is random. Of course something of good quality is more likely to remain famous, but that isn't a guarantee. Plenty of high quality products are never heard of, and plenty of pure trash is well-known. In terms of human beings, you rarely see a news report about that guy who helps the homeless and does free repairs for the local children's bicycles, but try not hearing about Paris Hilton.

Because notoriety is so random, it's easy to say that you should just not worry about it and try your best to do what you can. However, knowing how a system works will allow you to manipulate it. Fame works on a ladder system, much like hard work does. Start with small news sources. Get your name out there. Offer to give interviews (some reporters would love to have a story find them). Start the work needed on the fame machine, then you can let it do the rest on its own.

Just don't forget to keep making a quality product.