Twice more, with feeling

I forgot to mention I've got a couple new stories up. One is currently free, and may remain so for quite some time. Or, you know, not. The other is 99 cents.

"The first time they made love – the first time he had ever made love, though not her – it was in his Malibu, on a frost-rimed night in early spring. The act itself was accomplished with a gentle urgency and a seemingly unending need." 

A story of love, loss, pain and time travel. Mature themes. Free indefinitely.  Smashwords Link

Send-up (noun): A humorous parody. 

P'uy (noun): A vicious alien race with too many legs and teeth and not enough heads. 

Varger: (noun): An alien species bearing a striking resemblance to pink jello. 

Subaltern Flint (noun): A very junior officer who never meant to start anything... 

On Harbin IV, it's better to be lucky than good. 

99 measly cents. Smashwords Link

The Blade That Whispers Hate: update

So the cemetery scene in The Blade That Whispers Hate is done. I know you've been waiting for me to kick that one in the pants, Dear Readers, so you can go to sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that pants were kicked.

What's left to do on BWH before I can say the first draft is done, you ask? Well, there's the part that I can't tell you about because it will spoil the ending, but it involves a package. So we can call that the 'package delivery' scene if you like. That or, you know, George or something. Then there are two showdowns (Grand and Petite) and another spoiler scene that I like to think of as 'Why'd you go and do THAT?!' and a breaking and entering scene. So yeah, if my fingers are correct, that's five scenes, plus some connective tissue here and there that doesn't get its own name in My Own Brain(TM) because it's just A to B stuff.

Yes, yes, Michael, I hear you say. All well and good. But  when will it be done?

Well, let's say there's about 10 left to write, give or take. Could be a bit less, could be considerably more, but call it 10k. Then let's say I can bang out 500 words a day. That would be 20 days, once I take off my shoes and include my toes.

Of course, some days I can get out 2000 words. Or more.

Of course, many other days I get exactly squat written.

But let's say 20 days, because I'm told I need a more optimistic disposition.

Meanwhile, here's another little excerpt to tide you over:

***

In a place like the Cock’s Spur, they don’t even bother putting out chairs or benches that don’t face the door. Nobody wants their back to any trouble that enters. As I walked in, a couple dozen pairs of eyes skewered me. Well, except for the one hairy brute that had lost a beady, pig-like peeper somewhere, and in the not-too distant past, judging from the puss weeping out of the socket. He really should have considered an eye patch; if not for himself, then at least for anyone forced to look at him.

After a heartbeat, all the eyes slid right off me onto Holgren, which gave me faith in the fetish he’d given me. Or maybe it was the quality of his clothes. I heard Holgren sniff behind me.

“What’s that smell?” he murmured.

“I think they’re brewing ale.”

“Oh. I thought it was cat urine. Is it supposed to smell that way?”

“Maybe the house recipe calls for cat piss.” I’d heard of stranger ingredients, if not less disgusting. Bludgeoned roosters and the like. There was a reason I generally stuck to wine.

“I find myself appallingly unthirsty,” said Holgren.

“Come on, let’s brace the bartender.”

“About the ingredients?”

“About the owner.”

         “Good idea. Take your complaint to the top, I always say.” 

Dear My Own Brain

Dear My Own Brain,

As a self-published writer who hopes one day to make a living from his writing, I find myself with the unenviable task of having to get you to believe two very nearly contradictory things at the same time:

• Sales don't matter. Only the work at hand matters.
• In order to reach my goals, I need to think not only 'artistically' but in business terms.

Now look: I know you can't think both ways at once. Last time I tried, you gave me a migraine. So you'll have to switch back and forth. At the moment you seem to be stuck on the business end of things. I blame it on reading Joe Konrath's blog, so no more of that for at least a week. The comments there suck you in, and you want to compose scintillating arguments rather that scintillating prose.

The unanswerable question that you can't seem to leave alone at the moment is 'when/how do I reach the tipping point?' By tipping point of course you mean the level of sales that generate more sales simply because of the sales already being generated. It's a chicken & egg thing, Brain. The answer is unknowable until it happens.

The single biggest thing a writer can do to boost sales is to release more great titles. This has been proven over and over. Part of it has to do with algorithms at the various retailers, Brain, and part because if someone likes what the read of yours, odds are they'll go looking for more stuff of yours. But there are a whole host of other factors that play in as well. Genre. Price. Cover image. Blurb. You know this. Why are you obsessing? Just. Stop.

You've got half a dozen stories that need some forward motion. Go obsess over them. 

The minimum

Minimum wage (where I grew up): US $7.25/hr. This works out to US $1,242.85 per month.

How much I make on each 99 cent story (after retailer & distributor cuts): 56 cents*.

How much I make on each $1.99 title: $1.19*

How much I make on each $2.99 title: $1.80*

How much I make on each $3.99 title: $2.40*

To make minimum wage as a writer, I need to sell monthly:

2219 short stories at 99 cents (74/day), or

1044 titles at $1.99 (35/day), or

690 titles at $2.99 (23/day), or

517 titles at $3.99 (17/day).

So yeah. Let you know when I hit that target.

*via Smashwords. Amazon's royalty structure is different. I don't sell much at Amazon, though, so meh.

Why I made Waste Land free. Forever

I was twelve. That summer we stayed with my uncle and aunt in Pensacola, not really welcome. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. My aunt and uncle went off to work each day, seven days a week, to the kennel they owned, and my mom did whatever it was she did. Mostly sat in the guest bedroom reading mystery novels, from what I remember.

Which sort of left me at loose ends.

Now this could have ended very badly, but my uncle had a big, big bookshelf. And on that bookshelf were something like fifteen of the 'Year's Best SF' annuals.

And everything changed.

Each one of those stories changed the way I viewed the world, my world, in ways I had no words for. In ways I didn't even realize, and didn't show up for years, decades, some of them.

I read them all. Then I read them again.

I think, because I read them so young, I got it into my head that I could never write anything even close. At the time of course I couldn't. But I doubt I had to wait until I was forty to try. So when I started to write, I wrote fantasy. Fantasy is safe. I enjoy it. Sci fi, the sci fi I read that summer, the sci fi that became the definition of sci fi for me (Tiptree, Ellison, to give you an idea) was some far out, uncomfortable, existentially scary shit. The fact that it was painfully beautiful, stunning really- that only made it the more out of reach.

It was the world of literally. anything.

And so I shrank away from that place, the place where the horizon wasn't just limitless, but in truth debatable at best.

Then I wrote Waste Land. I would not say it belongs in one of those year's best anthologies, but I am proud of it. I also know that for some readers the ending is like a kick in the gut. It's not spelled out. It's still linear, but there are a few bars where you have to sort of hum the tune to yourself. Or make it up.

And so when I got the one star review for Waste Land that said 'didn't understand anything' I got where the reviewer was coming from. He'd wandered into a story- that story- utterly unprepared, with no real ability to 'get it'.

There's a reason Waste Land is free, and will always be free. I don't want anybody to pay for something that has the potential to mess with them.

On being an indie writer: a few thoughts

• I use the phrases 'indie' and 'self-published' interchangeably. If this puts anyone's knickers in a twist, I suggest they seek a remedy to alleviate their pedanticism.
• I write the best stuff I am capable of. That is my main goal. My main goal is not to get rich off my writing, though that certainly would be nice.
• I believe the ratio of time spent honing my craft to the time spent marketing should be on the order of 10:1
• Which is good, because marketing an indie book is, by and large, a stupid, pointless time sink. You'd get similar results just cold-calling random people.
• The most evil, the most pernicious trap an indie writer can fall into these days is constantly checking sales and rankings. Don't watch the pot boil. Go read a book if you're not going to write.
• The single best way to generate sales is to write and publish more good work. Go do it.
• I respect my readers, and give them value for money. In this way I can have a reasonable assurance that my readers will become repeat readers, and may even tell others about my writing.
• Some readers will not like my writing. It's inevitable. Which is why I give some stuff away for free, so they don't lose out monetarily.
• Some readers will leave bad reviews. That's their right. As long as the reviews aren't personal attacks, I welcome their feedback and try to learn from it, if there is anything to learn. Bad reviews are far, far better than no reviews at all. You can't be in pain if you're dead.
• I'm getting just a touch annoyed with other indie writers who get so involved with the business end of things that they forget about craft. If your book isn't the best you can possibly make it, what the hell are you doing marketing it? 
• I've gotten the royalty checks from Random House in the mail. I like the PayPal deposits from Smashwords better.

Seconded

 “If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”

― Stephen King:

just click.

Not a Rick roll.

Update

A sunny Sunday afternoon, waiting for my son. Not much to say, friends, except I'm still alive. On the writing front, things have slowed while I chew over a few plot points. I've got a funeral to write next, in a most unusual cemetery. Cheers.

To write, to have written

"But even if I'm completely misunderstood, so what?  Being true to the meaning, cognizant of the endeavor, is what matters." -Ana Scott Graham

Sometimes lately I need reminding of that. My task is not to get rich writing, or to write for the greatest number of people. My task is to write the best stuff I can. I need to be cognizant of the endeavor.

Whether the reader understands, really doesn't understand (unable? unwilling?), or misunderstands is not under my control.

Yes, I've been obsessing over reviews and sales. Yes, I need to get back to work. These pesky little misunderstood stories don't write themselves.

Final cover art for 'Blood Tempered'

Insomnia comes in many flavors

...and I call this flavor 'I ain't no farmer and didn't hear any rooster crow, but here I am up before the sun'.

It's a working title.

Anyway, just to update you on the happenings:

• I busted the second-last toe of my left foot and have been hobbling around for a week. The bruise has spread halfway up my foot, all mauve and sickly green. Pictures not forthcoming.
• Had yet another idea for a novel. Think Pearl S. Buck's Dragon Seed meets Glen Cook's Black Company series. Two great tastes that taste great together. In my head, at least.
• But that will have to wait because, as you may have noticed, I put a new banner up on this here blog. I have too many works in progress, and they've been progressing far too slowly for far too long. So I've given myself a public deadline for the three I want to complete first.
• Which means I'm going to have to produce outlines. Shudder.
• It's Father's Day tomorrow. If you know a father, why not tell him thanks for doing his fatherly stuff? Also a hug would not go amiss.

Finally

The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is now available at all the major retailers!

Apple
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

It's been a long time coming. I'm happy to send it out into the world, and focus on the next thing.

Playing around with paint.net

This one's nearly finished, so I've been playing around with cover ideas.I do wish I could afford more professional covers, but I know mine aren't awful. I've seen awful. Mine are just 'meh'.

The Fantasy subgenres: some thoughts

• Arguably the first s&s story was written by Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan). "The Shadow Kingdom" was published in Weird Tales in 1929.
• The phrase "Sword & Sorcery" was coined by Fritz Leiber in 1961
• Joe McCullough argues that what sets apart a s&s story from other fantasy are three qualities of the main character: self-motivated, outsiders, of heroic stature.
• I'd quibble with Joe's nomenclature a bit, but by and large agree. S&S protagonists by and large choose adventure, rather than have it thrust on them. They do not, by and large, have a defined, accepted and acceptable place in the cultures of their milleux, (barbarian, thief, what have you). And if by 'heroic stature' Joe means they have some skill or ability that makes them extraordinary, then I agree to that one for the most part as well.
• But. Always a but. There are exceptions. There are always exceptions. Jirel of Joiry could not be considered an outsider, despite being a female feudal lord in an ersatz medieval France, as her vassals accept her rule without question. Few would argue that Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, especially Cugel's Saga, were not Sword & Sorcery, though the setting is technically a future Earth rather than an alternate one. But Cugel is a character that refuses to be pigeon-holed. He is self-motivated in the sense that Joe means; Cugel has absolutely no interest in subscribing to the mores of whatever society he finds himself in, unless subscribing offers him some material benefit. Cugel is definitely an outsider, no matter where he finds himself. But Cugel's only extraordinary ability, or rather abilities, are 1. an inability to learn from his mistakes or alter his behavior to minimize conflict, and 2. a sheer, stupid, bloody-minded tenacity.
• Sword & Sorcery is not High Fantasy, though it can be Epic Fantasy or the more recent 'Gritty Fantasy' (or as I prefer to call it, 'Low Fantasy' but not as an aspersion, just to highlight the fact that it is consciously tying to counter some specific conventions of High Fantasy) . 
• I would break it down this way: In all these categories, the 'fate of the world' may (or is it 'might') be at stake; but in High Fantasy, generally speaking it must be at stake as a genre convention. Or so the subgenre have evolved. High Fantasy, a la Lord of the Rings. 'Nuff said.
• Low Fantasy can mix and match from any of the other genres, except when it comes to tone. The tone is generally more akin to Chandler than Tolkien. This is fantasy with the voice of a meat packer rather than an Oxford don. This is fantasy a la Joe Abercrombie. There are no Tom Bombadils traipsing around, singing songs. There is, however, torture, rape, and unflinching delving into the not nice parts of being human. Look at The Heroes. It's a big bastard of a book about, what, a three day battle that nobody essentially wins and is pretty much a pointless waste of lives. It's good stuff, seriously, but it can't help but be what it is: an allergic reaction to High Fantasy. 
• Epic Fantasy, I would argue, tends to straddle a midpoint between high and low. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Jordan's Wheel of Time are the most celebrated examples of the subgenre, though they are very different series. Martin writes very little in the way of magic. It's there, but it's a tiny portion of the whole, and frankly much less important than other themes; themes he tends to share with the Low Fantasy genre. The fate of the world isn't really in question, rather the fate of individuals, families, and ultimately nations. There are no prophesies; every character has agency or not according to their own personality. The Wheel of Time by contrast is absolutely stuffed with magic and the fate of the world does hang in the balance in every book. Prophecies abound. Characters struggle fruitlessly to escape their destinies.
• So why isn't Martin's Song Low Fantasy? And why isn't Jordan's Wheel High Fantasy? Because I say so. 
• No, it's because Martin writes primarily to illuminate rather than to shock. Also because Song has more DNA from Shakespeare's historical plays than it does from Tolkien or Smith et. al. It wasn't written as a response to the perceived weaknesses or failings of High Fantasy, even subconsciously. So it is free to roam the very wide bounds of the Epic subgenre.
• Jordan, despite his dyed in the wool High Fantasy tropes, still wrote with the same sort of vitality he honed when writing the Conan books (yes, he wrote Conan Sword & Sorcery books long after Howard died.) He build a towering edifice of High Fantasy, but he built it on a Sword & Sorcery foundation. Matrim Cauthon could not exist in a Tolkien novel. In the end, High Fantasy has a very specific formula, and that formula calls for certain ingredients and forbids others. Just because you have a farmboy fulfilling a prophesy and a Dark Lord bent on utter domination, that doesn't automatically get you into the club.
• And what about my lovely Sword & Sorcery? What are its hallmarks? Beyond the protagonist's requirements, there's blessed brevity. S&S is a natural fit for short stories, not series. If there is a series, it's the characters, not the plot, that continue on through multiple books. The focus tends to be on action more than character development, though this doesn not mean that characters are cardboard. Generally speaking the writing is much, much tighter.

Insomnia, I have made you at least mildly useful.

What I want most

What I want most for my writing (want as in desire, and want as in lack; for, not from, my writing) is a few hours, or much better it be days, and barely conceivable, weeks or months wherein I can write, and concentrate on the writing. To write, and not worry about the hour, how short or long. To write without the interruption of a text message, or an email, or a phone call from the little black slab in my pocket that, for various reasons, I don't really get to turn off. I don't get to be that selfish, and if I tried, guilt/worry would drive me to switch it on again, and if I gritted my teeth and kept it off, I would get no work done anyway, and if I did manage to get work done there would be no joy in it.

But forget the phone. Just a few days or weeks where I did not have to hunch my shoulders, waiting for the next emotionally draining episode of my private life to arrive, would work wonders. If I knew that, say, all the various aspects of my emotional life would remain stable until Thursday next, I could concentrate. I could focus. I could get some shit done.

By request

My son has requested I write books like the Beast Quest series, but instead of a setting called Avantia, it should be called Nexis. Monsters are tomkeep showing up through a magic portal or gate, and they must be defeated by a boy named Bly. So we'll just add that to the pile of projects...

Fact: I am outselling Stephenie Meyer and Amanda Hocking*

Heh. That got your attention. Here are all the catches/provisos/whatever:

• As far as I know, it's just the Canadian iTunes store
• It's the children's fiction category
• It's not all of my books vs all of theirs. Twilight is still selling better than my title, but Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, My Blood Approves, Virtue et al are not.
• My book is 99 cents. The cheapest of theirs is $2.99
• I don't expect it to last the day.

Le proof:

Oh, CA-nuh-DAH...

I like you, so I'm giving you something for free

Two somethings, actually, made by my very own self especially for you. Because I love you, that's why.

At long last, the book formerly known as THAGOTH and now known as The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is available (I may have mentioned this before). I've done yet another round of edits (That would make five) and caught a bunch more typos. I'm sure you eagle-eyed (and handsome/beautiful - did I mention the handsome/beautiful part?) readers will catch more. Which is good. as long as you tell me about them, so I can fix them.

Free is here (for a month, no less): The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Coupon code WZ67V)

Also, did you know I have a short story collection? it's true. And, oh, it's a grim but delicious grab bag of horror, fantasy and sci fi.

Free is here (also for a month- never doubt my affection): The Sorcerer's Lament & Other Tales (Coupon code RK93Y)

But what can you do for me, you ask? Oh, no. See me shyly demur. See me act coy. Oh, well, if you insist, you could leave a nice (but honest!) rating, and if you had the time in your busy schedule, you might consider leaving a review alluding to my genius and/or stunning good looks. You could do that on Smashwords, or eve better, you could do it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Sony or Diesel or Kobo or even the iBookstore if you are Apple inclined. Here are a few links:

The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Amazon)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Amazon)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Barnes & Noble)
The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Diesel)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Diesel)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Sony)
The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Kobo)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Kobo)
The Sorcerer's Lament (iTunes)

Hugs and noogies,

me

Insomnia

I has it. I also have a developing cough and chunky phlegm. Just what you wanted to know, I'm sure. Like, eight hours ago I was feeling dandy. Now? Blech.

I realized the other day that this blog makes it sound as though all my time is taken up with my writing. I mean, I know this here blog has come to focus on my writing, because I intentionally retooled it to do so, but I do miss yabbering about other things, sometimes. But I don't like to talk about my day job, and really I'm a pretty private person. Which leaves the inane. "Tuna sandwich today. They put cucumber in it. I hate cucumber."

Meh.

Now I'm gonna chug some cough medicine and pretend I'm asleep.

Updatiness

Hullo all, Just so you know, The Blade That Whispers Hate is coming along, but it might be delayed just a smidge. Another title of mine that recently went live at the apple store is doing well enough that it's in my best interest to get another in the series out the door toot sweet. No, it's not fantasy. It's a kids' book for kids just starting to read. While I'm more than happy to see a few sales (at long last), I also feel a bit like a chef who comes home and has to cook dinner (teaching young kids is my day job). I have to admit, though, getting to write and have people buy stories like 'Hen Has Gas' is pretty sweet. In other news, at Barnes & Noble all my ebooks combined have been downloaded 1301 times since the start of the year. Not bad. If I only had a nickel...

Signs of progress

A small thing, but tonight I crossed the 40,000 word mark on 'The Blade That Whispers Hate'. This means I'm more than halfway home Amra & Holgren books seem to weigh in between 70-80k words. Partially because this is the first person narrative of a character who is rather terse, and partially because it's lean, mean sword & sorcery, not door stopper high fantasy. Since the way I write is an ungainly cross between planning and seat of my pants, it means that I do a lot of editing and polishing as I go. I constantly go back and mess with things. While it means it can take a really, really long time to get a first draft finished, it also means that the story doesn't have to be torn apart when I do finish the first draft. All that's really left is finding typos and ungainly prose, not completely reworking entire sections of the novel. Well, not usually. Anyway, progress. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Smashwords unhappiness

Smashwords is the leading independent ebook distributor, in case you weren't aware. Everything I've released independently, barring those titles on Amazon, have been through Smashwords.

That may be changing soon.

Smashwords has gotten a lot of things right, and by availing myself of their services, I've been able to reach a heck of a lot of readers. but Smashwords has also gotten a fair bit wrong, the worst of which is how they respond to their customers' problems and complaints.

1) From the want ad they placed on craigslist:

"-Ability to maintain positive, helpful attitude, even if client is angry, irrational or misguided "

2) From the Smashwords facebook page (go ahead and watch the whole thing- it's funny, but it's also indicative of how Smashwords views the torrent of customer service queries that comes in. Basically we're impatient and spoiled, and should be grateful that their service exists.)

3) Another from the Smashwords facebook page. Subtext? If your book isn't showing up at the Apple store, it's probably your fault, dummy. When an author had the temerity to question this, they were basically told that their problem only affected five authors. The tone was pretty passive-agressive:

At the moment only ~5 people have this problem out of the ~13,000 on this FB Page

Does Smashwords have angry, irrational and misguided customers? I'm sure they do. I was in retail a long time. Every business does. Have some authors not followed the guidelines, and has this delayed Apple making their title available? I'm sure they have, even though ostensibly once your book has been approved for 'premium' status, that should be the end of it. But the cake-taker is the utterly unhelpful response on their facebook page. If only five people have the specific problem that that author had, that problem should be fixed already. If Smashwords feels the need to remind everyone to read up on what Apple requires, that means a lot of authors are having problems with getting in to the Apple store. I know I am.

And the thing is, all of this would be categorized under 'shrug' if Smashwords had a responsive customer service desk. They don't. As it stands, you have to wait days, sometimes over a week, to get a response that as often as not amounts to 'Sorry dude, can't help you.'

If Smashwords were the only viable way to get ebooks out the door and into retail sites, I'd just grit my teeth. But they aren't. Sure, the alternative is annoying and paperwork-filled, which is why I let Smashwords take a cut of my earnings. But they are shut out of Amazon, the single-largest ebook seller in the world. If they can't manage to get my books into the Apple store either, then their usefulness is limited to Barnes & Noble and all the 'also rans' like Kobo and Sony. Which means their usefulness does not outweigh their annoyance factor.

If the would-be emperor is wearing something, shall we say, scanty, he shouldn't be commenting on my fashion sense, even in a veiled, passive-agressive way.

Excerpt from 'The Blade That Whispers Hate'

"Have you ever hated- really hated, with every fiber of your being? True hate is a powerful thing. It can give you the strength of will to do things you never would have considered. Things you never would have believed yourself capable of. Unthinkable things. Awful and magnificent things. Hate is a powerful force because it lends an impossible strength. With enough hate, you could rule the world. Or end it."

"Is that what you want to do?" I asked him. "Destroy the word?"

He laughed. "I don't give a runny shit about the world, or anyone or anything in it."

"Then by all the dead gods, what do you want?"

He sat down on a cracked headstone across from me and leaned down with his arms on his knees. He looked tired.

"How old do you think I am?"

"Forty? Maybe forty-five?"

"I'm seventeen hundred years old. I saw the fall of Thagoth, and of Hluria. I was ancient when Havak Silversword was imprisoned behind the Wall. You people are mayflies to me."

"You're tired of life."

"You haven't the least idea. It's much worse than it sounds. Because of the curse laid on me, every moment that passes feels like a hundred. Listening to you talk bores me to tears. Listening to me talk bores me to tears. I've experienced this conversation as though it's lasted all fucking day."

"I'll try and talk faster," I said, but he waved it away.

"Don't bother. You can't speak quickly enough to make the least difference."

"So what do you want, Heirus?"

Suddenly he was in my face. I never saw him move.

"I want the Goddess's gods-damned Blade, you stupid cow!"

"Call me a cow again and I'll stick the Blade so far up your--"

I never saw the fist, either.

Works in Progress (Fantasy)

Time to take stock of what I need to finish. Until these are done, no new (fantasy) stories for me!

First up is The Blade That Whispers Hate. This is the prequel to The Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye. It's sword & sorcery, of course, but it's also something of a murder mystery.

Then there's the sequel to 'Thief Who Spat' which is called The Knife That Parts The Night. That one is about, well, let's just say when you think everything is done and dusted, that's when life tends to punch you in the face.

And completely away from Amra and Holgren's various troubles, I've been working on a... complex epic fantasy that probably has more in common, DNA-wise, with Rashomon and Philip K. Dick than Tolkien or Jordan. This one has taken years, and may take years more. It comes along at its own pace.

And I'm also working on a fantasy novella series (The Sword-monk). Three are planned: Blood-Tempered, Weaving Steel and Kissing the Blade. They also come along at their own pace.

So yeah, that's what's on my plate for the foreseeable future. Of course plans change. Sometimes I get stuck, or get enthusiastic about a new project. But I need and want to finish these. As always it's a question of time, discipline, and life poking its nose in, demanding attention.

The end.

The saga of Thagoth is finished, Dear Readers. Amazon has pulled it. Barnes & Noble has pulled it. Ditto Sony and Diesel.  It's still available at the iBookstore and at Kobo, but should be disappearing from these venues in the next few days.

Finally.

Nobody say Thagoth to me ever again, ok? Now it's 'The Thief who Spat in Luck's Good Eye', it's been revised,  and it's available, currently over at Smashwords and at Amazon, but soon to all the other places I mentioned.

For those interested in finding all the typos I surely missed despite going over the entire manuscript three godawful times (I'm not bitter), you can go on over to Smashwords and use this handy dandy coupon code to get 'TWS' for free: HH43V. It's good until the 22nd of this month, so get to downloading. And, you know, mocking.

Grumpy

I noticed that I have recently entered a grumpy phase. Please take all words with a grain of salt until further notice. (I suspect said grumpy phase will pass once I've finished the edits on the novel formerly known as Thagoth.)

And now, as a sort of grumpy cleanser for any who have been adversely affected, this:

The worst thing

Did I ever tell you my biggest fear, writing-wise? It's not getting raked over the coals in a bad review. It's not getting undeserved praise in a good one. It's not even sitting in obscurity, no-one ever reading my words at all. These things have all happened to me at one point or another, to one degree or another. They range from unpleasant to deeply painful, but they're not the worst thing.

The worst thing doesn't have to do with any external factor. It's all inside my writer's psyche (wherever that is). The worst thing, the biggest fear, is endings.

Endings are the most important part of the story. The beginnings are where you get to show how clever you are as a writer. The great humping middle is an exercise in endurance and ingenuity. But the ending-

The ending is where you've got to step up to the plate. It's where you have to make a stand, and in some form or fashion let the reader know what it is the book stands for.

A bad ending, a false ending, an ending that takes a cheap or easy way out, ducking the story questions- when I read one of those, I think 'what the hell did the author waste my time for?' I don't have to agree with an ending, or even understand it. But I do have to respect it. Give me truth, or failing that give me beauty, but don't leave me empty handed.

For quite a few years I couldn't finish anything because for those years I knew I was going to leave the reader empty handed. I told myself everything I was writing was trite, and some of it was. But the problem wasn't that. The problem was, I was in a place where I could not end anything with truth or beauty, because they were both things I no longer really believed in.

There are other, valid ways to end a tale, don't get me wrong. They're just not my way. I don't even mind trying and failing. The worst thing is starting over and over, knowing you'll never be able to write an ending.  

Scalpel, hacksaw, sutures. Meditate

I have been introduced to the arcane art of OCR (optical character recognition software) thanks to Expat @ Large, and am no longer retyping Thagoth from printouts of screenshots of my ebook. This is good.

I hate my book. This is less good news, though perhaps to be expected. After all, it was written almost ten years ago, and it was my first novel, and it shows.

This evening I converted almost 10,000 words to manuscript format (OCR is not good with 'w' or 'I' or 'mr' recognition, and confuses , for . as well as often missing " so there's quite a bit to fix. It also does not catch paragraph breaks. For all that, I'm still moving a lot faster than transcribing by hand.)

The thing is, it started off as over 15,000 words.I took a hacksaw to a major subplot of the novel.

Why? Because it was cheesy, it didn't add anything except a bit of (trite) characterization, it slowed down the pacing, and I hate it with a fiery, hate-filled hate that gives me heartburn. I have no idea what I thought I was doing when I wrote it.

I also took a scalpel to a whole lot of sentences. Needless dialog attributions, unnecessary filler words, snicker-snack, the vorpal word-processing highlighter cut them right out.

Thagoth was, if I recall correctly, about 86,000 words. The complete version of the rewrite will likely not break 80,000. And that's quite alright, as long as every word counts.

First meditation: Every word of your manuscript should pull its own weight. Too much of Thagoth is seriously dead weight. I am tempted to pull it all apart and start from scratch, but that way lies madness.

And the thing is, it's been so many years since I've looked at the book in its entirety, it's almost as if I'm some disinterested observer. Parts of what I've edited so far, I actually got a bit excited about re-reading. "Oh, yeah, the part where she meets the naked old tatooed man and the freaky ghosts. Cool!" Stuff like that.

Those are the parts, the set pieces that were the most fun to write, I realize, when I was sitting in that 24 hour coffee shop across from the University of Texas, chain smoking, wired on caffeine, chuckling to myself. The bits that drag? Those were the times I was just knocking out my apportioned word count. Thagoth never got the second draft revisions it needed, for all that it was looked over by a real live New York editor. (I suspect she knew she was on her way out, and just sort of phoned it in.)

Second meditation: being done with your first draft is not being done. You need to let that baby simmer, then stir some more. Just try not to let a decade pass.

I'm also inserting a few continuity points here and there, since Thagoth (renamed The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye) will soon be the second book, chronologically, in the Amra & Holgren series (The Blade That Whispers Hate being the first, unless I decide life is just too easy and write a pre-prequel.) It's the little stuff you have to keep an eye out for when you retrofit a novel. Stuff like when Character A says they've never been to Character B's house, but in the prequel they visit often.

Well. Anyway it's late here. Enough babbling.

All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well

I haven't posted. I apologize. Life has been rather busy of late, both work-wise and family-wise. I hope to catch up on all my obligations this week, so if I've promised you something, keep an eye on your inbox.

On the writing front, a few items of note:

• Random House has agreed that, yes, the copyright for Thagoth has indeed reverted to me, and that they 'grant my request'  that they stop selling it. Of course, they're still selling it at the time of this writing. I'm supposed to wait for a letter that is supposed to arrive this week (cue eye roll). I'll be re-releasing Thagoth (once Random House finally stops selling it) as the full version of 'The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye'. Target date: Who-The-Hell-Knows.
• In preparation for this momentous event, I got my lazy ass in gear and took screenshots of every page of Thagoth and and am in the midst of transcribing the resulting jpegs into word format. Lesson imparted: Always, always keep multiple backup copies of your work. Retyping 86,000 words is only slightly more fun than stuffing a pipe cleaner up your urethra.
• Anybody know a good, cheap typist?
• After reading this interview, I've realized I need to stop obsessing over the rankings of my books. That time can be much better spent.
• As expected, I've received a polite, professional 'no thanks' from the literary agent I previously mentioned. I also expected to feel some rancor, or at least disappointment. Instead, my reaction was a sort of mild relief. Now I can focus on the (independent) path ahead. We'll see if my 2013 prediction pans out as well.
• Much as I love them, and much as they helped me jump start y creativity and overcome writer's block, I'm putting any future Pill Hill Press writer's shootouts on hold. I've simply got to focus on the mountain of longer fiction that I need to complete, not new short stories.
• Man, I've been especially gassy lately. I love a good fart as much as the next dad, but there comes a point where nobody is willing to pull your finger anymore.

A steak knife, a cow and a military officer

What do these three things have in common? I have no idea, but I need to figure it out before Sunday.

 (That's the final prompt for the Pill Hill Press Winter Shootout. I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting story to write; and by interesting I mean 'oh crap'.)

New Story: Fade Into You

I've just completed my first time travel story. Would anyone like to beta read it?  : )

A teaser

Because, you know, if I put on the blog, then it has to happen. No take-backs.

This one I have plotted out in my head. Three novellas: Blood-tempered, Weaving Steel, and Kissing the Blade. Many a moon ago I wrote about how I had a character stuck in my head, a sword-monk. I know his story better now, and am more confident about telling it. I just need more time.

Also, the wonderful poet Megan Arkenberg has graciously given permission for me to use her poem 'Song Before a Quest' as an epigraph for the story.

Self Publishing: The old paradigm vs the new

My dream was always mass market. I wanted to walk into bookstores and see my books on the shelf, right after Anne McCaffrey's. I wanted it so bad that I would go in to bookstores and feel hate for the physical books of writers that I believed couldn't write as well as I did.

Both the hate and the dream are dead.

I don't need bookstores anymore, just as I don't need publishers.

 Last night, in bed, I got two new books. Books that I couldn't have bought in bookstores, not because they were self-published, but because they were out of 'print'. The bookstore as we know it, my friends, is marked for extinction. This I've blogged about before.

Before, if I used a print on demand service, I'd have had the books sitting in a box somewhere in my house because I wouldn't have been able to get them in stores.

Now, though the option is available, I can't be bothered. Why should I, when I can electronically distribute to virtually every English speaking country, virtually instantly? Why should I, when I can do the same to almost every country in Europe with a mouse click? Yes, I could go through Createspace and have physical books available through Amazon, but paper numbers are simply paltry compared to ebook numbers, for indie authors.

Publishers still have a lock on distribution to bookstores, but that doesn't mean very much anymore, and it means less every day.

I almost want to call print on demand a vanity thing,but it's not, for most, not anymore. Instead, it's either a nostalgia thing, or it's a sign that the author hasn't figured out which way the wind is blowing.

My dream was to hold my book in my hands. Now it is to get my works into the hands of as many people as humanly possible. The old paperback is, sadly or otherwise, on its way to the dustbin of history.

Publishing myth #1: You need a traditional publisher for distribution

When I first started out in the writing game, I knew nothing (which is why I signed a contract in 2002 that meant my book would only be an ebook forever and ever amen). I had many beliefs, but essentially no knowledge regarding the publishing industry.

My education was painful, and costly. But it was also, it must be said a very thorough one.

When it became apparent that Random House had absolutely no interest in publishing my books in a paper format, I thought I was very clever in asking for those rights. "I'll just print them myself," I thought. "Who could resist my sword and sorcery genius, once they have it in their sweaty, trembling hands?"

Random House basically said "Sure, kid. Knock yourself out." They knew what I didn't know: Traditional publishers had a lock on distribution to all the retail chains. Borders and Barnes & Noble were never going to stock any book from Lulu or Xlibris. I count myself fortunate that I figured this out before I spent any money on printing Thagoth.


For a while I would tell people I'd written a book and had it published, but after the twentieth or thirtieth time having to explain that it only existed in electronic format, and no, they couldn't get it at their local bookstore, I just shut up about being a writer. And soon enough I stopped finishing anything new anyway, fiction-wise, so it didn't really matter.

Fast forward a few years.

When Random House finally responded to my emails regarding rights reversion of Thagoth, and my request that they stop selling it, their reply was, essentially, "Sure, kid. Knock yourself out."

So what has changed? Everything.

Let's look at where Random House distributes my ebook to right now, compared to where I can distribute to on my own (English speaking countries):

The United States:

Random House - everywhere
Me: everywhere

Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland & Australia:

Random House - nowhere
Me - everywhere


Am I worried about losing sales by leaving Random House? Let's put it this way: The population of the United Kingdom is 62 million.Canada, 33 million. Australia, 23 million. Ireland, 4.5 million.

By leaving Random House and distributing on my own, I increase my potential reader base by 122.5 million people. Now let's say 1% of this seething mass of English speaking humanity has some reasonable chance of being interested in reading my work. Likey it's less, but I'm not so good at math, so let's keep it simple. 1% equals 1.2 million people, rounding down. 1.2 million possible readers I was shut out from with Random House, because they did not distribute my book to those countries.

That's 1.2 million reasons for me to indie publish, on top of the ones I've discussed elsewhere. So when the powers that be at Random House finally deigned send me a reply to my several emails regarding Thagoth, this time around I didn't mind their supercilious tone.

"Sure, kid," I thought. "Knock yourself out."

The self epublishing 'bubble'

Ewan Morrison writes in The Guardian that we are at the start of an epublishing bubble. Go on and read it. I'll wait.

Now here's the thing: All the words have meaning and all the sentences are coherent, but this article doesn't make a lick of sense. Mister Morrison, if he can bear to look back at what he wrote five years from now, will cringe at the hash he made of predicting the future, and the logical contortions he forced himself through to get this piece written.

1. Trying to compare cultural shifts to macroeconomics is pointless and absurd, right on its crazy face.

2. For there to be a bubble, there has to be a boom and a bust in the cycle. I see the boom. For the life of me, I don't see a bust in the scenario. It's not like people are suddenly going to throw up their hands in despair en masse and stop writing.

3. There are three groups who are going to get hurt because of the paradigm shift away from print to electronic publishing: Traditional publishers, brick and mortar retailers, and any indie hopeful who pays hard money for anything to do with his/her writing without doing their homework. This does not a bubble make, any more than the printing press did.

Look, I'm quite certain that the makers of illuminated manuscripts first scoffed at, then became alarmists about the printing press. The makers of buggy whips, I'm certain, denigrated automobiles to no end. But at the end of the day, it's wasted effort to battle inevitability. Worse, it's wasted time.

Time that should be spent playing catch-up, hell bent for leather.

Farewell, Thagoth

I've finally received acknowledgement from Random House that I wish them to stop offering Thagoth for sale. I will not miss seeing my name mis-capitalized, nor will I miss the dreadful hash they made of the NCX file (the programming bit that lets you jump to different sections of the book).

Now, with the benefit of eight years of additional wisdom (ha!), I'll give it a nice edit and re-release it as the full version of The Thief who Spat in Luck's Good Eye. 


For those kind visitors who have read Thagoth, I have a question: Is there anything you'd like to see changed in the revised edition? The comments section is open, or you can email me at mcclungmike [at] yahoo [dot] com if you want to avoid potential spoilers.

Johnny Zero has entered the building

I love hardboiled detective stories - Chandler, Hammet, Spillane. What's more, I love hardboiled fantasy detective stories - Jim Butcher's Dresden Files & Simon Green's Nightside series especially. I've been working on something in the genre set in Singapore for a while now, but before that one, I'd thought of a premise, a tiny germ of an idea for something several years ago. It's been sitting on a shelf in my brain for a while now. Last week, I dusted it off after getting a prompt. A story ensued.

There's a lot going on to this story; the setting is an alternate America where magic is real, and mages have suffered from witch hunts, both political and literal, in the past. The specific city where the story takes place is Los Magi, commonly referred to as Miracle City, and it's a place that shares elements of modern day Las Vegas and Los Angeles of the 1930's. It's also not unlike Brigadoon.

I don't want to give away any plotty stuff, so I'll just say that I had a lot of fun writing down Johnny's casefile and meeting his partner. I'm quite sure Johnny will be back around to tell us about some of his other cases, sunglasses firmly in place, day or night.

Requiem for a hamster

When the kids ask
I'll say you're on holiday
Not passed away
From some obscure hamstery malady.
So will everyone else -
If they know what's good for them.

Ireland loves/hates me

Of course, what else should I expect from the birthplace of my ancestors besides a dysfunctional relationship?

Waste Land is the #1 free iTunes sci fi short story there. It's also #1 in the broader free science fiction and literature category, and #5 in the free 'sci fi & fantasy' category, the broadest of the categories I can hope to aspire to (after that it's just 'books', which includes every book published). That's the first time I've broken the top ten in any country, in the SF & F category.

'Thief who Spat' on the other hand is only #18 in its epic category, #132 in general fantasy, and doesn't even make the top 200 in the free sci fi & fantasy.

To which I can only say to Ireland, I love/hate you, too*.

(*Just kidding. Only love flows from me as from a font towards the Emerald Isle of my progenitors.)

Waste Land Update

Hi there, cats & kittens. Currently have a monstrous headache that won't go away, but thought I'd let you know that Waste Land is the #1 Sci Fi short story in the US (iTunes free category), and is featured at the #1 spot in the 'New & Notable' section for Sci Fi shorts and in the broader 'Sci Fi & Lit' category.

Roll on, free...

Projecting into the future (always a risky proposition)

In 2012 I will:

• Double the number of titles digitally available by moi (financial success comes from a deep title list) 
• Finish two novel-length works (screw you, writer's block)
• Force myself to learn how to outline (you're an artisan, not an artist, Mike)
• Take my first stab at formula fiction (see above)
• Chop my WIP list in half (closure!)
• Take back Thagoth from Random House, revise it, and re-release it with a new cover (oh, yes, every writer needs the editorial guidance, marketing power and cover art that a publisher provides. That I got essentially none of that, and still manage to sell copies of Thagoth, says that I don't need them. I just need to get serious, and get busy.)

In 2013 I will:

• Be approached by a literary agent because of the success I'm having as an indie author
• Turn him/her down

That, on the occasion of my 41st birthday, is my plan, and I'm sticking to it.

Free works: More thoughts and more numbers

Today, for the first time ever, Thagoth has broken into the Top 200 paid fantasy chart on iTunes. It has debuted at #159. Some of the titles it is, at this moment, outselling:

• Changes -Jim Butcher
• A Touch of Dead -Charlaine Harris
• Moon Called -Patricia Briggs
• Flirt -Laurell Hamilton
• Dead Witch Walking -Kim Harrison
• Bearers of the Black Staff -Terry Brooks
• The Two Towers -Tolkien
• A Hard Day's Knight -Simon R. Green

Why now and not in the previous months? After all, 'Thief who Spat' has been in the Top 10 free epic fantasy chart, usually at #1, for more than two months. The answer is 'more free' and 'wider market'. 'Waste Land' is a sci fi short story. It has introduced my writing to a wider audience. It has given more people a reason to take a chance on my not-free writing. It's currently #2 in the Sci Fi & Lit Short Story free category.

As a writer who wants to get read, and maybe even be able to earn a living writing some day, my task is to rid myself of the curse of obscurity. After nearly nine years of stumbling in the dark, I'm starting to see some glimmers of hope.

Anti-Gordon Gekko

Free, for lack of a better word, is good. Free is right. Free works. Free clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. -Anti-Gordon Gekko

So Mike, you say. It's nice and all that people are downloading your stuff. But how do downloads of free stuff compare to real, actual for-sale books?

Let me put it this way: In the fantasy category on iTunes (which includes contemporary, epic, historical, paranormal and short stories), there are 729 free titles and 14,910 paid titles. Total for fantasy, free and paid, is 15,639 titles. It's 20:1in favour of paid.

'The Thief who Spat in Luck's Good Eye' is #7 in the free fantasy category in the US right now. When you add free and paid together? It's #20.

Here are a few paid titles that are not being downloaded as much as 'TWS' :

• The Hobbit - Tolkien
• The Gunslinger - King
• Living Dead in Dallas - Harris
• The Wise Man's Fear - Rothfuss
• Ghost Story - Butcher
• Alloy of Law - Sanderson

And this, my friends, is why I'm misquoting Gordon Gekko. And lest anyone say 'if you were charging instead of giving away, you'd be making awesome money' -- uh, no. If I were charging, I would not be #20. Or #200. Or #2,000, in all likelihood.

Now I'm off to clean a hamster cage.

The Indie Author Files: Making your own luck

Right now there is a gold rush going on in terms of digital content. A lot of writers who have no business letting their work see the light of day are publishing willy-nilly, hoping to cash in. This does not dismay me: far from it. Those readers who have read terrible self-published hack-work have a greater appreciation for self-published work of a professional standard. I try very hard to only present the best work I'm capable of, and take pains to make sure it's as error-free as I can make it. And when I do catch an error and dread the thought of having to re-upload a corrected copy, I remind myself how infuriating it is that my ebook published by Random House - one of the largest publishers in the world - doesn't even get my name right. They mis-capitalized it. The lesson: Only you can make sure it's done the way you want it.

#

As has been preached night unto nausea by Joe Konrath, an indie writer has to get the fundamentals right to even hope to succeed. Decent writing. Decent editing. Decent cover art. Decent price point. These things are necessary - but not sufficient - for success. From there, he says, you keep at it and wait for your break.

Thagoth has been out there for eight years.It garnered zero reviews. A few months ago, in a fit of pique, I went on Amazon and committed a grave sin: I reviewed my own book, very forthrightly. A buddy of mine who had read and liked it kindly contributed his own review as well. In the following months, there have been no other reviews. Joe would likey say "You just haven't gotten lucky yet."

For me, the critical difference between Amazon and Apple's iTunes store is that iTunes allows uploads of free books. Amazon supposedly price matches, but only when they feel like it. You can't plan a marketing strategy on the back of somebody else's whim. So Joe is right, when it comes to Amazon: I haven't gotten lucky. Sadly, infuriatingly, 'get lucky' is the only plan available when it comes to Amazon.

Apple is another matter entirely.

I've said many times before, and I will say it until it isn't true anymore: As a writer, I am at war with obscurity.

In the past, a writer was at war with indifference: the indifference of agents and of editors who were inundated with submissions and queries. Those days are gone for those who choose to indie publish. It's no longer about them. It's about getting noticed by readers. And readers, my friends, are not indifferent. On the contrary, they are excited and hopeful. 'Tell me a story,' they say. 'Tell me a good story. A story that will make me forget for a while my jerk boss or the bill for my kid's braces or the fact that I've got an exam coming up that I am woefully unprepared for.' God bless the readers; they're you and me, and they want you to be good. They are looking for you, for what you create, and if they find you and like what you have to say, they'll come back for more. You disappoint them at your own peril.

These are the people you are trying to attract. That's the good news. The bad news is, they've got to find you, and that's a bitch, both for them and for you. Once they do find you, they have to be given a reason to take a chance on you, you obscure unknown quantity.

Apple, via Smashwords, has allowed me to give the reader that reason. It's called 'free'. Amazon hasn't. I got lucky with Apple because Apple allowed me to make my own luck. Enough readers felt they got lucky with  my free writing that some of them have taken a chance on my writing that isn't free. On Amazon, Thagoth has two reviews; one by me and one by a friend of mine. On Apple, Thagoth has fifteen ratings, all by people I have never met. And they came to Thagoth by reading the free novelette 'The Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye' and liking it.

I'm at war with obscurity. Free, properly applied, is the greatest weapon in my arsenal.

The Indie Author files: The State of Play

Have you noticed how nobody - and I mean nobody - talks about Borders bookstores anymore? Have you noticed how little press Barnes & Noble has got about their plans to sell off their Nook business? It's freaking eerie.

Here's how the fiction food chain used to flow: Writers wrote 'x' and tried like hell to get an agent. Agents tried like hell to get an editor to look at 'x'. Editors who like 'x' tried like hell to get their publishing company to buy 'x'. (Here's where things got a little bit wonky) Publishers tried to only buy 'x' if they thought it was going to be a smash hit (Snooki anyone?), but grudgingly published things they thought would at least do decently. Then they sold all their 'x' to bookstores, mostly bookstore chains. (Here's where things really went off the rails) Bookstores, especially chains,  started selling their premium floor space to publishers, who were pushing the 'x' they thought would do really well, or that they'd paid a stupid amount of money for and needed badly to make their money back on. Bookstore chains didn't care; one book was much like any other, and it was all about margins. It was all just 'units' and 'product' (which is why Borders in its waning days was selling things like designer spatulas).

Turns out readers like what they like, not what publishers want them to like. Turns out readers stopped putting up with chain stores not having what they wanted, and stopped accepting increasingly long waits for special orders. Why? Because readers were, and increasingly are, able to download what they wanted in seconds rather than waiting for, on average, weeks to get their 'special' orders in. And usually they can get it cheaper.

No bookstore can carry every title. Borders stopped even trying to go the extra mile for their customers. Borders, it must be said, deserved its fate.

Barnes & Noble is next.

Borders sold away its digital future to Amazon, then tried far, far too late to replace it by partnering with Kobo. B&N wasn't quite as short-sighted. They got the Nook up and running, and are essentially preparing to enter a metamorphosis stage. If B&N brick and mortar stores are still open in five years, I'll buy you a donut.

In five years. No B&N, no Borders. Book stores will be specialty stores and second hand shops, not chains. Them's the breaks. Who do the publishers, great and small, sell 'x' to then?

To digital content purveyors, that's who. Amazon and Apple.

#

So what, increasingly, does the fiction food chain look like today? Like this:

Writers write 'x' and publish it directly on a digital platform such as Kindle Direct Publishing, Apple, or Smashwords. Control, be it creative, business or editorial, is almost entirely in their hands (for good or ill). It is available for purchase within days at most. It sinks or swims on its own merit, of course, but per unit, the writer will receive a greater percentage of each sale than they ever would have with a traditional publishing contract. And every day the potential audience grows as people buy kindles or nooks or iPads or kobos in the millions.

But of course the devil is in the details. More about that another day.

Waste Land iTunes debut: numbers and thoughts

So 'Waste Land' has been live on iTunes for roughly a day, in the free science fiction short stories category. As of right this minute, it is:

#7 in Canada
#7 in the UK
#10 in the US
#23 in Australia

Them's the numbers. Now for the thoughts:

There's an old Russian fairy tale called 'The Three Ivans'. In it, the main hero, Ivan Gardener's Son, fights three ogres, each more powerful and hideous than the last, on the banks of the River Sorodin. Before each battle there's a bit of back and forth smack talk. After each ogre has his say, Ivan basically tells them to shut up and get on with it. His name for each is as poetic as it is descriptive - he addresses each as 'Unclean Strength'.

Now besides the fact that I'm definitely going to steal that for a story title at some point, 'Unclean Strength' resonates with me because that's how I view an indie writer's struggle. Each of us stands on the banks of the River Sorodin, as it were, and each is confronted with our ogres. Which is all a long-winded way of saying it's not enough to write a decent story, have decent formatting and a decent cover. These things are necessary, but not sufficient, to cut off Unclean Strength's ugly head(s).

You can facebook and twitter and blog all day long, but it's not enough. It doesn't get your writing into the reader's hands. Forget trying to sell -- your battle is getting noticed.

So. For me, for my battle with Unclean Strength, also known as obscurity, the weapon I've chosen is 'free' and the only place with a platform worth fighting for is iTunes. (Kindle may be a bigger market, but good luck getting anything on there for free.) 'The Thief who Spat' has spurred sales of Thagoth. I am hoping 'Waste Land' will spur sales of The Sorcerer's Lament. And as the months and years roll on, I will continue to offer free content, linked in some way to an additional, moderately priced book. As more titles are added, my thinking goes, it will serve to strengthen, deepen and broaden a virtuous circle of downloads and purchases.

For those writers who measure success in terms of sales, I urge you to take a longer view. Look to the horizon. If you can't see a horizon for your writing, it's probably because there's an ogre blocking your view.

The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye: The latest update

On iTunes, in the free epic fantasy category:

#1 in the US
#1 in Canada
#1 in Romania
#2 in Australia
#2 in Luxembourg
#3 in the UK
#3 in Greece
#3 in Switzerland
#4 in Germany
#4 in Spain
#9 in Sweden
#11 in France

To which I can only say, Romania? It must be much cooler there than I  ever imagined.

On Writer's Block

There is a disease, my friends, that affects all creative types - the inability to create. For writers, it's known as writer's block. Some people will tell you it doesn't really exist. Some people are lying sacks of shit.

After the publication of my first book, the world looked like it was my oyster (man, was I a naive writer). I mean, I'd found the shortcut to literary success, right? No years of toiling to find an agent, no years of waiting for an editor to fall in love with my writing. I wrote, was selected to enter a competition, I won said competition, my book was published by a Big Six publisher. The fact that it was published only as an ebook, in 2003, didn't phase me. I knew - knew - that people would love it and it would be a big success and a representative from Random House would come to  my door with flowers and a big Ed McMahon-sized check and a new contract detailing how my book would lovingly be printed in hardback and Darrell K. Sweet or maybe Boris Vallejo was going to do the cover art.

Yeah. Well.

Truth is, Thagoth did do relatively well, for an ebook in 2003. About 300 sales that first year, lots of good ratings. But Random House had zero plans or interest in doing anything further with it. My editor was gone, casualty of a regime change, and my book was an orphan. I didn't really understand any of that for a while, and happily went on writing some fairly decent short stories, starting some interesting novels, and starting and discarding stories I knew, even as a young, inexperienced writer, weren't up to snuff. All very healthy and good and normal for a writer learning their chops.

When reality started to sink in, it was at the worst possible time. I was already sinking into the depths of clinical depression due to other stresses in my life; my writing career that wasn't pushed that decline into a nosedive.

All my projects came to a screeching halt. And stayed halted for about eight years.

Oh, I started quite a number of new things. Over the last few years I've gotten much more confident when it comes to the old Act I of storytelling. And editorially, I can polish the first third of a piece of writing like nobody's business. I can edit and revise and polish like a boss. But finish something?

Well. You know. All stories have the same general form, right? And the middle ground is a slog, and the ending either predictable or artificially forced. Who needs to finish anything? The beginning is where it's at, right? Right? Easier to pretend to feel this way than to face yet another abandoned project, anyway.

My point here being, every writer's block is personalized for that writer.

Some can start, but not finish. Some can't start at all, and the blank page or snowy-white screen are like some insurmountable curse. Others can write, but every word written or typed gives off a rancid stench. Yet others get lost in the process, the orderly world of words suddenly turned in to some cursed forest with no path out.

If you ever have writer's block, and somebody tells you 'just' to work your way though it, you have my permission to call them very bad names. If anyone ever tells you writer's block doesn't exist, go right ahead and punch them in the gut. If anyone, heaven help them, tells you writer's block is all in your head, smile and say to them 'yes, it  is indeed in my head, which is also where the WORDS are, you cretin' and then taser them (I suggest the genitals).

Ah, you ask, but Mike, how do you defeat/cure/get rid of writer's block?

Your disease is personalized, my friend, and so must be the cure. I could give you a bottle of snake oil, with predictable results. But I can give you a little advice that might help:

• Stay the fuck away from negative people. Good general advice, critical for a writer.
• Don't think you're going to outwit writer's block. It's exactly as intelligent as you are.
• You only lose when you quit. Yes, I know it sucks -- eight years worth of suck for me, remember?
• Don't try to be too ambitious. It's much better to write something that sucks ass, but is complete, than to start your magnum opus and have it die on page 30, reinforcing the feeling of failure.
• Remember, when writing garbage, that you can always revise.
• Remember, when writing garbage, that you can always delete.
• Follow any spark of interest or creativity to see where it leads. Try very hard to have no expectations.
• Keep idea notes as they come to you. 
• Realize that the desire and urge to write will flee as soon as you sit down to do it, and reappear as soon as you have to go to work.  Realize that this is just your subconscious fucking with you. If you called in sick, you almost certainly would not have a breakthrough.
• Learn to listen to the small voice in your head that says 'hmm, that's interesting'. Learn to nurture that germ of an idea. It might sprout. the sprout might take root. It might grow a story. Don't try and force it; you wouldn't try and force a seedling to grow into a tomato.
• Periodically read really, really terrible writing that managed to get published. Make notes on why it was awful and how you would have done it better.
• Make an effort to experience new, different things. Feed your soul and your psyche.
• Know you are not alone.

Good luck, my friends, and remember to be kind, both to others and to yourself.

For all my writing friends

via http://paperpapereverywhere.tumblr.com/

So what sort of writer are you?

Deborah Walker asks an interesting question over on her blog about short form writing vs long form. Am I a short story writer or a novelist? Is one predisposed to be one or the other? If you just consider the numbers, I have a lot more completed short works than long ones. I don't really consider myself a short story writer, though. I never really thought about my writing that way, to be honest.

I dunno. Besides the fact that a novel is a much greater commitment, time-wise, I don't really think of writing projects in terms of length. There is a story. May be it's short, maybe it's long. Maybe it revolves more around a character, maybe plot or setting. Maybe I know how it will end before I sit down to write (rare) and maybe It starts with a single scene, or even a single image, and I write to find out how-what-who-where-why.

Sometimes the *ideas* are too ambitious for me, and sometimes they simply aren't ambitious enough, and the story dies (or at least slips into a coma; I've got stories a decade old that I still think of as works in progress). Sometimes what I think will be fairly short turns out to be quite long.

When I first started writing, I thought I was a plot guy. As a reader, exciting, intricate plots were what drew me in. I'll skip through some boring-@$$ pages of description in a heartbeat to get to the next interesting bit. And I *do* write like that. A friend joked that I am the anti-David Foster Wallace. Then I wrote my first novel, and was sort of stunned to discover I was a character guy. Yes, Thagoth is a plot roller-coaster; too much so at times. But what drives the story and keeps people reading isn't the plot, really; it's the main character's voice. Amra owes as much to Travis McGee as she does to Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

But as I get older, I like to think I get subtler as a writer. While the short story 'All the World a Grave' is also character driven, and I am proud of the structure and pacing of the story, it's about as subtle as an M-16. That's fine; that's the way it was meant to be. The latest one up at Smashwords (free!), 'Waste Land' is a very recent story. Besides being my first ever sci-fi tale, I'm also proud of the light touch I was able to give to the love story sub-plot. It's there, but I'm sure many readers will miss it. If they do, they don't really miss out on the meat of the story, but if they catch it, it's one more satisfying element that serves to deepen the story.

If I am a short story writer in some genetic sense, rather than a novelist, it has less to do with some innate attraction to short stories, and more to do with an inability to focus on long-term projects. In essence, I'm a short story writer by default, not in a determinist sense.

2012 - The year ahead

2011 definitely had its ups and downs. I'm not gonna lie. I don't talk much about personal stuff on this here blog anymore, but for the year that was, the highs were high, and the lows were low. To be honest, all I've ever wanted was a nice, quiet life. Well, that and a t-rex. That I could ride like a pony.

Writing-wise, 2011 was the best year I've had in quite a while. Two stories published in anthologies. Completely new stories written and completed, for the first time in a long time. And of course the iTunes success of 'The Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye' which honestly took me wholly by surprise. The first time I noticed it was #1on the US free epic fantasy chart was November 22nd. Today is January 14th. It's #1 on the US free epic fantasy chart. It hasn't stayed at #1 the whole time, but it's never gone more than a couple of days out of the #1 spot.

Holy hell.

So now literally thousands of people have read it. as of this writing, 79 of them have given it a starred review, and the average review is 4 of 5 stars. Not bad. It's led to greater sales for Thagoth as well, probably in the low hundreds. I won't know those numbers until Random House deigns to send me a royalty statement.

Success in ebooks is never assured, but the more you have to offer, the more likely it becomes. Which is why I've also published a book of short stories, called The Sorcerer's Lament and Other Tales. Short stories don't really sell all that well, but hey, that's what I've got right now, and I like 'em. Hopefully some other folks do, too.

In 2012 I need to decide a few things: Do I take Thagoth back from Random House, since the rights have reverted to me? Do I seriously seek representation and a traditional writing career? Or do I continue on as I have begun in 2011, on the wild and woolly indie author route? Or some combination thereof?

Right now I'm pursuing all avenues.

I've queried a handful of agents. One has responded, and is taking a look at Thagoth. We'll see how it goes. If experience is any guide, most likely the response will be 'thanks but not for me and good luck'. That's the response I'm prepared to receive. If that's the one I get, then I take back Thagoth from Random House, edit it with the benefit of nearly a decade's more experience, and re-release it as an indie. If on the other hand I get a 'hey, let's get serious' response from the agent, then all bets are off.

I'm not betting on that. We'll see.

If my future is in indie publishing, then there are many things for me to get done in 2012: The prequel to Thagoth for a start (The Blade That Whispers Hate), and then to kick off my Singapore-based urban fantasy series starting with a free novelette titled 'Hell Notes' that leads into the first in the series, titled Joo Chiat Blues. I'm working on all three, you know, in between my actual, pay-the-bills work.

So. I know making plans makes the Big Guy laugh, but those are mine for 2012. Such as they are.

Unless I get my T-Rex pony. Then all bets are off.

LOLgoyle