DNFs

With the limited amount of time I have now to read, it really pisses me off when I have to DNF a book.  What a waste.  Even if I've only spent 15 minutes on that book I didn't finish, it was 15 minutes I could've been reading something I might finish.

Now, back when I was still in the Kindle Unlimited program, I could 'see' people reading my books, because the page count would go up at a steady pace.  I can safely say that the majority of people read my books all the way through.  (About the only perk to selling so few books, by the way.)  Every once in a while, I'd see where someone only read a page or two.  For the most part, the page number they stopped on was the last page of the book.  

That, at least, could give me some measure of satisfaction.  Few people were picking up my books, but those few were enjoying them enough to read all the way through.  And often, they'd finish one book and go on to read the next book.  

My biggest problem has always been getting people to pick up a first book.  :shrug:

Anyway, the point here is I wasn't disappointing readers.  I would hate to do that.  Maybe I'm doing that now by not writing and publishing new books.  There's nothing to be done for that right now.  I needed a job.  I got a job.  And by the time I get home from a full day of work, I don't have the mental energy to put words on a page, let alone to edit, format, etc. and publish a book.  Gah, I wouldn't even want to think about the energy that goes into making a cover.  So, I'll say it again... I am deeply sorry to be not providing you with more books right now.

The only good thing I can say about all the DNFs this past year or so is that I rarely spent money acquiring them.  The books I download are almost always free.  And the books I do spend money on I almost always finish.  I think last year I has one DNF that I'd paid for.  I shrugged and got on with my life.  Sometimes you slaps your money down and you loses.  

It does make me wonder, though, about whether the authors who get a lot of DNFs with their books consider the whys and the wherefores.  If they attempt to change anything.  If they lay in bed at night wondering how to make the hemorrhage stop.  Or if they just shrug and continue on as usual. 

Personally, I think most writers are conscientious and they are paying attention.  Of course, without KU, how would they know unless they're seeing a lot of returns.  I dunno.

What do you think?

Writerly Stuff

I think I was supposed to do a post about titles this morning, but I forgot and that one should probably be written ahead of time instead of on the fly.  Right now is definitely 'on the fly'.  LOL

Amazon, in its infinite wisdom, has changed the KDP page for checking out book sales - the Dashboard.  (And even the tiny picture next to my bookmark for them is different, making it so I have to go looking for it instead of going right to it.)  Turds.  I guess, for a limited time, you can still see the data the old way, but I'm not inclined.  If you're landing there for the first time, you might see that some of the metrics have a picture of a lock on them.  Click the lock, fix your preferences, and all will be well.  (It doesn't tell you to do that.  I found out by accident.)

I probably don't need to say this, but I detest change for the sake of change.  We'll see if the Dashboard is actually better or just different.  I'm holding off on my opinion there.

I guess now I could use a sale to show me exactly how it would work in the new Dashboard. :shrug:  If wishes were fishes, we'd all eat like kings.

I don't need to tell you that sales have sucked this year.  Well, ever since I went wide, I guess.  Of course, there's been very little marketing on my part, so that might be a huge factor.  The will to market is a dry, dry well.  As is the budget for marketing.  With no budget, all things markety have to be done by me, and with a dry gumption well... Umm, yah.

Anyway, enough with my whining.  I'm making progress on Shroudlands 2.  Not great leaps and bounds, but progress.  I'm almost at 18K words now.  My brain threw a curve at me last night that I wasn't expecting, so we'll see how that plays out.  Or whether I need to trash that plot path and initiate a do-over.

How are things in your world?

Time to Write the Cover Copy... Err, Maybe

It's time once again to create attractive and alluring cover copy that will encourage people to buy my book.  And once again, I am dreading it.

Or as I joked to Hubs a minute ago...

"So, you see, it's like this fantasy.  And there's a dude and a girl... well, they're twins, you see, and they have magic... Well, she doesn't, but he does... and they go to a school to train... but it's totally not like Hogwarts..." and this point I chortled and guffawed like an inbred idiot. 

Hey, he laughed.

But yeah, I feel like an inbred idiot every time I try to start writing this damn cover copy.  Is it too much to ask that people just see the title and the cover and go 'wow, I totally want to buy that'?  I mean, SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD totally says awesome fantasy novel.  Add that to this awesome cover...

And readers should already know it's gonna be good.  Right?  RIGHT?

Okay, maybe readers need more.  And I'll produce more.  Maybe not today, but definitely soon.  When I have it, you'll know.

Cue Hysterical Giggling

:cue hysterical giggling:

So, apparently yesterday, Brandon Sanderson decided to do a kickstarter for, I believe, four unpublished 'secret' novels of his.  He raised 14 million in one day.  Say it slow with me... FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS.  In one day.  And it's still rising.  (Go here to watch his $ counter and backer counter roll like the tote board at the Labor Day Telethon.  It's mesmerizing.)

A month before my own fantasy novel is set to go out into the world.

Now, there are people who would rejoice over a coincidence like that.  My name being Sanderson, after all, means people could get confused and one-click my book thinking it's HIS book.  I could reap the whirlwind there.  But I don't WANT to.  I've never ridden anyone else's coattails and I'm not about to start now.  

Besides, think about how pissed those of his readers would be when they realized this book was not his book.  I already got tagged once because of my name, where someone intimated, after WISH IN ONE HAND went live with that tragic first cover, that I was a hack trying to riff off the dude's name.  

And there are plenty of people out there who do exactly that.  Some chick decided to write romantic suspense under a name so very similar to a friend of mine (bestselling author of romantic suspense) that the similarity had to be on purpose to suck off her reader base.  I don't do that.  Even the implication that I would makes me nauseous.

The only thing worse would be if one of those books is in any way similar to my book.  Cover?  Title?  Premise?  No clue if they are because he's keeping all that a secret.  With my luck, everything about them is similar to SONG.  

The only thing I have going for me is that I already went live with the cover and title, so I couldn't possibly be riffing off his, which aren't public yet.  And my book is already in the hands of two people who could vouch for me that I didn't 'steal' from him.  

How could I steal from him?  I have purposely never read a single title of his.  And I was out in the world as B.E. Sanderson before I'd even heard of Brandon.  

Ahem...

I'm seriously considering changing my name.  For these books only.  I am proud to be a Sanderson, after all.  Hubs made me one and I am proud to be his wife.  But yeah, it's a liability right now.  I need to do some research, though, to see if I can legally use another name or if I have to go get a DBA (doing business as), which costs money.  And then I'd need to change the cover.  Which, thankfully, isn't that hard.

Gah.

So, yeah, I'm over here giggling like a maniac.  The timing for his thing couldn't have been worse for me.  I mean, go him.  That's an incredible feat.  And his readers must really love him to be shelling out all that money to get all the goodies he's offering.  I wish I had half that love.  Hell, I'd be happy with a tenth.  But not at the cost of my integrity.  

Stay tuned.  This book will be published and it will go live on April First, barring unforeseen difficulties.  Whether it's as B.E. Sanderson or B.E. Meissner, who knows?  Would you buy Bes Anderson?  :shrug:

This Edit Round is Deep, Man

I am deep in editing.  This particular round involves me reading the book on my Kindle and making notes in a big 5-subject notebook.  Once I get a page of notes or so, I enter them into the manuscript.  (As opposed to the round when I waited until I was done with the whole book to enter the notes.)  :shrug:  It's my process.  

I use a 5-subject notebook because it's thick enough to be stable on the arm of my recliner.  And college-ruled, so I can fit as much on one page as possible.  But I only write on one side of the page.  

The other day, a writer friend of mine expressed that my way of doing this would drive her nuts.  And that's okay.  Everyone has their own process.  And the process might not necessarily be set in stone.  As I've said before, I'm big on letting people do what they do.  I'm just talking about what works for me.

So, here I am, reading my own book, looking for anything that makes me stumble as a reader - typos, wrong-words, crutch words - as well as taking note of anything that makes me wonder 'WTF?'  Like inconsistencies in the world or the writing or what have you.  There's a whole place where a character's pent-up anger bites him in the ass and afterward they're all wondering whether the same thing is going to happen to any of them, but I hadn't delved into the MC's considerable load of pent-up anger making him a prime candidate for this particular ass-biting event.  So, I was all like WTF? and then I addressed it.  Voila.  

I think all of this work is making a better book.  I hope.  We'll see.  Actually, it is making it a better book.  The question is whether the 'better book than it was' is better than other books on the market.  That's what we'll have to see about.

Anyway, I'm usually hitting this first thing in the morning, after my coffee and web-surfing.  Then throughout the day.  Then after dinner.  Seeing as it takes me about an hour to make a page of notes and then another hour to enter those notes, I'm only 154 pages into what is now a 371 pages book.  It's not a fast process by any means.  It is what it is.  

Now, back to your regularly scheduled and me back to work.

Tangled in Ideas

The brain is a wonderful and terrible thing.  It gives us all these ideas to write.  Then again, it gives us all these ideas to write.

LOL, I know.  That looks weird.  But it's true.  We have all these wonderful and glorious ideas that we can write, but also can have too many ideas of what to write and how to write it.  So many ideas that sometimes we can get tangled up in them all.  

Case in point:  I've written a fantasy novel.  I'm damn near done editing it.  In fact, I'd say I'm less than two months away from it being publishable.  And my brain comes along and says 'what if we expanded on certain things and in certain areas and instead of one book, we turn this into three books?'  Silly brain.

Shut up, silly brain.  I know what you're doing.  You're afraid of sending this out into the world and having it flop, so you're throwing landmines in the way of publication.  

If I listened to my silly brain, I would spend the next few months writing more words and editing more stuff, and still maybe not have a solid thing to show for it.  I have a solid thing NOW.  It's a good book.  The more I read it, the more convinced I am that it is a good book.  Sure, I could expand on stuff, but that's not what this book needs.  It is what it is without further futzing around.  

Sure, I could delve deeper into the whole 'school for mages' aspect, but that isn't what this is about.  This isn't Harry Potter, for pitysakes.  This is about a bunch of kids - teenagers, really - thrown into training to protect the Shroudlands because there is no one else to do it.  And they don't exactly have a lot of time because, like I said, they're it.  Evil stuff is coming out of the shrouds and they need to handle it, whether they're trained or not.  

So, no, I will not be expanding this one book into three.  The book is done.  I'm editing it.  I'm looking ahead to what will happen in the next book.  I have some ideas.  My silly brain needs to focus on that and drop the damn idea of reworking this book.  

Okay, now that I've smacked my silly brain a bit, maybe I can get down to getting it done.  Finish the damn book and let what comes come.

Do you ever have so many ideas you're getting tangled up in them?  

I'm No Ninja

I read a post this morning that said something to the effect of 'Ninja writers pre-sell books'.  Umm... yeah... about that...

I don't pre-sell books.

I had my first book up for pre-order.  For like ten days.  It was finished and could've gone live as soon as I uploaded it.  But I'd heard pre-orders were a thing, so I tried it.  I didn't like it.  I got a few orders that way, but not enough to warrant the waiting.  This post was talking about putting it up for pre-order before you even have the cover or the book finished.  

Wha?

Just the thought of doing that sends me into paroxysms of fear and doubt.  What if I don't get the book finished?  What if I have to delay the release due to reasons and because of stuffs?  What if I do get a bunch of pre-orders and I have to let those readers down?  

The author of the post even went so far as to suggest taking money for books that haven't been printed and offering a discount to those people.  Actual cash in hand for a product that doesn't exist.  :panics at the thought:

Nope, nope, nope.  If you lay down money for one of my books, you will have the book in your hot little hands, inside whatever time it takes to deliver the book to you - immediate for ebooks and however long ship times are for print.  

Perhaps if I was the kind of author who planned her books, this would be closer to possible.  I'd have a general idea of how long a book was and when I'd get the damn thing done, so I could maybe put up a pre-order.  Even then, I'd still be all spastic about it.  What if I break an arm?  What if my arthritic wrists decide not to comply?  Hell, what if my beta-readers/editors are jammed up and can't work me into their schedules?  Or they break an arm?  There are too many variables.  I don't like variables.

Now, if the post-author had been talking about pre-selling in terms of marketing before the book is ready to go, that I can do.  To a certain extent.  I mean, I have a cover.  And I have a general idea of what the book is about now that it's finished (not edited, but written), so I can talk about it.  But to take actual orders?  Ut-uh.  I can whet your appetite with snips and stuff, and let you hunger to buy it when it's available.  But that's it.  

I can hardly even give you a firm date for release until I am way closer to finished than I am now.  I'm shooting for before April Fool's Day, but I'm not promising anything.  I don't like making promises I'm not certain I can keep.  And a pre-sale is a promise.  

So if that means I'm not a Ninja Writer, well, I guess I'm okay with that.  I hope you are, too.

What about you?  Do you pre-sell your books?  If you're a reader, do you do pre-orders?  (I don't do those either, but that's me and a whole 'nother post.)

The Fun of Being an Author

There are sites where it is, apparently, great fun to publicly poke fun at the covers of books.  I landed on one once with the original cover for Wish In One Hand.  It was humiliating.  Especially considering I'd paid a supposed artist a heaping helping of money to create that cover.  It wasn't what I wanted, but I allowed myself to be bullied into accepting it.  I was backed into a corner, with my release date fast approaching, so I went forth with a cover I was not proud of.  

If you saw it, I apologize.  Once I finished licking my wounds and refilling my coffers, I paid another artist to create the covers you see now for it and it's sequels.  

I create my own covers for the non-fantastic books I write.  They're not bad.  Okay, maybe a couple.  Oddly enough, Accidental Death is the first cover people point to off my bookmarks and say that's the one they're interested in reading.  Doesn't sell well online, but in person, it's da bomb.  It's sequel is also not a great cover.  :shrug:  Maybe someday I'll do new covers for them now that I'm better at it.

Of course, now, I have a fantasy novel in the works.  And I'm trying to do the cover myself.  I made a dragon.  She's pretty cool and I'm proud of the effort.  Unfortunately, every time I try to incorporate her into a cover, she looks like a bad photoshop job.  

I worked on it for about 2 hours last night, so maybe it was staring at it for all that time that finally made me throw my hands up.  I'll try again today.

Oh, I could probably find a cover artist for this.  My other artist, the one I like, is super busy and fantasy ain't her bag anyway.  There are others.  But 1) I'm gun-shy after my encounter with the dude who shall remain nameless (mainly because I'm repressing that and because I do not wish to get sued at this late date). And 2) I want to do this for myself.  

But yeah, the fear is there that I'll end up on another one of those sites that pan bad book covers.  That can't be good for sales.  Nothing like being the target of ridicule.  Woohoo.

Of course, I've also been working on titles.  I'm leaning toward Shroudlands: The Battle for Kingshead, but again, I spent so much time looking at that in various fonts that I now kind of hate it.  Or maybe I just need to rename the city.  Or maybe I should've just spent last night reading a book.

It's so much fun being an author.  Derp.

Working on It

 I finished that round of edits on Untitled Fantasy on Saturday.  Right now, it's 368 pages long and just a hair under 108K words.  Publication day is getting closer.  Not sure when it will be, but it'll definitely in sight now.  (If you have a good pair of binoculars.  LOL)

So, that means I need to get moving on two things... 1) a cover, and 2) a title.

I started something the other day with regard to the cover.  Spent copious hours on it, then scrapped it.  Yesterday morning, I hit it again with all new images and I've got something.  It's not quite right yet, but I think I'm getting there. 

What I did worked like this... scour Morguefile for free images of lizards, found ones I thought could work as a dragon and saved those.  Open the files, erase all the background around the lizard.  Find wings that were the right size and orientation to fit said lizard.  Find teeth that were the right size and potentially the right orientation.  Take those and erase the backgrounds.  Cobble them together so they look like they actually belong on the same animal.

But wait... in my particular art program, when you save an image as a jpg, it gives the damn thing a white background.  So, I spent some extra time erasing the lizard's background again and then saving it as a mic file (Microsoft Image Composer).  Okay, so now my 'sprites' are happy and I can play with them.  Of course, once I get a beast cobbled together, I'll have to save it as a jpg so the sprites work together as one image, and then I'll have to erase the damn background again.  (Yes, there probably IS an easier way, but I haven't found it yet.  I suspect it lies within software I don't have, don't want to buy, and don't want to learn.)

The super easier, and also more expensive, way is to pay someone else to do this for me.  Umm, yah.  Umm, no.  I love my go-to cover artist, but she is super busy, as in like booking for next year, and I don't think epic fantasy is her bailiwick.  I could look for another artist, but I keep having flashbacks of the first cover for Wish in One Hand.  OMG, that was SOOOOO bad and an incredibly expensive lesson to learn.  Like with getting a haircut, I hate paying for bad service, so I do it myself.  If this cover is going to be bad, at least I didn't pay for it, eh?

Anyway, I think I have the setting image - all tweaked and ready to go - all I need now is a dragon.  I think it's a bearded dragon base with flying fox wings and snake teeth.  Right now, it looks like the weird mating of a gargoyle and that gremlin in Gremlins 2 who grew wings.  But I can work with that.

Oh, yeah, and #2... the title.  I've been playing with stuff in my head, trying to find something that makes me stand up and salute.  I thought up Mageborn... but it's still not right and of course, someone else is using it.  (And yes, I know, finding a title someone else HASN'T used isn't necessary, but I want what I want, so I'll try my damndest.)  Thinking about it now, maybe Mage Against the Shrouds... which could make the next book Mage Within the Shrouds.  That seems interesting...  Has that fantasy ring to it.  And it isn't already used.  Hmm.  Ooo, maybe Twins Against the Shrouds... eh, mage seems better.  

Okay, well, time to toddle off.  Work to do.  Calls to make.  

Anyway, as you can see, I'm working on it.  What are you working on these days?

Can You See Them?

I have a confession to make.  When I write a story, or even when I read one, I can't see the characters.  

I don't think my brain works that way.  Maybe it did before it got crumpled, but it doesn't now.

Oh, I hear them fine.  And I do have a general impression of what they look like.  But I couldn't give their descriptions to a sketch artist and have them draw these people so they'd look like what I think they look like.  I couldn't pick them out of a line-up.  Because I don't think they look like anything more than an amorphous blob.

Looking for models for my book covers was the hardest thing.  My cover artist gave me a link to the site she uses and had me go at it.  I scanned hundreds of photos to find the best approximation of what Jo Mayweather and Jeni Braxxon look like.  I must've scanned hundreds more to find images for Accidental Death and Natural Causes, and those aren't even full face.  All I had to do was find a general shape.  

Once I'm made to go look for a character's face, then they have a face forever after.  Jo will always look like the cover model to me now.  So will Jeni.  Before that?  Not a clue.  Once I went looking for an image of Zeke - because I think someone asked me for it - and Zeke now looks like that dude.  (I'd show you, but the link to that model is broken now.  Oops.)

I have author friends who are all like 'this is what my character looks like' and they'll show a picture they found.  I'm a little jealous of those folks.  I want to see my creations in my head, but I can't.  

Thinking about it now, I can't really hold the images of someone's face in my head either.  Real life people are amorphous blobs, too.  :shrug:

As a result, I'm probably not the best at describing my characters in writing.  At least, I don't feel like I'm the best.  My readers are probably a better judge of that than I am.  The image the reader has in their heads probably isn't anywhere close to what I would have, if, you know, I had an image.  I guess that's okay.  I want the reader to picture the characters as they see them.  I guess what I do write as description is sufficient for that purpose.  

Like in Untitled Fantasy... Captain Vere, the head of the Academy, is tall and wiry with silver hair (not silver as in old, just silver) and a scar running down her cheek.  She's a battle-hardened lady and obviously tough enough to run an academy full of kids learning magic and skills for battle, but there's a sadness to her as she never really had a childhood of her own and her twin was killed in battle.  Can ya picture her?  

But let's take Aryl, the main character.  He's average height/weight for a 15-year-old boy.  He's a farm boy, so he's got some physical strength, but he's also way smaller than his friend, Galin.  Black hair, violet eyes.  And that's all I've got for him.  Can't picture anything else, so there he is.  And I need to go find a model for him so I can do the freakin' cover.  Derp.

His sister, Lyra...  White hair, violet eyes.  Pretty.  Or at least pretty to Galin.  I guess she would have a similar facial structure to Aryl... they are twins, after all, even if it's fraternal and not identical.  Since I can't see him, I can't really give you her either.  She's a wisp of a dream of a drawing of a person.

Galin... Aryl's best friend and sweet on Lyra.  Big dude for his age.  A 'pull the plow when the horses get tired' kind of guy.  

Anyway, I don't want to talk about every character here.  I have the basics, but I can't SEE them.  Wish I could.  Can't.  

What about you?  Can you see the characters you write or read?  Are they fully-formed or just blobs?  Does having a picture help?  Or when you see a pic of the characters do they totally harsh the image you formed on your own?

Is it Pertinent to the Story?

Okay, I know I'm probably gonna piss some people off by saying this, but those people probably don't stop by here anyway, so here goes... If your character's sexuality has nothing to do with the story, then you don't need to mention it.  Not in the story.  Not outside the story.  Not after the story's over.  No need to do a big reveal there, JK - it wasn't pertinent to the story.  Ever.

But let's say it is pertinent to your story in some way.  If your character is gay or bi, show them having romantic feelings toward a member of the same sex.  (Although, I'd only really think it was pertinent if you were writing romance - with suspense after or paranormal before or whatever).  Show a dude going out with his boyfriend.  Show a gal checking out another gal.  Make it smooth.  No need to beat your readers over the heads with it.  If you don't feel like you've gotten the point across without being explicit, work on your writing.

Unless, of course, you FEEL THE NEED to beat people over the heads with it.  Then, perhaps, you need to think about why you feel that way and whether you're writing fiction or proselytizing.  Personally, I prefer the fiction.  If I wanted the other thing, I can find it in plenty of other places.  Leave it out of the fiction.

Yeah, I DNF'd a book yesterday where the author came out with a good phrase about the female MC - she found a woman beautiful but the gal wasn't her type, but they'd already said she was living with a man, so I got the point there.  Then a couple pages later, the author actually came out and said the character was 'bi'.  Why?  I didn't miss it before, so why did it need to be explicit?  Because things like that have to be explicit in certain realms or you don't get credit?  :shrug:

That's poor writing, by the way.  If you can show it another way, you don't need to tell it.  Show, don't tell.  How many times have we writers heard or read that?  I couldn't begin to count over the past 18 years how many times I've heard it.  So many times, it's embedded in my head now.  

Personally, I don't care about a character's personal tastes in bed.  Unless I'm reading a romance and then I prefer the sexy bits align with my own preferences.  Same sex romances don't interest me, but more power to ya.  If it's not a romance... whatever floats your boats.  I used to enjoy an urban fantasy series* where the sidekick was gay.  She wove it in rather than tell the reader about it and it was just part of his personality.  Gnarly.  Write on, McDuff.   Actually, thinking about it now, I've read a lot of books where a character was gay and they were written as part of their personality.  It wasn't jammed in there like someone was checking a special box.  That's the way it ought to be done.  

In short, and I know I've said this before, the story is the thing.  Write the story, populate it with the people it requires, and write it to the best of your ability.  Show don't tell.  Etc. etc. etc.

* I say 'used to' because she stopped writing it.  Then I saw on social media where she'd gone full on ACTIVIST, so I didn't bother reading anything else by her**.  I enjoyed the stories but I don't enjoy indoctrination.  K thx bye.

** This has, unfortunately, happened a couple of times.  It makes me sad.

Woke Word, Keep Your Hands Off My Story

Yesterday I read an article at Not The Bee about how Microsoft has added a new feature to Word.  It will now alert you when you've used words that might be considered offensive.  

First, let me say that if you're a writer and you're worried about offending people, you probably should find something else to do with your life.  It doesn't matter what you write, you'll offend someone.  I know if I read a book that had been bashed into mush with this 'anti-offensiveness' feature, I would be offended because I would DNF it and feel like my time had been wasted.  Wasting my time offends me no end.

I read that story and laughed my ass off.  Right now, I'm in the middle of editing a 106K word fantasy manuscript.  The mages use Master/Mistress as titles.  Master Eenan and his sister, Mistress Uuwen would be aghast at being called Expert and Lover.  And they might just blast your butts back into the shrouds where you belong.  Eenan might be an expert, but Uuwen ain't no lover, she's a fighter.  ROFL.  

See?  Silly stuff there, folks.  

Lucky for me, my version of Word is so old that Microsoft washed its hands of me years ago.  I don't remember how long ago it was I got a notice they'd no longer be supporting that version, but I shrugged and thought 'no skin off my... err, nose'.  Now I'm genuinely glad I can't receive updates.  I don't want that woke crap on my computer.  Hell, I'd switch to WordPerfect and tell MS to kiss my ass if switching word processing and spreadsheet programs at this stage wouldn't be a totally pain in my buns.

Point here, folks?  I don't let anyone tell me how or what to write.  My editor and my betas can suggest things, but ultimately, I decide.  And after that first editor decided it would be good to school me after my use of the word 'spic' - one instance in dialogue, spoken by an asshole - I switched editors to someone who would be less offendsensitive.  

Watering things down to avoid the potential of hurting someone's feelings is wrong.  In the end, it will hurt the story.  And we're here to write and stay true to the stories to the best of our abilities.  At least, that's why I'm here.  

So, to Woke Word... keep your hands off my stories.  If I have to, I'll write the damn things by hand before I'll ever let you tell me what words are okay to use and which ones are 'bad'.  

Title Troubles

I believe one of you asked the other day whether I was any closer to coming up with a title for Untitled Fantasy.  Ummm... no.  

Titles are HARD.  

Okay, so maybe they're not always hard.  Sometimes the title pops right into my head.  Poof.  Most of the time, I at least have a working title.  This time?  Not a ding-dang thing is popping anywhere.

You see, I want a grabby title.  I want one that jumps up and says 'READ ME!'  I want readers to see it and say 'Wow, I have to buy that'.  

I also want one that gives some hint of the story.  Like Dying Embers... people are dying in fire.  Umm, yeah.  Or even an old switcheroo kind of thing, like with Accidental Death?  People are dying and it looks like accidents, but it isn't.  

With Wish in One Hand, it started out as Djinnocide.  That title didn't seem to be sparking any interest with agents and I was really wishing it would, but then I remembered something my dad used to say about wishing and the new title was born.  

Additionally, the title of this book has to say FANTASY without riffing off or ripping off any other fantasy series.  Unfortunately, the damn Dragonlance books have a twin thing going on in there.  Totally different take than I have, but the title Time of the Twins was taken.  (And, I just saw when searching, also stolen used by celebrity-type people for their own ghostwritten fantasy thing. Feh.)

I'm hoping for this to be a series.  That has a title, I think... Shroudlands.  And a just-now search of that shows it's been used.  Derp.  Warhammer.  And D&D.  Sometimes, you can't help but be similarly named.  Ideas abound and they aren't copyright-able, not there's wiggle room there.  

I'm already going to get slapped around for Sanderson, seeing as there's already a popular fantasy author with that last name.  (Might publish as my maiden name.  Still thinking about that.)

Anyway, the quick answer about titles is 'I don't have one'.  I wish I could send this off to a publisher and let them come up with a title.  But you know what Dad said about wishing.  ;o)

Picking Flowers Off the Wallpaper

In the interest of potentially finding more people to read the books I write, I'm beginning the journey of trying to be more sociable online.  (There's not much I can do about being more social in person.  I'm a hermit, for pitysakes.)

So, here's what I've been doing this week:

I've been commenting more on other people's posts.  It's not much and I'm not being especially profound, but if I have something nice to say, I say it.  "Way to go."  "That book sounds intriguing.  Thanks for posting about it."  

I friended like 3 more people and I'm looking for people to friend in the comments sections.  So it's not willy-nilly or friending without reason.  If they make a comment and it sounds like someone I might enjoy being around online, I send them a friend request.  Hopefully, they find something of value in me, too, and accept my requests.

I'm trying to remember to post on the blogs every day.  Actually, I'm trying to have these posts scheduled at least the night before, so I don't fall down on the job again.  Last night, I fell down, so here I am at 7am creating a post.  Come on, coffee.

And I'm trying to remember to post links to my blog posts on FB and MeWe.  This was a thing I used to do, but got out of the habit of.  Back at it again.  :whipcrack:  

Like I said on Wednesday, the point of this is to gain more potential readers, BUT it's not to post more about my books - which is kind of counter-intuitive.  So, while I have posted a link or two about the books being in wide distribution, I'm making that a rare type of post.  Sprinkle it here or there.  See if anything grows.

I've thought about starting to be active in the forums at KDP.  I used to be very active at the AbsoluteWrite forums, but then they pissed me off and I left.  The thought of going back to that kind of thing sort of makes me nauseous, but if I have to do it, I have to do it.  I wouldn't mind having a little hangout online somewhere, where people of like minds can get together.  Unfortunately, with the world the way it is, finding people who have minds like mine is a crap shoot.  Is there anywhere a body can talk about life and writing without political stuff getting in the way?  Or is that like locating a unicorn?

Now, I realize that stating here why I'm suddenly being more social and the self-serving nature of my socialness could turn some folks off.  Sorry about that.  I could be all fake and junk and say I'm giving in to my herd-beast nature, but that just wouldn't be my style.  If I'm out there and I find people who could truly be my friends, then great.  If not, that's okay.  The purpose of this is to find readers.  Anything else is sprinkles on the icing on the cake.

I am what I am - a wallflower.  Or a flower on the wallpaper.  Time to pick it.  If I have to.  I guess.

(And yes, I know that 'picking flowers off the wallpaper' is a euphemism for being nuts, but I thought it was funny.  And I'm feeling a little nuts these days.)

What's a Hermit to Do?

Last week sometime, a wildly popular (for his genre), money-making, indie author I follow was giving what he feels is the secret to his success - other than writing good books, that is.  It basically boiled down to making yourself visible and interesting on social media - in a non-marketing kind of way.  He says he rarely talks about his books on social media.  (Umm, not sure about that last one, but he does talk about more stuff  than his books, so maybe that's what he means.)  

Anyway, I read this.  And I immediately got depressed.  You know me.  I'm a hermit.  Sure, I'm sociable with the few people I know, but putting myself out there?  Umm... :crawls back under her rock:

This being a new year and all, though, I've been thinking about it.  I was way more social when I first published.  I was stopping at blogs and interacting with people and junk.  I even did some interacting on a forum or two.  Since then?  Yeah, the hermitude took over.

Oh, I'm still doing these blogs.  But I only stop at two or three others on a regular basis.  Maybe five, with only commenting on two or three.  Basically, I'm sitting here talking to myself and the few people who stop by.  

Now, I've never read this dude's books.  (They aren't in the budget.  Which is basically 0.)  They're probably pretty good.  People I respect have raved about them.  Maybe they're light-years better than my books.  :shrug:  Maybe it's just that he's out there.  And he is OUT THERE.  

And one thing this dude doesn't seem to ever worry about is pissing people off.  Which confuses me.  I worry about that all the time.  All. The. Time.  He's edgy.  He's loud.  He's opinionated.  And he doesn't care who knows it or how many times he gets his accounts suspended.  Me?  I speak my mind and then worry whether some asshole is going to report me and get my account blocked.  Or whether someone is going to get their undies in a wad and run over to Amazon to one-star all my books.  

Basically, I'm piglet.  As in, a very small animal.  I can't even comment on the dude's posts without feeling like the fat kid with cystic acne and thick glasses hiding next to the bleachers at the dance.  Hell, I can barely comment on the circle of friends' posts without feeling that way.  I try and without fail, I step on my tongue (err... fingers) and someone comes along to comment in such a way to insure I know I'm not part of their crowd.  

Hey, feels like high school.  Nearly thirty-four years later.  I am so screwed.

Okay, so what's a hermit to do?  Especially after nearly 7 years of publishing without being hardly social at all.  I mean, do I ease into the social sphere and spend countless hours/days/weeks getting to know folks?  Or do I jump in with both feet and be totally out there, who cares whether people like it, shock-jock writer?  

The easier answer is to throw money at it.  If I had money to throw, I'd throw it.  Since that's flat out, my choices are either get out there or resign myself to anonymity and the lackluster sales that go with it.

Anyway, I'm trying to comment more on FB and the blogs. And I need to get back to posting on MeWe.  I'll find the time or make the time.  

By the way, if you're here... Thanks.  You'll never know how much your continued support means to me.  If I ever make it big, I'll try to take you with me.

Books 2 Read and D2D

Natural Causes is up at most of the D2D retailers now, too.  

I'm actually managing to snag all of the custom links I want.  Which tells me people aren't using that function at Books 2 Read very much.  I probably shouldn't be talking about this until after all my books are wide, so I don't lose any of my future custom universal links, but that would be kind of a dick move.  So, if you're out there and reading this, set your custom links so they SAY your book's title rather than a series of gibberish.  Like Natural Causes is "https://books2read.com/natural-causes".

Don't know how?  If you're at your book's page at Book2Read, there's a little thingy near the bottom right that says "Is this your book?  Add additional stores."  (You have to be logged in, but if you're already logged into Draft 2 Digital, you should be logged in at B2R.)  

Okay, so you click that and then at the new page, on the left side, there are Link Tools.  Right there in the middle is Custom Name Your URL.  Click that.  Then type in what you want your URL to be.  If it's available, it gives you the option to Save.  And voila!  

By the way, while you're on that page, check to make sure they have all the links for your books.  If you're not having D2D submit to Amazon, because your books are already there, you have to add that link.  And at the bottom, there's a place to add your print book links.  Do that, too.  And every rare once in a while, links for stores D2D has submitted to are missing, so make sure those are there, too.  No use having a tool like this and not using it to your full advantage, eh?

To the gal who suggested I do this whole 'Universal Link' thing years ago, I'm sorry I ignored your advice.  But back then, I really only had Amazon to worry about, so I didn't think it mattered.  It does and I should've listened to you. 

So, now if I want to share my books with anyone, especially if I'm out and about, all I have to say is 'you can find it at 'books2read/<book-title>'.  Huzzah.  

OR, I can just tell them to find all my books at the Custom Page URL.  Mine is at books2read.com/BESanderson.  Easy Peasy, eh?

Hope that helps. 

Ahem, and I didn't get the genie books uploaded yet.  Maybe today.  

Change It Up

Everyone's got their own way of writing, and that's a good thing.  Everyone also has their own way of editing, which is also a good thing.  As long as it actually is a good thing.

See, I have this usual way of editing my books.  I send the first draft to my Kindle, then I sit down with a big notebook and read the book while making notes about things that need changing.  I then input the notes and when I'm done with all of them, I send the next draft to my Kindle.  The second time, I generally input the notes as I go, once I get a page or so I enter them.  Other than that, it's lather, rinse, repeat until the book is as far as I can take it by myself.  At which point, the book goes to my readers so they can make notes however they make them and send them back to me.

It's a pretty good system that worked well for a lot of books.  So, I was working on that system for this book.  I did the first round and everything was fine.  Then I sat down to do the second round and it wasn't working for me at all.  And when things aren't working well, I tend to not want to do them.  I made about five notes and then I didn't want to pick up the book again.  Blerg.  

Then I sat down to input the notes, even though there were so few of them, thinking it might jump start the process.  Took like five minutes.  At which point, the general rule is to get up off my ass and go make more notes.  But the thought of that made me want to go play poker instead.  

So, what's a gal to do?  Change it up.  If doing the way I've done it for years isn't working, do it a different way.  Instead of making edit notes, I sat my ass down here, opened the manuscript, and started over from the beginning, changing anything wrong with the story.  I usually need the middle man, but I cut him right the hell out.  And it seems to be working for me.  Right now, anyway.  

Anyway, doing this goaded me into getting sixteen pages edited last night.  After only doing three pages during the previous session.  And two pages the session before that.  Yes, this deep, line by line editing is going to take longer, but I believe the end result will be closer to finished than the other way.  And if it isn't, well, at least it got me working again.  If it's closer to finished, I may only have to do a proofreading pass, which would cut the time off the end considerably.  We'll see.

The point is, there is no one right way to do any of this.  There isn't one right way from person to person, and there isn't even one right way for the same person from book to book.  Do what works until it doesn't work.  Then change.   If you feel like you're pushing yourself to work instead of being pulled by the work, mix it up a bit.  Do something... anything... a bit differently.  Hell, do it all differently, if you have to.  Put some jumper cables on that dead battery and get the engine to turn over again.  

At least this is working for me.  Your mileage may vary, but what could it hurt to try?

Embracing the Old Stuff

 Every Wednesday, my most awesome and wonderful friend, Silver, posts a thing called Wednesday Words, wherein she takes a prompt and posts a snippet with that particular word in it.  And asks others to post their own snippet.  Today's word was 'telescope'.  And it made me trot out my first book.  (Because I don't think any other book I've ever written has that word and I can't seem to write to spec.)  You can read my snippet over there.  Warning: It's pretty bad.

And that's what I want to talk about today.  

Early writing can be awful.  Actually Fear Itself can't have been that bad.  It helped Hubs fall in love with me, after all.  But it's not where I am right now.  And looking back at it makes me want to cringe.  

That snippet alone... ugh.  I used 'breathed' as a dialogue tag for pitysakes.  

It's nearly 18 years since I started writing that book, though, and I've grown a lot.  Thank goodness for that.  Eighteen years.  I don't know how many books I've written in those years, but 16 of them are now published.  One would hope after all that, I'd learned some things.  I don't use 'breathed' as a dialogue tag anymore, that's for damn sure.  LOL

I think every writer should go back and read the early stuff they've written, though.  It helps to see where you've been.  And then you can celebrate how far you've come.  

Even better, go back and try to fix your early stuff.  It helps stretch the editing muscles.  I still love that book, flaws and all, and I have tried, from time to time, to fix the writing.  I may do it yet.  I'm stubborn that way.

One thing you should never do is shitcan your old stuff.  You need it.  Even if you never look at it again, it's part of your journey.  It's your history.  It's like an old movie of you learning to walk.  You'd never destroy that because you walk perfectly now, would you?  No, you embrace it.  

Embrace your early writings.  They may suck.  They may make you cringe.  You may never want to ever show any of it to the world, because, frankly, it can be a little embarrassing.  But they're part of who you are now as a writer.  Don't cringe.  Smile.  The same way you'd smile at uncovered art from Kindergarten.  You've grown, sure, but that burgeoning writer is a part of you.  Embrace her.

So, A Thing Happened

So, a thing happened.  I can't remember if I talked about it here or over at The Writing Spectacle, but this is the gist of it...  Earlier this month, I got a letter from Amazon.  It talked about illegitimate page reads and how they weren't paying for those or some such nonsense. I read it, thought it was a general letter to authors in the KU program, and filed it in the Archives.  Then I dilly-dallied checking out my September numbers until a few days ago.  Imagine my surprise, when the report showed a big fat zero in the place where it should've shown money for my page reads.

Then I remembered the letter.

I went into the Archives and pulled the letter out.  I guess it wasn't for everyone after all.  At the bottom, it said if I had any questions to reply to the letter, so I did.  I got an auto-gram stating it could take up to 5 days to research my case.  This morning, I got a new letter telling me basically nothing.  It did assure me that my account is still in good standing, but reaffirming the fact that illegitimate page reads were not going to get paid for.  But not actually saying my page reads were illegitimate or what have you.

Basically what I took from the reply was that those page reads I had in September are gone and I have no recourse to get my big whopping $3.79 from Amazon.  Sort of a 'so sorry, Charlie, but you're screwed.  Thanks for playing and we appreciate your business.' kind of thing.

Except now I don't feel like I can trust Amazon to give me a definite accounting of what I'm getting paid.  I mean, it's always been a case of trust.  Authors have to trust all of their sales outlets to give them the right numbers and then to put the right amounts into their bank accounts.  We have to trust the booksellers to not screw us royally.  And I can do that.  I have done it for over 6 years now.  Except now I can't.

Amazon wants me to continue to trust them, but they don't trust that my sales are real sales.  As if I somehow got someone to make up page reads somehow and risked my account in order to bilk the big 'Zon out of less than $4.  I'm the chick who found a pricey cell phone at the lake and then did my damndest to find the owner, including waiting around at a safe location for someone to come pick up the thing.  I'm the gal at the Walmart who stops the dude whose dollar just fell out of his pocket.  I couldn't have been in on it.  And since I wasn't in on it, they have got to be somehow thinking there's a Robin Hood character randomly faking page reads so the little guys like me can have pennies out of the big KU pool.  I can't parse it any other way.  

And they want me to remain exclusive with them throughout all this.  Except if I can't trust them to report the right page reads to me, how can I trust them to report actual sales?  How can I trust that tomorrow they won't tell me my book sales are illegitimate and they aren't paying for those either?  =o\

I've been a good little author.  I was on the frontlines defending Amazon when anyone would say anything negative about them.  And they thumbed their nose at me.  

Now, taking my books off Amazon would be stupid.  They're still the biggest fish in town and cancelling my books on there would be like cutting off nose because I ran afoul of a skunk.  Still need my nose, even if sometimes it encounters something that stinks.  But I am taking my books out of KU.  I can't see any other way around the lack of trust there. 

Unfortunately, a whole bunch of my books just re-upped for a 90 day stint.  If you're a subscriber, and you still want to read my books through KU, you'd better get cracking.

I managed to get Ugly and the Beast out just as it was renewing.  And Cinder Ugly a day before it went.  Sleeping Ugly should be out on the 1st.  That's one series.  As for the rest of them, they fall out eventually.  

I had hoped to do some kind of sale thing, but right now, I'm too meh.  I need to start thinking about going wide with all of these, which means changing back matter, etc.

It sucks.  Truly.  And you might think 'All this over $3.79???', but what if it was $379?  Or $3790?  Put it another way... What if it was $4 from me and $4 from you and $4 from every author in the KU program?  Why are we even in this thing if they can do this to any of us with no reason, no explanation, or anything?

They kicked me, who's no bigger than a guppy in the grand scheme of publishing.  I wonder how many other guppies they kicked this month.  

So, I'm out of it.  As soon as I can be out of it.  It was good while it lasted.  Time to dust off my Draft to Digital account and see if I can't pick my sales up off the floor.  A MODEL CURSE will be the first series to launch there.  I'll let you know about that and about the other series and singles as they become available widely.

By the way, don't look for me to do NaNoWriMo this year.  Maybe it'll be a NaNoEdMo if I can get my head out of my as... armpit long enough to get back to work on Untitled Fantasy, but there will be no new words.  

Not a Real Writer

I've heard said time and again that if you don't show up and treat this writing thing like a job every day, you're not a real writer.  :shrug:  I guess that means I'm not a 'real' writer.  

Oh, the first year of publishing, I treated it like a job.  I was crankin' and spankin' on some writerly thing every day.  If I wasn't writing, I was editing.  Or marketing.  Or formatting.  Or doing cover stuff.  Or schmoozing.  I published 4 books that year.  For all that work, I sold 1017 copies.  Of course, during that year I spent just under $5000.  

The next year, I was still treating it like a job but treating it like a job was getting harder.  I published three books that year.  I sold 693 copies and spent a little over $2000.

Year three, the 'treat it like a job' thing fell apart.  I published 2 books and the numbers were 262 sold and $1500 spent.

I'd go on, but I think you can see where I'm going with this.  Maybe.  

When you look at the numbers, you might think: the more work I put into it, the better I did.  Or you can look at it the other way: the worse I did, the less likely I was to want to put the work into it.  It's the latter.  

Oh, I do see an uptick in sales when I'm putting more effort (and more money, by the way) into it, but it's rarely enough of an uptick to make it seem worthwhile.  I'm sitting here shelling out funds I don't really have to make sales that don't even come close to covering what I spent.  The reality of that is that I can no longer justify the outgo.  In money or in time spent.

I realize that last part there might make it seem like I'm prepping y'all for an announcement that I'm quitting.  I'm not.  I'm still writing.  I'm still editing.  It's just slower now and I'm more likely now to put time toward other pursuits that might actually give me something to show for my efforts.  If that makes me not a 'real writer' in others' eyes, I guess I'll have to live with that.  :shrug:

But when you get here and see that I still haven't progress toward the publication of another book, you might understand a little better where I'm at.  The last three books I published sold 30 copies.  Not thirty each... thirty combined.  The one book I published this year has sold just over 11 copies.  Numbers like that don't make me jazzed about putting in a full day at the job of writer.  

Add in the other, non-writing stuff that gets me in a bad place, and you can understand a little more.  

Of course, even to me, that all sounds like excuses.  If this was a regular job, I would've been fired years ago.  I'm not putting in the hours and I'm not making any money for the company I work for.  Thankfully, the CFO likes me.  And he sees all the non-writing things I do for the company as a whole.  And he appreciates the writing stuff I do do even if it's not making money, so I'm not in danger of being fired by him.

The CEO isn't so sure.  I may fire myself yet.  But not today.  

So, I'm not a real writer.  Not at the moment anyway.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next year.  Until then, I'll be plodding along and hoping.