Here’s the concept, as started on Monday, September 27.
So, the word for the first day was … elimination.
Today’s word is … irrepairable (Or my preferred spelling, irreparable. And yes, bonus points will be awarded for using my spelling.)
Category Archives: Uncategorized
A Writing Exercise
— Mark Paxson
Beginning today, I’m going to post a word. Each day for the next week, I’ll post another word. These words are selected more or less randomly.
Your job is to begin a story with today’s word used somewhere in the first few hundred words. And then use the word I post each of the next six days in the same fashion as you continue your story. It’s totally up to you how many words you write each day. It’s totally up to you what genre. Everything is up to you, except for you to use each day’s word in the next chunk of the story.
One final note … use the word I identify or any form of it. Also, once this is done, please share your work. Either on your blog and provide us with the link, or email us at writinghelp2021@gmail.com, and we’ll post your story here.
So … today’s word is … elimination.
Pick a Genre. Any Genre.
— Mark Paxson
I spent a couple of days at Lake Tahoe this weekend. By myself. Which means I spent a lot of time in my head. On the drive home, I started thinking about our last video chat. At one point Lucinda Clarke commented during that chat that she had screwed up by writing in multiple genres. I responded that I had done the same thing.
A few days after that chat, I met a friend for luinch. I took him a copy of my latest book. Until this book, he hadn’t realized I wrote fiction. We had a lengthy discussion about books and writing. At one point, he asked me what genre I write in. There is no easy answer to that for me. My published works can be broken down this way:
Courtroom drama; young adult, coming of age; quirky, all dialogue oddball of a story; a novella that is the opposite of coming of age — a literary take on a life of loneliness and despair; and dozens of short stories that are all over the place.
My works in progress can be broken down this way:
Dystopian — I have three different WIPs that are variations on a dystopian future (one is a sexy space romp, one is a tale of a President who declares martial law and rules for years afterwards, destroying the country, and the third is something I actually can only dream about — a story told in reverse like the movie Memento). Then there are … a baseball novel; a collection of short stories that interconnet to produce a larger story (actually, I think I have two of these on the drawing board); And a few other things I’ve forgotten at the moment.
Genre? I don’t need no stinking genre!
But what I thought about this morning on the drive home was that maybe Lucinda was right. Maybe it’s a mistake to write stories that are all over the place. I got to thinking about people who might read my latest novel (the YA tale) who then would look at my other books, maybe even buy one, and then be disappointed that nothing else I’ve published is YA.
To some extent, I can’t help myself. This is just who I am. As I’ve said during our video chats, part of writing for me is exploring new ways to tell stories and new stories to tell. I simply don’t think I could have stuck with courtroom dramas for every story I wrote. It would be too stifling for me to stick with one genre — even if that novel was my most successful.
If I’m going to create, I want to keep creating. Which means, to me, spreading out into different genres, different voices, different stories. I guess what fascinates me the most about the art of writing is the ability to tell a story that people want to read. It’s not about the genre. It’s about an idea that comes to me and if it interests me, I’m going to pursue it, and see if I can write a story that is compelling enough and good enough that it gets readers’ attention.
But the question for this post is … in search of a reading audience, does that hurt me? As Lucinda suggested during the chat, does switching genres hamper a writer’s ability to attract and grow a consistent and loyal audience.
I think about when I first started blogging and there were all sorts of experts who counseled that a blog should be on a specific topic. Find a niche — whether it be cooking or traveling or writing or politics — and stick to it. That was the best way to grow an audience for a blog. Well, readers of my blog know that I did not follow that advice. Like my stories, my blog is all over the place. It represents everything in the world that fascinates me — music, politics, current events, cooking, gardening, exercise, writing, and whatever moves me on a day that I decide to write a blog post.
Maybe it’s time to write the next chapter of that courtroom drama. š Maybe not. Because here’s the thing. After I finished that novel, I thought of two more books I could write about the main character, because that’s what mattered the most about that story. Not that it was a courtroom drama. No. What mattered was the characters and I had two ideas for more misadventures that would befall good ol’ Jack McGee. But even Jack couldn’t keep me interested and I ditched those two ideas and moved on to other stories, newer characters. (I’m struggling with the same dynamic with my most recent novel.)
So … let me ask again. Writers and readers out there … should a writer stick with a particular genre or two? Or should a writer write whatever the hell he or she wants and take a chance with each new product? What do you do? Stick with one genre? Go all over the place? What’s your motivation — because at the end of the day, that’s the ultimate reason for what each of us do.
A Chat With Lucinda E. Clarke
In our latest video chat, Lucinda E. Clarke joins the group to talk about her writing, her thoughts on indie publishing, and marketing.
Social Media. Do We Really Need It?
— Mark Paxson
When I started writing and then thinking about submitting short stories and eventually publishing my work, a common refrain was “You gotta have a blog. You gotta be on Twitter.” There was this emphasis on having a social media presence. After years of curating a social media presence, I’m not sure all of those experts are right. But then, maybe it’s just me.
A writing acquaintance had a contract with a small publishing house for his first two books. He writes cozy mysteries. A genre I had never heard of until I started reading his. After those two books, the publisher refused to consider anymore because he didn’t have much of a presence on social media. Sure, he had a blog, but he didn’t blog much. He was also on Facebook, but wasn’t super active. As far as I know, he never got on Twitter.
It’s a shame that his future efforts were rejected, not because of the quality of his writing or whether his books could sell, but because of his relative invisibility on social media. It’s another instance of traditional publishing going by something other than the quality of the story to make decisions.
What I’ve come to realize is that, except in incredibly rare circumstances, being on social media does not produce huge sales. To be honest, I’m not even sure what those rare circumstances are. I don’t know anybody who claims their social media presence has produced a lot of sales.
Earlier I said, maybe it’s my own fault. My social media presence is all over the place. I talk politics on my blog and on Twitter. A lot. I post pictures of food and beers and my trips out into the world. I blog about family life. Work life. I share all sorts of things on my social media outlets. It’s not just about writing.
And what I don’t do is constantly hawk my books on my blog, on Facebook, on Instagram, or on Twitter. When I publish a book, I’ll send a few tweets out, announce it on my different blogs, try to push it on my friends via Facebook. Then, every once in awhile when a good review gets posted, I’ll quote from it and remind people that I still have books out there in the world for them to consider.
A lot of writers I follow, particularly on Twitter, tweet and retweet blurbs about their books on a regular basis. Weekly and, in some cases, every single day. When I look at their sales on Amazon, it doesn’t look like they’re doing much better than me. So …
Here’s what I think I’ve figured out. On the one hand, my blogging and tweeting has produced some sales. Those sales, however, come mostly from people who, although we’ve never met, I’ve developed a connection with via social media. Bloggers I follow and who follow me where we have regular “conversations” via our blogs. Or the same on Twitter. There are a lot of great people I’ve “met” through social media and many of them have become regular readers of my books. As have I of theirs.
My reading audience basically consists of about 100 people. Friends and family, and those social media acquaintances with whom I’ve formed a bond. Beyond that, I don’t see anything I do on social media having any noticeable impact on my book sales.
With my latest novel, I ran an Amazon ad for a week. It produced no sales. I also tried one of those services that promises to tweet your book to their tens of thousands of followers and to feature your book in an email to even more of their followers. It produced no sales. (With both of those efforts, the price for my book for Kindle was $4.99. I wonder what would happen if it was .99 or free.)
On some level, I get it. I’ve never bought a book via an Amazon ad. Nor have I ever bought a book from one of those email/Twitter services. To be honest, I don’t even crack open their emails anymore. Why? Because the vast majority of books they feature are in genres I simply don’t read — like romance.
If I’m unwilling to buy a book via any of those avenues, why would I expect other readers to buy my book that way? Well, because it worked once. With my very first novel. EReaderNewsToday did wonders for sales and downloads for One Night in Bridgeport. Since then, however, nothing has worked. Nothing. Except for developing relationships with others. That, however, is a slow way to build a reading audience.
So, writers and readers out there … what about you? Does being active on social media produce results for your books? If you’re a reader, do you buy books via any of these social media outlets? And, if social media doesn’t work, what’s a better way to do this?
Amateur Writing
No, not that kind. Youāre thinking of the second meaning of the word āamateur,ā which is a person who is incompetent or inept at a particular activity. Iām referring to the first meaning of amateur; a person who engages in a pursuit for pleasure rather than for financial benefit. I want to discuss writing for the love of writing rather than for the love of money.
Charles Chu wrote a fine article in the defense of amateurs that you can read here: https://qz.com/990130/in-defense-of-amateurs/ It is well worth reading. Iāve cribbed some quotes from his article.
The first point he makes is that the word amateur comes from the Latin āamareā to love, and āamatorā lover. It evolved in Italian to amatore and in the 18th century it became amateur. Its original meaning was to love something. A good thing, I think.
The writer and novelist, K G Chesterton was famous for his defense of the amateur. He wrote this in his biography of Robert Browning:
āThe word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.ā
Or, as he put it more succinctly; āIf a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.ā
However, you donāt have to do it badly to do it as an amateur. You just donāt let the fear of doing it badly prevent you from doing it.
Still, it is undeniable that these days the term amateur usually refers to a person who is less than adept or an object that is crudely made. The fact that it doesnāt have to mean that is neither here nor there. If you are going to practice the art of writing as an amateur you may well have to endure being looked down on by self-defined āprofessional writersā as a āhobbyist.ā But amateur or professional is mostly a mindset in self-publishing. The amateur mindset liberates your creative potential by taking the often inhibiting question of āBut will it sell?ā off the table. As an amateur youāre not writing to sell. You are writing to write.
As an amateur you need not be concerned with creating a product. You need not even be concerned with an external audience. You can craft a story to your heartās desire without making concessions to what experts say, or readers expect. You can make it as conventional or as unconventional as you wish. The choice is entirely yours. If your stories are worth writing, they are worth being written without compromises. Every story will find readers.
Another advantage of writing as an amateur is that you are free to do it as a pastime. You donāt need to feel like you must hammer out 5,000 words a day to be productive. You can write at your own pace. You donāt need to meet deadlines. If it is a passion, you will find the time. And even if it takes a little self-discipline to get started, once you start writing, your passion will carry you along. And if that passion fades, you need not turn it into a dreary job. You find a new passion.
As an amateur you donāt have to conform to all the expensive requirements that professional writers are expected to spend their money on these days. You can pick and choose what, if anything, you care to spend money on. Editors? Proofreaders? Covers? Formatters? Advertising? Your choice ā some, none, or all. If you are planning to share rather than sell your book, you can sleep well at night knowing that even though there may be people who look gift horses in the mouth, youāre not obliged to please them.
As a pure amateur, the joy of creating a story is its own reward. Entertaining readers is a bonus. As an amateur you donāt write it for money, so sharing your work for free is the natural end of the process ā if you even want to share your story.
Now up to this last point that I realize that many authors would say that what Iāve been describing is pretty much what they do already. However, giving away all your work for free seems a bridge too far for many. There are no doubt good reasons for this attitude. For example, āMy sales are doing quite well, thank you.ā And I am certain that there are others as well. Please share your reasons in the comments below, or submit an essay on the subject. In the meanwhile, Iāll just explain why I choose to share rather than try to sell my books.
I enjoy writing. No one has to pay me to do it. On the other hand, you couldnāt pay me enough to do all the self-promoting that selling books requires. Selling my books for free does that work for me.
I donāt have to play the game. I donāt have to do all the things weāre told to do, things like hire editors, cover artists, designers, and advertisers. As a result, publishing my books has been both inexpensive and stress free. Oh, Iāve had to learn how to do a lot of things ā sometimes the hard way ā but the whole experience of self-publishing has been very rewarding.
Iāve used the tagline, āNo good deed goes unpunishedā in my books. But sometimes they are rewarded. Over the years some of my readers have very kindly volunteered to help me make my books significantly better by beta and proofreading them before I publish them. Sharing invites sharing.
And finally, it works, at least for me, for my goals. In the past six and a half years Iāve given away more than 44,000 copies of my books by doing little more than writing them. Judging from my odd Amazon sales and foreign sales even at $.99, I might have sold several hundred copies, at most, in the same period. I want to be read and remembered. Being an amateur author who shares rather than sells his books, has allowed me to make a far greater mark on the world, however insignificant it is, than selling them ever will.
I canāt guarantee that adopting the mindset of an amateur author will work for you as it has for me. Every author has different books, different readers, different sales goals and different dynamics. Indeed, even after 6 plus years of giving away my books and creating a modest readership, I have found it harder to reach readers by giving away books these days. The market has matured in the last six years. These days, if youāre writing out of the mainstreams, youāre all but invisible. So maybe giving away books these days will not broaden your readership. Still, you might want to ask yourself āWhat do I have to lose by becoming an amateur?ā Or better yet, āWhat do I have to gain by becoming an amateur?ā
What do you think? What are your goals in writing? What are your yardsticks of success? Letās talk.
Writers’ Fears and Dreams
In our latest video, we discuss the biggest fears and dreams we have as writers.
As always, if you’re interested in joining our group, please feel free to leave us a comment or email at writinghelp2021@gmail.com.
We Want You!!!
— Mark Paxson
We started this blog around nine or ten months ago with an idea. We wanted to develop an on-line community of writers who would share their lessons and wisdom and support each other in the pursuit of creative magic.
Berthold and I started, Audrey joined us shortly thereafter. Then Richard jumped feet first into our video chats. Chuck Litka offered an occasional guest post and now is a full member of the blog able to post at will.
Yesterday, we recorded another video chat that will be posted soon. The topic: our greatest fears and grandest dreams as writers. What I found fascinating about the discussion was how much we each wanted to be part of a writing community. That idea played a part in our dreams.
It’s why we started this blog. And I’ll admit that I haven’t done as much with this blog as I would have liked. I wanted to put forward writing exercises to motivate people to participate. I have yet to do that. I started a Resources page, but haven’t touched it in months. I wanted to blog much more regularly here than I have.
Life gets in the way, you know.
We’re still here and enjoying our conversations and the opportunity to discuss this thing we all like to do.
But … it’s not a community without you. If you’re a writer and are interested in contributing posts or participating in our video chats, let us know. We really want to talk with other writers about their work, their process, their views on the creative life.
We want you. If you’re interested drop us a comment or shoot us an email at writinghelp2021@gmail.com.
A Month in Vella
Since I didnāt want to miss Amazonās Vella bus, I dusted off a 40 year old SF novella (my first), to use as a setting, and adopted the new plot from the comic book version of that story that I had penciled a decade later. Out of those sources I produce a 26,000 word SF novella in 20 episodes for the new serial story platform. Vella and my story have been live for a month. What sort of business has resulted?
In one month, my story has one thumbs-up āfave,ā with a grand total of 13 episodes read, including 8 of the locked episodes. Iāve not made a cent so far. Presumably the 8 paid episodes were paid with free promotional tokens.
So how does my offering compare to other stories? Well, the top faved story, āWolf,ā is a paranormal, “wolf shifter” romance. It has over 9,000 faves and 44 star reviews. The next most popular is āThe Marriage Auction,ā a steamy, arranged marriage romance adventure, with almost 2,700 faves and 14 stared reviews. A close third is a witches, werewolves, & vampire fantasy SF story, āDemon Accords Beginnings,ā also having nearly 2,700 faves and 15 starred reviews. The authors are not unknown authors. They brought their fans with them to Vella.
Closer to home, my story, as a space opera, is one of 125 stories in that category. As an adventure story, itās one of 900 stories. The highest faved story in space opera, āForgotten Planets,ā is a sexy enemies to lovers space fleet story with just under 500 faves, and no star rating. The highest faved adventure stories ranged from 2,600 to 1,300. The one with the most star reviews, had 21. In both categories, once you start scrolling down the list, you quickly reach stories with double to single digit faves, and many with none at all. The vast majority have no reviews.
I have found a recent thread on K-Boards where Vella authors recounted their experiences on the platform. All of them tell similar stories. Little engagement, no money, and, so far, a waste of time and effort. It seems that unless you brought your readers over to Vella, youāre not likely to find many readers. In part this is due to Amazon. As far as I know they have not widely promoted the service. Vella is almost impossible to find on the Amazon homepage on the web, and I gather it’s just about as hard to find on the Kindle app in iOS. Apparently they are launching the service very tentatively ā basically a beta version, likely to work out the bugs before going big.
Of course it is too simple just to blame Amazon. Clearly I hadnāt written a story for the type of readers Vella has attracted to date. If I had to take a guess Iād say that most likely the readership skews towards young, predominantly female romance and paranormal readers. Not my readers.
So how have I responded?
First, Iāve not abandoned hope. It is still early in the game. I did change the name of my story and rework the blurb to be a little less, shall we say, staid. Second, Iāve taken the option to publish a completed Vella story as a book on Amazon after 30 days. I slightly revised, reformatted, created a cover, and published the novella in the KDP program. Though I have released all my books wide, going all in on Amazon has been an idea Iāve toyed with off and on for some time. Now, since this story is already tied in with Amazon, it was the perfect vehicle to experiment with that option. In its first four days Iāve sold two copies at $.99 (half of the price a reader would pay on Vella), but have no page reads yet. Iām not holding my breath.
Am I disappointed? Not really. I had no great expectations. I just didnāt want to end up kicking myself for passing up the chance to be on the ground floor of a big new thing. My primary goal was, and still is, to use the Vella story as free advertising for my other novels. Plus, I got a novella written out of the project, so all in all, I think that Iām on the positive side of the ledger. Just.
To sum it all up, I have to say that if you donāt have a story on Vella, you havenāt missed anything. And I would be in no hurry to get one in. Maybe once it gets on its feet. If it does. And if you write the right type of story.
Iām not sure how much of my Vella experience, or Markās recent one with self-publishing his literary fiction novel The Dime are working to support writers, which is the title of this blog. I canāt say that weāve offered very many hot tips to success. What we are doing is showing things weāve tried. Things which you might consider either trying, or avoiding, in your own publishing endeavors, while keeping the bar of success pretty darn low. Which I hope is some comfort to all.
An Update 16 August 2021
Amazon posted some information about the Vella program that may change the calculations a bit. First they said that there are over 9,000 stories on Vella. That’s a lot, and not a lot, depending on where your story falls. It certainly gives creators a lot more room than publishing a story on KDP.
Secondly they said that they will pay creators royalties on all paid episodes, even if those episodes are paid with free promotional tokens, at least through the end of the year.
Thirdly, they announced the creation of a $200,000 bonus pool for the month of July to be paid out to creators based on episodes read, number of followers, and faves. Apparently this will be a monthly feature, much like what they pay out in the Kindle Unlimited Program. I was paid $12.82 out of this fund for July based on my rather modest performance. This all but guarantees that I will be able to order out a pizza with my 2021 Amazon royalties.
The most significant takeaway, I think, is that it does indicate that Amazon is serious about Vella, willing to make changes to make it work better, and that they are in it for a long haul. The payment of bonuses will no doubt motivate creators to do what they can to get their readers engaged in the program and grow the platform. Perhaps this is enough to make Vella an option for you, especially if you think you could create content that might appeal to its potential readership.
It seems that I’m now on the bus. We’ll have to see where it goes.
A Publishing Update
— Mark Paxson
Months ago, I posted that I was going to try the traditional publishing route with my latest novel. That effort didn’t last very long. Queries sent, queries rejected. Or just not responded to at all.
So, I decided to go the indie publishing route again. Only, I was going to put a little money into the effort for the first time, beyond some editing costs. I paid for a Kirkus Review of my novel.
The Kirkus reviewer provided a decent review, with some quotes that could be used for marketing purposes, but … the reviewer referred to the novel as a novella and the summary of the story line only included content from the first third of the novel. Which makes me wonder if the reviewer bothered to read the whole thing.
I asked them to fix the reference to it being a novella. It took more than a week to get that done. As the review was finalized, I pushed publish on the e-book version of the novel, while I finished up the formatting for the paperbook.
Let’s just say that the formatting experience became a gift from hell. Or something like that. There are certain things about Word that simply are not intuitive and never will be. Every time I work on formatting something for publication, I have to learn it all over again. It took me days and days and days to get it done.
One of the things I did with this book was to pay for a professional cover. It looks incredible and I never want to DIY on covers again. But that was another $300 down the drain.
Once I pushed publish on the paperback, I ordered author copies from Amazon. Twenty copies to hand out to people as I wish. Unlike when you buy a book from Amazon and it takes two days, sometimes a few more, for delivery, author copies take about two weeks. And for some reason, Amazon split my order of twenty copies into two separate orders. One order was … nineteen books, while the other was for one book. That one book showed up about a week later, and I waited and waited for the other nineteen books. They never showed up. Yesterday, I ordered twenty copies again. Let’s see what happens.
Meanwhile, I’ve entered the book in a couple of book contests, primarily ones focused on independently published books. I await the results. That was another couple hundred bucks invested.
And I’ve tried some promotional websites. EReaderNewsToday, which was so good for me with my first novel eight years ago, has been a difficult nut to crack this time. I submitted the book for their consideration a few weeks ago. Their website said that they were pretty booked and to make sure to submit for a date more than 30 days out. But the submission form required a date within 30 days. So, I requested a date within 30 days, and the book was rejected because they didn’t have enough room.
I re-submitted the book to EReaderNewsToday with a proposed date that was more than 30 days out. They rejected the book because they didn’t have room. Sheesh. Before I started writing this post, I tried for a third time — which is always the charm, right?
I also tried another promo site — GoodKindles. For the small fee of $45, they featured my book. Which means it was the lead book of the day in their emails and tweets to their subscriber list. My book ran on August 2 on their site and in their subscription communications. It produced a grand total of … zero sales.
A couple of days ago, I set up an Amazon ad campaign. I committed $150 to the campaign, which only costs me something if somebody clicks on the ad. What I set up was a campaign for Kindle screens. When you turn on you Kindle or it goes to the lock screen, ads show up, typically for books, but occasionally for other things. The campaign started today. As I write this post, 48 people have seen it, one of them has clicked on it, and none of them have bought the book. But at the moment, I’m only out .32 for that one click!!
This is all a long way of saying that nothing is working and I’m close to being at a complete loss for what to do next. I try to remember Berthold’s words on this topic in previous exchanges. To write for the pleasure of it and for the interaction with whatever readers I have. Between the Kirkus Review, the cover, and the promo efforts I’ve tried, I’m in for more than $1,000 now on this book and it’s actually sold worse than my last book. Even though I think it has more popular appeal that that last book.
What do you do when you get frustrated with results like this? Or do you not get frustrated? This goes back to a concept we’ve discussed frequently around here. It comes down to objective. While I don’t expect to ever write and sell a bestseller, I’d at least like to write books that reach an audience beyond my family, friends, and social media buddies. I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. I’d like to at least make some money at this and not just break even, or in this case, lose money.
It’s a mystery. How to do this in the indie publishing world is becoming almost as opaque as the traditional publishing world. Part of the problem is that there are so many of us. Literally, everybody is publishing a book now. Okay, not literally — almost everybody. It’s hard to find a spot in a limited world when it appears that there is an unlimited number of books out there competing for that spot.
I’m frustrated at the moment, but I’m also oddly motivated. I want to get to my next half completed novel and push it out there and see if that’s the one that can be a breakthrough. And, if not that one, the next one. I haven’t given up. Yet.
Writers Supporting Writers 