Where the past comes to my aid…

I’ve had my COVID update jab today. This means I’ll be clear in a few weeks and can maybe be a bit social. Unfortunately, I’m also one of those people who are COVID-vulnerable and who has a charming long and painful reaction to the vaccine.

Instead of a real post this week (and maybe next week and the week after, it depends on how long it takes to get through this) I thought you might like something from my past. Three things, in fact. If you scratch below the surface you’ll see a suggestion about how I approach the terrible things happening this month. The posts aren’t about that, however. The posts are about what I was thinking 15-16 years ago. The novels I was writing then were “The Time of the Ghosts” and “Poison and Light.” Both of them are still in print (“The Time of the Ghosts in its umpteenth edition, and “Poison and Light in its first) and the cover of “Poison and Light” contains artwork by Lewis Morley, who entirely understood my thoughts and dreams about the world of the novel. For a change, instead of saying “This book may be out one day, if I’m lucky” I can send you to the exact stories I wrote about, way back then. There aren’t many advantages to getting significantly older, but this is one of them…

(2007-11-26 21:45)

I need to tell you a story.

Once upon a time I was still active in the Jewish Community. At work on Friday afternoon I answered the phone and at the other end was a frantic community leader. “Gillian, you have to come to synagogue tomorrow, it’s very important.” He couldn’t tell me why. All he knew was that he had received a phone call from a well-known Melbourne rabbi (who had never met me) saying that Gillian Polack had to be at synagogue on Saturday morning. The rabbi knew I didn’t usually go to Shul, too, and he had said very firmly to “make sure she’s there”.

I couldn’t arrange a lift, so I hopped on my two busses very early and walked the half mile or so at the other end and found the Progressive Service and looked around for any reason I might have been summoned.

In front of me was a visiting cantor (but visiting from overseas – no links with me or mine), the backs of heads of the usual congregants, and about thirty aging pates. The usual congregants kept sneaking back to me to find out why I was there “Is there something happening this afternoon that wasn’t advertised?”

I whispered a question about the thirty heads to one of them and he whispered back “visitors from Melbourne, doing a tour – nothing to do with the cantor.” Somewhere in that crowd of heads probably lay my answer.

The service ended. Everyone stood up. The visiting group turned round to survey the back of the hall. I heard a woman’s voice cry, “There she is,” and one elderly lady ploughed out of the mob and towards me. The others all followed, like sheep. Some of them knew me, most of them were simply following their natural leader.

Valda is a friend. Except that it’s now “Valda was a friend”. I don’t believe it yet. Mum told me about her funeral just fifteen minutes ago.

She was nearly ninety and we just got on well. We snarked together at conferences and we stirred her kid brother (a close friend of my father’s and another friend of mine – the two of us have stood to the side at parties and brought down the tone of the proceedings since I was a teen) and we did a lot of very good volunteer work together. She died in her sleep, her life a resounding success.

I will miss Valda for a very very long time. And I will always remember how many people went into operation to make sure we got to chat when she was in Canberra. She could have rung me or she could have told my mother, but Valda simply told everyone she wanted to see me and – because it was Valda and we all loved her – everyone made sure it happened.

I will also never ever forget that horde of touring retirees descending on me. I was a whistle-stop for the Canberra part of their bus trip. And I bet Valda knew this when she called out “There she is.”

For the record, the questions were mostly about my Melbourne family. Also for the record, I asked in response “You’ve been away for a week and you miss them?” Valda hasn’t even been away a week and already there’s a hole in my life.

The Authors Guild Class Action Against OpenAI

The Authors Guild and a number of well-known writers have brought a class action against OpenAI and its various subsidiary corporations and partnerships alleging violations of copyright law in its use of materials to develop its large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT.

For eight years I made my living as the primary legal editor of a publication that covered class actions and while that was some years back, I still know a lot about the subject. So I read through the complaint — you can find it here in PDF form — and have some thoughts.

Here’s the court record if you want to look up more information.

First of all, this action was brought by a very sophisticated and prominent firm of class action lawyers, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. Headquartered in San Francisco, the firm has been a major player in complex litigation since 1972, handling among other things some of the major tobacco cases, litigation over the Exxon Valdez, and other major product liability and class actions.

The other firm in the case, Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard, is very experienced in copyright and technology law, according to their website.

Secondly, the case was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Given the number of publishers located in New York, that’s an obvious place to bring an action related to copyright. It’s assigned to Judge Sidney H. Stein, who was appointed by Bill Clinton.

A quick google search indicates that Judge Stein has handled a number of copyright cases.

Thirdly, this suit is only against OpenAI (in its many legal forms) and over ChatGPT and the other versions of that software. Given that there are other companies doing the same thing, I have no doubt that more suits will follow.

Fourth, this case is strictly over violations of copyright law in using work by authors of fiction. The proposed class includes works of fiction covered by registered copyrights that have sold at least 5,000 copies and that were used in programming the LLMs.

Again, this leaves out a lot of copyrighted materials that could be the subject of other suits, including nonfiction and books that sold fewer copies but were still used in developing the software.

And fifth, because they’ve restricted the case to books with properly registered copyrights, they can seek statutory damages based on violation of copyright law. That allows them to get around a major problem in class actions of a huge number of class members with very different actual damages. Continue reading “The Authors Guild Class Action Against OpenAI”

Auntie Deborah’s Writing Advice

What would you do if you found out that someone had stolen your idea for writing a book and published it under their name?

First of all, ideas can’t be copyrighted, but I must add—with emphasis—that there are vanishingly few original ideas. What makes a book uniquely yours is what you do with that idea. The vision and skill in execution that make it personal.

So what would I do? I’d cheer them on for having a great idea and for having gotten it in print. And then I’d write my own interpretation.

The best short story rejection I ever received was from a prestigious anthology. The editor loved my story but had just bought one on the same theme (mothers and cephalopods, although mine was with octopodes and the other with squid)—get this, from one of my dearest friends, a magnificent writer. Did I sulk? Did I mope? No, I celebrated her sale along with her! And then sold my story to another market.

In other words, be generous. If you do your work as a writer, this won’t be the only great idea you get.

 

 How can you tell if a book needs an editor or a proofreader?

It does. Trust me on this. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the story is or how many books you’ve written. None of us can see our own flaws, whether they are grammar and typos or inconsistent, flat characters or plot holes you could drive a Sherman tank through. Or unintentionally offensive racial/sexist/ableist/etc. language. Every writer, for every project, needs that second pair of skilled, thoughtful eyes on the manuscript.

 

 How do I get a self-published book into libraries?

If your book is available in print, the best way is to use IngramSpark and pay for an ad. Libraries are very reluctant to order KDP (Amazon) print editions. Same for bookstores.

If your book is digital only, put it out through Draft2Digital (D2D), which distributes to many vendors, including a number that sell to libraries.

Submit review copies to Library Journal. Consider paying for an ad if your budget allows.

Now for the hard part: publicizing your book to libraries. Besides contacting local libraries, assemble a list of contact emails for purchasing librarians (there may be such a thing already, so do a web search). Write a dynamite pitch. Send out emails with ordering links.

 

Is it better to title my chapters, or should I just stick to numbering them?

There is no “better.” There are conventions that change with time. Do what you love. Just as titles vs numbers cannot sell a book, neither will they sink a sale. If your editor or publisher has a house style, they’ll tell you and then you can argue with them.

That said, as a reader I love chapter titles. As an author, I sometimes come up with brilliant titles but I haven’t managed to do so for an entire novel, so I default to numbers. One of these years, I’ll ditch consistency and mix and match them. Won’t that be fun!

 

On the Bookish Life

I spend two hours a day exercising. This will not make me slender or muscular or fit or fabulous. It will, however, enable me to get out of bed safely, to walk up the street, to cook, to work. On a bad day, I do at least a half hour. On a good day, whenever I need even a 3 minute pause in work, I do stretches. Some bodies require greater effort than others to do the everyday. Mine is one of them. Every day I do these exercises means less pain the next day. Each day I give in and stay sitting at the computer or the television or talking on the phone or lying in bed means that the next day will be … not good.

Why am I telling you this? I increasingly notice a problem with the way people who have invisible disabilities are treated. We need to talk about it. A blogpost is a good way of beginning a conversation when one is limited of movement. This is that post.

I use a walking stick mainly so that the rest of the world can see that I’m not capable of the things they think I ought to do. I can’t run a 100 metres at breakneck speed the way I did as a teen. On a bad day, even walking to the bus is a vast endeavour and it really helps when the bus doesn’t stop 100 metres away from the bus stop. It takes me time and effort to walk that 100 metres and… some buses don’t want to wait that long. If the driver can see the effort by looking at the walking stick, then they will stop where I’m waiting and both the bus driver and myself are happier.

Today I wish that the walking stick principle applied to my letterbox. It was bitterly cold this morning and I entirely understand the post office delivery person wanting to move as quickly as possible, but the card they left me in lieu of ringing my doorbell means I have to walk for over a kilometre to retrieve a parcel. Then I have to walk back again.

The walking stick is a critical piece of equipment, and so are the exercises. I shall do them assiduously every day until I’m able to walk up the street and get that parcel.

Every day is a set of calculations. Can I do this today? What do I need to do in order to be able to that the day after tomorrow? The more I exercise the fewer of these computations I have to make. The more I am willing to label myself as visibly disabled, the more condescending many people are, and the more I am actually able to do stuff.

I don’t get many face to face gigs any more. My writing income is significantly reduced as a result. This is rather annoying side effect of the walking stick announcement. So many organisers begin asking the most physically capable people on their lists for their events. The most physically capable of us get the work, they get the income and they get the book sales. I am still asked for online gigs (sometimes even with money attached!), but face to face in my own locality? Rarely.

It’s not that people hate me. Audiences, in fact, really like me. It’s that a lot of us are described as ‘difficult’ because we can’t do all the things, all the time. My local bookshop made up excuses when I asked them for a book launch two years ago. My audiences are good and my sales are good with those audiences (in one case there were 83 people and all the books sold out within ten minutes) but the bookshop (and writers’ centres, and community centres, and a lot of local community groups) like to organise events with someone who will come to meetings face to face. If you can’t, but can still come to the event, it’s considered not good enough. This is especially true for free events. If I’m willing to give my time but not able to meet all the other demands (“Come in today for a meeting, please”, “Can we do this online?” “No, not really. Besides, you’re local. It’s no effort for you.”) … I’m not asked again.

This is interesting for other reasons. One of the booksellers in question actually told me I should accept reduced royalties because the 50% of the cover price they got wasn’t enough for all their overheads. They were being paid for the function in question: I was not. The function promoted my books and writers are simply expected to work without pay for the vast majority of promotional events. Without pay and usually without meals. If the book launch is during a meal time, I’ve been asked to cook food for the audience, but I can’t eat myself because … it’s a performance and I need to be available to answer questions and explain the book and… all the things.

The disabilities are not the only problem then. The heart of the matter is that writers are expected to have day jobs or other sources of income. Most people see us as kind of serious amateurs, rather than as professionals.

This changes the way we do things. For me, there’s a rather special side effect given by these experiences. Since I worked out why my local income was way less than it should be and my local presence is way less than it should be, I can’t buy all the books I want. I simply don’t have the money. I prioritise what I buy. Where there are two books I want to read and I can only afford one, I will buy the one where the writer faces similar obstacles to me. Or where the writer is from a country where they have to fight an entirely different range of obstacles.

There is a really good side to all of this: my book collection sparkles with exciting work by authors who ought to be well known but are not.

I need to get back to those book posts and introduce you to some of them!

Final Friday: Contract Negotiation 102, or You Only Get What You Ask For.

One of the most exciting times in a writer’s life is when a contract arrives.  Long form, short form, reprint, big money or small… it’s still Exciting!  And a lot of time, especially when we’re still new but even when we’re Old Pros™, the impulse is to skim and sign. Sooner it’s done, sooner we can crow on social media about it/collect the check, right?

Stop.  Take a deep breath. Put down the (virtual or otherwise) pen.  Now go back and look at the contract. I’m going to assume you’ve already checked to make sure the essential pertinent details (name, title, payment) are all correct, that’s Contract 101. And you’ve already made sure that they’re not claiming any rights you didn’t previous agree to/know they were going to ask for, right?  (Right?)

Now take another breath, and look at the contract again. Read all the clauses. And if you see something you don’t particularly like or seems even slightly hinky, do NOT just shrug and sign. Seriously.  Fucking don’t.

Herein begins the lesson.

Recently I received a contract from a small press for a short story to be included in a Kickstarter-funded project.  I’d agreed to the length, due date and payment, but hadn’t seen the rest of the contract. So when I got it, I read through the thing carefully.  Which is when I noticed: Continue reading “Final Friday: Contract Negotiation 102, or You Only Get What You Ask For.”

Author Interview: Joyce Reynolds-Ward

I love chatting with other writers!

Joyce Reynolds-Ward and I met in the pre-pandemic days when I regularly traveled to conventions in the Pacific Northwest. She’s warm, funny, endlessly curious, and a fantastic writer. And a knowledgeable and enthusiastic horse person. So when I heard she’d just put out a new book, I couldn’t wait to find out about it.

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Joyce Reynolds-Ward: I’ve been making up stories to entertain myself since I was little. At first, they were about books I’d read or TV shows I watched. Then I started writing stories off and on, starting with my junior high literary magazine continuing through the present day. I’ve gotten somewhat serious about writing since the late ’00s, however, and have been writing regularly since 2008 or so.

 DJR: What inspired your book?

JRW: My most recently published book, A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. was an attempt to write something light. Um. Well. Maybe. It’s set in what I call the Martiniere Multiverse, a spinoff from my main series, The Martiniere Legacy and the People of the Martiniere Legacy.

When writing A Different Life: What If?, I half-toyed with the idea of writing about my main characters, Ruby and Gabe, from the perspective of Ruby’s best friend in college, Linda Coates, who Ruby hires to be her executive assistant. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, and I figured that it would make a nice, light little story, which was what I needed to think about after several years of Covid and my worries about the 2022 election.

Things kinda happened from there. The book took a more political tone after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, with Linda’s brother-in-law becoming a rising reactionary political leader who has nefarious designs involving Linda. But there are still light moments, and we have a bit of biobot action where Ruby and Linda release the latest version of Ruby’s bots that are intended to counter climate change by helping plants absorb and retain moisture better. Plus–Linda’s reaction to living in an Art Nouveau palace in Paris, France. That was fun to visualize.

DJR: What authors have most influenced your writing?  What about them do you find inspiring?

JRW: My influences come from several very odd and unusual places, especially for a writer in the speculative fiction genre. One of my earliest influences was Mary O’Hara, of My Friend Flicka fame. If you have only read the first book, especially in an abridged edition considered suitable for children, you miss a LOT of the deeper undercurrents of O’Hara’s writing. The other two books in the trilogy, Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming, delve into spirituality (O’Hara had become involved with early versions of Eastern mysticism) and conflicted, difficult marital relationships. Writing this, I suddenly realize that my character Gabriel Martiniere owes a little bit to O’Hara’s Rob McLaughlin. Not a lot–but there’s a little bit of Rob in Gabe.

One thing to consider, though, about O’Hara, is that she was one of the original script doctors in Hollywood during the silent film era. While she only cites a few instances where she got called in to work on scripts gone wrong, it’s enough to make me wish that she had written a memoir about that Hollywood experience. Nonetheless, her life story (as related in Flicka’s Friend) is quite fascinating.

John Steinbeck is another literary influence that I frequently cite from my early days of writing. One of my high school English teachers used his Travels with Charley as a textbook for her advanced writing class. From Charley, I moved on to his Journal of a Novel, drafted while he was writing East of Eden. Then I went on to read all of his books. Steinbeck, along with O’Hara, taught me a lot about the use of settings in my work that I think really still shows up.

Otherwise, there are many writers who have influenced my work and made me think more about the process of writing and what I was doing while writing. Obviously, I read widely and well beyond the genre. Recent influences include C.J. Cherryh, Beverly Jenkins, Aliette de Bodard, Kate Elliott (especially her so-underestimated Jaran books), Craig Johnson, N. K. Jemisin, Mary Robinette Kowal, and many, many more. I am always eager to discover a new writer and new works. My ebook library card gets a LOT of use these days.


DJR: 
Why do you write what you do, and how does your work differ from others in your genre?

JRW: Originally, I started writing what I do because I wasn’t finding the books I wanted to read. I wanted to read about more strong women, but I also wanted to read fantasy in settings that weren’t quasi-medieval Europe, as well as science fiction that wasn’t set in Southern California or New York. I wanted to see more work that included the things I was interested in, including realistic horses, the inland West as a setting, examination of political power that didn’t make me want to throw the book across the room, and other things.

 I write politics from my training in political science and the nearly two decades I spent as a political organizer. Some writers in genre have that knowledge and understanding, but many don’t. While my understanding is more on the state and local level, it’s enough to extrapolate for larger settings. Additionally, because I spent many years as a corporate wife at the middle management level in sales, I know somewhat more about some of the stuff that goes on in that realm than most people. The ins and outs of management fads, the degree to which certain things get done, the internal politics…all of that. I focus on multigenerational privately-held corporate entities rather than larger publicly-held companies because that’s easier to control in a story.

The inland West as a setting as opposed to the Southwest is also a way that I’m different from many writers who might set stories in the North American West. I have always been drawn to the juxtaposition of mountains and prairies, such as you find around the foothills of the Rockies, both the east side and the west side. The western prairies get much less awareness than the eastern prairies, because they’re smaller. But the land of the Palouse, both in Oregon and Washington, is just chock-full of story potential. While I grew up in Western Oregon and have some work set in Willamette Valley-esque settings, including the Cascades, the Plateau country of eastern Oregon holds a fascination for me. The Blues and the Wallowas are considered to be the westernmost extensions of the Rockies in the Northwest.

DJR: How does your writing process work? Continue reading “Author Interview: Joyce Reynolds-Ward”

Final Friday: And We’re Away…..

Last month I blogged about the weeks leading up to the launch of my most recent book, Uncanny Times.  But now we’re a ten days post-launch, and it’s time to check in, and do a reality check.

I’d been doing pre-release publicity up to the day or release: blogposts and podcasts and interviews and social media all over the place until even my mom would have been tired of seeing my face.  Does it actually move any books?  God only knows, and They’re not telling. You do what you can to the best of your ability and spoons, and hope something sticks. 

But even with all that, even with the positive reviews the book was getting and the publicity, and the very successful Goodreads giveaway, and everything else we were able to do… come October 18th, it was all in the hands of the bitch-goddess of Retail.

Take a deep breath.  Wait.

Everything up until now has been Possibility and Expectation. Shit’s real now.

Some people like doing a Big Event on the day-of.  I’ve done that before, and, honestly… the stress of planning always overwhelmed any actual benefit, either emotionally or sales-wise.  I think everyone should do it at least once, but after that…. unless your publisher is doing all the work, go with what you, personally, enjoy.  If that’s a big party, great! If it’s staying home on your couch and ignoring everything, also great!a "congrats!" balloon and a copy of UNCANNY TIMES on a wooden bartop.

Since we had events lined up for that weekend, I chose to meet friends for drinks after work, to properly toast Uncanny Times on its way.  (I showed up to find one friend already there, hand-selling the book to her fellow drinkers at the bar.  That’s the kind of friend every writer should have).

While I’d love to say that the next morning I woke up and simply went back to work, focused on the next project, that would be an utter and absolute lie.  I checked the Amazon rankings. And googled my name + title. Promoted the book signings I was going to do that weekend. Rinse and repeat every few hours for the next three days.

And then I made myself stop.  Not entirely – I’m only human, after all.  But the every hour nonsense, yeah.  I should note here that I do not take Amazon “bestseller” status with any particular seriousness. I watch how the ratings fluctuate, and note dips or peaks rather than any particular number.  And, of course, I anxiously read the early reader reviews. But my focus shifted from “what will critics say/how can I get the word out?” to “how can I expand my reach?”

Because, and this is a truth it took me a few books to learn, Launch Day is a day to celebrate, to enjoy, to stand on a chair and shout out to the world THIS IS MY BOOK ! IT’S HERE! But it’s also just one day in a long march of days, and the weeks after launch matter just as much as the days before.

And then, sooner than you think, but honestly also not soon enough, you have to let the book do what it will do, and go back to work on the next.

I’m looking forward to that.

 

and remember….

image of one person handing another a book, with the text: If you love a book...tell one friend!

Final Friday: Ready (or not) to Launch

In the three years we’ve not only dealt with a global pandemic, but I came brick-wall-to-face with my mortality in the shape of a nasty little tumor. You’d think something like a new book coming out wouldn’t even register on my stress-o-meter.

And yet.  If you thought that, you’d be wrong.

As I write this, we’re in the countdown to my new book – UNCANNY TIMES launches on October 18th.

Countdown.  Launch.  They’re apt terms – because like any launch, the seconds, minutes, hours – and in a book’s case, weeks – ticking down are fraught with tension. Anticipation, yes, but also hyper-aware of every. single. way. things can go wrong.

The emotional swing goes something like this: you’re proud of what you’ve done and also wondering if anyone is going to like your offering. You’re clinging to the positive early reviews, while trying not to take the bad ones to heart.  You’re hoping that you are doing the right things in terms of promotion, while trying not to stress over the things you can’t do, trying not to notice what other people are doing that look better than what you’re doing.  And through all this, while acknowledging that the odds are always against you, you’re nurturing that tiny nugget of a seed of hope that this will be the breakout book – while also not letting your expectations set you up for disappointment.  

It’s a therapist’s playground in our heads, really.  I mean, all the time, but particularly now.

The first few launches, most writers try to cover the board,  push every button, flip every switch, touch everything on the off chance that one of those things will be The Secret to success.  And then time and experience lay the heavy truth on you: we can’t control any of this. We can only do what we can do, time/energy/finances allowable, and let the rest happen as it will. 

And often, it won’t.

I’m looking back over what I’ve written and my god, that all sounds depressing as hell, doesn’t it?  Send chocolate and CBD (where legal by state law).  And yet. 

And yet.

For all the fraught-ness of the countdown, for all the ways that launch can and probably will fail, I’ve found that the countdown is also that magical phase of absolute possibilities, when the work is been done and what you have left is hope.  For a brief shining moment, all the success in the world is waiting for you.  It’s a gift.  Wallow in it.

And then, when you can’t stand it any more, there’s one more thing. Work.  Because in the midst of the countdown, there’s another countdown going on as well: your deadline for the next book.

And the chance to begin the countdown to launch all over again next year.

Good and Bad Books

I’ve been following (via Twitter) some of the testimony in the antitrust case the US Department of Justice brought against the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster.

I confess I haven’t followed it in detail because (a) I’m opposed to mergers of big publishing houses (and other large corporations) in general, so I don’t need to read much about it to know what I think, and (b) I know enough about antitrust law to know it’s painful to read about even though it’s important.

I may go back and catch up, though, just to get a feeling for how well DOJ is doing. Over the years US antitrust enforcement has become very weak, so even though it’s pretty clear that these companies shouldn’t merge, it’s by no means certain that they’ll be stopped.

Even if I catch up, though, I’m not going to write about antitrust issues, because I only do that if someone is paying me big bucks. (I used to have to edit antitrust class action stories in my day job and let me tell you, I earned my money and then some those days.)

One thing that really got me from reading Twitter was the realization that lumping writers together as one category makes almost no sense.

I think there are three things that most writers have in common:

  1. They want to write.
  2. They want to be read.
  3. They want to get paid.

There are exceptions even to those three categories, but those three things are true of most of us.

But when it comes to what we want to write and even what we’re willing to write to make money, writers are arranged along a long spectrum.

There is a world of difference between a journalist who writes best-selling self help books and someone writing, say, experimental fiction. Continue reading “Good and Bad Books”

Auntie Deborah is Still Giving Writing Advice

Dear Auntie Deborah…


I wrote a story using another person’s characters, even though they said not to. Can I publish it since their book isn’t copyrighted?

If the author has published their story in any form, it’s copyrighted. That, however, is beside the point. It’s just plain unethical to do what you suggest. It’s a great way to make enemies in your genre and create a horrible reputation that will haunt your career, assuming you still have one after such a bonehead move.

Create your own characters. Write your own stories. Treat your colleagues and their work the way you would like to be treated. Pursue your career with integrity and generosity.

 

Are self-published books inferior to professionally published books?

It all depends.

Not that long ago, self-published or vanity press books were assumed to be of inferior quality, that is to say, unpublishable by “real” (traditional) publishers. There were exceptions, of course, but that was the conventional wisdom.

Today, however, many self-published books go through the same rigorous editing and quality standards as traditionally published books. Some genres, like romance, are especially friendly toward self-pubbed projects.

With modern publishing technology (ebooks, POD printing), there are many reasons why a pro-level author might want to self-publish, including:

  • Niche projects, like memoirs or family histories.
  • Series that were dropped by trad publishers but that have an enthusiastic fan following.
  • Well-written books that don’t fit into the NY “best-seller” model.
  • OP (out-of-print, rights reverted to author) backlist.
  • Great books that straddle genres or otherwise confuse traditional marketing/sales departments.

That said, many self-published books are dreadful. They aren’t good enough to attract the interest of an agent or publisher to begin with, they aren’t professionally edited or proofread, the covers are amateurish, and so on. The challenge for the reader is to sort out those books that are truly a wonderful reading experience.

Does reaching a certain number of reviews increase your indie sales?

The short answer is that nobody knows. Theories abound, usually to line the pockets of the “experts.” “Gaming” the Amazon system is a losing proposition. What might have been true 2 years or 6 months or last week no longer works — because thousands of self-published authors have tried it, thereby flooding the system with meaningless tweaks.

If you want to increase your sales, write a great book. Publicize it. Get stellar reviews on Publishers Weekly and the like. Write an even better book. Rinse and repeat. Even then, there are no guarantees when it comes to sales, but you’ll have the satisfaction of writing really good books.

My first attempt at a novel is a New Adult Romance novel using the Three Act Structure and I’m floundering. Help!

I’ve been writing professionally for over 35 years and this is what works for me: I noodle around until the story catches fire. Then I have some idea of: the hook, one or two plot points/reversals, the big climax, and the emotional tone of the ending. Sometimes I fall in love with the characters and they run away with the story. If I’m selling on proposal, I use that much to generate a synopsis. If it’s on-spec, I dive in. As long as I feel as if I’m flying or surfing the story, I keep on. I use things like structural analysis only if I feel stuck.

The thing is, and always has been for me (12+ trad pub novels, 60+ short stories, plus collections and non-fic), I go where the creative joy is. Anything else is a boring slog.

All this said, I write fantasy and science fiction, where fluid structures are appreciated. Romance is much more formulaic. Consider that your muse might be leading you to write a love story, not a by-the-numbers romance. Always, always listen to your heart. Continue reading “Auntie Deborah is Still Giving Writing Advice”