Children of the Mandrake (Self-horn tooting likely)

...I shrugged, and stepped back off the fine woven rug that was fast soaking with blood. I said nothing. I couldn't, possessing neither tongue nor mouth. After father had made Lyssa, he’d decided children should be seen and not heard. 

Children of the Mandrake is the first publishable story I ever wrote. It's a disturbing tale that, oddly enough, sprang into my consciousness after reading a fantastic story by Sarah Prineas, author extraordinaire. (The story was From the Journals of Professor Copernicus Finch, M. S. Hex. D. in case you were interested. A fantastic story.)

As part of my 2012 self-pledge to clear the decks, I released Children as a standalone short story (It's also included in The Sorcerer's Lament.) I like the story of course, or else I would never have let it see the light of day. But I've lived with it for so long, longer than any other piece of my writing except some very dubious poetry, that I don't really see it as anything remarkable.

But it's doing well at the iBookstore. Currently free, despite my wishes, but well:


USA

New & Noteworthy #12, Horror
New & Noteworthy #3, Fantasy Short Stories

Australia

New & Noteworthy #5, Horror
New & Noteworthy #3, Fantasy Short Stories

Not bad, kids, not bad.

Waste Land is getting a sequel

For those who might be interested in such news, Marie tapped me on the shoulder on the train the other day and started telling me some stuff that happened next.

Smashwords fail. Again.

So as you may know, my short story collection 'The Sorcerer's Lament & Other Tales' had begun to get a little traction, was making some sales, was even showing up on iTunes charts in various English speaking countries.

Had been. Was. Notice the past tense there?

Here's a picture of what happened. We all like car crash pictures, right? No? Well here it is anyway:

What happened? Suddenly my book was made free at iTunes. In consequence, it dropped off the chart. A couple other of my books also went free, mysteriously, at the same time, but this is the one that hurt.

Why was my book made free at iTunes? I have no clue.

Now I suppose Apple may have screwed up (though I think it unlikely). I have to go through Smashwords to make price changes, and considering how buggy Smashwords is, Occam's razor would suggest it's Mark Coker's company that should shoulder the responsibility on this one.

But that only leads me to the next Smashwords fail - their customer support is simply unacceptably slow. The 'official' response time is 4-7 days, but then the 'official' wait for premium catalog approval was 15 days, when reality, and things like calendars, pointed to the fact that it was more like 21 days.

I put in my support request on Friday. I sincerely doubt I'll hear from them this week.

And in any case, I shouldn't have to hear from them. I updated all my books' prices on Thursday (my time), and since Smashwords supposedly now has same-day multiple metadata shipments to Apple, my prices should already have self-corrected. Another Smashwords fail.

So what should I do? Go straight to Apple? Well, there are two problems with that. First, Smashwords tells you NOT to contact the vendor directly (though I had to with Barnes & Noble once as Smashwords support staff didn't even understand my problem once they finally got around to answering my request - yet another Smashwords fail). Second problem, Apple only talks to the distributor.

So let's recap:

• I give Smashwords 10% of my slowly but steadily growing writing income, and in return they distribute my ebooks to two online stores that matter (Apple and B&N), one that might at some point matter (Kobo), and a bunch that don't and won't matter to any individual author (Sony, Diesel, Axis 360, Blio, page Foundry) but not the one that matters most (Amazon) until I earn $1,000 to make it worth their while.

• There are consistent problems, mistakes and other issues that range from annoying to infuriating.
• The response time in dealing with said problems has been unacceptably slow for the last year.
• With a little upfront hassle and a small investment, I can distribute myself to the stores that matter (Apple, B&N and Kobo), save 10%, and not have to wait days to deal with problems that might arise, or at least be talking directly to the source of the problem without having to go through a middleman who may or may not know what the hell I am talking about.

 Here, ultimately, is the problem with Smashwords: they are a distribution company that, frankly, isn't very good at their core service: distributing what amounts to data. An ebook is, at its heart, a very long string of 1s and 0s. The metadata attached to that ebook is a series of much shorter strings of 1s and 0s. Communication of 1s and 0s in today's world is, practically speaking, instantaneous.

And yet Smashwords has, time and again in my particular case, not been able to deliver in a timely fashion, not been able to update in a timely fashion, not been able to respond to issues in a timely fashion or reply positively to some pretty basic requests. And I know I'm not alone.

So every cent of my writing income will now go to getting incorporated here in Singapore and distributing directly to online retailers, bypassing Smashwords entirely and saving myself 10% and chronic heartburn in the process.

You had me for a year, Mark. I wanted to be happy with you and your company. But you just made it too hard to do so, too many times.

Tired

Please note this is a whiny post, probably better skipped.

I'm tired, creatively. Everything I write, everything I have written, seems limp and lifeless. I've been here before, I know it will pass. That doesn't help right now.

I don't know if it is cause or effect, but I look at what's going on in the self-publishing scene and I feel deeply underwhelmed. From the current top dog, E.L. James and her Fifty Shades of Trite right on down to the relentless self-promotion of all the indie authors on my twitter stream, I just want to stand up on a table and say 'Stop. Right now, just stop. Cap your pen, close your laptop. Take a deep breath. Now ask yourself honestly, are you writing the best possible thing you can? Forget about 'you must have an editor/cover artist/facebook page/mystical understanding of Amazon alogorithms/four books a year' and tell me the truth. That piece of writing in front of you: do you believe there's even a chance that people will still be reading and enjoying it after you pass away? Do you believe that abandoning it right now would be like suffering a miscarriage? Or is your work in progress, honestly, more akin to literary Doritos?

How much time have you spent on craft? How much time have you spent on marketing?

Tell me why I should buy and read your book. Tell me why I should invest what little time I have immersing myself in your creation. Make me believe in your make-believe. For fuck's sake, don't try and sell me; try and convince me. Because I want to be convinced, Mr/Ms/Mrs self-published author, I truly do. But if your best argument is that it's free/99 cents this weekend only, well, that's some pretty weak tea. I've got a shelf full of books I can revisit for free, and it will be like seeing old friends again that I know I will have a great time with.

Right now, your 99 cent book looks an awful lot like spending hours with a time share salesman.

Aesop's royalty statement*

Couple things: I've been reading, literally, hundreds of fables this week (work related, don't ask).  Now even less fond of ants.**

Also, I rec'd my final royalty statement (and payment) from Random House. So there's a page I can turn. How much did Thagoth earn me over its lifetime, you ask? US$580.14 in 9 years. 678 copies sold, 211 of which were in the last year.

I don't think it will take 9 years to sell 678 copies of the revised Thagoth. I also don't think it will take 9 years for me to make $580 from it, either. For me, self-publishing for all its problems is a better path than the one I was on.

Also, I should mention that The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is currently on sale for 99 cents at Amazon (US). So, you know, if you objectively would have no problem buying me a cup of coffee in return for me telling you a story, you could buy it instead. Objective reviews are also welcome.

*Not really. But it sounded cool, so I went with it.

**Seriously, In one fable ants were greedy humans who Jupiter turned into ants for their wicked ways. In another, they are all holier than thou on the grasshopper who just wanted to get his groove on during the summer, and let him starve. I bet they were just waiting for the grasshopper to die so they could eat him, too. What's the moral of that story? 'Ants suck ass.'

Four-fold, $500, and undisclosed retirement locations

The first quarter I sent my writing out into the world as a self-publisher, I earned zero dollars. $0.00.

This did not disturb me, since all my offerings were free, and people rarely chase you down and force you to take money from them.

The second quarter, I added a couple non-free titles. I netted $15.50 (USD).

This does not mean that I only sold that many books. Due to the vagaries of the accounting departments at the various ebook retailers and the distributor I use (Smashwords), I realized it was virtually impossible to tidily put sales into a real-time quarterly perspective (not, at least, until months afterwards) and so I determined to just go by the quarterly statements I am given and not obsess over who bought what when and from where.

The third quarter, just past, saw me earn $63.52.

For those keeping track at home, that's almost exactly a four-fold increase. If my sales increase four-fold every quarter, then this next quarter I can expect about $254.

So far in this, my fourth indie quarter, I'm up to $119 (give or take, exchange rates being what they are), and still have two months to go. And as I've just released a few more titles into the wild, with more to come, I don't see meeting my four-fold target as much of an issue, this quarter at least.

Of course, after that, it all gets a little more dubious. If the four-fold increases held up, I'd be writing this blog from my (undisclosed location) early retirement home in less than 2 years. Somehow I don't see that happening.

So what are some realistic sales targets? I've already talked about The Minimum, the idea of making minimum wage as an indie writer, and what it would take. That's one. But there's another, more easily attained goal, that I like to think of as 'the break point'. Half of the self-published crowd never make more than $500 in their careers, apparently. If you can earn more than $500 with your writing, you're literally more financially successful than half the independent writers out there.

Now, this idea is chock full of problems and issues. Many people don't write for money. Many more haven't earned their $500 yet, but with infinite shelf space and forever to find an audience, this arbitrary $500 mark doesn't actually mean much at all. It's just a snapshot, and not nearly the reality check I believe the writer intended it to be. But it's a goal, arbitrary or otherwise. If you  add in my royalties from Random House, I've already passed it, of course- but I don't count Random House, just as I don't bother to count the pittance I have so far earned from Amazon.

Okay, I had to check Amazon. $38.26 from March, 2011 through June, 2012. This doesn't count sales of Thagoth, though, as Random House did the collection for that one (and still hasn't sent me the last royalty statement).

So. Yes. A rambly lunchtime blog post to, I suspect, clarify my own thinking more than inform/amuse you, Dear Reader. Sorry about that.

What to take away from all this? I'm really, really hoping that sales continue to increase four-fold. If they do, I promise I will invite you to my early retirement bash in 2014.

This is my horn. hear me toot it.

"The Sorcerer's Lament and Other Tales has appeared on the charts 235 times. It has appeared on charts in Australia, Canada, UK, USA. It has appeared on the Horror genre charts."


-Bookchart.info

Language lesson

"I don't like people much," I said. "I'm what they call a misanthrope."

A slick, self-satisfied grin crawled across his face. "Mis-an-thrope. That's a big word for such a little girl."

I rolled my eyes and did that trick where my knife is suddenly poking up someone's nostril.

"Misanthrope. It means 'piss off right now' in Lucernan."

He did.

Why I self-publish, in one tweet

"I think some people were taken aback that I say no to most things. I get hundreds of queries a week. I take on maybe 5 new projects a year." -Jennifer Laughran, @literaticat


Seriously. Jennifer is a lovely person, but bloody hell, life's too damned uncertain and short to be on that sort of submissions merry-go-round for months/years/ever.

Work in progress, er, progress + daily writing sample

So this evening I busted out 1500 words. Monday morning I squeezed out another 600. As my son would say, 'sockamooie!'

And here is the promised daily writing sample (remember, this is not polished stuff):

###

There was a pile of heads. Some were still blinking. One of them was wearing my face.

“Right then,” I said. “Let’s go back out and try to enter the Elamner’s room through the window. Dealing with Bosch can wait.”

More strenuous agreement from behind me. I was becoming popular with the mercenaries.

Holgren smiled, which, considering what we were surrounded with, made me like him more, oddly. “We can try,” he said. “Lord Osskil?”

Osskil was staring at a rotting arm that dragged itself toward his boot, a look of sick fascination on his heavy face. Very deliberately he raised his foot and stomped down on the black, split-nailed fingers that inched it forward. He kept stomping until the bones were shattered and the thing just lay there, quivering.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Let’s.”

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.