I like the girls over at Write Minded, and although I don’t comment much, I do like to visit their blog every now and then. I even try and buy the books that they publish just because I like ’em so much.

Anyway, I was looking at the number of books that they had written individually, and although mostly all of them have done well, books-wise, some have obviously done better than others, for example, Sharon Long/Maya Banks and Larissa Ione (I’m excluding Jaci Burton, because she only recently joined them).

Because my mind tends to lapse into various uncharted streams of consciousness, I ended up wondering how the other members of Write Minded really felt about the successes of the other group members. I don’t mean the surface, “I’m so happy for my friend and pal and crit partner”-tokenism that I randomly see every now and again, but the deep-fried, not-for-public-consumption feelings, that tend to include emotions like envy and jealousy, which are in turn, bound to lead to feelings of inadequacy. I wonder if deep down, that’s one of the reasons that Jan Kenny left the group. I couldn’t help but notice that out of the original members, she seemed to have struggled the most, in terms of getting her books published. (This is only presumption on my part of course, she may have only had two books in her over the last two years)

I imagine every author goes through these feelings at some stage or another. Seeing your writer pals get big contracts, seeing them hit the NY Times or USA Today best-seller lists, whilst you struggle to sell-out, must wound the psyche to some degree. How could it not? Can you imagine how hard it would have been to be Nora Roberts’ best author friend back in the day, or even one of her peers? Look where jealousy and envy led Janet Dailey. That bitch just plain tried to copy from La Nora.

It must be much worse for those one-book authors. You know the ones, they wrote one book, that bombed, and now they’re finding it hard to sell their second book, never mind make it onto any of The Lists.

I recall having similar thoughts when Dear Author did that viral marketing thing with Nalini Singh’s wonderful book, Slave To Sensation. I wondered how many authors felt just a little green that she was getting all that attention for her book. Lots and lots I suspect, no matter how much they deny it.

(Slightly off-topic, but hey Jane, seeing as Nalini is now a NY Times Best-seller, does that mean your viral marketing worked? *g*)

Humans are naturally competitive, but I sometimes wonder, if that competitiveness, rises to its optimum, when women compete against other women.