Tag: writing

I’m not sure how other indie writers do it. 

I get e-mails from Mailchimp on how to expand my mailing list. I get e-mails from my server on how to enhance traffic to my store, which reminds me I should get a store. Facebook offers me a spend 20 get 20 deal. Bookbub has some ideas on how to spend my ad dollars. So does Twitter. And Instagram. 

Should I be exclusive with Amazon or go “wide,” meaning Apple, B&N, Bookbaby, etc. If I go wide I make less of a percentage of profits and lose out on that Kindle Unlimited deal where I get paid one cent for every three pages a subscriber reads. Cha ching!   

Anyway.

I picked someone to read my book Twenty-One Octobers, a self-made voice actor Jake Hunsbusher. He requires very little direction, but it’s weird to hear such a personal story read by someone else, yet draws from me the same emotions I tapped into while writing it. 

Part of the reason I am spending time and money on making an audiobook and a large print edition, aside from the potential revenue, is so my 84-year-old mother can enjoy at least one of her son’s works. But as I hear my voice actor read the words of a character inspired by her, I wonder how she’ll take it. Often I think my mother will like a book or a television show, only to be flabbergasted by her reaction. I bought her the dvd of “Police Academy” because I remember her liking the movies when I was a kid. She didn’t understand why I got her the slapstick raunchy comedy, and my partner suggested that maybe she didn’t like the movies, but went because I did.

Huh. 

I want her to read my book; I went to a lot of effort and expense, but despite everything the book will still be “too small” or “hard to hear” or she just won’t listen to it or read it. Why not? I don’t know.

I’ll leave with this possibly unrelated excerpt from a book I just finished called Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott. She shares essays and anecdotes about her career and thoughts on being a writer. Though she is successful, she has a remarkable insight into thoughts of failing. 

No one has expressed it better than a great novelist I heard once on a talk show who said something like “You want to know the price I pay for being a writer? Okay I’ll tell you. I travel by plane a great deal. And I’m usually seated next to some huge businessman who works on files or his laptop for a while, then he notices me and asks what I do. And I say I’m a writer. Then there’s always a terrible silence. Then he says eagerly, ‘Have you written anything I might have heard of?’

And that’s the price I pay for being a writer.’    

Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

Confessions…9/22

A continuation of my previous Confession- my reviewer gave the final book in my series, Avatars of the Maelstrom 4/5 stars! I’ve been checking every day like a I was waiting for a grade from my professor.

“Great story, keeping you guessing every page I read. Unexpected ending…I’m sure you all will enjoy reading.”

Here’s hoping all my reviews are that positive.

I haven’t written anything in a few days; I’m working on new formats for my previous publications. Large Print and Hardcovers require redoing the original covers, a task for my freelance artists. I changed computers last year and lost the writing of Twenty-One Octobers, so I had to salvage my original Word by downloading the book on Amazon and splitting it up into chapters and recreating the book using Vellum. But after a couple of day’s work, I have my digital manuscript back.

I’m also waiting on the cover for the Trilogy edition of Tragic Heroes as well as the prototype cover for sVck, the first from friend and long-time artistic go-to-guy, Michael Kelleher, the second is coming from art house 100 Covers.

Okay, back to work. Blessings on all your houses.  

Confessions of a Failed Writer-6

9/21/2021

I had a minor success yesterday. I try not to check too often, but any writer is going to look at his or her reviews. The trilogy I released a month ago is fairly long, so even if someone bought them, they might not have finished. Anyway, I noticed my first two books in the series had one five-star review each. I was cautiously optimistic.

My previous release, Twenty-One Octobers has almost ten reviews. The people who have reviewed are friends or friends of friends, and while I think they genuinely enjoyed the books, the true critic is someone who doesn’t care about your feelings. The internet can be an unforgiving hellscape and god have mercy on your should if someone paid money for something and did not enjoy it. 

“I got this book with zero expectations but good reviews. I began reading and I couldn’t put the darn book down until I finished reading cover to cover. Yes that how good it was. Looking forward to book 2.”

That feels good. For someone to have spent their money and enjoyed something I worked for years to complete, well that’s the dream. And to write a review…-sniff-

“With ups and downs like in every story is a rollercoaster of actions and twist of emotions not foreseen by far. Again is book you cannot put down. Different from the first in a good way.”

-If you’re a friend and you wrote the above review, let me know only if it was honest. Otherwise, keep the secret to yourself.

And thank you. Whoever you are.

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.

Confessions of a Failed Writer-4

On a whim, I bought a new cover for a book I haven’t finished yet. I’m writing this book with my partner (relationship, not business) and an opportunity to start work on the cover came around (sale) from an art house specializing in custom covers, and I jumped on it. I have a guy I work with for a variety of projects, and I used someone different for Twenty-One Octobers, but this new novel requires a different look. The story is a paranormal romance (vampire erotica) and maybe vampire’s are played out but I think they are due for a comeback. The work in progress is a tongue-in-cheek, saucy bit of romantic X-rated stuff. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer with sex. So, Buffy the Vampire Layer, which is a thing. 

We’re working on pen names. I decided on Seaward Dracula. She’s still thinking of hers, which is funny because her maiden name is Coffin, but she doesn’t want to use that. Layna Coffin or something would be great, but also it sounds fake, even though it isn’t.

I continue to plug away at my goal of 2000 words a day, but yesterday got away from me. It was a Saturday and I didn’t feel up to writing. Which is okay, as long as I don’t let it happen two days in a row. I don’t know about you, but that’s my flaw when it comes to working out. Skip a day turns into three turns into a treadmill as a 500 dollar clothes hanger.

Anyway, back to work. Happy Sunday.

Confessions of a Failed Writer part 3

September 17, 11:02 A.M.

I’m putting off listening to the auditions for my audiobook. I have a dozen or so and it’s a short scene the professionals have read. Why am I procrastinating? Self-doubt. Wondering if I’ll make the wrong decision on who will read my deeply personal work. I could do it myself, but I don’t have a great voice. I know all the inflections and how I want it read, but I’d prefer to leave that to the professionals with the experience and equipment to create a high quality finished product.

The second question is do I come up with the money to pay a voice actor or do I do a profit split? I’ve read the author’s laments who regret doing the split. But the upfront costs of paying a good producer can be a grand or more. Do I bet on myself for future earnings? Or do I take the safe route and save the upfront costs? I’ve only sold 9 copies of my book, so how many audio copies will I sell?

I will put that off until tonight. I’ll have my partner Anya listen with me for a second opinion. For today, I have daily goal of 2000 words. That’s an easy goal, maybe the word “achievable” is better than easy. Especially since I’m dividing the daily goal among three novels: Legacy of the Maelstrom, Mind the Shadows and sVck. I figure the three books should total about 225,000 words, so if I achieve my daily goal, I’ll be done the first draft of three books in four months. The trick is to write. Some writers do what is called “sprinting” where they close the doors and type until the allotted time is up. Usually an hour. Others write to be perfect. Each word is carefully chosen to not require much polishing in a second draft. My process is somewhere in the middle. I’m mostly writing dialogue with a few descriptors. Here’s an example of what I wrote last night.

                                                           sVck

“How was your dinner date?”

Savanah hung her head. Humphrey eyed her with a snarky smile. “I checked your window at 12:30 and you still weren’t home. And your 9:00 o’clock came out of your hall looking unsatisfied. What happened?”

“Things got out of hand, Humph. We fucked.”

Humphrey spit out his coffee. “You what?! You fucked a vampire!?”

“Would you keep it down, for christ’s sake?!”

“What do you mean, you fucked?”

“We did it. It was awesome. I’ve never been with a woman before. She did stuff to me. I came so fucking hard.”

“That’s awesome, Savvy. You needed to nut. Seriously. You’ve been doing a lot of blowing with no payback. What else happened?”

“I asked her about vampire life. I told her about my alternative food source. She showed me her thralls. Four guys. They ate raw meat and she fed on one while I watched. I, uh, showed her my method.”

“You blew one of her guys?”

“While she watched.”

“Hot.”

“He keeled over. Dead.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand what happened. Maybe he was so weak that…”

“…you sucked him to death?”

“Yeah.”

“Dammnnnnnn.”

In my next draft I’ll go through and add descriptions. Spice it up. Sometimes I leave the dialogue when I feel the reader knows who is who without the need to write “he said” and “she said.” It creates a better back and forth. 

What’s your process?

Confessions of a Failed Writer 9/16/2021

09/16/2021

The life of a writer is easy.

8:00 Wake up. Take dog out. Make breakfast.

9:00 Partner’s sleeping. Sit in office and look at Facebook. Watch hilarious Norm McDonald video

9:30 bust out laptop. Continue thinking of super powers I haven’t used for scene in new book

The life of a writer is difficult.

Many writers have deadlines and bosses and reasons to feel pressure from the outside world. I know a writer, who in addition to writing her own book series, ghost writes for others. I can imagine that’s difficult to be creative and never get the credit. She’s much younger and has written over 100 books. I’m sure the promise of a paycheck is an incentive.

What’s the incentive of the writer who hasn’t started to generate a profit. It’s a challenge to stay motivated without a proverbial stick or carrot to incentivize him or her. “Glue your ass to the seat and write,” is the advise famous writers like to give. That’s true. Some shut themselves off in a writer’s retreat in their home or in another location to prevent the distractions of life from interfering with their process. I’m more of an amalgam. I like being able to reward myself with a break to look up something online while also being “glued” to my writer’s spot. I don’t think I would have the concentration to write for 8+ hours a day.

Some writers plot out what they plan to write. Perhaps chapter by chapter, or scene by scene, the disciplined writer knows all the beats of his story. My writing style matches my other styles. I’m known as a “seat of the pants” writer. I start without knowing where the story will take me. I let the characters and ideas flow naturally. In a sense, the story is writing itself. In my novel, Twenty-One Octobers, I knew how it would end, or so I thought. I knew it ended with the death of the main character’s father, but I didn’t know what the MC would do in the end. Would he kill his father’s murderer or would he show forgiveness? I didn’t know, but the story knew. The characters knew.

I’m sitting in my office watching my dog sleep in his bed. My partner is setting up her home office after we zoomed out to get some shelves someone was giving away. I’m about to take my cat to the groomer. But I’ll be back to continue working on some sequels and a new story. I’m not sure where the day or my stories will take me, but that’s the fun of being a writer. 

Even for a failure.

Confessions of a Failed Writer

(You might have read this already. I am a failed blog poster)

I am a failure as a writer.

The first person I met at college had self-published her novel and it was a success. People bought it, read it, and liked it. She made enough money to pay for college and probably a bunch of other stuff. She now has a sequel, an audio book, and a movie deal.

She is a success.

I was tainted. I thought all I had to do was write a good book and it would sell and I could be an author with a car that doesn’t always have that low-tire pressure light on, and I would own a house, and people would want me to sign stuff that I wrote.

I graduated college with a writing degree. I wrote a book. A few friends and family read it. I wrote another book. A few friends and family read it. I wrote two more books. No one read it. 

Well, that’s it. I’m a terrible writer, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. 

In between publications, I joined a Facebook group recommended to me by another successful writer friend. They are a great help with information regarding self-publishing specifically on Amazon. But there is a lot of info and there is a lot of different advice.

First, you need a mailing list. “I wish I had built a mailing list before publishing all these books,” someone wrote.

First, you need to write to market. “If you want to make money, write what people want to read now! Read the top ten in the genre/keywords and copy the recipe. Billionaire Romance is hot now! Write that. Everyone is reading Clean Vampire Billionaire Harem Romance now. Write that and you’ll be rich.

First, you need to write twenty books and then you’ll make fifty grand.

Stop.

I don’t want to write that stuff. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Isn’t that what people say? You’ve heard the punchline. “…because they’re not hiring.”

What is success?

In America, money equals success. Successful people have money. Right? My friends and family would say I am successful because I graduated college and wrote five books. True. I successfully did those things. Am I a success?

I don’t feel like one. I wrote a trilogy of books in the Superhero Science-Fiction/Fantasy category. They have cool covers illustrated by a working comic-book illustrator. They are well plotted with lots of twists and turns. I did the work. I advertised in the right places, but no one’s reading my books.

Why not? If people were reading and saying stuff like, “This books sucks!” then I’d know I wrote a turd. I look at the most popular books in my genre and…damn it, they’re a lot of shirtless, six-pack dudes and no capes! They’re placed in the superhero category, but as far as I can tell there are no characters who can bend steel or fly. I feel cheated.

So, I started writing a sequel. Wow. That’s stupid, right? You might say, “Cut your losses!” I feel like I failed, but I enjoy the story I’m telling. I’m also working on a sequel to another non-superhero book I wrote and I’m also writing an erotic vampire novel. Because why not? I’m having fun going broke.

In this space I’m going to talk about writing. Not really about the craft or even the business aspect, but the decision to wake up every day and write. I want to tell you about my struggle. I’d like to hear about your struggle. I’ll talk about aches and pains and paying the bills and taking care of my pets and maintaining a relationship with a non-writer. All the dirty, ugly, non-sexy parts of what it takes to try to be a success.

What is success to you?