MANY THOUSANDS OF authors aspire to ‘make their name’ by publishing their writing. Most of these people hope to follow in the footsteps of, say JK Rowling, and to achieve fame and become a bestselling author. This hope is exploited ruthlessly on social media, especially, so I have noticed, on Facebook and X (formerly ‘Twitter’).

Every day, I notice a steady stream of advertisements promising to convert your piece of writing into a bestseller. Some ads offer to convert your manuscript into a book that looks as if it has been produced by a recognised commercial publishing house. Other, provide editing and mentoring services. Yet more of them, promise to promote your book on social media. Some will guide you as to how to make your book more prominent on Internet search engines. And others will review your book any number of times. There are even websites that will write the text of your book using AI.  All these services naturally attract fees, and these can in some cases be quite hefty. If despite using these miraculous sounding services, your book neither sells well nor achieves great acclaim, you might be considerably out of pocket.

The problem is that very few of the myriad books written have either any outstanding literary merits or appealing features. The services offered in the ads offer profits and huge readerships on the horizon. But will they materialize, or will they remain mirages that fade away after you have parted with your money? I have never used any of the services that I have seen advertised. I wonder whether they would be honest enough to say that despite their best efforts, the submitted work is likely to be a failure, or do they not care.

OR, am I just a skeptic at heart?