I completely understand not wanting to be famous, and it definitely has its downside. If you haven't already, you should read Hugh Howey's
Advice to Aspiring Authors. In particular:
Quote:
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This is going to sound strange, but you are MUCH better off with your 10th work exploding than your 1st work. You’ll never have quiet time to crank out quality material ever again. And when your backlist matches the growth of your first breakout, you’ll do very well for yourself. Be patient. It’s been said by many others, but I’ll repeat it here: self-publishing is a marathon, not a sprint.
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I sort of get what you say about bringing joy to others, but my motives are more selfish than that:
I get a buzz from writing (when it's going well). If I could actually make a living at it then I'd have more time to write and so have more time getting that buzz. So the money aspect, for me, is about the writing, rather than the writing being about the money ... if that makes any sense. The problem being that, if Hugh is right, getting too successful could make this backfire.
Which is not to say that I don't care whether people enjoy my work. I also get a buzz when I learn that other people have enjoyed what I wrote - especially when they seem to have seen the same thing I did (a problem I chatted about on another thread). So the more people that read my stories the more chance some of them will leave reviews that might lead to this buzz. There is, I guess, some vanity in that: in believing what I've created is good enough (and it's quite a leap when I think about the authors that I admire ... so I try not to think about them and me at the same time
).
Perhaps I sound like a drug addict looking for their next high ... maybe I am.