The Hard Talk

I recently missed an event on Facebook and I felt terrible about it. So, I told the author whose book release I missed that I would read and review it. I put everything else I was reading aside and concentrated on it... and I didn't enjoy the book. Why I didn't or what book it was doesn't matter, what matters is that afterwards came the Hard Talk.

Because I felt pretty strongly about my dislike and I just can't... I just can't be dishonest. I can't just write "It was great 5 stars" when I don't mean it. I know this is "just" my pen name, but I still want to be known for some integrity. If I say I like something, I like it. If I don't, I don't. However, as an author reviewing another author's book, it gets tricky. First, because we're in the same genre, Amazon could view the review as me trying to sink the other author's book, which that's not the intention. Second, you can get into a 'Well, you rated me a 2 I'm rating your shit a 1!', although most of the authors I've met have been really nice and I don't THINK they'd do that, they still might. Three, it's... well, it's kind of dickish to do that without talking to them first.

I approached the author and said "Hey, I finished Book X and I can review it if you want me to, but it won't be a good review". They asked if I could hold off, which of course I'm more than happy to do. I didn't really want to post a bad review. I don't like doing it. After that, they asked me what I didn't like, and so I went through most of my points (I forgot one, but oh well) and ended with the sincere "I think you've really got some talent, it was just X that I really didn't enjoy, but I am also not your target audience, so that may make a difference too." I ended it on a positive note, because I do think the author has the potential to be really good, and the writing wasn't terrible. They also used cunt, which that's a word I love even though most other women don't. Personal preference.

It's hard to be honest like that and go up to someone and say, "Hey, that thing you put all your time and effort into? I hated it." However... criticism has to mean something. Reviews have to mean something. I used to belong to a writing site many years ago. You would review stories people posted to get things to use to promote your own stories. It was all for free, but fun, and I learned a lot there. When I reviewed, I was always brutally honest. I mean scathingly, brutally honest. And you know what?

People requested I review their stuff.

On purpose.

Why? It was because I was brutally honest and they wanted to learn. I wanted to learn. That's why I was there. A "great story 5 stars" might be nice to see, but it's not constructive. Even in positive reviews, you can always point out "I really loved Bit X and Bit Y, but Bit Z was a little off to me." There's nothing wrong with that. Constructive criticism is how we learn. But it has to be constructive. Just saying something sucked or something was awesome is not helpful, and in fact, it can be downright hurtful.

So I want to tell people not to be afraid to be honest in their reviews. If you loved the book, but really didn't care for Character Y or Plot B or whatever, tell them. Tell them why you didn't like it. Not every story is going to be to everyone's tastes, and that's OK. Don't be mean. Don't be harsh. I always try to end on a positive note, too. It takes some of the hurt out because yeah, getting those low reviews does hurt. You try not to let it, but it does anyway. And it's encouraging.

As a side note, don't listen to those people who say "WELL, you didn't write a book, so you can't criticize!" That's total bullshit. Anyone can. I've said that before and I'll say it again. Anyone can criticize because everyone has an opinion. It's a matter, as an author, of seeing if you value that person's opinion and the deciding what you might learn from it.

Here's another quick story (bunch of them today!). I reviewed another author's book because I thought it sounded really exciting, but when I read it, I was so disappointed. I couldn't even finish it the book was pissing me off so much. I write a very long review about why, and put a lot of thought into making it constructive and well researched. Yes, I researched for a review. I take them seriously! When the author found out about it, they went off on Facebook about how it was horrible and they didn't know anything and blah blah blah. Now, I'd written the review under my real name (as I tend to do on Amazon) and they didn't know I was seeing the backlash. I never said anything to them about that, but I was shocked at the reaction and the behavior. It was vicious. What made matters worse was that the author had followers, a lot of them, who were mean, nasty, and said some really terrible things that I was stupid and didn't know what the fuck I was talking about and SHE didn't write a book so SHE can't criticize and stuff.

Again, I was pretty shocked at the reaction. And it wasn't like I said "It sucks, the end." It was thought out. The review itself was long, about 1500 words in length so I spent a significant time on the review... because it meant that much to me. Being able to see things from both sides made me really think about what I want to put out in the world as far as reviews go, and helped me to learn how to react to bad ones. Which is almost the same as how I react to good ones in that I say, "Thank you. Why did you feel that way?"

That, I think, is how authors should respond to reviews, good and bad. Why did you like something? Why did you hate it? Was it the writing? The style? Characters? Plot? Setting? So on and so forth. I know this first author I mentioned probably won't ever read this, but if they do, I want to say thank you for being a bigger person, standing up and saying, "Thank you. Why did you feel that way?" It not only shows they are willing to learn and adapt, but that they value what I thought. For readers, I think that's really important.

K, done rambling now.

Crippling Self Doubt

There's a meme going around Facebook for writers which, paraphrased, says "Give someone a book and they are entertained for an hour. Teach someone to write and they are crippled with paralyzing self-doubt for the rest of their lives."

I don't subscribe to that. Writing comes easy to me. However, doubt also comes easy to me. Not for writing, but for other things. With doubt comes depression and that I do suffer from and have for a long, long time. This is not a post about depression and stuff, because I want to keep the Alana pen name happy and talking about writing and sexy things and stuff. But, you know, life happens and people do get sad or depressed (which are not the same thing) or busy or any number of things. How do you work, as a writer, through it?

If you can't write, there are still a number of things you can do instead which are still work, at least for self-published authors.

• Edit: Editing's not fun, but if you can't write, sometimes you can still go through what you have written and make changes. Sometimes it might inspire you. Sometimes it might depress you more, but it's worth a shot.
• Work on ideas: This one is much more fun. You can brainstorm and try to come up with new ideas. You can expand on ideas you have already. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to make sense. Even in the midst of sadness and thinking, "UGH GOD I AM THE WORST WRITER EVER" you can still use that sadness to come up with sad things, or tragic characters, or the worst situation you can think of. Believe me, depressed people are really fucking creative when it comes to thinking how awful things are. Why not use that? You may discard all of the ideas later when you are feeling better, but you might find something in your ennui or sadness which you can use.
• Work on covers. A lot of self-published people do their own covers. A lot of them are pretty standard: stock photo, name, title, done. Some are more elaborate. Even if you don't feel like writing, you can still do something creative which will help you later on. No, you may not have a story ready for it, but if you find a stock photo which is really cool and you make a cover for it, you have inspiration for when you are ready. Keep in mind I write erotica and I have another pen which writes romance, so covers are pretty simple overall. That may not work if you write for horror or science fiction, or if you hire someone to do your covers.
• Bundle stories together. Again, I come from an erotica background here, and many erotica writers bundle their stories together. I advise against using the same stories over and over again, because your customers want new stuff, but if you have the blahs and don't want to write, then you can take some of your stories with a similar theme or niche and bundle them together using three or more of them. It takes a bit of work editing it for table of contents and links and suchlike, as well as a cover, but you can have a many page book ready to go in less than an hour and then sit back and think, "Well, I'm at least publishing a book for today." And you can charge higher prices for them too, of course. Erotica generally sells at 2.99$ for a price point. For a bundle of three stories, I charge 3.99$. For four to five, it's around 4.99$, and so on. It's another way to make money off of work you've already done.
• If you haven't investigated audio books or print books, then do some research. I can't recommend making audio books enough. It's free money, basically. You've already done your work! Check out acx.com and createspace.com for audio and print books through Amazon. If you publish through Amazon already, you're a step ahead. I haven't investigated print books yet, but I do plan to. Audio books are very easy to make. If you are already into that, then put another of your books up for a producer to audition for, or look for narrators. It's work. It will make you money. Best of all, it's really light on the work you need to do at that moment. 
• Go to social media. Social media isn't about advertising your books, though I'm sure many authors use it for that. It's to make a connection with like minded people, like other authors, and to connect with your fans. You can find things to post which inspire you to write or remind you of a character--say a music video or a song, perhaps pictures posted to Pinterest--or make observations on life. Go through your friends list and read what they are posting. Comment on it. Like people's posts (if you like them; I will never advocate lying to boost yourself. It comes back to bite you later). Interact. This has the added benefit of communication and contact with anonymity. I know when I'm sad it's sometimes easier to talk to a stranger than someone close to me, and it helps cheer me up. People are more inclined to buy books from an author they know than a stranger.

All of these things can be work, and many are needed to be done to write and sell self-published books. I know life and writing and stuff can be discouraging at times, but you shouldn't let it stop you. Being a self-published author is pretty rewarding, but it can be tough too, so you need to just keep going and treat it like a job... a job you love and like doing, but a job nevertheless. Like many jobs, there are many aspects of self-publishing which have to be addressed and even if you aren't in the mood to write, there's still a LOT you can do to help achieve your goals.

You Gotta Spend Money to Make Money... Right?

Oh boy. In what might be a huge mistake, I have... (drum roll, please)... paid for advertising.

Nah, not on Facebook, although I'm investigating that as well. Since my books are almost exclusively offered on Amazon, I went with them first. The first unhappy surprise: minimum hundred dollars expenditure. Second unhappy surprise: I have to wait, potentially up to 72 hours, for them to review it.

The book I chose to advertise is The Queen of Swords... of course. If I have some success here, I may branch out and do a similar campaign for Delilah. Those are the two I consider my most popular (even though 1001 Erotic Nights is my best seller, by far). The first reason is... well, it's easy to pin down the interests. It's all based on comics and thus, I targeted people who would buy comics or super hero novels. The second reason is that there are three books out in the series. If people like Queen enough, they may check out Prince, and then Princess.

It was pretty easy to set up. My nerves will be wracked until it's actually a live campaign. I'll keep thinking, "OMG WHAT IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT?! WHAT IF I DID SOMETHING WRONG?!" which is silly, of course. The next thought is, "What if I don't sell a damn thing and I just threw a hundred bucks away?" That would be a lot more shaming. However, Queen has some of my best reviews, Rebecca Wolfe's audio is wonderful to listen to, and I think it's fun and dark and sexy to read. You ONLY get 150 characters to sum up the book, though! This is what I ended up with:

In Imperial City, villain-for-hire Caprice works hard... and she plays harder. This novella contains dark, sometimes brutal, sexy, mature content.

It hits all the main components. She's a villain (check) who is hired (check). She works hard (check... sort of a nod to her being a bad ass) and plays hard (check). It's dark (check), bloody (check in the 'brutal' comment), sexy (check) and for a mature audience (check). There's no main element of the book which I left out, I think. Oh, and it's a novella, NOT a novel (check). I do NOT want people to be surprised by the length. The next books are novels, yes, but this one isn't. I think Prince has more sex in it by virtue of its length, but per capita... Queen is packed with sex. I wasn't sure HOW much I wanted plot and how much I wanted sexy times yet, so I erred on the side of sexy times. IIRC, Princess has three and a half sex scenes in comparison... basically the same amount as Queen. But it's three times as long. Longer than that!

This is a new, nervous step for me. I am reluctant to bug bloggers and say "Hey, review my booooook!" but that'll be the next terrifying step. People have often told me that you have to spend money to make money, and I hope this pans out. If I get a lot of click throughs, that'll be good. If I get a lot of sales, that will be better. If I want to be taken seriously...I need to advertise. Which that's a whole other post--people not taking erotica writers seriously. I seriously challenge anyone on the street to write a hot sexy scene and get people to fap to it.

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.