C. Litka's Blog, page 62

The Amateur Writer

I happened to come across this blog post on Quartz, and it really sums up my attitude about not only writing but my painting as well.
https://qz.com/990130/in-defense-of-amateurs/

The key takeaway:
Chesterton says as much in his biography of Robert Browning:

The word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.

I think that within the next 10 years, self-published books will be almost entirely written by amateurs, people with stories write and to share with others. 

Two Years of Free Books

It's been two years since I self published my first science fiction novel, A Summer in Amber on 27 April, 2015. I followed that book with Some Day Days on 9 July 2015 and then A Bright Black Sea on 16 Sept 2015. Since I'd been working on those stories for more than five years, I was able to release all three within five months of each other. In 2016, faced with the fact that my next story, the companion volume to The Bright Black Sea would not be finished before the last half of 2017, I published the first, 70K word, “episode” of the book as a stand alone story, Castaways of the Lost Staron 25 July 2016. The complete book, a 340K word long planetary romance, The Lost Star's Sea is on track for release this summer.
My books are targeted at a very small market – me. I have old fashioned tastes in books –  mostly adventure novels from the first half of the last century, give or take a decade or two – so they're not written to be commercial products for today's mass markets. Having no commercial ambitions, or any need for the few dollars they'd likely bring in if I tried selling them, I offer them for free. Amazon requires at least a $.99 price, but they've been kind enough to price-match free in the US store and 2 books in the UK store. Because I hate self-promotion – and work – I'm content to let price, reviews and word of mouth promote my books. And since I value good reviews over downloads, I write my blurbs to attract only the subset of readers who will likely enjoy them. I can publish free books without losing a penny because I can do – almost – everything involved in self publishing in-house. The exception being, as I found out the hard way, proofreading. However, I now have a crew of very kind volunteer proofreaders willing to help me with that.
There are many ways to build a readership. I've chosen the way that suits me best – honest descriptions and the elimination of price as a barrier. So how does it work? Let's take a look.

A Summer in AmberRelease 27 April 20151st year downloads & sales - 2,222 2nd year downloads & sales -1,357 Total to date                       3,579
Rating & Reviews         1stYear 2nd Year Total 5 star 13        12            254 star 16         -             163 star -           4              42 star 4           2             61 star -           -              -Total 33         18            51
Some Day DaysReleased 9 July 20151st year downloads & sales – 1,1392nd year downloads & sales –   511Total                                  1,650
Ratings & Reviews         1st Year 2nd Year Total5 star -           2           24 star 2          1            33 star 1          4            52 star 1           -           11 star -           -            -Total 4           7           11
The Bright Black SeaReleased 16 Sept. 20151st year downloads & sales - 3,1762nd year downloads & sales – 2,569Total to date 5,745
Ratings & Reviews          1st Year 2nd Year Total5 star 59         33            924 star 12           7           193 star 4            4             82 star 1            -             -1 star 2            1             3Total 80          44          124
Notes: Amazon dropped price matching in March of 2016 until Sept. of 2016, so I have no data to determine if and how the release of its sequel affected sales. Downloads in Sept 2016 were twice the highest number recorded for any other month – I suspect that the spike was due to some sort of promotion by Amazon. (I saw a similar unexplained spike in A Summer in Amazon Sales in its first year as well.) I didn't happen to catch it at its peak, but several days later is was still at #20, so it may have well been the #1 free Space Opera for a day. Selling at $3.99, it sold 16 copies during the March – June time period. And in the July – August time period when it was priced at $.99 it sold 15 copies. Foreign sales currently run 1 to 2 copies a month at $.99.
Interesting enough, my downloads on iBooks dropped by more than half once Amazon started offering all my books for free again with the release of Castaways in Sept 2016. That seems to be the only reason for that to happen.
The Castaways of the Lost Star (a sequel to The Bright Black Sea)Released 25 July 20162nd year downloads & sales - 1700Total to date - 1700
Ratings & reviews         2nd Year5 star 64 star 43 star -2 star -1 star -Total 10

Coming this Summer: The Lost Star's Sea. The concluding volume of the Lost Star and the adventures of Captain Wil Litang.


The Complete Totals
First year downloads/sales of all books – 6,537*Total number of ratings/reviews - 117
Second year downloads/sales of all books – 6,137*Total number of ratings/reviews - 79Two year cumulative download/sales – 12,674* Cumulative number of ratings/reviews – 196
*Kobo does not report free downloads to Smashwords so this number is no doubt vastly under reported. Maybe by 100. $ Sales constitute only a small fraction of these totals. And the straight 400 download difference between the two years is just weird.
I release my books through Smashwords and Amazon. Last year Smashwords distributed books including iBooks and B & N but not Kobo outsold Amazon by 2 to 1. The cumulative totals now are about 50-50.
Two calender year profits: (2015 & 2016): slightly under $50 from Amazon sales.
With no data to compare these results to other self publishing authors who entered the science fiction market in 2015, I have no idea how they stack up to the more conventional ways of establishing a self publishing venture. However, I'm very pleased with the results and have enjoyed the whole experience. I've learned a lot, made new friends, and accomplished something I've always wanted to do – write a book or two that are read and appreciated.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who helped make this publishing venture both very enjoyable and modestly successful. While my name is on the title page, other people have helped to making the books better than I could've done alone. First off, I'd like to thank my volunteer proofreaders and beta readers. I produce a vast number of typos and have an amazing ability to be blind to them, so a sincere thanks goes out to Sally L., Carlos S., Hannes B., Nicole B., Martin V., Walt, and Stephen B.. I truly appreciate the efforts they've made to make my books better for every reader. I'd also like to thank the readers who took time to write to me. And all the readers who have taken the time to review and/or rate my stories. I'm not writing for money. Reader satisfaction is my benchmark of success, and while I know that I can not please everyone, I am glad that the people who do like my stories seem to truly appreciate them. And finally, I'd like to thank you, dear reader, for selecting my books and spending time alongside the characters and in worlds I've discovered lurking in my imagination. A story without a reader is a pretty sad thing. I'm glad that my stories have found readers, and readers who have enjoyed them.

Two Years!

Two years ago today I published my first novel, A Summer in Amber. On one hand, it seems like a lot of stories ago, and on the other, that summer in the highlands is still fresh in my memory. Next week I will post on this blog my 2nd Annual Report reporting on my "sales" figures for my second year in self publishing. Stay tuned to see what the wages of "free" have earned during the second year!

Done. Sort of.

I'm very happy to report that I've finished the first draft of part 8, The Dragon Kings. This is the last section of The Lost Star's Sea, which means that both the book and the adventures of Captain Wil Litang have, at long last, wound to their way to their appointed end.
Of course we're far from the end of work on it. I still have a lot of hammering of the words, sentences, and paragraphs to get them into shape for publication – especially in the last two or three sections which are more or less first drafts, and my first drafts are often rather pedestrian, sketchy, and rough around the edges. The first three sections, however, should be pretty much ready to go – one last read through, and then proof reading.
So what's next? This week I'll start my last read through of part 2 (part 1 is The Castaways of the Lost Star) and once I'm satisfied with it, I'll print it out and hand it over to Sally, my wife and first proof reader. Once she's done with it, and I'll make the 100's of corrections she'll find. Corrections made, it will then be ready to be read by my volunteer proofreaders and advanced readers – hopefully by the end of April. Episodes 3, & 4 should follow at a similar pace, every three weeks or so. If all goes well, we're looking at a late summer, early fall release date.

I'll be contacting everyone who's signed up to be a volunteer proofreader/advanced reader when I have the first proofed version in hand. Any one interested in reading the not quite final version prior to book publication, can drop me a note at cmlitka@gmail.comand I'll put you on the list.

Island Trails

Another view of the Islands of the Pela. This time we have a vine bridge spanning a gap. The "broad feathered" natives of the island, with their more articulated and clawed feet can easily use these vines to cross the gap. The painting's so-so, but I think the islands in the distance are an improvement. That's the way it works for me -- learn a lesson with every painting -- and hope I don't forget it.

Boat and Branches

Another very casual impressionist painting from the Pela, of a small trader on the wind. 

Market Bound

Another Pela painting. As I mention in a previous post, I can't "see" images in my mind -- just fleeting impressions. I'm thinking by trying to paint scenes from the premise I can construct a vision of the islands of the Pela, painting by painting. We're still very far from what I see in the fleeting glimpses I can conjure up, but I'll keep trying to get it closer to the vision, within the limits of my talent. Still, it's fun trying.

Drift Bound

I've painted for many years. For a while I was even painting as a business -- not a lucrative one, but I did sell my work. I don't bother with selling anymore. I just paint for fun -- just like I write. I'm primarily a landscape painter, and after switching from watercolors to oil and then acrylic, I became an impressionist landscape painter. You can see my work here: http://litka.deviantart.com/gallery/

While I took a year or so off from painting, I'm back at it again, and at the present, I'm combining my art with my writing -- painting pictures that I might use for my book covers. The painting above is my latest effort. The inspiration comes from the end of The Bright Black Sea's first part -- where the Lost Star sets out for the drifts from the Sanre-tay System, and the moon of Lontria.

Now I'm not an illustrator, and this sort of work falls largely outside of my expertise -- but with my publishing budget, it falls to me to do my own covers. Ideally I'd be an expert in Photoshop and Illustrator, and could create a modern looking cover, but I'm not. Still, my books are old fashioned, so perhaps old fashioned covers suit them.

I painted this scene over several times over this past week. The first time I was looking to keep it simple with just silhouettes.


I decided that was a bit too crude and plain, so I revised it, like this. giving color to the Lontria and Sanre-tay.

I tried the using this for the cover, but it had too much light. I wanted the cover to reflect the title, and there was too much bright and not enough black. and I also didn't like the Lost Star just hanging there, so it was back to the drawing boards.


 For this version, I changed the shape and color of the nebula, made the Lontria and Sanre-tay larger, and added the lights of a thousand ships as well. However, I still didn't like the Lost Star where it was -- it was too remote from Lontria, so I made another revision, which I did not photograph, painting over this Lost Star and making it a bit smaller, changing its direction and moving more to the center of the painting, as well as revising the nebula as you now see it. In the end, I didn't think that worked, so I painted over that version to make the Lost Star coming out at the viewer, leaving  the Unity behind -- the painting at the top of this post. Below is the cover I got out of this painting
:


As it stands now, this would be the cover I use when I release its companion volume this summer/fall. I'll keep the current cover so I can see if it makes any difference in downloads. And well, I still have plenty of time to paint more and perhaps better covers before I actually need one.

March 2017 Progress Report

Above are two possible covers for The Lost Star's Sea. On the left I've used my favorite Gimp art filter, “cartoon”, on the right, the plain version. I like both, but I'm leaning towards the plain version because it better matches my A Summer in Amber cover, which I really like. I am trying to keep my covers similar, to give both my books and my “brand” a distinctive look and feel. Still, there's plenty of time to paint more scenes, so nothing is definite. I actually need to finish the book to need a cover, and that's proving to be a bit of a struggle.
I had to start the last episode of The Lost Star's Sea, “The Shadow of the Dragon Kings” over two times, and only have gotten down 18,000 first draft quality words. I don't expect the rest of the episode to go any faster, since the remaining half is just sketched in at this point.
This is rather unexpected. I thought I had this episode well in hand. I was wrong. This summer I'd come up with a way to tie a lot of the loose story threads and mysteries together without getting too outrageously improbable. That delighted me. However, all that takes a great deal of explanation, which – as originally planned – came at the expense of action and suspense. I've had to rewrite the opening half three times to streamline as much of the explanations as possible. I've also had to come up ideas to end the story with far more action than I'd originally planned. I believe I have ideas that work, but they need to be fleshed out and choreographed. For the time being, I'm going to do a second draft of what I have to smooth out all cutting and pasting I did between the three versions. (And to make sure I have it all straight in my mind.) Hopefully in a week or so, I'll have enough details of the last half of the episode to embark on finishing the book. I do need to make sure it all ends up the same place as the original version, since I don't want to change the ending.
All this is for the best – a better ending and a better story. However, I'm now thinking it will take me at least to the middle of April to finish this episode, which will likely push back proof reading of episodes 2 to May. Even so, things could get done for a late summer release, but if it takes until early fall, oh well. Better a better story little later.

Island Trader

Another painting of the Pela, once again with an eventual cover in mind. I wasn't all that crazy about the last one, and there may well be several more after this one. This piece is more in my impressionist style than the last. I made no attempt at realism. What we're looking at is a small island trader with its sails spread to take advantage of the air currents. I think we're probably looking at the underside of the hull, but then again, maybe not. I guess it doesn't matter. There are several small islands in the middle distance and larger ones, blue in the distance.