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25 Things Authors Should Know About Theme

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This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 9/26/11.

1. Every Story Is An Argument

Every story’s trying to say something. It’s trying to beam an idea, a message, into the minds of the readers. In this way, every story is an argument. It’s the writer making a case. It’s the writer saying, “All of life is suffering.” Or, “Man will be undone by his prideful reach.” Or “Love blows.” Or, “If you dance with the Devil Wombat, you get cornholed by the Devil Wombat.” This argument is the story’s theme.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

 

2. The Elements Of Story Support That Argument

If the theme, then, is the writer’s thesis statement, then all elements of the story — character, plot, word choice, scene development, inclusion of the Devil Wombat — go toward proving that thesis.

3. Unearthed Or Engineered

The theme needn’t be something the writer is explicitly aware of — it may be an unconscious argument, a message that has crept into the work like a virus capable of overwriting narrative DNA, like a freaky dwarven stalker hiding in your panty drawers and getting his greasy Norseman stink all over your undergarments. A writer can engineer the theme — building it into the work. Or a writer can unearth it — discovering its tendrils after the work is written.

4. Theme: A Lens That Levels The Laser

Knowing your theme can give your story focus. If you know the theme before you write, it helps you make your argument. If you discover the theme before a rewrite, it helps you go back through and filter the story, discovering which elements speak to your argument and which elements are either vestigial (your story’s stubby, grubby tail) or which elements go against your core argument (“so far, nobody is getting cornholed by the Devil Wombat”).

5. Do I Really Need This Happy Horseshit?

Yes and no. Yes, your story needs a theme. It’s what elevates that motherfucker to something beyond forgettable entertainment. You can be assured, for instance, that 90% of movies starring Dolph Lundgren have no theme present. A story with a theme is a story with a point. No, you don’t always need to identify the theme. Sometimes a story will leap out of your head with a theme cradled to its bosom (along with the shattered pottery remains of your skull) regardless of whether or not you intended it. Of course, identifying the theme at some point in your storytelling will ensure that it exists and that your story isn’t just a hollow scarecrow bereft of his stuffing. Awww. Sad scarecrow. Crying corn syrup tears.

6. Slippery Business

I make it sound easy. Like you can just state a theme or find it tucked away in your story like a mint on a pillow. It isn’t. Theme is slippery, uncertain. It’s like a lubed-up sex gimp: every time you think you get your hands around him the greasy latex-enveloped sonofabitch is out of the cage and free from your grip and running into traffic where he’s trying desperately to unzipper his mouth and scream for help. Be advised: theme is tricky. Chameleonic. Which isn’t a word. But it should be. It jolly well fucking should be.

7. For Instance: You Can Get It Wrong

You might think going in, “What I’m trying to say with this story is that man’s inhumanity to man is what keeps civilization going.” But then you get done the story and you’re like, “Oh, shit. I wasn’t saying that at all, was I? I was saying that man’s inhumanity to cake is what keeps civilization going.” And then you’re like, “Fuck yeah, cake.” And you eat some cake.

8. Mmm, Speaking Of Cake

In cake, every piece is a microcosm of the whole. A slice contains frosting, cake, filling. Okay, that’s not entirely true — sometimes you get a piece of cake where you get something other pieces don’t get, like a fondant rose, but really, let’s be honest, fondant tastes like sugary butthole. Nasty stuff. So, let’s disregard that and go back to the original notion: all pieces of cake contain the essence of that cake. So it is with your story: all pieces of the story contain the essence of that story, and the essence of that story is the theme. The theme is cake, frosting, filling. In every slice you cut. Man, now I really want a piece of cake.

9. Grand Unification Theory

Another way to look at theme: it unifies story and bridges disparate elements. In this way theme is like The Force. Or like fiber. Or like bondage at an orgy. It ties the whole thing together. Different characters, tangled plotlines, curious notions: all of them come together with the magic motherfucking superglue of theme.

10. Put Down That Baseball Bat, Pick Up That Phial Of Poison

Theme can do a story harm. It isn’t a bludgeoning device. A story is more than just a conveyance for your message: the message is just one component of your story. Overwrought themes become belligerent within the text, like a guy yelling in your ear, smacking you between the shoulder blades with his Bible. Theme is a drop of poison: subtle, unseen, but carried in the bloodstream to the heart and brain just the same. Repeat after me, penmonkeys: Your story is not a sermon.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more points about theme, on Chuck Wendig‘s terribleminds.

Working With Your Spouse As a Business Partner

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Here is some advice about working with your spouse in your self-publishing venture. I am sure that you can find a zillion more of these tips on the internet.  But here is advice that Michele and I have created for other married business partner couples.  We have been learning how to be good marriage partners and business partners for the last 26 years – and will continue to learn for the rest of our life. We consider the following advice to be very important to our successful business and marriage. We hope you find it useful too.

1. Each Spouse Should Have Their Duties Spelled Out In Detail
Each spouse must know exactly what is expected of them. When working together for so many years, each learns what the strengths and weaknesses of the other is. If a situation comes up that one spouse doesn’t know how to handle, or is uncomfortable dealing with, they must have enough trust in the other spouse to speak up, get help, and work it out together – without hesitation, without harsh judgment, and without criticizing each other.

2. You Must Be Able To Let The Other Spouse Do Their Job
But at the same time, each spouse must realize that it is in their own best interest to help each other do a great job. This is especially true with a family business. Each person brings their special ability to the business. Helping each other find that special ability is also one of the joys of owning a business with your spouse. Helping each other flourish in that job makes the business and relationship grow peacefully, happily, and successfully.

3. Each Spouse Must Strive To Be The Best That They Can Be In Their Duty  Or Function
They must have the desire to be the best they can be – because the family is depending on them to do this. For example, the person that manages all of the websites must constantly show that every effort is being made to make the websites as good as possible, as profitable as possible, as popular as possible, etc. They prove this by staying up-to-date on everything involving website design, taking classes, writing articles, talking to website consultants,  keeping track of the website statistics, etc.

4. Major Decisions About The Business Cannot Be Made Without Consulting With The Other Spouse
Even many of the smaller decisions should be discussed or mentioned to the partner.  Each spouse must be made to feel that they are part of the business, and that their thoughts, ideas, and feelings are important. And because we care about each other, the other spouse’s thoughts, ideas, and feelings are important to each of us.

5. Any Disagreements Must Be Ended Quickly
Any heated discussions or disagreements that arise should be considered to be ended after a few minutes. Never go to bed angry over something without discussing it and defusing it. Most disagreements and arguments are not worth all the effort and time that gets wasted on them.

6. Family Time And Business Time Are Compatible
Many of these relationship advice lists that you can find on the internet tell you to keep your family responsibilities completely separate from your business responsibilities. In our case we can’t do that. We don’t want to do that. Our business is our life. Our business mission is our life mission. We also have bills to pay, and mouths to feed. We are able to seamlessly combine our business responsibilities and family responsibilities. We take all of these responsibilities very seriously. In our case the cell phone, the computer, the internet, and our reliance on each other makes this possible.

7. A Business Partnership Is The Same Thing As A Marriage
Finally, the most important thing to remember is that a business partnership is the same thing as a marriage. In order for it to survive and thrive, it needs trust, compromise, honesty, respect, and diplomacy. A sense-of-humor and a bit of playfulness don’t hurt either.

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originallly posted on KunzOnPublishing.com.

Critters Makes For Better Writing

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My husband is a big Star Wars fan.  He watches all six movies often, though there’s a couple he watches more often than the rest.  He collects the action figures (never call them toys to a “true” collector).  He rushes to the video store that sells the comic books the same day they call him to let him know his comic is in.  And everytime a new SW novel appears in print he combs the bookstores (ranting about it being released in hard back first and having to wait a year or more for its release in paper back, but that’s another story for another blog).  All of this means that when he found his favorite SW author’s web site he, of course, emailed a link to the site to me.

Usually I look at these “helpful” links others send me with half-hearted attention, but the fact that he raves about this author’s writing made me curious.  My initial reaction to Karen Traviss’ web site was, if possible, even more curiousity because the first page link she has is to something called Critters.  (My husband, being the wonderfully oblivious man he is, assumed the author was talking about her pets or some such thing.)  After looking at her other page links, which all had to do with how to be a better writer, I figured it had to have something to do with writing.

I haven’t been so surprised at being right in a long time.  It turns out that Critters is a group of writers from novice to pro who critique each others’ work.  (Hence the clever name.)  It’s a great idea.  The only catch is that all members are required to submit a minimum of one critique per week.  The good news is that there are ways to get ahead in critiquing and ways to catch up.  The benefits of having your work honestly, and tactfully, critiqued before it hits the publishers desk or you’ve already submitted it to a POD (print-on-demand) company far outweigh the commitment in time and energy spent doing a critique a week.

The best part is that you can have your complete novel critiqued as well as smaller works.  There are special provisions for entire novels and a way to get your work bumped up to the top for critique if you just don’t have the time to wait an entire month.

While it would be nice to be able to write the perfect story from the first word, a good writer knows that editing and rewriting are a must in the craft.  Having your work critiqued by others who have no reason to stroke your ego, as family and friends do, makes the process that much better (though no less painful).  Thanks to authors like Karen Traviss, who are willing to give new and emerging writers advice, and to fellow writers like those on Critters, every would-be author has a better chance at success.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s blog.

A Theory Of The Hero: Agency, Voice, And Sincerity (part 1 of 3)

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This post, by Chris, King of Elfland’s 2nd Cousin, originally appeared on the The King of Elfland’s Second Cousin on 9/13/11.

For a while now I’ve been chewing on the concept of heroes/heroines, which at first glance looks simple. Say the word “hero” and everyone knows what we mean: we’re (stereotypically) talking about square-jawed men and kick-ass women who stab bad guys in the eyes with icicles, rescue intergalactic princesses, and Do The Right Thing. Heroes are “The Good Guys” that we root for in a story. But fiction – as life – tends to be more complex than that. For every Frodo Baggins we have an Elric of Melniboné. For every Peter Pevensie we have Steerpike. What then constitutes a hero? What makes one character or one story heroic and another not?

 

NOTE: This is the first in a three-part series of posts. This post is focused on what makes a given character heroic. On Saturday, I’ll post the next chapter, focusing on story archetypes for heroic characters, and the final post on Tuesday will focus on the difference between tragic and anti-tragic heroes.

Why do we need a Theory of the Hero?

If we want some sort of all-encompassing theory of the hero, we need to go beyond Campbell’s monomyth and Propp’s functional formalism. Regardless of how much I love both, a complete theory should be able to encompass both the classically-modeled Frodo Baggins and the monstrous Humbert Humbert.

In reading Ivan Morris’ excellent The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan over the weekend, something in my brain clicked. I think I might have figured out a secret ingredient that goes into the make-up of any hero, regardless of where they fall on a moral spectrum. Per Morris, heroes are defined at their core by the Japanese concept of makoto, which Morris translates as “sincerity” with connotations of self-contained philosophical sufficiency. In other words, a hero is a hero – regardless of their moral or immoral actions – if they act relative to a consistent moral code.

Hero vs Protagonist: Six of One, Half-Dozen of the Other

If you will forgive a brief moment of semantic pedantry, I think it is important to explain that I have never particularly liked the term “protagonist”. Since originating in Greek drama, I think the term has become incredibly muddled and imprecise. Etymologically, it means “chief actor” but a literal definition is too limiting to be functional. There are too many sweeping, epic novels like Hugo’s Les Miserables where identifying a particular chief actor becomes difficult (if not impossible).

Terms like protagonist and antagonist really describe the relationships between characters. The protagonist is opposed by the antagonist. This tells us nothing whatsoever about the characters in question, their value systems, moral codes, or courage. However, describing characters as either heroic or non-heroic does offer insights into their natures. Generally, for good drama in storytelling a hero needs to have an opposition: but a good hero can just as easily be opposed (antagonized) by another hero (the relationship between Hugo’s Jean Val Jean and Javert is a prime example of this type of opposition).

The Hero’s Function: Building Engagement through Agency and Voice

 

Read the rest of the post on The King of Elfland’s Second Cousin, and also see Part 2 and Part 3 in the series.

Email Service Roundup

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Maintaining an email newsletter list and sending out professional, attractive emails is critical for nearly anyone who likes to stay in contact with a group, whether it’s a book club or fan base. Many providers offer this service, and a few offer it either free or for pennies on the email, making it an affordable option even for Christmas newsletters.

Until recently I used Vertical Response, then realized I needed to change when I discovered it didn’t offer an autoresponder. When I signed up for the service years ago, I had never heard the term and didn’t know what I would be missing. As clarification: an autoresponder is an automatic email that goes out when someone signs up for the newsletter through a signup form, usually on a website. I’m also not impressed with VR’s signup form, which is small and funky. The signup form and autoresponder are not likely important to anyone sending out personal emails, but they are critical to writers or small businesses building an email list, so I’ve decided to switch providers.

Overall, most of the providers offer:

  •  a variety of nice design templates
  • list management tools and list segmentation
  • RSS ability to feed blogs directly into a newsletter
  • a sign-up function for your website
  • tracking and analytic information

One significant difference is that MailChimp and Vertical Response are the only two (in my survey) that offer a pay-as-you-go option; the others all charge a monthly service fee. Mail Chimp and YMLP (Your Mailing List Provider) also offer a free monthly plan, which could be great for anyone with a small list, but the free plans don’t usually include autoresponders.

Here’s a brief guide to six services and their distinctive features and prices:
MailChimp

  • Monthly plan or pay as you go
  • Free for up to 2000 subscribers and 1200 emails a month (but no autoresponder)
  • Monthly unlimited plans start at $10 for 500 or fewer
  • Phone support during the week
  • Signup forms for websites and autoresponders with paid accounts

AWeber

  • $19 a month for unlimited emails (first month is $1)
  • Great looking signup forms for websites and autoresponders
  •  Customer support
  • Performance tracking

Vertical Response

  • Monthly plan or pay as you go
  • Monthly: $10 per month for 500 or less
  • Free trial (first 100 emails free)
  • Offers surveys and direct-mail postcards
  • Signup forms but no autoresponders

YMLP

  • Free version available (maximum of 1000 emails per month)
  • Pro version starts at $3.75/month (for 2500 emails per month); Pro Plus starts at $5/month
  • Can include attachments
  • Social media integration
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Unlimited autoresponders

Constant Contact

  • Monthly plan: $15 for 500 or fewer
  • Free 60-day trial
  • Lots of customer support/phone, e-mail, library, videos
  • Event marketing
  • Connections with social media
  • Built-in autoresponder

iContact

  • $10 month for 500 or fewer
  • $29 for 2500 subscribers
  • 30-day free trial
  • Offers survey services/features
  • Integration with Google Analytics
  • Signup forms and autoresponders

I’ve decided to go with MailChimp because I need a pay-as-you-go option for my infrequent, but 1000+ mailings. I also need a good signup form with an autoresponder for my website. The free version of MailChimp is also a good option for book club leaders or anyone sending out a small monthly mailing. Even if you’re not running a business or building a list of readers/fans, these services offer a fun way to send attractive emails to any group of people.

What service do you use? Are you happy with it?

 

This is a reprint from L.J. Sellers‘ blog.

Novelist Ditches Publisher at Book Launch for 'Condescending' Treatment

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This article, by Alison Flood, originally appeared on The Guardian UK site’s Books section on 9/15/11. In it, you’ll learn about novelist Polly Courtney, a successful self-publisher who was picked up by Harper Collins and subsequently decided to go back to self-publishing due to her dissatisfaction with Harper’s branding of her books.

Novelist Polly Courtney has dropped her publisher HarperCollins for giving her books "condescending and fluffy" covers aimed at the chick lit market.

Courtney self-published Golden Handcuffs, a fictional exposé of life in the City, in 2006 after quitting her job as an investment banker, following it up in 2008 with Poles Apart, about an ambitious Polish graduate who moves to London. Their success helped land her a three-book deal with HarperCollins imprint Avon, but at the launch of the third book, It’s A Man’s World, she announced that she would not be working with the publisher again.

Instead, she is planning to return to the world of self-publishing.

"My writing has been shoehorned into a place that’s not right for it," she said this morning. "It is commercial fiction, it is not literary, but the real issue I have is that it has been completely defined as women’s fiction … Yes it is page turning, no it’s not War and Peace. But it shouldn’t be portrayed as chick lit."

It’s a Man’s World (given the tagline by Avon, "but it takes a woman to run it") is set in the world of lads’ mags, following the story of Alexa Harris, asked to head up a magazine, Banter, with an all-male editorial team. Subjected to "light-hearted" misogyny in the office, Alexa also finds herself the victim of a hate campaign by women’s rights activists.

"I’m not averse to the term chick lit," said Courtney, "but I don’t think that’s what my book is. The implication with chick lit is that it’s about a girl wanting to meet the man of her dreams. [My books] are about social issues – this time about a woman in a lads’ mag environment and the impact of media on society, and feminism."

 

Read the rest of the article on The Guardian UK site’s Books section.

9 Essentials For Writing Your Climactic Scene

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Every novel requires that final, explosive scene where the protagonist and his villain struggle with each other to the certain demise of one or the other. It matters not if you hero is a working mother trying to make ends meet, or the commander of the forces ready to invade Omaha Beach on D-Day. Every novel should have this climactic scene and you should consider certain criteria to make it as powerful as you can.

Here are nine tips to help you when writing that all-important scene.

This scene should be an epic confrontation with a clear winner and a clear loser. Someone gets the girl and someone goes home from the party by himself.

Your hero must confront his most worthy of adversaries. Secondary evil doers simply won’t do. Make this clash between the biggest and baddest.

Your reader expects your hero to win and so he should. However, his victory need not be what they expect. Regardless the sour taste of your hero’s success, a victory he should have.

Your hero should win something of value for his trials. It could be the realization that “The Girl” just ain’t worth the work, or it may be real estate garnered by an incredible battle. Whatever he learns or wins, it must make him a better person, or creature, as the case may be.

In this scene it is not the time for surprise arrivals of any sort. The cavalry, in any of its many forms, should not jump into the story at this point. All that should be set up earlier in your novel.

Have your hero save himself. Imagine if your hero is fighting the villain in hand-to-hand combat and just as the bad guy puts the sword to his throat, an unmentioned meteor streaks from the sky to obliterate the bad guy in a magnificent blaze of fire. Don’t you think your readers will be disappointed in that? Now, that’s not to say the beautiful model can’t Kung Fu in and save him earlier in the story, but at this time, he’s on his own.

There should be no flashbacks at this point in your novel. Flashbacks are tough anyway, but they break the tension and can kill the entire scene. Once the scene opens, focus on the conflict in that scene. Your readers’ interest should be at its peak and they deserve a healthy portion of suspense, action and conflict.

Speaking of action and conflict, this scene should be resolved with action and conflict. Let them duke it out, metaphorically, emotionally or physically, but get the tussle going. Make this thing as exciting as you can. (For more information on the difference between action and conflict, read this ARTICLE.)

Clarification of anything is death to this scene. This is the time for action and your readers should have already received any explanations they need, although mysteries might get away with this to a point.

And finally, this scene should end in a rational fashion. Make it suspenseful, but logical. You never want your readers to say, “Don’t buy it,” at the end of your story. If they do, they’ll tell their friends the same thing; “Don’t buy it.”

Now, are there any aspects to the climactic scene I’ve forgotten?

Until my next post, you know I wish you only best-sellers.

To listen to a podcast of this article, click HERE.

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Born to Be Brothers blog.

My Lousy Stigma

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This post, by Pete Morin, originally appeared on his site on 9/12/11.

At the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to revisit this whole canard about self-publishing suffering from a “stigma.”

Over at The Forum That Shall Not Be Named, the usual suspects continue their broken record. One of these people purports to be a “professional writer,” but I’m skeptical. “When my novel is done,” she assures us, she will pursue the traditional publishing route, and would never self-publish it, lest she be tainted with the stigma of self-publishing. I got news for you, lady. You’ll never be published.

So now that I am committed to self-publishing Diary of a Small Fish (after all those nasty traditional publishers have ignored it for far too long – **sniff**), these warnings take on a new dimension of absurdity, which I will explain. But first – a commercial message:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now then. It is indeed so that the digital libraries at Amazon, Smashwords, B&N and Apple are chocked with dreck. There is a clamor of noise out there in digital land, like singers auditioning for American Idol, peeling the paint off of Jennifer Lopez’s eyes, howling like sick cats. Do those singers diminish the quality of Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson? (No wisecracks, please. I’m no pop music lover either, but talent is talent.)

A few more examples are warranted.
 

Read the rest of the post on Pete Morin‘s site.

Why $.99 E-Books Don’t Work for Me

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I’ve gone back and forth for months trying to decide whether to price the e-book version of my new release, The Arranger, at $.99 or $2.99…for the launch phase. The thinking is this: At 99 cents, I’ll sell more copies, the book will go higher on the Amazon charts, and I’ll get more exposure. But I won’t make much money…unless it hits the top of the charts and stays there for a long time. But can I count on that?

 

Of course not. In July, I conducted an experiment and priced all my Jackson e-books at $.99. They got a little bump in sales, then quickly settled into a slightly higher level than where they’d been at $2.99, for example 25 copies a day for one title compared to 15 at the higher price. The problem is the royalty. Amazon only pays a 35% royalty on books under $2.99, instead of 70%. So dropping from $2.99 to $.99 not only means earning a third of the price, it also means receiving half of the royalty.

Straight up math: I have to sell six times as many books at the lower price to make exactly the same money. And that’s hard to pull off. There are so many authors and publishers now offering their books at $.99 that it’s hard to gain much attention with that price, especially since my books have been on the market a while and already reached thousands of readers. (And thank you to all those readers!)

After only a few weeks, my experiment taught me this: I can’t make a living selling e-books at $.99. Yet, I have to make a living. I’m a full-time novelist now and I don’t want to go back to freelancing. If I were to start editing again to make up the cash difference, I would write less and disappoint my readers who are waiting for the next Jackson book.

So all my e-books are now back to the higher price, and The Arranger will be released at $2.99. It’s still a great bargain for readers, and the plan is to leave my prices set. Readers like consistency, and I’m sure they’re as tired of the price fluctuations as I am. I certainly hope this is my last post on the subject. If you want to read another blog about cheap e-books, written with a lot more passion, check out The 99 Cent Ghetto.

Readers: Are you willing to pay $2.99 for an e-book you want?
Writers: Have you experimented with price and found the optimum?

 

This is a reprint from L.J. Sellers‘ blog.

Who Believes In You?

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This post, by Sean Platt, originally appeared on his Writer Dad site on 8/1/11.

Were you ever the only person who really believed in you or saw where you wanted to go?

Three years ago, that was me.

Everyone thought I was crazy.

The parents at the preschool Cindy and I were running, friends, family, our accountant, and anyone who opened their ears to the dream. Even most of the people who said, “Go for it!” weren’t so sure.

It was easy to see the Is he nucking futs?!? behind their eyes.

Fortunately, there was one person who believed above and beyond reason. My wife, Cindy.

Cindy is the one who handed me the pen, then urged me to keep it moving. Despite the odds, despite the detractors. Despite my own occasional doubt, Cindy always had faith.

We knew things would get bad.

And they did.

Worse than we expected. But we also knew they’d improve. And they have. Better than we hoped.

We would find our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we’d have to slog through endless buckets of rain before there was enough to hit the sun and color our sky.

I always knew there had to be something more than running a flower shop or a preschool. While those businesses were successful, it was growing harder and harder to make a living. And I wasn’t really doing what I wanted.

My inner entrepreneur longed for the Internet’s unlimited possibility. Though I’m a writer, I’ve always been a businessman first. The potential results of well-placed words and smart strategies are far beyond anything I could imagine with a brick-and-mortar business.

My ideas are now my best asset, each a new seed with the potential to grow profit.

I had to become a better thinker.

 

Read the rest of the post on Sean Platt‘s Writer Dad.

We Remember

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When 9-11 happened I was working at KTRE in Lufkin,

 

 

 

 

Texas, I was upset I wasn’t covering the story more up close

 

and personal. It was my day off and my phone rang several

 

James Michael Doughty

 

4

 

times, waking me up. I listened to the messages, one of which

 

was my sister telling me she was praying for me. I turned on

 

the TV and fell to my knees. I said a quick prayer and went to

 

work. All those children left without a mother or father—it

 

was the first time I realized I wasn’t alone as the only kid

 

who would grow up without a dad.

An Indie Publishing Cost Analysis : Part 1

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The Creative Penn has a post about the cost of indie publishing wherein she describes a sliding scale of possible expenditure by the indie author. At the low end, the enterprising and spendthrift indie can publish a book for about five bucks.  At the high end, an enterprising and astoundingly wealthy indie can spend over thirty thousand to achieve basically the same thing.  Note that I said basically, not exactly; the quality and distribution channels that come with a 30K price tag will surpass what you get for five dollars.  However, really great stories remain great, even if they’re written on free napkins with a stolen pen.  The problem there is that any work published that way is not only greatly limited in circulation, but limited in lifespan, too, because napkins have their ways of getting soggy or destroyed.  While I don’t intend to release  jewel-encrusted print editions, I want something a bit more accessible and lasting than a napkin:  I want a paperback and various electronic formats.

I’m more enterprising than I am astoundingly wealthy, so even my highest expenditures must be magnitudes lower than 30K.  But how low can I go? How low should I go?  What expenses can I cut, and still get what I want?  What is the least I can spend to get a version of my book to market?

This is an excerpt from Aniko Carmean‘s blog.

Author Ethics: A Practical Guide

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This post, by Julie Ann Dawson, originally appeared on her Tales From The Sith Witch, a Bards and Sages blog, on 9/3/11. It serves as an introduction to a more thorough project of research and analysis on the topic, so please be sure to click through on the ‘read the rest’ link at the end of this excerpt to view the supporting research notes and related essays.

 In 2004, I self published my first full length book, September and Other Stories.  I immediately began to contact some review sites in order to obtain reviews.  Some never responded.  Some responded with a “we’re sorry but we’re backlogged” excuse.  One, however, responded very firmly that “I no longer review ANY self published books.” 

It seemed like a curiously worded rejection, but reviewers have a right to review what they want so I let it go.  Since the site also offered advertising, I queried about the cost of placing a banner ad.  The response was even more firm. “Look, I don’t do business with self publishers.”

Being new to the industry, I thought I must have done something wrong and upset the site owner.  That hadn’t been my intention, so I sent her an apology for whatever it was that I did.  A couple of days later, she sent me an email apologizing for overreacting.  This led to a startling conversation. 

The reason she had stopped reviewing self published books was because she was terrified of self publishing authors.  She had received several threatening and harassing responses to perceived negative reviews of self published books.  The most recent incident and the one that convince her to stop reviewing self published books altogether, was a man who threatened to find her and rape her daughter.  She was in the process of getting a restraining order, because the man had called her house to let her know that he knew where she lived.

I wish I could say over the years this was an isolated incident.

Bad behavior is not unique to self-publishing authors.  I think most horror readers remember Anne Rice’s rather public meltdown on Amazon.com regarding negative reviews of Blood Canticle*.  John Lott used the fake persona of Mary Rosh to anonymously defend his own work and post reviews of his book More Guns, Less Crime*.  In April 2011, Dilbert creator Scott Adams admitted to engaging in sock puppetry to defend his work*.  These incidents grab our attention because of the celebrity status of those involved, but also because such public displays are thought rare.

But the media doesn’t report on public meltdowns of self publishing authors.  Nor do bloggers spend their hours unraveling the elaborate astroturfing schemes of self publishers.  Yet there is a general acceptance of the belief that such unethical behavior is far more common among self publishers than it is traditionally published authors.  And not only is it more common, but more extreme. 

*footnotes are provided for these references on the source post


Read the rest of this post about Author Ethics, and also see the supporting research notes and related essays, on Julie Ann Dawson’s Tales From The Sith Witch blog.

Kill The First Novel? Are You Insane?

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Yesterday, we excerpted from and linked to a piece by Edan Lepucki, in which she talks about letting go of a first novel that didn’t sell. Today, we excerpt from and link to a rebuttal from Kristen Tsetsi.

“Magic 8 Ball,” I asked, “will my first novel be published?”

Yes. Definitely.

Hm.

“Magic 8 Ball, am I a man?”

Yes. Definitely.

Dammit.

___________

Edan Lepucki, in her recent article in The Millions, briefly plays with the idea of a) showing her cleavage in her author photo or b) falsifying her bio to make herself seem exotic (foreign) and male (thought to be more skilled/serious writers) as a means of getting the attention of publishers who haven’t been interested in her novel, which was (less interestingly) written by “an American woman living in an uncool neighborhood in Los Angeles.”

I’ve thought about this, too. And, like Lepucki, I gave it consideration “not entirely seriously, and not entirely in jest.” It’s occurred to me as a woman not-yet-beyond-relative-youth that in this country (and most others), breasts will sell just about anything. A “serious” writer posing topless with her manuscript? Sure, it reduces her to a sex object and reeks of desperation, but all evidence points to It Would Probably Work. As long as the book gets published in the end, isn’t it worth it? And isn’t it the people suddenly giving it attention because of a pair of breasts, and not the author, who should be ashamed?

Like I said, I’ve thought about this.  I’ve also thought about creating a male, and fully Albanian, pseudonym (“Tsetsi” is exotic enough, but “Kristen” doesn’t have that foreign flair).

Because like Lepucki, I’ve been close to publication, and now I’m faced with a dilemma not so different from hers: what to do if a book doesn’t sell.

THEN

Like Lepucki, I’ve had an agent. But way back before finally acquiring that agent, a long line of query rejections had been blissfully interrupted by emails – and a phone call – from fairly big-name agents who said things like, “We love this, but literary fiction is hard to sell, and even harder when it’s coming from an ‘unknown.’”


Read the rest of the post on Kristen Tsetsi‘s blog.

New Novel "Be Still and Know That I Am" Now Available

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 My new novel, "Be Still and Know That I Am" is now available