My small ten dollar quarterly goal

During the last year that I spent as an undergrad at the University of Colorado at Denver, I decided that my business needed a new plan and a new goal. Having tried to have "real goals" and being overwhelmed constantly with time management conflicts (the joys of working on two Bachelor degrees at the same time), I decided that my writing goal would be a mere ten dollars of new stock a quarter.

Yes, just ten dollars of new stock a quarter.

Yep, I have no ambition. Or rather, I was sick and tired of constantly missing larger and more "realistic" goals.

I am not exactly sure why people think that a writer (or any other self-employed person) is being unrealistic when they create a small, but do-able goal. No, the world says that you must think BIG, and create goals of adding hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to your income every quarter.

In my case, I wasn't sure that I could even hit the ten dollar mark every quarter. After all, it was the year that I was doing my senior seminars in both literature and history.

The reason that I decided that ten dollars was an acceptable goal was that it was small. And I declared that it was "new stock" or "front list." That is the key to the overall plan.

One of the truths about being a writer is that you have two catergories of work--your frontlist (the stuff you recently did) and your backlist (everything else). It is a carry-over from legacy publishing: your frontlist would be this year's book, and your backlist would be all the stuff that you published in previous years.

Another truth is that your income as a writer is the sum of both your frontlist and your backlist.

I once read that if someone wanted to be successful at making a living as an author that one's backlist earnings had to match (equal) one's income from one's frontlist. And this idea was from a book from the 1970s, long before we started to kick around the idea of passive income on the internet.

So the logic that I was using in setting a ten dollar goal was that if I did enourgh work to earn ten dollars from new work in a quarter, then that same work would just naturally flow into my backlist and I would not need to worry about it.

(Ok, I worry about my backlist income, but there is not much that I can do about it--or very little I can do about it.)

Now, I was assuming that my initial income during the first quarter would be a good indication of the amount I would make passively once the work hit the backlist. I was wrong (!). But let's pretend that I was right for a few seconds.

At the end of first quarter, I figured ten dollars for the quarter. Second quarter, another ten dollars of new stuff, and ten dollars from old stuff. Third quarter, another ten of new, twenty of old. And so forth.

Basically, it is a scheme of stacking more and more stuff into the stack until it finally reaches critical mass.

And yes, I know that ten dollars of new stuff is a really small goal. Did I mention I was going to college at the time? As it was, I missed the goal the first quarter of this year...by three dollars (in my defense, it was a big paper I needed for my senior seminar; there was also that whole Paypal situation).

Now, the reason that I am thinking about it today, my measely little goal, is that my wife just learned that I am going to make the quarterly goal before the end of the month. And she thinks that I should make my quarterly goal higher. I disagree. I think that I should stick to it...and keep it this small.

One of the things I realized about having a small goal as a writer is that I could hit it despite being overwhelmed with work in college. I figure that the same would be true if I was punching a time clock and sitting in a cubicle. The amount of work I am doing to accomplish it is about the same amount of writing that I was doing in the print market (magazines) while I was flipping burgers for a living. The difference is that I am not selling articles and stories for a one-time-only check; today, I am focused on ebooks.

And some of the things that I am working on are big projects (!!). I am hitting the ten dollar goal with short stories. I am not sure if I can hack out a long book every quarter, therefore to continue accomplishing the goal, I have to be able to borrow time from the big project. Therefore, I would like it to be as small as a goal as possible.

So for now, I am sticking with the ten dollar a quarter goal. It is not much, but it is keeping me moving in the right direction.

(!) For the curious, it turns out that some of the stuff I do does worse in the backlist. Some of it does about the same. And some of it does much, much better. Without knowing all the facts, it turns out that my estimate was right and oh so wrong at the same time. In my own personal case, a couple of ebooks are doing a lot better than the rest...and so it goes. Based on personal experience, I would tell a newbie writer that my plan is sound.

(!!) One of the projects that I am currently working on is expanding the Three Officer Version of the Golden Dawn Neophyte initiation Ritual. This is not a money winning project.

It was a thinking day today

Today was a thinking day. One of those days that make it look like I am not actually working on the writing, but really I am...it is just that all the visible work can be condensed down to a single page of outline for a project that I am starting to kick around.

(The title of the project that I am kicking around is Imps and Imaginary Friends; it is going to be a collection of essays about my "normal" childhood.)

I don't actually remember scheduling a thinking day today. But it ended up being one between the scanning of documents for my wife, and the household chores that I chose (willingly) to do today.

And it was probably overdue...my gas tank was getting kinda empty. To understand that you have to remember that I started my freelance career as a writer while working at a Burger King. I did a lot of thinking while cleaning and/or standing around between orders.

Anyways, I did work today--just did not get many words down on paper, that's all.

What is the best price for erotica stories?

A couple of months ago, Mark Coker revealed some data that indicated that the sweet spot on ebook pricing was $2.99. Since then, Smashwords has been flooded with erotica stories priced at (c'mon, make a guess--yep, that is right) $2.99.

As I write this (2:45 pm on Saturday, 23 June 2012), peeking at the erotica listings on Smashwords, I am not surprised to see that all ten of the erotica ebooks on the first page are listed at $2.99. One of them is four to five thousand words; four of them are three to four thousand words; one is between two and three thousand words; and four of them are between one and two thousand words.

[Erotica listings on Smashwords--I wonder if the numbers have changed much since I wrote this. Maybe you want to go look to see if all ten books are at $2.99. It could be a drinking game.]

Actually it is the last four that make me think that price inflation has occurred since Coker revealed the price information. Three of the four are 1130 words, and the fourth is 1100 words. When you account for front matter, that $2.99 for less than a thousand words.

(My front matter--copyright notice, link to Smashwords suthor page, sexual dubious warning, etc.--is about two hundred words. I can't imagine doing it with much less words.)

Given this sample, on average you are paying $2.99 for 2619 words, and some of those words consists of advertising, guilt and copyright notices. I am not sure that two and a half thousand words of erotica short story is worth $2.99.

Now before Coker made his announcement that the best price for earning was $2.99, I saw a lot of variety in the erotica ebook prices on Smashwords. It ranged from 99 cents to ten bucks. (There were also a lot of free ebooks--but that is promotion mainly.)

I was starting to vary my erotica ebooks prices before this announcement, experimenting with $1.99 and $2.99 prices--but seventy percent of my stock is still priced at 99 cents. I am waiting on more sales data before deciding where my sweet spot is for erotica. But I can see already that $2.99 is not necessarily my own personal sweet spot for erotica, especially short stories.

And I know that as a customer and reader, it is not a price that I am willing to shell out just to recieve a thousand words.

(Yes, I am writing some erotica. Doesn't every writer sooner or later write erotica just to test the market? And no, monkey-brains [a friend of mine], I am not going to reveal my erotica pen-name here.)

This is not just an erotica question. I write more than just erotica. Multiple genres, multiple pen-names.

For instance, recently I was kicking around the prices for several pieces of fiction that I was uploading to Smashwords. [Morgan Drake Eckstein on Smashwords.] The collection of several stories and poems ended up with the $2.99 price; the single short story and the infamous Zealot's Dictionary (a humor piece) got priced at 99 cents. It made sense to me; after all, I do not want to price myself out of the market.

And that is what I think this rush to use $2.99 as the price is going to do with a lot of erotica writers. I think that it is going to be a bad move that is going to cost them sales. I foresee a lot of people having to lower their price. Especially those people who are only offering a product of a thousand words.

The reason for the rush is that I think that the writers who are jumping on this price do not understand the data. The figures that Mark Coker was sharing are based on the TOTAL of Smashwords sales. The figures include those people in the top ten spots, as well as everyone else. It included works with as few as five hundred words up to the hundred thousand plus; in other words, flash fiction to novels--everything was included in the data.

In fact, the way I read his comments, it sounded like readers like longer novels and that the sweet spot for the price of a long novel is $2.99. I could be wrong; after all, I am using just the collected data and not the raw data.

Furthermore I believe that those people pumping out $2.99 erotica short stories are forgetting that each writer has their own sweet spot for pricing. My pricing sweet spot may not be the same as yours. Your sweet spot depends upon your audience. My audience is definitely different than most.

So for now, there are a bunch of writers who believe that $2.99 is the best price for erotic short stories. I disagree. Time will tell if they also end up believing otherwise.

You have to use the bacon

Bacon Sundaes, limited time only at Burger King.

One of the things that keeps me writing, despite the poor wages, is the fact that I used to work at Burger King (a place that my wife forbids me to even think about applying to for a job--she must love me). Having worked there, occasionally I cannot help shaking my head when I see one of their commericals or new product ideas.

Really, a bacon sundae?!

Let me guess, it was a boring shift. The employees had used up all the destructive possibilities that pickles can provide (tossing them in the deep fat fryer, running them through the broiler, trying to get them to stick to the ceiling) and they have moved onto the bacon. And the boss came in to discover that one of his employees had created a taste treat called a bacon sundae...must call corporate with that idea because America is not fat enourgh already.

Yes, I know that bacon makes everything better. Provided that it is real bacon. What Burger King has might be real bacon...provided that you are trapped on a spaceship going to Mars. Oh wait, the Earth-Mars run would use Vegan-Bacon or maybe Algae-Bacon. Burger King bacon is Vogon bacon, right up there with their poetry, made fresh in a microwave for your heart's pleasure. Or is that your impeding heart attack.

Sorry, I still sound bitter, don't I? Really, I should be nicer. After all, it was at Burger King where I first started to write greeting card slogans (some I actually sold) and other bits of "Please pay me, so I can get out of this boring job" writing. That is what happens after you use up all the destructive potential of bacon, you start to write...maybe that is just in my little universe.

Author (Zealot's Dictionary)

Author: Someone who has completed a piece of writing and has submitted it for public ridicule. A legitimate author publishes his work only on paper through the slavery system of a publishing house which requires a decade of effort on the author’s behalf for the privilege of attempting to sell a million copies in a three day period in order to be allowed to waste another decade of their life. All authors get paid a penny per copy sold. Successful authors are considered to be so by the virtue of luck; their claim of a decade plus of hard work is merely a cloak to hide the fact that they spent all their time watching television and eating bon-bons. Unsuccessful authors write in crayon and cannot even convince their mother to buy a copy of their book.

[All the Zealot's Dictionary definitions are available in a single ebook on Smashwords--just 99 cents. Remember if you buy it on Smashwords, you get access to all future expansions...because we know that new definitions are sure to happen simply because of human nature.]

Camp NaNoWriMo June 2012



Camp NaNoWriMo June 2012

As many of my friends know, for the last few years I have attempted to "win" the annual NaNoWriMo that is done in November. And by winning, I mean that I have attempted to hack out write fifty thousand words in the space of thirty days. So far, I have lost every year...by about the same amount of words that have been needed for the various college and university term papers that I have been required to write.

But this year, for those of us who are swamped during November, there is Camp NaNoWriMo. Or Camp Insanity as I am going to call it. Yes, I plan on writing a very bad novel this summer...even if I am eaten by bugs and poisoned by ivy.

My working title is Asteroids and Axes. It is a working title; who know what it will be by the end of the month.

And my plot?

Mankind is colonizing the solar system. The asteroid ore pod Molly Brown returns to Earth transporting its precious cargo of metals back to a resource hungry planet. It is also carrying a surprise in the form of an unidentified astronaut. A dead astronaut. A murdered astronaut.

I am not sure if that is enourgh of a plot, but that is all I have right now. Why? Because I just learned that Camp NaNoWriMo starts in a couple of hours (mountain time that is). And this is a last second attempt to make sure that I actually crank out a novel this summer...I will explain that comment later (let's just say that I am not pleased about the fact that my semester is still not over yet...long story involving paperwork).

Mad Uncle Morgan

Today while avoiding working on finishing an illustration for the ritual book, ignoring the fact that I have yet to write the text to go along with the illustration, and completely failing to struggle with the plot point that is messing up the science fiction mystery that I am writing, I came up with a new character--Mad Uncle Morgan.

And I am so going to use him for something.

I don't know--am I a frustrated comedian or what?!

Mad Uncle Morgan is that person who tries to sell you fairy success dust (think fairy sh**), unicorn wands (perfect for the ladies), and thistle poppets (because we all have that special person in our lives). I figure it will be good for a laugh or two. I mean we all know this loon...and he really needs to make some money this summer, and his wife does want him to get rid of all the thistle that is growing in the garden.

So get your money ready because everything must go during the summer bonfire sale.