Author Archives: kingmidget

After a decade of publishing through Amazon’s paperback and digital platforms, I made the switch to Draft2Digital a little over a year ago. I’ve written here about my early experiences and wanted to provide an update.

Back then, I published two new books — a novella and a short story collection. After I got those books up and out there, I decided to republish my earlier efforts as well. So, now I have five books published through D2D.

As I’ve written before, if for no other reason than that my books are now more broadly available, I love the results with D2D. Last week, I spent a couple of days in Portland, Oregon. I made a stop at Powell’s Books and scanned the sections to see if any of my books were on the shelves. I even typed my name into their computer to make sure.

No, none of my books were in physical form in their bookstore, but all of them are available on Powell’s website. Just as they are at B & N, Books-A-Million, Walmart, the Harvard Book Store, Smashwords, and numerous other on-line bookselling platforms. I consider that a success.

Since I made the switch to D2D, I’ve sold 162 books via the platform. Not incredible numbers, but I have no idea whether the old way would have been any better. The last novel I published on Amazon sold fewer than 100 copies/downloads and no matter what kind of promo opportunities I try, nothing seems to change those numbers. So, in the light of minimal sales, why not go out as broadly as possible.

If you’re looking around for something other than Amazon and would like to see your books published more broadly, I encourage you to look into D2D or some of the other platforms that promise such distribution (IngramSpark, for instance). Something needs to be done to break the dominance of Amazon and these companies offer authors reasonable alternatives.

— Mark Paxson

We spend a lot of time around here bashing the idea of rules for writing. Particularly in our video chats. But …

The local writers’ group is hosting a conference in September. I was looking at the speakers. One of them teaches creative writing at a local community college and will be teaching writers how to write a dynamic scene that moves the story along.

Just the idea of teaching a creative writing class made me wonder and ask the question in the title of this post. Are we wrong about our ridiculing of the rules of writing?

The reality is that all writers are guided by conventions or rules or structures or something similar in their writing. Whether writing to the conventions of a particular genre or following the three act structure or paying attention to voice or countless other things, we all do some of this. Some more consciously than others.

I know that if I do it, it is in my subconscious. I just come up with an idea and start writing and go from here to there and to over there and eventually wind my way to an ending. Without regard to genre needs or three acts or needing a conflict here or a dramatic scene there. I just … write.

But I do know that there are things that I’ve learned in decades of reading books voraciously. That had to do something to me that impacts how I tell a story when I sit down to write. All of the books I’ve read over the years taught me something. They must have. And so, maybe the “rules” have been embedded in my subconscious and I follow them, or at least some of them, without even thinking about it.

But back to that speaker who teaches creative writing. I shudder at the idea of taking a creative writing class. I shudder at the idea of an MFA program. I just feel like those are environments that demand … rules!!

A couple of months ago I participated in a book fair at a local book store. they had an author speak about her writing and publishing process. Throughout her presentation she kept on saying things with the lead in “okay, you have to do x.” I wanted to run up there and tell her to stop. To knock it off.

But maybe there is a point to some of this for some writers. Maybe a lot of writers. Maybe the “rules” need to be stated for some instead of being processed below the surface by others. Maybe there’s something to be said for providing the guidelines and structures for writers and not being so dismissive of the “rules” of writing.

I don’t know. I still think that a lot of what passes for the “rules” is nonsense, but if it helps some writers do their thing, I’ll let it go. Even if I occasionally ridicule those “rules” here and elsewhere.

I’m faced with a potential conundrum, one of my own making, and I’d be curious to know what the collective writer/reader wisdom around here might think.

A couple of years ago, I published a contemporary YA novel. It is a story that isn’t necessarily finished and I planned on writing another volume in the tale at some point. And maybe even a third. The story about these characters could go on for some time, if I wanted to let it.

But there are other stories and characters I want to spend my time with. There is, however, an open storyline from what I published a couple of years ago that I want to provide closure to. I’ve now started writing what comes next. Which leads to my question.

The published book consists of three parts that are each in the 25,000-30,000 word range. If I do what I am planning, I’ll be writing a fourth part of comparable length. (There is a slim chance that I’ll end up writing more as I get back into the story, but for sake of this question, assume that I’m just writing one more part equal in length to the first three parts.)

How do I go about publishing that? Do I tack it on to the end of the first book and publish the entire thing? (What does that mean for the people who have already purchased and read the first three parts? I’m assuming they won’t really want to pay for what is essentially 75% something they’ve already read before.) Do I publish the fourth part separately? (If I hit 30,000 words, it can be a stand alone ebook and a slim paperback. But then how do I market it to make clear that potential readers should buy the novel first.) Do I do both? Or maybe none of the above? Or … do I suck it up and write a full novel-length sequel to the thing?

I’m not the most organized person.

In the early years of my life as a writer, I was in a writing group. We would start each session with a short writing exercise. One such exercise went like this. Write for five minutes about a place. Then five minutes about a person in that place. And finally, five minutes about something that happens in that place.

I wrote about a church on a hill and an old priest who presided there. And finally, about a man who came to the church to find answers to his life’s struggles. When we read our efforts, others seemed to really like what I had done, and I did feel like I had caught something in those 15 minutes of writing.

I didn’t follow up on what I produced for a couple of years. Why? Because I lost it. At some point, I decided to return to that piece and carry it forward. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. I gave up.

Around six months later, I thought of it again and searched again. I couldn’t find it anywhere. At some point, I decided to try to recreate it, but what I produced lacked what I had captured in the earlier piece. I gave up again.

Around another six months later, I searched again and found it buried in a notebook. I then took that piece and wrote my second novel — what I think is my best work, but it was published for only a short period of time because it has some autobiographical details that caused too much hurt for others.

More recently, I was searching on my blog for something I wrote for Father’s Day a number of years ago. The search terms resulted in the first result being a story I wrote in response to a writing exercise on Toasted Cheese. The exercise was a more manageable version of NaNoWriMo. Instead of 50,000 words in a month, write 167 words a day for a 5,000 word short story.

I have absolutely no memory of the story I found. It’s not complete and now it’s been added to the ever-growing list of ideas, starts, and half-completed stories I hope to get to before my time on earth is done. Finding this story makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten about, either in notebooks or in the bowels of my blogs.

So … how do you maintain your story files? Like me, are they everywhere and anywhere? I have notebooks from the early days of my writing life, scraps of paper, folders and piles from those days. These days, everything I write ends up on the computer, on my laptop’s hard drive, an external drive, and more recently in the OneDrive Cloud. But there may be other things on my blogs that aren’t in any of those locations.

Or, have you managed to maintain some semblance of organization and know that all of your stops and starts are in one location and you remember everything you’ve written?

— Mark Paxson

Do you worry about whether your book has offensive content? I’m going to bring up a specific example, but I’m sure this could apply more broadly. (For instance, a friend from high school that I reconnected with a few years ago, read one of my stories and didn’t like it because of some foul language.)

No … my example today is the n word. Hopefully, I don’t need to spell it out for you because it truly is an offensive word and you should know what I’m referring to. A word I never want to say, but … I have written a couple of stories in which the characters have. Because it’s who they are. To me, the art of fiction, while fictional, also must reflect the reality of the human existence. Unfortunately, there remain among us many who are racists and who don’t hesitate to use that word, or other offensive words. So, a couple of my characters have, in ways that I think are appropriate to their character and are not egregious, used the n word.

In connection with a conversation I was having on Twitter about another topic, I asked whether me using the n word in my fiction made me a racist. The response I got was that the person I was talking to couldn’t answer that question since she is white. That I would have to ask that question of people who are more directly impacted by the word.

In response to that, I reached out to an African-American writer that I know and asked her the following:

Does the use of the n word in fiction bother you?  In any instance, or as long as it fits the character and the context is it okay?  Does it matter if the writer is white or African-American?  Or is this something that doesn’t matter to you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. While I believe that fiction is fiction, it also reflects reality. And humanity has a whole lot of ugliness. At the same time, I don’t want to be too offensive. 

Here is her response. And I’ve removed certain details to ensure that her identity is unknown. Other than that, I’ve left it unedited, complete with the n word fully visible and there.

Hey Mark, I think that we cannot hide from these words, nor pretend that these characters don’t use them. I do have a serious problem with excessive usage. But sometimes I’m in the middle and think that it’s time to move on, with violence on their rise and people who they have proven themselves to be. 

[Deleted] … for years I could not bring myself to go see “Showboat,” because of the opening song lyrics. “Niggers all work on the Mississippi, Niggers all work while the white man play.” I knew the story, but just couldn’t sit in the audience and listen to that word being used over and over. On the other hand, I also couldn’t handle the whole miscegenation part of the story.

“Showboat is one of the earliest musicals to focus on serious topics and occupies a very important place in the history of the musical.

Then, I pulled it together and went to see a production because I realized that it could be a teachable moment. A few years later, I’d heard that a production in the 60’s had changed the lyrics to, “colored folks work on the Mississippi…”Then several years later, “Negros all Work…  and eventually, to honor the multi ethnic cast, “We all work here on the Mississippi…” That also seems to be absolutely ridiculous, the content is extremely important.

A recent production decided to create a high level, professional recording that included a prestigious African American choir, singing the ensemble numbers. They refused to sing the original words. I get it, I don’t think that I could sing them either. I think a lot of that comes from an individual’s experience with that word. 

I have never been called that word to my face, though I do believe it would trigger me. But I know that my dad had to endure it countless times and he was always demeaned by its usage. It’s a complicated issue and I don’t think that I have a great solution. I might say something different tomorrow, especially if I think that the usage is gratuitous.

A funny solution that I once read in a short work of fiction told the story a group of homeboys who had a white boy who was a part of their crew. The hommies all called each other, “Nigger, but would not allow the white boy to join in, in what they called a term of familiarity and love.  The white guy could not figure out how to get them to let him use it, so he adopted the term, “my zigger,” which they were all very comfortable with, and I thought was a clever way to make a point. 

Once a friend asked me if she could call me “Nig.” I said no. She wouldn’t let it go. We are not friends today. Although there were several other issues.

Although not directly connected, I once received a call from a former clarinet teacher of mine. I had not spoken to this guy in over 20 years and he wanted to know if I thought OJ did it.

In short, I do believe that the intent and the context is so important.

I have a podcast that I started a year or two ago. I read one of my short stories, or an opening chapter, and throw it into the podcasting void for a handful of people to listen to. I haven’t done anything on it for months. There are a number of reasons for that. For instance, I stumble over words a couple of times in each episode and I haven’t learned how to edit those out. But one of the biggest reasons is that I want my next episode to be one of those stories in which the n word makes an appearance. I’m concerned about that, and it would require me to actually say the word out loud and put it out publicly, instead of writing it on the screen and quietly publishing the story amidst a collection of other stories.

I wonder what you think of this. It’s a cousin to the idea of trigger warnings, I believe. Are there offensive words you would consider forbidden in fiction that you either write or read? Or are you open to anything that is on the page? Should writers take into consideration whether the content of their stories will be offensive to some readers? Should readers be open-minded about these types of things?

I’ve decided at this point that I need to do this. I need to read the story and put it out on my podcast. Why? Because it’s real and I’d like it to generate a conversation about this stuff. I fundamentally believe that fiction must reflect human realities, including all of the ugliness.

— Mark Paxson

Over on my personal blog, I provided a broader recap of this than I will here. Two days ago, I participated for the first time in an art festival. I had booth that displayed, acrylic art, photography, and my books. I’m going to focus on the books here.

I had five books available for purchase. $10 for an autographed copy. Plenty of people glanced at them, or even picked up a book and read the blurb on the back. I also gave the thumbnail sketch of each book for people who lingered a little bit longer.

In the seven hours the festival ran, I sold about one book an hour. Or thereabouts. I haven’t looked at the actual numbers, but my memory suggests I sold six or seven books. If that was the only thing I was selling, it wouldn’t have been enough to pay the booth fee.

It wasn’t just me. The Elk Grove Writer’s Guild, of which I’m a member, had a booth also. They had different writers come in for two hour blocks to staff the booth and to sell their own books. The leader of the guild was there all day and had her books available. Towards the end of the day she told me she had sold only one book. I don’t know how the other writers did.

A booth next to me included a number of indie published childrens books. I don’t know exactly how many he sold, but I rarely saw anybody buying his books.

Maybe it’s because it was an arts festival, and not a book fair, that the books didn’t do very well. Or maybe it’s because people just don’t read as much as they used to. But after this experience, including the experience of other writers, I’m going to think twice about trying to sell books at an event like this.

— Mark Paxson

There are corners of the internet abuzz with news of artificial intelligence. The most well known variation is ChatGPT, which will answer just about any question you ask it, including asking it to write a paper or to write a story.

Yesterday, I asked it to write a piece of flash fiction about a unicorn eating a muffin. I then asked it to write a Stephen King style flash fiction about a unicorn eating pizza. Then, I clicked on the “regenerate response” button and it wrote a different version of same.

A few weeks ago, my first Chat GPT experiment asked it to write a paragraph in my style. Instead of writing a paragraph in my style, it wrote a paragraph describing what my style was.

There is apparently evidence that Chat GPT (or its cousins) are being used by students to write papers. A blogger I’ve followed for years and years has written about artificial intelligence (AI) and the benefits it can provide. One example he used was that it could help people write letters. I practically keeled over at this benefit because I still don’t get why things like this are so difficult. And what the world is coming to if people need AI to help them write a letter.

Then I was at a UPS Store yesterday and somebody didn’t quite know how stamps worked and the store employee and I bemoaned the fact that people don’t even know how to address an envelope or … write a letter … these days.

Back to my experiments and what I’ve heard from other people as well. What Chat GPT came up with was so incredibly generic. For instance, the paragraph about my writing style really didn’t say much of anything and I doubt that Chat GPT had any way of knowing what my style really was. It was just some buzz phrases that sounded good.

As for yesterday’s flash fiction experiments, the results were more or less the same. Very generic. Very generic. The piece about a unicorn eating a muffin read like a very simplistic fairy tale. The two versions of a Stephen King story about a unicorn eating pizza weren’t really very Stephen King like. Just a bit darker and ominous.

So … should we be worried? Some of the places where this is a topic of conversation suggest that creative types will no longer be needed. Somebody can just tell Chat GPT or its cousins to write a story and they can read that story any time they want. At some point teachers and professors will no longer be able to tell the difference between a student-written paper and an AI-generated paper.

That may come at some point, but I’m not worried about it happening anytime soon. And I may not worry about it ever really happening on a large scale. What I think AI will always miss is emotion and sarcasm and humor and loss. I may be wrong, but I just don’t see these things being able to generate some basic elements of humanity. Unless and until that happens, AI may be able to engage in some rudimentary communications and other things, but it won’t be able to replace human creativity.

Put another way … AI may be able to perform the basic math type skill of writing a letter or a snappy jingle, but I question whether it will ever be able to produce the calculus-level effort needed to write an authentic story of the human experience. One that leaves the reader feeling something.

Are you worried?

— Mark Paxson

I’ve written several times in recent months about my experimenting with “going wide” in my publishing efforts. For those not in the know, this is basically using publishing platforms that distribute your books widely, as opposed to publishing through Amazon’s KDP with its limitations and monopolistic tendencies.

What I believe are the biggest names in publishing wide are Draft2Digital and Smashwords. They are in the process of merging, but it appears that, while merged, they will keep separate features. Most notably, Smashwords has its own store for books published through its service. Draft2Digital does not. But D2D recently offered all of its authors the opportunity to be included in Smashwords’ store.

Another well-known wide publisher is IngramSpark — which is actually the granddaddy of them all. Some of the other publishers basically piggyback onto some of IngramSpark’s services. I did not go with IngramSpark because of customer service issues I had with them. Instead, I opted for D2D. There are some odd quirks about D2D, but I have found the process to publish both ebook and paperback on D2D to be easier than doing so through KDP.

As I’ve written before, I published a novella and short story collection via D2D. Those were published in August – October of last year. According to the stats on D2D, I’ve sold a combined 100 copies of those two books since then. While a lot of those sales are still through Amazon, there have been sales on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and a couple of other platforms.

I have no idea how things would have gone if I had limited these books to KDP’s options. Would the few sales I made through other retailers have been made up by pages read through Kindle Unlimited? Are there other ways that Amazon pushes books published through them that we writers don’t see? Ways that they don’t utilize for indie authors brave enough to buck their monopolistic tendencies? I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know though. I like the idea of having my books more widely available and also the idea of it being easier to put my books in local bookstores and libraries if I try to do that — something that is very difficult with the Amazon-only approach. Whether I make more sales this way or not may not be the most important factor.

As a result, I’m in the process of re-publishing my older books on D2D so that they can also be available more widely. I started with my first novel, am in the process of finalizing a short story collection that combines my first two short story collections, and will be wrapping it up with a novel I published in 2021.

Will any of this make a difference? Who knows. But I prefer this approach. So I’m sticking with it. Here’s one reason … Draft2Digital informs its readers of promotions the various retailers are running. You can apply, typically including only one book at time as long as it meets the promo’s requirements, and then … well, that’s the weakness. Some of the retailers don’t bother to let you know if your book is included in the promo and it’s also not entirely clear to me how these promos actually work. But … at least it’s something. Other than Kindle Unlimited, nothing Amazon has offered has done anything for sales for me.

If you have any questions about D2D or going wide, ask away in the comments. I also recommend a Facebook group called Wide for the Win filled with authors who have way more experience with this than I do.

Next up for me … uploading all of my books into Google Play and then trying a few Facebook ads.

— Mark Paxson

Stepping away from posts about writing and publishing and the like, I want to share a book I just finished.

Regular viewers of our video chats will know that several of us are big P.G. Wodehouse fans. That does not include me. Just as evidence of my lack of fandom, I originally typed P.D. and thought that was correct until I looked it up.

In our most recent video chat, which is still going through editing and should be posted soon, after more discussion about P.G. Wodehouse, I agreed that I would read one of his stories and asked for a recommendation. And that is how Right Ho, Jeeves appeared on my Kindle.

I finished the book a day or two ago and here’s what I think. First off, I appreciated that unlike may books written way back when, it was not dense. It was not filled with pages of unnecessary description. No, instead, there was a lot of dialogue and things happening. While the narrator, Bertram Wooster, occasionally wallowed in his head at times, it was not excessive. I actually found the story enjoyable and easy to read.

That said, and Berthold knows this about me, I simply don’t get comedy in stories. I rarely laugh while reading. Nary a chuckle rumbles from within while I’m reading something that is supposed to be funny. It was the same with Right Ho, Jeeves. I believe I slightly chuckled one time while reading it and I think that one incident related to something I interpreted as a comment on the art and challenge of writing, more than what was going on within the story.

Other than that, however, I read the thing with a straight face and … well, while I could see people being amused by the some of the shenanigans, even laughing at the events and dialogue and the names and all that, it just doesn’t work that way for me. So … I did not laugh. Instead of seeing humor in the story, I saw silliness. Which, I admit a lot of humor derives from silliness. I mean, one of my most favorite movies is The Holy Grail – a monument to silliness.

I guess I just don’t see silliness and feel it when I’m reading.

I asked the others during this last video chat if I was weird because of that. Fortunately, Richard came to my defense and acknowledged family members who have said the same thing.

What about you? Do you find humor in what you read? Whether the humor was intentional or not. And if not that, is there some other hole in your ability to appreciate what you read. Some other genre or trick of the trade that simply doesn’t work on you?

Before I forget, in case I don’t blog anything else in the next week or two, may you and yours have the most joyous of holiday seasons, regardless of how you choose to celebrate. And in 2023 … write on!