Showing posts with label M.E. Hydra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M.E. Hydra. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Try-Fail Cycles and the Self-Published Writer
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Saturday, March 3, 2012
Even Academics Aren't Immune From Making The Author's Big Mistake...
The Author’s Big Mistake, apparently, is to respond to a bad review. All that happens is the writer makes themselves look foolish and unprofessional. Witness this spectacular meltdown from Jacqueline Howett over a bad review of her self-published book, The Greek Seaman. To compound her misery, this went viral enough to hit the major broadsheets. Even if they say bad things about us writers, the reviewer is meant to be aloof and sacrosanct. Otherwise it’s just a big circle jerk that helps no one.
What if the reviewer is less than honest in their intentions?
A link to another spectacular author meltdown appeared in one of my social networking feeds. This one saw Mike Coe attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost following Jane Smith’s negative review of his book, Flight to Paradise. A fellow writer had posted the link as a good example of a self-published writer overreacting to reasonable criticism. I thought the same, until I read down to the part that revealed the reviewer had only read four pages.
Four pages! How can anyone seriously review a book after reading only four pages? That’s like writing a review of a movie after seeing only the first three minutes. I’m sure there are many movies where the film critic would have liked to have walked out at the halfway mark, but they can’t, because they’d be violating their role as a critic. I know Smith has clear rules and a ‘fifteen typos and you’re out’ policy, but her review is four paragraphs long and talks about ‘poor characterization’…from a book where she’s read only the first four pages. I’ve read plenty of books where the main characters haven’t even showed up by then! Slamming a book because the writing is so bad it’s painful to turn the page is one thing, but I’d be peeved too if a reviewer read only the first couple of pages of one of my stories and started to comment on broader issues of characterisation and plot (although not enough to attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost).
I might be wrong, and I’m prepared to apologise whole-heartedly to Jane Smith if this is the case, but after reading more of her reviews my gut feeling is her selfpublishingreview is a troll site with the main aim of beating up self-published writers for the temerity of going it alone. She also runs a blog entitled “How Publishing Really Works”, which sets my ‘ulterior motives’ alarm bells ringing. A bad book is a bad book is a bad book, and this is true whether it was shat out by one of the Big 6 or a lone, misguided scribbler, but some people are vehemently against the whole principle of self-epublishing in general.
I’m sure plenty will keep on submitting to her for review. They’ll see the carcasses of past maulings and think, That won’t happen to me; my book is good. We’re daft like that. I think I’ll pass on this one, though. I don’t see the point when the game is so heavily stacked it’s impossible to win. Or rather, if someone has an axe to grind, the last thing you want to do is give them an axe.
Oh, and to prove it’s not just us crazy self-published types that go apeshit below the line, enjoy Eric Anderson making the Author’s Big Mistake over Catherine Hakim’s review of his latest book in The Guardian.
-M.E. Hydra
http://manyeyedhydra.blogspot.com/
What if the reviewer is less than honest in their intentions?
A link to another spectacular author meltdown appeared in one of my social networking feeds. This one saw Mike Coe attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost following Jane Smith’s negative review of his book, Flight to Paradise. A fellow writer had posted the link as a good example of a self-published writer overreacting to reasonable criticism. I thought the same, until I read down to the part that revealed the reviewer had only read four pages.
Four pages! How can anyone seriously review a book after reading only four pages? That’s like writing a review of a movie after seeing only the first three minutes. I’m sure there are many movies where the film critic would have liked to have walked out at the halfway mark, but they can’t, because they’d be violating their role as a critic. I know Smith has clear rules and a ‘fifteen typos and you’re out’ policy, but her review is four paragraphs long and talks about ‘poor characterization’…from a book where she’s read only the first four pages. I’ve read plenty of books where the main characters haven’t even showed up by then! Slamming a book because the writing is so bad it’s painful to turn the page is one thing, but I’d be peeved too if a reviewer read only the first couple of pages of one of my stories and started to comment on broader issues of characterisation and plot (although not enough to attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost).
I might be wrong, and I’m prepared to apologise whole-heartedly to Jane Smith if this is the case, but after reading more of her reviews my gut feeling is her selfpublishingreview is a troll site with the main aim of beating up self-published writers for the temerity of going it alone. She also runs a blog entitled “How Publishing Really Works”, which sets my ‘ulterior motives’ alarm bells ringing. A bad book is a bad book is a bad book, and this is true whether it was shat out by one of the Big 6 or a lone, misguided scribbler, but some people are vehemently against the whole principle of self-epublishing in general.
I’m sure plenty will keep on submitting to her for review. They’ll see the carcasses of past maulings and think, That won’t happen to me; my book is good. We’re daft like that. I think I’ll pass on this one, though. I don’t see the point when the game is so heavily stacked it’s impossible to win. Or rather, if someone has an axe to grind, the last thing you want to do is give them an axe.
Oh, and to prove it’s not just us crazy self-published types that go apeshit below the line, enjoy Eric Anderson making the Author’s Big Mistake over Catherine Hakim’s review of his latest book in The Guardian.
-M.E. Hydra
http://manyeyedhydra.blogspot.com/
Monday, January 30, 2012
There is no self-epublishing bubble (but you might not find gold…)
GuardianBooks announced on twitter “Two epublishing doom-sayers on @guardianbooks today.” I’m not sure I’d trust either with a crystal ball to be honest. In particular, I think Ewan Morrison’s argument that self-epublishing is a bubble is spectacularly off.
At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.
I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.
This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.
As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.
When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.
And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.
For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.
The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.
Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.
It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.
More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.
The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.
If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.
M.E. Hydra
At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.
I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.
This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.
As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.
When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.
And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.
For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.
The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.
Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.
It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.
More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.
The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.
If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.
M.E. Hydra
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Numbers from a Newbie Writer's First Year
I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.
That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.
I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)
More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.
Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.
Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).
For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.
Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!
All the best for 2012!
M.E. Hydra
That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.
I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)
More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.
Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.
Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).
For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.
Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!
All the best for 2012!
M.E. Hydra
Saturday, November 26, 2011
(Not So) Great Expectations
So you’ve written a book, revised it, revised it some more, had it edited, proofread. You’ve selected a cover, formatted the word file, uploaded it to Amazon. Now it’s up on the internet and available for the whole world to buy. You’ve done it. You’re published. That’s it…right?
Not quite.
In the past, in the legacy world, being published was a finishing post of sorts. A writer picked up the advance cheque and got to say they were Published. The book might flop right on its ass and sell squit all, but the writer could still say they were Published and—more importantly—keep the advance cheque.
In the modern, free-wheeling, self-published world, being published is more like the starting post. A self-published writer might have more freedom and keep a much higher percentage of each sale, but that’s worth nothing if they don’t sell any books.
This is where management of expectations becomes important. That initial euphoria on seeing your work out there in the big wide world can quickly become despair as you watch your Amazon rankings spiral down into seven figures and wonder if anyone out there gives a damn about your book.
Don’t panic!
It happens to most of us. Think of your favourite bands. Most of them started out playing in little pubs with about five people in the audience. This is the same. Unless you’re enormously talented AND lucky, a massive audience followed by bestseller status doesn’t happen overnight. In the meantime stay grounded.
1. Don’t spit in the boss’s eye and quit your day job. You’re likely still going to need it for a while. If my earnings from writing creep past my salary I might consider writing full-time. Until then I’m turning up for work at 9am same as everyone else.
2. Don’t plan to rely on the money coming in. It might not. I don’t factor royalties into my financial planning at all. It’s bonus money. I can use it for savings or splash out on a luxury item, but I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m sweating on whether it will be enough to pay the electric bill.
3. Keep writing.
4. Keep writing! Yeah, I could repeat this one ad infinitum. I have three books out and in each case a new book coming out has boosted the sales of the previous book. Don’t sit back on the first book. Work on the next ones and get them out. Doubts don’t have a chance to take hold if you’re already concentrating on getting the next book out there.
I’m not a massive success story and might never be. Since starting out last October with my first short story collection, A Succubus for Christmas, I’ve seen my Amazon sales creep up from around a book a week to a book a day. That’s still a long way off fame and fortune, but it’s movement in the right direction. It’s encouragement to keep at it and search for more potential readers.
Most of all, I’m enjoying the writing. At the end of the day, does anything else matter?
M.E. Hydra
Not quite.
In the past, in the legacy world, being published was a finishing post of sorts. A writer picked up the advance cheque and got to say they were Published. The book might flop right on its ass and sell squit all, but the writer could still say they were Published and—more importantly—keep the advance cheque.
In the modern, free-wheeling, self-published world, being published is more like the starting post. A self-published writer might have more freedom and keep a much higher percentage of each sale, but that’s worth nothing if they don’t sell any books.
This is where management of expectations becomes important. That initial euphoria on seeing your work out there in the big wide world can quickly become despair as you watch your Amazon rankings spiral down into seven figures and wonder if anyone out there gives a damn about your book.
Don’t panic!
It happens to most of us. Think of your favourite bands. Most of them started out playing in little pubs with about five people in the audience. This is the same. Unless you’re enormously talented AND lucky, a massive audience followed by bestseller status doesn’t happen overnight. In the meantime stay grounded.
1. Don’t spit in the boss’s eye and quit your day job. You’re likely still going to need it for a while. If my earnings from writing creep past my salary I might consider writing full-time. Until then I’m turning up for work at 9am same as everyone else.
2. Don’t plan to rely on the money coming in. It might not. I don’t factor royalties into my financial planning at all. It’s bonus money. I can use it for savings or splash out on a luxury item, but I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m sweating on whether it will be enough to pay the electric bill.
3. Keep writing.
4. Keep writing! Yeah, I could repeat this one ad infinitum. I have three books out and in each case a new book coming out has boosted the sales of the previous book. Don’t sit back on the first book. Work on the next ones and get them out. Doubts don’t have a chance to take hold if you’re already concentrating on getting the next book out there.
I’m not a massive success story and might never be. Since starting out last October with my first short story collection, A Succubus for Christmas, I’ve seen my Amazon sales creep up from around a book a week to a book a day. That’s still a long way off fame and fortune, but it’s movement in the right direction. It’s encouragement to keep at it and search for more potential readers.
Most of all, I’m enjoying the writing. At the end of the day, does anything else matter?
M.E. Hydra
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The Tidal Wave of Choice and a Deceptive Cover
One of the fears about the rise in ebooks and self-publishing is that the world will be buried in a tidal wave of crap writing. It’s a familiar argument—there will be so many bad Twilight knockoffs and other rubbish uploaded to Amazon no one will be able to find anything worth reading amongst the great steaming piles of ordure.
It’s one way of looking at it. Personally, I think it’s just as easy to turn it around and see the positive aspects.
The problem when creativity is commodified is that the bottom line suddenly becomes the number one consideration. It’s not enough to be good; if someone has stumped up cash in advance, they’ll want to see a return on their investment, which means the work needs to be both good and popular (or failing that, just popular, hey, Hollywood ;) ). I suspect more than a few writers have run into, “It’s good, but we don’t think there’s a big enough audience”, before the gate slammed down on their foot. As a result niche, interesting, challenging is often overlooked in favour of safe, bland, reliable (Hey, hello Hollywood! ;) ).
The beauty with ebooks and self-publishing is that the initial outlays are so small. Writers can take risks. Even if they only find a niche audience appreciative of their work, that’s still profit (providing you don’t think too hard about the time spent creating and polishing your work!). It’s also good for readers. Yes, there are going to be a lot of bad books that shouldn’t have seen the light of day (and these too might find fans—taste is subjective), but there are also going to be a lot of quirky, interesting books that might not have made it out of the slush pile under the old system. Personally, I think more choice is better than less choice.
Take short stories. I love short stories, especially horror stories. Mainstream publishing houses seldom publish short story collections. They don’t sell very well. There was even a recent tweetathon to save the short story.
I’ve put out three collections of short stories. They haven’t found a massive audience, but they have been found by readers who’ve enjoyed them a great deal. Publishers have to worry about the cost of print runs and marketing budgets. I don’t. I’m free to write what I want. It doesn’t take many sales to cover the initial costs and everything after that is gravy. That’s good for me, good for the readers who like my writing, and good for short stories, as there are plenty of bloody-minded fools like me that still enjoy writing them.
I suppose this would be the appropriate point for the blatant book plug:
I love the cover Selena and the people at eXcessica came up with. It’s totally inappropriate. This is either the darkest collection of erotica you’re likely to read this Halloween, or the most twisted, sexy-perverse collection of horror tales you’re likely to read this Halloween. Someone is going to pick up this book thinking it’s another cutesy paranormal romance with fashion-conscious demonesses, and get the shock of their lives.
I’m more in love with that idea than I should be. I can’t help it. I’m a horror writer. We want to scare people. It’s in the blood. While marketing-types would be aghast, I’m sitting here and grinning like a Cheshire Cat as I go, “open it… open it…”
It’s Halloween. I’m going to have fun. Bottom line be damned.
Enjoy the book. She’s as cute and adorable as her cover. Honest… ;)
M.E. Hydra
It’s one way of looking at it. Personally, I think it’s just as easy to turn it around and see the positive aspects.
The problem when creativity is commodified is that the bottom line suddenly becomes the number one consideration. It’s not enough to be good; if someone has stumped up cash in advance, they’ll want to see a return on their investment, which means the work needs to be both good and popular (or failing that, just popular, hey, Hollywood ;) ). I suspect more than a few writers have run into, “It’s good, but we don’t think there’s a big enough audience”, before the gate slammed down on their foot. As a result niche, interesting, challenging is often overlooked in favour of safe, bland, reliable (Hey, hello Hollywood! ;) ).
The beauty with ebooks and self-publishing is that the initial outlays are so small. Writers can take risks. Even if they only find a niche audience appreciative of their work, that’s still profit (providing you don’t think too hard about the time spent creating and polishing your work!). It’s also good for readers. Yes, there are going to be a lot of bad books that shouldn’t have seen the light of day (and these too might find fans—taste is subjective), but there are also going to be a lot of quirky, interesting books that might not have made it out of the slush pile under the old system. Personally, I think more choice is better than less choice.
Take short stories. I love short stories, especially horror stories. Mainstream publishing houses seldom publish short story collections. They don’t sell very well. There was even a recent tweetathon to save the short story.
I’ve put out three collections of short stories. They haven’t found a massive audience, but they have been found by readers who’ve enjoyed them a great deal. Publishers have to worry about the cost of print runs and marketing budgets. I don’t. I’m free to write what I want. It doesn’t take many sales to cover the initial costs and everything after that is gravy. That’s good for me, good for the readers who like my writing, and good for short stories, as there are plenty of bloody-minded fools like me that still enjoy writing them.
I suppose this would be the appropriate point for the blatant book plug:
I love the cover Selena and the people at eXcessica came up with. It’s totally inappropriate. This is either the darkest collection of erotica you’re likely to read this Halloween, or the most twisted, sexy-perverse collection of horror tales you’re likely to read this Halloween. Someone is going to pick up this book thinking it’s another cutesy paranormal romance with fashion-conscious demonesses, and get the shock of their lives.
I’m more in love with that idea than I should be. I can’t help it. I’m a horror writer. We want to scare people. It’s in the blood. While marketing-types would be aghast, I’m sitting here and grinning like a Cheshire Cat as I go, “open it… open it…”
It’s Halloween. I’m going to have fun. Bottom line be damned.
Enjoy the book. She’s as cute and adorable as her cover. Honest… ;)
M.E. Hydra
Monday, September 19, 2011
2nd Quarter Royalties: Still Wagging at the Tip of the Long Tail
Another quarter gone by, another royalty cheque. $180 this time.
It’s a good thing I like my day job. I certainly won’t be handing my notice in with those figures!
Still, it’s $180 and every little dollar (or pound in my case) is welcome in these austere times. While it isn’t a revolutionary amount, I’d guess it’s reality for most self-published writers hanging out in the long tail (and even some legacy published ones as well). For every Locke or Hocking there’s going to be thousands like me and thousands more doing even worse. That’s the nature of these things.
This was the argument behind Ewan Morrison’s recent article for The Guardian as he bemoaned the imminent demise of the author as a professional occupation. It’s all a matter of perspective really. Writers lucky or talented enough to have already made it through the gates, but have failed to find popular appeal and are reliant on ever-dwindling advances, are understandably unhappy with how the publishing world has changed. They face uncertain futures and will probably need to find mundane day jobs to pay the bills, like everyone else.
Then you get folks like me, who now get the opportunity to put our work out there for people to read. I have written two collections of short stories, A Succubus for Christmas and A Succubus for Valentine’s Day. Both have sold nearly 150 copies each and made me around $750 over the last year. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than they’d have made sitting in a slush pile, or on a free website, or locked in a drawer. Something is more than nothing, especially if that something keeps ticking up every month.
As I said, matter of perspective.
(Please feel free to contribute to that ticking up each month ;) )
M.E. Hydra
It’s a good thing I like my day job. I certainly won’t be handing my notice in with those figures!
Still, it’s $180 and every little dollar (or pound in my case) is welcome in these austere times. While it isn’t a revolutionary amount, I’d guess it’s reality for most self-published writers hanging out in the long tail (and even some legacy published ones as well). For every Locke or Hocking there’s going to be thousands like me and thousands more doing even worse. That’s the nature of these things.
This was the argument behind Ewan Morrison’s recent article for The Guardian as he bemoaned the imminent demise of the author as a professional occupation. It’s all a matter of perspective really. Writers lucky or talented enough to have already made it through the gates, but have failed to find popular appeal and are reliant on ever-dwindling advances, are understandably unhappy with how the publishing world has changed. They face uncertain futures and will probably need to find mundane day jobs to pay the bills, like everyone else.
Then you get folks like me, who now get the opportunity to put our work out there for people to read. I have written two collections of short stories, A Succubus for Christmas and A Succubus for Valentine’s Day. Both have sold nearly 150 copies each and made me around $750 over the last year. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than they’d have made sitting in a slush pile, or on a free website, or locked in a drawer. Something is more than nothing, especially if that something keeps ticking up every month.
As I said, matter of perspective.
(Please feel free to contribute to that ticking up each month ;) )
M.E. Hydra
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Deadline Disharmony
I think I might have a problem with deadlines.
I’ve always been a procrastinator. My approach to deadlines in the past was to put the project off until the last possible moment and then get it done in a frantic blaze of activity. Deadlines were useful to me. They said this thing needs to be finished by this date, and gave me the incentive to get it done.
As I’ve grown older, my idea of what constitutes the last possible minute has been pushed further and further back until any notion of getting something finished in the remaining time is hopelessly optimistic. Cans of Red Bull might keep me awake through the night, but they can’t magically turn one hour into three.
For me, the real problem now is the corresponding loss in productivity. I missed my last monthly post for this blog because I was battling with a tricky story. I’d like to say it was because I was engaged in frenzied writing, but in reality it was more patient hacking at a computer screen, like trying to chisel out a sculpture made of words.
Distraction behaviour is the bane of productivity everywhere, especially nowadays with so many modern distractions. I find the best way to combat it is to have multiple projects on the go at any one time. If a story is proving troublesome, switch to another one and come back to the first with a clearer head. All the stories worth being completed will get completed and with, hopefully, a minimum of head-banging-against-a-wall frustration. It should be fun, after all, otherwise why write at all.
Throw in a deadline and it gets messed up. I can’t justify switching to another project because I need to be writing this specific story for this specific date. But sultry Distraction Behaviour is still lurking and waiting to lure me astray with her glittering temptations of internet, computer games, television, etc. This is the point where my productivity takes a nosedive.
Anyone writing short stories will encounter opportunities and deadlines in the form of anthologies, magazines, competitions and the like. In the past I used to be the kind of writer that dashed from one deadline to the next, hammering out stories to match whatever theme was required. I don’t think this suits me now. I think I need to be the other type: the type that writes what they feel like writing at the time and fires off whatever happens to be most appropriate from their folder of complete and near-complete story ideas.
M.E. Hydra
I’ve always been a procrastinator. My approach to deadlines in the past was to put the project off until the last possible moment and then get it done in a frantic blaze of activity. Deadlines were useful to me. They said this thing needs to be finished by this date, and gave me the incentive to get it done.
As I’ve grown older, my idea of what constitutes the last possible minute has been pushed further and further back until any notion of getting something finished in the remaining time is hopelessly optimistic. Cans of Red Bull might keep me awake through the night, but they can’t magically turn one hour into three.
For me, the real problem now is the corresponding loss in productivity. I missed my last monthly post for this blog because I was battling with a tricky story. I’d like to say it was because I was engaged in frenzied writing, but in reality it was more patient hacking at a computer screen, like trying to chisel out a sculpture made of words.
Distraction behaviour is the bane of productivity everywhere, especially nowadays with so many modern distractions. I find the best way to combat it is to have multiple projects on the go at any one time. If a story is proving troublesome, switch to another one and come back to the first with a clearer head. All the stories worth being completed will get completed and with, hopefully, a minimum of head-banging-against-a-wall frustration. It should be fun, after all, otherwise why write at all.
Throw in a deadline and it gets messed up. I can’t justify switching to another project because I need to be writing this specific story for this specific date. But sultry Distraction Behaviour is still lurking and waiting to lure me astray with her glittering temptations of internet, computer games, television, etc. This is the point where my productivity takes a nosedive.
Anyone writing short stories will encounter opportunities and deadlines in the form of anthologies, magazines, competitions and the like. In the past I used to be the kind of writer that dashed from one deadline to the next, hammering out stories to match whatever theme was required. I don’t think this suits me now. I think I need to be the other type: the type that writes what they feel like writing at the time and fires off whatever happens to be most appropriate from their folder of complete and near-complete story ideas.
M.E. Hydra
Saturday, June 18, 2011
A Slightly Fluffier Dose of Reality
Back here I blogged about receiving my first quarterly royalty cheque. It was for the earth-shattering amount of $84.
Well, everyone’s got to start from somewhere and 84 bucks is still 84 bucks.
A couple of weeks ago I got my quarterly cheque for the first three months of 2011. That was for $575.
Hello. That’s starting to feel like proper money. Okay, it’s beans to most people making a full-time living from writing and atoms (or maybe even sub-atomic particles) to someone like Stephen King. I’m not full-time. I still have a day job. So I don’t have to sweat over whether human beings can actually survive off a diet of hay. It’s a nice bit of extra income to go towards a new TV, trip to see the folks back home, etcetera, etcetera.
The first quarter was when my second collection came out and that definitely bumped sales of both. More books gives more chances for readers to find you. Both have sold about a hundred copies, which is also encouraging. Readers are buying the first and liking it enough to buy the second. Definitely a good sign!
A lot of my sales are for Amazon Kindle, but it isn’t the only game in town with over half of my sales coming from a wide range of other sources such as Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and eXcessica. This will be reassuring for anyone worried about Amazon becoming (more) evil and maybe slamming down the portcullis on this little self-publishing revolution at some point in the future.
Since then my sales have been steadily picking up (on Amazon at least). I guess the message is don’t be too disconcerted if your numbers don’t explode overnight. Sometimes these things take time.
M.E. Hydra
Well, everyone’s got to start from somewhere and 84 bucks is still 84 bucks.
A couple of weeks ago I got my quarterly cheque for the first three months of 2011. That was for $575.
Hello. That’s starting to feel like proper money. Okay, it’s beans to most people making a full-time living from writing and atoms (or maybe even sub-atomic particles) to someone like Stephen King. I’m not full-time. I still have a day job. So I don’t have to sweat over whether human beings can actually survive off a diet of hay. It’s a nice bit of extra income to go towards a new TV, trip to see the folks back home, etcetera, etcetera.
The first quarter was when my second collection came out and that definitely bumped sales of both. More books gives more chances for readers to find you. Both have sold about a hundred copies, which is also encouraging. Readers are buying the first and liking it enough to buy the second. Definitely a good sign!
A lot of my sales are for Amazon Kindle, but it isn’t the only game in town with over half of my sales coming from a wide range of other sources such as Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and eXcessica. This will be reassuring for anyone worried about Amazon becoming (more) evil and maybe slamming down the portcullis on this little self-publishing revolution at some point in the future.
Since then my sales have been steadily picking up (on Amazon at least). I guess the message is don’t be too disconcerted if your numbers don’t explode overnight. Sometimes these things take time.
M.E. Hydra
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Give It Away Now
I started out (or rather, restarted out) by posting stories up on amateur writing websites. Those stories (brushed up) feature in my short story collections. The originals can still be found on the internet. I thought about pulling them down, but I didn’t in the end.
For the past two months I’ve been running a little serial on my blog.
So, why am I doing this? Why am I essentially giving my work away for free?
It’s a fair argument. I could just as easily package up the serial I’m working on now as a novella and charge people 99¢ to read it.
And it could just as easily sit there on Amazon, unread, forever, even at 99¢.
I think sometimes people are too attached to the notion they must receive something from their writing for it to have value. The problem is value is determined by the market. If you’re nobody and nobody wants to read you because you’re nobody (and remember 99% of everything is crap), then your writing has no monetary value anyway.
I like try-before-u-buy. I like to give my readers try-before-u-buy. I think this is even more important for self-published work. There are still some deep-rooted prejudices against self-published work. If 99% of everything is crap, then everything with no quality control must be 99.9999% crap. The best way to counter this is to make sure there are plenty of samples of your work up and easily accessible for people to read. That way they can see how good it is for themselves.
It’s a little easier with short stories. People read the stories I have out on the internet, decide they want more and then go on to buy the books (which contain stories that can’t be found anywhere else).
I started the Locked in with a Succubus serial to drive traffic to my blog and find new readers. I don’t know if it’s actually resulted in more book sales, but it has doubled the number of visitors. Hopefully, some of them will like what they read enough to spend money on my books.
If you're unknown, you need to get known. You need to get people to read your work and get interested in what you're writing. I don't mind giving some of my stories away for free to achieve this.
M.E. Hydra
For the past two months I’ve been running a little serial on my blog.
So, why am I doing this? Why am I essentially giving my work away for free?
It’s a fair argument. I could just as easily package up the serial I’m working on now as a novella and charge people 99¢ to read it.
And it could just as easily sit there on Amazon, unread, forever, even at 99¢.
I think sometimes people are too attached to the notion they must receive something from their writing for it to have value. The problem is value is determined by the market. If you’re nobody and nobody wants to read you because you’re nobody (and remember 99% of everything is crap), then your writing has no monetary value anyway.
I like try-before-u-buy. I like to give my readers try-before-u-buy. I think this is even more important for self-published work. There are still some deep-rooted prejudices against self-published work. If 99% of everything is crap, then everything with no quality control must be 99.9999% crap. The best way to counter this is to make sure there are plenty of samples of your work up and easily accessible for people to read. That way they can see how good it is for themselves.
It’s a little easier with short stories. People read the stories I have out on the internet, decide they want more and then go on to buy the books (which contain stories that can’t be found anywhere else).
I started the Locked in with a Succubus serial to drive traffic to my blog and find new readers. I don’t know if it’s actually resulted in more book sales, but it has doubled the number of visitors. Hopefully, some of them will like what they read enough to spend money on my books.
If you're unknown, you need to get known. You need to get people to read your work and get interested in what you're writing. I don't mind giving some of my stories away for free to achieve this.
M.E. Hydra
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Riddles and Validations
M.E. Hydra
Riddle me this:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
(I haven’t, by the way, but if you’d like to help me achieve this goal and have a liking for weird, kinky horror, please feel free to mosey on over here…)
It’s easy to be insecure as a writer. There aren’t finishing lines to cross first, opponents to punch out or teams to score more points than. As with most creative endeavours, where quality is subjective, it’s hard to tell if you’re any good or not.
Acceptance with a publishing house gives validation, or so the argument goes (although Joe Konrath refers to it as an example of Stockholm Syndrome). It’s a stamp of approval. Get that deal—and the advance—and a writer can say with authority, “Yes, I am a real author!”
The problem with self-publishing is the ‘published’ part is always going to come with air quotes. If any old oik can shove their badly written mush up onto Amazon, then ‘being published’ no longer feels like an achievement. For that reason self-publishing is often pushed aside and treated as a special case. If the author had to do it themselves, they probably weren’t good enough to be published in the first place. I think many of us have held this view at some point and some almost certainly still do. Check the membership guidelines of professional writers' organisations like the HWA and SFWA and you’ll see very clear stipulations on what does or doesn’t count as a valid publication for obtaining active membership.
Now that the ebook explosion has burst the dam, how important is the traditional stamp of approval?
As validation goes, that stamp is only a proxy when you think about it. To use a simple fantasy analogy, it’s an entrance exam granting permission to go and slay the dragon. Congratulations! You passed. But you still have to go and kill that dragon…
If someone else decides to skip all those stupid trials, goes straight to the dragon and hacks its head right off, are they any less of a dragonslayer?
In this case the dragon—and true validation—is finding an audience, whether it is small and distinguished or massive and lucrative.
What happens when more and more writers choose to go it alone, not because they aren’t good enough, but because it makes more economic sense than signing away a huge chunk of their royalties? Clauses like this (from HWA’s active membership requirements)
will cease to make any sense. As will references to 5¢/word rates and minimum advances.
Riddle me this:
Person A gets a $5,000 advance from an accredited publisher, but only goes on to sell a couple of hundred copies. Person B makes $10,000 a month selling 99¢ self-published ebooks on Amazon. Which one is the professional author?
(I’m not trying to bash the HWA, by the way. I was a fresh-faced wannabe member a while back and I found them helpful in terms of market information and discovering new writers I hadn’t read before.)
Which leads us back to the original question:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
My gut says the answer is this:
Riddle me this:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
(I haven’t, by the way, but if you’d like to help me achieve this goal and have a liking for weird, kinky horror, please feel free to mosey on over here…)
It’s easy to be insecure as a writer. There aren’t finishing lines to cross first, opponents to punch out or teams to score more points than. As with most creative endeavours, where quality is subjective, it’s hard to tell if you’re any good or not.
Acceptance with a publishing house gives validation, or so the argument goes (although Joe Konrath refers to it as an example of Stockholm Syndrome). It’s a stamp of approval. Get that deal—and the advance—and a writer can say with authority, “Yes, I am a real author!”
The problem with self-publishing is the ‘published’ part is always going to come with air quotes. If any old oik can shove their badly written mush up onto Amazon, then ‘being published’ no longer feels like an achievement. For that reason self-publishing is often pushed aside and treated as a special case. If the author had to do it themselves, they probably weren’t good enough to be published in the first place. I think many of us have held this view at some point and some almost certainly still do. Check the membership guidelines of professional writers' organisations like the HWA and SFWA and you’ll see very clear stipulations on what does or doesn’t count as a valid publication for obtaining active membership.
Now that the ebook explosion has burst the dam, how important is the traditional stamp of approval?
As validation goes, that stamp is only a proxy when you think about it. To use a simple fantasy analogy, it’s an entrance exam granting permission to go and slay the dragon. Congratulations! You passed. But you still have to go and kill that dragon…
If someone else decides to skip all those stupid trials, goes straight to the dragon and hacks its head right off, are they any less of a dragonslayer?
In this case the dragon—and true validation—is finding an audience, whether it is small and distinguished or massive and lucrative.
What happens when more and more writers choose to go it alone, not because they aren’t good enough, but because it makes more economic sense than signing away a huge chunk of their royalties? Clauses like this (from HWA’s active membership requirements)
With the sole exception of comic books, self-published work can not be used for qualification purposes. "Self-published work" is defined as written material disseminated by the author (for example, email or electronic publications, publication on the author's Web site, or printed publications sold on consignment or solely by the author), or written material whose basic publication costs are defrayed in whole or in part by the author.
will cease to make any sense. As will references to 5¢/word rates and minimum advances.
Riddle me this:
Person A gets a $5,000 advance from an accredited publisher, but only goes on to sell a couple of hundred copies. Person B makes $10,000 a month selling 99¢ self-published ebooks on Amazon. Which one is the professional author?
(I’m not trying to bash the HWA, by the way. I was a fresh-faced wannabe member a while back and I found them helpful in terms of market information and discovering new writers I hadn’t read before.)
Which leads us back to the original question:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
My gut says the answer is this:
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Short, Sharp Dose of Reality
Last week I got my first real quarterly royalties cheque. At the princely sum of $84 I think the appropriate comment is “ouch!”
Oh well, we can’t all be Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking.
If I take the perspective of wanting to be a full-time writer, it's fairly terrible. There's no way I'd ever be able to live off that.
Thankfully, I don't have to take to take that perspective. I'm fortunate enough to already have a full-time job, one I enjoy and is relatively well paid. I can take the other perspective. I'm doing something I like (writing stories) and receiving money for it.
$84 is still $84. That's the second half of the kindle I already bought with money from a Literotica contest plus some books to load it up with. It's more than I ever picked up trying to slog through the old fashioned route of submitting to horror/sci fi magazines and certainly $84 more than the manuscript would have got languishing forgotten on a slush pile somewhere.
It's not all. My first book is still out there, still picking up the same trickle of sales. That means in another three months I'm going to get another $84 or so. Actually, there's two months of the second book's sales on top of that, so it's probably going to be more than eighty bucks. And then later in the year I have a third book coming out. It's easy to see how it can start to mount up. I can't live off it, but on top of my regular salary it's a nice extra to put towards a vacation, or a new TV.
One of the points I've seen raised is the current explosion of self publishing and 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing will kill writing as a viable profession for all but the already wealthy. I don't really see this. A lot of authors had to start off juggling other jobs with their writing until they made enough to leave the day job behind. An advance can help with this sure, but it can backfire horribly if the first book tanks and they aren't picked up for a second. This is even assuming they make it through the gatekeepers. The vast majority don't and won't ever see a single dime for the manuscript they spent a year or two lovingly putting together.
With self publishing a writer can start to see a return as soon as the book is finished and use this to tailor their life accordingly. I go into work every morning and I write on my spare time. I won't need to think about changing this unless my income from book sales starts to outweigh my regular salary, or my spare time suddenly becomes a lot less spare. And of course, even being comparatively unsuccessful in the meantime still generates a bit of extra cash for a few luxuries.
I enjoy writing and it makes me a bit of extra money. Can't really complain about that.
And I even got my post in on the 17th this time.
M.E. Hydra
Oh well, we can’t all be Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking.
If I take the perspective of wanting to be a full-time writer, it's fairly terrible. There's no way I'd ever be able to live off that.
Thankfully, I don't have to take to take that perspective. I'm fortunate enough to already have a full-time job, one I enjoy and is relatively well paid. I can take the other perspective. I'm doing something I like (writing stories) and receiving money for it.
$84 is still $84. That's the second half of the kindle I already bought with money from a Literotica contest plus some books to load it up with. It's more than I ever picked up trying to slog through the old fashioned route of submitting to horror/sci fi magazines and certainly $84 more than the manuscript would have got languishing forgotten on a slush pile somewhere.
It's not all. My first book is still out there, still picking up the same trickle of sales. That means in another three months I'm going to get another $84 or so. Actually, there's two months of the second book's sales on top of that, so it's probably going to be more than eighty bucks. And then later in the year I have a third book coming out. It's easy to see how it can start to mount up. I can't live off it, but on top of my regular salary it's a nice extra to put towards a vacation, or a new TV.
One of the points I've seen raised is the current explosion of self publishing and 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing will kill writing as a viable profession for all but the already wealthy. I don't really see this. A lot of authors had to start off juggling other jobs with their writing until they made enough to leave the day job behind. An advance can help with this sure, but it can backfire horribly if the first book tanks and they aren't picked up for a second. This is even assuming they make it through the gatekeepers. The vast majority don't and won't ever see a single dime for the manuscript they spent a year or two lovingly putting together.
With self publishing a writer can start to see a return as soon as the book is finished and use this to tailor their life accordingly. I go into work every morning and I write on my spare time. I won't need to think about changing this unless my income from book sales starts to outweigh my regular salary, or my spare time suddenly becomes a lot less spare. And of course, even being comparatively unsuccessful in the meantime still generates a bit of extra cash for a few luxuries.
I enjoy writing and it makes me a bit of extra money. Can't really complain about that.
And I even got my post in on the 17th this time.
M.E. Hydra
Monday, February 28, 2011
Double the fun, double the money
And the 17th sails by yet again.
In my defence, my second book, “A Succubus for Valentine’s Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures”, came out on the eleventh of February and most of my attentions have been spent on hyping that. Or rather, quietly whispering it’s out there if any kind soul would be so good as to purchase a copy.
Here’s a simple tip. If you want to boost sales of your first book, write a second. January was largely dead for my first book, which was a little unfortunate as this is the time of year most people load up the shiny new kindles they received as Christmas presents. Then my second book came out and the first suddenly started to pick up sales again.
Actually, the first book started to pick up sales even before the second came out. I think this might have been because I spent the two weeks leading up to the second book’s release putting excerpts from the new stories up on my blog. In building up interest for the second book, I also built up interest in the first book for anyone that missed it first time around. This was very encouraging. I’ll do the same for my third book when that comes out later this year.
Also encouraging was to see both books come up in each other’s ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ lists. That means someone liked them enough to go back for the second. Always a good start for anyone hoping to have a lengthy writing career.
Damn, I still have to work harder at the whole making them run away screaming thing.
I’m still in the bits’n’pieces section of Amazon’s rankings. That’s fine. I wasn’t intending on quitting the day job for some time anyway. I’m thinking long term. Maybe it will pan out, maybe it won’t. Doesn’t really matter so long as I still enjoy writing the stories.
M.E. Hydra
In my defence, my second book, “A Succubus for Valentine’s Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures”, came out on the eleventh of February and most of my attentions have been spent on hyping that. Or rather, quietly whispering it’s out there if any kind soul would be so good as to purchase a copy.
Here’s a simple tip. If you want to boost sales of your first book, write a second. January was largely dead for my first book, which was a little unfortunate as this is the time of year most people load up the shiny new kindles they received as Christmas presents. Then my second book came out and the first suddenly started to pick up sales again.
Actually, the first book started to pick up sales even before the second came out. I think this might have been because I spent the two weeks leading up to the second book’s release putting excerpts from the new stories up on my blog. In building up interest for the second book, I also built up interest in the first book for anyone that missed it first time around. This was very encouraging. I’ll do the same for my third book when that comes out later this year.
Also encouraging was to see both books come up in each other’s ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ lists. That means someone liked them enough to go back for the second. Always a good start for anyone hoping to have a lengthy writing career.
Damn, I still have to work harder at the whole making them run away screaming thing.
I’m still in the bits’n’pieces section of Amazon’s rankings. That’s fine. I wasn’t intending on quitting the day job for some time anyway. I’m thinking long term. Maybe it will pan out, maybe it won’t. Doesn’t really matter so long as I still enjoy writing the stories.
M.E. Hydra
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Reinventing the Publishing House
It’s the 17th. Oh wait, that was a couple of days ago. I will hit my scheduled slot one day!
My first collection of short stories is still ticking up the odd kindle sale here and there. I’ll get the full breakdown when I get my quarterly statement next month. I anticipate I won’t suddenly be catapulted into the echelon of writers making a killing from ebooks. These things take time, patience and a hefty dollop of luck.
And backlists. I’m certainly not sitting still there. I have a second collection of stories coming out next month and I signed a contract for a third collection last weekend. That’ll arrive to shock and arouse at the appropriate time of Halloween. Hopefully they’ll all bump each other.
Contract? Publishing date some way off in the future? That doesn’t sound like the typical self-pubbed story.
That would be because I’m with eXcessica. Selena Kitt started it out as a co-operative venture for her and other writers to get their ebooks up on fictionwise. Since then it’s morphed into something resembling an indie publishing house. Recently, Joe Konrath talked to Ridan Publishing, who’ve done something similar in the fantasy genre. In future, I think we’re going to see a lot more ventures like this.
A frequent gripe levelled at big publishing is that the relationship between house and writer has become purely parasitical. The talent-scouting has shifted to the agents and the marketing and promotion has been shunted onto the writer. Now that the ebook explosion has blown all the gates down, the big beasts have effectively outsourced themselves to eventual extinction. Whether they adapt or collapse to a whinging death is up to them.
That’s not to say publishers are completely superfluous. Yes, a writer can do everything themself, should they so desire, but it’s a damn sight easier to borrow someone else’s expertise for some of the tasks, especially when taking the first baby steps.
I didn’t do the cover for my first book. I didn’t do any of the fiddling to get the ISBN or bash it into any one of the multiple file formats ebooks sell in. I didn’t put it up on all the other bookselling websites that exist alongside Amazon (many of which I hadn’t even heard of before). I didn’t send the book off to a list of cultivated review sites (hopefully, some will recover enough from the trauma to write nice things about it). I have Selena and the good folks at eXcessica to thank for that.
I think we’ll be seeing a few more ventures starting out this way. Someone will know someone who’s good at creating book covers. Someone else will have researched the markets. Someone will know the techy stuff. Then, bang, they’ll all be pumping out books like crazy and laughing all the way to bank.
Some of them may eventually become the new behemoths of the future...
M.E. Hydra
My first collection of short stories is still ticking up the odd kindle sale here and there. I’ll get the full breakdown when I get my quarterly statement next month. I anticipate I won’t suddenly be catapulted into the echelon of writers making a killing from ebooks. These things take time, patience and a hefty dollop of luck.
And backlists. I’m certainly not sitting still there. I have a second collection of stories coming out next month and I signed a contract for a third collection last weekend. That’ll arrive to shock and arouse at the appropriate time of Halloween. Hopefully they’ll all bump each other.
Contract? Publishing date some way off in the future? That doesn’t sound like the typical self-pubbed story.
That would be because I’m with eXcessica. Selena Kitt started it out as a co-operative venture for her and other writers to get their ebooks up on fictionwise. Since then it’s morphed into something resembling an indie publishing house. Recently, Joe Konrath talked to Ridan Publishing, who’ve done something similar in the fantasy genre. In future, I think we’re going to see a lot more ventures like this.
A frequent gripe levelled at big publishing is that the relationship between house and writer has become purely parasitical. The talent-scouting has shifted to the agents and the marketing and promotion has been shunted onto the writer. Now that the ebook explosion has blown all the gates down, the big beasts have effectively outsourced themselves to eventual extinction. Whether they adapt or collapse to a whinging death is up to them.
That’s not to say publishers are completely superfluous. Yes, a writer can do everything themself, should they so desire, but it’s a damn sight easier to borrow someone else’s expertise for some of the tasks, especially when taking the first baby steps.
I didn’t do the cover for my first book. I didn’t do any of the fiddling to get the ISBN or bash it into any one of the multiple file formats ebooks sell in. I didn’t put it up on all the other bookselling websites that exist alongside Amazon (many of which I hadn’t even heard of before). I didn’t send the book off to a list of cultivated review sites (hopefully, some will recover enough from the trauma to write nice things about it). I have Selena and the good folks at eXcessica to thank for that.
I think we’ll be seeing a few more ventures starting out this way. Someone will know someone who’s good at creating book covers. Someone else will have researched the markets. Someone will know the techy stuff. Then, bang, they’ll all be pumping out books like crazy and laughing all the way to bank.
Some of them may eventually become the new behemoths of the future...
M.E. Hydra
Sunday, December 26, 2010
How to get Reviews?
I’d like to say this is going to be a handy post full of tips and tricks, but in reality it’s a question that’s vexed me of late.
To be honest, in my naivety, I thought it was something that just happened. You put the book out, and then crossed your fingers and hoped people would write nice things about it.
Actually, I wasn’t so bothered about hearing the nice things. I was waiting to see the reaction of anyone picking the book up thinking it was another one of those paranormal romances that are so popular at the moment. Juvenile, I know. I think it’s a horror writer thing—that impish desire to shock and catch people off guard. Yeah, the cover might look sweet and innocuous—look, she’s wearing a Santa hat, how cute is that?—but within beats a dark and twisted heart.
I’m very much a traditionalist when it comes to my horror. Anyone expecting sparkly vamps or magical girlfriend succubi is in for a rude shock.
At least there’s plenty of hot sex to enjoy before the shocks show up.
It’s a dumb thought really. Anyone looking for another Twilight or Georgina Kincaid isn’t going to waste time writing reviews on or even reading a book that isn’t what they’re after and written by someone they’ve never heard of. Most likely they’ll read a few pages, decide it’s not for them, put the book down and move onto something else. There are a lot of other books out there after all.
Those plans to terrorize the eXcessica review list—not happening I’m afraid, Mr Hydra.
Which is probably a good thing. Reviews are a double-edged sword. When we say we want reviews, what we mean is we want good reviews. A one star on amazon is likely far far worse than nothing at all.
The silence (not quite complete – thanks Siren Book Reviews!) is a little disconcerting. I guess that’s part and parcel of taking those first toddling steps. I’m not the pushy type when it comes to self promotion, preferring to let my words and stories do the talking, but that’s a luxury that can’t be afforded when the hard part is getting people to read the words in the first place. There’s an art to that and it’s something I need to learn (without pissing people off along the way!). The Draculas experiment was something I watched with interest.
So, anyway, if the ebook whets your interest and you’d like to write nice things about it either on your blog or on amazon, feel free to contact me at manyeyedhydra at googlemail dot com. I’m sure I can probably rustle up a review copy.
(Now is this what I’m supposed be doing or pissing people off...)
M.E. Hydra
To be honest, in my naivety, I thought it was something that just happened. You put the book out, and then crossed your fingers and hoped people would write nice things about it.
Actually, I wasn’t so bothered about hearing the nice things. I was waiting to see the reaction of anyone picking the book up thinking it was another one of those paranormal romances that are so popular at the moment. Juvenile, I know. I think it’s a horror writer thing—that impish desire to shock and catch people off guard. Yeah, the cover might look sweet and innocuous—look, she’s wearing a Santa hat, how cute is that?—but within beats a dark and twisted heart.
I’m very much a traditionalist when it comes to my horror. Anyone expecting sparkly vamps or magical girlfriend succubi is in for a rude shock.
At least there’s plenty of hot sex to enjoy before the shocks show up.
It’s a dumb thought really. Anyone looking for another Twilight or Georgina Kincaid isn’t going to waste time writing reviews on or even reading a book that isn’t what they’re after and written by someone they’ve never heard of. Most likely they’ll read a few pages, decide it’s not for them, put the book down and move onto something else. There are a lot of other books out there after all.
Those plans to terrorize the eXcessica review list—not happening I’m afraid, Mr Hydra.
Which is probably a good thing. Reviews are a double-edged sword. When we say we want reviews, what we mean is we want good reviews. A one star on amazon is likely far far worse than nothing at all.
The silence (not quite complete – thanks Siren Book Reviews!) is a little disconcerting. I guess that’s part and parcel of taking those first toddling steps. I’m not the pushy type when it comes to self promotion, preferring to let my words and stories do the talking, but that’s a luxury that can’t be afforded when the hard part is getting people to read the words in the first place. There’s an art to that and it’s something I need to learn (without pissing people off along the way!). The Draculas experiment was something I watched with interest.
So, anyway, if the ebook whets your interest and you’d like to write nice things about it either on your blog or on amazon, feel free to contact me at manyeyedhydra at googlemail dot com. I’m sure I can probably rustle up a review copy.
(Now is this what I’m supposed be doing or pissing people off...)
M.E. Hydra
Thursday, December 9, 2010
After the Starting Gun
Hmm, one definite piece of advice:
Finish the manuscript for the forthcoming book before your first book comes out and you need to pimp it online like a madman.
I have a personal blog for promoting my own work. Letting it go completely silent the month after my first book goes out because I’m frantically trying to get a third manuscript finished in time for next Halloween is not what you’d call ideal marketing strategy. Self promotion—not my strong point.
Anyway, let’s pretend it’s actually really November 17th, my usual blogging spot, and I’ll continue with my thoughts and experiences on finally getting my first book out there.
For me this is huge. It’s something I’ve wanted to achieve all my life. Then one morning you wake up and your book is available for the world (well, lots of) to buy on Amazon.
I remember some very useful advice from one of eXcessica's experienced authors to another first time author in a similar position to me. “Expect it to be anti-climactic.”
I’d also add: “Be prepared for the silence.”
That’s the scary part, tossing something you’ve laboured lovingly over for the past few months out into the great black void of the internet and then waiting in vain for something, anything, to come back.
This is where Amazon’s little ranking stat is both a curse and a godsend. Watching that value spiral down into the millions doesn’t exactly do wonders for the ego, but that’s balanced out by the nice little ding! I feel every time the number jumps back up and I know that someone somewhere bought a copy of my book.
Obviously, it would be better if the ranking was high enough so that I couldn’t see each sale as it came in, but I’m realistic enough to know it’ll take time and probably a great dollop of good luck before I get there, if at all. In the meantime I’ll smile over my breadcrumbs and keep working on building up the backlist.
M.E. Hydra
Finish the manuscript for the forthcoming book before your first book comes out and you need to pimp it online like a madman.
I have a personal blog for promoting my own work. Letting it go completely silent the month after my first book goes out because I’m frantically trying to get a third manuscript finished in time for next Halloween is not what you’d call ideal marketing strategy. Self promotion—not my strong point.
Anyway, let’s pretend it’s actually really November 17th, my usual blogging spot, and I’ll continue with my thoughts and experiences on finally getting my first book out there.
For me this is huge. It’s something I’ve wanted to achieve all my life. Then one morning you wake up and your book is available for the world (well, lots of) to buy on Amazon.
I remember some very useful advice from one of eXcessica's experienced authors to another first time author in a similar position to me. “Expect it to be anti-climactic.”
I’d also add: “Be prepared for the silence.”
That’s the scary part, tossing something you’ve laboured lovingly over for the past few months out into the great black void of the internet and then waiting in vain for something, anything, to come back.
This is where Amazon’s little ranking stat is both a curse and a godsend. Watching that value spiral down into the millions doesn’t exactly do wonders for the ego, but that’s balanced out by the nice little ding! I feel every time the number jumps back up and I know that someone somewhere bought a copy of my book.
Obviously, it would be better if the ranking was high enough so that I couldn’t see each sale as it came in, but I’m realistic enough to know it’ll take time and probably a great dollop of good luck before I get there, if at all. In the meantime I’ll smile over my breadcrumbs and keep working on building up the backlist.
M.E. Hydra
Thursday, October 21, 2010
A Start
In a few days time I’ll be entering the next phase of my writing adventure. On Friday my first book, “A Succubus for Christmas and other tales of Devilish Delights”, will come out from eXcessica. In one respect it’s the finishing line of a long-cherished dream, in another it’s only the beginning. Now I have to sell it...
This is the hard part. There are a lot of books out there and tons more being published all the time. Somehow I’ve got to get my book noticed amongst all those and then persuade YOU to part with your hard-earned cash to buy a copy. Some writers only get as far as selling to friends and family before drowning in the forgotten 1’s and 0’s of search result page #101. I don’t even have that to fall back on as my friends and family don’t know I write this kind of thing and I’m not about to tell them either!
It’s not all black. There are a couple of things which will work in my favour. I hope!
I’m not a completely unknown first-timer. Okay, I’m an almost completely unknown first-timer, but it’s still a start. For the last three years I’ve been writing and posting stories up on the internet at sites like Literotica. Some of these stories have picked up a lot of views. One of them placed in one of the regular contests. I’ve topped Lit’s All-Time list in the Erotic Horror category for the past year and a half.
Okay. I know, I know. In real life terms this is all small beans, amateur coupons, or whatever you want to call it. No matter, it’s getting my stories read. That’s the important thing—finding readers. I think of it as kind of like a new rock band touring their local pubs and clubs to build up a name. If people like what they read (and I know some have) then maybe they’ll buy the book (and I know some have said they will)
It’s a start.
The other thing going for me is I’m targeting a fairly unexploited niche and I know it fairly well. If you want to write about vampires, zombies or werewolves then you’d better roll up your sleeves and get ready to swing your elbows and bellow your lungs out to get noticed amongst the thousands of other people writing about vamps, brain-munchers and woofs.
I specialise in succubi. They’re familiar enough to be a recognisable horror trope, but they rarely show up in books or films, despite being popular in both computer games and Japanese anime/manga. I have more elbow room. It’s easier to get spotted by the web sites and forums that are interested in this kind of thing. These are the same places that potential new readers will stumble upon during random internet searches. So, getting this kind of write-up from possibly the most comprehensive information repository on succubi in media on the internet is fantastic word-of-mouth (thanks Tera!).
Will it translate to lots of sales?
I don’t know. I’m still a newbie at all this. There might be a very good reason why the niche is unexploited—there isn’t enough interest. I don’t know.
At the moment I’m trying to keep myself grounded. The book might only sell a few copies. Short story collections are traditionally hard sells.
I don’t care. It’s mine. It’s out there. I’m looking forward to the next stage of the adventure.
M.E. Hydra
This is the hard part. There are a lot of books out there and tons more being published all the time. Somehow I’ve got to get my book noticed amongst all those and then persuade YOU to part with your hard-earned cash to buy a copy. Some writers only get as far as selling to friends and family before drowning in the forgotten 1’s and 0’s of search result page #101. I don’t even have that to fall back on as my friends and family don’t know I write this kind of thing and I’m not about to tell them either!
It’s not all black. There are a couple of things which will work in my favour. I hope!
I’m not a completely unknown first-timer. Okay, I’m an almost completely unknown first-timer, but it’s still a start. For the last three years I’ve been writing and posting stories up on the internet at sites like Literotica. Some of these stories have picked up a lot of views. One of them placed in one of the regular contests. I’ve topped Lit’s All-Time list in the Erotic Horror category for the past year and a half.
Okay. I know, I know. In real life terms this is all small beans, amateur coupons, or whatever you want to call it. No matter, it’s getting my stories read. That’s the important thing—finding readers. I think of it as kind of like a new rock band touring their local pubs and clubs to build up a name. If people like what they read (and I know some have) then maybe they’ll buy the book (and I know some have said they will)
It’s a start.
The other thing going for me is I’m targeting a fairly unexploited niche and I know it fairly well. If you want to write about vampires, zombies or werewolves then you’d better roll up your sleeves and get ready to swing your elbows and bellow your lungs out to get noticed amongst the thousands of other people writing about vamps, brain-munchers and woofs.
I specialise in succubi. They’re familiar enough to be a recognisable horror trope, but they rarely show up in books or films, despite being popular in both computer games and Japanese anime/manga. I have more elbow room. It’s easier to get spotted by the web sites and forums that are interested in this kind of thing. These are the same places that potential new readers will stumble upon during random internet searches. So, getting this kind of write-up from possibly the most comprehensive information repository on succubi in media on the internet is fantastic word-of-mouth (thanks Tera!).
Will it translate to lots of sales?
I don’t know. I’m still a newbie at all this. There might be a very good reason why the niche is unexploited—there isn’t enough interest. I don’t know.
At the moment I’m trying to keep myself grounded. The book might only sell a few copies. Short story collections are traditionally hard sells.
I don’t care. It’s mine. It’s out there. I’m looking forward to the next stage of the adventure.
M.E. Hydra
Saturday, September 18, 2010
A Second Bite of the Cherry
Times change and when they change, they often change fast.
I’m M.E. Hydra, writer of twisted succubus tales, and what’s happening for me at the moment is the fulfilment of a dream. I imagine a lot of people have the same dream. They want to write and they want that writing published and out there for people to read. Too often those dreams end up dying alone and forgotten in the slush pile of an uncaring publishing house.
When I first started out I was very sceptical about Self-Publishing. It seemed like...well, cheating. Sure, you could go to a vanity press, dump a wad of cash and then see your words in print, but did it really count? Who would read it? Who would want to buy it? How would you know if you were any good or not?
That was an important distinction for me. I didn’t just want to be published; I wanted to be published because I was good enough to be published. So I did the obvious thing every budding writer does and researched how other writers got to where they were. My genre of choice was Horror. I started out a Sci-Fi and Fantasy junkie, then moved onto Horror and never really left.
A lot of horror writers—Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, etc—all followed the same path. They wrote short stories, shrugged off the inevitable barrage of rejection slips, got their work published in the small press magazines, then the higher profile magazines, before finally landing the book deals and cranking out novels.
I tried the same and at the start it seemed promising. Sure, I picked up a ton of rejection letters to start with, but I’d been warned to expect that. I dutifully filed them away, learned what I could and focused on honing my craft. It paid off and I started to get acceptances from small press magazines, although some of those magazines were so unstable they folded into oblivion before the publication date.
Then I smacked into a wall.
The problem was moving up to the next level. A friend of mine had similar ambitions, but in Sci-Fi. He took out a year’s subscription to one of the premier UK magazines for science fiction short stories. One year later and he’d seen only one story written by a writer not previously published in the magazine.
This is not a fault of the magazine, or any of the anthologies that were floating around at the time. They’re in the business to sell copies, and stories by established and recognised authors are more likely to do this. The flaw in my route became apparent. To get there, you had to already be there.
Even once you got there it didn’t seem so rosy. The horror section in my local bookstore was starting to look a little anaemic. Outside of the big names, who are admittedly massive for good reason, there was little in the way of fresh meat. Where were the new writers?
Then there was no more horror section. King and Koontz departed to the K section of general fiction and I browsed bookstores less and less often.
The message seemed clear enough. If I wanted a future that involved being able to eat and pay bills, then it probably didn’t involve writing horror books.
And that might have been it. I’d given it a shot and it hadn’t panned out. Time to move on to other things.
It was finding online sites like Literotica that rekindled the flames. I went back to basics, wrote some short stories, posted them and—encouraged by the positive feedback—wrote more. That feedback is invaluable, as is knowing there are readers out there enjoying your work. In this respect the internet is a fabulous opportunity for new writers. The old routes don’t work anymore, but writers still need a training ground to hone their art. Online story sites can help with this in a similar way to receiving a good review for a story in a small press magazine. They can also reach a much larger audience. Yes, it does involve giving some of your work away for free, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, if you can’t get people to read your stories when they’re up there for free, you sure as hell aren’t going to get them to pay for them.
And now I’m here, with a collection of my short stories coming out in October, a second collection scheduled for next February and a third collection nearing completion on my hard drive. I’ve held the print versions of the first two books in my hands already, and it’s a wonderful thing I can tell you.
What happens next I don’t know. I’m happy to get a second chance to finally do something I’ve always wanted to do. Not many people get to rescue a dream from the scrapheap. I might sell well enough to consider taking it up full time or I might only sell a few copies. Either way, it’s still more than would have read them had the manuscripts been buried in a slush pile somewhere.
The times are a changing. They barred the gates so now we’re climbing over the walls.
I’m M.E. Hydra, writer of twisted succubus tales, and what’s happening for me at the moment is the fulfilment of a dream. I imagine a lot of people have the same dream. They want to write and they want that writing published and out there for people to read. Too often those dreams end up dying alone and forgotten in the slush pile of an uncaring publishing house.
When I first started out I was very sceptical about Self-Publishing. It seemed like...well, cheating. Sure, you could go to a vanity press, dump a wad of cash and then see your words in print, but did it really count? Who would read it? Who would want to buy it? How would you know if you were any good or not?
That was an important distinction for me. I didn’t just want to be published; I wanted to be published because I was good enough to be published. So I did the obvious thing every budding writer does and researched how other writers got to where they were. My genre of choice was Horror. I started out a Sci-Fi and Fantasy junkie, then moved onto Horror and never really left.
A lot of horror writers—Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, etc—all followed the same path. They wrote short stories, shrugged off the inevitable barrage of rejection slips, got their work published in the small press magazines, then the higher profile magazines, before finally landing the book deals and cranking out novels.
I tried the same and at the start it seemed promising. Sure, I picked up a ton of rejection letters to start with, but I’d been warned to expect that. I dutifully filed them away, learned what I could and focused on honing my craft. It paid off and I started to get acceptances from small press magazines, although some of those magazines were so unstable they folded into oblivion before the publication date.
Then I smacked into a wall.
The problem was moving up to the next level. A friend of mine had similar ambitions, but in Sci-Fi. He took out a year’s subscription to one of the premier UK magazines for science fiction short stories. One year later and he’d seen only one story written by a writer not previously published in the magazine.
This is not a fault of the magazine, or any of the anthologies that were floating around at the time. They’re in the business to sell copies, and stories by established and recognised authors are more likely to do this. The flaw in my route became apparent. To get there, you had to already be there.
Even once you got there it didn’t seem so rosy. The horror section in my local bookstore was starting to look a little anaemic. Outside of the big names, who are admittedly massive for good reason, there was little in the way of fresh meat. Where were the new writers?
Then there was no more horror section. King and Koontz departed to the K section of general fiction and I browsed bookstores less and less often.
The message seemed clear enough. If I wanted a future that involved being able to eat and pay bills, then it probably didn’t involve writing horror books.
And that might have been it. I’d given it a shot and it hadn’t panned out. Time to move on to other things.
It was finding online sites like Literotica that rekindled the flames. I went back to basics, wrote some short stories, posted them and—encouraged by the positive feedback—wrote more. That feedback is invaluable, as is knowing there are readers out there enjoying your work. In this respect the internet is a fabulous opportunity for new writers. The old routes don’t work anymore, but writers still need a training ground to hone their art. Online story sites can help with this in a similar way to receiving a good review for a story in a small press magazine. They can also reach a much larger audience. Yes, it does involve giving some of your work away for free, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, if you can’t get people to read your stories when they’re up there for free, you sure as hell aren’t going to get them to pay for them.
And now I’m here, with a collection of my short stories coming out in October, a second collection scheduled for next February and a third collection nearing completion on my hard drive. I’ve held the print versions of the first two books in my hands already, and it’s a wonderful thing I can tell you.
What happens next I don’t know. I’m happy to get a second chance to finally do something I’ve always wanted to do. Not many people get to rescue a dream from the scrapheap. I might sell well enough to consider taking it up full time or I might only sell a few copies. Either way, it’s still more than would have read them had the manuscripts been buried in a slush pile somewhere.
The times are a changing. They barred the gates so now we’re climbing over the walls.
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