World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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Advice to indie authors: why most of it leaves me frustrated
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Agree with Sturgeon's law in success secrets and maybe in general too?, but I guess worth trying a little bit (not too much) to prove it wrong -:)
Nik,Good luck in proving it wrong. We can quibble about the percentage, I suppose. For politicians, it might be higher? LOL.
r/Steve
Steven wrote: "Nik,Good luck in proving it wrong. We can quibble about the percentage, I suppose. For politicians, it might be higher? LOL.
r/Steve"
Thanks, Steven! Maybe I'm not putting enough hard work?-:)
Yeah, can be a little higher for politicians..
Luck and timing - need those too! (meeting preparedness of course)
M.L. Roberts wrote: "You need to read the rules for the clubs you join. Most do not allow you to talk about your own book. It's called book whacking - and usually the warnings are in multiple places. One mod suggested ..."Rules themselves tend not to be the problem. Rules are fine, but your example demonstrates that there are gray areas at best, and pliable at worst. Mods in these groups set the tone for what is allowed and what isn't within the scope of those rules, and when you make an exception for one, whatever the reasons behind it, but not for the rest, it sets a double-standard and reeks of hypocrisy.
Like any product we put out, we might have in our minds what we intend or what message we're sending, but ultimately it's on the consumer to draw the conclusion. We had a discussion on the PC movement and I admit I came out on the side of Free speech, but in reality, I watch what I write or what roles I put characters in because if a reader takes offense, it's not enough to say "that's not what I meant, this is what I really meant."
I know I said most of these GR groups don't seem to foster integration of author and reader, and I've run into mods whose interpretation and implementation of rules is a little confusing, but it's a mirror to ourselves and our writing and our books. Maybe the best advice to any author out there is to take a customer-focused approach.
The advice about not responding to reviews falls into this. Maybe a reviewer sounds as if they didn't read the book, but it's not their fault if they came away from our books with the wrong impression. I had a reviewer who didn't like a character. I was disappointed, but I knew it wasn't their fault because that was the character I wanted to write. I was going somewhere with those flaws the reader didn't get to. That doesn't tell me the reader should have hung in there, but rather I should have planted hints earlier on.
Diversity is a perfect example of a customer-centric practice. Sci-Fi has largely been dominated by white, male characters, but we've seen the last two or three decades a move to diversify these universes. When the heroes look like the readers who aren't male or aren't white, it draws a wider, more diverse audience into the genre. One thing you can take away from last year's drama with the Hugos is that when you have a solid, well written character, it doesn't matter to the audience that the main character is not white male, and you can also take away from it that readers are actually clamoring for diversity. The whole sad/angry puppy thing turned out to be just another example of the customers being told that their position is wrong, that their opinion is wrong, that their tastes are wrong.
My long experience tells me that you can control what you say but not what people/readers think you said. I have been amazed at some comments. Why are you anti so-and-so? I'd never even thought about so-and-so, let alone tried to discuss it. Of course it might be sloppy writing but don't discount what goes on inside the head of your readers. That you can't control.
Cenarth wrote: "My long experience tells me that you can control what you say but not what people/readers think you said. I have been amazed at some comments. Why are you anti so-and-so? I'd never even thought abo..."
I agree with you on this,Cenarth, as it happened to me as well at least once. Thankfully, two other readers immediately responded in my defense and contradicted my critic. Unfortunately, writers can't really defend themselves from critical readers without risking to start a mud-slinging match online that would benefit no one. We writers thus have to rely on the overall fairness and understanding of our readers.
I agree with you on this,Cenarth, as it happened to me as well at least once. Thankfully, two other readers immediately responded in my defense and contradicted my critic. Unfortunately, writers can't really defend themselves from critical readers without risking to start a mud-slinging match online that would benefit no one. We writers thus have to rely on the overall fairness and understanding of our readers.
I should have added, 'don't respond to critics'. Spend your time being creative.
There's always something one reader will never get, because that is not their frame of reference. One reader slammed me and my bestie on our co-written work once because one of our protags wears six-inch heels almost all the time. Reader thought this was not possible. The kicker? I am the same height as heroine - 5'3 - and I wear six-inch heels all the time when I go out, because otherwise, nobody sees me so much I'm short. I even match the stride of my 5'10 hubby with those heels, sometimes walking faster than him even. All to say - a reader's experience might not align with what you've written, so they might come at you for that.
Zee et al,Probably the best thing to do is to ignore the flak. The one time I responded to a review, for example, I did it because I wanted to thank the chap for writing a review that was quite a bit longer than the usual tweet-style that is common on Amazon now. We struck up an interesting conversation as a result. I didn't change his mind, and he didn't change mind, but at least there was a conversation, which I always consider positive.
I'm not sure you're talking about reviews or emails, but it's all the same sometimes--an email can be a negative review too as far as I'm concerned.
Readers can start a book with pre-conceived notions that lead to a negative attitude toward a book too. One reader complained that my crime mystery Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder had a misleading title--he was looking for more lust! Another complained that my sci-fi thriller Full Medical wasn't the attack on Obamacare he thought it was. Because I've done that myself as a reader, I ignored these readers' mistakes. It's one of the reasons I like Amazon's "Peek Inside" feature.
r/Steve
But then there are those who give you one star without any subsequent word why, so what to do about these trolls? ;-)Oh, well, I suppose I'll just have hire some expert to work the social media while I stop wasting my time there and go and write the next book.
See you on my lecture in the observatory tonight!
One common occurrence for me is expectations of a subsequent title. You write a novel or play and it does well. Along comes book/play #2 and the audience/reader, having enjoyed #1, is anticipating the same level of satisfaction. They have high hopes but the second title gets a negative reaction simply because their raised expectations were not met. If they had not heard of #1, would they have had the same reaction?
I doubt that anyone would know of Umberto Eco if his first book had been "Foucault's Pendulum".
And who can name any of Conan Doyle's seven historical novels?
Codex and Cenarth,...and Salieri would have been forgotten if it weren't for Mozart. The best anyone can do is make sure that #2, 3, 4, ... are new and fresh stories. They can form a series if that's still true, because many readers like to see the characters develop with the series. That doesn't need to be the case, of course--Asimov's Foundation trilogy or extended Foundation series are examples, although the android Daneel Olivaw is a character that appears in some of the books in the extended series.
Series often are a trap for authors, though. That criterion of "new and fresh story" is all too often ignored, with individual books in the series becoming like episodes in a soap opera. Sue Grafton's A to whatever titles fell into this rut at about C or D....
The bottom line: authors should always write "new and fresh" stories and stop trying to predict how readers' tastes go. That would put a halt to all the "copycat" books like Gone... and Girl with... and Fifty..., or X is for.... ;-) As a reviewer, I turn down my enthusiasm when an author says her or his book is like Y's bla-bla-bla. That automatically tells me the book is NOT new and fresh and is the death knell if I hated bla-bla-bla. I'm sure agents feel the same way.
r/Steve
Cenarth wrote: "My long experience tells me that you can control what you say but not what people/readers think you said. I have been amazed at some comments. Why are you anti so-and-so? I'd never even thought abo..."I admit I'm always mindful about the inadvertent messages I'm sending. In Dione's War, I hinted to my main villain being Oriental without being direct about it. While I like the idea of a villain being as important as the hero and as well liked (as the villain), it constantly ran through my mind that I was inadvertently casting all Orientals as villains.
Race became front and center in another book where characters end up in a world dominated by Native Americans. While society itself almost becomes the villain, half that society is the victim of the regime, and it became a weird balancing act trying not to portray "Natives" as bad.
My recent book, I decided to make my hero African American. Since I wanted him coming from a poor background and choosing to enter the military instead of going to college, I had to work to "dumb down the language." And since I chose to write it in 1st person, the entire narrative was written with broken grammar. The entire time, the fears running through my mind involved the question of am I going to far with it. On one hand, I want it to sound more like everyday informal conversation, but I don't want it so dumbed down that it becomes a racist caricature. Nor did I want that broken grammar so broken that the narrative becomes jarring and impossible to read.
J.J. wrote: "On one hand, I want it to sound more like everyday informal conversation, but I don't want it so dumbed down that it becomes a racist caricature. ..."Not an easy task..
I can understand the caution. I feel I can be less careful with Russian accent and stuff, as the one coming from that background, but I feel a bit more restrained about situs in Thailand or Angola. Borat is not too popular in Kazakhstan (to put it mildly), I'll tell you that much.. -:)
Nik wrote: "Borat is not too popular in Kazakhstan (to put it mildly), I'll tell you that much.. -:)..."And over here it becomes popular to draw your villains from Russia, North Korea, terrorist groups, and anywhere else where there are tensions with the West, but there are consequences. Beyond alienating a potential market int he future, you could find yourself in the crosshairs of a state-sponsored threat like Sony did.
Nik,We're trending toward a discussion of "cultural appropriation," I'm afraid. I have no problem with authors doing this as long as they do it well. Can I write about Hispanics when I'm a WASC (white anglo-saxon catholic)? Even if I hadn't spent 10+ years in Colombia, the answer would still be "yes," if I do it well.
I guess it all boils down to the meaning of "do it well." ;-) If my imagination can create ETs and their societies, it can create just about anything.
r/Steve
Steven wrote: "I guess it all boils down to the meaning of "do it well." ;-) ..."So true and it applies to just about anything we write...
Being German, I had a lot of fun, though, with stereotyping my Germanics as underdogs and having them treated by the Romans like modern Germans prefer to treat Turks/Muslims. (And, in my world, looking like a tall and fair Aryan is considered a sure sign of being a primitive bastard ...)
First, a generality: please recognize the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. ALL PR and marketing you do can only lay out some necessary conditions; nothing you can do can qualify as sufficient. I got in trouble on an indie authors' discussion group (not GR) because I made the statement that book success is like winning the lottery. People jumped all over me, the arguments basically saying that all it takes is hard work. BS.
There are no silver bullets; absolutely zero ways to guarantee that you'll win the lottery. But you can never win the lottery if you don't play.
Newsletters are old-fashioned. I have one as a regular feature on my blog, but I don't maintain an email list, and never have, because I respect people's right to privacy (and hope they'll respect mine). Want to read my newsletters? Visit my blog.
Forgetting PR and marketing via social media for the moment (GR is the only one you should even consider, because it's where the readers are), one piece of advice you often read is write the next book. Let me just say that that's BS too, from personal experience.
For all the PR and marketing advice that's out there, your best bet is to apply Sturgeon's Law (google it if you don't know what it is). I'll accept that people are convinced that X practice allowed them to sell books. They don't understand necessary and sufficient conditions. Their book(s) sell, so they claim they have the silver bullets that will allow you to sell yours--you only have to pay them X$ for their secrets! In the Old West, these people were called Snake Oil Salesmen (women rarely did this)--today we just call them scam artists!
r/Steve