P.J. Fox's Blog, page 21

Keywords: What You’re Doing Wrong

This is a simple point, but a powerful one: your keywords aren’t about you.  They’re not about how you think or, especially, what you think.  Not about your own book.  Occasionally, other authors ask me for help in shelving their books on Amazon and in, subsequently, generating keywords.  The first question I ask is, put yourself in a prospective reader’s shoes: what would you be looking for, that would lead you to this book?  And invariably they answer me, not by actually answering the question but by telling me, “well this is what I think about my book.”

And that’s great.  And it’s valuable.  Especially later on, when you’re called on to have cogent opinions in things like interviews.  But for right now, it’s irrelevant.  Because how you approach your own book, however well you understand that issue, isn’t going to help you get inside the mind of your (hopeful) reader.  Quite the opposite.  First and foremost, because you’re coming from a place of knowledge.

I, for example, might think of The Prince’s Slave as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast but I’m trying to reach people who haven’t heard of it, or me.  They won’t be searching for “Beauty and the Beast.”  They’ll probably be searching for BDSM erotica or maybe adult fairy tales–both of which are categories on Amazon.  Which brings me to another issue, that people often have with keywords and that causes them to miss out on the tool’s full potential: that Amazon further shelves your books on the basis of what keywords you use.  Shelving isn’t just about categories.

So here there are two problems:

Your keywords aren’t helping anyone find your book, because they’re too specific to your own interpretation of what it’s about, and,
You’re not doing your research about what sub-categories you might want to be shelved in.

The keywords for The Prince’s Slave are: prince, BDSM, billionaire, fairy tales, suspense, romance, thriller.  These are both descriptive, and accurate, as well as cued toward certain sub-categories.  In my case I wanted to be shelved in the erotica sub-categories of BDSM, fantasy (because it’s a modern fairy tale), romantic erotica (because feelings are a big component of this story), suspense, and thrillers.  The last two because it is also a thriller, and hopefully a suspenseful one.  This isn’t just a book with a lot of sex; it has a plot, and that plot is very dark.

Other keywords I could have used, ranging from sex slave to arranged marriage, might have been accurate but are too narrowly descriptive to be helpful.  They refer, not to the type of book but to my interpretation of what that book is about.  Thus also relying, in terms of usefulness, on others sharing said interpretation–or scrolling through the Amazon store late at night, bored and looking for something to read, and wanting exactly that specific thing.  Which is…pretty unlikely.

Yes, lightning can strike, but it’s easier when you hedge your bets.

Amazon provides a number of useful lists, sub-category hacks if you will, which you can use as inspiration.  Here is Amazon’s page for erotica keywords.  These pages are also helpful to use as a tool in familiarizing yourself with the different sub-categories available to your genre.  Which is going to be especially useful if and when you do decide to run that free promotion.  The greater the number of (appropriate, wholly relevant) sub-categories you’re in, the higher your chances of your free promotion getting you to the point where you rank in those categories and, thus, more people find your book.  Now, your particular book may only fit into one or two categories or it may fit into five.  The specific number isn’t so much important, as is fully utilizing the maximum exposure available to you.

Keywords, when done right, can be really helpful.  If your book isn’t selling, and you’ve ruled out other problems, it might be your keywords.  Understanding what their purpose actually is, and then focusing meaningfully on that purpose, is the name of the game.

Any questions?

So Instead of Writing I’m…

IKEA.  That’s all I have to say about that.  Except not really.  We’re (finally) redoing our kitchen–small fixes ultimately only fix so much–as well as redecorating a couple of rooms.  Right now, our downstairs pretty much has no furniture.  Which is really confusing to the younger (and non-humanoid) members of the family.  My son keeps asking where the dining room table went.

Since we’re doing it all ourselves, and we both have a great deal of DIY experience, I’m confident that we can get the bulk of this done this week.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I’m really enjoying this break.  Everyone needs one, once in awhile.

And yes, compared to writing and all that that profession entails, this really is a break!

What does everyone else have going on?

Scarcity Versus Abundance

An excerpt from Self Publishing Is For Losers: “You need to reject [the scarcity] mentality. This mentality will prevent you from succeeding. Instead of seeing other writers as colleagues and sources of support, you’ll see them as competition. Instead of being generous with your wisdom, you’ll guard it jealously in the fear that helping someone else will only help them to surpass you. And in so doing, you’ll isolate yourself. You can’t succeed, if you’re closing yourself in like this. So instead you need to adopt the abundance mentality. The abundance mentality is a worldview, which accepts that there’s more than enough success to go around. That by sharing of yourself—your wisdom, your time, and indeed your writing—you’re giving success to the world. Success that you’ll one day earn back, in spades. Whereas the scarcity mentality looks at success as something you take, the abundance mentality looks at success as something you give. You are in charge of your own success. Remember that, because it’s true. Giving away free books, or sharing your wisdom about writing, or the publishing process, isn’t going to limit your success because you are in charge of your own success. Your success flows from you. From your attitude. From your choices. And when you realize this, you’ll realize too that sharing yourself with the world doesn’t limit you. In fact, quite the opposite: it opens doors to all kinds of new and exciting creative possibilities.”

How To (Not) Market Your Book

Here’s a start: don’t leave reviews on other authors’ books, authors with whom you presumably feel competitive, telling people you didn’t enjoy reading their book (i.e. others won’t, either).  Success, in any field, isn’t about a lack of competition.  Trying to make the competition look bad isn’t going to help.  They might not read my book, because a different author told them that reading it “wasn’t a pleasant experience,” but neither has anyone succeeded in winnowing down the field.  There are a lot of great books out there, by a lot of great authors; but I’ve always lived by the phrase, I’m too busy working on my own grass to notice if yours is greener.

Guys, this is a dick move.  Don’t do it.  Whatever your inner monologue, or your feelings about another author’s work, stay classy.  Treat other people how you would want to be treated.  If you wouldn’t want a fellow author trying to steer people away from your book, then don’t do the same to them.  Like I point out in Self Publishing Is For Losers, the scarcity mentality is dangerous–to our careers as writers but, ultimately, to our integrity as human beings.  There is enough success to go around.  By supporting each other, we can only help each other.  And anyone who views another person’s success as a diminishment of their own has larger problems than sales rank.

Questions About The Prince’s Slave?

The Prince’s Slave was released this week, all three volumes.  The first volume is free for its last day, today.  As I explained in the “from the author” section on Amazon, “this tale, which is divided into three parts, began as a novella: A Thousand And One Nights, which told the tale of how Belle embarked on a dark and dangerous path.  And which hinted at more. But as the author, guesswork wasn’t enough.  I wanted to know: what happened next?  How did Belle evolve?  What happened when she, the reluctant princess, finally gave into her prince? Into the midnight-dark passions he awoke within her?”

And thus a book was born.  A long book, which turned into a trilogy.  But one that, I think, fans will like.

So my question is, do you have any questions?  About any aspect of the story, or its production?  About anything else?  This blog works, because I get feedback!

Free: What’s In It For Me?

By downloading the first installment in The Prince’s Slave, free today on Kindle, you are:

Helping me gain exposure.  Free books are ranked just like their non-free counterparts.  A high ranking means that more people will be aware of my book, and of me as an author.  People who otherwise never would have known that it–or I–existed.
Helping me gain reviews.  Whether a book is free, or costs three dollars or ten, people are much more likely to give it a chance if it already has some (hopefully positive) reviews.  And while you can’t control the reviewing process, save by writing a good book and hoping that people will like it, you can hedge your bets about actually getting reviews, of any kind, by making your book more accessible.  So when you download my book, and then maybe tell other people about it, and they download my book, or they see my ranking and download my book, each time you’re upping the odds that someone–not necessarily you but someone–will review it.
Potentially buying the next book in the series.   The Prince’s Slave is divided into three parts.  I don’t want anyone buying my books who doesn’t want to read them.  That leads to disappointment for you and bad reviews for me.  Rather, I want you to feel like you’re getting good value for your dollar–like I do, when I go shopping.
Potentially giving one of my other books, or series, a shot.
Helping me to understand my readership, and to gauge interest in–my contribution to–this genre.  There are some books, I’ve discovered, that you just can’t give away.  Literally.   I Look Like This Because I’m A Writer is by far my worst-selling book, having sold maybe a hundred copies total to the thousands I’ve sold of The Demon of Darkling Reach .  The last time I made TDODR free, I parted with almost 600 copies in the first hour.   ILLT , on the other hand…I’ve learned, among other things, that I should devote my writing energy to more romance, paranormal, historical, and otherwise than to nonfiction memoirs of the craft.  At least right now.  Which, again, has been useful.

So there you have it, folks.  Don’t feel guilty!  Help a girl out, and download.

The Prince’s Slave is OUT!

All three volumes of The Prince’s Slave are out.

This is a modern day erotic–and suspenseful–retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a single (long) story divided up into three parts: Captive In His Castle, Bound In His Bed, and, third, Collared In His Care.  I decided to wait, and release them all together rather than one at a time, so there wouldn’t be the same delayed gratification issues as with The Black Prince.  And while The Prince’s Slave is set in modern day, it, too, has an element of the fantastical–and, too, is something I think fans will really enjoy, while waiting for The Black Prince to arrive.  Which is, of course, what I’m working on now.

The blurb for the first part, Captive In His Castle, reads as follows:

Shy, reclusive exchange student Belle Wainwright doesn’t know that her world is about to change.

Talked into a night out against her better judgment, she finds herself in an exclusive club where she knows no one. And finds herself the target of slavers whose purpose is to satisfy those men—and women—whose tastes have grown too dark for the modern world. Whose needs cannot be met by normal means. Who love…but on their own terms.

Abandoned by her friends, she’s simultaneously rescued and captured by a man who is at once a hero and a figure from nightmare. A dark prince who hints, enigmatically, at his own even darker needs. Who describes himself as a man with no soul. But who is, nonetheless, beautiful and brilliant. And whom Belle finds captivating, even though she knows she shouldn’t….

This book is intended for mature audiences.

Paranoia

At some point in the near future, I’m releasing both Paranoia and The Assassin (both available currently as part of I, Demon) as stand alone shorts.

In the following, which is the afterword I wrote for Paranoia, I explain more:

This short story also appears in the compilation I, Demon but what some readers might not know is that it’s also taken from the first manuscript I ever completed. In a modified—and highly edited—form, of course. My first few manuscripts weren’t very good, which is why they’ve never been published. Even though I could go back and publish them now, they’re more a testament to effort than anything worth reading.

I look back on them and feel nostalgic or, sometimes, I cringe. Or sometimes I do both.

To recall high school as an unpleasant experience would be…an understatement. I was Ned. And, in creating Ned’s character, and the dilemma in which he finds himself, I was attempting to access those feelings with which I still wrestled. I was nineteen when I finished the first draft of Paranoia. I subsequently rewrote that draft, and edited it, and edited it again, and ultimately even wrote a sequel. Again, none of which was very good.

When I decided to publish a compilation, I found myself reviewing some of my older stories. And there, waiting for me, was Ned. Ned, the alter ago of my teenage years, filled with an anger that I no longer related to but that, in my adulthood, I much more fully understood.

I decided that his time had come.

Winnowing down 85,000 words into 10,000 wasn’t that difficult. A testament to how far I’ve come as a writer—or, if you prefer, to just how bad the original manuscript was. Somewhere during the two million words I’ve written since, I’ve learned how to say more with less. A statement that certain readers of The Demon of Darkling Reach may find hard to credit. But I realized, in rereading those long ago words, that the essence of what I wanted to convey lay, in totum, in a very small section.

I edited that section, winnowing it down even further, as I also expanded on it. As I, with adult eyes, reviewed the thoughts of my childhood. No one believes me was a common feature of life, back then. People tend to, as Ned observes, see what they want to see. That a child is being abused, or neglected, is a truth most would rather ignore.

Sadly, this seems to be the case with most uncomfortable truths.

At the time, I didn’t know if anyone would ever believe me. I couldn’t conceive of a life where that didn’t matter; where I wasn’t beholden to adults, to protect me. Where I was the adult, and could protect myself—because I, finally, had the freedom to act according to my own conscience.

And although Ned’s anger is something to which I no longer relate, his frustration at injustice still feels very immediate. Tempered with my adult’s understanding that things do get better is my empathy for children, and teenagers, everywhere who suffer at the hands of an uncaring world. Who are forced, by circumstances, to rely on others—others who prioritize their own concerns, like what if speaking up makes me unpopular, over doing their duty to their fellow man.

This story, I realized, meant a lot to me. Which was what motivated my subsequent decision to, after the release of I, Demon, release it as a stand-alone work. It’s both a good story and, on a personal level, a testament to how far I’ve come. Both personally and professionally.

In I, Demon, I introduce it with a quote: “being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant; it tends to get worse.” I thought about using another quote as well, one with which most of the world is familiar: curiosity killed the cat. Because, you see, as much as we recite the first half of the couplet we tend to forget the second. Which tells us that satisfaction brought him back. The only cure for Ned’s paranoia is, in the end, to face it head on.

Ned faces Peter and he wins, not because he defeats Peter—the ultimate result of that confrontation is, to some extent, left to the reader’s imagination—but because he defeats his own fear. His paranoia grows worse and worse, ultimately becoming crippling; until he fights back. His birth, as it were, is a terrible one but it allows him to release a burden. And, in so doing, find his true self.

Which, I like to believe, we’re all still doing. At least on some level. Perhaps not as dramatically as Ned, at least not outwardly. But is any birth, or rebirth, less traumatic?

Mary Sue, Is That You?

The unlikable heroine, whom the hero inexplicably worships: Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue, in modern terms, is a character trope who represents wish fulfillment.  A number of critics have speculated that she’s nothing more than a proxy for the author, her (or him) self.  An otherwise unremarkable person who wins the romantic lottery.  And it is a lottery, in this conception: surely, detractors reason, there’s nothing she (or he) could do to actually earn her happy ending.  Which is where the wish fulfillment aspect comes in: we authors, or so the logic goes, are imagining a world wherein people like us succeed.

Except…what if we have?

The magic of love is that everyone’s a Mary Sue.  The world is full of couples who cause the rest of us to scratch our heads and wonder, thinking “I don’t get it.”  What “it” is that makes one person so incredible to another.  Because the truth is, the song is right: one man’s ceiling really is another man’s floor.  One man’s dream is another man’s Mary Sue.  One woman’s Christian Grey is another woman’s (or man’s) Gaston.  What makes each of us lovable, incredible, isn’t some objective set of–largely unattainable–qualities but the fact that we are each of us.  That we’re all unique.

When you love someone, you think they’re wonderful.  Perfect.  Even if you know, objectively, that they’re not.  My husband, for example, might not be perfect–and I know this, in an abstract sense, because no one is–but he’s perfect for me.  It’s been awhile now, and I still wake up every morning feeling like I’ve won the lottery.  Because I get to be married to the person who is, to me, my best friend and the best man in the world.  The funniest man, the smartest man, the most interesting man and certainly the most handsome.

My admiration of these qualities–particularly the last–has only grown as we’ve both gotten older and fatter.  And more boring.  You have to really love someone to see them covered in infant poop and think, that is the sexiest person in the world.  And mean it.

That’s love.  Love is, indeed, a many-splendored thing.  Those of us who write romance don’t usually include diaper explosions as a theme because a good book is supposed to be escapist.  At least in this genre.  So I might swap out a more interesting locale for the suburban subdivision I live in, or give my characters more interesting occupations but, at the end of the day, the feelings are the same.  As are the motivations.  As is the mystery.

Why anyone loves anyone, and stays in love…there’s some magic there.  Yes, love takes hard work.  But in this case, it’s hard work that makes the magic happen.  Because hard work, to borrow a phrase from the legal world, is necessary but not sufficient.

That the most wonderful person in the world can look at you and think you are the most wonderful person in the world isn’t wish fulfillment.  It’s reality.  It’s how love works.  In the mirror, we’re all Mary Sues.  While the object of our affection is Elsa.  Anna.  The Beast.  Christian Grey.  Whoever.  Take Christian Grey, for a minute: he’s an overgrown man-child with the maturity of a carrot.  And yet Ana thinks he’s the most wonderful person in the world.

Which is probably not dissimilar from how you feel about your friends’ husbands–and your friends’ sanity, on occasion.  Sure, sometimes we pick people for the wrong reasons (like money).  But sometimes, those “reasons” are merely conjecture on the part of people who can’t understand why anyone would marry that person.  Substitute “diesel mechanic” for “inexplicable millionaire” and suddenly this narrative makes a lot more sense.

Because, you know, there’s another term in literature: unreliable narrator.  How a book’s narrator sees the world doesn’t always exactly mesh with how the world actually is–and that’s the point.  A narrator’s viewpoint is, of necessity, personal: you are seeing the world through this person’s eyes.  And, like all (real) people, the narrator’s perceptions are going to be compromised in certain areas.  Or, indeed, like in Lolita completely compromised in every area.

We’re the narrators of our own lives; hearing a person retell a story isn’t the same as watching the events in that story on videotape.  Meaning that, from the point of view of the person falling in love, the love object is always going to be wonderful.  You, in the story, are experiencing the process of falling in love from the inside.  This isn’t meant to be a news report but an emotional exploration.

And many, if not most of us really do see ourselves as Mary Sues.  I know I do.  I’m always surprised when someone compliments me, or thinks well of me in any respect.  My self esteem might be especially abysmal, true, but the impulse isn’t alien to any of us.  Unless of course we’re narcissists, and that’s a different post altogether.  My awe that someone as wonderful as my husband loves me is real.  Maybe because I’m so self loathing but mostly because I really do think he’s wonderful.

Are all love stories the same?  No, of course not.  But neither is “Mary Sue meets Mr. Right” unrealistic.

There’s something to unpack, here, in terms of feminism.  Mostly, the validity of this trope is dismissed as the Mary Sue in question supposedly has “nothing to offer.”  As in, she’s not Stephen Hawking in the body of Kate Upton while simultaneously setting the corporate world on fire.  Which…are we really saying that only women who don’t exist are worthy of love?  That no intelligent, accomplished man could possibly want a normal woman?

How about we get behind the idea that typical, everyday women are in fact awesome?

My husband didn’t marry me for my boobs, my education, or my wallet.  I’ve never been a supermodel, I was still in the process of getting my education (and my life together) when we met, and I’ve never been rich.  He, rather, married me for the same reason that I imagine most people marry their spouses: he loved me for me.

As the author, I have to ask myself, what makes my characters lovable?  Unlovable?  What are the potential roadblocks to a relationship?  What could these people see in each other, and why do they–whether they realize it or not–need each other?  The real answer to those questions never lies in wallets or bulging biceps but, rather, in who these people actually are.  As people.  Their values, and how they live those values.  Their strengths and, in turn, their flaws.  That’s what lasts.  That’s what’s real.

A love story isn’t an essay on why everyone should love a particular person.  Its purpose isn’t to convince the world to share the protagonist’s feelings.  But, rather, to share something personal.  Something that, for both writer and reader, comes from a real place.

Because that’s what the best love is: real.

It’s A Job

Awhile ago, I had an exceedingly vexing conversation with someone who heard that I was a writer, told me about his writing-related dreams, and then asked what my secret was.

“I get up, take a shower, and write for eight hours,” I said.

“Wow, you treat this like a job,” he said.

To which….

Yes.  Why yes, I do.  Because it is one.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: there is nothing wrong with writing for a hobby.  Playing for the love of the game, as it were, is entirely legitimate.  But you can’t, at the same time, treat something like a hobby and expect it to perform like a job.  No one can entirely control their destinies, and things like book sales will always be out of your–and my, and everyone’s–control but success by the same token isn’t miraculous.  If you want lightning to strike, then you have to be in position for it to happen.  Plenty of people write all day every day and never sell a single book.  But I can guarantee you that of those people who do sell books, and who do make a living writing, they all treat it like a job.

The legal term is necessary but not sufficient.  Putting in the hours isn’t a guarantee of anything but, at the same time, not putting in the hours is.  Of failure.

I have a new book coming out soon and I’m nervous about it.  I know people are waiting for The Black Prince and this is a departure for me: both because there’s a whole lot of sex, and because it’s set in the modern day.  Of course, a narrator’s perspective is her (or his) own, and that’s another challenge–when we’re talking about this world, the world with which we’re all to some extent familiar, it’s far more obvious when the narrator has a specific perspective.  Will people like that perspective, I wonder?

I got a fantastic screed on Goodreads, wherein a disappointed reader railed against The Demon of Darkling Reach for being too feminist; God only knows what people will say about The Prince’s Slave, in the opposite direction.  Do I believe that, despite the sex and the, ah, bulging…wallets, that The Prince’s Slave has redeeming literary merit?  I do.  Absolutely.  I think this is an important story, I believe in how I’ve chosen to tell it and I stand behind it 100%.  But my own endorsement isn’t a guarantee of anyone else’s agreement.

And that’s the hard part: you can really love a book, and everyone else can still hate it.

Which is why, even if it is a job, you still have to play for the love of the game.