Invisible Readers, Tricks of Perception, and Not Selling

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The internet is a tricky place. To me, it’s very much like a sorcerer’s castle filled with echo chambers and mirrors like the kind you’d find in a Robert E. Howard novel. Those who live in the castle often forget that the vast majority of folks out there aren’t in that keep as often as they are, and they’re not conversing or interacting with them in the same way, either.

I see this every day. I’m online a lot for work-related purposes, but the effects of being online so much mean that I hear about the outrageous and the unusual often. (Rarely, if ever, do I see solutions. Solving problems is boring. Pointing them out is easier.) Truth be told, I would be considered a super-user. If you want to see depictions of what internet usage really looks like and how income is a factor, check out www.pewtrusts.org.

The perception that popularity sells books is dangerous because it’s not necessarily true. The other piece to that is money. Of those who know about you, which percentage of that are your readers. Of those readers, who is willing to spend money on your books?

Why is this important to remember? Writers don’t sell books. Writers write books. Writers can promote books, but unless you have a shopping cart set up on your own site? Retailers sell books. So your best chance of selling more books is either to a) write a better book b) write more books or c) market the books you do have hoping your efforts will have a direct impact. c) is madness. Marketing never ends. This is what people do for a full-time job. You need data, measurable actions, etc. You could drive yourself crazy and take precious time away from your writing.

When online stores do sell books, there is no guarantee yours will ever resonate with readers. This is fact. You cannot bank everything on the popularity you think you have, because you really don’t know what will take off, what won’t, how that will financially impact you, or how long your popularity will last. (Or, as I like to put it: the only thing writers have control over is the blank page.) Remember, too, there is a specific sales pattern that almost every retail site follows which always favors certain titles. I know we don’t want to think of our books and games as products, but in terms of sales, that’s what they are.

So what of your presence online? Those who are online every day paying attention to what you’re doing are the anomaly. From that subset, you may get some folks interacting with you, but you’ll also get readers who never do and still buy your books or games. Not everybody seeks out the creator and when they do, they don’t necessarily do it to converse with you or buy what you want them to. For example, I see a lot of “writing advice” websites out there. Does it help sell your fiction? Telling how the coffee is made (or, as an alternative how you make your coffee) and selling a unique brand of coffee are not the same thing. You could be known for one and not the other. You could sell one side of that coin, too, and not the other — or both.

Knowing how readers interact with us and when is only one part of this discussion. We also have to assume that we don’t really know those anonymous readers perusing our thoughts and websites and blogs. We don’t always know the “who.” Is that an agent? Publisher? Reader? If you are always negative, always pointing out the flaws, always critical: what does that have to do with what you do best? Your Art? Then, when folks do hear about you, it’s not when you’re at your best. Typically, links shared occur when that topic goes viral — which is an outlier and not indicative of people as individuals, but moreso when folks are upset.

Almost everything I do online is intentional based on how I’ve structured my business. When you see advice and whatnot on my website, it’s because I am sharing about what I do to get work and to build a solid, professional foundation. When I talk about process, like I have for Redwing’s Gambit, it’s to show how much I love writing and all the things I do to tell good stories. But, this is not the same thing as selling books. This is more to talk about who I am knowing that a reader may interact with my website now or at some point in the future. Social media is different. Twitter and Facebook are more personal, because they’re more ephemeral, but they are still me. I have good days and bad days but in between, social media is about me the writer, not me the book.

What I want to see more of, is the celebration of what we do as writers, our books, and each other. I don’t care if you’re self-published or not. Veteran or not. Why? Well, for an incredibly selfish reason. I believe everyone has a story to tell and that the world changes for the better when people read. I believe that literacy can only occur through great books, through fans passionate about what we’re writing, and through the excellent people in both aspects of the publishing industry I’m involved with. More of that. PLEASE! Because when we do this? And get folks excited about books? That puts the emphasis back on great storytelling and less so on internet popularity. The more readers there are, the more everybody — regardless of visibility — wins. In my mind, you cannot be online expecting to sell books without trying to attract readers. Forget who they are and how they interact with us, and you will either fall into the traps laid by faulty perceptions or completely ignore why you have a presence online in the first place. I don’t care if you believe you’re online for yourself or not; you are putting a piece of yourself into a new medium and your words don’t fall into the abyss, regardless of who’s reading them or not.

So, to sum up: you the person is not you the book. Stop the hard sell. It doesn’t work. You wrote the book. What next? Write another one. Find readers. How? By writing. Not selling. By engaging. Not selling. By making smart decisions with the folks you choose to publish and sell your books. Stop trying so hard! STOP GIVING AWAY ALL YOUR RIGHTS AND UNDERCUTTING WHAT YOU’RE WORTH. Be awesome. Be yourself. BE REASONABLE. Don’t worry about other writers “surpassing” you, because the success you perceive doesn’t impact what’s on YOUR screen. Congratulate them. Write the book you want to read. Read more. Don’t sell. Let the salespeople sell. You need to write the damn book.

And, finally…

You do not have to make your own cool, you are your own cool. Stop worrying about what anyone else thinks and keep writing — change the world one reader at a time. STOP BEING AFRAID. If you truly, deep down, want to write about something in particular and it’s right for you, the way will open. (It has for me.)

Now let all the b.s. from the day/week/month/year go and tell me a good story, dammit! Thrill me and chill me. Give me your fiction and your non-fiction. Say something about the folks whose work was so amazing it touched you. This is what we writers do. We give our readers an experience. Let’s give them everything we’ve got.

Write like your life depends on it — I do!

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June 5, 2013
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Criticism Begins With A “C.” For Conversation.

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There has been a lot of criticism aimed at the SFWA Bulletin in recent weeks that has now resulted in a task force. Laura Anne Gilman summarizes the issue on her blog and Jim C. Hines has a link list of the commentary.

My take on this entire situation is very simple: criticism provides an opportunity to have a conversation. There is a reason why those conversations haven’t happened regularly or as noticeably in the past. Obviously, the internet has changed how we give feedback both as ourselves and in a group. Now we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly for all to see.

Regardless of what you think about these criticisms, whether you feel they’re necessary or not, I believe there is a gift to be found here: the opportunity to learn, empathize, and listen to what the audience is saying.

The end of that discussion and what decisions originate out of that conversation is, of course, different for different people and businesses. However, I feel that the worst possible scenario is to stop listening altogether.

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June 2, 2013
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Soap, Old Dirt, and Mud

Spike and Giles... Together at Last

If you were to lean in, very closely, you will hear a deadly rattle as a few manuscripts emerge through a final round of revisions and proof corrections. Feels like I’ve shaped a cyber-golem out of nanite-mud and clay, and we’re about to release it into the wilds.

As I emerge through this, though, I’ve had a thought about taking risks. See, working for someone else, the parameters or the sides of the box are usually determined by a number of factors ranging from approvals to the scope of the project already being defined. Freelancers don’t get to make a lot of calls; sometimes they do and other times they don’t. But when you pen original works, whether they be blog posts or novels, you determine where the sides of the box are.

The challenge with this, though, is that if you were to take every internet post, every forum thread, to heart — you would never write. Why would you? If everything you’d done was going to be ripped apart, shredded, presented as wholly inaccurate, and how dare you? (Sometimes, even before that person has even read or encountered or consumed, too.) Or, in the case of some work-for-hire writers, getting the same treatment for works you didn’t write and had nothing to do with? Now, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, folks are very positive or say nothing at all. Freelancers can influence outlines and the like as well. But, in the case of many blogs and forums, articles are written to tap into your emotionally-charged centers so you wake up and pay attention. A technique which is manipulative, sure, and also finanically-beneficial to many sites. They get paid in *website visits*. Writers get paid per *word* sold.

But what the opinions? Should that affect how we shape the rawness of your your art? Mine? Should we avoid taking (what other people deem to be) risks just because people prefer works to be sanitized with soap and water?

No, and I am telling you this now, because it will come up later. This is a consequence of being connected so closely to one another. But taking creative risks is who we are as artists. We will take better chances if we understand what the rules are or play around with them to break them, but risks matter. If we don’t, stories and games and photos and sculptures and songs and everything else will stagnate. Without us, there will be no questions asked. There will be no arguments had. There will be no discussion. And we will be lost in a sea of opinions, doing what we think is right before we even try something new. Our art then, would become predictable and flat and repurposed. Safe.

I would rather get my hands dirty and take risks than live my writer’s life in fear. Half the time, *I* don’t feel that what I’m doing is risky. I just do what I do because I love it so. That doesn’t mean I won’t be smart about the choices I take in my career. I still have to worry about the business end of the equation.

Still, even I have had my “Come to Poe” moment. Do I trust myself? Yes. And to me, that’s all that matters. Because without that trust, then why would I bother taking any risk at all?

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June 1, 2013
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Perspectives Past and Present

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I’m diving into alternate history storytelling for a magical world I took four years to build. Some of this has roots in world history and the way society evolved (or didn’t) in certain contexts. I’m taking the approach that to truly represent the scope of the story, I cannot just write one type of character from a particular ethnic background. What happens in this series is epic, but the story itself begins small. To tell the story and build the world, I ask questions. I think. I need the mental space to do that, but this is where everything begins: when I wonder.

History fascinates me in a way I cannot describe properly. It’s partly due to the ghosts of the past and the nostalgia that comes from that, but also caused by the fact that human beings have dealt with less — and still survived. I suppose what interests me the most, is the ability to piece together a particular person’s story, and empathize with that individual. For example, slavery appalls me. But how did folks survive? What would I have done if I was in their situation? To me, this is what keeps the historical record alive, not just by learning what happened, but by trying to identify with the people on some level.

What saddens me, is that the human side of the equation often gets lost. New is better. Our ancestors were dumb, right? Only, that’s not true. How we view history depends upon who’s telling what happened. It’s not a zero sum game. Just because we have technology, it doesn’t automatically mean that human beings are more evolved and somehow better than we were in the past. Just because it costs more to take sick leave, for example, doesn’t mean that’s morally wrong, it just means that human beings get sick and have to take off of work. But on paper, it looks bad or seems impressive. Often, dissing the past is a technique folks use to sell the living something. Even nostalgia-based advertising is about what’s new, for collecting vinyl records is a new experience to those who didn’t grow up with them. Popular isn’t necessarily better, either. How long did people believe the Earth was flat? That Earth was the center of the universe? Do you know which Western mathematician proved the Earth was round? How many years did it take for that knowledge to take hold worldwide?

When we have something new like an advance in medicine or technology, we change internally and externally. For example, we can now track how our brains change with internet usage. But are we really better off? Are we superior to those who came before us because we have something shinier, better, newer? Because life is more convenient?

If, all of a sudden, an EMP blast went off and our technology was wiped out… Would we know what to do? Can you identify poisonous versus edible plants? Kill, clean, and cook your own food? Those who lived in the past could and where their knowledge was focused as part of their daily life, ours is now lacking. Flip that around, and a pioneer wouldn’t be able to drive a car, but we could teach them how with time and patience.

Take also into consideration what an archaeologist of the future might find from our culture. What traces will we leave behind? If all our art, for example, is digital… Will that survive? Or are we headed for another Dark Age because the physical record of our culture is moving more towards data?

Fiction allows me to explore the human aspects of historical events by asking questions; magic provides me with a sense of wonder and, I hope, my readers, too. Storytelling in an alternate historical timeline gives me the chance to explore the past. I am not seeking to be right. Instead, what I hope to find, is a connection.

    Mood: Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats!
    Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: I’m on my second count.
    Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: A nice, albeit mistified, walk.
    In My Ears: Climbing Up “Iknimaya – The Path to Heaven” from Avatar (Don’t judge.)
    Game Last Played: Last Night On Earth
    Book Last Read: The Shadowmarch Series by Tad Williams (Re-Read)
    Movie Last Viewed: The Last Stand
    Latest Artistic Project: *Still* *still* *still* need to take pictures…
    Latest Release: “The Button” We Are Dust anthology and for gaming, a fun Scion: Extras (Supplemental Yet Can Be Somewhat Useful On Occasion Scions)

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May 28, 2013
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Look at this Post about eBook Sales and Writing Advice. Now Return to Me.

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Tobias Buckell pens a brilliant post about Survivorship bias. Or, to put it in his words: Survivorship bias: why 90% of the advice about writing is bullshit right now.

Read that. Then return, for I have more to add. First, those graphs? True of every online retailer on the internet. The graph is shaped differently depending upon the number/type of products offered and sold; the bigger the retailer, the more closely their sales data will resemble the Smashwords graphs Tobias provided in his article, but a long tail is where the majority of products, in this case ebook titles, lie. When I talk about over-saturation of the market, this is what I mean. That tail keeps getting longer and longer and longer… What impact do you think that has on the reader? What they want to buy? Or why?

Secondly, I say this with love: the best people who will offer “how to sell” advice are those who have access to industry-wide (or multi-store) data. Not only will they be able to show trends and buyer behavior, they can avoid anecdotal information or outliers in favor of a strong foundation built on common experiences. This is a more conservative approach to running a business and one I adhere to. I think “long-term” as opposed to short term gain.

Sales and marketing have always gone hand in hand and both rely on a lot of data. Without verified data, you’re getting a skewed view, and both sales and marketing suffer greatly as a result. You cannot have a proper view of selling eBooks if you’re only looking at your own data and the success stories. You need the full picture to fill in the blanks to know what’s normal (in a statistical sense) and what’s not. This will help you set expectations and (hopefully) end the discussions about quality and sales. If your ebook isn’t selling, it doesn’t mean your story is crap. It could be, but knowing what to expect sales-wise is important. Heck, it could even mean the difference between self-publishing or not.

There is a market for providing writing advice books and, as the newest iteration in this trend, tomes about selling ebooks, novels, and the like. I am happy for those who have done well in this area, but on the consumer side, I have no qualms saying: buyer beware. Be smart about what you’re applying to your business model. Look to the person’s background. See what they’ve done in the past. Do they have ecommerce experience? Do they know how Google Analytics works? How many clients have they worked for? Who were those clients and how much did they increase sales?

And, more importantly — why? Why did sales go up? When did they go back down? Was it just that store’s algorithm? The format you offered? When you released it?

With good data, you’ll get the answers to these questions and more. To me, having that data is more valuable than any advice book, because it’s a depiction of what’s actually happening as opposed to selling you a promise of what could happen.

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May 27, 2013
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