It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Hey, y'all! I'm happy to see I was on the ball and posted that Villainess 3 was live. I was afraid I had missed that since I tend to neglect the blog here, save for when I come back to "real life" work and decide to update.

Now, in reference to my title, what I'm going to talk about today is "making it" as a independent author. I won't give out solid numbers, but I figured if I want to quit my job and do this for a living, I'd need to make about $1500 a month three months in a row. Not only would that give me a sizable nest egg to fall back on, but it would show consistency month to month like that. That would be working a full time job in addition to writing, not just writing full time. Since I'm at work (*looks around*) obviously, I'm not making that.

I won't lie and say that it's not my dream to write for a living. It is! Of course it is! It's every writer's dream to be the next Stephen King, or heck, even Dean Koontz... or EL James. I think I first got into erotica because I thought, "Oh, hey, easy money." And while it is easy, and there's money, it's not exactly "easy money". There's work involved. There's stuff I'm not so good at doing involved... like making covers, and networking, and promotion. It's not just writing a story and sending it out into the universe, expecting it to be popular. Sometimes, yeah, you can get lucky, but those instances are pretty few and far between. It's work. It's hard work, but because I love telling stories, it makes it easy for me.

A couple people know this, but I started a romance pen name too. No, I shan't be giving it out here. At least, not yet. Romance isn't my thing. Like, writing about dirty, filthy sex is one thing, but writing romance? It's a lot harder. There are formulas you must follow there to be successful, and tropes you need to learn because readers expect it. It's a learning process. I won't say that process is fun cause it's not. It's work. But I still get to tell stories, even if they are romances. Who's to say there can't be derring do and all sorts of fun stuff in it?

A couple other people know I'm writing "legit" novels too, though they are not published yet. I put legit in quotes because the erotica I write is legit, but people scorn it. Hell, people scorn romance, yet romance is probably THE top seller anywhere. Neither are easy to write. This novel I have is sizable, and I'm thinking it's probably to complex and doesn't make sense and all sorts of other negative things... but it's the one I've put the most effort into. Even my Villainess and Delilah stuff, which I love dearly, haven't gotten even a tenth of the work this novel has. Does that mean it's better? No. It means I've just put more work into it... and that I've dragged my feet trying to publish it.

Through all this, I'm not a popular author. I have fans, which is still trippy to say, but not popular. In general, the stuff I write is at worst, average, and at best, mind blowing. (seriously, someone said that!) I can handle that. Even the femdom stuff, the Dominating Her Man series, I've been told was better than much of the other stuff out there. It wasn't super hard core... but it wasn't meant to be. It was meant for people, myself included, to dip their toes into different aspects of the BDSM culture. This one might be about pegging. This one might be about bondage. This one might be about humiliation. And so on. Even when I haven't put my heart into it, it's still alright. I can deal with that.

I think what's holding me back is pushing. I don't push. I'm not a pusher. I CAN be aggressive, but in general I'm laid back and kinda nervous about pushing my stuff onto people. It's promotion, and I have remind myself that it's OK to push because that's part of my job as an indie writer... to push and wave my hands and say "Look at this! You'll like it!". But it's all part of the learning curve. Before I could write, I had to learn how to write, how to put stories together, how to make sentences, how to punctuate, spell, and all that other stuff. Before I can promote, I have to learn HOW to do it and get the mindset for it. I shouldn't (and don't) expect success overnight because while I learned how to put sentences together all of my life, I've only been a few months at learning how to promote myself. Each step forward takes me a closer step to my goal. And say I only make ten bucks a month, or fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred... each dollar gained is closer to my goal. And it's more than I would have had had I just sat on my ass and not did anything.

I've been at this for a year now, and in that year I've published over 45 stories, a couple of which have been full length novels, and at least a dozen novellas. Think about that. Does your favorite author put out novels twice a year? Of course not. (Of course, I don't have to go through copy editing and editing and approving covers and waiting for publication either. Advantage of self-pubbing there.) On a work day--because I write during my work days--I can write five to ten thousand words. That's inbetween working at my "real life" job. I read somewhere an average writer only writes about two thousand. If I did this for a living, anything under ten thousand a day would be a failure for me.

Some authors work really fast. I know of one who puts out a story every day to every other day. He's amazing. I know other authors who can't write that fast, who have real life responsibilities they must attend first and are lucky if they write two hundred words. Yet we're all in the same race. We're all learning, albeit at different speeds, and growing. We're all moving along to our dreams and while some of us are at the end of the race, cheering the rest on (and it's true, the "made it" indie authors tend to be really supportive of the little guy; it's pretty amazing), others are still racing at our own pace. It's been said this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that is so true. We'll get tired and winded. We'll get revitalized by the crowd. We'll work at a steady pace with periods of rest and periods of frantic activity, but each movement puts us one step closer to our end. The people I'm racing with aren't my competition; they're my companions. We're all doing it together.

*waves a hand* Inspirational thought for the decade. :)

Art is Subjective

Not the best title, but it works. Yes, this is again about Chuck Tingle's Hugo nomination (go, Chuck!) and about art and subjectivity in general.

One of the things you don't know about me (but soon will) is that Tommy Wiseau's The Room is one of my favorite movies. It's hilariously bad. It's been lampooned and reviewed so many times, and those reviews are hilarious, but the movie itself is a spectacular piece of terrible film... and I fucking adore it. It's a matter of taste. I admit to having some simple tastes at times, and what I like for art is often a big part of that simplicity. It comes down to this one thing:

I enjoy laughing.

That's it. That's why I like some really terrible stuff, which isn't put together the best, or has obvious errors, or other people would look at me like I'm crazy and be like "WTF". It makes me laugh and smile. It pulls from me a stronger reaction than even my FAVORITE movie of all time, and just about every other movie I've ever watched. I never laughed so hard in my life than when I got stoned and watched The Room. (*gasp* Yes, I smoke "the refer" recreationally, sue me) Even watching it sober makes me giggle like a giddy schoolgirl.

For this reason, I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax. They make bad movies really damn funny. It's not really done out of a sense of meanness for the movies, but rather a certain kind of love for them. Only people who love movies that much spend that much time watching them, bad, good, mediocre... all kinds.

So it is with Chuck Tingle. The Tingleverse makes me smile. It makes me laugh. It makes me shake my head and go "WTF did I just read?!", and these are all good things. Of the writers I've read, so very few pull a real emotional reaction from me. And of those that do? Not many of them the level of sheer giddy joy and amusement Mr. Tingle brings me. It's all subjective. What works for me may not work for you.

He's this sort of comedic genius which comes along a couple times in a life, that strikes you just right, and makes you happy because you laugh when you read his stuff. His Twitter page is hysterical. And behind it all, behind all those silly books and unreal circumstances and outrageously crazy tweets, there's a few real messages there. He tells us in his way to love people, to accept them for who they are whether they are unicorns or raptors or not, and he points out in hysterical ways the hypocrisy of folks who butt in other people's business, and he comments on current events in a way which often flies right over the head of the people he's satirizing. He's clever and funny and good-hearted. Even if it's all fake, fake name, fake humor account, fake everything... who cares? The persona created is good, and wants to bring good things to people's lives, and for that, if nothing else, I admire the fuck out of him. Me? I'm too full of hate and spite to bring about messages of love and shit.

I know not everyone is going to agree with me, but that's fine. He's one of my favorite authors right now because I know I can pick up one of his short stories and come out the other end with a smile. I can't say that about any other author I read. Not a one.

In Other News....

Just to counter the harshness of the last blog post, I do have some good news! I should finish the first draft of The Princess of Wands: Villainess #3 tonight or tomorrow. I'm that close! I have a couple new audio books coming out as well. And then I shall work on the next Janus Key Chronicles and probably pretty soon have the second bundle for them out too!

After all that, then I think I may work on two projects concurrently: the next Rock Hardin book, and the next Delilah book. Delilah's easier to write, but Rock needs some time in the sun now too. There is a definite plan, folks!

"Free" on Kindle Unlimited Isn't Fucking Free

I try not to go off (too much) on here. This is a positive place filled with smutty books and updates and some weird musings from me now and again! However, I keep seeing this all over the place... and it bugs the shit out of me.

I'm a voracious reader. I devoured Game of Thrones in five hours, just to give you an idea of the speed at which I read. Not a speed reader, but pretty fast. Because I read a lot, and also to do research for writing, I decided to enroll in Kindle Unlimited. Now, a lot of authors bitch about the low payout (and it is), and they feel like Amazon is strong-arming them. If you don't put your book into Kindle Unlimited, then it won't get the visibility other books IN KU will. However, you have to be exclusive to Amazon for the term of being in KU. Kind of sucks for an author.

However, it's fantastic for a reader. You can borrow up to ten books at a time, and I've found some fantastic books this way. Some not so good ones too. Some downright awful ones as well. But I would NEVER have tried those authors had they not been in Kindle Unlimited. In one case, reading an author's book made me a fan of hers. You basically get as many books as you can read for ten bucks a month. That's a great deal!

I pay for that service.

Let me repeat that: I PAY FOR THAT SERVICE.

Yeah, it's only ten bucks a month, and some months Amazon gets my ten bucks for free without me reading shit. Other months, I read the hell out of everything I can get my hands on. It comes and goes. The point here is that money goes out of MY pocket to Amazon's for the right to read the KU books as many times as I want. It's not free.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen authors advertise, "FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED!" and it annoys the fucking hell out of me every time. I advertised like that once, then took it down because I felt dirty and weird. Afterwards... never. I'll mention my books are mostly on KU, because they are (mostly), but I never put the word "free" in there. It's not free. I FUCKING PAY FOR THE SERVICE.

Sure, I get it. Authors want to get their books attention. I totally get it. I do! I would love my books to pick up in popularity! And while it's a small thing, saying it's free on KU, it still annoys me. It's false advertising. You heard me: false advertising. Some people might say, "But it IS free on KU! The reader doesn't pay for it." But they do. Hence, it is a lie, a falsehood. Perhaps it's a well-intentioned falsehood. Perhaps the author simply didn't think about it. And I know I'm definitely in the minority here. Heck, I might be the only one in the world that annoys. (But it's my blog, so I write about what I want. :P )Doesn't matter. It is still a false statement.

And I don't borrow those books.

I don't buy them either.

I skip the authors who advertise that way. It annoys me that much it drives me away. If they want to advertise it's on KU, that's great! Do it! We people who are KU subscribers know that hey, we can borrow it at NO FURTHER COST to ourselves, great! To those people who aren't KU subscribers, the word "free" has a very different connotation, and that's where I feel it's really disingenuous. They go in expecting the book to be a freebie if they don't read carefully enough, and lo and behold, it's not.

I can't make anyone stop doing that, but I wish they would. Ah well, le sigh.

Opinions Are Like....

Hidey ho, neighborinos! I know it's been a little while since I blogged, but here's an update. :D

I actually got my first 1 star reviews the other day. I was a little stunned by it, because it was on the audio book versions of The Queen of Swords and The Prince of Cups on audible.com. I won't say they are high literature, but whomever did it drove by and left one star on "Overall" and "Story" (but I am happy to say they gave the "Performance" part 4 stars which was good! Rebecca Wolfe did a fantastic job on them, and I think I would have been waaaaay more upset if they had voted down her performance!) without leaving an actual review. On Audible, you can do that, which is fine. I get some people may not want to leave reviews with their names attached.

However, it does mystify me as to why the one star reviews. Again, I won't say they are high literature, but they aren't just a three thousand stroke pamphlet (or 20 minute stroke audio track) either! They are free from spelling errors and most grammatical errors. The story isn't just 'And they fucked'. The only thing I can think of is the EPIC miscategorization Audible put The Queen of Swords in... they put it in Romance. It is NOT romance. Not one bit. Not even a little teensy tiny bit. I categorized it on Amazon as sci-fi, dark fantasy, and action. There are sexy parts in it, yes, but it says on the COVER that it is super-powered erotica.

However, that is on the cover, and not in the blurb. I DO mark it as having strong sexual content and violent content as well, so there's fair warning. I can see how someone looking for a romance would be disappointed. Hell, there's a review on the UK Audible site which says that! They still thought it was interesting, and marked it as three stars. That's fair.

The miscategorization? Not my fault. When Audible makes the blurb and categorizes it, they pull the information directly from Amazon. I have nothing to do with the input. All I do is look for producers, approve the audio, upload the cover... that's it. Everything else is automated, which may not be the best system, for examples such as these. I got a little paranoid about it, trying to suss out the reasons.

Then... I figured it out.

It doesn't matter.

Everyone has an opinion and you know what? Everyone's entitled to that opinion. No matter the cause of the one stars, that person did not like them, and that's ok. People who rave about my stuff and rate them four or five? They are also entitled to their opinion. Even middle ground Max in the middle with rankings... yup, they are entitled as well. Everyone has a unique take on things, and it doesn't mean things are bad. It means that person did not like it. That's all.

And I'm cool with that. As the old saying goes, opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one. Instead of taking this as a negative experience and angsting about the why's, I'm choosing to take it as a positive thing. Someone found these audio books and took the time to rate it, so I got a reaction. Isn't that what all creative people want? To create a reaction in people? A feeling?

In other news, up to 66K in The Princess of Wands. I'm hoping to get a lot more written in the next few days. I sense the end coming up, and it's making me anxious!

What is an Artist?

This was just brought up on Facebook, as one of the authors there commented that another author just flounced and quit writing because it was too hard or something (I didn't see the original post). I guess a few authors have gone through that. And yeah, writing--or rather the in general "creating"--IS hard. It's not easy. It's brutal work at times, and you don't get recognized for it. And sometimes, people will criticize you for it.

So, why create? Why be an artist?

It's my belief artists aren't necessarily good, famous, rich, or even talented. Artists are artists because they create art. That's it. A three year old scribbling in crayons is an artist. A ninety year old writing their memoirs is an artist. Hell, the guy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind who sculpted Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes is an artist. Artists create art. That's it. It's that simple. It doesn't have to be good art, or famous art. It doesn't mean they are starving or rich. All they do is create. Everyone in some way is an artist... but I think what people mean by artists is not "can they make a living doing it" (although that would be lovely), but rather, "Do they NEED to make the art?" Maybe that's just my definition. The people I would consider "professional" artists are those who NEED to create. Everyone creates, so everyone is a creator... but those who do it out of the need to create something new, to tell a story, to share a picture, to snap that perfect photograph, to design the perfect building, to make something new... I think that's the "professional" artist. In that case, it's because it's their profession, their drive, their need to create.

I write because I need to write. In my own definition then, I am a professional writer. It's my profession... not a hobby. It may be part time right now--I think I clock in between 20 and 30 hours writing a week, sometimes more, but almost never less--but it's still my profession and it's not 'cause I get paid for it.

*waves a hand* Idle thoughts. Am writing right now! But it's in the secret experiment. When I ... get to a certain point the SEKRIT EXPERIMENTS, I'll share it here (and ONLY here, since no one reads this anyway, heh), as well as my results. In the meantime, rest assured I am still working on The Princess of Wands. I'm up to 47.5K, which is just a stone's throw away from novel-hood. At this point, I'm guessing the length is going to be.... another six to eight chapters, which should be around another 30-50K words. It's still hard to guess "for sure", but that's a reasonable estimate.

Never THE End

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, I just got over the flu. I was sick for a whole week and needless to say, I didn't do anything at all in that week except lay on the couch or the bed and cough a lot while I tried to puzzle out what show I was watching. Even now, after I've "recovered", I'm tired and it's really hard to get back to my day time job.

I look at my writing and I just wince. I haven't done anything for over a week. I feel bad about that, but at the same time, I'm so tired it's hard to get motivated to write. I want to. I like writing. I like telling stories. At the same time, there's so much yet to do, so much yet to write, and I'm so tired that it's daunting... and because it's daunting, it's depressing.

I try to keep these posts pretty upbeat, though IRL I am a depressive. It's sometimes a hard fought victory to even get out of bed when I'm depressed. I know, logically, that I'm just tired and overworked from rushing my recovery and being sick, but emotionally it's just as draining. I'm only half done with the first draft of The Princess of Wands, and I look and see how much more I have to write... depressing. Yet I won't give up. I think that hits all writers from time to time... that they see how much more they have to do to get to the end of a particular book and they just throw up their hands and go, "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

Obviously, it's not impossible, but it can feel that way. So, instead of dwelling on "OMG I HAVE ALL THIS TO DO", I'm going to choose to look at what I've done so far. I've written about 150K words in JUST this world alone! That's a lot! And it's a lot more than would-be writers have done who think about writing but have never started. I've not only started, but finished and published novels! And tons of short stories and novellas! If I can do all that, then I can certainly finish one more book! And when I finish that one, then I can do the next one... so on and so forth. The point is that even if we fall or falter, we can always pick ourselves back up. There is no such thing as THE end, only AN end. I'll have an end to this book, but it's not the end of my writing. It'll be the start of my next book. And the next, and the next, and so on.

I wish I wasn't so tired, but I will keep my goals small for right now and build back up. The Princess of Wands is delayed, but it is coming. And after that, Reamin' Demons. And after THAT, The Brujah and the Beast. And after THAT....