Hugh Howey's Blog, page 15

I Want Amazon Bookstores

In case you’ve been out of the loop, Amazon has opened a physical bookstore in Seattle. Yeah, a physical store from the online giant. It’s not your typical bookstore, though. For one thing, there are no set prices on titles. Rather, the price of the book is tied to the ever-fluctuating price at the online store. And rather than post a few recommendation tags on a handful of titles, nearly every book has a review posted by a reader. If you’ve posted a review on Amazon.com, your recommendation may be the thing moving books at the store.

There is now talk (unfounded and possibly baloney) of Amazon opening 300-400 small footprint bookstores around the country. The rumor comes from a mall manager, whose business might win a boost from such speculation, but let’s set aside whether or not the rumor is true and talk instead about whether or not it’s a good idea. What do I think? I think it’s a fucking fantastic idea.

Let me jump sideways for a little bit first. I want you to look at the following graph:

That’s Amazon’s earnings in black and their profit in orange. For years, the anti-Amazon crowd has poked fun of Amazon for not “making a profit.” When what Amazon has been doing is making shitloads of money. Hundreds of billions of dollars. And then taking that money and investing it in web servers, distribution centers, shipping fleets, original content, device R&D, etc. They have built a lead in several of these areas that is practically insurmountable. They now sell more goods than Walmart. Think about that. And then think about this: What are the chances that a company’s gross revenue can move up so much while profits remain at practically zero? The chances are also zero. This company is cleverly spending every penny in expanding that lead. And now they are going to do to the physical space what they did to the online one.

Here are a few things that the anti-Amazon crowd don’t seem to get and why they are going to be surprised and completely wrong about all their prognosticating:

1) Online retail accounts for 8% of total retail. EIGHT PERCENT. Amazon might own half of this. That leaves another 92% to grab a slice of. Even if they only grab 4% of this massive chunk, that’s a doubling of their retail business! Amazon is not foolish to enter a segment where 92% of the action lies. Instead, look at them as the classic disruptor: Setting up a beachhead in the low-margin and low-startup cost end of a sector before moving upstream. That’s exactly what they would be doing by moving into physical retail. And guess what? They already have the hub-and-spoke distribution network in place to feed that retail system. Not going the last mile to customers will be an increase in efficiency, not a decrease.

2) The number two thing detractors don’t seem to understand is that Amazon’s greatest strength is DATA. Data, data, data. They know what everyone buys and where it gets shipped. That means they know what to stock in every town in the United States. They also know where practically every author lives (and this is a good thing. Because…) imagine if Amazon wanted to turn their physical bookstores into event centers. An Amazon rep reaches out to local self-pub, A-pub, and trad-pub authors and sees if they want to do a reading. Emails are blasted to Amazon customers within a 50-mile radius who have bought that author’s books or another book like it. This is just one of a bazillion ideas I have about how I would leverage Amazon’s online data to bring communities together. Anyone who thinks Amazon doesn’t know their local customer base is a fool. No one knows them better.

3) More bookstores is a good thing! I’ve already seen anti-Amazon rhetoric about how these expansion plans would be awful, because Amazon already sells too many books, and when will someone stop Amazon from selling so many books! Because selling books to readers is … a bad thing? What the hell? Borders is gone. Barnes & Noble is being run by people who love board games and hate comfy chairs (remember those?). There are no more Waldenbooks in our malls. We need 300-400 Amazon bookstores, and we need them open yesterday. Give me one. I’ll manage the shit out of that fucker.

4) A fair bookstore would be a sight to behold. Can you imagine a bookstore that doesn’t blacklist books from select authors? I can’t. I’ve yet to see one. I hear there’s one in Seattle, but that’s only a rumor. You see, almost all bookstores blacklist Amazon-published titles. That’s right, they ban them. And very few carry many self-pubbed titles. If the Seattle store is any indication, Amazon plans to push what readers enjoy. That’s going to mean a lot more self-pub titles (printed by CreateSpace), and more A-pub titles (where authors earn nearly double what New York publishers pay). The more these books are sold, the more money flows to artists and not big city suits. Fair bookstores would be freakin’ awesome. Sign me up, Jeff. I’ll manage the shit out of that fucker.

5) Amazon is already innovating in the physical space. Their “Treasure Truck” just went mobile in Seattle. This truck is full of a certain single daily deal (like a GoPro for $70 off), and you use an app to track down the truck, purchase the daily deal, and pick up your item. The GoPro deal sold out in 45 minutes. Not only did they move merchandise, but every deal is a chance to interact with customers. This is advertising and public relations WHILE MAKING A SALE. Oh, and collecting data. Through the app. Freaking genius.

6) Back to my graph about profits: Amazon brings in a lot of money. A LOT. Think about Google and all the money they bring in. Enough to build a fleet of robotic cars. Why? Just because. Well, Amazon doesn’t do just because. They don’t have gourmet, local, organic, 3-mile-radius, Michelin chefs serving 9-course tasting menus to coders on their lunch breaks. With all the money they save on being sensible, and ruling the roost when it comes to web servers, Amazon could easily foot the bill on 300-400 small bookstores. This would be an excellent use of their income. The rest of my list details why from an operational standpoint:

7) Device sales. Amazon makes some of the coolest devices on the market. Their e-readers are a marvel, and every avid reader should own one. And the Echo is a game-changer. The more people can interact with an Echo, the better. Their Fire tablets are also an unreal deal for anyone who is already a Prime member. A small device kiosk would kick so much ass. Not to mention all the cool limited-time promotions they could tie to these devices. Hop onto their free WiFi with your Kindle, and read a select daily freebie in your favorite genre (12 freebies a day in the top dozen genres). Or get an in-store price promotion. Or snag a limited edition e-signed Kindle book from a local author who is going to be doing an event soon. (Seriously; I could manage the shit out of these fuckers).

8) In-store pickup. These stores are already getting daily deliveries. Why not toss in customer orders as well and skip the last-mile bottleneck? Now all Prime members get free 1-day delivery to their local store and affordable same-day delivery. Unlock the in-store Amazon locker to collect your order. And oh, did you see that the latest David Gatewood anthology is out? You can get it in paperback or e-book. In fact, since David included the Kindle edition in Matchbook, the e-book comes FREE when you buy the paperback (and a handy sticker on the book proclaims this). Eventually, the local Amazon bookshop becomes what the USPS store used to be. And when Amazon announces their own delivery fleet to duplicate what UPS and FedEx offer, they become your favorite local shipper as well! Set the delivery address and pay for shipping right in your Amazon app. Drop off while you pick up your recent order. There are free Amazon boxes of various sizes right there by the counter.

9) Advertising and public relations. Amazon does little of the former (their first Superbowl ad ever is running today) and really doesn’t need to do much of the latter. They don’t need to. Everyone knows about Amazon, and their customers absolutely love them. Prime memberships are exploding. But the stores would do a lot of both PR and advertising, enough so that even if the stores operated at a small loss, they would be totally worth it. We’ve already seen how Amazon loves to not make a profit (you pay taxes on profits. Reinvested money is free money). But advertising is traditionally a massive write-off for companies. These physical stores could be seen in the same vein, as an ad write-off. But the biggest PR boost would be twofold: The tired meme of “Amazon doesn’t pay taxes” would become null and void. As would the idea that Amazon is killing off bookstores. With 400 locations, and if B&N closes a third of its stores as planned, Amazon would be the #1 physical book retailer in the country. That wouldn’t silence the critics, but it would make them appear even more foolish than they already do. Of course, publishers would hate all of this, as they seem hellbent on preventing the #1 bookseller from selling more books. But authors and readers would rejoice.

And now, drumroll, because I saved the best for last:

10) We would FINALLY have a chain bookstore from a company that values authors. Independent bookstores largely have this nailed. B&N never has (I say this as a former employee and an author who has both tried to get events there and one who eventually succeeded). Amazon could do amazing things if they teamed up with NaNoWriMo and CampNaNo. (I’m on the NaNo board if they want to talk. I would run the shit out of that partnership.) In addition to book readings and signings, how about writing workshops? I would love to see a 4-part series put together by a local author, attended by fans and aspiring writers, all to celebrate a culture not just of reading but of creating. For the Amazon stores with a print on demand machine, these authors could have their works available and print out their own copies as needed. What about a dedicated signing table, with a scheduling app that helps local authors sign up for 3-hour slots on a first-come basis. They can sit and chat with shoppers about their books. Let the author buy the books in advance, have them drop-shipped to the store, and commit to shelving a handful on commission after each signing. These books would be discounted heavily over time to make room for the next authors’ works. Eventually, they are “returned,” which entails the author picking them up from the store if they want, donated to libraries/charities if they decline. Payment goes right through their CreateSpace account. And a large monitor behind the table revolves pictures of past and future authors, with the pics taken right from their Amazon author pages (and other info from the same pages, including product blurbs and reviews).

Bookstores are needed in communities. Especially bookstores from people who love books, treat customers well, and respect the artists who create them. There’s no other company better in all three regards than Amazon. Do they dominate book sales already? Damn skippy. And they deserve every bit of the marketshare they’ve claimed. If they keep treating their customers and creators the way they have, I hope they get as much of that 92% as they can gobble. What I’ll do is start to complain the day they begin treating customers and authors the way the old guard already does. Until then, the more disrupting they do, the better.

Now where’s my store? Give me a job, Jeff. This writing gig can’t possibly last forever.

 

 

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The State of the Industry

Over the last ten to fifteen years, the publishing industry has undergone a massive shift from print to digital and from the east coast to the west coast. Understanding this shift is critical for anyone working in the field or who wishes to. Taking stock can be difficult. All manner of publishing has been greatly disrupted, but it’s often hard to see because what has changed is what’s now missing from our lives. And these missing things have not disappeared all at once. Rather, it’s been a gradual vanishing.

Your glovebox is no longer crowded with maps. The lowest bookshelf in the living room no longer sags under a full set of encyclopedia. There is no phone book in the top kitchen drawer. Manuals no longer come with every device. How-to books have gone away. Cookbooks as well. Driveways are no longer dotted with newspapers. And the daily commute sees far more people staring at screens rather than anything printed on paper.

There are exceptions in every household, of course. But for most consumers, the GPS-enabled smartphone has obviated the need for maps. Wikipedia and Google replaced the encyclopedia. We connect via social media, not phonebooks. Manuals are now online PDFs. The newspaper is our Facebook and Twitter feeds. To learn how to do practically anything, we turn to YouTube. Recipes are searched for online. And well over half of fiction reading has gone digital.

Publishing is all of these things. Publishing was even the little booklets that lined our CD and DVD cases, which have largely gone away. We don’t think of all of these printed artifacts as publishing, but they were. They not only required printing, they required copywriters, editors, and layout designers. Those who used to do these jobs now work in digital spaces. And this has been the great shift in publishing, from physical to digital. And the center of publishing — New York and the east coast — is now the west coast. The Big 5 of publishing is now better thought of as: Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter.

This doesn’t sit well with those formerly in power, but in just about every measurable way, these have been great developments. Digital is easier to spread, which increases information equality. It’s also better for the environment, not just in paper consumption but in the polluting delivery costs. Ideas are easier to generate, which has increased the diversity of voices. News has become crowdsourced, which reduces the corrupting power of those who formerly had monopoly control of information. With a camera and a broadcast booth in every pocket, the fears of Big Brother have turned into the mediating effect of billions of Little Brothers. We report on abuses of power, taking to Twitterverse to pressure corporations, and sharing videos to police the police. And we are far more accurate and informative taken as a whole than we are on relying on lone experts.

It’s difficult to find anything to complain about with this transition, unless you are a middleman who no longer provides a service commensurable with your cost.

This is an important point, the act of offering a service that matches your cost. It gets to the heart of the disruptive force of digital publishing, and it cuts through much of the confusing rhetoric that gets bandied about. Looking just at book publishing, which has been my domain as a bookseller, a writer, and a publisher, we can see how this plays out. We can even trace the sources of these discomforts back through a trail of complaint. There is much lamenting these days, almost entirely by those who no longer provide a service commensurable with their cost, and understanding this can allow us to see through the rhetoric and understand what is really going on in the industry.

Let’s start with a list of those who are being disintermediated in the modern publishing landscape: Major book publishers, their historic retail partners, their former marketing muscle, the printers, and previously bestselling authors. We should feel empathy with those who are disrupted, as pivoting can be painful. But when the overall benefit to the general public is weighed, we understand that these disruptions are to be applauded. Again, we’re talking about greater access to information, a wider variety of voices, a boon to the environment, and a more equitable share of profits to creatives. This doesn’t make the pain of the formerly entrenched any less, but it should prevent us from making policy and purchasing decisions based on their appeals.

Trade book publishers have been hammered by the shift to digital and the west coast. Growth has only been sustained by acquisitions, job cuts, and the increased profitability of ebooks. Even with a mighty PR campaign waged against digital publishing (carried out in the increasingly insignificant print media), the major publishers have only been able to barely tread water. The number of major publishers has gone down, and several of the largest of the secondary houses have been gobbled up. Print sales are being hammered, even as this trend is spun in the press. In 2015, the only thing that saved print from serious decline was the adult coloring book fad. That craft books are counted alongside novels is revealing, both for the widget and profit-minded nature of the legacy publishing industry, and also the greater concern for sales over the culture of actual reading. 2016 will need another 50 SHADES OF GREY or coloring book phenomenon to stem the bleeding. This is a precarious situation in which publishers find themselves, especially with fewer medium sized presses to acquire. It would surprise me to see all of the Big 5 publishers standing two years from now. It would not surprise me to see a Big 3 five years hence.

Retailers have had it just as bad, with Borders gone and Barnes & Noble transitioning away from bookselling and into general merchandise. Independent bookstores are seeing some gains, as the former big-box wolves now find themselves stalked and hunted down by Amazon. And even here, the rhetoric is almost Orwellian in its backwardness. Independent booksellers have blacklisted titles published by Amazon, even as Amazon cleared space for them in the market. And so not only has Amazon been good for small booksellers, the stifling of information has come from the same bookshops, while Amazon publishes and sells the widest variety of offerings for the lowest cost and is accused for limiting the expression of free ideas while doing so.

Controlling this message (or attempting to) has been another outlet made irrelevant by the west coast shift. Newspapers used to matter for book sales. Bestseller lists were checked weekly, as were the arts sections and the special Sunday book review inserts. No longer. Now, the only bestseller lists that move titles are the online sales lists, primarily Amazon’s. I saw this clearly as a bookseller. Even the front page of the New York Times Book Review couldn’t budge sales. But a mention on a late night LA talkshow, or a Tweet from a celebrity, or a recommendation from Zuckerberg, would shoot a title straight to the top. And nothing is more powerful than one of Amazon’s daily promotions. The marketing muscle, the inside access, the exclusive reviews, the feeling of mattering in this grand cultural tradition — all of this has been taken away from legacy reporters. And keep in mind that these same reporters were often aspiring novelists and non-fiction authors. They have done a miserable job of covering the disruption to publishers, because they are too emotionally invested to cover these trends like they cover the rise and disruptive forces of Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Google, Facebook, et al.

The authors who benefitted most from the censuring of ideas have also been hurt. When 99.99% of books were not allowed to come to market, and the diversity of voices was culled to obviate risk to publishers, these .01%ers made hay. Mostly white males, there are many of them complaining today because their power, prestige, and incomes have all declined. The new power authors are predominately female, and to cope with the reality of this transition, the media and legacy authors have had to resort to lumping them into a single genre (erotica) in order to stigmatize them. Despite the fact that these authors write romance, thrillers, science fiction, literary fiction, non-fiction and other genres. Those who write in one of the hundreds of varieties of romance are today castigated as “smut” writers, when this has never been true.

Lately, these authors have had to team up with their advocacy groups in a PR battle against digital and self publishing. Writing letters to the DOJ, the argument here is that free speech was better served when only .01% of authors could publish their works. The share of income earned by these authors has plummeted, replaced with income heading to self-published authors. Last year, Amazon paid out over $140,000,000 to authors in its Kindle Unlimited program. That doesn’t count the dollars paid for book sales. This would be like publishers announcing a 7-figure advance every two and a half days for an entire year. The overall expenditure by consumers has only gone up a little, while the payout to independent authors has soared. That money came from somewhere. Those authors being hurt are now railing against a system that, once again, is good for consumers, for diversity, for the environment, and for creatives.

Author advocacy groups have joined the lament, as they have been hurt in reduced membership. More writers now seem to be going about the quiet business of earning money rather than paying fees to attempt to break into the industry. Agents have felt the pinch as well. Those who aren’t able or willing to work with authors to hybridize their careers have joined the chorus of voices pining for the days of reduced access to reading material and higher costs.

When we look at the above groups, and consider their complaints, one thing jumps out at me: They no longer offer services commensurable with their costs. A Big 5 published book is not 5 to 15 times better than a self-published book. And yet the difference in cost can easily be as much. Big 5 authors are harmed by the same price differential. Those who are locked in deserve our sympathy. Those who choose to offer higher priced books, and complain as their sales decline, do not deserve our sympathy. That’s a choice. Ebook price ceilings can be negotiated in publishing contracts (I know from personal experience). This means being a Big 5 author does not necessarily mean being hamstrung by high prices. High price is a choice, and the improved offering must be commensurable.

The same goes for retailers. If they are going to charge higher prices, their stores and staff must offer greater service. Some do, and they thrive. Those that don’t are and should go out of business. The same is true of the media that used to curate our tastes. They did a poor job for the price, which is why consumers no longer pay in dollars or attention. They need to reinvent themselves or go under. The public should not be expected to support legacy systems for nostalgia’s sake; adapt or die.

What has remained unchanged, and what dictates at every moment the true state of the publishing industry, is two forces: The overwhelming urge felt by many to weave stories, and the companion urge felt by nearly all of us to be regaled with stories. These are the twin forces that gave rise to the publishing industry in the first place. The book trade is in its infancy by comparison. Storytelling is a critical component of what makes us human. The world of publishing is all about matching up storytellers with audiences, and this power has moved to the left coast and the world of ones and zeros. What matters most is what happens on either end, not in the middle. Can writers write? More than ever. Can they publish? Easier than ever. Can readers find and access stories? Like no other time in human history.

As a reader, the current state of the industry makes me beam with joy. I carry my Kindle with me everywhere. I have a backup Kindle on my boat in case my primary goes in the drink. I have access to nearly everything ever written. I read more than at any other time in my life, and I spend far less money doing so. As a reader, the value offered to me by the publishing industry has positively soared.

As a writer, the new publishing industry brought an infinite increase in fulfillment. And I don’t mean with income, as I never sat down to write my first novel in order to earn a penny. In the old world of publishing, my stories would have gone unread. There wouldn’t have been a blog to post them to, social media to share them by, or email to send to friends and family. There was no Kindle store to upload them to, or print on demand service to make a real book. No ACX for audio. My voice didn’t exist. Only that of the .01% did.

The old publishing industry was difficult for me as a reader and a writer. Bookstores were distant, and books were expensive. Libraries rarely had what I was looking for. It was hard to find anyone in my home town to discuss books with. Impossible to find reviews and recommendations from other readers. Like the fans of Harry Potter, I spent a good portion of my time as a child reading the same handful of books over and over again. That’s not a healthy industry from my perspective as a consumer. As a writer, it was even worse.

My recommendation to writers was spelled out in this previous blog post, and here’s what I would tack on while considering this industry and any business decisions: Team up with anyone who can add greater value than what they charge for their services. Go with a major publisher if you think the one book a year they’ll allow, and the 1/6th of royalties paid twice a year, will outweigh what you can do on your own. And factor in the time lost to querying, landing an agent, and the delay to market. By my estimate, a publisher needs to guarantee they’ll sell 20 – 50 times the number of books you can on your own before you break even. This takes into account the narrow window in which they’ll promote you and that bookstores will carry your title. If you can sell 10,000 lifetime copies, they need to prove they can sell 500,000 copies. No publisher can guarantee that. Can you sell 10,000 copies over the next 30 – 50 years? Can you write 2 novels a year? The choice gets easier and easier if you believe that you can.

This is not only how I see the publishing world today, it’s where I saw it heading seven years ago. That’s when I made the decision to leave a small publisher and strike out on my own. I’ve been blogging about that decision for a long time. These are not post-hoc rationalizations made by a fortunate individual, but the confirmation of what was then a very unpopular opinion. I’ve been laughed at for thinking authors could do better without publishers, for thinking that we don’t need agents until they come begging to us, for thinking that readers just care about a good story. I can tell you that seven years later, my thoughts have barely budged. Technology is opening up new worlds for storytellers, and readers have been greatly rewarded by our steady adoption of these tools. I don’t see this changing anytime soon. And that’s a great thing.

I keep all of this in mind as I watch readers struggle to find the next great book or series to dive into. Those challenges existed before, but they were worse. I keep all of this in mind when I sympathize with authors trying to make a living with their craft. What they had to overcome in the past was far worse. Just because things are better today does not mean they are easy; they are just easier. No one can be denied their voice. Readers can access books from anywhere in the world, with thousands of classics available for free and many new works also on a cycle of promotion. The only people who have anything to fear are those who are no longer needed or who are charging too much for their services. For the rest of us — especially the two parties who matter most — the state of the industry is rosy. And getting better every day.

 

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So You Want to be a Writer…

Sitting in your underwear, hearing voices, talking to people who are not there, mumbling to yourself, Googling how to dispose of bodies and the firing rate of an uzi submachine gun. Assuming this sounds like the ideal life for you—and you don’t want to be certifiably crazy but only a little crazy—then the life of the professional writer is what you’re after. And I’m going to tell you how to make it happen.

Right now, some people reading this are already raising objections. Sure, it’s easy for me to say post hoc what worked and didn’t. I’m suffering from bias confirmation and the self-selecting nature of successful people telling others how to be successful. These same people will say that success is completely out of our control, that it only happens to a fraction of a percent, that you shouldn’t even try. This is good. This is awesome. The more people you hear this from, the better. It means they’ve given up and you now have less competition.

Because make no mistake, you are competing. That doesn’t make authordom a zero-sum game. It’s more complex than that. A great book by another author can cause a reader to read a lot more (rather than spending their time playing videogames or watching TV). Authors can cross-promote and join box sets and anthologies. You network, share what works, read each others drafts, and so on. I’ve never been a part of an industry where “help your colleague” is so paramount, and that includes an industry (yachting) where rescuing your colleague at sea is practically the law.

But before you have works moving the needle, which is where the cooperative effects really take place, you are competing with your fellow aspiring writers. So here’s the #1 secret to success and a career of working in your underwear: You have to work harder than anyone else. Period.

Look around. What are other aspiring writers doing? That’s your ground floor. Your minimum. That’s where you begin. Double that. I promise you, this is the easiest path to success. What follows is specifics. But this is the general rule: Work harder than anyone else. If you don’t have this as your benchmark, you are going to have to rely on too much luck. And this blog post isn’t about the luck, it’s about how to minimize your required dosage.

Let me tell you about my luck. I was lucky in that I started writing when a whole lot of people were working a whole let less. The amount of effort required to make it as a writer today is in some ways greater, even as the tools of access have lowered the barriers to entry. Yes, barriers are down. And yes, the castle courtyard is now more crowded. So you’ve got to do more than your neighbor. Below, I’ve ranked the priorities I believe you should have and how to approach them. Anyone who follows this list has a great chance of making a living as a writer. I don’t say this as someone who saw it work for me; I say this as someone who has studied the hell out of this industry and profession, who has taken a very large sample of those trying to make it and those who are making it, and finding out what the latter group has in common and what separates them from the former.

 

1) Make a long-term plan. My plan was to write two novels a year for ten years before I ascertained whether or not I had a chance of making this work. You don’t get into the NBA without at least ten years of shooting drills and pickup games. If you set a longterm plan like this, and stick with it, you will succeed. Because you’ll find yourself in the top 0.1% of aspiring writers. 99.9% of your colleagues will drop out before they finish their plan. But you’ll outwork them. And yes, even if a thousand of you read this blog post, and all thousand of you implement the plan, all thousand of you will earn a living with your writing, leaving not much room for everyone else. Tough shit. There are more seats on this bus than there are people willing to put in what it takes to make it. Keep in mind that the videogame and TV busses are packed. We can lure more and more of them over if you implement your plan. And that plan all starts with:

2) Reading. I assume this is a given, but you never know. I’ve met people who don’t read at all but want to become writers because they think it sounds like an easy gig. The underwear! The mumbling! The Googling! The thing about writing that’s different than playing a guitar for a living, or acting on stage, or painting, is that we all do some writing. In fact, we do a lot of writing. We write emails. Blog posts. Facebook updates. A novel is just more of that, right? Wrong. The writing is the easy bit compared to the crafting of engaging plots and characters. There are some things you only gain through absorption. Read a lot, read the greats, and read outside your comfort zone. Want to write science fiction? Read crime thrillers and romance novels. Learn how to unspool a mystery and how to inject love into your stories.

3) Practice. Everyone wants to write a novel, and they want to do it without stretching. You don’t lace up and run a marathon without first learning to run a mile, two miles, five miles. The day you implement your plan is the day you start reading and the day you start writing. Start a blog and post to it every day. It might be a single line from a story that doesn’t yet exist. Or a scene—maybe a first kiss or a bar fight. Maybe you write a different first kiss scene every day for a month. This is like practicing your layups. So when you have to nail one in a game, you don’t freak out and go flying into the stands. The importance of a blog is that your posts remain up and visible forever. Facebook will hide and destory your content. Cross-post to Twitter and Facebook if you like, but the blog is your hub. This is your street corner. This is where you strum your instrument and improve.

After you start blogging, start writing a few short stories. Work on completing what you start. Set goals. A new short story every month for the first year. That’s twelve publishable works. Maybe they go up on your blog for free to get feedback. See what friends and family think. You aren’t trying to sell a million books right now; you are seeing if you can make someone your fan. My first cousin Lisa was my first fan. She was the first person who didn’t have to tell me my book was great but said so anyway. The first person to beg me for the sequel. You want one fan like this. The rest will come.

4) Daydream. Most of the writing takes place away from the keyboard. I did most of my writing as a yacht captain, roofer, and bookseller. I also got in the habit of driving with the radio off, in silence, with just my thoughts. Tune out the distractions and live in the world of your creation. Know your characters, your plot, all the twists, the larger world, before you start writing. And then keep most of that shit to yourself. The reader doesn’t care. Most of what you think is interesting is boring. Your novel is going to be a greatest hits collection, every one of your best ideas packed into a single volume. Hold nothing back. You’ll have more great ideas.

5) Learn to fail. Your first book will not be your best. The elation of completing that first draft is awesome; soak that up; remember it; get addicted to it. Because you’ll want to do this ten or twenty times before you write your best work. We’ll get to the craft stuff in a bit, but for now, just know that you should revise, revise, revise, edit, publish, and then get started on your next book. This was the best thing I ever did: I didn’t waste time promoting my works until they were already selling. I kept writing. So when things did heat up, I had seven or eight works out there. All those works are brand new as long as they stay undiscovered. You aren’t in a rush. Remember the plan.

Learning to fail also includes learning to write like crap and not care. Push through. We all write like crap, some of us by the steaming, fly-buzzing bucketload. The reader will never see it. You’ll revise it to perfection and delete the bad parts. The key is to have something down to work with. So learn to fail. Keep going. Ignore the sales of existing works. Ignore the bad reviews. Keep reading, writing, practicing, and daydreaming.

 

The top five on this list will get you there. If the time and effort you put in are greater than your peers, you’ll make it. I personally know many of the top-selling indie writers working today, and they make me feel lazy by comparison. And I make most of the people I know feel lazy. We’re talking forty hours a week on top of day jobs and taking care of families and households. While writing and working in a bookstore, I did all the grocery shopping, cooking, and most of the cleaning. All the household repairs. Took care of the dog. And found time to spend with my girlfriend and my family. I cut out videogames, mindless web-surfing, and TV, and I was amazed at how much time this freed up. I also didn’t own a smartphone and didn’t use social media for anything other than to share my writing and my blog posts. Cut out everything that isn’t helping make you a writer. How badly do you want this? More than your peers? Good. Less than your peers? You won’t make it. Look at any professional athlete and all the sacrifices they made, all the mornings getting up early to hit the gym. That has to be you. No excuses.

Now for the more craft-oriented bits:

6) Plot trumps prose. The thing you absolutely should not do if you want to make a living as a writer is go to school to learn how to write. MFA programs churn out editors and waiters. Sure, you can craft a perfect sentence, but you’ve got nothing to write about, because you’ve been in school your whole life. Readers prefer the clear and concise delivery of an exciting story more than the flowery and sublime delivery of utter ennui. Hell, they’ll even take the horrible delivery of a great story over the absolute perfection of dullness. Some of the bestselling novels of my lifetime have been lampooned for the writing style therein. Granted, if you can do both, please do. But first learn to craft a story and tell it in the clearest manner possible. That means studying story. Read Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces ($13 for the hardback!). Watch great films and TV shows to see how they pull it off. Read what’s selling and ask yourself why it’s selling.

7) Live fully and cheaply. Yes, this goes with the craft of writing. Writing is much more than putting your butt in a seat. It’s making sure you have the time and financial freedom to write, and it’s ensuring that you have something to write about when you do plant that butt. There’s some truth to the starving artist cliche. You need to make sacrifices. Control your spending. Avoid debt. Live a small or shared lifestyle. The less you spend, the less you need to earn, the more time you can spend on your craft. Not everyone has the same good fortune here. That sucks. But Muggsy Bogues was too short for the NBA, and he made a career of it anyway. You already have five kids before you decide to make it as a writer? Crushing debt? Medical bills? You’ll have to work as hard as Muggsy did. I wish I could sugarcoat it or tell you what I wish were true, but this is the reality. Live cheaply.

Living more fully is easier, because it’s a choice. Talk to strangers, everywhere. Waiting in a line? Talk to the people around you. See someone interesting on the street? Stop them and strike up a conversation. Memorize what they look like, what they sound like. This is the foundation of your craft. Park your car and walk for miles and miles through your hometown. Do it again one town over. Volunteer at soup kitchens and for Habitat for Humanity. If you’re in college, go on Alternative Spring Break. If you’re not in college, see if you can chaperone the same. Get out of your comfort zone. Read magazines about hobbies you never hope to have. Browse websites you never go to. Your books need to be full of characters you’ll never be and places you’ll never see. Meet them. Find them. Study them.

8) Network. Surround yourself with other aspiring writers. One of the best things I did for my career is attend bi-weekly meetings of the Highcountry Writers group in Boone, NC. Your hometown doesn’t have a writing group? Form one. Or join an online crit group. Nothing is better for your craft than reading and critiquing the rough draft of others and having the same done with your writing. And nothing will cement in your brain that you are going to make it as a writer quite like being in a writing group. It reenergizes you. It reminds you of your goal. Dress the part. Live the part.

You should also go to writing conferences that are nearby or affordable. There’s one every weekend somewhere in the States. There are a few that are better than others, especially in certain genres. But don’t break the bank to go to these. There is a lot of networking you can do for free. I’ve watched Hank Garner put together an amazing podcast of writer interviews. And Eamon Ambrose make a reputation for himself first as an indie reader / reviewer / promoter, and then as a writer. And Jason Gurley became one of the most popular indie authors in the land by volunteering to amp up our cover art. There are anthologists like Samuel Peralta and editors like David Gatewood who can call on hundreds of heavy hitters because of how they’ve given back to the community. You can do the same by beta reading for your favorite authors and providing quality feedback. Or any of a dozen other ways. Leverage your talents. Do web development, or SEO, or handmade crafts.

9) Write Great Shit. This seems obvious, right? But here is what separates failed works from those that succeed. I think a lot of craft writing advice is outdated. Times are different. Attention spans are shorter. You can coax a reader along, and give them a slow build, but only if you hook them first. So start your story at the most tension-filled moment, even if that’s in the middle or at the end. Introduce a likable, flawed character in the first paragraph. In that same paragraph, name the stakes. It used to be that we had to distill our novel down to an elevator pitch for prospective agents. Now we need to do the same for readers, and your book should open that way.

I recently watched The Maze Runner, and that story opens in a way that requires you to stick through to the end. The concept is brilliant. An amnesiac rides up an elevator and is deposited in a glade in the center of a giant maze. I empathize with the character; I understand his plight; I want to read until his challenge is resolved. Back to the plot/prose point above, stop stressing over the flowery sentences and trying to sound like a writer and come up with a story that, even told simply, is riveting.

10) Find your voice. I put this last because it’s the hardest, will take the longest, but may be the most important thing you ever do as a writer. What the hell is your voice? It’s how you write when you aren’t aware that you’re writing. Everything else you do is mimicry. Self-awareness is the enemy of voice. When you fire off an email to your mom or best friend, you are writing in your voice. When you blog, you will begin to find your voice. Your voice will change the more you read and the more you write. That’s normal. It’s still your voice.

Why is voice important? Not because it will land you an agent. Or because your works will win literary awards. No, screw that. Your voice is important because you can’t enter a flow state without it. When you find your voice, your fingers won’t be able to keep up with your writing. You won’t stumble. You won’t flail. You won’t sit there wondering what the next best word is. You’ll have an idea or a concept, a visual image, a conversation that you want to convey, and you’ll know immediately how to convey it.

Your voice will get easier to find the broader your vocabulary becomes. You’ll have more pieces to slot into the jigsaw puzzle of your prose. Your voice will improve as you study your own writing to see what works and what doesn’t. My voice is sing-song. I fell in love with Shakespeare’s sonnets and read so much iambic pentameter that I can’t help but have my syllabic stresses rise and fall to a beat. I like the way it feels. It feels like me. I also discovered that I love run-on sentences, with lots of comma clauses, but only if I intersperse those sentences with a bunch of choppy, short, incomplete clauses. My mother pointed this out to me. She was right. Nailed it. And I learned to embrace this.

Getting comfortable with your voice means becoming less self-conscious about your writing. When this happens, you can tell the story in your mind without getting in your own way. Stop reading what you’re writing as you write it. See the world in your head. Visualize it. Smell it. Hear it. Sprinkle in details from the periphery of your character’s senses. Make the world real. Then just tell it as naturally as you can. I promise this will go better than trying to impress yourself or anyone else. I promise.

Whether or not you succeed as a writer is almost entirely up to you. How much do you want it? Are you willing to fail for years and years and not give up? Are you able to network, get along with others, be helpful to your community, without feeling any pettiness or envy as others get where you want to go? Can you handle critique? Does it make you want to work harder? Can you read across a broad spectrum? Can you stick to your goals and put in effort every single day? Can you work harder than anyone else striving for the same goals? Can you help lift others up, even if that means them taking a seat on the bus in front of you? Can you live simply and fully?

If you can do these things, you can someday work in your underwear and Google how to dispose of a body. Or you can be like me and realize the underwear was a crutch and forgo even that.

 

 

 

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Don’t Wait

I’m sitting on my boat in Georgetown, Exumas, watching the sun rise. The last time this was true was seventeen years ago. My boat then was Xerxes, a 27′ Watkins that served as my home for five years. I dropped out of college after my junior year and sailed south. It was one of the defining moments of my life, that decision. I’ll never forget the terror I felt selling everything I owned and tossing my dock lines. It was petrifying, but I trusted that the rewards on the other side would be worth it.

They were. In spades. Sailing the islands put me in touch with nature, gave me time to contemplate myself and life, filled me with the adventures that would later fuel my writing, introduced me to a lifestyle that would help me shun possessions and debt for the rest of my life, and imbued me with the larger dream of sailing around the world, which kept me focused and gave me direction.

Here in Georgetown, you meet lots of people with similar trajectories, but their stories are so different and so inspiring. On a hike yesterday, I met three nineteen year old boys who sailed from Maine on their father’s old wooden boat. They took a year off after high school to sail to the Caribbean and back. We talked about where they’ve been and where they are headed next. With just a little dinghy-sailing experience when they set out, these are now three wizened and salty experts. I pegged them as being in their mid-20s before they revealed their age or mentioned school. Their eyes were already older. They stood more upright. They didn’t bounce around like teenagers. They weren’t relentlessly checking their phones. There is a calmness and patience that traveling at 5mph for thousands of miles instills.

On the beach, I met another couple via their awesome dog, Safron. After flopping into my lap, and lots of apologies, and my having to explain that their dog just made my week, I got their story. In their mid-30s, this young couple set off from Canada just this year to sail around the world. But it’s the genesis of their trip that blew my mind. They had flown to Georgetown last February to stay at a resort here. They saw all the sailboats, got to talking to some of the people who lived and traveled on them, and they went home with a plan.

In this, they aren’t unusual. Lots of people hear about living aboard and sailing the world, and they dream of doing the same. They read articles, subscribe to magazines, follow the blogs of those who are doing it. But this Canadian couple didn’t waste time. They sold everything they owned, bought a 34′ Hunter (an imminently affordable boat), and they set off. Like the boys from Maine, they are now experts, even if they didn’t feel like it and are humble about their abilities. By this time next year, they will be wrapping up a Pacific crossing. All because they didn’t wait.

It doesn’t have to be this particular dream. You have your own dream. Of writing a novel. Of learning a musical instrument. Of driving coast to coast. Of moving to be closer to family. Of getting a different job. Of going back to school. Whatever excuses you are using to protect yourself, stop. The beach here buzzes with children who are sailing with their parents. Kids of all ages. Each one is a perfect reason why it would be impossible for their parents to go sail around the world. Instead, they became the best reason to. You don’t think you have time to write for thirty minutes every day? Or practice strumming that guitar? Or brushing up on your French? Or getting some exercise? Or honing that job skill? Or putting that sweat equity into your home? I say you do. You have all the time in the world. As long as you don’t wait.

 

 

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The Answer is Extremism

For ten days at a time, we didn’t see a speck of land. Nothing but the flat blue below and clouds of white above. The texture of both changed with the winds, the seas piling up, foaming and angry, launching us swiftly down their faces, then falling flat in moments of eerie calm, the clouds gathering with rain, before it all started over again.

It is a life of extreme calm in many ways. Downwind sailing, the current behind us, logging two hundred nautical miles a day. We read, cook, eat, watch films, sleep, hang laundry on the lifelines, talk, play cards, exercise, and the hours pile into days and the days into weeks.

Twenty-seven days of sailing to cross from Cape Town to Barbados. It’s not just the width of the Atlantic but the vast majority of its height as well. One fifth of my journey around the globe was gobbled down in a mere month. Along the way, my boat was attacked by a shark that had to be around fifteen feet long. Its teeth marks stretch out on either side of my port bow. Two teeth were left behind in the fiberglass. It all happened without us aware, violence out of sight, the calm sea and soothing clouds all that we were aware of.

World events transpired in much the same way, with us at sea, cut off and unaware. Mass shootings in the United States. Terrorist attacks in France. And then more terrorism in the US. Talks of closing borders to Muslims. A run on gun stores. Angry debates, fear, hate, xenophobia, the sort of global tension and move toward populism, nationalism, and conservatism last seen following the first world war.

Muslim American women are now privately advising one another on whether it’s okay to take off their hijabs to avoid recrimination. They are more afraid to be seen in public than the days after 9/11. Many say that Islam is waging war on the rest of the world. The religion is seen as a menace. Something foreign, strange, dangerous, to be eradicated. And perhaps there is truth to this. Maybe the answer is more extremism. I truly believe this may be the case.

I was raised Christian. I was raised with guns. I believed in both. I no longer do. Instead, I believe in a different sort of extremism, one that is far crazier than most are willing to embrace. I believe in extreme pacifism. Extreme forgiveness. I believe if an enemy strikes you, you should turn the cheek and let them hit you again. Better to let them tire their limbs than stoop to their level. Any guesses where I learned this bit of radicalism?

When I speak out about this on Facebook, fans of my novel Wool wonder how I could write about the world ending and still be against guns. They miss the point of the book they love. The most highlighted line in the novel is one that bemoans the ease with which a pipe can be waved at another and end their life. They miss that the threat to humanity wasn’t governments but deadly tools in the hands of the general population. The next generation of privately owned arms is what brings humanity to the brink. Government action, perhaps, is all that saves us. And Juliette’s lesson in Wool is that revolution is not the answer; it only leads to extinction.

Such has been my transformation. I laid down my religion decades ago, my guns more recently. Both are instruments with multiple uses, but both have a long and ugly history. Both can too easily be used for violence. Christians point to the violent history of Islam while seemingly unaware of the far worse violence committed in Jesus’ name. The crusades and Inquisitions were horrific, and they happened not too long ago. In fact, the timeline of violence closely matches the ages of the two religions. Islam started later. It’s juvenile years today are very similar to what Christianity went through just a few hundred years ago. The similarities don’t end there.

Every person who fears that Muslims crave the extermination of heretics should ask themselves this: Have they ever said or wished for the Middle East to be “turned to glass?” This phrase has been uttered so often that it has become the Christian equivalent of jihad. How is it any different than what ISIS claims to strive for? I will admit that I have used this phrase, said it and truly meant it, before I laid down my religion and my guns. I thought the world would be better off if the Middle East was nuked. I now reject this thinking. I see it as equivalent and just as morally repugnant as any Muslim who wishes the extermination of all heretics. Here are two groups wish to see the other go extinct. Both are revolting. But it is not the other person we should be revolted by and wish to change. It is us. The only minds we can alter with certainty are own own minds. Any chance of altering the minds of others is greatly diminished with hatred and violence. The answer is to turn the cheek. And keep turning it.

Many will immediately reject this suggestion, calling it naive to follow the advice of the man they claim to worship on Sundays. But I don’t think it’s naive at all. Three days ago, I was mugged here on the island of St. Martin. Two men assaulted me and made off with my wallet. Today is the first day I’ve gotten my limp under control. My jaw only now feels normal. The abrasions have turned to scabs and don’t sting as much. And while chasing one of the thieves around the equivalent of a large city block, I pleaded with him. Take the cash. Leave me the cards. They won’t be good to you anyway. Stop. Talk to me. It’s okay, man. I don’t want to hurt you. You can have the money. It’s okay.

Of course, he didn’t stop. Both men made off on a scooter. And I forgave them immediately.

For the last three days, I have felt a heightened sense of love for this island and its people. I have poured that love out, and that love has been returned with interest. The following day, I’m walking around the shipyard with a massive plate of watermelon, urging everyone to have seconds and thirds. The day after, with no cash for the paint supplies I need, those workers are scrounging for them out of their own stash. Three young men in a paint store let me use a credit card number without the card in my possession, a violation of store policy. On the streets, I chat with young men who are likely just as desperate for cash and just as prone to making regrettable decisions as those thieves. The same sorts of mistakes I made when I was their age. We bond. We laugh together. We climb and jump off cliffs together. There is nothing anyone on this island can do to me worse than what I can do to myself: Only I can fill myself with hate. Only I can devolve into a state of wishing the death of others. The worst they can do is kill me. My principles are mine, to do with as I please. Is that too extreme?

My boat is currently hauled out of the water so the shark attack can be repaired. The hotel I’m staying in is allowing me to stay an extra night, shuffling some reservations to make it happen. I straggled back here the other night missing a flip-flop, bruised and battered, with no wallet, my head ringing, and the lobby staff was amazing. I found out today that they aren’t billing me for the extra night. The cost of the night’s stay? It’s almost identical to the amount of cash I lost to the two young men. The cards will be replaced. The net loss has been nil. The gain has been an outpouring of love, sympathy, and empathy from the island of St. Martin, my friends, and my family.

There will be more terrorist attacks. There will be more mass shootings. And I will be mugged again. This was the third time in my life. All three times, my naivete played a role in getting beat up and robbed. One day, this naivete may get me killed. But it will have been worth it, to live the life I choose. A life where doors aren’t locked as frequently as perhaps they should. A life where the best is expected of others. A life of getting knocked down and simply getting up again. Because just about every time, more good than ill comes from these circumstances. So long as I cling to this radicalism, this extremism, that I learned about as a youth on Sundays.

 

 

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Universal Truths

Everything is different here.

They drive on the wrong side of the road.

The clutch is where it should be, but I’m sitting in the right hand side of the car, driving on the left hand side of the yellow line, traffic whizzing by.

The gear shift is on my left.

So is she.

The engine revs.

Two hearts race.

Gears on the verge of shifting.

Dangerous.

Wedging my thigh up against the steering wheel,

making things harder than they need to be,

letting go of the wheel,

reaching across my body,

right hand on the shifter,

clutch depressed,

pulling awkwardly into fourth,

release the clutch,

right hand back to wheel,

steady now,

all so that my other hand,

never needs to leave hers.

 

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Eyes Like Hers

I’ve never seen eyes like hers.

I’ve seen eyes that weaken knees, eyes that made my stomach flip, eyes that wobble the earth, but never eyes like these.

Eyes that cripple.

All the joy was a fathom from the ground. A street party in St. Lucia. The Friday night “Jump Off,” with rum concoctions, laughing tourists, entrepreneurial locals, food scents wafting, pockets of exhaled ganja, flirtatious smiles, happy chatter, the bliss of a warm Caribbean night.

All the joy was a fathom from the ground—misery at our knees.

I saw her eyes. Those black eyes. Tan fur. The color of all island dogs, where years of mixing have led to the same dull brown an artist gets on her palette when all the colors go together. The color of all. Of none.

A dozen dogs mingle, their ribs beneath taut skin, the puppies learning to beg, more skittish than the adults, darting among the knees, weak with hunger, the smell of fish and chicken and ribs an impossible taunt away. Looking up. Wondering. Waiting.

They’re not the only ones begging. Yesterday, a man missing a shoe asks me to buy him some chicken in the grocery store. Tonight, the locals mingle and beg as well. Hands clutching at my elbow. The two men who helped me around the docks both ask if I’ll buy them some food. The dogs watch. The one with the black eyes. Leg lame, body thin as a rail. Never seen a dog so skinny before. Where I’m from, this is a medical condition. Here, it’s the condition. But skinnier than the rest and hobbling around.

Those eyes.

You’ve never seen hurt like this. Desperation. Silent desperation. She needs to eat or she’ll die. Food everywhere, going in the trash, watching it go in the impossible trash, and this isn’t discomfort, isn’t a pang that will ease, this is final days. This is the dog that can’t dart in quick enough, can’t limp to salvation, is wasting away.

And the joy of this Caribbean night turns to tears. Like I say, those eyes cripple me. $10EC buys a skewer of chicken. The dog has been waiting by the stall, watching, begging. Silent grace. Not barking, or scratching, or saying, “Can’t you see I’m dying?” Just that look. Head cocked. One ear flopping. Big wet eyes. Beseeching. Begging. Dying.

There’s a line at the stall. Wasn’t one half an hour ago, when I bought food for the guys from the marina. I wait. Fumble out a $10EC bill. Try to wave down one of the women behind the counter. Don’t need a plate, just one of these skewers, I can grab it myself, just take the money, I can leave it right here, but she doesn’t see me. A long line. People buying people food. Not even that hungry, really. Just time to eat. Excuse me. Ma’am. Please.

I look around, make sure the dog is still there. She is. Watching. Waiting. Dying.

The lady wipes down a counter. Can’t get her. The line creeps. The food is right there. Should just grab it, pay later, leave the bill, anything. I hop from one foot to the other. Finally, she sees me. Tells me one minute. Why do I feel so impatient? It’s those eyes. Crippling.

Yes?

A skewer, I say. No plate. No, that’s okay. Thanks. Here.

Tin foil is pulled free, a napkin, all the unnecessary accoutrements. Finally, the food. I turn to the dog,

and she’s gone.

I look. Down the side street. Behind the stalls. Plenty of hungry dogs, but none like her, with that limp, that frailness, those fearful final days. Here’s a puppy. Here’s a taller dog. But where are those eyes?

I ask my friends, and they don’t know which dog. The streets are crowded. A forest of shins and knees. A dozen dogs. I mill through, the chicken warm in my hands, that hungry searching like a boy who saw a girl who maybe noticed the boy. Looking for that stranger in a crowd of strangers. To reunite with what came and went in a glimpse.

Panic.

What if I can’t find her?

And what am I doing?

A party, and my heart is breaking.

No saving anything. Hubris to think. This is their life. Their normal. Nothing to rescue. Just a cycle of breed and breed and no one to feed. Generations of dull brown fur. Thin ribs emerging from thin ribs. Life clinging on.

She’s gone. Giving up. Slunk off. Dead within the week. A corpse beneath a porch. Nothing can live that’s all bone. No more marrow to squeeze. And what would I do anyway? Delay it a week? Prolong the suffering? Just to ease my pain? Is this a selfish act? Is this for me? The chicken in my hand grows cold. Someone spills their rum drink. There is laughter while a puppy gives the pavement a wary lick.

There—

that limp.

those eyes.

I approach, pull a piece of chicken loose, and she takes it like she’s never taken food from a hand before. A quick, mistrustful snap of teeth. A disbelieving bite. Grabbing for the rest all at once, but there’s a dangerous skewer there. And I fear too much at once will get her sick. This is a dying dog. This is a heartbreak. This is me blinking away tears. This is me wondering how I was happy ten minutes prior. This is the misery beneath the party, the hunger on a warm Caribbean night.

Piece by piece. Somber. Taking each bite. Watching for more. Bounty. Not crumbs. Enough to last a day or two. Who am I doing this for?

The chicken is gone. A skewer to lick. I rub her head, and she’s strangely calm. Doesn’t flinch back. Pushes in. Leans. Waits for more. More of this contact as much as food. More of this love. Just the pad of a thumb, rubbing her forehead, that divot between bone ridges, skin so thin, an abrasion along one ear, that lovely brown fur, and those eyes.

She leans into the caress, hungry too for this, and I have to stand and walk away while I can still walk. It’s not yet nine o’clock. I’m told the party really gets started after ten. Just you wait. But I can’t. I’m ready to go, I tell my friends. A profound sadness, and I know it’s crazy, I know this is life, the way of things, the cycle. There was a cat in the street today, one who didn’t make it across. This is the way things are, down by our knees, in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, on the marina docks, on the street corners, in the house next door. Just the way of things. The look in someone’s eyes.

 

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Maiden Voyage

There was a Milky Way above me and a Milky Way below.

I’ve never seen a more breathtaking sight at sea. The sky was clear, the sea alive with life and light.

We’d rounded Cape Agulhas — the Cape of Good Hope — around sunset. Hours later, I was up for the 2am shift, and we were heading north toward Cape Town. The stars were bright, as they can only be when away from civilization. With no contacts on the radar, I turned off our running lights and all the interior lights and let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

The darkness was hard to find. A bright glow emanated from Wayfinder’s stern. I suspected the underwater lights, or the blue transom lights, but all were off. No, the glow was from the boat’s wake, which was disturbing the phosphorescence in the water. Twin trails of bright blue lit up the cockpit. The sea was on fire.

Over the next two hours, I watched the same blue trails spin off the sea’s wildlife. Dolphin came to investigate the boat, and they were alive with electricity, like zipping UFOs. A bright ball of phosphorescence that must’ve been one of the many whales we saw breaching and breathing during the day. Balls of bait fish, like great orbs of luminescence. And now this, an underwater river of blue glow, a Milky Way beneath the sea, stretching out in a line right across the twin bows of the boat.

We were going to pass through her. A lace of ethereal light. A long trail of racing fish, setting the sea aglow. Overhead, the Milky Way stretched from one horizon to the other. Below, a mirror image of phosphor did the same. Holding the rail along the bimini, I leaned out over the sea to take it all in. A near-religious experience. A sight so remote, we can only find it here, in the middle of the night, on the deck of a heaving boat, around one of the great capes of the southern ocean, with a clear night above and a hectic stirring of sea life below.

Wayfinder trudged on, plowing through this bright blue river stretching across her bows, just the first of many a voyage racing beneath her keels, the winds urging us to Cape Town, the rest of the world open and waiting, the Milky Way mocking with its vastness, with its quiet serenity.

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A Tour of Wayfinder

Welcome aboard WAYFINDER. In a few days, we set sail around the Cape of Good Hope for Cape Town. In another few weeks, me and three companions will sail across the Atlantic for the Caribbean.

This is without a doubt the best cruising catamaran I’ve ever set foot on. It’s all due to the excellent workmanship by the fine men and women at St. Francis Marine.

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Creating Space

Jamie McGuire recently announced that her CreateSpace print on demand title, Beautiful Redemption, will soon be available in Walmart stores. This is absolutely bonkers news, and just one more sign that the last bastion of traditional publishing is eroding. The announcement follows on the heels of a CreateSpace POD title becoming a #1 bestseller and being picked up by Random House for a 7-figure sum. The viability of print for indies is slowly following trends set by ebooks, and the implications are enormous.

Success in entertainment is all about possibility, not probability. No one is guaranteed to earn a living following their creative interests. What we should hope for, however, is that no one is barred from trying. For a long time, the vast majority of authors were barred from entry. We couldn’t discuss probability, because probability was zero. We fought for possibility.

Ebooks and self-publishing made so much possible, literally overnight. With the launch of Kindle Direct Publishing, anyone with a story and a keyboard could place their work right alongside Grisham’s and Rowling’s. Walls came smashing down. It wasn’t long before writers of all stripes were expecting equal sales and equal treatment, which is a testament to how quickly we adapt to monumental change.

Audiobooks have experienced explosive growth the last five years, an aspect of digital book consumption too often overlooked. But even more ignored is the power of print on demand. For a long time, I created POD editions of my works for reasons other than income. I wanted to hold the product of my labor. I enjoyed unboxing that first proof copy. I liked having those editions available for friends and family who only read in print, and it gave me something to sign and sell at small events around town. It also fleshed out my Amazon product page and made the ebook look like a bargain. All of these advantages were had at the cost of exporting and uploading a PDF. Any sale was a bonus.

When Wool took off, the power of POD became more obvious. Readers spread the word about the story, and other readers inquired at bookstores. As a former bookseller, I can tell you that when I had two or more people ask about the same book in a week, I ordered a few copies in for the shelves. This started happening with Wool. The CreateSpace printed title began appearing in Barnes & Noble and in top independent bookstores across the country. This, despite the policy of most stores to blacklist and ban any Amazon-printed title and author. Walls were being skirted by reader demand and honest and enterprising booksellers.

What Jamie’s deal shows is that there are other bookselling outlets available to indies. (Very large outlets, as a matter of fact.) Not long ago, Jamie gave up lucrative offers from a major publisher to move back to the indie space. She knew her publisher could not keep up with her pace of publishing, and that she could have more creative freedom, reach more readers, and earn more money on her own. She assumed she’d be giving up access to readers through store shelves, due to the blacklisting of Amazon-printed titles. Which is what makes the Walmart / CreateSpace partnership so interesting. Indie authors make decisions based on probabilities. When probability equals zero, that’s an enormous consideration. Probability just became non-zero. Time to revise our thinking.

John Scalzi recently blogged about his decision to take a long term, muti-book deal with his traditional publisher. No one can fault John for wanting the security of knowing what his income will be, at a minimum, for the next decade. But part of his reasoning, which is access to readers through bookstores, has suddenly become outdated. With change happening so fast in the industry, being locked into a 10-year deal is an enormous risk. Even worse is signing over rights that won’t expire until after you do. If Jamie can get a Walmart deal through CreateSpace, imagine what an independent John Scalzi or Neil Gaiman could do. JK Rowling showed what was possible with going indie with her ebooks. Jamie is showing us what’s possible in the print space.

I think it’s enormously prudent for authors to look at and understand trends in the publishing industry. Rather than make decisions based on what’s possible today, we should try to gauge what might be possible tomorrow or even in coming years. With Barnes & Noble posting more quarterly declines this week, it’s only a matter of time before: 1) Management there is replaced with people who want to offer what readers are interested in, rather than trying to earn profits by selling publishers marketing space. Or: 2) A bookstore willing to offer what readers are interested in takes ever more shelf space from stores that focus on merchandising and advertising.

Amazon has been the leader in this category, offering what readers want and taking market share as a result. Their bestseller lists are a measure of sales, unlike what you see on B&N.com and on the New York Times bestseller list (the latter of which changed their criteria the week before a POD work was to hit the list in order to keep it off the list). The companies blacklisting and banning books will not do well in a marketplace driven by word of mouth and reader demand. And those falsely curating their lists will find their credibility trends toward zero.

For years now, the decision to self-publish has made sense despite the lack of access to bookstores. Giving up the 70% earnings on ebooks in exchange for 12% earnings in print hasn’t made sense for most writers for a long time, especially as print readers moved to digital. I think Jamie’s deal is just a harbinger of what’s to come. Most print sales are now happening online, which makes them digital sales as well. Authors can complain about probability all they like — we’ve been doing this for eons — but the complaints about possibility will have to change. We keep pushing that conversation more and more toward an era of equal access. More barriers are being broken down, and the rubble of former walls now litters the publishing landscape. I expect this to continue.

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