D.C. Williams's Blog, page 11

Season of Joy

Anyone who knows me, and probably a lot of my readers, knows that my love of Disney World is surpassed only by my love of Christmas–in the category of relatively frivolous things that make me happy, anyway. So, long story short, I love writing Christmas stories.

I also love writing non-Christmas stories, and my latest is available for pre-order on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Where-Least-Exp...  

Christmas stories always have a very special place in my heart, though, and in addition to the two I already have slated for December, I should have a seasonal Foxgrove set for a Christmas release.

I know I’ve had a lot of books out in a short period of time, but sometimes that’s just how it falls, and after this little orgy, it’ll probably be late spring or early summer before I have anything long coming out. I’m committed to an entry in a boxset (for charity) with a June release, and I’m thinking there might be a couple more shorts, too, but my next novel or long novella is probably going to be deep into next year. I promise, I have some longer fiction in the works. As I come into my literary “voice” I do sometimes think I’m primarily a short story writer (and lucky for me that e-publishing has made them somewhat more marketable), but I have written novels, I know I have more in me, and there are some sizable WIP’s on my computer.

Just as I was going to press, MLR sent me a lovely meme listing presents for MLR readers! Fabulous ones! None of my titles, but some really great books.

And here is the pre order link for Where Least Expected on All Romance  https://www.allromanceebooks.com/prod...

Gay for you, Out for you, and all of the stuff I’ve been very, very busy with.

Anyone who ever reads my blog is probably aware that I write m/m romance (more about that later). One of the more controversial tropes is GFY/OFY, how plausible it might be, whether it’s intrinsically insulting to gay men, etc., etc. Of course I’m not a gay man, but I enjoy the trope when it’s well done–when it’s badly done, it really veers off into lulu land quickly. Now, for me, “Gay for you” is not the same thing as “Out for you”, and I’ve written both (hopefully well).

Closer Than Brothers, which came out in the spring, is “Gay for you”. My MC is a straight man who decides he’s in love with his best friend. Now, there’s straight and then there’s straight. Sexuality is a continuum. Drew, my MC, is a little bit bi. He’s not significantly bi in many ways, but he’s flexible enough that when his heart leads his body is happy to follow. Sex works for him in the right situation, but he’s not usually attracted to men.

I have another story in the same series, Where Least Expected coming out soon, and it’s “Out for you.” I have a character who thinks he’s straight. He’s enjoyed relationships with women, and never been more than casually attracted to men. Then he ends up in bed with another man and the attraction is anything but casual. He’s not straight, but coming out is a process, and heterosexuality can still very much seem like the “default setting” sometimes.

The thing that both of these guys (and any other plausibly GFY/OFY characters) have in common is that they are to at least some extent bisexual. So are a lot of real people. And sometimes life surprises you. So… Yeah, I enjoy GFY. And I might write some more.

Now, for the fun stuff!

I have new books! This one–http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ODE4K6O/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1E82BSJPS2TY4&coliid=I25YKG9PR88IMP is a relatively long Nick and Leon Christmas story. It is very much an inspirational, like the others in this cycle. It is available for pre-order on Amazon, and I have in Select, so it will be borrowable for Kindle Unlimited users.

The original story, http://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Gifts-D-C-Williams-ebook/dp/B00CBZAXA4/ref=la_B00CAQ7MBW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413389817&sr=1-2, is on sale on Amazon for 99 cents, and is also available off Smashwords (and its affiliates, like B&N) for the same price.

And drumroll please, because this is a cover reveal for my new story from MLR and the cover is GORGEOUS! Obviously, it’s a Halloween story, and it’s a little bit different for me, since it’s a paranormal, and an ??? Not giving it away here…

Beautiful, huh?

I’m really happy with it. The folks at MLR always do a nice job with my books, and a shout-out to the incomparable Lex Valentine for the gorgeous cover graphic.

Queen of Bats, Four of Skulls

Queen of Bats, Four of Skulls by persimmondeb featuring home decor

Encounter…

Encounter… by persimmondeb on Polyvore

Copyrights, shares, fanfic, and a couple of other ways the rules work…

As I understand them, anyway. There may some disagreement in the particulars, but most of it should be pretty straightforward.

Once a writer creates something, it is copyright from the moment it takes life upon the page. It does not need to be published, you do not need to register the copyright, and while it’s advisable to do so, you don’t even need to claim copyright on the frontispiece. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It is not copyright free unless you waive copyright (or the copyright is expired, but if you’re breathing, it pretty much isn’t).

Free content is not necessarily copyright free, and for the record NONE of my free content is! Enjoy, but don’t copy or distribute it. It’s illegal, and it will make me cranky. It makes most authors cranky.

I do, when I’m sending out freebies, such as giveaways or ARCs, remind the recipients that the material should not be shared. I feel a little mean about that, but it is one of those behaviors that I think some people don’t realize is wrong, especially if they’re sharing with friends. Most people are going to realize uploading to a share site is unethical, especially if it’s not permanently free content, and if you don’t know it’s illegal to charge for someone else’s work there is something very wrong.

It’s also, for the most part, illegal to adapt someone else’s copyright work. Changing names, locations, and particulars is not sufficient. It seems obvious, but I think there are people who don’t realize that’s not a legal standard of substantively different work. And it’s being free, or unpublished, or several years old, or anything else, does not change that.

There are gray areas, and those gray areas can keep the courts very busy. Writers are magpies, and we pick up ideas in all kinds of places. Reading a book in which a character kisses a statue, and mentally telling yourself, “No! That’s not what happens when you kiss a statue, and that explanation makes no sense, and…” and writing a completely different story from that point is not plagiarism. There are only so many core tropes, and how different writers handle them is one of the joys of reading. Professionals, by the way, do police themselves against doing things like accidentally repeating phrases that were in something they read recently, or in a research book.

Writing someone else’s characters is one of those other things that can be confusing. I don’t personally really get the point of writing fanfic, and I don’t usually read it, but I don’t normally think of it as plagiarism in a hobby context. Writing someone else’s characters in a commercial work without permission is a copyright violation, despite some “interesting” claims of public domain. Hobby work is a little different, although some writers hate it, and I do think fans have an obligation to respect an author’s wishes in this regard.

I can’t imagine why anyone would want to, but personally, I have no objection to respectful hobby fic based on my characters. If you write Nick and Leon as Satanists, we will have a problem. And this relaxed attitude is ONLY towards non-commercial work, which is a different kettle of fish on many levels.

Reviews, puppets, stars, and silly behavior from theoretical adults.

My blog posts tend to be rather Goodreads centered, because that is quite frankly the ONLY place anyone ever pays attention to my blog. I read a lot. I rate a lot of books on Goodreads, and occasionally on Amazon, and I sometimes review.

I have marked 1074 books as read on Goodreads. I gave five stars to 87 of them. That’s less than ten percent. Most of those five stars are books by well-established favorite authors–U.K. LeGuin, Tanya Huff, Amy Lane, etc.  A couple are childhood favorites, or well-regarded classics, like “Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters”. There are a handful of recently read books by new-to-me authors that blew me out of the water, but there aren’t many.

I am, by the way, not a particularly tough reviewer. My average is 3.46, which is probably pretty well…average. For comparison, my own books are currently averaging 3.38, which I think is also pretty average for a mid-list writer with a small following.

There are, however, a number of writers, using the term loosely, who seem to obsessed with star ratings. So fixated on them that they resort to all kinds of questionable behavior in their pursuit of five-star ratings.

I should point out that when I encounter a book by an author I’m not familiar with, and that book has fifty-seven five star ratings, all from people who are not on my friends list, the first thought that goes through my head is NOT “oh that must be a really good book, look at all the five stars!”

Usually my first thought, because I’m not all that cynical, is “Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there?” If I take more than a glancing look at those reviews attached to the five star rating, and multiple reviewers are praising the author’s cleverness at tying in another work, or declaring their impatience to read the next installment, I start to become cynical and suspicious, because these are things that real reviewers seldom comment on.

What on earth is the point? Saying something is good does not make it so. Most of the books I encounter with the odd reviews are not particularly good. Some of them are mediocre, some of them are frankly awful, and a few have some promise but are often flawed. Plus, I’m kind of pissed off now, and I’m more inclined than most to judge a book solely on its own qualities, rather than those of its creator.

Please, let your book stand or fall on its own merits, not the ones you perceive it as being imbued with. Put some of that creative effort into improving your written work, not irritating readers and indulging in questionable behavior.

 

The trouble with Fiverr, or ethical questions and the marketplace

Many Goodreads users are familiar with Fiverr. For the uninitiated, it is a website where you may purchase reviews of books or products, or blog follows, twitter likes, etc.  This probably doesn’t need to be said, but not only are purchased reviews of books widely held to be unethical, they are also a violation of FTC rules, at least unless disclosed.

Because of this, it had never occurred to me to go on Fiverr, since I had no interest in buying or selling reviews. Then I made a surprising discovery.  There are perfectly respectable services on offer on the website.  Obviously, buyers should exercise caution. Possibly a lot of caution, since I found this out when someone on another site ordered a cover graphic, and received a handsome one with a photograph that was an obvious copyright violation.

However, a quick look revealed a marketplace for services I might offer, such as editing, and ones I might purchase, such as Smashwords formatting, which I’m rather notoriously challenged with.

Now, the same menus that offer these legitimate and potentially useful services offer the same ones that have given this particular website a somewhat unsavory reputation.

That leads to an  interesting ethical question. Is it defensible to use the marketplace for legitimate services? I’m a believer in avoiding the appearance, as well as the substance, of impropriety. I’m also not particularly excited by the prospect of supporting a business that cheerfully flouts generally accepted ethical standards.

But…

Many people purchase legitimate goods and services off of Craigslist all the time. It’s a huge marketplace, and it’s become a household name. Scams aside, there are also frankly illegal services available off of Craigslist.

Unlike purchasing reviews, which is one of those things that many people may not realize is illegal, there are very, very few folks out there who don’t know that purchasing sexual favors and services is. Some of them may believe that transactive sex is not immoral if between consenting adults, but some percentage of the women (and probably at least a few of the men) offering this type of service on Craigslist are coerced or trafficked, and it would be almost impossible to sort them out from the truly voluntary.

I think it very unlikely that any of the people offering reviews for a price on Fiverr are under duress, even if most believe it unethical.

So is there a moral difference between using Craigslist and using Fiverr? Craigslist offers more separation between illegal services and legitimate ones. Does that change the equation at all?

Should both marketplaces be avoided as tainted by the illegal services on offer?

Is is morally defensible to use either marketplace for legitimate services?

Just throwing these ideas out there. I haven’t made my mind up either way, but I haven’t purchased Smashwords formatting off of Fiverr either.

Branding, and some other thoughts.

By the way, I do mean “creating a brand” not “permanently marking with a hot iron”, although there are certain similarities. Writers, particularly those with multiple books and any kind of following, are brands. Some of them seem to be created almost accidentally, some are kind of organic, and some of them are carefully created.

My public persona, by the way, is little different from my private one. Maybe a little more “turned-up”, probably neater, but essentially the same. So yes, I really am a modestly dressed liberal Christian who thinks diversity is very much a part of God’s plan. And yes, there are some very, very strange things in my head that just pop out and demand to be presented upon the page. I am also mellow about reviews, love reader interaction, and am probably occasionally a little too friendly for some readers, although I do try to be very careful about boundaries because I know everyone is different. Anyway, I’m strange, but what you see is what you get, and most people who know me well aren’t that surprised by what I write. Those who don’t know me well are often a little taken aback because I look too wholesome to write about sex, but that’s a somewhat separate issue.

This isn’t always so. One of the funny things about authors is that there is often a disconnect between the person and the product on the page. Some really unpleasant people seem to have wonderful things in their heads. I have no earthly idea why it works that way sometimes.

However, I do think that authors should be mindful of their brands, as well as respectful of their readers. There may be those who deliberately cultivate a reputation for abrasiveness or outrageousness, or some other variant of what is generally considered bad behavior, but in the end, a reader is a consumer, and they can take their business elsewhere.

Marketing is everything

According to some indie authors, it’s the only thing. If you have a “good” marketing strategy, you’ll sell lots of books.  Not only does this philosophy lead to some strange behavior, some of it is counter-productive, in violation of various media sites’ TOS, or just contrary to common sense.  Even a sound marketing strategy, with a couple of ads, and a significant but not intrusive media presence won’t do you any good unless… Drumroll, please.

You write a good book.  It doesn’t have to be War and Peace, but it should match reader expectations.  It should be free of significant spelling and grammatical errors.  It should conform to genre expectations in some degree.  It should tell a story in a straightforward fashion without awkward POV switches, plot holes, random characters, or any of the other ills that fiction can be subject to.

There are people for whom writing a good book is almost instinctive, and a somewhat larger number who will never be able to write a decent one unless they hire a ghost.  There are also quite a few people who have the germ of a good book, or at least a not terrible one, but seem to have been investing their energy in almost anything besides working on their craft.

Write the best book you can.  Send it out to your beta readers.  Work on it some more.  Send it to the betas again.  Have it professionally edited (and pick your editor with care, because there are frauds out there).  Then, publish it.

Or, and here’s a novel thought, submit it to a publisher.  There are many, many misconceptions about publishers and I’m not going to address all of them, but here are a couple that I run into constantly.  I am amazed by how many people believe that it is standard practice for an author to pay a publisher.  It is not.  Presses that charge writers to publish are vanity publishers.  There are a handful that are honest about what they are, and are reasonably reputable, and far more who masquerade as selective publishers, and are frankly scams.

You don’t pay agents up front either.  Like your publisher, they are paid out of your book sales.  And in many cases, you don’t need an agent.  Many, many reputable smaller and e-publishers take unsolicited manuscripts.  All publishers are out to make money, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t receptive to new talent, and small publishers are often more writer-friendly than the big guys, if less generous with advances.

There are many valid reasons to choose self-publishing, but it is not necessarily the best choice for many writers.  Personally, I choose a combo of self and traditional, because sometimes I need to write things that don’t fit anyone’s idea of “marketable” and I want that voice to be heard, but I’m also intent on this as a career, and the professional advantage that the traditional publisher gives me is invaluable.  There’s no question this approach lets my less quirky stuff enjoy a broader audience, and I make much more money off it than I do off the self-pubs, even with the lower percentage of profits.

Most writers I know of, and all that I know personally. who make real money off their books are at least partly traditionally published. There are a handful of indies, some of them extremely talented, who have been very, very successful, but I think it’s a harder row to hoe. Personally, I’m a writer, not a PR person, a cover designer, a copy editor, a formatter, or a proofreader.  However many of those hats you wish to wear, if you are an author, you must be a writer first, not as an afterthought.

Yay! Closer than Brothers is here!

My newest book, Closer than Brothers, was released by MLR press on Friday.  Words can’t express how excited I am.  This is my second professionally published work, and if anything it seems even more momentous than the first.

One is a big milestone, but two starts to seem like a career.  I suspect it won’t start paying like a career until I’m closer to book twenty, but we’ll see how it goes.  You never know, but I’m planning for there to be a book twenty.  I am in this for the long haul.

Getting back to my new book, it does signify a bunch of firsts for me.  It’s my first “GFY”–gay for you, for those not in the know.  It’s also much lighter than most of my work, has younger characters, and is not religious at all.  It was a lot of fun to write, and I’m hoping to revisit my guys, Drew and Jeff, sometime in the next year or two.

Aren’t they adorable?  It’s such a cute cover, and great for the summer.

For those looking for it, you can find Closer Than Brothers on Amazon and at many other fine e-tailers.

Closer Than Brothers