Stephen King's Impersonal Web Site

By Daniel Taverne

I recently paid a visit to Stephen King’s official web site: http://www.stephenking.com , and after perusing it for an hour, I came to the conclusion:

It must be difficult (at times) being a celebrity like Steven King.

I read through the frequently asked questions and came to realize, all-be-it understandably, that he doesn’t really do anything that brings the public close to him, aside from writing.

What do I mean by this? Well, it was asked if he does an annual ghost story night, to which he said no. It was explained that he did do a fireside ghost story night once for PBS. He doesn’t give out his e-mail address (understandably), and he doesn’t do a Halloween night haunted house because he had over 1000 people show up at his doorstep on Halloweens in the past. He doesn’t accept manuscripts, he doesn’t read them and provide feedback, and he doesn’t give individualized writing advice. All this said, I really can’t blame the guy for being a little withdrawn from public eyes.
Think about it though, since all these answers are in the FAQs, he must get pummeled with requests for such things all the time.

How can anyone expect the man to produce quality work if he spends all his time hunched over lame manuscripts, scribbling corrections with a red pen? He has a life!

Think about it, if you are a writer, or a wanna-be writer, you may sit at your computer 3-4 or more hours a day, but you go out to eat, you spend time with your family, you walk the dog, you go to birthday parties, weddings, funerals, movies, bowling, you do all those things that normal people do. Now imagine you had hundreds of manuscripts to go over, speaking engagements, book signings, firelight ghost stories and so on, you wouldn’t ever have time to take a relaxing dump.

So, to all you writers out there who want to improve your craft, who want to be validated by an author of King’s caliber, save it. Do like he says in his FAQs and get current copies of Literary Market Place and Writer's Market. In these books you’ll find hundreds if not thousands of publishers looking for work to publish. Get your byline in a few of them, and then get an agent who will solicit publishers for you. If your good, your work will speak for its self and you won’t need validation from someone like king, you’ll get it from your own readers.

Finally, finding success in the writing industry may drive people to sending you their manuscripts for review, in which case you too will become creatively withdrawn with a FAQ section on your own website. You will then be answering questions with many of the same answers we now find on Kings FAQs.