Bad Words: Badder Writing That I am Too Madderer!

Hello and welcome to another installment of “Bad Words” (actually, I just made up that name – the first installment didn’t have a series title, but guess what? It does now!) where we take a look at some common mistakes many writers make and how YOU the reader can learn to identify them for fun and profit. Just kidding. There’s no profit here for you. About the best you can hope for is to get a laugh or two and look at the pictures. On the other hand, if you’re an author, you might see something you do from time to time that you never knew bothered me. And, OF COURSE YOU’LL WANT TO CHANGE THAT BEHAVIOR! Pleasing me should be of paramount importance in your everyday life and so it is a matter of course that your writing should also take my tastes into consideration.

I have wants, people! Needs! They must be satisfied or… or… they will continue to be unsatisfied! And that is unsatisfactory!

But seriously, some of the stuff I point out below is just me making mountains out of molehills, but I thought I’d take the time to explain what bothers me about them because I’m seeing them a lot lately. I’ve been doing some intense reading of other self-published works in my chosen genres (mystery, fantasy/sci-fi) and although most of the stuff out there is garbage, there are a few writers who are quite good and I’d like to read more of their work. However, even though they are clearly talented and can make words do pleasing things on the page, they still make very aggravating mistakes that make me want to pelt them with Cheetos and slap them with deli ham! I want to grab them by the nipples and shake them and scream into their faces “Don’t you know how close to awesome you are? Don’t you know how many truckloads of ham and Cheetos I want to dump on you? DON’T YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU?”

But I’d likely get arrested for that, so instead I’ll just tell you how I think some writers could be soooo much better if only they’d stop doing dumb shit like…

The deus ex machina: You’re probably already familiar with this term, but for those of you who may have slept through a few too many English classes, I’ll explain. It’s a Latin term meaning “God from the Machine” and it refers to any sort of resolution to a conflict that seems to come out of nowhere. This is easily forgivable if an author just uses it to tie up loose secondary plot threads, but is unforgivable when it appears in the main action of the story.

Ridiculous Example: Our swashbuckling hero is busy bravely fighting the forces of doom and destruction at the climax of the book, but things take a turn for the worse and he finds his back against the wall and his feet in the doo-doo. His every strength has been countered and now the enemy is about to destroy him by exploiting a known weakness! Lament! Oh, lament! But wait? What’s this? Our Doubting Thomas of a hero can reach down deep within and summon the strength of a god? One of the allies he thought lost suddenly and inexplicably bursts in and aids him? The spirits of his ancestors distract the enemy just long enough to provide an escape? The evil-genius villain decides to walk toward the hero instead of just shooting him from across the room? Our sword-wielding hero can suddenly cast magic missile?

And on and on. You see what I’m getting at. A final confrontation only ends satisfyingly when our hero uses the tools and experiences he picked up through his journey to defeat the final boss. Nothing should suddenly appear. The reader should be able to trace the solution to the problem to something (or things) that happened earlier in the book or else it all just falls flat.

 

Just like this guy!

 

Getting lost on a tangent: This is where the author attempts (as all good authors should) to weave a multi-threaded plot line, but ends up losing the main thread, either for too long or permanently. This is incredibly easy to do, but is also fairly simple to spot on revision. While you can afford to spend perhaps a whole chapter devoted to a secondary plot point, any more than that and you risk confusing the reader regarding what’s actually important. Unless you use those one-sentence chapters, then I suppose you could spend a chapter or two or nine. God, don’t get me started on one-sentence chapters. What an arrogant waste of reader attention.

Ridiculous example: Our hero is hired to rescue a kidnapped princess. After investigating for a chapter or two, he finds she’s more or less a willing prisoner of her captors. She tells him to get lost. Unsure what to do, he spends a day thinking it over and during that time he receives a message from an old friend in need of some help. The hero shrugs and leaves to go aid his friend and for the greater part of the book, the action revolves around that new plot point. After more or less resolving the problem, the hero eventually comes back to convince the princess she shouldn’t hang with the bad guys and that brings the story to a close. Maybe the author makes some loose connection between the two conflicts, but FAR too much time was spent away from the “rescue the princess” plot to have it be at all meaningful anymore.

 

“…if you still care about that sort of thing, that is.”

 

Stretching suspension of disbelief to the breaking point: There’s a lot of suspension of disbelief in genre writing. The reader is often expected to believe in time travel, instantaneous communication through space, magic, fantasy worlds, etc. All of this is generally accepted as de rigeur, but I’ve noticed in one area – specifically dystopian sci-fi – authors seem to take just too many liberties. If you’re dealing with Earth or even an Earth-like planet with human-type peoples, you have to keep in mind that your readers will have certain expectations that can’t be disregarded.

Ridiculous example: The world is going to die within a handful of generations and humanity’s only hope is to gather up its smartest people and lock them away so they can tech our way out of it, hopefully. But the organization behind such a noble effort turns out to be nefarious in its designs. When the smartest people enter its secured compound, they are never heard from again! And… nobody wonders why. Not one single lonely boyfriend or worried mother picks up the phone to call. Nobody. Everyone just simply accepts that the smarty pants people need to “concentrate on their work.” Our hero only finds out that something is amiss when one of the smarty-pants finally manages to sneak a message out… YEARS LATER.

Seriously? You’re talking about humans here. Humans on Earth. No one would accept such an obvious kidnapping for any length of time much less for years. Well, unless there is already a clearly established system of gulags and work camps in your world. That might pass inspection. Or maybe everyone has been pacified with some sort of chemicals in the contrails of planes or something. Or perhaps a really taste brownie mix tainted with hallucinogens that trick family members into believing they’re still in contact with the smarty-pants relatives could work… Anyway, the point is – don’t forget the human condition. Never forget that. No matter how much your writing revolves around zombies or vampires or robots, your readers are all very human.

 

I don’t care how many dragons you birth, you’re still just a lost little girl looking for a home. Fuck you, George R.R. Martin, you brilliant bastard.

 

 

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Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today, except to announce this week’s winner of the T-Shirt giveaway.

John Cataldo!

Congrats, John! Look for the newsletter in your inbox (or possibly junk folder) and reply with desired size and mailing address.

So long everyone! Don’t forget to review a good book and tip a nice delivery driver!

Closing the book on 2015

So, 2015 is almost in the books. I won’t lie to you. It’s been a year of trials and tribulations. My writing career hasn’t yielded the results I had hoped for, BUT results have been yielded. That’s a terrible sentence. What an awful arrangement of words. It’s hardly English is it? No, don’t look at it. Let’s just keep going and hope it stays behind us. Don’t look back.

And that’s really the lesson I’m carrying forward into 2016. “Don’t look back.”

But first, let me take a look back. What? Did you think there wasn’t going to be some self-reflection in a post like this? Bear with me for a bit.

 

Nobody does a cuter eye roll than Tina Fey. Nobody.

 

When I first decided back in 2013 to self-publish the Grant Scotland series, I knew only enough about the publishing industry to know I didn’t want to go the traditional publishing route and that I had discovered a large amount of inspiration, creative energy and determination that I had never before possessed. Deep down, I knew instant success was not in the immediate future, but I was certain that I no longer had any choice about what to do with the time left to me.

Gads, that sounds fatalistic. I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that I realized I was at that point in life where there are debatably (yes, that’s a word, WordPress – stop squiggling at me) more days behind me than in front. Nothing that I had done up until then had been especially noteworthy, but at the same time I don’t consider any of my time ill spent. Far from it. I’ve worked in bookstores (something I recommend to everyone who loves books – such a great job) and I’ve designed computer games (laborious, but incredibly fun) and I’ve even tried to be a serious-minded career-driven professional programmer – complete with benefits and a retirement plan and everything! On top of that I’ve had friendships and relationships with people both within and without my comfort zone. Every one of them has contributed to my continued growth as a human being and as a writer.

No, I don’t dismiss my past spent not writing. I’m just especially driven now that I’ve finally figured out my time is best spent engaged in trying to be a successful author. I don’t think I was ever the natural born writer. I tried to keep writing after I finished college, but I found I had nothing to say. I guess I just needed to get some dirt under my fingernails. But now I find that saying things in prose is the most important thing I can do with my time.

And I love that. It’s rewarding in and of itself, but I freely admit it is not at this moment monetarily rewarding. 2013 and 2014 were years spent writing and spending money to support my jump-start into self-publishing. When Wayward Daughter was released and the omnibus put together and made available earlier this year, I saw little to no interest picking up anywhere. I had three books in a fantasy series out and no one seemed to notice. On top of that, I couldn’t seem to find my target audience. It isn’t that they were reading it and hating it – I just couldn’t seem to put the book in their hands. Most of my readers that don’t have at least some connection to me are (according to Goodreads anyway) women who read fantasy only because they either like Gabaldon or Martin or are looking for the next vampire sex novel. And I’m none of those things. I’m more in line with Glen Cook or Joe Abercrombie – speaking strictly content and narrative style, of course.

So, this year I finally faced what I had known from the start was waiting for me. With my meager savings depleted and my former careers well behind me, I took on a part-time job delivering pizzas and started severely curtailing my advertising budget as well as all other expenditures. I have entered (cue dramatic pause in whatever music you may be listening to) the Dark Days. These are (and will continue to be for a while yet, I’m certain) the times that will sorely test my mettle and determination as a writer. Can I keep it going in the face of profound reader apathy and surrounded by an increasingly large and somewhat suspect ancillary industry of self-publisher services? Will the car stay healthy enough to make delivery driving profitable enough to stay ahead of the bills? Will I ever appease The Donald? Stay tuned!

But seriously, it’s not as bad as all that. I’m just in my December mood. This month has always been tough for me. Something about it being so damn dark out all the time, I guess. I secretly don’t mind at all how people and businesses spend every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas in an orgy of forced glee. It actually helps. And all the lights are nice, too.

Anyway, the pizza delivery gig is actually not bad at all. Much more lucrative than I had imagined. At around 25 hours a week, I can support my relatively humble lifestyle and still keep writing. Also, I’m surrounded by supportive friends and family and I count myself incredibly lucky to have them. It helps me keep going. Although my productivity has certainly suffered from those halcyon days of yore when I was easily hitting 1K words a day writing Wayward Daughter, I’ve still been able to keep at it. Additionally, I’ve been writing this blog and have been active on Twitter and on blogs and forums related to the self-publishing industry. So, those are undeniably good things, no matter the Trump glare I get from the disappointing results of seemingly every promotion I run.

 

“Why do I even bother with you?”

 

Why indeed? Because without the hard edge of the relentless definition of success that capitalism lays before our feet, which Trump embodies more perfectly than anyone I know, I would get soft. And I’m plenty soft enough. I don’t need to be softer. Please don’t take that as any sort of endorsement of his politics, because it definitely is not.

Well, that’s the wrap up. The year has been a struggle, but progress is being made on all fronts. Slow progress, but it’s both honest and interesting – two qualities I admire a great deal and are rarely found together. 😉

Happy New Year, everyone! Next week I’ll get back to giving away T-Shirts and telling you about how the Troubled King promo went and possibly making some New Year’s resolutions. I guess I should’ve done that last thing here, but I’m no slave to the Julian calendar. Fight the power!

Or not. Or maybe just not today. Whenever you get around to it. No biggee. In the meantime – eat, drink, review, tip!

P.S. And don’t forget to add yourself to the mailing list for the next T-Shirt draw!

 

Self-Pubbed Authors Beware! The Shill is Coming!

I’ve written already about how I am largely OK with on-line companies that charge fees to help an author self-publish. They are up front about what services they provide and how much they’ll cost. It is a matter of debate about how ethical it is that they charge money for things the author can do for free him or herself, but that is a matter of opinion. There are things people can and can’t do. Most people who know about cars, for instance, will roll their eyes at all the places that charge $30 for an oil change. This kind of thing is not unheard of, you see.

However, it has just come to my attention that there is a new threat to the self-published author’s bank account. The Shill. Now, a shill is someone who is objectively awful, in my opinion, unless the shill openly discloses who they are being paid to shill for, but that hardly ever happens, at least not in any obvious way. The example that brought this to my attention was a webinar co-hosted by the newest star on the self-published author stage: Mark Dawson.

 

I’m starting to suspect I won’t be taken seriously as an author until I get black-rimmed glasses…

 

Now, Mark Dawson’s story, if it is even mostly true, is one that all of us slaving away in the self-publishing trenches hope desperately to tell one day ourselves. I won’t go into it here, but you can check it out in this Forbes article. Suffice it to say that Mark stayed at his job while he wrote, stayed realistic with his expectations and patiently built his audience using tried and true techniques easily available to everyone until he reached a critical mass of backlist titles and ready customers and WHAMMO – he could make enough money to quit his day job and write full time.

Sounds great, right? Certainly sounds good to me. And the thing is, I DO believe that he is successful and I believe in how he did it… mostly.

You see, there’s a couple of things about him that don’t add up. Pardon me while I put on my trench coat and fedora. Now, let’s hit the bricks and start checking on this guy’s story. Wait. Better have a belt of whiskey first. It’s November, after all. If it isn’t cold, it’s raining. And if it isn’t raining, it’s dark. And if it isn’t dark, it soon will be. So where does that leave us? Bottom’s up, that’s where. SHLURP! Allright, let’s go. The truth is waiting out there, but it won’t wait for long. It’s like a classy dame sitting alone in a corner booth of a posh nightclub… OK. I’ll stop.

 

“And you won’t start that up again until I tell you!”

 

I recently had the opportunity through an email invitation to attend a webinar hosted by FreeBooksy and Mark Dawson on how using Facebook Ads can help you gain a bigger and more focused audience. It was free and I didn’t have to install anything I didn’t already have (just some Citrix client updates) so I decided it just might possibly be worth my time. I did a quick check on Mark Dawson and didn’t see any Snopes articles or scam alerts out on him. I had used Free/Bargain Booksy before and although I was less than impressed with them, they seemed more or less on the level. Even if it turned out to be some sort of sales pitch for Facebook, Dawson and/or Booksy, I still might be able to learn a thing or two. This is my business after all. I have to keep researching this stuff, even if my intuition tells me this one won’t be yielding any useful information. As Richard Dreyfuss says in Let It Ride, “You never know.”

 

“And even when you know, you still don’t know!”

 

So, the webinar started on time and opened smoother than any webinar I had ever attended. I guess that was the first clue. The second clue was when the Booksy spokesperson asked where everyone was from and instructed us to type our answers “in that field over there where you can type.” Before even a second passed she was reading off people’s names and locations, even though nothing had appeared in the chat box. Note to the Booksy people: That’s what that is. It’s a chat box. I typed my location in and saw my text appear, followed by exactly one other fellow.

We never heard our names or locations mentioned. I suppose that was clue number two.

So, the webinar lasted around an hour, although I left it before it officially closed. I have to confess I was disappointed, although not surprised, that this turned out to be an infomercial. Cleverly disguised, but still just an infomercial. It quickly became obvious that it was all pre-recorded and not live at all. And what was it an infomercial for, you ask? Why Mark Dawson’s exciting on-line course in self-publishing using Facebook Ads!

Que the trombone that is sad.

And Mark? Did he appear to be all that he claimed? Wellllll… Mark repeatedly used the phrase “why do X (where X=some common self-pubber marketing chore), when, if you’re like me, what you really want to be doing is writing?” and then he’d go on and on about his course and how he’ll dedicate two weeks of his time to helping each enrolled student. That’s two weeks… each.

Although he specifically mentions that he quit his job to write full time, somehow he is now more interested in helping other writers market on Facebook… full time? Obviously, if he has the time to do that he is not actually writing. What he is actually doing is running a… I want to say scam, but technically it isn’t… operation, maybe? No, that sounds like a mob job. Running an online course, I guess. I hate to demean education like that, but it’s his fault, not mine. Anyway, he’s clearly not interested in writing full time. He’s interested in running a “business” to pull money out of the pockets of starry-eyed neophyte author wanna-bes.

I know this isn’t a surprise to any of you, my savvy and attractive readers, but the internet is absolutely the wild west. That’s both what we love and hate about it. Give you one guess what old wild west character Mark Dawson comes across as:

 

“Step right up! Step riiiiiight up! I can empty your pockets for just six easy installments of 59.95!”

 

Look, Facebook Ads may work. They may even work as well for you as they did for Mark, but I doubt it. Why? Because I’m 90% sure he’s a shill. Facebook gave him free ads or reviews or maybe even real money to boost his success so it would look like Facebook Ads can work for everyone. Do I know this for a fact? No. But, I’ve been alive for 42 years and have seen and fallen for a number of scams. I really can’t imagine this isn’t one. Well, as much as a clear shill can be a true scam, I guess. You’re not being completely taken for a ride, after all. You are actually getting something for your money. You’re just being sold it under false pretenses. It’s absolutely overrated though. When you boil it down you are being asked to pay out a ridiculous amount of money just for the privilege of having some guy teach you how to use a Facebook Application. How much money? I don’t remember exactly, but it was in the few hundreds of dollars range.

As for Freebooksy, I went from not just being unimpressed with their straight-up advertising services to being deeply suspicious that they are in bed with (if not outright owned by) Facebook.

But it wasn’t all bad. Mark made the critical error (for a shill) of being truthful about how he achieved whatever real or imaginary level of success he’s achieved before Facebook Ads – by using mailing lists. I’m not certain mailing lists are still as effective as they used to be, but I know it’s one proven technique that I still haven’t implemented. So, if you like my books and/or like what I’m doing on this blog, go ahead and get on my shiny new mailing list:

Subscribe to the Newsletter!

Do it now and you might pre-qualify for a FREE TOASTER!*

*while supplies last, offer not valid anywhere

But seriously, I’ll have some cool stuff to give away during the holidays and I’ll be utilizing that list quite a bit. Do yourself a favor and sign up now!

So long everybody! Instead of enrolling in an online course in “How to Facebook,” why not tip your driver? 😉

Halloween tastes funny

This isn’t about bashing Halloween. I’m alright with Halloween. It’s not my favorite holiday, but it’s up there. This isn’t about how it is a hipster holiday, either, where everyone sarcastically celebrates the anti-religious overtone and engages in a pseudo-mockery of faux-revelry. (Really, is anything worth a genuine emotional reaction in hipsterdom? Don’t answer that. I stopped caring ten words ago.) It isn’t even about the inevitable duels for cleverest costumes among people who dress up as the latest killed character from the Walking Dead or Game of Thrones or insert-obscure-AMC/HBO/Showtime-original-series. No, it has nothing to do with hipsters. I’m alright with hipsters. They’re adorable, after all. No, for me it has to do with Halloween literally leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

 

“Young man, is this going to a naughty place?”

 

Have you ever tasted fake blood? Don’t. It’s terrible. I once had the distinct displeasure of ingesting this horrible substance one Halloween when I was just a tiny Tone of Voice and it’s dreadful taste scarred me for life. I think it was the time my big brother had the great idea of dressing me up as the monster from the movie C.H.U.D. by using bits and pieces scavenged form other Halloween costumes. My brother’s personal touch? Using White-Out to scrawl PUD on the back of my vampire cape, so that instead of a Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller, I was simply a Pretty Ugly Dude. My brother found this riotously funny, but our mother was less than amused. I didn’t mind. I’ve never really minded being the butt of jokes, as long as they were funny. Teasing I’m not especially fond of, but a good joke is a good joke.

Unfortunately, no one got the joke, but I looked pitiful enough to score the usual bag of candy, so it all turned out in my favor anyway. Well, except for the fake blood. At some point, someone (I don’t know, maybe it was me) decided to add fake blood to whatever mask I was wearing, which would have been fine if the mask had any sort of absorbancy. Alas, it did not, so the stuff dribbled straight into the mouth hole and onto my lips.

If you’re wondering what fake blood tastes like, it’s a palate cleansing mix of plastic, falseness and melancholy. Three horrible tastes that taste like death together. I don’t think I got sick, I just know I couldn’t get that taste out of my mouth no matter how many mini-Snickers I inhaled.

 

“This candy tastes like failure and regret. Does this mean I’m an adult now?”

 

To this day, I always suppress a shudder when I see people dressed up like zombies, their faces and clothes drenched in the supposedly “non-toxic” pseudo-plasma. “Non-toxic.” Pffft. Tell that to my flavor-memory. Seriously, there are times I will get this unfortunate taste appearing in my mouth from out of nowhere. I have no idea what triggers it, and for a long time I could not trace what it was or what it was linked to. (My dentist suspects it’s likely a leaky filling, and she’s probably right, but her logic and science aren’t welcome here!) I don’t know how I finally remembered. I suppose I eventually broke through the mental barrier I had built up around it and determined it was from that unfortunate Halloween. But even knowing its source, it still pounces on me from out of nowhere. In fact, it even hits me whenever I get too close to a heavily made-up woman.

Yes, this even affected my dating life, but for the better I think. People who wear too much make-up are duplicitous by nature. I once went on a date with a nice young woman who kinda-sorta looked and sounded like Meg Tilly. Trouble was, she wore so much make-up she also kinda-sorta looked like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. So, Elvira crossed with Meg Tilly. I know most of you are like “NOT BAD!” Well, I suppose it would have been, except for my aforementioned aversion to makeup. I couldn’t conceive of getting close enough to kiss her, let alone anything more intimate. Needless to say, that romance lasted all of one date, but I later found out from mutual acquaintances that she was a bit of a man-eater, so it was fortunate I had kept my distance.

 

“Vaht’s the problem? You like the boys, maybe?”

 

That’s not really how Elvira talked, but I just couldn’t bring myself to mimic her trademark valley girl/jersey girl accent.

But this just recently got me thinking that about the larger issue of selling yourself as something you’re not. It’s a topic I’m always grappling with as I try to figure out the best way to market my books. There are things that I have decided I simply will not do, because they just seem to me to be too fake and too gimmicky. Fake and gimmicky is fine for Halloween, but not for me. I don’t want to try to sell my books in categories they don’t belong simply to get a good Amazon ranking. I don’t want to constantly spam twitter/facebook/this blog or a mailing list with constant reminders about how great the Adventures of Grant Scotland series is (even though it’s pretty great, to be honest) in the hopes that eventually enough people will tiredly mis-click (or mis-tap) and end up buying a copy. I don’t want to engage in review trading with other authors and I definitely don’t want to buy reviews.

But I have to do something. I’m fine with marketing on Twitter and Facebook and all the rest regularly (but not constantly) and being patient as my audience slowly grows, but I sure would like to give the whole process a boost if I could. I’m currently thinking about doing a blog tour, which is essentially like paying for reviews, but it’s the LEAST offensive way to do it. Also, it’s a form of review buying that everyone does, from big publishers to self-publishers, so it’s generally considered to be kosher. We’ll see. I know the people who run those sites greatly prefer to do tours only for books that are about to be released, not existing titles, so I’ll keep it in mind for Book Four.

Well, that’s about it from me for tonight. As always, thanks for stopping by and spending some time reading about my fear of fake blood. Is there a name for that? Pseudo-hemophobia?

So long, folks! Tip your driver!

 

Bad writing that I am to mad!

Have you ever been reading along in a book that you are thoroughly enjoying and suddenly, shortly after you have decided “yes, this author is one swell fella and/or gal and I approve of this book,” the writer does something that just ruins it for you? Do you feel like hurling the book across the room, only you can’t because that’s how you broke your last kindle? Well, don’t feel bad. You’re not alone! I’m here to help you cope with such disappointing events.

You see, there are some common mistakes and shortcuts many writers make in order to wrangle their stories into coherent narratives or to address the themes they swore they would discuss when they first sat down to put thoughts on paper. These things don’t necessarily make the author “bad.” No, I would argue that you could take any of your favorite authors and find one or two mild examples of each of these things in any of their books. Maybe you didn’t notice them and they never bothered you. That’s fine! Great, even! You should probably stop reading this post, because if that’s the case, I’m going to make you very unhappy.

 

“This better not be about me or you will be receiving a crossbow bolt at a very inconvenient time.”

 

Now, bear in mind, speaking as an author, these are not things we do on purpose (I hope) but in the course of an 80,000/100,000/120,000 word manuscript, we make little deals with ourselves while writing which perhaps we’re not always entirely aware. I could cite actual instances from real authors, but since I do not wish to start flame wars with my brothers and sisters, I’ll try to come up with abstract examples writ large for shock and guffaw effect. So, without further preamble, let me dive right in to the aforementioned offenses…

Ditching an inconvenient plot point: This is probably the most common offense I see among authors of every talent level. It’s not really a plot hole, or if it is, it’s not nearly big enough to leak too much suspension of disbelief out of the story before we get to the conclusion. Instead, this is something the author usually puts into the story early on in order to facilitate another plot point. Unfortunately, when the author gets the second plot point developed, that’s all he/she wants to talk about, leaving the earlier “proto-plot point” hanging out to dry.

Ridiculous example: A village is ruled over by a baron who happens to be a tyrannical despot. The only way the villagers can appease him is to perform their ceremonial dance nightly for his amusement. The dance attracts our hero and during his stay he becomes involved in a plot among the villagers to overthrow the baron. All fine and good, right? Certainly, except for the fact that the author quickly loses interest in the ceremonial dance and only talks about the overthrow. So, at points in the story when the villagers should be dancing, they’re meeting in secret to plan or they’re actively, you know, doing the whole revolt thing. The reader is left to wonder… didn’t the baron ever notice no one was dancing for him anymore?

Now, that’s an over-the-top example and I’ve never seen anything that obvious, but I think you get the idea. It’s forgivable (I was never that interested in the dancing anyway) but irritating, because now I strongly suspect the baron is an imbecile and therefore not a very interesting villain.

 

“Let’s see, I’ve terrorized the defenseless, defiled the innocent… I just feel like I’m forgetting something…”

 

The military mind is the only sane one in the world: This offense is committed by every military sci-fi/fantasy/fiction/history author I’ve ever read and it annoys the great googly-moogly out of me. Look, I understand the main plot revolves around how the army/navy/spacefleet heroes come together to save the country/alliance/planet. I get that what’s cool about military stuff is the sense of teamwork and valuing the unit over the individual. Additionally, I even understand that the plot needs to have tension beyond simply facing down the enemy threat. But, for the love of Ulysses S. Grant, does EVERY one of these books need to depict civilians as bungling nincompoops who, if they are not actively trying to undermine the military, are doing so by accident?

Ridiculous example: The earth is being threatened by an alien armada! The heads of the military forces, after chiding the silly civilian administration for not building enough ships/weapons/bases to defend the world magnanimously consent to take over war production and decide general strategy. When the war doesn’t go so well, those meddling administrators try to usurp authority back because they dare to question the war goals, but are too stupid to understand what needs to be done. Finally, when the war is almost over, the bumbling politicians gather enough popular support to force the wise and all-knowing military to spare the enemy’s last planet so that a foolish peace treaty can be signed, setting the stage for the next book… errr, war, I mean. Apparently, civilians are so dumb they would have destroyed the world a thousand times over if it weren’t for the benevolent and watchful patience of generations of gifted and blessed-from-on-high generals and admirals. For fuck’s sake, it’s like civilians are the Maggie Gyllenhaal to the military’s James Spader in The Secretary.

 

“You may have one scoop of creamed potatoes, FOUR PEAS… and as much ice cream as you’d like.”

 

Failing to disguise the author’s bigotry: Look, nobody is perfect. Everyone is a little racist. Everyone is a little sexist. What matters is that we at least try to put our prejudices aside and live well together. Usually, in literature, especially genre writing, you see authors intentionally poking fun at bigotry or trying to ignore it altogether. Sometimes, however, an author makes an effort to disguise his or her own feelings by having their characters loudly and repeatedly claim to value equality, tolerance and diversity, while at the same time writing the action of the plot to be exactly opposite that.

Ridiculous example: A character makes a statement about racial group X being mostly hard working, well behaved folks he didn’t mind at all sharing his neighborhood with. He says this a few times in both dialog and inner monologue. However, every instance where a member of racial group X is encountered in the book, they are acting badly. They pick fights, destroy property, steal things – you name it! So, the protagonist, after  heaving a heavy sigh of regret, proceeds to bash as many heads in racial group X as he can fit his large, industrious, hard working and loyal hands around. He laments to his friends about having to do this, because he really loves and respects their culture.

 

Honestly, it’s just a story about Christian values…

 

Well, I’ve got a few more things that bother me, but I think I’ll save them for another rant at another time. I’m over a thousand words here and that’s about the length I want to keep these blog posts. I appreciate you hanging around and letting me decry and harangue. You’ve been great! It was fun for me. I hope it was fun for you.

And don’t miss out! Spy for a Troubled King is on sale for $0.99 this Wednesday, September 23rd until next Wednesday, September 30th. Check it out on Amazon,  Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple, and Smashwords.

Don’t forget to tip your driver, everyone!

Notes from the Self-Pubbed, (Issue #2)

In the last exciting issue of Notes from the Self-Pubbed, I had been disappointed in the results from my $0.99 promotion of Wayward Daughter, but had decided to soldier on and attempt a cross-platform $0.99 promotion for Dead Empire. Well, I did just that and was able to sign up not just two but three recommended book deal newsletters: EReader News Today, Fussy Librarian and Bargain Booksy(Free Booksy). I had used Free Booksy before, but had never tried their Bargain listing. The other two sites were completely new to me and only available for Dead Empire because it had received more than 10 reviews. Actually, EReader News says they don’t have a minimum review requirement, but since they had passed on Wayward Daughter and accepted Dead Empire, I am inclined to think otherwise.

Anyway, before I get to the results, about which I’m sure both of my readers are on pins and needles, (no, literally – I know you’re both part of a mental rehabilitation experiment for internet trolls, forced to read the most uninteresting blog on the internet while sitting on a chair whose seat is made of standing pins and needles… it’s just… well, I wanted to contribute to science in some way and… OK. Fine! It’s a paid trial and I volunteered my blog because I needed the money!) I wanted to point out something I had forgotten to mention last issue. I have actually done a few paid promotions before the ones I talked about previously. In fact, I’m pretty sure I ran them before I even had a blog. Mainly they were free giveaways and aimed simply at getting my books in front of as many eyeballs as possible. I talked about it in a somewhat dry (PINS!) and boring (NEEDLES!) fashion a little while ago. I just wanted to set the record straight that there was a Notes from the Self Pubbed issue before the first official one – HIGHLY collectible! Not worth much now, but when my audience reaches a critical mass and…

 

OK, Batman, OK. Sheesh! Like I’m the one who dwells too long on his own personal struggle. (Don’t hit me)

 

So! To the Bat Stats!

I ran a week long $0.99 promotion for Spy for a Dead Empire from 8/19 to 8/26. The book was available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple and Smashwords. It’s also supposedly distributed through Smashwords to sites like FlipKart and OverDrive among others, but I’ve seen little evidence and even less sales to prove it. Anyway, here are the promotion expenses:

Fussy Librarian newsletter ad space for 8/19 – $23

Bargain Booksy newsletter ad space for 8/20 – $40

EReader News Today newsletter ad space for 8/22 – $20

Facebook community page promotional post boost for two days starting 8/19 – $5

Total marketing expense: $88

——————————————————————————————————————–

And lets take a look at those sales from 8/19 to 8/26 (PINS AND NEEDLES!!!):

Spy for a Dead Empire Amazon sales: 36 copies @ $0.99

Spy for a Troubled King sales: 2 copies @$3.99

Spy for a Wayward Daughter: 3 copies @$3.99

Spy for a Dead Empire Nook sales: 5 copies @ $0.99

Total Sales: $61

… and perhaps a sale or two from Apple and Kobo, but they haven’t reported in yet, so I have no idea. Maybe a sale or two, maybe not. But, in total, not bad. Certainly better than the last effort, but let’s check with the Donald:

 

“I only read authors who can turn a profit.”

 

Wow. Rough, but I guess I always knew the Donald would be a tough one to please. Anyway, let’s look at the sales breakdown by newsletter run date. In previous promotions I had tried to stack newsletter run dates on top of each other to try to game Amazon’s ranking system, but there’s some debate whether that’s still possible. In prior years, you could push yourself up Amazon’s sales ranking by having a bunch of people download your book on the same day and get an additional advertising boost from Amazon, but it’s unclear if that’s still the case.

8/19 (Fussy Librarian & Facebook) – 8 total units

8/20 (Bargain Booksy & Facebook) – 14 total units

8/21 (Nothing) – 1 unit

8/22 (EReader News Today) – 17 total units

8/23 (Nothing) – 2 total units

8/24 (Nothing) – 2 total units

8/25 (Nothing) – None

8/26 (Nothing) – 2 total units

Well, EReader News Today definitely showed a return on investment. That’s pretty cool! It’s a little unclear about Fussy Librarian, but I know next-day sales are real, so it’s probably close to a wash. Bargain Booksy seems like it was more expensive than it was worth.

So, overall I’m still disappointed, but not disheartened. I briefly considered ditching the $0.99 promotion thing and fleeing back to Kindle Unlimited, but I think I’ll do one more cross-platform run for Troubled King. It’s almost certain it’s going to lose money, since I likely won’t get a spot on EReader News Today with the six reviews I currently have, but I gotta run it anyway. It’s the last promo I had planned for this round! I gotta do it! I may be losing sales and borrows the more time I spend away from KU, but this is my personal quest we’re talking here. I gotta get the ring to Mordor. Que music: Don’t say – I didn’t tryyy…

 

Thank you, Emi. Seriously, this song makes me weep with creepy-haunted-haunts. Yeah, that’s a thing. You can look it up.

 

So, I’m planning the next promo for late September. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I’ll probably post some silly nonsense about tropes and shenanigans in popular pieces of film, TV and “print” in a jealousy-fueled, contempt-riddled attempt at comedy. Be sure to check back soon.

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to tip your driver!

 

 

 

Notes from the Self-Pubbed, (Issue #1!!!)

So, I recently took all of my titles out of the Kindle Unlimited program. No, this has nothing to do with Amazon’s recent adjustment to how it rewards authors for pages read on copies borrowed through the program. I’m actually alright with that and even curious to see how it works for my books. The last couple of months I was on the program I was starting to get more than a few borrows. So, I’ll eventually come back to Kindle Unlimited, but I wanted to conduct an experiment this summer and fall.

 

“Just needs a few Gamma Rays and then BAM! Bestseller…”

 

See, I’ve been using free giveaway promotions for the first couple of books in the Grant Scotland series, but I have a feeling that the self-publishing industry is no longer doing itself any favors by engaging in the practice. Conventional wisdom among self-published authors over the past few years has insisted that you give away your first novel or three in order to get your brand established. Indeed, there’s a lot of evidence that this worked well for many people from 2008 or so to 2012 or so. I don’t have stats for you. It’s largely anecdotal. People built a customer base in a market where demand outstripped supply and these days they can rely on those same customers to pay for more product since those authors are trusted and known suppliers.

These days, almost every self-published author uses this tactic. What this has resulted in is a giant glut of product into a marketplace that is still clearly growing, but could be over-saturated at the moment. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard speculation about that among authors – I think Bookdaily is where I read a couple of articles about it – who believe we may be shooting ourselves in the feet at this point. Customers have downloaded so many free books, they either can’t get to them all or are so eager to get through their TBR pile that they don’t give a book a chance before setting it aside.

My own experience so far would lend support to this. I’ve given away thousands of copies of Spy for a Dead Empire, but I have 12 reviews and hardly any sales at all outside of promotions. This means people either haven’t read the book or read it and discarded it OR read it and put my other books on their wishlist but will only download them when they’re free. The first two don’t bother me so much (well, ok – the second thing is worrisome) but it’s the third thing that has me the most frightened. In our rush to carve out our own audiences, we self-pubbers may have created our own monsters. After all, we share a great deal of readers, especially among genre authors. What if the e-book audience out there has become so used to getting free content, they just assume they’ll always get it for free? And they’ll wait to get it for free, too. Why? Because at least one of their favorite authors will be running a promotion at any given time. They can always find something free to read.

 

“Pay $0.99 for your book? Sure, because I really need another one of those…”

 

This is worrisome and makes me even more inclined to rush back into the protective arms of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program. There, people can borrow the book for free, but I’ll still get paid if they read it. Actually, I’d get paid even if they only read some of it. But before I go gently into that good night, my plan is to do a full slate of $0.99 promotions across all the major platforms – Nook, Apple, Kobo and Amazon. (If you sign your book up for Kindle Unlimited, it can’t be listed with any other retailer) Just recently, I completed a week long promotion for Wayward Daughter, the newest Grant Scotland novel. I used two recommended promotion sites: Riffle Select and EBookBooster. EBookBooster is actually a service that submits your deal to a bunch (25, currently) of different promotion sites. Each of those sites have a relatively small following, though. Riffle has a good sized audience, though, and I’ve done well using them both together for my free book promos in the past. I figured I had built up enough of an audience from their collected mailing lists to have a reasonable chance at getting them to buy my latest installment on sale rather than getting it for free.

The ads through EbookBooster (I actually think only about half of the contacted 25 sites actually run the ads, to be honest) ran on July 22nd and Riffle added me to their newsletter on the 24th. The result was… not encouraging. I spent $25 on EbookBooster (still seems like a great deal, even if you don’t wind up on all the sites they submit your book to) and $40 on Riffle. I sold 7 copies of Wayward Daughter at $0.99 and 1 copy of Dead Empire at $3.99.

 

“I like authors who DON’T lose money during a promotion.”

 

Now, Wayward Daughter is still very new, so some consideration needs to go to that. I didn’t want to promote Dead Empire, since these were both mailing lists that contained readers who had seen that book appear for free at least twice over the past year. Didn’t seem right to try to get the ones who didn’t bite the first time to pay to bite this time. I could do Troubled King for $0.99 on those mailing lists, since I think they only saw it for free once. And I’ll probably do that, but my next step, I think, is to try new mailing lists with Dead Empire. There’s a couple I’ve never used that have received some good reviews from other authors. Sites like EReaderNews and Fussy Librarian. They require at least 8 reviews, which Dead Empire qualifies for, but my other two don’t yet. I plan on trying to rectify that by signing up for a blog tour, which usually generates some reviews. Although that might just generate more reviews for Book One than the others, but that seems to be unavoidable at this point. I’ll just have to remain patient with Book Two and Three.

So, my plan now is the bargain promo for Book One later in August. Then I’ll get Troubled King on the Riffle/EBookBooster promo in September. After that, maybe I’ll try Wayward Daughter again, but probably not. Maybe the omnibus. We’ll see.

Meantime, the writing continues. Book Four is outlined and a couple of chapters are done. Weekly word counts have decreased as I balance pizza delivery schedule with writing time, but when I sit down to write, I’m still as productive as ever, so that’s good. Thanks for your interest! Please read and review my books!

What I said and how I said it

You’re never going to be understood by everyone all of the time, let’s just get that out of the way right now. And of the ones that understand you, only about half of them are going to like what you say, if you’re lucky. And of those people, only a fraction are ever going to be bothered to let you know what they think about what you have to say. So, of everyone who could possibly ever leave you a review of your writing, only one half of one half of a fraction of a percent will ever do it. Don’t bother checking that math. I’m pretty sure it’s right.

Trust me. I’m a writer.

 

See? They wouldn’t have made a t-shirt if it wasn’t true.

 

So, my point is that I’m grateful for every review I get. I never comment on any of them. It’s your review and you have every right to express your opinion about my work. After all, I released it to the public with the very expectation that some would love it, some would hate it and most would be somewhere in between (hopefully more on the love side, of course). And if you haven’t had a chance to post your review of my books yet, then PLEASE DO! Check out the links on the sidebar of my Home Page and get to it, people! Pretty please?

Seriously. Do it. Even if you hated it, please leave a review. I’m remarkably level-headed about this. It’s my career, after all. I need to know what people really think, not some white-washed “that’s nice, Dan” crap. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Just what you liked, what you didn’t and would you buy another book by this author. That’s it!

And, if you did leave a review already, then double check to make sure it’s still there. Sometimes Amazon takes down reviews because they find out that – HORROR OF HORRORS – a reviewer has actually had some sort of contact with the author. If you think that’s messed up, then I invite you to sign this petition. I did. Amazon’s current policy, as well intentioned as it is to remove flame reviews and bogus inflated reviews, only succeeds in removing honest reviews from loyal fans and does nothing to stop the disgusting practice of purchasing reviews because some people have more money than self-respect, which is the real problem.

 

“Look World! I’m a writer!”

 

But while I’m on the topic of reviews, I will take the opportunity to expand on a point one reviewer raised in one of my Goodreads reviews. She seemed to like the book, mind you, so it wasn’t a bad review, just a “meh” one. She said the one thing that distracted her was my use of the “modern voice” in a fantasy setting. I fully respect her tastes and understand that my narrative voice isn’t for everyone, so I have no problem with her review. Her observation does, however, raise a point that has always bothered me about fantasy literature; the rather odd choices made by many fantasy authors in terms of exactly what narrative voice they use.

Most fantasy authors that I’ve read like to use a late 19th century American or Victorian voice for most narration and then throw in a smattering of Elizabethan terms during dialog to achieve some sort of pseudo-medieval… errrm… sound, I guess? And this is somehow supposed to be the “authentic” fantasy voice? I’m not sure why this is so or how it got started (might be a fascinating thesis paper for all you English Literature students not reading this blog) but it isn’t at all an actual medieval voice. First of all, such a voice would be called “Middle English” and second of all it’s utterly impenetrable. Have you ever read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in it’s original text? I have. It’s a foreign fucking language.

So, to me the use of narrative voice for fantasy books has always seemed to be up to the author’s whim. This is as it should be. It’s a fantasy world, after all. It isn’t historical fiction. Even if it was, a reader couldn’t read an authentic voice from classical/dark/medieval ages. We can barely read texts from Shakespeare’s day. Know why we can read texts from Shakespeare’s day and not before? It’s because he invented the language we speak today. It’s called “Modern English.” OK, maybe he didn’t invent it, but he was the first author of his generation (that I know of, anyway – literature was never my focus) to write how people actually talked.

After him, you can largely trace the great writers of following generations because they also bothered to write how people actually lived and spoke in their own times. In our current generation, it’s impossible for me to say for certain at this point. Maybe that’s too difficult a task to accomplish for your own generation. Maybe that’s a question for the ages. But, if I could switch mediums simply to illustrate a point, I might say Quentin Tarantino would be a good example in film/screenwriting. But, please, don’t tell him I compared him to Shakespeare. His head is big enough as it is.

 

I mean, look at the size of that thing. His melon is dangerously over-inflated.

 

In his writing, we see an honest approach to conveying how people in our everyday lives live and speak. Even if these people are heroes and villains of extraordinary proportions, they still engage in the same common struggles and conversations as the rest of us. Hitmen discuss the vagaries of human relationships, a man and a woman deflect sexual tension by talking about the price of a milkshake, etc. Great authors, in my opinion, invite everyone into their writing by mirroring the way they perceive the people around them talking and acting everyday. It’s the people who are alive you have to talk to, not the dead ones.

I guess that’s one reason why I chose such a “modern voice” for my Grant Scotland novels. Another reason was simply as an homage to noir detective novels. I realize it won’t be a voice everyone will be drawn to, but I’m hoping it will help more people, authors and readers alike, realize that there is no “authentic” fantasy voice. The only authentic voice is your own.

 

A new Adventure for Grant Scotland

The third book in the Adventures of Grant Scotland is now available! Spy for a Wayward Daughter can be purchased NOW at Amazon and Smashwords and over the next few days it will also arrive at virtual store shelves for Nook, Kobo, Apple and several other fine online e-tailers. Is that a thing? E-tailer? I can’t possibly have just coined that… (Google-y sounds) Nope. No, I didn’t.

Well, I already engaged in a massive bit of reflection in my previous post, so in honor of book three’s release, I’ll do the opposite. I shall with crystal ball and soaked tea leaves look into the future and divine what shall come to pass preordainedly. Is that a thing? Preordainedly? I don’t think so. Probably a good reason for that.

With three books out in our captivating adventure series, I have a good feeling about where the overall story is headed and am still excited to write about Grant and his world. So, look for book four by the end of the year. I can make that guarantee without even looking into the crystal ball, which is good because it shows a funny reflection of me that makes my chin look fat. I’ve been doing great with my diet recently and don’t need that kind of negative reinforcement. Stupid ball.

Like this, except my turban is WAY cooler.

Also, I have decided to combine the first three books into an omnibus edition! I’ll put them together in a giant e-book and of course price the whole thing to be less expensive than buying all three individually. This will make the series much easier to get into for the teeming masses of Grant Scotland fans that will arrive, curious and adventure-starved, upon the nourishing shores of my prolific works in the years of success that are no doubt to come. See? Can you see that in the tea leaves there? Ah, well. Don’t be discouraged. These things take a certain amount of undefinable talent and desultory practice. Just trust me – I know what I’m doing.

The omnibus edition will most likely come out in a few weeks. Not much actual work to do on it, but I do have to figure out a title. If you’re interested in submitting an idea for a title, please join my contest on Grant Scotland’s Facebook page HERE. You can also just comment on this post. That would work, too. If I choose your title, you get a Special Thank You in the book’s Dedication or thereabouts and also a signed copy of the print edition, whenever I get around to actually printing editions. Contest rules and prizes are all meticulously spelled out, so don’t even bother trying to cheat.

Unless you can get away with it, of course. That’s the Grant Scotland way. 😉

Standing in a field, yelling at the sky

 

…Also known as the Business of Self-Publishing.

Year One (of many, hopefully)

I’d like to take some time to talk a little bit about what goes into the business of being a self-published author. Before I begin, I want to make it clear that these opinions and observations are entirely my own and I am not advocating some kind of universal truths or stating that I know all about “the way things are.” My goal here is to tell you why I decided to self-publish and what has been my experience with it thus far.

Also, my books are on sale this week. That’s mainly what made me think to write this post. Dead Empire is FREE and Troubled King is $0.99! Check out those links in the sidebar on my Home Page when you get the chance.

I absolutely guarantee my books won’t make you violently ill. What have you got to lose? 😉

 

 

When I started writing in earnest, I was 39 years old and already washed out of three different careers – bookselling, computer game design, and programming. I knew writing was the only marketable skill I had left that I hadn’t truly tried to parlay into a way to make a living, so I thought I’d dive right in and give it a shot. But, how to make writing a full time occupation? At first, I tried a somewhat realistic approach of writing articles for on-line zines. I found this to be boring, non-lucrative and a frustrating waste of my writing energies. I felt like I wasn’t writing what I actually wanted to write about. If I was going to be a writer, I was going to do it on my terms, else why bother?

So, I decided I’d concentrate on writing Grant Scotland full time. But what should I do when I finished the first book? How was I going to go about publishing it? Should I get an agent? I thought about this for a while and did quite a bit of research and asked both traditionally published and self-published authors what they thought. There were various opinions, of course, but everywhere I looked I saw one common thread: You have to decide what your goals are and then proceed from there. I decided I had three main goals:

1) To write full time. I would let nothing else claim more time than my writing career.

2) Never give the rights to my creations to anyone anywhere ever. I went through that in the games industry and vowed never to let it happen again.

3) To not wait on anyone else. When I think my book is ready, I’ll publish it. If the market says they hate it, the responsibility is mine. I’ve worked with publishers before and I know for a fact that they don’t know any better than I do what’s good and what sells. That doesn’t mean I don’t use an editor and don’t get feedback and advice from other professionals – it just means the ultimate decision of how and when to publish will always be mine.

So, I was pretty sure I was headed for self-publishing. I devoured Konrath’s blog, which is a great resource for getting started, and hunted through KBoards and Goodreads for tips and strategies. The more I read, the more convinced I became that self-publishing was right for me. However, at the same time, I discovered that there was very little chance I was going to make any money at it. At least, not in the short term. This was somewhat disconcerting, but not at all surprising. Although Konrath found a gold mine in relatively little time when he decided to self-publish, he already had developed a small but loyal following and also entered the market with an impressive backlist. I had neither of those things. I did have a chair, though…

 

A disturbingly accurate depiction of the author.

 

Nevertheless, I pressed forward and published Dead Empire a year ago this May and then Troubled King in October. My initial spending on promoting Dead Empire was restrained, since I reasoned that trying to get people to buy book one in a series with no proof that there would ever be a book two was an uphill battle not worth fighting. Here are the details of my spending on promotions and production in the first year of my self-publishing enterprise. It’s pretty dry reading, but I haven’t seen any other authors release this info, so I thought I’d do it for posterity. Hopefully, you’ll find it helpful and educational.

Spy for a Dead Empire

Production:

Cover art: $275 (E-Lance contractor Thomas M. of Writely Designed)

Editing/Formatting/Proofing: $650 (E-Lance contractor Joni Wilson)

Promotion: (May ’14 to July’14)

Facebook community ad page and initial promotion: $50
Yield: About 125 page likes, around 4,000 appearances (?) and 250 page views. A few sales.
 
Book Review Broker purchase: $110

Yield: About 200 Amazon reviewers were contacted through this service and invited to review my book (they would receive a free “reviewers copy”). About a dozen responded and no one was interested. Massive failure for me, but others have had some success with it. The guy who invented it is a good guy, but I think his program still needs some tweaks, not to mention a much lower price point.

 

Goodreads advertising campaign: $100

Goodreads site will advertise my book to audiences I select that use their site until a certain number of clicks is reached. I purchased this in June and about 1000 readers have “seen” it, but have not received one click. I asked for my money back and stopped this a few months ago in favor of running the same kind of thing on Amazon, where I’ve received more traction.

 

Boosted Facebook post after 1 month: $30

“Have you reviewed your copy…” post on community page.  Reached about 4000 people. Generated a few sales and page likes.

 

Re-Boosted Facebook post: $30

Reboosted prior post and reached about 3,000 people. Generated a couple of sales and page likes.

 

Boosted Facebook post re: twitter: $30

A boosted post on the community page announcing the author’s twitter stream. Reached around 4500 people. No noticeable effect on twitter or in sales. A couple of page likes.

—————————————————————————————-

At this point, I stopped all promotions and decided I wouldn’t spend any more money until Troubled King came out.

————————————–

Troubled King

Production:

Cover art: $275 (E-Lance contractor Thomas M. of Writely Designed)

Editing/Formatting/Proofing: $650 (E-Lance contractor Joni Wilson)

Promotions (combined with Dead Empire, October ’14 to present)

FBpage release announcement – $60 (OCT)EBookBooster – $40 (for the three day free giveaway of book 2 on Kindle Select) (NOV)
-generated around 200 free downloads on Amazon
FBpage boost announcing promo – $20Booksends – $30 – 1 week of .99 of book 1 (NOV)
-generated around 20 sales on Amazon

FBpage boost announcing .99 book 1 promo – $20 (NOV)

At this point, I determined that Facebook ads are a waste of money. The sales I generated were mostly from friends and family, as far as I could tell. I read somewhere that the page likes are automatically generated from Facebook employees or bots. It buffs your community page likes, but doesn’t do anything for sales. However, I also read that the $5 basic boost is worth it, since it makes sure that all the people who like your page (your core supporters) will see your announcement. These are your prime word-of-mouthers, so it pays to keep them in the loop (that’s the theory anyway). Without the $5 boost, they might miss the announcement of a release or sale.

Big December ’14 Promotion push:

Signed up for free ebook promo for book 2 on ebookbooster ($40) 12/19-12/20

Signed up for .99 ebook promo for book 1 on ebookbooster ($25) 12/19-12/24

SweetFreeBooks – $5 per bargain/freebook promo

Indie Book of the Day – 50% off promos = $25 bargain promo for 1 month for book 1 and $15 KDP Select promo for giveaway days for book 2.
Also submitted book 1 and 2 for review. (no review yet)
The book 1 promo through this site did nothing in sales.

bargainbooksy – Typical bargain book newsletter service.
Signed up for a promo on 12/13 at $40. Includes email to subscribers and
book cover featured on site.
12/13 – Sold 7 copies of book1
12/14 – sold none
12/15 – sold none
12/16 – sold none
12/17 – sold none

genre pulse – fairly typical scheduled promo site, $10 or $30
BOUGHT $10 ADS FOR BOOKS 1 and 2 FOR 12/19

 

In the middle of arranging the above promotions, I found conclusive evidence from other self-published authors that stacking various ad-buys together during the same promotion can have a magnifying effect on the algorithm that Amazon uses to determine which books it chooses to display in peoples’ “You may also like” field. I have no idea why it took me about seven months to finally dig up that little gem of advice, but I’m not sure it would have helped me much in the fledgling campaigns I was doing for Dead Empire alone. At any rate, I was able to stack some, but not all, of my ads during December and noticed a marked improvement in distribution. The next promotion, I got everything together correctly, including getting this blog up and tweeting regularly and making sure the Author Central page was playing nice with both.

 

February ’15 “Spy Who Loved Free” Giveaway event:

PROMO DATE was 2/11 + 2/12 TWO DAY GIVEAWAY
THESE PROMOS RAN:

RIFFLE SELECT – Wednesday, Feb 11th ($40)
Ebookbooster – Wednesday, Feb 11th and 12th ($40)
Booksends – Wednesday, Feb 11th ($50)
ebooksoda – Thursday, Feb 12th ($10)
Amazon Ad Campaign – 2/3 to 3/8 ($100)

 

This was all promotion for book 1, since book 2 was still ineligible for a $0.99 promotion. Many of the ebook sites with big subscribers don’t like it if you try to promote a bargain book too soon after it has been promoted for free. Book 2 had been free for a little bit in December. This was all right with me, since I was curious about sell through. I wanted to see if the book 1 giveaway would result in people buying book 2 at full price. Some did, but the numbers weren’t staggering. What was undeniably successful was the free giveaway itself. In one two-day giveaway event, around 2500 people downloaded Dead Empire! This was the kind of number I had been looking for.

So, what did I learn so far?

1) Only do $5 boosts for FB

2) Stack Ad Buys

3) Don’t run promotions any more often than once every three months.

4) POSSIBLY – start moving away from free giveaways and concentrate on bargain and bundle promotions (when book 3 releases). This was more from some stuff I just read yesterday than from my own evidence, but I’ve seen several authors move away from free giveaways since it just isn’t generating the sell through it once did.

 

I’m treating my self-publishing as a business. All businesses are expected to lose money in AT LEAST the first two years of operation. What I’m doing is carving out market share. I’m creating my brand and I’m putting together a customer base. Would I rather be concentrating on writing and letting some publisher worry about the business side of things? No doubt. But the truth (as far as I’ve seen and heard) is that a publisher is never going to invest as much time and effort (not to mention money) into me as I need and deserve.

I’ve read in several places that a self-pubbed author has no realistic chance at making any money until he has at least four books out, but I think it more likely that the number is closer six. Six GOOD books, by the way. And by GOOD, I mean actual novels that have been professionally produced. The actual writing quality is largely subjective. For example, I’ll never understand how people think Dan Brown’s writing is good – that’s a matter of opinion – but it is undeniably professionally produced.

So, I’m thinking I’ve got another couple of years before I can realistically expect returns on my investments, but PLEASE don’t look at what I’ve reported here as some kind of blue print for success. I’m not successful yet and might never be (financially speaking, anyway). But I’m realistic about what it’s going to take to have a shot at being successful. The next couple of years are going to be scary, but I’ve got plenty of old clothes and ramen noodles are still pretty inexpensive, so I’m feeling prepared.

I hope you found something interesting or entertaining in my recap of Year One: My Own Year of Living Dangerously.  Here’s hoping there will be a Year Two.