Back to the past

Mitt Romney wants us to go back to the good old days.

One thing I have noticed about people is that they really want to go back to the good old days when America was king of the hill.

And this includes Mitt Romney, who as President Barack Obama noted, "Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy you seem to want the policies of the 1980s, just like you want to import the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s." And then there was the Navy and military comment where Romney complained about the number of Navy ships we have, as well as our low number of airplanes--obviously the numbers are the only thing that matters to Romney, not the fact that current technology can blow anything from 1916 and 1947 right out of the water. As Obama noted, "We also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed."

So what does this have to do with writing, besides the fact that the Republicans are most likely to make my bread and butter writing illegal (because no one should be reading erotica)--well, it reminds me of something else.

There are a whole bunch of people who seem to think that the writing business is still the same writing business of the 1950s. I am amazed at the number of blogs and articles that I read that are focused on finding an agent or getting a legacy publishing contract.

We have moved away from paper publishing and legacy publishing. Today, writing has changed. Today, writers are writing ebooks, and are successfully making livings while being self-published.

Yet we are still getting writing advice that sounds more suitable for the 1950s. And trust me, I am going to scream the next time someone suggests that I send something to a legacy publisher...because I could get an advance on my royalities.

I have actually consider digging through some old writing magazines and books, and talking about how the advice does not necessarily hold true today; this is provided that people quit repeating the same advice on the internet (unlikely, right?).

But I am not sure that anyone would read such a series...because it involves dealing with things as they are in the present, and how they might change in the future. We are not supposed to embrace change. We are supposed to be putting the genie back into the bottle--because everything was so much better in the good old days.

The biggest hazard to my writing business

Twice in this past month, I have been reminded that the biggest hazard to my business as a writer is myself. To be more precise, it is my mental programming that is the problem. And it is something that I really need to remember.

What brought on the reminder that I have some shoddy mental programming (think mental virus and malware) was the fact that I have spiraled down into two very bad mental modes in the last thirty days--mental modes that have taken me over a week apiece to crawl out of. And both were brought on by stray comments by people who, well, really do not understand the current state of my business. (In fact, I am sure that neither one knows a damn thing about my business.)

The first mental mode was a nice deep depression. The second mode, well, I am going to use the term "violence and suicide" to describe it--it is something that I think my relatives will instantly understand because we all have it to varying degrees.

Both modes were brought about because someone made a random comment about the fact that perhaps because of the lack of income I am making as a writer that perhaps I should be looking for a regular job.

Now, my lack of income as a writer can be explained away by the fact that my business basically restarted just a year ago. While I have been freelancing off and on since 1984, I didn't start self-publishing (ebooks) until just a year ago. Yes, by that mark, my business is just a year old. And most of that first year, I was still attending the University of Colorado at Denver...my business was more of a back burner thing than it was a front line priority.

But the important part, which is being overlooked, is that it is doing better than I have ever done as a writer previous to this point. I am actually selling ebooks--not at a quick pace, but enourgh that I can see that what I need the most is more stock to sell.

And more stock to sell is exactly what I would lose if I throw in the towel at this point in time. Oh, I can still hack out the occasional short story, but what I really need is a novel or two, and some other major projects. Because all I currently have up are articles and short stories--I do not have anything longer than that.

Now, my regular readers know the reason why I will not be able to get anything longer up--the only work that I have experience in is restaurant and retail work--twenty years worth (oh, and a college newspaper job--but I did not major in journalism). The type of work that I am qualified for tends to be you are overworked and underpaid, and on call 24/7. Basically, they work you until you are too exhausted to do anything up, and ensure that you have to work until the day you die. (And they say that slavery is a thing of the past.)

I know logically that I am better off just taking the next few months to work on bigger projects (in fact, my production schedule is completely full until February...if not later). But emotionally, my mental programming says that I should listen to the bad advice and go back to flipping burgers...because short term money issues trump all long term plans, no matter how sound the long term plans are.

And I know that I am prone to walking away from my writing even in the best of times. Before I got into restaurant management, I had actually started to get hand-written rejection slips. The professional writers in the room will know what that means--I managed to convince some editors that I was going to be a real writer some day.

What did I do? Oh, I quit writing for several years. It was only after spending some time as a restaurant manager that I picked up the pen again. And one could argue that I stepped away from my writing again while I was in college. My venturing into ebooks was caused by the fact that I lost my college newspaper job, and my school schedule was not conductive to burger flipping, plus the fact that one of my friends was doing good in a market that I have been doing in print since 1984.

So I know that I have to be cautious about my own mental state. Especially now that my business has started to actually work for me. At the moment, provided that nothing major goes wrong, such as ebooks becoming illegal or something like that, my writing income will be better than any of my previous years...and that is even if I do not write another word. This is not the time that I should be thinking about stepping away from the table--at this point in time, I should be rolling up my sleeves for a major campaign.

We will see if my mental programming allows me to do so or not. At this point in time, I am not making any sudden bets. But then again, I am aware of my little mental programming problem...and knowing is half the battle, right?

Are you ready for Xmas?

Kitty is not yet ready for Xmas.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she just saw Christmas lights being put up at her local shopping mall (guess Halloween and Thanksgiving got cancelled). And while it makes me freak out, years of management tells me that it makes sense from the viewpoint of the shopping mall.

First, Halloween and Thanksgiving are not big retail holidays.

Second, this year has really sucked been slow for retail stores.

Third, most retail stores depend upon Christmas to put themselves in the black for the year. (Yes, your average retail store in mostly in the red for most of the year--it brings a whole new level of meaning to the term "black friday.")

Now, as writers, one would think that we would be above such things. No. No. No.

Today on Smashwords, I was reading Mark Coker's suggestions for when to get stuff into the system if we want to have our ebooks available in various outlets (Apple, etc.). And honestly, I thought he was being optimistic (his estimate assumes that everything goes correctly--I have been having lag times under another pen-name for Apple and Barnes & Noble to get my stuff into their systems).

Coming from the print market as I do, where you submitted your stuff like nine months before the holiday, I came up with my own deadline for the material that I want in the sytem before the Christmas shopping rush.

That deadline? Oh, it is Halloween. I figure that given the amount of stuff outside of my control that the only way that I can be sure that my stuff is up for sale by the start of the Christmas rush (which having done retail means the day after Thanksgiving) is to get it in before the end of the month.

I figure that anything that I do after the end of October may or may not get into the distribution network. And besides, I plan on doing the NaNoWriMo again this year, so that is additional reason for me to aim for Halloween as my Xmas deadline.

Not that I depend upon the Christmas rush to make my year...it is just that some extra sales would be nice to have, given the fact that I am about to have student loan payments about to start being due.

How is my business going? (Q3 2012)

Every once in awhile, I get asked the question, "How is your business doing?" or some variation, such as "How are ebooks working out for you?"

Now, at the moment, this question is actually hard to answer. To understand why, one must realize that my business underwent a couple of changes last year--and a major change this year.

One of the changes that happened last year was that I actually started to do a certain amount of photography and advertising for another business, Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery, my wife's pottery business. I have been doing photography for her off and on for several years, but it was for record keeping. The current set of photos are actually for sale purposes.

One of the things that changed my approach was the simple fact that I brought a better camera--something that I was required to have when I was still working for the school newspaper. The old camera was hers; this one is MINE. My wife and one of our friends have made the comment on occasion that it is like I was born with a camera in my hand.

The reason that my photography style had to change was the fact that she started selling pottery and jewelry online (after years of me saying that she should do so). But the change in style has meant that in the future I will be using several of my own photos as cover art.

It is only a matter of time before I start seriously freelancing on that front. And yes, my wife is paying me to do photography and advertising for her. Therefore, I have to consider that part of my current business model--and that is completely brand new.

The other change which happened last year was that I switched from the print market as a writer to the ebook market. This happened in October. It was such a major change that I consider my current writing business to be a new business, and not a continution of my print market efforts (which I started to submit to in 1985).

Now, as the writers who read this blog know, the ebook market is only about five years old, and really did not start picking up speed until 2010. The newness of the ebook market and my recent entry in it means that I am still trying to collect a full set of initial numbers to base my answer on...and my decisions.

(For the record, the section of the print market that I made the most money in was gutted by the internet--it is only now that the internet and ereaders have provided a replacement for that market.)

These two changes by themselves make it hard to figure out how my business is doing. Essentially, it is a new business. By the standard of my old freelance days, I doing better than I was. Unfortunately, the major change that happened just a few months ago makes it look like my business is doing really bad.

Basically, my business has became my sole source of income (outside of the occasional Tarot reading and other odd job).

During my time in college, I relied upon student loans to make ends met. But that is no longer an option for me. I graduated this spring with two Bachelor degrees: Hitory and Literary Studies. While I do intend to go back for a Masters in at least one of these subjects, it was decided that I am going to wait until my wife finishes her Masters in Education for the Linguistically Diverse (think ESL) before going back to school.

Now, let's be honest--the job market s***s, and unemployment will not drop to 7% until 2014 by the best estimates. So my degrees combined with twenty years of food service would get me a job in...food service, if I was lucky.

Therefore, the decision was made because of the job market and a strange bounce that one of my ebooks did (it is performing really well compared to the others) that I would focus on building my business until my re-entry into college (technically, it will be university).

Another factor that makes it hard to figure out how well my business is doing is the simple fact that I was burnt out terribly by the last two semesters (back to back capstone Senior Seminars). I had a hard time getting my act and cranking out the writing.

The cherry on top of all this doubt and non-informationis the fact that I am starting to do artwork, editing, and formating for other writers...and calling it publishing (because I am going to collect a percentage). And that is also completely new for me.

So really at the moment, I am incapable of answering the question of "How is your business going?" This quarter will be better than the last quarter (if my estimate is correct), as has been the last two quarters, and the next quarter should be better than this one. But that is about all I know until I spend some more time working at it.

Free for today only

Shakespeare's Monkey

Today (well technically until Friday September 14, 2012), you can get a free copy of my ebook Shakespeare's Monkey when you enter coupon code EX49A at the checkout. Why free today? Well, one of the stories contained in this volume was based on 9/11--apologizes to the dozen people that I blended together to create the characters (it was creative license)--and today is as good of a day to share that piece of fiction as any other.

(And yes to my editing friends, I do realize that the title is misspelled on the cover...it is going to get fixed as soon as I find a photoediting program that I am comfortable with.)

And today's worst sentence

And the prize for today's worst sentence goes to the following unknown spammer:

"From the book of record, nominated countries like Ghana, Nigeria, London  Including some Asia and European countries were short-listed as highest fraud  rated countries. So therefore you have to report to our investigating Board  to monitor all such activities suspected as fraud, scam, drug dealing and any  other illegal activities."

Good for London for being a country; it is just too bad that you are a crime riddled society. As for the rest of the sentence, well, it just makes my editorial eyes bleed.

Where my ebook sales are happening

Troll cat insists that I answer his riddles three before I start filing things.

As the result of a question on Facebook, today I looked at my ebook sales figures and figured out where I was selling the most stuff.

(Please note that I am doing business through Smashwords. This is because I started putting up ebooks during a semester that was tight on time--I had time to deal with one site and one site only. And then, I just continued to do so...because even their slowest times to complete global tasks is still quicker than the print market I first started out in.)

For occult writing, Smashwords is 61.5% of my sales. The rest is done through Kobo (31%) and Barnes & Noble (7.5%).

This is only the ebooks that I am charging for; the figures for my free ebook is incomplete.

For my sales in erotica, the hands-down winner is Barnes & Noble at 64%. The other markets that I am selling erotica in: Smashwords (14.5%), Apple (11.6%), Kobo (7.7%), and Sony (2.2%).

I have yet to earn anything through Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker-Taylor (I have had some of my free stuff downloaded through Diesel and Baker-Taylor, so maybe someday I will get some sales there).

As for Amazon, we all know the problem between Smashwords and Amazon. And besides, some of my erotica is of the Forbidden Four category and therefore, too racy for Amazon to stock in the first place. Someday, I will break down and upload some stuff directly to Amazon. Probably after I take time out to answer my cat's riddles three.