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A Video Chat — Some of Our Favorites

In which Berthold, Audrey and Mark talk about some of their favorite indie authors. We will likely doing another chat on this subject at some point in the future as we just began to scratch the surface. If you click on the youtube link and go to the youtube page for the video, you’ll see a list of the authors and their blogs/websites, or check out their author pages on Amazon.

The first entries into our Indie Hall of Fame: Lorinda Taylor, Tammy Robinson, Noah Goats, AC Flory, Vince Dickinson, Lindy Moone, Bill Fitts, Fallacious Rose (Now publishing under F.L. Rose, with a new book coming out soon.), Phillip McCollum, D. Wallace Peach, Kevin Brennan, Jeremy L. Jones, Chuck Litka, Michael Graeme, and Carrie Rubin (traditionally published with a recent indie book or two to her credit)

A Response to Chuck

— Mark Paxson

Yesterday, I posted this guest post from Chuck Litka. Chuck speculates as to whether indie publishing is, or has become, the new version of vanity publishing.

This is a thought I’ve had over the years as I’ve written and published the indie way. Are we all just a bunch of vain people who need to feed our ego by putting our books out there, regardless of what agents and traditional publishers might think?

To be honest, I think there might be a kernel of truth to that notion. But … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. We create and wanting the world to see our creation is a part of the process for many of us.

Yes, there are those who create only for themselves. They journal and never share it. They paint and cover their walls with their artwork. Musicians who play at home, never sharing the beauty of their music with the outside world.

And then there are those who want more than that. Who want to share their art with a larger group. Maybe just their friends and family. Maybe their community. Or maybe, they want to see just how far they can reach, how many they can touch with a piece they have created and that has meaning to them.

When it comes to writing, for decades (centuries?) there were only two options. Traditional publishing and vanity publishing. Vanity publishing typically involved paying thousands of dollars for somebody to “publish” your book, which really meant printing it and then sending you the boxes of books. It was entirely up to you to figure out how to sell those books.

Traditional publishing had its limits as well. You had to get past the gatekeepers to get in the game with the traditional approach. Good luck with that. And unfortunately, as the years go by and publishers have to prove themselves on the bottom line, they are less and less willing to take chances, to publish things that are outside of the norm.

One of the wonders of the technological revolution of the last few decades is that it has opened all sorts of new avenues for creative people to reach an audience. Whether it is blogging or other types of websites where we can show our words and our art, or places like Patreon where we can seek patrons to support our efforts, or, well sometimes it seems the possibilities are endless these days.

But there are problems with this strange new world too. Far too many people expect whatever they get on the internet to be free. Actually paying for content on the internet is, apparently, a huge no-no. I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the Bible as a venal sin. As a result, the idea of actually making money off of our art in this world where the venues seem endless … pfffftttt.

Another problem is saturation of the market place. When everybody can publish a book with the push of a button, guess what? Everybody is publishing a book. And those of us who do it the indie way have to constantly battle the backlash of readers who claim that indie published books are crap and not worth their time or their pennies.

The end result is that indie authors are faced with a world that is much like the world of vanity publishing. Sure, we can do it for much less money than the vanity publishers charged. But there’s no guarantee that we will ever actually find an audience beyond friends and family. And in some instances, maybe not even friends and family will care. So … like the writers of old who used the vanity presses, we use technology to throw our art out there and for far too many of us nobody reads it.

Meanwhile, in place of the vanity publishers of old, whole new industries are cropping up. Editors and cover artists and proofreaders and companies that will do everything for you — edit, cover art, stroke your ego, and put the books out there on the various retail platforms. For a small fee, of course. While never actually doing the hard work of marketing your book. No, that remains entirely up to the author, just like with the old-style vanity publishing.

I’ve had several co-workers who have paid several thousand dollars to these companies that are nothing better than vanity publishers for the digital age. They do virtually nothing to edit the book, nothing to market it. It’s a complete scam, but … here’s the other thing about all of this.

It’s about what each of us as writers want to do. What we want our experience to be. What we can afford. What is our objective. Those co-workers who I warned off the “publishers” they had found who were so eager to publish their books for that fee, went with them anyway. Which is fine. That fit what they were looking for and they were willing to shell out the money to make it happen.

Meanwhile, for the first nine years of my publishing journey, I didn’t have the financial resources to even think about something like that. I am one of those indie authors who has done the thing at the most minimal cost possible. Now, though, with my next book about to be published next month, I’ve cracked open the vault. I’ve paid for cover art and a Kirkus Review and I’m going to pay for some of the book marketing sites. All to see what happens. I want a bigger audience than I’ve been getting and the only way to do that is to pay for it. And hope.

Here on this blog, we’ve talked about a lot of things. Various rules of writing and suggestions for how to do things, or not to do things. Each time, I try to make sure to mention that this is not a one size fits all kind of industry.

Each writer has to decide what their objective is. Write for the fun of it. Write and publish and hope for a few readers and a review here or there. Write and publish and grow an audience. Write a bestseller and option the movie rights. Write and do what you want with the result. Each of these options has multiple paths forward and there is no right answer. Nor is there any sense in applying any negativity to the path a writer chooses.

Sure, we can call indie publishing the new vanity publishing, but so what. What’s your goal — pursue it. Pursue your art and make your dreams come true, whatever they are, whatever others may say about it, and whatever the labels may be.

Write. Create. Be you.

And buy my book!!

I’m kidding. No, not really.

Vanity Publishing 2.0?

— Guest Post by Chuck Litka

(Mark here — Chuck just sent this to me and I think it’s a really good topic to discuss. I’m going to post it now and then come back with a response in my own post in a couple of days. Hopefully.)

They changed their name. They didn’t want to be associated with all those schmucks who believed in their stories enough to pay someone to print them – when no real publisher would. This new breed of authors were an entirely different breed than the old vanity press authors. They called themselves “indie publishers” because ebook self-publishing was different.

And maybe it was. You didn’t have to pay anyone to publish your ebook. You didn’t end up with a thousand copies of it in your garage. And your book was for sale world wide, all without spending a dime. At least you could, a decade ago.

But the times have changed. Fast forward to 2021, and indie publishing – especially if you’ve only gotten into indie publishing in the last couple of years – has become a slightly improved version of vanity publishing. Call it vanity publishing 2.0.

Oh, it’s still possible to publish your book without spending a dime. But it’s not considered “best practice” these days. The experts will tell you that a self-publishing author needs to hire a professional proofreader, and cover artist. They may also suggest that you consider hiring an editor, in addition to the proofreader. And maybe someone to format your ebook, and design the paperback edition as well. Oh, and we can’t forget audio books. You need someone to do that too. You have more choices these days, but indie publishing – the right way – isn’t much cheaper than in the old days of vanity publishing. You need to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to self-publish your book, the “right” way.

In the old days, you’d end up with boxes of books that you were expected to sell yourself. Today you have Amazon, et al, to sell your book. Except that they won’t. Oh, they’ll put your book in their online store – along with 10 million other books. But adding your book to their virtual shelves is about all they’ll do. It’s unlikely that anyone will ever find your book. Not unless you get out and sell it yourself. Just like in the old days.

They say that you have to “pay to play” in indie publishing these days. You need to spend money to make your book visible to readers. You need to advertise – on Amazon, Facebook, Bookbub, or whatever. The most popular indie publishers are spending thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars every month to keep their books in front of readers. You’ll need to compete with them. Somehow.

And you’ll need a platform. Certainly a website or blog, plus a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and maybe Youtube. And pay for an email service to handle your mailing list as well.

Confused, overwhelmed, lost? Don’t despair. There are classes and seminars on every aspect of indie publishing, taught by successful indie publishers. Most cost hundreds of dollars. Or you could simply turn to the vanity press – they’re still around – who will take all the hassle out of self-publishing, in excange for thousands of your dollars. But if you want to be successful…You know what they say; pay to play.

Most of all, you need luck. Lots of luck. Luckily, luck’s free.

So, yes, indie publishing today is different from the old days of the vanity press in many ways. But the fundamentals of self-publishing haven’t changed. If you can’t sell your book to a traditional publisher, you’ll need to spend your money to publish it. And the chances of making any real money, or reaching a wide audience, are little better than in the old vanity press days. And, truth be told, the name change fooled no one. Indie publishers are still considered publishers of the last resort – even if they’re raking in a million dollars a year doing it.

It’s never been easy to make money writing. Writing has always been about chasing a dream. A dream that, even if caught, would all too often, end up in a desk drawer. Computers, ebooks, and indie publishing promised not only to make catching that dream easier, but making money in doing so easier as well. They got it half right. It’s far easier to catch that dream and write a book these days. But, if it was ever actually easier to make money in doing so, that time has faded away.

So what? Creative writing is an art. Art doesn’t need to make money to be valued. Books need to be published to be a book And if an author believes in their book enough to open their wallet and publish it themselves, I think that’s money spent in a noble cause. Heck, a lot of people spend money on their passions and hobbies. A lot of people spend a lot of money. Viewed in that light, spending money printing your book is quite normal. So snobbishly dismissing this faith as mere vanity is missing the point. Self publishing today may be vanity press 2.0, but, if you believe in your dream, there’s no vanity in spending your money to bring it to life.


A Video Chat — Story Structure, Themes and a Few Other Things

Our latest video chat, in which Mark almost disappears from the screen at times, and we talk about story structure, themes, titles, and a few other random things.

(Mark here — a little behind the scenes look at what we do — We generally come up with a topic for discussion and then just wing it. This conversation went down several paths as we went along. Hope you enjoy it. I was planning on writing a post to accompany this chat, but didn’t get to it yet. That will be coming separately at some point in the future.)

The Journey Continues

— Mark Paxson

When we first started this blog, I published a couple of posts about my renewed effort to pursue a traditional publishing route for my new novel. I hoped that I would be able to use my experiences on this new path to help inform other writers.

The novel is a literary young adult piece. There are no vampires or werewoles, no dystopian future, and no football player-cheerleader-nerd love triangle. But because it’s YA, I thought I might have a shot at an agent. After sending some queries out and only hearing back from 1/3 of those I queried, I’ve given up.

I get it. Agents get a lot of submissions and they have a difficult job. They, like publishers, only get paid if a book sells. As a result, they are focused on finding books they believe they can sell. What’s frustrating though is the silence that comes from most queried agents, and the complete lack of any clue from those who do respond.

Admittedly, I ended up sending out fewer queries than I originally planned on doing, but at this point, I have no idea why the idea behind this story isn’t one that could sell.

I’ve given up on the traditional route. Again. I am now pursuing my own path for this book. For the first time since I started self-publishing, I’m putting money into it to see if that changes. I’ve hired somebody to design a cover. I’ve just joined the Independent Book Publisher’s Association, which offers members all sorts of discounts on various review, PR, marketing, and other sites. I also just paid for a review from Kirkus.

I believe in this story and want to see if I can make a splash with it. Hopefully, in the months ahead, I can share some successful lessons learned with you.

Does Fiction Need To Make A Point?

— Mark Paxson

One of my proudest achievements was doing so well on the college English placement test that I got to bypass English in college. Yes, my last English class was in 12th grade. I never took a class in the English Department in college. And I have a brother and father who both majored in English.

Why was I so thrilled about this? Because I hated English classes. The writing part was bad enough — I thought I was a horrible writer and hated it back then. But what was even worse was the need to analyze poems and short stories and try to identify the author’s point. Why did they write the story or poem? What did they mean when they used this phrase? Why do you think they picked the color red for the door? Blah, blah, blah. All I know is that whenever a teacher would ask that question, I wanted to stand up and scream, “Why? Because they just wanted to write a story!!! Why isn’t the answer that they just wanted to write a story?!?”

I’ve never really understand the need to identify the “why” of fiction. I read for enjoyment, entertainment, and escape. I don’t read fiction for any deep understanding of the writer’s objectives or of the human condition. I just want a story that pulls me along and keeps me turning the page.

I just finished a book. It’s a thriller. I completed it because I wanted to see how catastrophe would be averted, but it was a struggle. Why? Because the author clearly uses his fiction to spread his view that Jesus Christ is his savior and that Christianity is the light and the way of the world. There were points in the story where the need to proselytize came up in ways that were just completely ridiculous. Like when the CIA agent was racing to prevent the imminent launch of a nuclear weapon that would have killed millions, but he had to stop and spread the word to a colleague who had been injured. I seriously don’t need that when I’m reading fiction.

When I started writing, I remember having a brief conversation with another writer. She insisted that every story has a point. I’ve heard this from others as well, and I just don’t get it. 99% of the stories I’ve written have been about me coming up with an idea for a story and seeing if I could get it done. That’s the only point to my fiction.

There is one exception to this. My second novel had a point, but it proved to hit a little too close to home and I de-published the novel. Other than that, I just want to see if I can write a story. Each and every time I begin a piece, that’s my only objective. That’s the only point. There are no messages, hidden or apparent.

This is not meant to be a criticism of those who seek to use fictioni to make a point, to serve a purpose. Fiction certainly can be a wonderful way to deliver a message to the reading audience. But … does it need to? Does there need to be an inner meaning in everything we write?

Do you have objectives when you write? Are there messages you want to deliver with your fiction or poetry? Do you look for things like that in fiction you read? Fic

Reviewing (And Being Reviewed By) Other Authors

–Berthold Gambrel

In our latest chat, we discuss authors reviewing other authors, etiquette for rating books, whether writing is like baking, and more.

One thing I didn’t get a chance to say during the chat was that I always appreciate reviews from other authors, because they know what’s involved with writing and publishing a book, and are in a position to give more meaningful feedback. I know this because of how much better of a reviewer I became after I had gone through the process of writing a few books myself.

Also, there are good negative reviews and bad negative reviews. A thoughtful, constructive, well-written negative review can really help an author improve. (A bad negative review is one that criticizes the author rather than the book, complains about the physical condition of the book, the delivery time, etc.  🙂 )

Would You Recognize Your Characters…

— Chuck Litka

…if you ran into them on the street? How clearly do you picture the characters you create for your stories? Do you know exactly what they look like, and how they dress? And do you consider their appearance essential to your stories? I’m curious, because I have only the vaguest idea of what my characters look like. I leave it to my readers to create their own mental picture of the characters, since I don’t have one.

One of my reasons for this, is that I don’t have a visual memory. I can’t even conjure up a mental image of my wife of forty-some years in my mind. Nor of anything else, for that matter. At best I have a vague impression in my mind, the details of which fall apart if I try to focus on the image. The condition even has a name, aphanfasia.

However, I really can’t blame aphanfasia for the lack of description of my characters. If I cared to, I could create a deck of character cards listing their distinctive characteristics. I could scour the web for photographs of people to use as models for my characters. I could keep these cards and photos on hand to consult whenever I wanted to describe how a character looked. But… well, the key words are “if I cared to.” Having lived my life without the details of how people look cluttering my mind, I don’t feel a need to include many details on how my characters look or dress in my stories.

What I do, is select a few general characteristics for each character. I may assign them an eye or a hair color. Maybe they’re slim, lanky, or stout. Maybe they wear glasses or sport a beard. I think I described the major character of my last two books as having a “pretty face.” Rather than relying on visual descriptions of the character, I try to create my characters in the reader’s mind using their dialog and how they act.

And then there’s clothing, another aspect of a character’s appearance that I also skimp on. On describing the clothing, not the clothing itself. Again, I usually mention only a few characteristic features. I picture my spacemen wearing nautical clothes straight out of the clipper ship era, so they have caps (for no particular reason). I have a ship captain who wears a yellow sweater with his black uniform and a sentient robot butler that sports a yellow paisley tie with his formal black suit – as a mark of individuality.

No doubt this light handed approach to character descriptions would not work in some genres and some stories. There are genres where readers expect detailed descriptions of how the characters look, and how they dress – scene by scene. In these cases, omitting detailed descriptions of characters and dress would not meet readers’ expectations. Plus, in many types of stories, clothes can be used to define, or at least hint at, some of the character’s deeper characteristics, as well as their role in society and the story. And as such, describing what they wear may be essential to the story.

However, in my case, I believe that I can rely on my readers to fill in the blanks. And by being unspecific, I’m giving them agency to visualize my characters as they would have them look. Writing for a world audience, being unspecific is likely a plus.

But enough about my approach. How do you approach describing your characters? Do you love to create fully realized mental pictures characters? How do you create them? Do you imagine them first in your mind as a picture, and then describe them in words? Or do they take form as you write more and more about them? I know of one writer who uses a program called “Daz Studio” to create 3D images of her characters – mostly for her own amusement. Still, it is a way to bring imagined people closer to life.  

And finally, how important is the appearances of your characters in your stories and in the stories that you read? Share your opinions and your process.

Writing Simply/Writing Like You Talk

— Mark Paxson

A few days ago, Berthold published a post over on his blog, How Simply Should You Write? The post was in response to some essays by Paul Graham, who has written quite a few essays on a range of topics.

In a nutshell, Graham thinks that one whould write simply and also write the way one talks. Each of those concepts pretty much speak for themselves. Write simply means, well, to write simple. Keep it simple, stupid, in other words. Short simple sentences are better than long, convoluted ones. Be clear, don’t be muddled. Go for understandable words and constructs and don’t try to impress with big words or bigger sentences. From Graham’s perspective, complex writing is more difficult to read, it hides ideas rather than reveals them, and to him at least, complex writing is clumsy writing.

Writing the way one talks is a companion concept. He uses an example: “The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: ‘After Altmira, all is decadence.'” Graham suggests that nobody would talk like this. He can’t imagine anybody calling somebody else mercurial in the course of conversation. His essay on this topic bleeds into the write simply concept, He basically says that his objective is to write in language he would use in conversation. He wants it to be simple and to sound in written form comparable to spoken language. To Graham, spoken language is easier and less complex than written language.

Meanwhile, Berthold disagrees. He points to a couple of examples from George Orwell and Oscar Wilde as evidence that great writers throughout time did not write simply or write the way people talk. He also makes a point that Graham assumes too much about how other people may talk. Maybe Graham wouldn’t describe Picasso as “the mercurial Spaniard,” but Berthold certainly would!!!

Which gets back to the point I always make when somebody tries to suggest there is a “rule” to writing. It depends. It depends on you as the writer. It depends on you as the reader. It depends on all the other readers who might be reading your work.

It also depends on something else, particularly if we’re talking about fiction. How does the narrator talk and think? How do the characters engaged in dialogue talk and act? For instance, one of the things I started a few years ago is a series of short stories, that may become a novel, based on some characters who work for a traveling carnival/circus. The characters in this piece simply don’t talk the way I do. They have a different rhythm, a different language, slang that I’ve never heard off. It would make no sense then for me to write it the way I talk. No, instead, I have to completely strip away the idea of how I talk and, as I’m writing that story, talk in a way that is alien to me. In some respects, it’s kind of like method acting. If I’m ever to complete that story, I’ll have to immerse myself into the rhthym and flow, the accent and the slang, of a group of traveling carnies.

That said … I do think there’s value in what Graham says and with Berthold’s caveats in mind. I think the most important thing we can do as writers is to not make reading a challenge. Zoe Keithley, a wonderful woman who led some writing exercises I attended for several years, always said, don’t make it too hard on the reader. If a story is too difficult to read, the writer is going to lose a lot of readers. So, I agree in general with the concept of writing simply.

But there are degrees to simplicity. Nobody wants to read stories written in the Dick and Jane style, unless they’re teachers of reading in the early grades. Graham has a couple of good suggestions. Write a draft, just let it go and write (something I still haven’t figured out how to do). And then, go back and see how it sounds. Read it out loud. See if you can follow it. Does it sound normal? Or are there places where it’s obvious you’re trying to force something? Okay that last one is really my idea and I think that’s where I realize I’m getting too complicated in my writing. When I go back, and say “huh, that doesn’t sound right. What was I … oh wait, I could cut out half of this sentence, rearrange this, and then … much better.”

In conclusion, I want to go back to that “mercurial Spaniard” criticism. That stuck in Berthold’s craw and it is, in some respects, contrary to so much of what we are told as writers. Don’t use cliches, be unique, make things interesting. And I agree with those things. Maybe one wouldn’t refer to Picasso as a mercurial Spaniard in conversation (although Berthold disagrees), when reading a story … that’s part of the pleasure in reading. Seeing things, words and phrases, that you generally don’t see or hear in normal conversation. It’s what keeps fiction fresh and worth coming back to. How does this writer make another marriage gone wrong sound fresh and worth reading? How does that writer make another murder mystery unique and worth turning the pages? Through different words, different takes, different ways of presenting the pieces of the story.

So, yeah, keep it simple, stupid … but, don’t kill the uniqueness of your story by over-simplifying it. Yes, write the way you talk …. no wait, rewind … write the way your narrators and your characters talk. Push the edges and stretch your imagination. Don’t write the way you talk, write the way the people you have created would talk. And maybe, just maybe, one of them would refer to Picasso as that “mercurial Spaniard.”

A Video Chat — A Conversation with Richard Pastore

— Mark Paxson

We had a wonderful conversation with Richard Pastore, author of The Devil and The Wolf and an upcoming novel he promises to be something different. That’s the thing about indie publishing — a lot of what we read in the indie publishing world is just different than what we see in the traditionally published world. The Devil and The Wolf is a great example of this phenomenon.

Take a look and a listen. If you’re interested in participating in a similar chat, feel free to let us know in comments, or by email at writinghelp2021@gmail.com. We are very interested in getting more authors, more voices, more thoughts and ideas incorporated into what we do here. (In the meantime, after watching this video, I’m going to focus on blinking less.)

Until next time … keep writing, keep creating, keep dreaming.