Randy Ingermanson's Blog: Advanced Fiction Writing, page 13

Should You Be an Indie Author?

I was browsing in the Suspense section of my local Barnes & Noble when a familiar voice came over the store loudspeaker. “Attention all wannabe writers. We has inside information that a certain Bigshot Author is in the store giving out free advice fer the next hour. He’s the feller holding the copy of Jimmy Patterson in aisle K.”

Panic shot through my veins. I peeked around the corner at the central desk.

My plumber Sam stood there holding the microphone. He pointed at me and hooted with glee. “There he is! Tackle him now!”

Before I could move, a short bundle of insanity came racing down the aisle and body-slammed me to the floor. “Got him!” shouted Sam’s mother, Minnie. “Free cookies for everyone while this dear boy teaches us about how to get rich as an indie author.”

The store manager came scurrying up to Sam with a disapproving look on her face. “Sir, this is highly irregular! You can’t—”

Sam gave her a huge grin. “Listen, Miss Cutie, I betcha didn’t know you had the feller that wrote the book on fiction writing right here in yer store. And he’s gonna give us an impromptified clinic on publishing right now, and he’ll even autograph all the piles of books ya got on yer shelves that he wrote.”

Minnie pulled my wallet out of my pocket, extracted the driver’s license, and flipped it neatly to the manager. “Go on, dear girl! Just look up his books while we’re getting set up.”

By now an enormous crowd had gathered around.

“Get rich writing books?” one woman said. “Sounds good to me!”

“Awesome! Give the man some room!”

“Hey lady, you going to bring his books for us to buy?”

The store manager thought for a few seconds. “Let’s do this!” She went to a workstation and began pecking in information.

Minnie got off my back, hauled me to my feet, and produced a plate of cookies from her purse. “Free cookies for everybody!”

Five minutes later, we were all crammed into the small coffee shop. Minnie was clutching a thick sheaf of paper, which I assumed was the novel she’d been pestering me to help her with.

“So …” I looked around the group. “Minnie, you called this meeting. What exactly did you have in mind here?”

Minnie plopped her manuscript down on the table in front of me. “I want to know what’s the best way to get this published.”

The one thing I didn’t want to do was look at that manuscript. Most first novels just aren’t ready. Most authors write several novels before they’re ready to get published. So I did the honorable thing. I stalled.

“Okay, let’s review,” I said. “There are three basic ways to get published. You can pay a vanity publisher to do it for you.”

“And they’re all scammers,” Minnie said.

I held up a hand. “Not all of them. Most of the time, a vanity publisher is a bad deal for the author. But there are some honest ones who’ll charge you a fair price and do a good job for you.”

Sam pulled out his iPad and thumped on it for half a minute. “Yup, he told us that, Ma. I got it wrote down right here.”

“It can make sense to work with a vanity publisher under certain conditions,” I said. “If you have a good quality book and a strong marketing platform and you know how to read contracts, you can probably find a suitable vanity publisher. You’ll spend some money up front, but then all the profit goes to you.”

“But … I don’t have much money,” Minnie said. “I think my book is good, but I don’t know anything about that marketing platform thing—”

“No worries,” Sam said. “I can build ya a great platform, Ma. Mr. Bigshot here can give me a drawing and I’ll nail that puppy together, boom, boom, boom!”

“Sammy, dear, shut up.”

Sam gaped at his mother, then leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

I cleared my throat. “Minnie, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think a vanity publisher is right for you.”

“But dude!” cut in a kid wearing a skateboard shirt. He looked to be about fifteen. “You don’t even know if the lady’s book is any good yet. Ain’t ya gonna look at it? Cuz if it’s a piece of crap, then she ain’t going nowhere with it.”

“That does make sense.” Minnie handed the boy a huge cookie. Then she did the one thing I’d been dreading.

She pushed the manuscript across the table to me. “Now, dear boy, I want you to read my novel and tell me if I’m just wasting my time. I do want to get published, but I’m not going to put my name on something dreadful. So you just tell me right now if it’s horrible.”

The crowd seemed to suck in its collective breath.

I stared at the brick of paper. The cover of the manuscript said simply Sammy Kills The Dragon, by Mama Minnie. With a ridiculous title like that, the odds were high that it was unspeakably awful. And I really didn’t want to have to say so in front of all those people.

Minnie reached across the table and flipped over the title page. “Read!”

I read.

The first sentence made me laugh.

The first paragraph hooked my attention.

By the end of the first page, I forgot I was critiquing it because I was having so much fun reading it.

Mama Minnie could actually write. Sure, there were a couple of spelling errors. But she had started right off in an action scene that put me inside the skin of a character I cared about.

That’s good fiction, no matter what absurd title is on the cover.

I flipped to the second page and raced through it. Then the third, the fourth, the fifth. And that was the end of the first scene, which ended on a cliffhanger.

I looked up at Minnie and smiled. “You write very well.”

The entire crowd erupted in cheers. Suddenly, people were grabbing for the manuscript, fighting for single pages.

Minnie blushed fiercely. “Oh, you’re just flattering me. I bet you tell every pretty girl the same thing.”

I shook my head. “Listen, the one thing I don’t do is flatter people. You write well. Very well. I think you could get this published. By a traditional publisher.”

Minnie began fanning her face. “Really? Oh my! Sammy, did you hear? I’m going to be published!”

I held up a hand. “Okay, remember, we talked about traditional publishers—”

“Buncha scammers,” Sam said. “They’ll rip ya off, Ma. You got to publish it yerself.”

“Sammy, be a dear and stuff that iPad in your … um, mouth.”

I pulled out a pad of paper and drew a horizontal line on it. I made tick marks at the left and right ends. “Let’s make a timeline here. This first mark represents today. The second mark represents the day you’ll see your book in actual stores.”

“Dear, how many days is it between those marks?” Minnie said.

I shrugged. “That’s hard to say. Probably at least a couple of years.”

“A couple of years!” Minnie scowled at me. “You listen here, young man! I don’t want to sit on my hands for a couple of years. I want to get published before I … before I … you know.”

Sam’s face went pale. “Ma, you ain’t gonna snuff it anytime soon.”

Minnie pointed a stubby finger at me. “You say at least two years. But it could be more?”

I nodded. “It could be a lot more. I know a lot of writers who took five or ten years to get published.”

“I’ll be an old woman by then.” Minnie scowled. “What are those publishers going to do for me to make up for wasting years of my life?”

“Several things,” I said. “First, they’ll pay you an advance, probably several thousand dollars. Second, they’ll edit your book. Third, they’ll give you a professional cover. Fourth, they’ll pay all the costs of production. Fifth, they’ll make sure your book gets into stores like this one.”

“And they’ll cheat ya on royalties,” Sam said.

“And they’ll pay you royalties,” I said.

“Will they really cheat me?” Minnie asked. “Or is Sammy just blowing smoke like he usually does?”

“Your royalties won’t be very high,” I said. “On a hardcover, your royalties would be a few dollars per book, assuming—”

“That’s all?” Minnie shrieked. “How come, when it costs twenty or thirty dollars in the store?”

“Overhead and middlemen,” I said. “The publisher has to pay the rent. And the printer. And the warehouse guys. And the truck drivers.”

“And the thieves that run the stores,” Sam said.

I noticed that the room had gone deathly quiet. An icy chill seemed to be radiating onto the back of my neck. I turned around.

The store manager stood there holding two copies of my latest book. “Apparently this is all the stock that the thieves who run the store have on hand.”

“Um … for the record, I think you guys are doing a great job.”

“If you say so, sir.” She slammed the copies on the table and stalked away.

“Hey, Sam, if you wouldn’t mind keeping your opinions to yourself,” I said.

Sam shrugged. “Just telling the plain, unvarnishified truth. It ain’t my fault if some folks is flogging a dying horse.”

I turned back to Minnie. “And if you have a trade paper edition, you’ll be getting about a dollar in royalties per book.”

“One lousy dollar?”

“And if you have a mass market paperback, it would probably be a lot less than that.”

Minnie looked shocked. “What about e-books?”

“Your publisher will get 70% of the purchase price of an e-book. You get 25% of that.”

Sam whipped out his calculator. “So say the book sells fer $10. Yer publisher rakes in $7 and pays you $1.75. But then yer agent takes a cut, so you end up with $1.49.”

Minnie gave him a suspicious glare, then appealed to me. “He’s fibbing, isn’t he? There isn’t any printer or warehouse or truck drivers for an e-book, so why is the publisher going to keep all that much money?”

I shook my head. “Unfortunately, Sam is telling the truth. Right now, this may be the biggest conflict between authors and publishers.”

“Well, then what if I don’t get an agent? Why should I give some agent my money?”

“You really need an agent if you’re going with any of the major traditional publishers. Without an agent, you probably won’t sell your book, and if you do, the publisher will give you a terrible contract and you won’t know any better so you’ll sign it.”

“But I could sell my book myself to a smaller publisher?”

“Maybe. But the smaller publishers probably won’t get you into many bookstores. And one of the biggest reasons to work with a traditional publisher is that they get you into bookstores.”

Minnie’s face had gone bright red. “Well let’s just suppose I were to self-publish my book. I’m not saying I will, but just suppose.”

Sam smirked.

“That’s an option,” I said. “It has some disadvantages and some advantages. First, there’s no advance.”

“Don’t need an advance,” Minnie said. “I have my Social Security and I get by.”

“Second, you’d have to pay your own editor.”

Minnie flinched. “How much would that be?”

“Could be a few hundred. A really top-notch editor would cost you a couple of thousand dollars.”

“That’s all?” Minnie stared at me. “Could I get something decent for two thousand?”

“You could get an outstanding editor for two thousand dollars. But then you also need to pay a graphic artist to design your cover.”

Minnie shook her head. “And how many thousands is that?”

“You can get a decent cover for a hundred dollars and a very good one for five hundred,” I said. “You just have to know an experienced artist, and there are plenty of them. I can give you some names.”

“Dear boy! Would you?” Minnie seized my hand in her powerful grip and squeezed.

Tears sprang up in my eyes. “Y-yes.” I worked my hand free and began checking it for broken bones. “And your final cost would be production. You need to create the e-book files for the online stores.”

Minnie shuddered. “I knew there was a catch. How much is that? Five thousand? Ten thousand? I’m not rich.”

“You can do it yourself if you’re willing to spend a little time. Or you can pay somebody to do it for one or two hundred dollars.”

“And that’s everything?” Minnie said. “That’s my final cost? What about that agent thing? How much does he get if I self-publish?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You don’t need an agent if you’re an indie author. You just do it.”

“Just … do it? All by my little lonesome?”

“Ma, I’ll help you. I done it loads of times,” Sam said.

Minnie shushed him. “So you’re saying that for under three thousand dollars, I could self-publish my novel and keep all the profits?”

I nodded. “I know plenty of indie authors who’ve done it for under a hundred. They don’t hire an editor. They do their own cover art. And they just upload their Word document straight to Amazon.”

Sam jumped up and blew an imaginary trumpet. “Not to brag, but my JoeDunnit murder mystery novel didn’t cost me nothing, and it’s selling like fire on Smashwords.”

“And it’s the most ridiculous piece of dreck a mother ever was forced to read,” Minnie said.

Sam grinned at her. “Ya can’t argue with the numbers, Ma. I’m earning hunnerts every week fer my books, and you ain’t earning squat.”

“Language!” Minnie said. “I didn’t raise you to say words like that!”

“There’s one last thing,” I said. “If you self-publish your book, you probably won’t sell any paper copies in stores.”

“And why is that?” Minnie looked alarmed.

“Because bookstores typically don’t buy books unless the publisher takes returns. And bookstores are wary of self-published books because a lot of them are … not very well-written.”

Minnie threw a furtive glance at Sam. “I suppose they have a point.”

“So yer saying Ma ain’t gonna have great piles of her books in this store like you do?” Sam pointed at the two copies of my book on the table. “Whooey, that’s a mighty strong case yer making there fer the big cheese publishers.”

I felt my face getting hot. “I’m officially a hybrid author. I’ve published eight books with traditional publishers. Now I’m releasing my out-of-print books as an indie author and at the same time, I’ll be doing some other books that crashed and burned with traditional publishers.”

Sam sniffed loudly. “You might think you’re some high and mighty high-bred author, but you ain’t all that.”

“Sammy, shut up!” Minnie put her head in her hands and closed her eyes. “It just isn’t an easy decision. I can see that each of the choices makes sense for some authors but not for others. But for me … I’m going to be an indie author.”

Sam began dancing a little jig, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

“That boy!” Minnie shook her head. “But let me tell you my thinking and you can tell me if I’m just a silly old woman or if I’m thinking straight.”

I waited.

Minnie held up one finger. “First, I don’t need an advance because I have some income.”

“Makes sense.”

“Second, I’m going to hire an editor and graphic artist and some geeky boy to make my e-book files. You say I can do that for under three thousand dollars, right?”

I nodded. “You can get a stellar job for that much. You can do quite well for under a thousand.”

“Third, I want a fair shake on royalties. If I make five times as much on e-books and never sell any paper copies, I’d come out ahead, right?”

“Quite possibly,” I said.

“Hey, lady, what about your marketing?” said the skateboard kid. “You ain’t gonna sell nothing without marketing.”

“Oh dear!” Minnie said. “I don’t know anything about marketing. Maybe I’m just all wrong. Maybe I need a traditional publisher after all.”

I shook my head. “A traditional publisher is going to expect you to do most of your marketing anyway. No matter what publishing option you choose, you’re going to be stuck with the marketing. And it’s not as hard as it sounds.”

Minnie took a deep breath. She obviously didn’t want to market her books. But she also obviously wanted to get her book published.

She clenched both her fists and pounded the table. “I’ll … do it! I want to be an author. I’m going to be an indie author. And if I have to learn how to market my books to do that, then I’ll just do it, by gum!”

“Language, Ma!” Sammy said in a shocked voice.

For a second, the whole room was quiet. Then the entire crowd burst into applause.

Minnie quietly stood up and took a bow, a huge smile covering her face.

A new indie author was born.

 

TO BE CONTINUED …

Randy sez: This is the third in a series of blog posts on self-publishing novels. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too.

Minnie is now officially committed to becoming an indie author. What’s her next step? We’ll find out in the next episode.

If you’ve got friends who might be interested in the process, feel free to let them know about this Indie Author Guidebook series.

See you next week!

In the meantime, please do me a favor and let me know how we’re doing so far. We’re now three chapters in on the Indie Author Guidebook. I’m using storytelling techniques to teach the basic ideas. Is it working for you? Is it not? I’ve created a short survey on SurveyMonkey where you can tell me what you like and what you don’t. Please take the survey now. This is your chance to help me help you. Thank you! I appreciate you taking the two minutes to answer a few simple questions.

The post Should You Be an Indie Author? appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Is Traditional Publishing a Scam?

The screech of a smoke detector woke me up at 6 AM.

For a few seconds, I thought it was a false alarm. The smoke detectors have been fussy lately. Then I smelled smoke.

I leaped out of bed and raced out to the kitchen, trying to remember exactly where we keep the fire extinguisher.

Black smoke was billowing up from the stove. My plumber, Sam, stood hunched over a frying pan that held a huge, smoking pancake. “Hey, Ma! It ain’t cooking right.”

I was so furious, I could hardly speak. “I’m not your mother and what the devil are you doing in my house?”

Sam fanned smoke out of his face. “Making breakfast, a course. You better put some clothes on. My Ma don’t like people wandering around half dressed.”

“What’s your mother doing in my house?”

“Dear boy! It’s so good of you to invite us over to teach me about how to get my book published.” It was the voice of Sam’s mother Minnie, out in the dining room.

I peered around the corner.

Minnie had stacked up two chairs to get at the wailing smoke detector. “Sammy! I think it’s broken. Can you find me a hammer?”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Just give me some room.”

Minnie looked at me, and her face turned bright pink. “You need to put some clothes on you, young man! Wandering around in your jammies — it isn’t decent.” She climbed down off the chairs.

In ten seconds, I had the battery out of the smoke alarm.

Blessed silence filled the house.

I took a deep, calming breath. Somehow, it didn’t work. “All right, people, it’s 6 AM. What are you doing in my house at this time of day?”

Sam gave me an enormous grin. “You was gonna teach Ma how to get her yeah novel self-published. And I was gonna take notes.”

I vaguely remembered something about that from yesterday. But I hadn’t agreed on a day or a time. “Well … how’d you get in? I locked the door last night.”

Minnie smiled and whipped a set of lock picks out of her apron. “Retired locksmith, dearie! Always useful when your host is a sleepyhead. Now run off and get dressed. Time’s wasting, and we need to get my yeah novel published today.”

I groaned and staggered back to my bedroom, where I spent ten minutes explaining to my wife that we had guests. She knows what Sam is like, so she didn’t seem terribly surprised, but she also didn’t get up.

Half an hour later, showered, shaved, and dressed, I went back out to the kitchen.

Sam and Minnie were just finishing breakfast. The table was covered with half a dozen dirty plates, three empty jars of jam, two bottles of syrup, a butter dish with one tiny sliver of butter left, an empty gallon jug of milk, two cartons of orange juice, and an empty box of Cheerios.

Sam leaned back in his chair and gave a happy sigh. “Well, that wasn’t bad. Wasn’t much in your fridge, so ya might wanna have the wife do a food run while we work.”

My head was hurting and my fists were clenched tight. “So Minnie, you’re interested in getting self-published–”

“Dear boy! I’ve been having second thoughts about that.” Minnie’s face twisted in agitation. “It’s just … maybe self-publishing is good enough for Sammy, but I want a real publisher.”

“You want a traditional publisher, right? One that pays you an advance and royalties? Not one of those vanity publishers that you have to pay?”

Minnie beamed at me. “Exactly. Self-publishing might be good enough for Sammy, but I know you’ve had a real publisher and I want to hear why you did that.”

I poured the last dregs of the orange juice into the one clean glass left in the kitchen and went and plopped down on the couch. “When I started writing, there was really only one way to get published — you worked with a traditional publisher.”

Sam heaved himself into my favorite chair. “But they’re a cheat, right?”

I felt my face warming up. “I wouldn’t say that. Twenty years ago, even five years ago, it was really the only rational way to get published.”

Minnie sniffed loudly. “If a person has any self-respect, I think it’s the only way to get published.”

“Ma, you got to get out more. Read some blogs. I been reading this feller’s blog, Joe Conrad—”

“You mean Konrath,” I said. “Joe Konrath. Great guy. I love his blog.”

“Well, he says that them legacy publishers treats authors like …” Sam looked at his mother and his face turned a brilliant red. “Like rat-poo.”

“Sammy! Language!”

Sam shrugged his massive shoulders and hung his head. “Ma, I’m just quoting the feller exactly. Ain’t I?” he appealed to me with huge, pleading eyes.

“Not in those exact words,” I said. “But yes, Joe Konrath says traditional publishers treat their authors like, um, crap.”

“You horrible boy!” Minnie said. “Using filthy language in the presence of a lady. I ought to wash your mouth out with soap. And I would, too, but I’m too polite to interrupt. So go on and explain.”

I went into my office, got my laptop, and logged into Konrath’s blog. Joe’s said a lot of things about traditional publishers over the years, but I found one that nicely summarized things: Do Legacy Publishers Treat Authors Badly? I handed the laptop to Minnie and let her read it.

As her eyes moved down the screen, her face tightened. Sam leaned back in his chair and pulled out his iPad.

When Minnie finished reading, she looked horrified. “Is all this true? Do traditional publishers only pay 25% royalties on e-books?”

“Most of them do,” I said. “I’ve heard rumors about some big-name authors who get more, but I can’t really say how much more or who I heard it from.”

“Well, whyever not?” Minnie said.

“Because the terms of contracts are generally supposed to be kept secret,” I said.

“Uh-oh.” A guilty look crept across Sam’s face. He pecked feverishly at his iPad for a full minute. “Say there, Mr. Bigshot Author, I don’t suppose ya know how to untweet a Twitter thing that ya shouldna sent out to 8000 folks, do ya?”

I didn’t move a muscle. If Sam wanted to blather about his contracts in public, it wasn’t my problem.

“Cuz here’s the thing. I was curious about what kinda contracts you been getting—”

I shot up off the couch, raced into my office, and yanked open the drawer where I keep my contracts. All the files were missing. “Sam!” I bellowed.

“Ma, don’t let him hit me!” Sam shouted.

“He won’t hit you Sammy. Nobody hits my boy.”

I stalked back out to the living room. “Sam, this time you’ve gone too far.”

Sam held up both hands. “I was just shocked is all. Righteous indignification. And I didn’t tell whose it was. Well, not in so many words. I just said it was a Bigshot Author. Could be anybody, right?”

I sat back down and put my head in my hands and waited for my heart rate to drop below 200. “Sam, don’t ever do that again.”

Minnie was still looking at Joe Konrath’s blog. “Is this true about titles? Have you ever had a publisher change your title?”

I thought for a minute. “Of the eight books I’ve published, the publisher asked me to change the title of five. In four cases, the new title was better. In one case, it was worse. And in one case, I asked to change it from the original, but the publisher conveniently forgot. And in another case, the publisher suggested the title from the start, and it wasn’t quite perfect, but I never got around to asking them to improve it.”

“Dear boy, that’s what spines are for.”

“Look, you’ve only got so much negotiating room,” I said. “You have to ask for the changes you can get. And publishers think they know more about titles than authors do.”

“Yer making a real strong case fer them traditional publishers,” Sam said.

Minnie jabbed her finger at the screen. “But I still don’t understand why traditional publishers only pay their authors 25% royalties on e-books. You told us that was a scam by those dreadful vanity publishers. You said publishers should give us all the profits.”

“No, I said vanity publishers should give you all the profits,” I said. “Because a vanity publisher takes none of the risk and you take it all. So you should get the profits on the book. A vanity publisher is doing a work-for-hire in setting up your book for you. You pay them to do that up front. There’s no reason you should pay them any more after that.”

Sam was grinning at me like he’d scored a point.

“But a traditional publisher isn’t like that,” I said. “A traditional publisher takes quite a lot of the risk up front. They pay you an advance. They pay for all the production costs. So they have a lot of skin in the game. You invest only your time. So the traditional royalty structure on hardcover books has been roughly a 50-50 split on the profits.”

Minnie looked perplexed. “Doesn’t it cost terribly much to make a hardcover book?”

I shook my head. “A bit. There are paper and printing costs. There are warehousing and shipping costs. And of course there are returns.”

“Explainify about them returns,” Sam said. “Cuz it don’t make no sense to me.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me either,” I admitted. “When a publisher sells a book to a bookstore, the bookstore can later return it for full credit if they don’t sell it. And in recent years, the word I hear is that bookstores have returned on average half their books.”

“That sounds dreadful!” Minnie said. “I can see how that would eat into the publisher’s profits. But … you don’t have any of those costs with an e-book. So why aren’t the royalties on e-books 50%?”

Her words hung in the air for a long time. Sam leaned back and crossed his arms. And smiled.

I tried to pick my words carefully. “Well, Minnie, I’ll be blunt here. A lot of published authors think that e-book royalties are much too low. And most of the agents I’ve talked to also–”

“But all them folks just grin and sign the contract and get cheated outta their royalties,” Sam said. “It’s a scam is what it is. Somebody oughta look into  it—all them big publishers paying the exact same lowball, cheating 25% royalties. It’s collusionification, is what it is.”

“It’s a bad situation,” I said. “And my opinion is that it needs to change or the traditional publishers are going to eventually face an author revolt. I think it will change, but—”

“Will it change by tomorrow, dear boy?” Minnie said. “Because you know I was really hoping we could get this done today so I can tell all my friends tomorrow where they can buy my book.”

I laughed out loud. I just couldn’t help myself. Because it took me ten years of learning how to write before I sold my first book. And then it took more than a year for my publisher to edit my book, create the cover, do the typesetting, get reviews, and ship it to stores.

“He ain’t laughing with you, Ma,” Sam said. “He’s laughing at you. Cuz he knows you’ll be lucky to get yer book published in two years.”

“Two years!” Minnie squeaked. “Why so long?” She rounded on me. “Is that right? Will it take two whole years before one of those traditional publishers can get me into bookstores?”

“That depends on how well you write,” I said. “If your writing is brilliant right now, then you could find an agent within a couple of months. The agent could sell it in a few months. The editor would work with you for maybe three to six months. Then there would be another six months to a year while they …”

I stopped, because I really had no idea what actually happened during that six to twelve months. Other than “marketing,” which in my experience, generally doesn’t happen for most authors.

“But … at least they pay you well?” Minnie said. “I mean, authors have to eat, right? So they’ll pay me a living wage for my book?”

I coughed.

Sam was grinning more now. “Well, hey, not meaning to be nosy, but I accidentally come across some of yer royalty statements while I was looking fer yer contracts, and–”

“You WHAT?” I roared.

Sam pulled a thick sheaf of papers out of the grimy pocket of his coveralls. “I just wanted to see if that Conrad feller was blowing smoke when he sez that legacy publishers give ya royalty statements that don’t make a rat’s behind worth of sense.”

“LANGUAGE, Sammy!”

Sam flipped open one of the statements to a random page. “See, now that ain’t a bad week’s worth of pay, right there.”

I looked at the statement. “That isn’t for a week, Sam.”

“Oh, well then.” Sam grinned. “Ain’t so great fer a month, is it?”

“It’s not for a month, Sam.” I could feel my face turning hot.

Sam looked perplexed. “What kinda operation is it that don’t pay at least once a month?”

“Most traditional publishers pay every six months.” My words hung in the air for a long time.

Minnie grabbed another royalty statement from the stack. “Well this one looks more like what I was expecting. That’s a whole lot of money.”

Somehow I doubted that, but I looked anyway. “Um, that’s a big number, I’ll grant you that. But it’s a negative number. That’s what I still owe on that contract.”

“Oh, my!” Minnie sat back on the couch and fanned herself. “How are you ever going to pay back all that much money?”

“He ain’t,” Sam grumbled. A scowl slid across his face. “From what I hear tell, most of them contracts with traditional publishers never earns back the advance. And if the book don’t earn its keep, then the author don’t pay. The publisher eats the loss.”

“That’s exactly right,” I said. “Nobody knows the exact percentage but I keep hearing that the great majority of books never earn back their advance.”

“Well then, that’s a good reason to write for a traditional publisher,” Minnie said. Her face perked up. “You can be sure of getting the advance.”

Sam glowered at me. “Bigshot authors and them big advances. Ain’t fair.”

“Well … there’s a small problem,” I said. “Actually, three problems. First, advances are getting smaller, from what I hear. Second, if a book doesn’t earn out its advance, then the author may not even get a next contract. And third, if you know you aren’t going to earn out your advance, then you have no incentive to market your book.”

“Goodness, honey, why in the everworld would an author want to spend time marketing her book?” Minnie asked. “Shouldn’t an author spend her time writing? Isn’t it the publisher’s job to market the book?”

Sam leaned forward. “That Conrad feller sez publishers talk big about marketing, but then they don’t hardly do nothing.”

I didn’t say anything. I’ve worked with several traditional publishers. I’ve truly enjoyed working with them. I love most of the editors, marketers, and publicists I’ve worked with. They’re book people. Fun to be with. Smart. Hard-working. Honest. And some of them actually were effective in marketing my books. I know they tried hard. But in some cases, they didn’t succeed.

The fact is that each of those books was my baby, not theirs. My publishers have had dozens of books to market every year. Sometimes hundreds.

The hard truth is that marketing my books is my job. It always has been my job. And it took me a while to figure that out, because hardly anybody ever comes right out and says it that way.

And the sad truth is that unless a book earns out its advance, any marketing time an author puts in will enrich the publisher, but it won’t earn the author a dime.

And that really sucks, because most of my author friends work hard at their marketing.

But I know very well that many of them don’t earn out their advances.

Which means that their marketing earns them nothing.

And that saps their incentive to market.

Minnie seemed to read my thoughts, because she didn’t ask if Joe Konrath was telling the truth about marketing. “But what’s this about non-compete clauses? Surely traditional publishers don’t put those in contracts, do they? You told us yesterday those are terrible things.”

Once again, I tried to choose my words carefully, because this is a minefield. “The purpose of a non-compete clause is to protect the publisher’s investment in you as an author. Traditional publishers will typically invest tens of thousands of dollars in your book. If you do something that damages their investment, then they get very upset. My friend, agent Steve Laube wrote a nice blog on that just recently.”

“But here’s the thing,” I said. “Vanity publishers take no risk at all. So when they put a non-compete clause in a contract, they’re cheating you. They have no investment to protect.”

Minnie read through Steve Laube’s blog post and her face turned pale. “Some of these traditional publishers put in perfectly dreadful non-compete clauses.”

“I’ve heard horror stories from other authors,” I said. “But because of that confidentiality thing, I can’t repeat them for you.”

Minnie was wringing her hands. “Oh dear, traditional publishing looks awfully good from the outside, but it seems like it’s not so good on the inside.”

“Ma, it’s a scam, same as them vanity publishers,” Sam said.

“No, you’re wrong, Sam,” I said. “Vanity publishers, for the most part are scammers. They take your money and don’t give you fair value for it. A few of them do give you good value, and if you can find one that’s fair, then a vanity publisher or a subsidy publisher might possibly be your best option. You just have to think hard about what you want, what you’re willing to spend, and how much you want to work.”

Sam leaned back and scowled, muttering, “Scam, scam, scam.”

“And you have to do the same kind of hard thinking with traditional publishers,” I said. “They pay you an advance and they take a lot of the financial risk. They set the terms in the contract to benefit themselves, and sometimes they don’t bend at all on negotiations. But a traditional publishing contract can be a very good deal for the author. Sometimes. The point is that we have choices now. Five years ago, self-publishing was not a real option. Now it is.”

“But … how could I hold my head up high if I were to tell my friends I was going to self-publish?” Minnie said. “That’s just for … losers.”

“No it isn’t,” I said. “A lot of authors I respect are self-publishing. And some of them are selling zillions of books. Barbara Freethy. And Bob Mayer. And Bella Andre. And Hugh Howey. And many more. Not to mention that a number of traditionally published authors got major book deals after making a success by self-publishing. E.L. James got her start writing fan-fiction.”

“Who?” Sam said.

“Never you mind.” Minnie’s face turned pink. “She writes, um, romances. Not something a young boy like you would be interested in reading.”

“Sounds boring,” Sam said. “But that Bob Mayer feller, he was in Special Forces, so he’s gotta be good. And that Hugh Howey feller writes a heckuva good mystopia.”

Minnie looked exasperated. “I didn’t raise you to use curse words like that. You just apologize right now.” She shot me a sharp look. “But you, young man, seem to be riding on the fence. One minute you’re telling us dreadful things about traditional publishers, and the next minute you’re defending them.”

“I’m just telling you reality,” I said. “Traditional publishing has pluses and minuses. I’ve done eight books with traditional publishers. And I’ve done two of my out-of-print novels self-published. And I have another one due out any day now.”

“What? You never mentioned it!” Minnie said. “Are you ashamed of it?”

“No, I’ve just been waiting until it was ready. Here’s the cover.” I opened my iPad.

Minnie stared at the cover for several seconds. “Oh. My. Word. Now there is one handsome young man. You’ll tell me when this book comes out?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

“And you’re going to self-publish this book?” Minnie began flipping pages on the iPad. “Oh my! It looks like it’s a real book and all.”

“Of course I’m going to self-publish it,” I said. “I’ve got several more that I want to do this year, all self-published.”

“Ain’t gonna work with them high-powered traditional publishers any more?” Sam asked.

I shrugged. “I might. The thing is, I have choices now. Every book, I can choose the best option. I’m not locked in to traditional publishing. I’m not committed forever to self-publishing. I can make the best decision for me. I like that freedom.”

“Freedom.” Minnie sighed. “I like the sound of that.”

Suddenly, she clutched at my hand. “Dear boy? I just don’t know what to think. Will you teach me how to make the right decision for me? I’m not desperate to get published. But I’d dearly like to see my book in print before I die.”

“It’s all a matter of asking the right questions,” I said. “There isn’t any one decision that’s right for everybody. But … yes, I’ll help you.”

“Well, there’s another decision we better make real soon.” Sam stood up and headed toward the kitchen. “What’s fer lunch?”

TO BE CONTINUED …

 What’s Next

Randy sez: This is the second in a series of blog posts on self-publishing novels. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too.

Minnie’s next step is to decide whether she wants to work with a traditional publisher or whether she wants to self-publish.

If you’ve got friends who might be interested in how a writer makes that decision, feel free to let them know about this Indie Author Guidebook series.

See you next week!

The post Is Traditional Publishing a Scam? appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

How To Spot A Predatory Publisher

The phone rang just as I was sitting down to write my next blog post. One look at the caller ID told me it was trouble. My plumber, Sam, who has an endless number of ways to drain my bank account.

I let the phone go to voice mail and logged in to my blog.

The doorbell rang. Twice. Three times. Then one long continuous ring.

I peeked out my office window and saw a very short, stout older woman on my porch holding a plate stacked with the largest cookies I’ve ever seen.

I went to the door and opened it. “I’m sorry but–”

“See, he’s home after all!” boomed a familiar voice. Sam the plumber jumped out from behind an enormous tree.

“Dear boy!” said the woman. “Little Sammie’s told me all about you! Thank you so much for offering to help with my book. Here, have a cookie!” She handed me a chocolate-chip cookie the size of a small pizza. It felt like it weighed ten pounds.

I suddenly realized that the woman looked a lot like Sam, except scaled down in size. Sam is well over six feet tall and weighs about 300 pounds.

“I see you’ve met my Ma!” Sam bellowed as he wiped his boots on the welcome mat. “She’s got great news. Wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Um, that’s … great.” I noticed that some of the chocolate chips were already melting in my hands. “Listen, I need to go put this cookie down.”

“Go on ahead.” Sam pushed open the door. “We’ll just make ourselves at home.”

Which was exactly what I was afraid of. I backed into the kitchen, dropped the cookie on the counter, and washed about a pound of melted chocolate off of my hands.

When I got back to the living room, Sam had taken over my favorite chair and his mother was perched primly on the couch.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” I said as I sat down. “I’m–”

“Sammie’s told me all about you already,” she said. “You can call me Minnie.”

“Well, um, Minnie. What sort of news do you have?”

“Dear boy!” she said. “I’m going to be published! By a real publisher. I’ll be an author at last!”

“That’s … great. So there’s an advance and all that?”

“Yes, and quite a sizable one!” she said. “That’s why we need your advice. Sammie tells me you’re a world-famous author and you know about these things. I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Well, what kind of book are you writing?”

“It’s a yeah novel,” Sam said.

“A … what?” I said. “I’ve never heard of a yeah novel.”

Minnie gave me a disapproving frown. “Sammie said you know everything about publishing. How could you not know about yeah novels?”

“Who’s the target audience?”

“Why, young adults, of course.”

“You mean a YA novel?”

“Of course. A yeah novel.” Minnie beamed at me. “And it’s got a wonderful title: SAMMIE KILLS THE DRAGON.”

“That’s, um, pretty unusual.”

“My publisher thinks it’s marvelous and unique. He says they want to publish it right away, as soon as I sign the contract.”

Every hackle in my body rose. “Right away? They don’t want to do any editing?”

Sam grinned. “They said they might wanna fix a few spelling errors. Other than that, it’s good to go. They even have a whole buncha nice covers on their web site. We already picked one out — it just needs a title and author name.”

“And the dragon has to be pink,” Minnie said.

This was not computing. Not at all. “You said there was an advance. Can I ask how much?”

“Almost $8,000,” Minnie said.

I stared at her. Something was really wrong here. “$8,000? That’s pretty high for a first novel in this economy. You must have really impressed them.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” she said. “We think it’s too much.”

Then it all clicked into place. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop right there. You’re telling me they’re ASKING for $8,000 to publish your novel?”

“See, that’s where we figgered you could help us,” Sam said.

“Dead right, I can help you.” I was angry now. I hate seeing writers get ripped off by predatory publishers. Here’s how I’ll help you–”

“Dear boy!” Minnie leaped to her feet and threw her arms around me and squeezed. Hard. For nearly a minute. Forcing every molecule of air out of my lungs.

By the time she finished hugging me, I was nearly unconscious.

Sam grinned. “See, we know that being a bigshot author, you probably got $8,000 in spare change socked away that you could use to help a feller author out–”

I waited for the black spots to disappear from my eyes. “Okay, listen. Have a seat Minnie. Let me tell you a few things about publishing.”

Minnie sat back down on the couch.

I tried to pick my words tactfully. “Listen, the way publishing normally works is that the publisher pays the author an advance.”

“That’s what we thought,” said Minnie. “So we were surprised when they said that they were going to partner with me and my share would be all that much money.”

“There are plenty of publishers who ask you to pay to publish your work,” I said. “Sometimes they’re called vanity publishers. Or subsidy publishers. Or whatever. Most of them are not legit.”

Sam pulled out an iPad from his coverall pocket and started thumping with two fingers on the screen. “Don’t mind me. I’m just taking notes on all this. So we don’t fergit.”

“Let’s be clear that some of these publishers are legitimate,” I said. “They basically do all the work you’d have to do if you were acting as your own publisher. They help you manage the process and they take a fee, but the profits for the book go to you.”

Sam pecked madly on his iPad.

“But way too many of these publishers are scammers,” I said. “Their job is to get as much money as possible from you and to do as little work as possible. They take a fee and then if any copies of the book actually sell, they take most of the profits.”

Minnie’s lower lip was trembling. “How … how can you tell which is which?”

“It’s kind of a gray line,” I said. “There are some publishers that are very clearly legit. There are some that are obviously a scam. And there are some in the gray middle. You have to read the contract and know what you’re looking for–”

“Dear boy! You’ll help us, won’t you? Sammie, you were so smart to know to come ask him for help!”

I sighed. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get my blog written today. “I’d need to have a copy of the contract to know for sure–”

“That ain’t no problem,” Sam said. “Got it right here on my iPad.” He pecked and swiped furiously on the screen for half a minute, then handed it to me. “Just read that there contract and tell us what yer expert eyes sees.”

I took the iPad and began reading. By the end of the first paragraph, I already didn’t like it.

“You realize that this contract gives the publisher the exclusive right to publish your book anywhere in the world, in any language?”

“That’s good, ain’t it?” said Sam. “Means they believe in the book.”

“It means they’re locking down all sorts of rights, even if they have no plans on using them. But if your book should happen to do well and some foreign publisher inquires about foreign language rights, then this publisher will take 50% of that income. The contract says very clearly that they don’t seek out foreign deals.”

“Dear me, that doesn’t sound honest,” Minnie said.

“And this paragraph says that the publisher will print out copies at their expense to fill out all bona fide orders.” I looked at Minnie. “You do realize that means they’re a print-on-demand company, right?”

Minnie shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means they don’t publish any copies at all until an order comes in. Then they have a machine to print out that one order.”

“That’s good, ain’t it?” Sam said. “Means they don’t waste no space in a warehouse with books that ain’t sold yet.”

“It means they never have to print a single copy,” I said. “Unless by some miracle somebody somewhere orders it. Then they print it out.”

“Well, but then they pay me royalties when they do that,” Minnie said. “I know I saw something in there about royalties.”

“Royalties!” I shouted. Now I was furious.

“Ain’t royalties a good thing?” Sam said. “You get royalties from that publisher of yours that publishes books fer stupid people.”

“Royalties are fine when the publisher is paying the costs of publishing the book and is paying the author an advance. Royalties are NOT fine when you’re paying those costs.”

I scanned to the next paragraph in the contract. What I saw made my head start throbbing.

“Okay, this is awful. This is horrible. You pay for all the production costs, and then when you make a sale, IF you make a sale, they pay you 10% of the retail price.”

“Is that … bad?” Minnie’s voice was quavering.

“They ought to be paying you the wholesale price minus the cost of printing and distribution.”

“But they’re the publisher,” Sam said. “Don’t they got to earn something fer their investment in Ma’s career?”

“They AREN’T investing in her career!” I shouted. “They’re asking her to invest in them.”

Sam looked thunderstruck. “That ain’t right,” he said. “That’s like … charging a customer full price on a low-flush toilet that ya bought at wholesale, and then charging fer delivery when it’s already in the back of yer truck.”

I gave him a sharp look. “Exactly like that.”

Sam’s face turned bright red. “Not that I’d know nobody who ever done something like that.”

Minnie pointed at the iPad. “Explain to me about this catalog fee.”

I studied the paragraph. I’d never heard of a catalog fee. It turned out to be bizarre. “Well, it looks pretty simple. Every January, they charge you a fee to put your book in their catalog. And if you don’t pay, then they deduct it from whatever royalties you might have earned.”

Minnie shrugged. “I suppose that sounds fair, but just how much is this catalog fee?”

I could feel my blood starting to boil. “That’s the beauty of this scam. They don’t tell you how much it is. Might be $10. Might be $1000. There is no way for you to know — until next January when you get the bill. And then you’ll get another bill the year after and the year after — forever! So not only are they taking your money at the beginning of this con job, but they’ve got you on the hook to pay money to them forever. And they aren’t tell you how much it is–yet. But they’ve got a contract to prove that you owe them more money every year.”

“Well, that ain’t fair!” Sam said. “Wiggling in extra charges like that, it’s like … fixing the toilet and then offering to service the flaboozie valve on the septic system fer an extra hunnert bucks.”

“Sammie, dear, what’s a flaboozie valve?”

Sam looked extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m sure no honest plumber would ever pad the invoice,” I said.

“But a feller hears stories from time to time,” Sam said.

“The point is that this charge is ridiculous,” I said. “This is a predatory publisher, for sure.”

“But the man on the phone was so nice!” Minnie said. “He said they print all the author copies at their own expense.”

I read the next paragraph. “Yes, they print the first 25 copies at their expense. That probably costs them $100. Maybe as much as $200. But you’re paying $8000. Where do you think the rest is going?”

“They said they was paying the editor fellers,” Sam said. “Says so in the e-mail they sent.” He grabbed the iPad and switched over to the e-mail. “See all the things they was going to edit? Long list.”

I read it carefully. “Let’s see, spelling, grammar, punctuation, commas. I should hope they’d fix those. It’ll cost them a few hundred bucks to hire a proofreader off the internet. Oh, and they say they MIGHT change the readability level. And what’s next? Aha!” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “Read that list, Sam.”

Sam peered at the screen. “Basic content could be enlarged and better examples given.” He frowned at Minnie. “Ma, I didn’t know you had any examples in yer book.”

“Well, I don’t. It’s a yeah novel.”

Sam continued down the list. “Many common references need to be checked fer accuracy. Permissions fer use of copyrighted work may need to be obtained. Any potentially libelous statements will be purged.”

A puzzled look settled across Minnie’s face. “But I don’t HAVE any references in my book. This is a yeah novel. And I don’t quote any copyrighted work either. Or make libelous statements. Why are they going to do all that work for me when I don’t need it?”

“They aren’t,” I said. “Here’s the thing. They send this exact letter to every writer, fiction or nonfiction. They haven’t read your book. They have no idea what’s in it. They’re giving you a long list of things that they might do, when they hire some cheap editor somewhere to skim through your book and tweak it up a bit.”

“That’s … that’s like a feller who calls up cold and offers to inspect yer irrigation system fer termite damage when–” Sam stopped and coughed lightly. “What I’m saying is, it ain’t honest.”

“And here’s the clincher,” I said. “this last point says that the Marketing Department has indicated that their promotions may not result in as many sales as they would wish, and they want you to know that, but they’re going to approve publishing your title anyway.”

“Why would they DO that?” Minnie said. “If they don’t think my book’s going to sell, why would they go to all the work to publish it?”

“Cuz it ain’t no skin off their nose if it don’t sell,” Sam said. “Since they’re asking us to pay fer it all, they don’t care if it sells or not.”

Minnie looked shocked. “That’s dreadful! Perfectly criminal!” She jabbed a finger at me. “You’re telling me that all these publishers are naughty, naughty boys, aren’t you?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “There are some perfectly legitimate subsidy publishers who would do a good job for you, hire good editors and get a good quality cover made, all at a fair price. That could make financial sense, if you had a marketing platform in place and could sell copies on your own.”

“Sell copies on my own? Is that legal?” Minnie began wringing her hands.

“Authors should be able to buy copies at cost and then sell them. Let me just check the terms.” I scanned the contract.

“Ma, you could buy copies and sell ‘em to yer friends,” Sam said.

“These are terrible terms,” I said. “This publisher will sell you books, yes. But they’ll charge you the wholesale rate, which is probably a lot more than their cost. That’s a ripoff. They should charge you their cost.”

I continued scanning down the contract. “And it gets worse. They only pay your royalties annually. Legitimate publishers pay your royalties at least twice a year.”

Sam was stomping back and forth in my living room. “Ma, this coulda been a fiasco. They mighta took yer money and then you woulda got nothing and then you’d have to wait till the next book to get rich.”

I shook my head. “No, it would be even worse than that. This is unbelievable, but there’s a no-compete clause in this contract. If you sign it, not only will they cheat you out of your money, but you agree not to publish another book with any other publisher, EVER, that might compete with this one.”

“Ever?” Minnie squeaked. “But … don’t contracts end eventually?”

I pointed to the termination clause in the contract. “The contract only ends when this predatory publisher says it ends, and they have no incentive to ever end the contract because they’ll be getting that catalog fee from you forever. The only way you could force it to terminate is if the book goes out of print. But a print-on-demand book NEVER goes out of print.”

Sam was thumping his enormous fist in his palm. “There’s ways to MAKE a feller go out of business. That’d end the contract!”

“Not this contract,” I said. “This clause right here says that the publisher can assign the rights for your book to somebody else if they go bankrupt. And you can’t do anything about it.”

“So yer saying it’s a horrible contract,” Sam said. “Can you negotiate for us? Make ‘em give us a better deal?”

I shook my head. “Sam, this is the worst contract I’ve ever seen. These people are thieves. They’ll take your money and do the absolute minimum needed to get the book in print. They won’t do anything to market the book. If you market it yourself, then they’ll keep most of the money. They’ll charge you a catalog fee every year until the world ends. They’ll never terminate the contract. And they’ll sue you if you try to write another book that competes with it.”

“Dear boy! You’ve saved us from making a dreadful, dreadful mistake!”

Sam took my hand and shook it violently. “I take back some of the things I said about you on Twitter. Yer a decent feller, even if yer always griping about how much a honest plumber charges.”

There seemed to be no good answer to that, so I said nothing.

Tears were rolling down Minnie’s cheeks. “But I wanted so BAD to be a best-selling yeah author. And now there’s no hope. No hope at all.”

“Ma, I told ya about how ya could self-publish yer book on Amazon,” Sam said. “I done that and I’m making good money with my Joedunnit books.”

She blew her nose on my sleeve. “That isn’t real publishing, Sammie. That’s just something amateurs do.”

I didn’t want to make more work for myself. I knew I was crazy to say anything. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I wouldn’t have to deal with Minnie and her yeah novel, ever again.

But I’m stupid. I’m an idiot. I’m a hundred-percent, grade-A fool.

Which is why I corrected her.

“Minnie, that’s not exactly true,” I said. “Plenty of professional writers are self-publishing these days. And some of them are making good money.”

Minnie dried her eyes. Stared hard at me to see if I was lying. Took hold of my hand and kissed it.

“Dear boy! You’re going to help me publish my yeah novel, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Oh, Sammie, you’re such a genius to bring me here. Such a genius!”

TO BE CONTINUED …

What’s Next

Randy sez: This is the first in a series of blog posts on how to self-publish a novel. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too.

Minnie’s contract is based on a real one I have seen. The list of spurious editing services offered to Minnie is based on a real one I have seen.

In the coming weeks, I’ll walk Minnie through the process of editing her novel and getting it published on Amazon and other online retailers. Maybe Minnie will earn big bucks. Maybe she won’t. But she’ll never know unless she tries.

And at least she won’t be paying out a huge pile of money to a predatory publisher somewhere.

A Contest For Most Helpful Story

Now I’d like to hear from my Loyal Blog Readers. Have you had a bad experience with a predatory publisher? Do you want to share what you learned? Can you tell us what you’d do differently?

You don’t have to name names, but if you do, I won’t stop you.

The main thing is that you can make a difference in the world. You can tell other writers what mistakes not to make. You can help put the crooks out of business.

Leave a comment and tell your story. If you’ve got a friend with a predatory publisher horror story, send them here to leave a comment.

I’ll read each story and choose the one that I think is most helpful to my Loyal Blog Readers.

The winner gets their choice of an interview on my blog or a free five-page critique by me of their current manuscript.

I’ll choose the winner two weeks from today, on July 2, 2013.

The post How To Spot A Predatory Publisher appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Don’t Forget To Breathe

A quick note to say that I’m currently running a giveaway on Goodreads for several signed copies of the paper edition of my award-winning novel OXYGEN, which I coauthored with John Olson.

The premise:  An explosion on the first manned mission to Mars leaves four astronauts with only enough oxygen for one to make it to the Red Planet alive.  Two of them are too proud to admit it, but they’re in love with each other.  And all the evidence indicates that one of the four planted the bomb.

This is the second edition of OXYGEN (the “Writer’s Journey Edition”) with four bonus appendices, (about 21,000 words) on fiction writing.

One of the appendices tells the story of how John and I sold this novel to a publisher in less than 7 weeks without an agent.

Another appendix reveals my #1 secret for writing fiction, along with a line-by-line analysis of the entire first scene of the novel.

Here’s all the info on the giveaway:

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Oxygen
by John B. Olson

Giveaway ends June 08, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

The post Don’t Forget To Breathe appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Writing Exposition in First Person Without Sounding Daft

When you’re writing a novel in first person, how do you write exposition without it sounding weird and unnatural?

Vicky posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

How do you write exposition from the first person without it sounding daft – unlikely the character would be thinking about how things work, she’d just know. I’m writing a fantasy, so some explainations are necessary – or aren’t they? Many thanks for your help.

Randy sez: Writing exposition in a novel always feels a little unnatural, because it breaks the reader out of the story. When you’re writing in third person, it may feel a little more normal. But it’s not that hard to do it well in first person.

There are a few principles that should keep you from the dangers of daftness.

1) Minimize the amount of exposition. When you think you need to explain something, ask yourself if the reader absolutely must have this explanation in order to understand the story. If so, then what’s the least you can get away with explaining?

Authors often worry about this much more than readers do. The reader usually doesn’t care, unless the story just plain stops making sense. Then a little exposition will go a long way.

2) Put the exposition in dialogue, if you can do that in a natural way. You can do this if one character knows something and another character doesn’t. If they both know it, then it doesn’t work.

Whenever you see the phrase, “As you know…”, consider that a red flag.

Your readers are going to mock you if you write something like this:  ”Rapunzel, as you know, the two of us are twins and inherited a billion dollars from Great Aunt Daphne, who died last year at the age of 92, leaving us as the heirs and cutting Cousin Wilhelmina completely out of the will, which is the reason she’s been chasing us across Europe with a machine gun and a Dachshund, which is massively interfering with you completing your Ph.D. in philosophy and is keeping me from marrying my fiancee of seven years, Gretchen, who lives in Topeka.”

Dialogue should generally have conflict. If you’re going to use exposition in dialogue, consider making one character unwilling to give up the information, and make the other character have to work hard to get the info she needs.

3) If you really need to use exposition, then just do it. Suzanne Collins broke into a few paragraphs of exposition several times in The Hunger Games. Her character Katniss gave a two-paragraph first-person explanation of how the tracker jacker wasps were created by the Capitol. This came right at the point where Katniss discovered a nest of them and found a way to use them as a weapon. Here’s what she wrote:

Fear shoots through me, but I have enough sense to keep still. After all, I don’t know what kind of wasp lives there. It could be the ordinary leave-us-alone-and-we’ll-leave-you-alone type. But these are the Hunger Games, and ordinary isn’t the norm. More likely they will be one of the Capitol’s muttations, tracker jackers. Like the jabberjays, these killer wasps were spawned in a lab and strategically placed, like land mines, around the districts during the war. Larger than regular wasps, they have a distinctive solid gold body and a sting that raises a lump the size of a plum on contact. Most people can’t tolerate more than a few stings. Some die at once. If you live, the hallucinations brought on by the venom have actually driven people to madness. And there’s another thing, these wasps will hunt down anyone who disturbs their nest and attempt to kill them. That’s where the tracker part of the name comes from.

After the war, the Capitol destroyed all the nests surrounding their city, but the ones near the districts were left untouched. Another reminder of our weakness, I suppose, just like the Hunger Games. Another reason to keep inside the fence of District 12. When Gale and I come across a tracker jacker nest, we immediately head in the opposite direction.

Collins needed to explain just how lethal tracker jackers could be. So she did. It worked. The above segment comes right near the beginning of chapter 14. It’s very smooth and clean — just enough info. Notice that it’s not done as if it were interior monologue. Katniss is stepping out of the story to explain it to you, personally, in a conversational voice. Then she steps back into the story and it resumes.

4) When you’re writing your first draft, just write the exposition and don’t worry too much about whether it works smoothly. Best to just get it down on paper. Later when you come back to edit, ask yourself how much of it you can throw away without confusing the reader. Get it right in the second draft, not the first.

More Resources for Writing First Person

Should Your Novel Be In First Person? What are your options and how do you choose between them?

Some Special Problems in Writing First Person How do you show what’s going on inside the other characters’ heads?

Perfecting That Pesky Point of View What if you want to write your novel partly in first person and partly in third person?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

 

The post Writing Exposition in First Person Without Sounding Daft appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

It’s A Outrage!

“It’s a outrage!” my plumber Sam bellowed through the phone.

I held the phone as far from my ear as I could. “Um, Sam, what’s this about? I paid that invoice of yours.”

“I ain’t talking about that and you know it. You gone and double-crossed me!”

Given the massive amount of money Sam has overcharged me over the years for his dubious plumbing skills, I thought that was a bit ironic. “How have I double-crossed you?”

“I seen it just now on Goodreads! You went and … put up a free copy of that danged book of yers.”

“And that damages you how?”

“Ain’t it obvious? I paid good money fer that book three years ago when it first come out. Now yer giving it away like it’s dirt.”

“Sam, my publisher is providing some books to help me run a promotion. You know, to increase visibility.”

“Oh right, Mr. Bigshot Author. Yer book’s #1 in its category on Amazon, but you got to always be pushing fer more, more, more. When there’s other authors who got to do honest plumbing work just to put food on the table.”

“Honest plumbing work? Who might that be?”

Sam coughed. “What I meant was mostly honest plumbing work.”

“It’s been nice chatting with you, Sam, but I need to be –”

“Not so fast, Mr. Giving-Away-The-Farm. I want my money back on that book of yers that I bought.”

I walked out to the kitchen and turned on the faucet. “Hey, that reminds me. You remember that leak you fixed last month under the kitchen sink?”

“Terrible pipes you got in that rickety old house of yers. Wouldn’t be surprised if something breaks again. Real soon.”

“Sam, you must be psychic. I’m thinking I want my money back on that wretched excuse for a repair that you did. It’s leaking worse than ever and –”

“Whoa, look at the time!” Sam shouted. “Well, hey there, big feller. It’s been real nice chatting with you, but I got to be getting on to the next job. Busy, busy, busy! And congratulafications on that promotion yer running.” He hung up.

“Who was that?” my wife called from the family room.

I shrugged. “Sam the plumber. He called to congratulatify me on the nice promotion my publisher is helping me run right now on Goodreads.”

“That’s nice of him. Did you mention that the sink is leaking again?”

“Of course.”

“And what he did he say?”

I sighed deeply. “It’s a outrage.”

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Writing Fiction For Dummies
by Randy Ingermanson

Giveaway ends May 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

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Goodreads reviews for Writing Fiction For Dummies

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The post It’s A Outrage! appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

What If Your Story Is Unconvincing?

What if you’re halfway through your novel and it just doesn’t feel convincing? Do you scrub the project? Keep wallowing on through the muck? How do you know what’s right?

Annick posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’ve had a story theme that I’ve wanted to write as a novel for 4-5 years. My first breakthrough was discovering your Snowflake method, which really helped me to get started, define where I wanted to go, and how I was going to get there (eternally grateful)…

The trouble is, now I’m half way through my second draft, and I believe that the last half of my story isn’t convincing. I know where I want to end, and I believe that I’ve told a good story to about half way along the road, but I’m really not sure that the last few miles are ones I can write as well about as the first.

Any ideas? Should I work on different endings to see if I get a breakthrough? Should I carry on regardless and edit like a devil once I’ve got some meat on the bone? Does it mean that my main characters are flawed in some way I can’t determine? Is the first part of my story misdirected in some way?

The snowflake seems to have melted…

Randy sez: First of all, congratulations on getting through the first draft! That’s a major milestone in writing a novel. I’m delighted to hear that my pesky Snowflake method played a role in your getting there. I hear from writers all the time who’ve found it helpful, and that makes me incredibly happy.

Be aware that many, many, many novelists reach the same point you’re at, midway through editing the second draft, and suddenly get hit with a bad case of the “crappies.” As in, “Uh-oh, my novel is crappy and my story is worthless and I have no talent and probably my best career choice will be sweeping streets with a toothbrush.”

I suspect the solution to your problem is pretty simple. Let me lay it out for you in three stages:

Finish this second draft you’re on. Sure, you feel a little wobbly about it right now. That’s common. It might possibly even be normal. If you’ve ever run a race over a mile distance (or 1600 meters), the third lap can be pretty rough, and that’s about where you are right now in your race to finish this book.
Get a second opinion from somebody you trust. Maybe a skilled writer in your critique group who has shown herself trustworthy in the past. Maybe a good freelance editor. But you need somebody to read the whole manuscript and give you an objective viewpoint. (“Objective” here means “somebody who isn’t you.”) You may need to pay something for this, but very good friends often do it for free.
Read that opinion, and then read through the whole manuscript as fast as you can, making a few quick notes on what you see, now that your eyes have been opened by a second opinion.

Once you’ve done all of the above (yes, it’s a lot of work, but professional writers work really hard), make the decision. Do you go on with the project? Do you walk away from it?

Either decision can be valid. If the story is fundamentally flawed and can’t be fixed, then walk away. If you’ve just lost all taste for the story and you can’t stomach working on it for one more second, then walk away. But if you see renewed hope for a way to make the story work, well then.

It might take you a month or two to get there, but when you do, email me privately on my Contact page to let me know how it turned out. I’ll be interested to hear what you learned and which way you decided to go.

Good luck!

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

 

The post What If Your Story Is Unconvincing? appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Those Pesky Editing Paradigms

What’s the right way to edit your novel? Or … is there a right way?

Noah posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I am an amateur writer, and have no idea when to begin revisions. Should I start revising the first part of my writing part way through, or begin revision once I am finished with the whole work?

Randy sez: This is a good question, and there’s no one right answer that works for everybody.

If you’ve read my book Writing Fiction For Dummies, I have a chapter on Creative Paradigms. A Creative Paradigm is a method of getting a first draft down on paper. In my book, I mention four common Creative Paradigms:

Seat of the Pants
Edit As You Go
The Snowflake Method
Outlining

Each of these is perfectly valid, and there are best-selling novelists and award-winning novelists who use each of them. Depending on how your brain is wired, you’ll work best with one particular Creative Paradigm.

Different writers use different Editing Paradigms also. I haven’t put much time into polling writers to find out their Editing Paradigms, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they’re as varied as the Creative Paradigms.

The “Edit As You Go” Creative Paradigm actually mixes in Creation and Editing very tightly. The author writes a bit (a page or a scene) and then edits it immediately. Sometimes this unit gets edited many times before the writer is ready to go on. But once the page is done, it’s pretty close to being final. Dean Koontz writes this way, and so do many other writers.

The important point is that whatever works for you is whatever works.

Here’s what works for me, and I gather that there are quite a few authors who work roughly this way:

I plan my novels in advance, working through my Snowflake method to create a Snowflake document that spells out at a high level how the story is going to go.

Then I write the first draft (usually quite quickly) using my Snowflake document as a guide. As I complete each quarter of the book, I revise the Snowflake document to be up to speed with the changing story. (A story is not fixed in stone, and neither is a Snowflake document).

During the first-drafting period, every day I do a quick ten-minute edit of the previous day’s work. (Usually, this is 2000 to 3000 words.) I fix any spelling and grammar errors and I tweak the wording. If there are obvious problems in the storyline, I fix them. That’s not common, because Snowflaking tends to produce stories that don’t have major structural problems.

Having done a ten-minute edit of yesterday’s work, I’m then primed to start work on the next chapter. I drill that out without doing any editing, and if I have time, I write another scene, up to my daily word-count.

This keeps me moving forward, and I never feel like I’m getting bogged down in a morass of words.

I organize my writing into folders. I have a main folder named “Books Written”.

Within that folder, I have a folder for each book, named with the original working title of the book.

Within each book folder, I have a number of organizational folders for Proposals, Research, Marketing, etc. The first draft goes into a folder named “Draft 1″.

When I’ve finished the first draft and am ready to start editing, I duplicate the entire “Draft 1″ folder and name the copy “Draft 2″. Then I never change anything in “Draft 1″ again. I work in “Draft 2″ until I’ve done a complete revision.

I generally do 5 or 6 drafts, and for each of these, there’s a separate folder. When I look at the files, they’re ordered nicely and it’s easy to see what’s the current draft. It’s the highest numbered “Draft” folder.

As I mentioned, I’ve never tried to figure out what Editing Paradigms other writers use, but this might be a good time to do it.

So authors, please leave a comment and describe your Editing Paradigm! There’s no prize here, other than the massive fame you’ll get by leaving a comment on the Advanced Fiction Writing Blog. And what more could you want than that?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

The post Those Pesky Editing Paradigms appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Amazonopoly

“We got to break that Amazonopoly before it kills us all.” My plumber Sam wiped his greasy hands on his coveralls.

“Amazonopoly?” I looked over Sam’s shoulder at the pinhole leak in the valve under my sink that was fizzing a thin spray of water. Sam is a big 300 pound teddy bear of a guy who suddenly became an expert on the publishing industry when he found out I’m a novelist.

“Amazon is gonna crush you if you ain’t careful.” Sam grabbed a pipe wrench, leaned in under the sink, and began banging experimentally on the drywall. “Hmmm, sounds a little thin there.”

“So what exactly has Amazon done to harm me?”

Sam’s voice sounded exasperated and slightly muffled. “Ain’t it obvious? First, they sell everything they got at dirt-cheap prices. Second, they obsessify on giving their customers a great experience. Third, when you go on their site, they know what you like and they offer you more stuff like it.”

“Those are good things. The reason Amazon is doing well is because they treat their customers better than their competitors do.”

“Well it’s monoplification and it’s gonna wreck the whole business.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that when Amazon gets a monopoly, they’re going to raise prices,” I said. “There’s just no evidence of that.”

“I ain’t gonna tell you that cuz that’s stupid.” Sam backed out from under the sink and stood up, stretching his massive frame. “When they get their monopoly, they’re gonna just keep treating their customers like gold — spoiling ‘em with sensible marketing and great service. It’s disgusting. Plus they’ll keep those prices slashed right to the bone. It’s evil and we got to stand up against it.”

“What’s evil about that? Low prices are good for the customer. And they’re good for authors.”

“Shows what you know,” Sam said. “What kinda royalty rate do you get on them self-published e-books of yours?”

“70%,” I said. “That’s incredible. B&N pays only 65%.”

“Hmmmmph, Amazon gives me only 35% on my e-books. I bet you got yours priced at some sissy price like $9.99.”

“Of course not. $2.99.”

Sam gave me an incredulous stare. “2.99? I got all mine priced at fifty bucks.”

I nearly dropped my flashlight. “You have books published on Amazon?”

“Course I do.”

“Um, what do you write?”

“Fiction novels. Mystery fiction novels. You know, storybooks where somebody gets whacked by a bad guy.”

“You never told me you were writing mysteries.”

“Well, I do and they’re selling like crazy, only not on Amazon. Smashwords gives me 85%, and lucky enough, I’m selling boatloads of copies there.”‘

By now I was dying of curiosity. “Tell me the title of one of your books.”

Sam grinned broadly. “My best selling book is called JOE WHACKS SAM THE PLUMBER. And no, it ain’t autobiological, even if the villain is based on a real feller named Joe. I hate him cause he charges low prices. It ain’t fair to the other plumbers.”

“In a mystery, you usually don’t want to reveal the name of the murderer,” I said. “That’s kind of the point.”

“I do things different. Got a whole series of JoeDunnit books. See, Joe’s real name is Joe Dunn, get it?”

“And people buy these books?”

“Course they do. Fifty bucks a pop. I’m moving thirty, forty copies a week on Smashwords, but not a one on Amazon.”

“A week?” This wasn’t adding up. At all. “So how’s the valve looking?”

Sam dug a thick pinkie into his ear, gouged out a giant glob of … something, rolled it in his fingers, sniffed it, dropped it on the floor, and crushed it under his boot. “Lucky for you I got a valve just this type in my truck. Seeing as how you decided to have yer major emergency on Saturday night when the stores is all closed, it’d be a trick to find this puppy in a store. Just need to turn off the main valve outside, pop in the new little feller, and write ya up a invoice.”

“OK, sounds like you’ve got it under control.” I went into my office, shut the door, and looked up Sam’s book on Smashwords.

Amazingly, he seemed to be telling the truth. He really did have a novel titled JOE WHACKS SAM THE PLUMBER listed on Smashwords. He had a whole series of JoeDunnit books. All listed at $50.

And he had incredibly consistent reviews. Every single review was a scathing one-star.

“This is the worst book I’ve ever read.”
“I’d give it 0 stars if I could.”
“This is a laugh-out-loud horrible excuse for a pathetic imitation of a novel.”

Smashwords doesn’t tell you how many copies a book has sold, but Sam’s book had over a hundred one-star reviews. What the devil was he doing to move so many copies at fifty dollars apiece?

Sam began knocking on my office door, a rapid series of booms.

I leaped to the door and opened it. “All done already?”

Sam gave me an enormous grin. “Working perfect. Easy as cake. You might need to do just a bit of patching on the drywall there under the sink. The wrench kinda slipped. But other than that, peachy keen.”

I took the invoice and looked at it, ready to argue. Sam tends to work in some truly outrageous charges, but since he’s the only plumber I could find to come out late on a Saturday night, I hadn’t had much choice.

“Let’s see, so you’re charging me how much just for coming out?”

“Normally a hunnert, but seeing as how it’s dark, a hunnert fifty. Ask any insurance feller, the mortalification rates go up at night.”

“How much would that valve cost in a store?”

“Maybe twenty, but I ain’t a store. And anyway, I had to make some custom adjustments to make it fit. It wasn’t quite the one I’da bought if there was a store open, but there wasn’t and it works. For now.”

“And a charge for ‘loss of entertainment?’ Want to explain what that’s about?”

“Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it? It being Saturday night, normally I’d be on a date with one of my lady friends.”

I looked at Sam with what I hoped was extreme skepticism. “Can I ask the name of some of your lady friends?”

Sam belched. “Well, there’s Natasha on GorgeousRussianGirls.com. She’s real nice, but the poor thing lives in a one-room apartment in Gdanks with her sixty-four brothers and sisters, and they’re all orphans.”

“Gdansk is in Poland.”

“And then there’s a real sweet gal in China–”

“OK, I get the picture. But this bill is ridiculous and you know it.”

“What, five hunnert? Sure, that Joe the Plumber feller woulda gave you a lowball price, but he ain’t here and I am. Why didn’t ya call him?”

“He wouldn’t come out this late on a Saturday night.”

“Well then.”

“Sam, this is outrageous, even by your standards.”

Sam shook his head. “I expect you’re gonna want a discount. Everybody these days is trying to knock off a nickel wherever they can. Lucky fer you, I’m a reasonable feller, so I’m willing to knock the price down to two hunnert, on one condition, take it or leave it.”

“What condition is that?”

Sam just stood there grinning expectantly.

“No,” I said. “You have to be kidding me. There is no way. Absolutely–”

“You got to help a feller author,” Sam said. “A guy just trying to move some copies.”

I stared at him for a long moment.

Sam didn’t blink.

Crap. I sat down at my computer. “I’m buying it on Amazon.”

“Uh-uh.” Sam pushed the invoice in front of my nose. “The discount’s only good when you buy a book on Smashwords.”

“Where you get 85%.”

“Amazon only gives a feller 35% at that price. It’s a outrage.”

I sighed and clicked the Buy button on Smashwords. A minute later, I was the proud owner of JOE WHACKS SAM THE PLUMBER.

Sam pushed the invoice in front of me with a $300 discount that read “Cross-promotion 4 JoeDunnit fiction novil.”

I wrote a check and handed it to Sam, vowing never again to have a plumbing emergency on a Saturday night.

Sam shoved the check into the front pocket of his coveralls and shook my hand with a crushing grip. “See, now yer part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

“What problem is that?”

“Yer helping break that Amazonopoly.”

“It’s the free market at work,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

Sam grinned happily. “Is this a great country, or what?”

 

 

The post Amazonopoly appeared first on Advanced Fiction Writing.

Defining the Target Audience for Your Fiction

So you’re writing a novel and your critique buddies want to know who your “target audience” is. What do you tell them?

Nee posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

Hello Randy,

I am a newbie at the writing. A new “writer” friend insists I must know my audience and for whom I am writing BEFORE I start my story - so I will know what those readers will be expecting/anticipating in my story.

HOW can I know this concept? Right now, I’m writing a fictional piece because I’m having fun telling a simple Baby-Boomer character story. I ain’t got no clue who all’s my “audience.”

Can you shed me some light on this particular?

Randy sez: Yes, it’ important to know the target audience for that novel you’re writing.

No, that doesn’t mean you need to have detailed demographic information about your target audience.

John Locke wrote a book on marketing that had some nice thoughts on defining your target audience. What I took away from his book is that the author only needs to know what emotional needs the book is going to fill.

Locke’s fiction features a psychopathic assassin named Donovan Creed. Donovan works for the government but takes private contracts on the side. If you took Donovan Creed at all seriously, you’d hate the guy. But John Locke’s readers don’t take Donovan Creed seriously. Donovan Creed is a fantasy.

Locke says that his male readers would like to BE Donovan Creed.

Whereas his female readers would like to DATE Donovan Creed (although they recognize that he wouldn’t make good marriage material).

Now it should be obvious that almost nobody would really like to be Donovan Creed and almost nobody would really want to date him. Fantasies don’t have to make sense.

John Locke knows the fantasies that Donovan Creed drives in the minds of his readers.

So when you sit down to define your target audience, you need to know what emotional buttons you’re planning to push in your readers. That should start with the emotional buttons that your fiction pushes in you.

My own fiction is driven by the fact that I’d like to be Sherlock Holmes. And Albert Einstein. And Indiana Jones. All at the same time.

No, that isn’t rational. I know perfectly well that I can’t literally be any of those guys. Much less all of them at the same time.

But each of those names pushes certain emotional hot buttons in me. Those emotive buttons drive my fiction. I assume that those are also hot buttons for people who like my books. So in that sense, my target audience is composed of people who want to be Sherlock, be Einstein, and be Indy, all at the same time.

There’s more to defining your target audience, of course. Part of the game is to define your category. And to know the rules and standard operating procedures for that category.

That’s most true in the most sharply defined categories, such as romance, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Each of these has a large number of subcategories. If you write in any of these subcategories, then you really need to read a lot in that subcategory so you know what’s been done and what your reader’s expecting.

The good news here is that you don’t have to do a poll to find out the age, gender, economic status, and favorite ice cream of your target audience. Most writers have fans all across the spectrum. But those fans are fans because they’re responding to the emotional hot buttons that the author is pushing.

One last comment: When I talk about hot buttons, I’m of course not implying that you should be calculating or mechanical about your target audience. Write the sort of fiction that appeals to you. Figure out why it appeals to you. Your target audience will be the people who also find that appealing.

Recently I hired a graphic artist to create the cover for my next e-book. I love that cover. (Not going to show it here–I’ll save that for when we get closer to release of the book.)

I showed the cover to one of my friends. She said, “Wow! I love that cover! Who’s the target audience?”

I said, “The target audience is the set of people who like this cover.”

She thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. The cover hits a lot of hot buttons for me. I expect it’ll hit those same buttons for readers. And I expect they’ll like the book. And no, I really can’t say any more about it just yet.

That’s all for today. My US readers will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow. Happy Turkey Day!

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.