Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 331

Traditional publishing is like Super Mario Brothers, and self-publishing is like The Sims

I’ve noticed that a lot of writers, whether veterans or just starting out, have a difficult time wrapping their heads around self-publishing ebooks. Or, more specifically, the mindset of self-publishing ebooks. Like, many writers want someone to set goals for them - someone to offer a Seal of Approval and say that the plot is good enough, the editing is good enough, the sales are good enough, and the book is therefore good.

I realized you can also see this quality is in recent college graduates. After all, in the modern Western world, a kid typically spends 18 years in some form of schooling or another before he’s released upon the world, and this transition from school life to real life is often a massive shock. In school life, everything is regulated, and there is a set of orderly and defined goals – pass this class, pass this paper, advance to the next level. In real life, by contrast, you can do pretty much whatever you want so long as you don’t get arrested and can cope with the consequences. And some people just cannot wrap their minds around that – interestingly, it’s often the kids who excelled academically who have the hardest time dealing with life outside of school. The same sort of dynamic, I think, is at work in writers who have a hard time dealing with self-publishing.

In other words, traditional publishing is Super Mario Brothers, and self-publishing is The Sims.

Super Mario Brothers is a side-scrolling, linear game. In his quest to rescue Princess Peach from King Koopa, Mario runs left-to-right through a world full of things trying to kill him, hoping to reach the castle where the Princess is held prisoner. Except at the end of almost every world, the castle instead holds this talking humanoid toadstool who informs Mario that “the princess is in another castle.” In the original NES Super Mario Brothers, Mario had to go through seven freaking castles before he got to the end of world eight, which finally held the Princess. Needless to say, only the terminally bored or the highly obsessive-compulsive ever got to the end of Super Mario Brothers.

This is a lot like how traditional publishing worked. Submit work to the agent, and get back the letter informing you that the princess is in another castle. Send out books and articles in cold submissions, and get back the letter telling you that Princess Peach is still in another castle. Keep at it long enough, and eventually you will find the Princess. And then it’s time to start looking for the next Princess – but make sure she’s 90,000 words long, and has a capable female protagonist, and shapeshifting sex wereotters because those are hot right now, and be sure to write the book in one specific genre, as well.

So traditional publishing, like Super Mario Brothers, is very linear, with a lot of talking Toadstools of Disappointment in princess-free castles.

Self-publishing is more like The Sims. The Sims is a “sandbox game”, which means that it’s not linear and there are no stated victory conditions, like rescuing the Princess or finding the TriForce or defeating the dread dragon Alduin or whatever. In The Sims, you control a simulated person, a Sim, and you can do…pretty much whatever you want. If you want to turn your Sim into a hard-driving career man, you can do that, or have kids, or expand your Sim’s house, or turn your Sim into a bum who sits around all day watching Sim Oprah…you can do that, too. There’s no princess to rescue, and you can do whatever you want.

Self-publishing works a lot like that. Have a 600,000 word fantasy epic? Go for it. Or a string of 45,000 word romantic novels? You can do that, too. A detailed guide describing how to clip your toenails? No one will stop you. You can do whatever you want for cover art, editing, layout, plot, and topic…and there is no final authority to tell you whether you are winning the game or not.

The thing is, there are people who find The Sims infuriating. There’s no plot, no goals, no quests, no point! You see a similar reaction with writers settling into self-publishing for the first time as they wrestle with the realization that there’s no official Princess to rescue from  King Koopa’s castle – save for whatever goals you set your yourself.

And that, I believe, is the key to self-publishing: the realization that no one is going to set goals for you, but that you must set them for yourself.

-JM

SOUL OF SKULLS – a third excerpt

Here’s a third excerpt from SOUL OF SKULLS. This one is from the point of view of Sir Hugh Chalsain, one of the new characters introduced in the book.

Kynoth’s bailiff was an elderly man named Corman, and he shared the same sense of injured self-importance as his lord Alberon.

“It is not surprising that those heathen devils should attack Kynoth,” declared Corman, leaning hard upon his cane. “We are the most prominent of Lord Stormsea’s estates. Why, the Prince of Barellion himself dines upon fish caught by Kynoth’s fishermen.”

“Indeed,” said Hugh, who had never once seen the Prince eat fish.

-JM

THE NEXT BIG THING – follow-up

John C. Wright and Tom Simon, fine fellows both, have done their own THE NEXT BIG THING posts. Follow the links to read!

-JM

SOUL OF SKULLS – excerpt #2

A second excerpt from SOUL OF SKULLS:

“Why are you still here?” said Lucan.

Malaric glanced up from a shelf. “I told you, my lord Lucan. You leave power in your wake.” He grinned. “And I rather like power, you know.”

“You have power,” said Lucan. “Your own magic. The spells I taught you. And the skull you took from Arylkrad. With that, you are a match for any mortal man…ah.”

“Oh?” said Malaric.

“You’re afraid,” said Lucan, “that Molly Cravenlock is going to hunt you down.”

“I could have taken the girl,” said Malaric.

“And yet,” said Lucan, “she is still alive.”

-JM

a one-sentence review of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

It was excellent, and you should go see it immediately – I’m not sure what, exactly, the critics who gave it negative reviews were smoking.

ebook sales for November 2012

5,400.

Which is both a new record and an amazing lot of books. Thanks, everyone!

I think three things contributed to the high number. The first was that GHOST IN THE STONE had an amazing run – as of December 12th, two months after it had come out, the book had already sold its 1,000th copy. The second was THE BURNING CHILD, which managed to do 179 copies in November. Finally, GHOST IN THE STONE had sort of a halo effect for the other GHOSTS books – for a while, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS was in the top 300 of the free Kindle store in Amazon UK.

So, thank you again, and for the historical record, here’s what we have done so far in the bold new world of self-publishing:

April 2011: 22

May 2011: 105

June 2011: 236

July 2011: 366

August 2011: 489

September 2011: 1335

October 2011: 1607

November 2011: 2142

December 2011: 2340

January 2012: 3261

February 2012: 3750

March 2012: 3644

April 2012: 3521

May 2012: 3886

June 2012: 3580

July 2012: 4153

August 2012: 4608

September 2012: 4785

October 2012: 4923

November 2012: 5400

-JM

SOUL OF SKULLS – an excerpt

Here’s an excerpt from SOUL OF SKULLS, taken from today’s editing session:

“Then Earnachar was right,” said Mazael. “The runedead of the hill country are moving in organized raids.”

“Gods,” muttered Molly. “The damned gasbag will never shut up about it.”

Mazael grunted. “He is one of the chief headmen among the Tervingi.”

“That doesn’t make him any less of a gasbag.”

-JM

SOUL OF SKULLS – the rough draft is done!

I am pleased to report that as of 12:58 PM this afternoon, the rough draft of SOUL OF SKULLS is finished.

38 chapters, 1 epilogue, and 148,000 words written in 36 days.

I need to lie down.

Nah, who am I kidding. Time to start editing!

-JM

The SOUL OF SKULLS rough draft…

…is now longer than the rough draft was SOUL OF SORCERY was.

I hope that’s a good thing.

-JM

THE NEXT BIG THING – 12/12/2012

Marcy Rockwell has tagged me for THE NEXT BIG THING, and since I am an obliging sort of fellow, my post is going up today. “THE NEXT BIG THING” is basically writerly self-promotion crossed with a chain letter. The idea is that I answer 10 questions about my current work-in-progress, and then I tag five more writers, who can then answer the same ten questions about their current work-in-progress (or not) as it pleases them.

So, with the formalities out of the way, let’s get down to business:

What is the working title of your book?

SOUL OF SKULLS. This will also be the final title of the book. I’m also playing around with ideas for short books about the iPod Touch and Linux Mint, but right now SOUL OF SKULLS is consuming all of my mental oxygen.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

SOUL OF SKULLS is the sixth book (of a planned seven) in my DEMONSOULED series. The idea for the book flowed pretty naturally out of events that happened in the previous DEMONSOULED books.

Specifically, the idea came from three events in the previous books (note that these are spoiler-free, so feel free to read on):

-The Skulls, the assassins’ brotherhood based in the city of Barellion.

-The skull one of the characters finds in a citadel called Arylkrad, which was once the seat of a High Lord of Old Dracaryl, an empire ruled by necromancer lords.

-The popular idea of the zombie apocalypse. If you want to know what kind of zombie apocalypse, read SOUL OF SORCERY.

What genre does this fall under?

Sword-and-sorcery and epic fantasy.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?

Hollywood actors are generally too photogenic to be characters in the DEMONSOULED universe.

That said, I think Russell Brand would make an excellent version of the villain Malaric, since he’d need only to dye his hair blond and act like himself. And someone like Jillian Michaels would be good as Molly Cravenlock because Jillian Michaels is terrifying, but I don’t know if Jillian Michaels can actually act. Daniel Day Lewis would do well as the Old Demon, but Daniel Day Lewis is reputedly a hardcore method actor, so if he played the Old Demon it would be extremely unpleasant for the crew.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of the book?

Mazael Cravenlock tries to save himself and those he loves as the world burns around him.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Definitely self-published. No agents for me – I can steal money from myself via shady accounting much more efficiently.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started on November 7th, and the good Lord willing, I’ll be done within the week. So about five and a half weeks to write a rough draft of 150,000 words or so.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Anything by David Gemmell.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

In this case, the events in the previous five DEMONSOULED books inspired the story in SOUL OF SKULLS. Developing the backstory is easy by the time you get to the sixth book in the series, since you’ve already written all the backstory you need.

What else about your book might pique the interest of readers?

There’s adventure, fighting, battles, romance, derring-do, and an invincible army of super-powered zombies. Also an invasion of serpent-worshiping Vikings. And a winged woman whose wings are fashioned from sword blades, not flesh and bone and feathers.

Now comes the part where I tag five other writers.

Mary Catelli - Author of many excellent short stories.

Tom Simon - Author of the excellent LORD TALON’S REVENGE, and numerous insightful essays.

John C. Wright - Author of many science fiction and fantasy novels, and writer of the single most logical blog on the Internet.

L. Jagi Lamplighter - Author of the PROSPERO’S DAUGHTER trilogy, one of the best fantasy series I’ve read this year (or any other).

And I can’t think of a fifth writer right now. Volunteers?

-JM