Mary Sisson's Blog, page 91

Random thoughts before the holidays

Just getting these in while I can:

Joss Whedon's Top 10 Writing Tips (via Pam Stucky). Both Whedon and Jane Espenson offer surprisingly good advice for writers of all stripes, even though they are specifically talking about screenwriting. Screenwriters have to be very focused on efficiency, so they talk a lot about plot, engaging the viewer/reader, and pacing, which are sometimes (VERY WRONGLY) considered a little beneath literary writers.

I would like to highlight two particular pieces of advice (although I'm also a big fan of #3--HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY):

1. FINISH IT

Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure....

7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD

You have one goal : to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member.

Explaining what you meant is a real trap, because if you're in a critique group and someone says, "I don't understand X" and you explain it, then they'll be satisfied. And you may get tricked into thinking that the thing works. It doesn't, unless you plan on standing next to every single person who picks up you book and saying, "What I meant by that was--" every time they hit page 23.

How To Guarantee Failure. OK, this is actually titled "Why I Unpublished My Self-Published Novel," but come on. Removing your book from the market completely--not revising and then republishing it, not changing the name to a pen name, not making it exclusive somewhere, but making it so that nobody can buy it ever--is NOT going to help 1. sales, 2. your career, 3. your finances.

I don't understand the perception that if an e-book isn't performing to expectations, then it should be removed completely. Sure, that works in other businesses, but that's because, say, Chevrolet has only so much room on its sales lots, so if a particular model isn't selling well, it makes sense to stop making it and make room for another model. But that doesn't apply to e-books--the self space is infinite, and there is absolutely to cost in time or money or effort to keeping your book on the shelf. You can decide not to spend any more promoting that book, but it takes more effort to take a book down than to leave it be, and the potential upside to leaving it be (it might catch on eventually) is much greater. Just let the book ride and move on with your life.

Speaking of change

News Corp. is on the rebound and has expressed interest in buying Simon & Schuster, which it would merge with its HarperCollins Publishers unit. (Via PV.)

The merger supposedly would help fight off competition from self-publishers (how?) and give the new company more negotiating heft with Amazon.

And further down in the article it mentions another reason to spin off HarperCollins and merge it with another company.

News Corp. is in the process of splitting into two listed companies, one containing its entertainment assets, such as the 20th Century Fox film studio and Fox News cable channel, and the other housing publishing assets, including Dow Jones and HarperCollins....

One motivation for the split is the flexibility to pursue the purchase of old-media companies that may have turned off current News Corp. investors, according to a person familiar with the company's strategy.

Oh, yes--investor relations. People who want to use their money to make money are not looking to invest in traditional publishing.

Crazy change

This (via PV) is a great meditation on how quickly publishing is changing nowadays.

[N]obody alive has twenty years of experience doing what you want to learn how to do. It’s like somebody telling people shopping for trucks in 1911 that they should listen to them because they’ve been a teamster for 30 years....

The very kinds of things that author/publishers are concerned with and trying to learn more about and evaluate every day–is Kindle Nation a better ROI than BookBud? How best to layer promos and ads around Select free days?–are completely beyond the understanding of people who spent decades in the old models–and see no need to unlearn and relearn because they are experts and already know it....

[P]ublishing is changing daily. Writers are re-examining what they learned earlier this year.

I love this because it doesn't apply only to the writers who made their bones decades ago, but to self-published writers today, including myself. One reason why successful self-published writers give such contradictory advice is that they broke out at different times, and methods that might have worked very well then may work less well now.

I worry about my DIY Publishing thingy, because I last updated it--OMG, twelve months ago! Some of the stuff won't go bad, but some of it I'm sure has already. Between the length of time it's going to take me to finish Trials and the fact that I've switched operating systems and will be using completely different software, I'll effectively be a newbie myself the next time I go through the production process!

It's difficult because with the Meetup group I organize, I have normal roundtable Meetups for the more-experienced people, but the newbies attend a seminar-like Meetup where I just tell them about self-publishing. I tell them, Wow, stuff is changing fast, and I try not to be too specific, but sure enough, every time someone comes up with something that I didn't know about, because I put Trust out a whopping six months ago. (Here's a useful thing: Amazon actually put out something helpful about book formatting.) Plus, since I'm going to put Trang on KDP Select, I've been ignoring the newer retail outlets like Kobo (I'll go on them once I'm done with KDP Select, never fear), so I don't know much about them.

Of course, it's silly of me to pressure myself to be an up-to-date expert on every facet of self-publishing--I'm a writer, that needs to be my focus. But the rate of change is phenomenal, that's for sure.

Book Bastage

A year or or two ago, I met a writer who had done a book with Book Baby and been happy with them. Obviously I'm a such a DIY-er that I'd never use a service like that, but I thought companies like Book Baby or Lucky Bat Books were potentially useful for people who wanted someone else to take care of things like formatting and uploading books but didn't want to give up ownership or control over their books.

And the other day I met someone who seemed to fit that profile, so I dropped the first person a line and asked, Are you still happy with Book Baby?

Well, you know the whole bit I just mentioned about not giving up control over the books? Book Baby will not allow this person to enroll their books into KDP Select because its exclusivity requirement is not particularly convenient for Book Baby.

Wow.

B&N's market share

This was on the Passive Voice yesterday--the original article is here, and it's a survey of e-book buyers by Bowker Market Research to find out what kind of device they use.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook devices had a 14% share in the second quarter [of 2012], a figure that has held steady since the fourth quarter of 2011, but was down from a peak of 22% in the third quarter of 2010

Now this is a different number from either number that appears here: This survey includes devices like desktop computers, smart phones, and iPhones. But 14% is a long way from 27%--a number that is supposed to also indicate the percentage of the e-book market controlled by Barnes & Noble, even though nobody knows how big that market actually is.

If the recent presidential election taught us anything, it's that my jokes have a strange way of coming true--I mean, it's that decisions made about what to measure can drastically affect results. So, deciding that a smart phone or a desktop computer is or is not an e-reading device, or deciding that e-books sold by Amazon don't count--how one chooses to define the "e-reading market" or the "e-book market,"in other words--can drastically affect perceptions of how a company is doing. And just like there are various pollsters who make money telling presidential candidates exactly what they want to hear, companies that report data are serving a market that rarely consists of disinterested observers.

Branding confusion

Dean Wesley Smith once did a post on pen names where he made up a list of reason to use one.

On the list was:

-Your Real Name Is Stephen King

Let me think… Oh, yeah, write under a pen name. That name is taken.

If your real name is Stephen King, Smith's advice may strike you as unfair. Stephen King is YOUR name, after all, and maybe you're like me and Stephen has been a traditional name in your family for centuries--centuries!--and who is the dopey little horror writer to come along and make it so you can't even use your own damned name!!!

But none of that matters, because if you write under the name of Stephen King, you will quickly discover that there are only two kinds of people willing to talk about your book. The first kind are the people who bought your books expecting a Stephen King horror novel, who are going to be very upset that your book is not that. The second kind are the people who figure out before they buy your book that you are not the Stephen King they were expecting, and they will assume that you are some kind of horrible scam artist who is trying to take advantage of fans of the horror writer.

The same thing applies to titles. I recently saw a book--well, let's pretend that the book was a murder mystery set in the fashion world, and the title of the book was Murder in Vogue.

Why would you do this to yourself? If you're really unlucky, Vogue is going to sic their lawyers on you. If you are slightly less unlucky, you are going to find that there are a lot of readers who either, 1. buy your book thinking it has something to do with Vogue magazine and get really pissed off when they realize it doesn't, or 2. realize by looking at your non-Richard-Avedon cover that your book has nothing to do with Vogue magazine, and take a pass on it because they think you're sleazy.

(Yes, I realize Madonna released a song called "Vogue" and did just fine, but at the time she was one of the most popular singers on the planet. She had her own brand, which was extremely strong, strong enough to basically eclipse the Vogue brand. She wasn't some unknown.)

Instead, you could have brainstormed a little more and given your book another, equally snappy title, like, say, Dead Is the New Black. You could have titled the series the Fashion Avenue Mysteries, and behold, you are building an independent brand with a life of its own! (And yes, there's another Dead Is the New Black out there, but it hasn't been around for over a century the way Vogue magazine has.)

I realize there's this desire to piggyback onto something--hence the many [Random Number] Shades of [Random Color] titles--but nobody takes that kind of book seriously. It's like Shaving Ryan's Privates: It indicates to readers that your book is not meant to be anything lasting or significant.

Or it might indicate to readers that, like Nora A. Roberts, you're a scumball who is seriously trying to mislead them. That sort of thing can really hurt your career--you can change a pen name, but as people have noticed, having your account blackballed by retailers like Amazon is indeed a serious handicap.

Progress report

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving (NO, this was NOT my idea, but I'm cooking for it somehow anyway) took up most of my time today, but I did manage to do some noise removal on the Chap 1 file, followed by some compression, which does make the talking easier to hear. Unfortunately it also makes the breath sounds easier to hear (I had no idea I breathed so loud!), so I'm going to do another round of noise removal later. You know, maybe after post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. (That's a joke. I hope.)

Progress report

Things were pretty quiet today, so I recorded chapter one of Trang and edited it. Editing is actually pretty easy--it's not like I'm doing anything that complicated, so it was pretty straightforward cutting and pasting. (I'm using Audacity for software, BTW.)

Gurus

The other day I was talking about an article about Hugh Howey, and Jim Self mentioned how nice Howey's humility was. And it was nice, because Howey freely cops to not really having anything to do with Wool taking off--it just did, so he did his best to encourage it. It actually kind of annoys him because he put much more effort into promoting his other books, and the one novella he didn't promote got all the love.

The reason that was so nice to read is that there's a lot of advice out there, and sometimes you wind up dealing with people who feel their success means that they know what's best for everybody. And many writers really want that--they want someone with all the answers, who can look at their book and give them some simple plan that will magically guarantee bestsellerdom.

With someone like John Locke, it goes even further, and you get sold a book with a simple plan that will magically guarantee bestsellerdom (although he left out some bits). Or maybe the person wants to sell you some services to enact this simple plan that will magically guarantee bestsellerdom. Or maybe they want you to buy those services from their cousin (who is certainly not kicking back a piece of the action).

And you'd be a fool not to pay for that, right? I mean, after all, this person sold a bazillion copies, and who are you? It's a simple plan, and it magically guarantees bestsellerdom--what's not to like?

I would point out two things:

Thing #1: It has, alas, never been uncommon in the world of publishing for people to realize that there are a lot of folks out there who dream of becoming a bestseling writer, and that all those people sure do have a lot of money floating around in their pockets. The fact that a person may have a legitimate and lucrative business (as an agent, a publisher, or yes, even as a bestselling writer) doesn't mean that they're necessarily inclined to let all that lovely money go.

Thing #2: Nobody can ever EVER EVER predict what books will become bestsellers! NOBODY!!! NOBODY can MAKE a book into a bestseller--EVER. The streets of publishing are littered with the corpses of executives who thought that they could. If God himself appeared in the sky in his fiery glory and said to me, "Mary Sisson, I can guarantee that your next book will be a bestseller," I would laugh and laugh, and then feel really bad that so many people believed in this guy for so long. Overpromising is the mark of a scammer.

The "I sold all these books!" card is actually not all that rare these days. It's really wonderful that so many people have been able to make self-publishing work for them, but if you dig down and try to find the "secret" to their success, you will find:

Some think you should offer free books, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should offer 99-cent books, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should advertise, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should use KDP Select, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should have your book available everywhere, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should be open to traditional-publishing deals, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should do giveaways and prizes, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should use social media, and some think you shouldn't.

Some think you should blog, and some think you shouldn't.

What do they have in common? All those people can point to their copious sales and say, "I'm an expert." It's the story of the blind men and the elephant.

Although it can be hard to remember this, it's actually a very good thing that there are several possible paths to success in self-publishing, instead of just one. It reminds me of the best advice I've ever seen regarding exercise: What is the very best, very healthiest exercise possible, the one that will get you the most fit? The exercise you actually do. If it works on paper and doesn't work for you, it doesn't work.

I mentioned before that I like Lindsay Buroker's approach. But I should also mention that I don't try to be her. Lindsay hires out just about everything. I hire out almost nothing! She likes to focus on her writing, and indeed her success is probably in no small part due to her copious output. I've already spent years experiencing the joys of writing seven fucking days a week, and it makes me happier to finally figure out why none of my mix tapes ever came out right.

With Buroker, 1. if it makes her want to hang herself, she doesn't do it, and 2. she's willing to try different things. I think those two elements are common to the vast majority of writers who have found success self-publishing. The willingness to explore, to find one's own path, to keep experimenting is really crucial.

It's also a lot harder to do than glomming onto someone's simple plan that will magically guarantee bestsellerdom. It's easy to be a child and get led by the hand. It's harder to be an adult.

Progress report, audio geekage edition

I didn't get much sleep last night, and it wasn't raining today (hard rain + metal roof = ambient noise nightmare), so I decided to take a crack at recording with the pop filter. It really does change things, and it took me a couple of readings before I found the best way to handle it.

If, like me, you're totally new to recording audio, it turns out that you have to fiddle a lot with something called input volume. That means the, um, volume of your, er, input--in this case, your microphone.

If you are old and gray like me, you probably made a few mix tapes back in the day. And since people still had a mix of vinyl records, cassette tapes, and CDs, the music for your mix tape came from a bunch of different sources. As a result, when you'd play your mix tape, some songs would be REALLY LOUD and others would be really quiet.

The problem, as I have discovered decades after being repeatedly baffled by this as a teenager, is one of input volume. If your input volume is too loud, you'll blow the ears out of the poor sod who bought your audiobook or downloaded your podcast. If it's too quiet, that poor sod will have to crank up the volume to hear it, and then they'll get their ears blown out when the next thing on their MP3 player comes on.

This is no way to treat a customer.

So, when you record, you set the input volume at a certain level. Well, duh, you're thinking, that sounds really simple. But it's not! The problem is that certain words will max out the volume of your recording even if everything else is normal, a phenomenon known as clipping.

You might think that clipping is caused by shouting, but you can make something clip, and clip mightily, without significantly increasing the volume of your delivery. For example, the first page of Trang contains the following passage:

And instead of a vacation, all he had gotten had been variations of the question, What, exactly--? What, exactly, was the Titan station for? What, exactly, could scientists do there that would ever justify its cost? What, exactly, was its purpose?

Now, with those lines, if you make "What, exactly," sharp--not shouting "WHAT, EXACTLY!!!" because that would be silly, but just using the snippy tone that someone would probably use if they were asking that kind of question--it clips like nobody's business. "What, exactly," becomes "WHat, exactly," and even "W[random distortion that is not at all pleasant to listen to]Hat, exactly."

The issue for me is that I have a quiet little voice and a tendency to mumble--people say things to me like, "Oh, I can understand you now that I've gotten the hang of lip-reading." I'm a little better about it at this point in my life, but still--my voice is soft. So I have to crank up the input volume (I'm assuming this is what the mellow-voiced NPR people do, because you can hear them fine), which means a lot more clipping.

The idea of the pop filter is to reduce the clipping, which it does. It also reduces your input volume--oops! So I had to crank it up to the absolute maximum, which meant that when I did clip, I clipped really badly--distortion noises and everything.

But I didn't clip very often, much less than I did without the filter. And I realized that, with the pop filter, it's actually pretty easy to modify the delivery of lines like "What, exactly," so that they don't clip at all.