Tag: publishing

Confessions-Don’t let the bastards grind you down

We all know that people criticize more than they give praise. This is evidenced nowhere more than on the internet.

I had a bout of Covid, and while my wife and I are okay, it knocked us for a loop. Even though it’s passed, we’re still a little off. I managed to make some progress in my writing career, even if I didn’t do much actual writing. My goal is to get some attention for my superhero trilogy Tragic Heroes (Champions, Vengeance, and Avatars of the Maelstrom). I had recently taken them out of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, and they were ready to be listed elsewhere. At Barnes and Noble, I listed them as FREE, 1.99, and 4.99, respectively. They are 4.99 each on Amazon, so I requested a price match, which they obliged. Amazon won’t let a seller list an e-book as permanently free, but they will price match.

Now, I took out an ad on Facebook to promote the free book. I targeted 20 to 50-year-old males interested in superhero comics and movies. I spent 30 dollars, and it was shown to thousands of people, with several hundred “likes” and about 30 “sales.” Was it worth it? I don’t know. Thirty bucks to give away 30 books seems like a loss, but it might be okay if a few people read and leave reviews or buy the next in the series.

The comments hit me hard. The ad asked, “do you love superhero comics and movies?” The first comment was, “Yup.” Hmmm. Not that helpful, but it was okay. The following comment was, “What’s next, Buffet of the Maelstrom?” I didn’t get the joke, but I gave it a laughing emoji. Then a man left two different pooping dog GIFs. Two separate ones. He left one and then found a better one? Someone left a cartoon of Trump looking in a mirror and seeing a superhero version of himself, complete with rippling muscles and a waving cape. I didn’t understand what the commenter was trying to say here, so I responded with some “???” 

I felt hurt. Were the covers of my books indeed a pooping dog? Are the fans of the genre so wrapped up in the status quo that anyone else’s story is worthless? I haven’t had a lot of “success,” but I feel the books are good, with great covers and good writing. And it has something to say.

Maybe that was what some of the trolls were objecting to.

I didn’t want to get preachy, so I kept some of the themes of fantasy fiction, but I also imagined what someone with the literal power to change the world might do. I created Shiva, a girl who knew only the cruel hand of her captor. She knows nothing of the world at large, but she imagines one in which everyone is equal. When she develops a genius-level intellect overnight, she sets to change the world, but first, she has to conquer it. 

When I started imagining the story of Champions of the Maelstrom, I wanted to do “realistic” superheroes. What does that mean? In the comics and the movies, the heroes have little effect on the real world. I mean, they save it but mostly they fight each other and also bad guys, but no one works on injustices that can’t be solved with punching.

I saw a lack of genius-level female super characters in the existing world of comic books and their associated media. Male characters with amazing intellects like Mr. Fantastic, Lex Luthor, Batman, and Tony Stark are prominent figures, but I can’t think of any female heroes or villains as smart. 

I invented Shiva, who wakes up one day with the intellectual capacity to change the world overnight. She intends to take control of the world and force change. This is the conflict of Book One. 

Back to the negative reactions to my advertisement.

My page (https://www.facebook.com/TragicHeroesTrilogy) shows other images and quotes from the book, and I suspect those were the cause of the outrage. The first response I got was, “Seems like woke garbage!” and that was the clue to whom I had upset. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems I poked a nerve with males who saw the politics in my writing.

I wrote a book featuring a new take on superheroes, and I guess that is political. The storyline is good vs. evil with superpowers, but it’s also “With great power comes great responsibility—on steroids!” My antagonist drives the story, and unlike Batman and Spider-Man, who use their advantages to maintain the status quo, my character seeks to change the world. 

And that scares people. 

My point is that sometimes people will hate what you write, not for the writing but for what is says. And that’s a good thing. 

Illegitimum non carborundum

OR

The struggle to stay positive.

I just published my seventh product, an erotic-comedy novella called sVck. It has dirty words and images and that makes it hard to promote because Amazon and Facebook have a policy against advertising “erotic” works. So getting the word out requires some grass-roots promotions and out-of-the-box thinking.

I found a few newsletters that promote “smut” to thirsty readers, so I’ll wait and see if the one I chose noticeably moves the needle. If so, I’ll reach out to other similar promotions. In the meantime, I tried to enlist friends and family to pre-order my new book with the intention of sparking Amazon’s algorithms into featuring my book on similar searches. Amazon is smart. First, it shows what other people have already bought. It’s their way of putting the most popular stuff by the front door. Sales begets sales.

Herein lies the bump in the road and the potential downer. Most of my Facebook friends don’t seem to care about my writing career. That said, there are any number of reasons why posting on one’s personal Facebook page might not reach every one (or even a significant percentage) of one’s social media friends. If you’re me, the endless cycle of pet pictures and political commentary have whittled your “followers” down to a devoted half-dozen. So, when I need to reach the masses, Facebook decides who is most likely to “like” what I am saying and doesn’t show it to anyone else. That’s what I hope has happened.

The alternative is that no one really cares that I’m a writer. I’m not one of those writers who knows his target audience and writes what they want to read. I write the things that will entertain me through the drafts, the re-writes, the edits, paying and supervising cover artists, and the eventual self-promotion, and I pray to god that someone wants to read what I’ve written.

It’s not the best business plan.

Maybe my friends and family don’t have the money to spend on my books. I get that. Times are tough and everything is more expensive, so shelling out 3 or 7 bucks for a book they aren’t going to read is a big ask. 

“We didn’t know you had a book out.” As I said, I don’t have a lot of followers, so it’s very likely that they didn’t even see my post begging them to buy my book. I took to DMing a dozen close friends I thought might react to a personal invitation. Some of them responded with screenshots of their orders or declarations that they had placed an order (or two). But what about the ones who didn’t respond?

I know some people are jealous. Not jealous like they spend all day shaking their fists and vowing revenge like some overacting soap opera character. More likely, they don’t see my efforts to be a writer as worthwhile and that writing isn’t a “real job.” I have a friend who says she wants to be a writer and envies me for the time I have to put into writing. I know because that’s what she says every time I tell her that I have a new publication. Not, “congratulations” or “I can’t wait to read it.” Just, “Must be nice…” I’ll spend another post ranting about “finding the time” to write. 

I can hear the band is playing me off, so I’ll wrap it up. I am lucky to do what I do and I know that writing isn’t a “real job.” Of course, it isn’t easy and requires no less devotion and expertise, but there is a sense of freedom being able to spend all day at home creating fantasy worlds. But it’s also scary as hell if you’re depending on those fantasy worlds to pay your mortgage.

In conclusion, appreciate the ones who support you, and cut some slack for those who haven’t yet; there are many reasons that your friends aren’t excited when you put out a new book (or record, or piece of art, or poem, or photograph, or have a baby) because maybe they’re jealous.

Or maybe they have other stuff on their mind. 

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX

Sex can be a four-letter word.

I’m new to writing in the world of erotica and kinda new to the world of writing. I haven’t been particularly successful with my other books, meaning I haven’t made a ton of money. So I thought I’d dip my toes (and the rest of me) into the world of erotic fiction. I had a fun hook and a writing partner (my life partner who added the female perspective to the story). We wrote it, and yada, yada, yada, it’s ready for publication.

The elevator pitch is as follows: “Young Savannah is a new vampire, but she doesn’t want to drink blood. What can she do? A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Wait. What does she eat?”

“Wink.”

“Ohhhhhhh.”

You get it.

First, we have to list the novella for sale with all the vendors who sell e-books. This is a new path for me because up until now, I’ve been exclusive with Amazon to get some of that sweet Kindle Unlimited money everyone is talking about. As a publisher, you don’t have to click yes on the KU option, but if you do, you make your book “free” for KU subscribers (but unavailable anywhere else), and you get paid for every page they read. It’s about one penny for every three pages read. Thus I make about a dollar if someone reads my entire book instead of buying it for five (I would make about 3.50). It’s a great deal if you’re one of those writers with thousands of page reads a day. But if you have to spend two dollars to make one, it’s not that great.

But I digress. Category is one of the most complex parts of publishing. What category you choose determines what shelf your book is placed on in the digital bookstore. (See some of my past posts for my lamentation on the subject of categories and their subsequent abuse). I’ve heard from other experts on the topic of romance v. erotica. In short, I’ve heard that romance readers expect, nay demand, the HEA or HFN (happy ever after & happy for now). Don’t put it in “romance” if there isn’t a happy ending, i.e.; two people end up together. Not the massage “happy ending.”

But my book has a lot of descriptive sex scenes, and no two characters end up together, so it’s not romance? Right?

It might be romantic, but don’t put it in romance unless you want ‘category nazis’ to give you a bad review.

So, I guess I’ll put it in erotica.

OOOH, don’t do that! No one will find it.

Sigh.

Each platform (amazon, b&n, et al.) has different methods to list your book, including categories. I decided to risk it and put it in both romance and erotic (where the option is available), confident that the Warning on page one will turn off those who don’t want to be turned on. Since every platform has a free preview, I’m not worried that many people will make it past the warning and then demand a refund and post a negative review. Not too worried…

This is the ‘parental advisory.’ Warning, bad words ahead!

This book is intended for mature readers with a sense of humor! If you’re offended by descriptions of sex, heaving bosoms, college girls, penises, engorged genitalia, college boys, anal sex, spunk, clitorises, breasts, blood, cumming, sex, pussies, cunnilingus, boobies, blowjobs, vaginas, tits, asses, love, S & M, gay stuff, moisture, vampires, cum, jizz, wads, semen, and the C-word, please put the book down now and have a glass of wine. Do us all a favor and have a couple.

Now comes the part where we try to drum up presales before the book release. I have some experience, but not success advertising on Amazon and Facebook. Here’s the deal— Facebook and Amazon won’t let you advertise explicit stuff on their platform. What’s “explicit”? You might think it means you can’t show nudity or sexual situations, but their policy is that you can’t advertise sexually explicit material even if the ad isn’t sexually explicit.

In the days of My Space, I had a girlfriend who didn’t use MySpace because “Facebook was cleaner.” She didn’t really explore Facebook, or maybe she missed the dirty stuff because they weren’t allowed to advertise. There are some borderline groups and people promoting their smut that is way more explicit than a few dirty words.

Maybe the romance experts are right. Maybe erotica is a death sentence.

But we wrote a good book that will appeal to some readers, but how the heck do we let people know we’re out there, ready and willing? I’m told that grassroots campaigns are the answer! Get a blog and blog every day. Hmmm. Information that would have been useful yesterday! Well, months ago, at least.

What will we do to promote our project since we can’t promote smut via Amazon, Goodreads, Bookbub, Twitter, or Facebook? Whizzbuzz books is a service that will promote any book for a year for $49, so maybe I’ll try them. I’m sure there are others. 

I hope we can get some people to follow us into the dungeon.

sVck is available for preorder on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and wherever you buy your ebook. It will be available in print, too, on April 1st.

Confessions of a Failed Writer-rebirth edition

To paraphrase Ursula Le Guin: 

“When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” 

I’d respond, “I’ve always been a writer.”

I wish I had started writing with the intention of publishing earlier in life. In the computer lab in High School (class of 1990) I would write stories of my Dungeons and Dragons characters. My friend gave me my first criticism, she said, “You need more than fight scenes.” She was right.

I always had ideas but rarely got them down on paper. I wrote a poem on my love’s lament that was published in a school journal. I submitted an idea for a role-playing game adventure. But it wasn’t until I was in a near-fatal car crash twenty-four years ago that I decided to quit my job and become a comic-book writer. But I was wrong. I should have been writing while I had that full-time job. It’s all about time management and making choices on what’s important.

Make progress every day. Pick a goal (in this case-writing) and work on it every day. Ten minutes before work. After dinner before putting in a movie, write for half an hour. After putting the kids to bed. It adds up because on the day when you have more time, you already have a foundation. Even if you don’t use what you wrote, you got it out of the way and it will lead to better things. Write in the morning. Write at night. Write when you can’t sleep. Write when all you want to do is sleep.

I have a friend (actually a couple, but I’ll merge them into one for this) who is jealous of the time I have to write. This person would love to be a writer, but just doesn’t have the time. I disagree.  Sometimes, thinking I have unlimited time can be a detriment to the process of completing a project. When I have a job, I do a lot of “writing” while I work, looking forward to the time when I can jot down my ideas. The point is, we choose how we spend our time. There’s a quote, “I always wanted to be a boxer, until I fought someone who WANTED to be a boxer.” The point is,  if you want to do something, do it. 

Don’t wait until you “have the time.” Get a grain of sand and place it where you want it. Tomorrow, add another. Someday you’ll have your castle.