Here's an extremely trivial problem...

Back when LiveJournal was popular, people used to read this blog. The height of LJ's success paralleled my "career"—that is, I was home, in front of my computer all the time, cranking out term papers and other scutwork, and trying to write stories and the occasional novel. So I was able to "feed the Web" as we used to say in the 1990s. My day job started in mid-2008, about the time Facebook came roaring past MySpace (which I rarely ever used; too ugly!) to become the dominant social media platform. Which was fine, as I had less time to post four or five "Hey, look at this dumb picture/news story" type LJ posts anyway. Facebook was better for that sort of thing, once one learns whom to hide from.

But years of this journal being popular meant that "editors" decided to take me seriously. By editors, I mean people trying to launch online magazines or fill small press anthologies. I've been in my first issues of now defunct webzines than someone like me should be, but only because I'd link to the site—yay, readers!—when I was published, and because I was easy to reach and have a knack for making deadlines. Some of the "editors" may have even thought I was good. Whatever, money was money.

Then in 2008, Lovecraft Unbound came out, and my story in it "That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable" confused lots of people who weren't used to that kind of thing in their Lovecraftian fiction. I also did an interview in which someone asked me about being a Lovecraftian writer and I said I didn't think I was one because I never got solicited for Lovecraftian anthologies, was never invited to attend Lovecraftian events as a guest, etc etc. Naturally, the solicitations and invitations started trickling in after that.

Also, my day job kept me busy, but it also pays well enough that I didn't have to hunt for scutwork anymore. So I became a far more productive novelist, thanks to having free evenings. Not productive in the genre sense of shitting out three novels a year and having two ongoing series and then doing work-for-hit as well or keeping a pseudonym or two active or throwing five books a year on Kindle, but reasonably prolific for the sort of writer I am. That is, the writer nobody reads. So, none of my novels make anyone any money, but people like me my work this blog me enough to give me a chance or two. We also entered a golden moment of anthology production in the last few years. Indeed, probably the only major anthology not to make money in this era was my own Haunted Legends. (Also, that was the only time I acquiesced to being published by a Big Six publisher. So much for the bigger-is-better theory.)

Of course, this all happens as everyone decides that "platform" and "brand" are important for a writer, and when the main tentpole of my "platform", this blog, stops attracting so many readers. The venue was collapsing and the content became much less interesting once I could only occasionally manage to write something good.

My A material, that went to Twitter. See?

Both #sfwa "rabid weasels" and "insect army" are getting T-shirts. This happens when you don't call people "Hefty bags full of shit."

— Nick Mamatas (@NMamatas) February 18, 2014

Did I say A material? Well, my C- material. (The A material ended up in Starve Better. I remember Jason from Apex asking me to blurb something and I gave my usual warning that blurbs in general don't sell books and that my name in particular never ever sells books and he said, "Then why did you sell me your writing book!" But in the end SB made a few bucks, I think.)

So anyway, what I ended up with is a lot more to promote—nine or so anthology appearances per year, plus sometimes a book and sometimes three or four books, plus my dayjob stuff. Much less time to talk about the situation in Ukraine for example, which is more complex than either the riot porn aficionados and anti-fash groups will have you believe. (Fascists in favor of the EU? Hmmm. Of course, once the US decides to back the Right Sector, the non-fascist elements will be marginalized; America always loves a strongman...) And more need to do tedious shit like tell you to take my writing class! etc.

This all came to a head last year when, baby on the way, I agreed to take part in a pair of Kickstarted anthologies. Both of which were very similar in a few ways: they failed (ha-ha!), there was a 'content' guy and a 'marketing' guy involved, there was no real reason for the book to exist other than someone thinking that if all those other books can get $30,000 after asking for $10,000 I can too, and the writers solicited were inexplicable.

Or, to put it another way, no matter how cosmopolitan a reader you are, there is no way you can think that I am a good writer and that Mike Resnick or Kevin J. Anderson are also good writers. You either think I am a good writer and they're just popular, or that they're good writers and I have a blog people read.

Well, I don't, suckers. Outside of the occasional big post, I'm talking into an empty can. See, I can link to something like Black Wings of Cthulhu II (a reprint of the limited edition, with my story "Dead Media" in it) or the forthcoming Searchers After Horror (which contains my story "Exit Through the Gift Shop", which I am excited enough about I've thought about signing up for Medium.com in order to reprint it myself for a big digital audience once I have the rights to do so), and how many people will click through? Maybe ten. Maybe one will pre-order, or wishlist, or whatnot. On Facebook, I might get a bunch of likes, cuz likes are free. I like all sorts of things on Facebook, like pictures of ugly children.

Anyway, part of the reason I "retired" is that I decided that I was in danger of becoming a "good hand"—someone known for making deadlines, who can be asked to fill in a slot for this or that anthology. And if nobody actually reads the anthologies, well, we'll just stop publishing them, finally. It's always been extremely easy for me to write on a theme, especially given the competition. (My first thought isn't the same first thought that a dozen other writers have.) But clearly, for my own aesthetic goals, I need to stop doing theme work. Of course, I just started writing a novel based on a theme an editor gave me, but who can blame me for that—I have income taxes to pay in April!