100th Post Extravaganza

First off, I sold another reprint of Sweepers to the fabulous folk at Neon- A Literary Magazine! Do go check out their stuff, and buy from them if you're so inclined.

Also, after much doodling, I finally have a skull I like. I had hoped to have some serious coloring of it done and to be able to post it as a background for my hundredth post. I try not to make a great many excuses to you fine people, but I just recently started a new job where I've been pulling 11 hour shifts at minimum, so that hasn't come together quite as much as I'd hoped. Soon though.

On the writing front, for a given definition each of "story", "a day", and "May", I have completed the story a day in May challenge with 31 pieces of fiction, many of them flash, the last ones finished on June 1st. My plan for June is to go through my catalogue and edit to submission quality one story per day. (I have to admit, I don't think I'll actually achieve that goal, but just trying should put me well ahead of what I had done before.)

I've also passed my 100,000 words written or edited for the year. That puts me not entirely on schedule for 2011, but not terribly behind either, and it's a delightfully round and large number, like a sort of arbitrary milestone Rubens.

The ads have been working out well, I think. They're not terribly obnoxious, or even, I think, too grabby or tacky. My contract states that I may not tell you what I am earning per click, but I am allowed to accurately represent how much money I've made from the program. I've been on them for about two months and I could very likely pay for a fast food combo meal for both myself and a friend. Which, when you think about the fact that I was planning on doing this for no money at all, is a nice little perk.

I admit, when I started blogging, it was with a great deal of reluctance. I was digging my heels in and shouting about how I didn't wanna go. But now that I've been at it a bit, I really enjoy it. I've gotten to say a thing or two, I've attracted the notice of Mr. Tim Pratt, and when I want to say "hang on, I think I had a link to that somewhere!" I can always come back to the blog and click to it quickly, which is really just great for me in casual laptop-out conversation. I enjoy watching the blog stats, seeing where people are from, getting the occasional comment here and there.

I like it. I plan to keep on it.

Goodnight out there, internet, until we meet again.

Legwork

Not my own, mind you. This is an article Chris Gavaler wrote about promotion after his first novel was sold to Harper Collins. It highlights the increasing trend of authors being expected to handle and pay for their own publicity. Not that this is an issue for me yet, mind.

Thoughts on Creative Commons

"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." - Tim O'Reilly

I've been listening to the straight run of Mur Lafferty's "I Should Be Writing" (my paying job involves up to six hours of driving in a day). It's been helpful in terms of tips and information, especially with regards to publishing, and once every four episodes she interviews an established author (including Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Connie Willis).

Ms. Lafferty's a big supporter of new media, and an institution within the Podcasting community. She's released two books in free serialized audio format, both of which I believe she later sold as print books. Thanks to her dedicated fans and her new media marketing campaign, she was able to bump her first printed novel up to #16 on Amazon.com.

Obviously, new media and giving away work for free can help develop a critical mass of audience you need to sell in today's competitive market place, especially for novels.

These are the pros of the approach:

• The single greatest advertising force, especially for something like books, is word of mouth.
• People tend not to be willing to invest $7-20 in a new author they've never heard of before, but they are often willing to invest $0 and a little bit of time, especially in a format like audio that they can listen to on the road or at work.
• Numerous authors have demonstrated people will buy a physical print version of a product they've already gotten for free (Doctorow, Lafferty, Siegler).
• People who aren't going to buy your book for more than free would usually not have bought your book in the first place, but if they like your free copy, they may be willing to invest in your next.

That said, and despite the fact that paying work pays very little more than free, I'm not ready to pursue the free approach quite yet. For one thing, this kind of plan takes a very serious and constant media presence I'm not sure I can maintain. For another... it's going to sound a bit arrogant, but I think I can succeed in the traditional market, at least enough to meet my needs. I want the validation that comes with getting into the gated community of paid publishing. I also tend to write more short stories, which are not exactly moneymakers at the best of times, so marketing has a limited possible cash turnaround, and I suspect will actually hurt me in terms of selling the products themselves.

I think as I expand my library of finished (and ideally published) works, I will very likely make my back catalogue available for free, but I don't currently have a volume of work that satisfies the requirements of a media presence style of marketing. That's a running leap I plan to take after I've had a little more practice walking steadily.

One step at a time.