B.E. Sanderson's Blog, page 48

The Ways of Writing

 Everybody has their own way of doing things.  For instance, I like to do dishes in the morning, but my mom shudders at the thought of leaving dishes in the sink overnight.  But I'm usually working after dinner, so the dishes get left until morning.  (Thankfully, Hubs is totally cool with that.)

Just like dishes, there are different ways to write a book (or do anything else, come to think of it). 

There are two basic ways to write in the world and two basic types of writer - the plotter and the pantser.

The plotter plots out the whole book before they write it.  The pantser doesn't plot out a damn thing and writes everything as it comes to them (hence, writing by the seat of one's pants = pantser*).

Of course, there are varying shades of both.  Personally, I consider myself a plansterer.  I have a plan in mind, but I write it all by the seat of my pants as it comes to me, and it changes - sometimes without my wanting or needing it to.  A friend of mind calls herself a puzzler and puts her books together like a sort of big jigsaw puzzle.

Some people outline.  Some people write the last chapter first.  Some people write a bit here and then a bit there.  Some people write straight through.

Personally, I'm a straight through writer.  Start and the beginning and when you get to the end, stop. (Yes, that is the Mad Hatter talking there.)   Totally linear.  I can't do it any other way.

Which, of course, doesn't mean that any other way is wrong.  They're just not right ways for me.  I've also tried outlining.  :shudder:  It didn't go well.  The beginning of that book, before I gave up and pantsed it, is so bleh I could cry.

Anyway, there was a point to this post when I started it.  Right now, I'm working on editing Early Grave.  I wrote it like I write all my books, with one exception.  I started it and then stopped and then wrote some more and then stopped, then I got stuck and didn't write on it for a while, then I unstuck myself and wrote the rest of it in a fury.  So, it's in a line, but it's a severely dotted line - like Morse code done by a madman.  I'm reading along making notes and I'm like 'wait, what', which leads to furious scribbling of notes on how to fix what obviously went very wrong between one spot and the next.  It's the definition of 'hot mess'.  :shudder:

I did it that way because I was trying to write that book between editing several other books.  And I now know that way of doing things makes editing out the other end a pain in the buns.  Unfortunately, I may have to do it again because the publication schedule waits for no man.  I can't just say 'hey, can you pause this for a six weeks so I can get this first draft written?' :shrug:  It is what it is.

What way do you do it?  Have you ever tried another way? 


*Not to be confused with the Panzer, which was a German tank.  Although, there could be a tank-like roll over everything element in there, I guess.

Meandering Post about Forums and the Drug of People Reading my Books.

I've been reading the forum boards at KDP again.  I had this idea that I would jump back in and be social and do some networking.  Then I read the boards and remembered why I stopped going there.

Oh, I'm sure there are many fine people who post on those boards.  I can see them.  I also see the not-so-fine people, though, and they make the experience more of a headache than I am willing to subject myself to.

This time it was a person slamming self-published authors as being particularly stupid because why would anyone spend all that money on editing when you can't possibly hope to recoup it.

Then there was the person slamming anyone who is enrolled in Kindle Select as being particularly stupid because it's so limiting and Amazon is the anti-christ or something.  

Maybe I am particularly stupid.  Wouldn't be the first time.  But then I remember each time I see someone read an entire book's worth of pages on Kindle Unlimited, or the whole damn series one after the other, or my entire backlist.  And my heart soars and I know someone somewhere is reading words I put down.

It's like a drug.  People are reading my words.  And they're enjoying them enough to read the whole book or the whole series or all of the books.  Now, there's a high.  And it's one that doesn't dull my senses or muddle my brain or make me drive like an asshole or make me do stupid things.  (Unless you're among those who count self-publishing as a stupid thing.  In which case, I say to you: Bugger Off.)

Sure, I wish more people were buying and reading my books.  I wish everyone who read one enjoyed it so much they were excited enough to buy more.  Or that they could afford to buy more.  (I get the whole budget thing.  I'm living it.  Which is why my books are as inexpensive as I can make them without screwing myself.) What writer doesn't want more people reading their books? 

Anyway, I'm off of reading the boards again.  So much for being social and networking with the ultimate goal of selling more books.  I don't have the intestinal fortitude for it anymore.  I'd rather spend my time writing books, editing books, and publishing books.  The readers will come somehow or other, and I will revel in them.

Things at OTB

First, the contest is still open on my Pick a Cover post.  Thus far, I have two votes for A on the blog, one private vote for C, and one private vote for either C or D.  (Yes, I will take private votes - especially if you're not interested in entering the contest.)  I'll most likely close it up on Friday and announce a winner on Monday. 

Next, I'm 29% done on the read-through, note-making stage of Early Grave.  And I got with my editor, who will take the first round of EG when I'm ready to send it.  I'm hoping to get thru this phase by Saturday and then use the next two weeks to make all the changes, so I can have this to her after she finished up with Blink and the end of the month. 

This year is on track.  So far.  Fingers crossed it stays this way.

My big sales extravaganza at the end of 2017 wrapped up the end of the year nicely.  Surprising since I didn't put any advertising in place for that one and only did some stuff on FB and Twitter.  That blog review really helped, although it wasn't planned or even expected until it happened.  Unfortunately, that's where the sales ended - last year.  I had kinda hoped for some residual stuff.  :sigh: 

Anyway, I'm going to try not to worry about that stuff.  I mean, I'm still going to advertise when I can and junk, but I'm working on not sweating the lack of sales.  My books are out there.  More will be out there this year.  Different stuff, similar stuff.  Blink is definitely different stuff.  Early Grave is the third book in the SCIU series, but with Ned Washington as the main character.  Then I plan on publishing Sleeping Ugly - which is a paranormal but not djinn.  And if I can manage to get some inspiration somewhere and finish it, the third book in the Dennis Haggarty series should round out 2018.  If not, I might go ahead with another dystopian - Unequal.   Time will tell.

Those are about all the things I can think of at the moment.  Any questions? 

Pick a Cover

Sometime a while back, I decided to do a cover for Blink of an I.  At that time I hadn't even decided to go ahead with its publication.  I was just bored - either that or avoiding work I was supposed to be doing - and created a cover.  It took a long time and was a lot of work, but I was generally pleased with the outcome.

Now that Blink is approaching its publication day, I needed to readdress that cover.  And I had another idea for a much simpler cover for Blink.  Then I played around a bit with the original cover.  Thus, I can't decide which one I like best.  (Or rather which one will sell better because it really doesn't matter which one I like best.)  Soooo...  I'm putting it out there in the world.  Help me decide which cover Blink of an I goes live with next month.

Without further ado, here are the selections.  (Click on any one of them to make them larger.  The gray parts are actually static like on an old TV.  And the original cover ones are composed of smaller pictures of things.)

A.
Original Cover, fat fontB.
Original Cover, thinner fontC.
D.
E.
F.


Leave a comment with your choice.  If you have a choice and a suggestion, that would be awesome, too.  I'll tell you which ones I like best later.

Everyone who comments with a choice and/or suggestion will be entered to win something.  I haven't decided what yet.  A book?  An advanced copy of this?  A gift card?  What would you like to win? And no, you don't have to pick the cover I ultimately choose to be eligible.  Especially since I'll be announcing a winner way before I reveal the winning cover.

(Yes, the one has the author name off center.  I don't like it there either.  If I pick it, I'll fix that.)

Wrapping Up 2017 in Book Sales

Last year was not a bonus year for selling books, lemme tell ya.  And, from what I've heard, I wasn't the only one.  All I can say is we have to keep motoring along and hoping for the best.  The alternative is unacceptable. 

Okay, now for the wrap-up. 

In 2017, sales (through individual sales and Kindle Unlimited page reads) were as follows:

All books: 261.95
Dying Embers: 37.01
Accidental Death: 16.78
Wish in One Hand: 45.53
Blood Flow: 3.05
In Deep Wish: 48.16
Fertile Ground: 17.01
Up Wish Creek: 41.68
Natural Causes: 13.65
Wish Hits the Fan: 38.16

Umm, yeah.  I did say it wasn't a banner year.  Of course, it also wasn't a big year for advertising.  I only spent $111 on ads.  Which might have something to do with the lack of sales.

Outgo for the year was just over $1500.  Income for the year was just over $300.

For all three years of publishing, I've sold 1971.40 books.  I had hoped to clear the 2K mark this year, but that wasn't to be.  The grand totals for each book are:

Dying Embers: 851.66
Accidental Death: 485.50
Wish in One Hand: 263.13
Blood Flow: 72.60
In Deep Wish: 98.61
Fertile Ground: 82.28
Up Wish Creek: 65.81
Natural Causes: 13.65
Wish Hits the Fan: 38.16

And because I sat down and did the numbers, here's how the finances have worked out for the entirety of my publishing journey thus far...

Spent about $8600 and made about $2500.  As Hubs likes to put it, that income means Dying Embers and most of Accidental Death are paid for.  Thinking about it this morning, it's more like a Ponzi scheme - with newer members paying older members, so it looks like it's funding itself when it's not. 

Anyway, I don't mean for this to be discouraging or sound like a whine.  It is what it is.  As long as I find the funds to publish books, I will continue to publish books.  Right now, that means working part time as a contract computer person.  I do spreadsheets and troubleshooting, and most of the money I make there goes into an account to pay for editing and cover art.  Whatever it takes, right?

But if you're thinking about doing this self-publishing thing, understand that it isn't a get-rich-quick endeavor.  It isn't even a get-rich-slow one.  It's a labor of love, perhaps.  It means finding satisfaction in knowing people out there are reading your books when they weren't able to before you self-published.  It also means finding satisfaction in knowing you've done this thing.  You.  Not an agent.  Not a publisher.  You.  And yes, it is pretty satisfying.  Heh, it kind of has to be, doesn't it?

For the year ahead, I have plans to publish 4 books.  Right now, they will be Blink of an I (due out in February), Early Grave (hoping for May or June), Sleeping Ugly (August or September), and either the fourth book in the Dennis Haggarty series or another dystopian (November or December).  This is pretty firm in my head, but as always, it's subject to change.

Any questions? 

OMG, The Dialogue!

I was reading a book the other day by a new-to-me author.  The premise sounded interesting and the plot was doing a fair job of holding my interest.  Unfortunately, I had to DNF the book.  The dialogue... OMG, the dialogue... It was bad.  Like an example of bad dialogue in a 'how to write' book.  People don't talk to each other that way and after a while, I had to close the book to save my sanity.

Then I was working on the edits for Blink of an I - a novel I initially wrote early in my career.  And OMG, the dialogue!  It was bad.  I could hear the characters talking to each other in my head and realizing people don't talk to each other that way - not even way in the future after the world has fallen apart.  And I swear I must've used every dialogue tag in the Big Book of Dialogue Tags.  'He exclaimed', 'she hissed', 'he sneered', 'she whispered', 'he choked'... And I was all like 'who wrote this crap... oh, it was me'.

So, when I noticed this yesterday morning, I went back and re-edited the 45 pages I had already done.  So bad. So much dreck.  Bleh.  It took me all day, but it's fixed now.  And I'll scour the remaining pages to make sure as I edit along, I fix what seems bad.

Anyway, if you aren't already reading your dialogue out loud, do so.  If it sounds unnatural to you, then it will sound even worse in your readers' heads. 

"But, but, but," you say, "my book is set in Victorian England (or 2351AD or a million years BC or on Tahiti or in Jamaica or wherever/whenever) and they talk different."  Sure, they do.  But you'll find that no matter where or when your characters are, there will be a rhythm to their speech and there will be things they'll say or won't say, or natural ways they'll talk that will fit and feel right to your readers. 

Always work toward dialogue that will feel right to your readers.  The goal is to keep them reading, not to make them DNF a book for any reason.

So, anyway, Blink is on its way to being fixed.  There's a lot of work ahead and I still have life stuff I need to attend to, so I'd better get cracking.  Have an awesome weekend, and don't forget to watch that dialogue.  ;o)

Keeping Track of Sales

It's that time of the year again - time for the creation of new spreadsheets for the New Year.  Every year, I create two new spreadsheets to keep track of the year's sales. 

The first spreadsheet does the day-to-day stuff.  It looks like this:

Of course, you see the layout for Dying Embers at the top, but beneath that is each book with its own data and color - in the order I published the books in.  (So below DE is Accidental Death and then Wish in One Hand, etc.) Each color here corresponds to the color on the next spreadsheet. 

This, of course, is the big 'Totals' spreadsheet.  This one takes all the numbers from the first spreadsheet and spits them into a form where I can see where sales are at across the board in one place.  If you click on it, you can see there are tabs for different things I want to know - Overall Data, Overall by Month, Monthly Chart, Daily (which is units sold by day each month), Daily Pgs (for KU sales), Pages Read (which totals pages by book), Pages Chart, and then the previous years' info.  (You only see the 2017 tab here, but there are tabs for 2016 and 2015 as well.)

Here you only see January and February, but all the months are done.  I've hidden those rows so I don't have to scroll down to see the totals.  If you look, you'll notice a new brown row in February for the new book I'm publishing.  I add rows as I go along.  (Frankly, this is becoming a behemoth, but what's a gal to do.  Stop publishing more books?  As if.)

I think I'm also going to hide some columns this year, because I don't sell books at $3.99 anymore and I don't sell through Createspace's Expanded Distribution.  I might hide the D2D column, too, because I haven't done that in a while. :shrug: I can always unhide any of these when/if I do need them again.

I'm not really sure how much these spreadsheets are actually helping me, but I'm a geek and I like to see the numbers this way.  I like to think it helps me track whether advertising and discounts or freebies are doing what they're supposed to do.  I'll talk more about that after the first of the year when all the 2017 numbers are in.

Well, I hope all y'all weren't too bored with this post, and that it helps someone somewhere.  If you're a writer, how do you keep track of sales?  Do you bother?  If you're a reader, do you have any questions?  Feel free to drop them in the comments.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

From B.E., Hubs, and Kira-cat...


Wishing you all a happy, healthy, joyous and awesome holiday season - whichever holiday you celebrate.  May you all be safe and crime free in the days to come.  (Unless it's fictional crime, then have at it. :wink:)

And if you're looking for ways to fill that new Kindle or to fill the Kindles of your loved ones, all my books will be on sale starting Christmas morning and running through to New Year's Eve. 

Clueless and That's Okay

They say 'know your market'. Well, let's admit it right here, folks.  I'm clueless.

I don't know what the market wants.  I never have.  I only know what I want.  And since I'm one of those weird eclectic readers, I want all sorts of stuff.  Thus, I write all sorts of stuff.

I happened to be talking with the manager of my local smoke shop the other day.  I hadn't seen her in a while and she asked how the writing was going.  I, of course, reached into my magic bag of all things and pulled out a bookmark for her.  She was blown away that I had nine books out.  (Last time we talked, it was like three.  Like I said, I hadn't seen her in a while - she's usually in the office in back when I stop to buy cigarettes.)  And as she looked at the bookmark, she's like 'you write all sorts of stuff'.  And I'm all like 'yes. yes, I do'.  She was excited about the suspense, but really excited about the supernatural stuff.  So I gave her my Once Upon a Djinn postcard, and then another bookmark and postcard for her mom. 

Sometimes I give people bookmarks and they're 'ooo, I love mysteries' or 'I'm not into paranormal stuff', though.  :shrug:  I like to be a little bit for every reader, if I can.

So far, I have two suspense novels, two mystery novels, four paranormal novels, and one political/medical thriller.  Now?  Now, I'm putting out a dystopian.  Which pretty much makes me nuts, I guess.

I'm in the process of editing said dystopian novel and I bounce back and forth like a rubber ball between 'I love this' and 'Everyone's going to think this is lame'.  Could be people will love this as much as I do.  Could be it'll languish in obscurity like Blood Flow (which I thought would fly off the shelves and hasn't).  I really have no clue.

And that's okay. 

You see, it's like I said.  I know what I like.  And it's also like I said that I'd like to be able to provide something for every type of reader.  Will every reader buy all my stuff?  Not likely, unless they're an eclectic like me. Will that build me a following?  :shrug:  I guess I have a minor following out there.  As I put more books out and more people discover me, the readership will grow.  Hopefully.

Anyway, it's probably not the smartest marketing plan in the world, but I gotta do my own thing.  I hope you'll come along for the ride, and maybe find something new. 

Speaking of new, my editor is not typically into reading dystopian, but she really enjoyed Blink.  Said it reminded her of her past love for Brave New World.  Yay!  If you were ever into BNW, or Anthem or Fahrenheit 451 or 1984, then look for Blink of an I in February. 

Crime and Punishment... Or Lack Thereof

I'm not really sure what's going on in the world lately.  People are committing crimes and not being punished for them. 

The guy who shot that gal in California but was found 'not guilty' because he said the gun went off  - several times into a crowd - accidentally after he'd dropped it and picked it back up again.  He was already a criminal, but hey...

The woman who passed out from being high on drugs and let her child freeze to death on her porch.  No jail time.

The man who raped a 12-year old girl while wearing his monitoring anklet, who - if he'd been punished in the first place - would have been in a cage instead of walking around where he could ruin some poor girl's life.

The numerous people who get off on 'not guilty by reason of disease or mental defect'.  (Personally, I'd prefer they re-word that to 'guilty but insane' and then they still get punished.) 

Plea deals that let murderers walk free after 5 years.

Bleeding hearts who go easy on offenders who then go commit more, and often worse, crimes once they're let go.

People who commit multiple crimes but are only charged with one, and then get off lightly.

:shudder:

Punishment.  Crimes are supposed to include punishment.  Not reform.  Not help.  Pun-ish-ment.   It's supposed to be a deterrent.  Think about what you've done so you are less likely to do it again.  What deters a criminal if they are either never punished at all or are lightly punished for a heavy crime? 

Jus' somethin' to think about this morning.