What a Year So Far

Well, of the things that could have started the year off, most of us didn't expect the spate of mortality among the arts. The loss of a number of iconic musicians and actors within a hideously short time frame has come as a shock to many. People are reeling and wondering who might be next. The mood of the new year is somber.

And this holiday today is a reminder of what happened to one who was working to make a profound difference.

Few of us know the number of our days. We should try to make the most of each one of them, enjoy, and live well.

Some have asked why I work so hard to produce books and stories so quickly. I fear being cut off before I can get these tales told, and I have so many to tell. So I'm pushing like a freight train, racing time to produce what I can while I'm here.

Books are a time machine, and I'm trying to speak to people that may not have even been born yet. If I can communicate to them in meaningful words, then my time here was well spent.

I approach the craft with a will to make it good, make it right. This quote captures it:

So live well. And do something meaningful. Make your time here count in some way.

Why I Love the Writing Game- Further Adventures

Was having a rotten day yesterday, and was feeling depressed. Re-read the JA Konrath timeline of the work he was doing when he was breaking out as successful. Few have worked that hard to make a success, and yet, as he says, there was a lot of luck.

Then I got home, and my mood got better rather quickly. For awaiting me were two checks for stories I'd sold. Don't think that's ever happened, two checks at once. Also there was the inaugural issue of Trysts of Fate, with my story KillerElla listed on the cover. And a sales report from Audible on my audiobook sales for January.

Wow. When you're feeling low, to have such a shot in the arm is magic. Gives you hope and makes you keep going. Now have to write more stories and send them out. Just to keep the checks coming.
It may not be big bucks, but it was sorely needed.

Did you ever have a time when things were bad, and you got a piece or two of great news?

Great Advice From Unexpected Sources

Good advice for your writing career can come from unexpected sources.
Two important places for you to check out- though the people involved have written books, they are less known as "writers" than other things- Seth Godin is a business/marketing guru, and Scott Adams is a well-known cartoonist who draws Dilbert.

Seth has so much terrific advice for the modern "authorpreneur." One of his recent blogs is crucial for your understanding of the modern book market.

He says that your biggest problem isn't 'awareness' (or the buzzword 'discoverability' for writers). It's not that you should shout all over social media about your work so that more people will hear about you, it's about creating such a value proposition that people tell other people about you. He persuades you that it's better to produce something remarkable.

On social media, I skip over all self-promotion- they're shouting in hopes that someone, anyone, will follow the link. But when someone else recommends a work, and tells me why, I'm much more inclined to check it out. So when you write something so good that other people push it, that's the key.

The second thing to check out (see there, I found great value and am passing it along) is the book by Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.


He hits on a number of points to absorb, the first that perseverance matters over temporary setbacks. He got lucky by constantly working hard to put himself in positions to get lucky. Like Edison with the light bulb, he "failed" at many things, which all taught him something, and which he accepted as moving him closer to his plan for success.

The takeaway for me is that he shows how to decide what you truly want and set up a system for long-term success, not just set goals. A goal may be met, or not, and then you've either failed- or have to start over with new goals. It's paradoxical for us as humans- shortly after we meet a goal, we're dissatisfied, and seek something else. We work so hard, and the satisfaction is temporary.
Creating a system means you're always in progress. It's strategic thinking rather than tactical, and is a better indicator of eventual success.

He has many other life lessons here, also stressing the importance of knowledge and learning.
If you take a bit of time and study the book and the post, you will have a better understanding of what you need to do to continue a writing career for the long term.

Why I Love the Writing Game- Part Whatever

Ever have one of those colds on a weekend where you couldn't get anything done? Yeah, like that. Have felt awful, and worse about not getting any writing down. Have a terrific start to one novel, and another one planned out and ready to write. But nothing doing with this rotten sick feeling.

Cherry on the sundae-  a bloody surprise snowstorm. Sigh.

We won't talk about the Pats not showing up for their game against Denver...

So I'm at the end of the weekend, feeling bad, and suddenly an email comes through. A response to a story I submitted back before Halloween. The editor loves it ands wants to put it in the inaugural issue of Trysts of Fate magazine next month.

Wow. Nicely done. First story sale of the year!

The cool thing is I can be sitting at my desk and get notice of another royalty payment, or book sale, or opportunity, or someone who liked something I wrote and wants to pay for it.

Speaking of which, my newly-released audio books are selling like hotcakes. Check them out on
Audible.com

Once in a while, you get a lift when you need it.

Hard Work Week- Lots of Upcoming Stuff and Free Ebook

Spent the last 9 days in a frenzy, finishing the draft of Wendigo, my upcoming horror novel, a cross between Twin Peaks and Joseph Campbell. Mythology, and visions, and cannibalism, oh my!

Added over 12,000 new words, and rewrote much of what was there. Now it's off to the editing team to see what they think.

This was a work in progress for many, many years. Wrote the original as my first novel.

And like almost all first novels, it was a piece of poo. Had some great ideas in it, but lousy execution. Characters that talked endlessly, all tell, not enough show, and just a dullness that went on and on.

Was never what I wanted it to be, and so it went in the drawer. Every so often I'd take it out and dab at it, but had no fix. Just wasn't good enough to breathe life into it.

Had a breakthrough a couple years ago-- added a character that kicked it up several notches. Good start, but nowhere near enough.

And then last year, a combination of things sparked the idea bubble, and had the path to enlightenment.

But before I could get to it, had to finish writing A Shadow on the Wall. That got published in June. Have been working on Wendigo since then. Got a butt-kicking when I realized we had to get this out for the Halloween launch at the New England Mobile Bookfair, where we'll be appearing on Thursday, Oct. 24th for an evening of mystery and horror.

So with nose to the grindstone, I did what I needed to do to get it done. And we've got a terrific cover for it, which you'll see soon.

It's going to be a busy Fall. Take a look at some of the schedule, and there's more beyond that!

For example, this Tuesday, my interview will be up on the site of Vlad Vaslyn, with my story "Locust Time" appearing for free.

To celebrate, I've got a freebie for you-- a collection of 10 tales-- and Locust Time is one of them-- in Halls of Horror, which will be free for 5 days on Kindle, starting this Tusday.

Killing Writing Careers

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a post about writing careers, and how the crap of the industry almost did her in at one point. But she found a way to persevere, and is now glad she did. This is a must read for anyone who wants to be a pro writer today.

I admire her telling her story, and could have been one of the crushed writers she speaks of. I felt so strongly, I commented on the blog. Here's my thoughts:

Kris, thank you for telling your story, which needs to be part of a writer's basic education. A mere three years ago, I would have signed any ridiculous publishing contract to get my mystery series started. I believed in the traditional path, had an agent who had industry pros agree the book was good, etc. And I would have likely had a soul-crushing experience as well. The series would be dead by now, and I would be wondering why I'd bothered.

But I was always learning. I read your blog, and Dean's and Konrath's, and many, many others.I talked to writers, who'd had terrible publishing experiences. Locked into contracts, with shrinking returns, and unable to put out anything else under their own name. Books that never got sold or delivered when people begged to buy them. Even best-selling books had been rejected over 50 times, on average. I started doing the math, and figured I'd be dead before I could get anything going-- and I'd still have to win the lottery, since over 96% of books don't sell more than a couple of thousand copies.

So I found a small publisher who would do it my way, and launched. Instead of a boulevard of broken dreams, my third series novel just came out, plus I've put out 6 story collections by myself, in different genres, and I continue to write and publish short stories. I do public signings (self-scheduled), and people tell me how much they've liked something I wrote. The freedom to do what I want is a heady thing, and I feel great about being a writer on my own terms, with the covers I want, and the content approval I desire.

Awhile back, I went on a supposed writer's help forum because some people were asking questions about my publisher (though some were just mindlessly bashing them while getting their facts wrong). I tried to clear things up by explaining how I'd reached my decision, that writers now had options, and how we should look at them, etc, and each choose their own path. You can guess the result. People who were chained like galley slaves to the Old Path blasted me as the worst kind of heretic, disparaged any evidence I offered, and repeated untruths as if they were gospel. I was told that bigger publishers were always better, would always make you more money, and always lovingly take your book to the best possible place it could be. I tried to offer contrary evidence, and point them to some data that disproved these assertions, but more of them kept piling on in the echo chamber. So I bade them well, and signed off, but wonder how many other authors they doomed to go the heartbreak route.

Moonwalk

Neil Armstrong has passed away, the first known human to set foot on the Moon.

Let's just take a second to appreciate the extraordinary effort it took to send a trio of humans almost a quarter million miles into space, have a person walk on the (unknown composition) lunar surface, and return them safe and sound to Earth.

With 1960's technology.

In the middle of the Vietnam War.

So why did we stop? Been there, done that? Checked it off our humanity bucket list and moved on?

It was probably the last time humanity was united on anything.

It was a tremendous achievement, and one we should be proud of. So why aren't we doing more Great Things?

Oh, yeah, we'd rather kill each other and fight amongst ourselves.

In our own country, we savagely argue over which group of disaffected rich people will work for our destruction over the next few years. Instead of enacting public funding for elections, we allow monied interests to bribe their way in the lawmaking process, and all but a handful of us suffer as a result.

A great many people in this country profess to using the Bible as a guideline for life. Here's a quote all of us should start living by:
Mark 3:25
And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, used this idea in an address given in 1858, in Springfield, Illinois, upon accepting his party nomination as that state's United States senator. This became one of the best-known speeches of his career (one that included the magnificent Gettysburg Address and his inaugural addresses).

But he lost that election. Didn't stop him, though, because he had a country to save, one that he felt so important that it was worth a bloody (un)civil war against itself to keep whole.

And now look at us. Instead of building a great nation and bettering life for its citizens (and all the people of the world), we waste our resources and moral outrage to needlessly butcher people (including many innocents) and blow up piles of sand in places few Americans can even find on a map.

What the Hell is wrong with us? Do we no longer deserve to last?

If we remain divided, we will not survive. Pretty pathetic ending for a people that managed to get to the Moon and back.

What's Wrong With Publishing, or The Kobayashi Maru

Today someone asked "how's your book doing?"
It's great to be able to say-- "Which one?"
As of last December, I only had one novel out for sale-- A Memory of Grief-- now I've got two novels published, with a third due out later this year-- while I also do work on book #4, the one to follow.
And I've got five story collections out in print-- while working on several more.
And-- the other novels I've got in the immediate pipeline.
So the book(s) is/are doing well, thanks. Better every day.

In our talk, I said it was tough being an Indie writer, as you're responsible for all the promotion-- as well as writing more. No matter if you're promoting one book or writing another, you feel like you're not doing enough if you can't do both at the same time-- and with a regular day job and a family, you have little enough time as it is.

He smiled and said, "You've got a real Kobayashi Maru situation there."

This touched my nerdy little heart. For those of you who may not have your geek creds, the Kobayashi Maru was a plot device used in Star Trek. It was an exercise at Starfleet Academy, designed as unwinnable, no matter what the player did. It was designed to teach prospective officers the meaning of fear and failure. Everyone failed. Until James T. Kirk came along, a man who refused to accept failure, ever. He beat the Kobayashi Maru by cheating the rigged game! Kirk hacked the game computer to allow for a winnable scenario. And won it.

The whole idea is legend to those of us who get it. It shows us what Kirk's indomitable spirit is all about, and why he's successful as a Starship Captain.

This had tremendous resonance with me, because of another recent communication. I told a pro writer about my ambition to write fiction full-time, making it my living.

The response was "Forget it-- it's a pipe dream. You can't make a living writing fiction. I've had too many friends who've come to a bad end because they tried this."

Now this is a person who has been writing and publishing in the traditional pub world for almost 20 years. They said that they can sell a new book on a short proposal. They've got a spate of prestigious awards and nominations. With terrific, high-level reviews from professionals, a following, a number of books with good covers, a good website, and impressive sales rankings and reviews on Amazon. And with the support of big publishing behind them, offering hardback, paperback, e-books, audio books, and translation editions.

And this person cannot make a steady enough income to survive!
That, dear readers, is What's Wrong With Big Traditional Publishing.
Someone is making a ton of money here, and it ain't the person creating the product. A pro, with everything in place, is not getting a steady income from a terrific backlist and a regular supply of new books.

Wonder why. Maybe because Big Trad Pub gives a piddly 17.5% to the creator of the work, then another 15% comes out of that for an agent.

So we have a system that creates the expectation of failure. You can have everything going for you, do everything right, and you still get nothing but scraps from Big Trad Pub (for which they expect you should be groveling and grateful).

Sorry, ain't buying it. Like James Tiberius Kirk, I reject this rigged system, and the attitude of failure it fosters.
It's the Kobayashi Maru scenario once again-- a system that's unbeatable.

So, like Kirk, I'll go outside the system to beat it-- and do what's necessary to succeed. If that means Big Trad Pub is Starfleet, and won't let me be a captain without playing their losing game, I'll go rogue and get my own damn Starship.

I'll follow in the steps of others who began at Starfleet, and who have also rejected Big Trad Pub-- and are now making a very nice living.
Folks like JA Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Barry Eisler, just to name a few. The ones who show you how to succeed, how to reach for the stars, not be afraid of them.

For some time now, when people have asked what the middle initial T stands for in my name, I've answered "Tiberius."
Now you know why.

Live Long, and Prosper.
And Non Carborundum Illegitimatus.

The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Successes

Here's a great little post on The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Successes. It's a breath of fresh air, because we thnk success comes out of nowhere, that people just get lucky.

The truth is, success usually comes from long hard work. You work long enough, and don't quit, and eventually the luck comes along for some. Not for all-- there are no guarantees.

But as one philosopher said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

Failure seems a dirty word for some. But we learn a lot from failure. Someone who has never failed hasn't done very much, because when you reach high, you're bound to fall short quite a bit of the time. But it's that perseverance that makes some finally reach the lofty goals, the ones who keep at it long after the others have given up and gone home.

The War of Art

New book for you that is now required reading for any creative person.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is hands-down the best, most motivating take on writing and overcoming resistance that I've read. And I've read a lot of these type books.

The best recommendation is that I wrote before I did this post-- I overcame the resistance, and got it done. So it worked for today. Tomorrow we start the fight against resistance anew.

Read it, learn it, live by it. You will understand why it is that you are holding back.

***

Someone who does get it done on a regular basis is Chuck Wendig, author of the Terrible Minds blog, a top-notch blog of writing issues. Chuck is funny, vulgar, and dead-on with his advice. He gives you good lessons while you laugh at his wordplay.

And today his novel Blackbirds has been released. Check it out-- and buy it if you like it. He's worth it.