Lola: Well at first, my books were doing well, you know, they were selling. I mean I had good reviews and all but I also had some bad ones and some constructive criticism ones. But then something happened. It was like people started to change. Like the people that would usually help me out as far as marketing my work via facebook or twitter or wordpress or via any of the other media outlets had come to a complete stop, but not before they’d won a year’s worth of free books or ten dollar amazon or barnes and noble gift cards from some well-known author or authors to say the least. I mean, shoot, if a literary celeb was giving me free access to their newest or latest work, and I wasn’t a writer and didn’t have a clue as to what it’s really like to write, with offers like that, I probably would have done the same thing, ya know. DM: Yeah, I feel ya. It’s hard when you have a dream and the will and want to go and get it but then somebody comes along with money and an ounce of power, or at a minimum, a contact or a connection, along with some lame ass excuse as to why you don’t deserve to be at the top and send your hopes and dreams crashing to the ground because of their lack of self-esteem and confidence. Lola: I know right. The sad part is that they’d do all of this backstabbing and cut-throating just to make themselves feel worthwhile yet not getting any type of real worthiness or justness because they can’t sleep for worrying about who’s going to challenge them next or what new and aspiring author is going to come along and knock them out of the game regardless of their money, their connects, contacts, and childish acts. I mean, if you think about it, the things that these people are doing are equal to what third graders might do. You know, like, don’t talk to so and so because I’m mad at them right now or something like that [laughs]. It’s just sad because what they don’t realize is that they could possibly benefit even more off of helping us, “self-published authors”, and even more so, cast themselves in a good light of humanity by way of the world of literary. DM: Wow that’s uniquely put.
Lola: Girl I try [laughs]. DM: So if you don’t mind me asking, and I’m not down playing your previous answer, but what was the give-a-way, the snitch, the rat that led you to believe that you were quote-unquote black-listed? Lola: Well as you know, I have a few selfpublished books under my name. At first, I thought no this can’t be but as time went on I thought – it is. To tell you the truth, once the reality sat it, it hurt like hell. I thought that my world was going to come crashing down on me, ya know. But then I became creative. I wrote a book and published it under a pseudonym. I sat back and watch how that book, mind you, with the same style of writing as my own, with the errors and all, take off. I mean, I sold so many copies of that book that it wasn’t funny but then again it was. DM: How so? Lola: Well it wasn’t funny because it’s my work, just pubbed under a different name yet it was funny because for all of those people that stopped purchasing my work because of a deal with the devil, were in all actuality purchasing my work and I was getting paid, of course unbeknownst to them. DM: So what happened next? Lola: Well once people started realizing that the book that was pubbed under my pseudonym was actually written by me, they all of a sudden became winning recipients of gift cards and a year worth of free books from various authors and publishers with one stipulation. DM: And what was that? Lola: They didn’t support my work anymore. DM: Damn. That’s horrible. Lola: Yeah, tell me about that shit.
11 | P a g e