Category Archives: Traditional Publishing

Jun 19 2012

Hopes To One Day Write For Food

The title for this post I stole from myself. It is one the vanity subheadings off a writer’s forum I frequent at Absolutewrite.com. It’s funny how such a simple statement about one’s desire to attain one of the basic necessities of life is so insurmountable in the context of the writing profession. Most of my friends are fairly amazed at what an austere lifestyle I manage to lead. And lot of that can be credited with the amazing set of supportive friends that I do have.

The statement implies I would like to write for a living, so not just write for food, but write as if it were my job that pays all the bills. As cheap as I manage to live, it will still take a whole lot for me to earn a living at writing. In this post, I’ll describe my living expenses and show that even I probably will never be able to earn a living off my writing.

First off, I have been given a house to live in.  It’s a long story, but speaking of one of the basic necessities of life: shelter. I have managed to finagle for free at the moment. Really, it is a perk of my job in helping run a hotel, but even if I were to quit that job, my friends would let me stay in the house if I wanted. So we can pretend that I don’t have a mortgage or have to pay rent. I do have to pay the utilities and for the upkeep and such. Basically my friends own the house without a mortgage, they pay the taxes and that’s it. So as long as they don’t see any other expenses, I can live in the house.

My housing expenses consist of:

Gas & Electric: $100

Cable internet (no TV): $50

Water, sewer, garbage, other town expenses paid on same bill: $100

Or about $250 a month, sometimes a bit more, but why quibble considering how cheap it is? At some point, I will have to invest in some sort of upkeep, but for now the house is not falling apart. Though it c0uld use some carpet in the living room and bedroom. At the moment, it’s just a bare wooden floor. I’ve pulled up all the staples and stuff that could stick in my feet, but it’s pretty ugly. Doesn’t bother me, but most people like their houses to feel cozy or whatever. I mention this only to point out that I wasn’t given a palace to live in. It’s a partially remodeled, one story bedroom; maybe 600-700 square feet. And I haven’t bothered to finish remodeling it.

Next, I have a PhD in Math, so I have student loans. Fortunately, I was paid to go to school in a lot of ways with scholarships, teaching classes, and even some grading assignments. I walked away from 11 years worth of school with about $32,000 in loans. That’s actually amazing. Most people under those circumstances have between 200-300 thousand dollars in loans. More than they can ever pay off with the degree they get, but that’s another story and one of the reasons I am no longer in the field of education. That’s a lot of preface to say my student loans are an extraordinarily low $200/month.

The last category is the actual food category and for good measure I’ll throw in clothing. I probably spend about $350 dollars a month on this. Food itself, I’d guess $200-$300. I honestly don’t keep track. Once or twice a year I’ll buy a new pair of shoes/sneakers for work/play. A couple of cheap Chinese Walmart shirts for work per year. Shorts in the summer. So after all is said and done, I’d say I probably average at least $350 a month for food and clothing. If I were to keep track, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were under estimating and it turned out to be $400, but for now, let’s just go with $350.

So there you have it. I live on about $800/month. I would guess this is atypical for most people not living with their parents. I actually need this money to survive, so to earn a “living” I have to account for taxes, and I’m not going to get into the tax return nonsense, I’m just going to point out that I’d need to gross a little more than $1100 to earn $800 cash. We can pretend that future income tax returns go into the upkeep of the house. Sound fair? For simplicity, I’m sticking with that.

Now the question is, how much does one have to sell to be able to live like the glorious king that I live like?

At the moment, I am selling Dim Speak for 99 cents. Is it worth that? I think so. For an unproven author and a book that was not edited by a professional, I think that price is more than fair in terms of the “risk” a reader incurs for taking a chance on such a novel. If someone orders the book at Smashwords, I get about 79 cents per copy, and if someone orders at Amazon, I get about 35 cents per copy.

Thus for me to earn a “living”, I’d have to sell about 3150 copies at Amazon per month. Clearly, that’s ridiculous. Those are George R. R. Martin type numbers. Even if we pretended that I sold a small percentage from Smashwords, I’d have to sell  around 3000 copies to live like a pauper.

Suppose now, I sold the book for $2.99. At this threshold, Amazon gives the author 70% minus a small fee for the kindle transfer, so I would get about $2 per book (plus a few pennies). At this price the Smashwords royalty rate is comparable to Amazon’s, and I’d get about $2.30 per book. Things are looking up. I would only need to sell about 550 copies at Amazon, or let’s pretend about 500 copies between the two distribution methods.

Though it might not sound like a lot, those kinds of sales would put me in the top 5 or 10 in the fantasy section at Amazon pretty much round the clock. A lot of good authors are not selling at these rates. They might be if they have a backlist with five or ten books to draw from, but if they have one book like me, not so much. This is why I haven’t really pushed Dim Speak. I figure why spend a few hundred in advertising, with only one product to sell. I need to have more to offer readers to justify that sort of expense.

Another common price point is $3.99 retail, or about $2.75 from Amazon and about $3.05 from Smashwords to the author. Monthly sales to earn a living is about 400 copies per month.

This price seems a bit high for my current copy of Dim Speak. As I said, my current work is an amateur endeavor. I wouldn’t feel right about charging such a steep price. Then, again, I spent the better part of three years off and on working on the project, so if someone else said they felt they deserved that much for their work, I wouldn’t argue.

I hope this gives people an idea of how difficult it is for an author to actually earn a living from writing alone. In this context, it seems even more daunting. I guess I’d better get to work!

Jan 20 2012

Talking About My Brand

I really don’t like talking about myself in the “I’m so great” hype type of sense.  If I plan to self-publish, I guess I need to do a little chest thumping every now and again, but it really isn’t me.  One of the things holding me back from getting my work “out there” is I’ve been struggling with my brand.  I’ve been collecting all sorts of information on what I should and shouldn’t do.  All sorts of advice on how to market myself and so on.  I think the best piece of advice I’ve received is the traditional, “be who you are” advice.

I’ve been trying to pigeon-hole my first book in the traditional book way.  I’ve started the sequel and found I’m struggling with the “book” mentality.  I don’t seem to write that way.  I’ve written part one of book two and started part two.  Each of these first five parts taking about 100 pages as a substory all its own.

Let me back track about five years and start where I started writing again.  I started with a space opera that went nowhere.  I wrote 160,000 words in two years and no end was forth coming.  The problem lay in the way I was writing the darn thing.  The first “book” consisted of seven stories (novellas if you will) that were complete (in the first draft sense of complete) on their own.  Each told a mini-story about a series of galactic events.  So I had seven stories that I could put together and call a book, each progressing the over arching story, but the seven stories themselves didn’t tell a story.  That is, there was no reason to call those seven together a book as opposed to six or eight.  Essentially there was a missing layer of story that prevented the first book from being a book.

Then I switched to a fantasy story that I’d been wanting to write for nearly twenty years.  I’ve spent the last (going on) three years writing this story, I’ve found something similar happening.  The first book, while a complete book this time, is broken into three distinct story parts.  Each making sense on their own as a sub-story.

Over this same period of time, I have been getting more and more into Japanese Anime and Manga.  I really like the serialized episodic story telling.  Essentially, that’s the way I’ve been writing.  A story arc, followed by the next arc, and so on.  The nice thing about this type of story telling is that it goes on as long as the story needs.  It doesn’t force itself into a certain size, it doesn’t force itself to wrap up all the loose ends before the next arc begins.  Stories flow one into the next.  Unfortunately, I’ve been trying to write this way, only trying to press the story into a book form as well.

After doing a little research into the way things are being marketed on the Amazon Kindle, I’ve decided to release my work the way it ought to be released, namely, episodically.  More and more serialized fiction has been appearing on the kindle, so it seems there is a market for the stuff.  I had thought about this a lot last fall, but a couple of months ago, I heard an interview with Sean Platt and David Wright (actually the interview was with one of them and I don’t remember which one it was).  They’ve written a post apocalyptic serial that seems to be doing quiet well, and it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about trying myself.

So when considering my so-called “brand” I think I will specialize in episodic fiction.  It just seems to make more sense for the way I write.  The nice thing about this type of writing is that I can take an episode and make it an aside to build the characters that support the protagonist.  A technique I really enjoy in the Japanese Anime/Manga story telling form.  It really gets the reader invested fully in all of the characters, and I want to do the same thing.

Dec 13 2011

Fear and Writing

Writing is a funny thing.  I spent nineteen years with an idea in my head.  Then I spend over 2.5 years writing the story behind that idea and now I feel afraid to release the novel, Dim speak, into the wild.  What’s strange, I don’t fear people not liking it or criticizing it.  I think it’s a bit of an odd duck as far as novels are concerned and such things are always polarizing.  I fully expect it to get wildly differing reviews.

What I think I fear the most is charging money for it.  I fully believe artists should be compensated for their work.  They should be able to make a living at their passion.  I fear taking people’s money and having them find no artistry in the work.

Mind you, I didn’t write a literary novel.  I didn’t write Dim Speak with the intent of, well, whatever intent there is when writing a literary novel.  Depressing the reader and beating them over the head with a singular theme if I’m not mistaken.  Seriously, that’s all I ever get out of the classics, and I wanted to write something completely the opposite of that.

I wrote a fantasy parody. Non-derivative, both in the sense that it is not a parody of another work and it doesn’t spoof for the sake of being silly.  I try to write all the gags in the context of a serious story, which from time to time, does not take itself seriously.  Again, that’s the point, because one of my goals in this work was to write a parody of life itself.  We can’t take it seriously all the time, or we’d all just go bonkers.

My two biggest influences, not surprisingly, come from my teenage years of reading.  Piers Anthony and the first dozen or so Xanth novels, along with another dozen or so of his books.  And Robert Asprin with his Myth series.  Alas, both of these authors loved their puns, while I loathe puns.  They’re what finally made me give up on the Xanth novels; too many puns running around.

Asprin was less prolific with them, allowing me to read just about everything he wrote.  His Myth novels, while a whole lot of fun, suffered from consistency.  However, that wasn’t the point of those stories.  The Myth novels were about friends and their relationships with each other.  I find the friendship between Aahz and Skeeve to be one of the most influential in my real day-to-day friendships.  Those are the type of relationships I personally seek.

Dim Speak has no puns, but I tried to land it squarely in between these two authors’ works.  I like to think the story is serious in the way most of the Xanth novels are serious and fun in the way the Myth novels are fun.  I also like to think I kept the story consistent.  I don’t foresee the savvy of the modern reader forgiving the gaping plot holes for which Mr. Asprin was guilty.  Most importantly of all, the story is about the friendship between Chip and Faith.  Because these two are of the opposite sex, naturally there will be an extra layer of sexual tension, at least for Chip, but my ultimate goal is to create a friendship between the two characters as deep as the one between Aahz and Skeeve.

I think the bulk of my fear comes from my childhood misconceptions about these works.  Twenty-plus years ago, I treated these kinds of books as silly diversions, nothing deep and meant to be fun.  I didn’t recognize the artistry.  As an adult, now that I have written a story like this for myself, I know I am attempting to follow in the steps of giants.  I think my biggest fear is that it will take another twenty years for me to capture the same artistry that Mr. Anthony and Mr. Asprin managed to capture.

Sep 25 2011

Advice to the Reader: Genre is Dead

By saying that “Genre” is dead, I am not saying “Genre Fiction” is dead.  In fact, I think it’s more alive than ever.  If any flavor of fiction needs to worry about dying, it is literary fiction.  Since the publishing industry is spinning around like toilet water in mid flush, I think literary fiction is going to have troubles finding a market among the ebook world, and you know what?  I’m okay with that.  Most literary fiction is boring and repetitive.  I won’t miss it.

OOPS!  Yeah, I’m a genre snob just like everybody else, but I’m learning.  And for some good reading, I suggest you do too.

Now, what I mean by Genre is dead, I mean the literal concept of genres are dead.  And you as the reader should learn to be to be okay with that.  Don’t worry, they’re not going anywhere overnight, but they are fading away.  Well, not fading, blending is more like it.

First off, straight genre fiction seems to already be gone.  You can no longer find a fantasy novel to enjoy.  You find Epic fantasy, Dark fantasy, Urban fantasy, Science fantasy, Heroic and Mythic fantasy.  Sci-Fi is no longer Sci-fi, it’s Apocalyptic, Post-apocalyptic, Space Opera, Space Western, Military Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, and numerous other sub-punks.  Mysteries are no longer mysteries, they are Cozies, Police procedurals, Noir, Hard Boiled.  And a new one I heard last week:  Malice Domestic, which I am assured by a friend of mine who writes mysteries this is the same as Cozies, but can we really take that risk?

All these sub-genres seem pretty ridiculous to me, but many people grab hold as if it’s a war worth fighting, so who am I to say they’re wrong?  Personally, I like to read a little something from a lot of different genres and I think this is going to become the norm because without the publishing industry forcing all writing into little pigeon holes.  Writers are going to get more creative.  They’re going to cross genres a whole lot more.

Take, for instance, Murder at Avedon Hill, by P.G. Holyfield.  In the same way that people who read literary fiction dislike genre ficiton, many of the people I know who read the Mystery genre wouldn’t give this book the time of day, because (Gasp!) it’s a fantasy novel.  Nevermind the fact that this is simply a matter of setting.  There really isn’t much of the story preventing this from being written either in a modern small town, or to be closer to the original vision, a medieval town.  Sure you can nit-pick here and there about the fantasy elements, but the fact remains this is just a mystery novel.  The audio book, available for free in the link above, is just fantastic and amazingly well produced.  To get this book traditionally published, Holyfield had to shorten it, and muck it up a little.  Once I found that out, I couldn’t muster up the nads to buy the paperback, sorry P.G..

Another prime example is Scott Sigler’s Galaxy Football League series which starts with The Rookie.  Also available as a free audiobook.  Scott opted to sell the book himself as a collector’s edition hard cover.  Granted Scott Sigler is a NY Times best selling author and can muster up the 2000-3000 fans to buy such a print run, but my point is made.  He gets to sell his book vision intact, which he describes as “Star Wars meets Every Given Sunday meets The Godfather”.  Three genres that I don’t care for:  Space Opera, Sports, and Gangster all blending together to make one super-cool story.  Thanks Scott!  Now I’m on the hook for 6-7 hardcovers!

So as writers get more opportunity to write what they want and begin mixing things up, the reader is going to have to evolve along with them.  Well, that’s not totally true.  Genres aren’t really going to die.  There will still be plenty of your basic subgenre writers out there, but if you want some really interesting reads, open up your mind a wee bit more, and see what people are writing now that they’re losing the traditional publishing yoke.

Sep 20 2011

Self Pub vs. Traditional Publishing

Who doesn’t want to have that finished book in their hands?  Their name on the front.  Title on the spine.  But I have to ask if it is really worth it?

I have been giving a lot of thought of late regarding the publishing of my novel.  Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve wanted to be published.  I’ve always known it would be a daunting task, what with finding an agent, querying, submissions, slush piles, all the waiting, and so on.  Now that I have one last quick edit to go through on the book, I have not been looking forward to that impending debacle.  To make matters worse, agents and editors in the publishing houses are all swamped with manuscripts, yet times are tough, so there is less money to go around.  Fewer books being picked up.  Which means my chances are getting slimmer by the day to get traditionally published.

I think, for me, the biggest road block is all the waiting in the queue to just get your stuff looked at.  After taking two and half years to write the darn thing, to go the traditional publishing route, I would have to query agents for who knows how long.  Wait for them to sell it, if they could.  Then wait 12-18 months while a publishing house took it to press and then the bookstore.  All that’s another two and half years, at least.  And then, after all that, the publishing house would do next to nothing to market the book.  That has somehow become the author’s job over the years.

Self publishing on the other hand is much easier to get to market.  Indeed, I could skip that last look through and have it on Amazon in a matter of hours.  The marketing is still all my job, and that, as far as I am concerned is the toughest job of all, but because I would have to do that anyway, it seems to me that self publishing is a no brainer.  I think the last gasping breath in the back of my mind, that’s been telling me to go the traditional route, finally died while at work last night.

I was listening to a podcast called The Creative Penn hosted by Joanna Penn.  It was episode #93, an interview with Ruth Ann Nordin.  In it, Ruth mentions how much she spent on vanity presses and she said something about how having the physical book on your shelf truly is vanity.  It occurred to me she was right.  My goal shouldn’t be to get published so I can have a book on my shelf, it should be to get published and have other people read and enjoy my novel.

So this post is hereby my pronouncement for giving up on traditional publishing.  Looks like I’ll have to get the physical book on my shelf through print on demand.