New Blog Plan; Other News

Hey folks,

I apologize for not posting this week. I'm back at school, working at my day job as a special needs worker. It's my third year at this elementary school and my third year with the same student, a true blessing. And while I enjoyed being back with the kids, it was sad bidding farewell to those late nights sitting out on the porch with a great book, promising myself 'just one more chapter!'

It was a quiet summer for my wife and I, though I did manage to write a new urban fantasy novel (The Last Angel) in two months. (Woohoo!) I'm working on the second draft now and it should be finished soon. As to the question why that one took two months and my epic, Second Blood, took five and a half years, I'm not sure I have an answer to that. Not a full one anyway. Part of it has to do with the genre. Urban fantasy is a blend of noir detective and fantasy, it's quicker to write and develop. The world building is far less intense, too. And I think that understanding the way the publishing industry has changed makes a difference. I spent two years polishing and re-polishing Second Blood. Now that I know I can self-publish so easily AND have it be a worthwhile process, frees me up to just go for it. I have another urban fantasy novel in the works as well. The goal is to write three books a year, one in each series. Ambitious, but not un-doable.

New Blog Plan

What I'm trying to develop now is a plan for this blog. I'm fairly certain I can manage four posts a week, although they'll be shorter than the ones I used to post. Unlike some blogs, Trials of a Kind Life is a pretty wide open topic. (Believe me, there are a lot of days I wish I was writing about one thing. Thing is, I'd get bored of that pretty quick.)

So here's what I'm thinking:

Post 1: Sports

Post 2: Movies

Post 3: News Item of the Week

Post 4: Books

I'm not sure if I should lump books and movies together or not, maybe have a another topic? I'd love some feedback on it, so feel free to drop in some suggestions. I appreciate you stopping by. :)

Steve

Second Blood, Fear and Indie Publishing

I still remember that phone call. The first literary agent to call me back and tell me they were interested in representing me. I was thirty-two years old, and after three novels and a decade of hard work trying to make it, I was finally on the cusp. I'm not ashamed to say that I spent the next hour on my balcony in tears, so grateful to be validated after all those years of getting up early or going home early or staying up late to write.

Writing is such a solitary profession that when someone, especially someone representing The Industry, calls you and tells you that you're good enough, well, that's the response you get. Buckets. Disorientation. That feeling like your diving off the cliff into an unknown paradise. It's magical and joyous and terrifying all at once.

Six months later, the agent stopped calling me. Just... stopped. No messages. No explanation. Suddenly I wasn't good enough. It was falling in love with that perfect person, having them tell you how much they love you, and watch them pack up their bags six months later without ever telling you why.

I was, to put it mildly, shattered. I had no experience in the publishing world, no understanding of whether that was a common or unusual, and it took me years to get back on track. In 2008, when I started writing Second Blood, I was determined not to skim, not to cut corners. I would write as long as it took to produce my very best work. Hadn't it taken Patrick Rothfuss ten years to write The Name of the Wind? And what about Chad Harbach?

But over the past six years, the publishing world has changed. Dramatically. Independent Publishing, what was once called Vanity Publishing, now accounts for nearly 30-40% of all book sales, depending on which stats you use. And with the ability to publish your own work AND retain the rights to it completely AND to do it with minimal cost convinced me that after years of hoping for another phone call, I've decided to publish Second Blood myself.

Why Do It Yourself

1. Hugh Howey and JA Konrath are the experts here. Go to their website and just start reading to get a basic feel for the changes in the industry, and the horror stories that abound with mid-list writers whose books are taken off the shelf and never seen again. All that work, and you'll never see another penny from it.

2. I'm going to have to do the marketing and publicity myself, anyway. Unless my book was auctioned for 6 digits, I'd be doing the exact same thing. I'll take my chances, thanks.

3. It's a waste of time. Traditional publishing, assuming I don't know someone, wants me to spend months writing query letters and summaries (which I have), and then wait months to see if another agent will like the work, and if they, in turn, can find an editor who likes the work, and so on. I'd rather just write, thanks, because I'm still going to have to do all that marketing and publicity myself.

4. I'm not a literary writer. While I appreciate and enjoy writers like Jeffrey Eugenides and Donna Tartt, I don't live there. Give me Robert B. Parker, Jim Butcher or Robert Jordan any day. I've always been more interested in great stories and great ideas than great prose. I'm not saying they have to be exclusive, but a good fantasy novel is more enjoyable for me than even great literary fiction like Half-Blood Blues.

5. This isn't a short term plan. If you publish independently, you can't produce one work in six years. You're not spending time brushing the same sculpture over and over, but exploring new ideas and new characters, which is a LOT more fun. I have three books in the well, and am nearly done the first draft of The Last Angel, which I started less than a month ago. How? Three thousand words a day and the knowledge that it will come out, even if only a couple of people read it.

6. Inequality. Twenty years ago a trade paperback sold for about $20 here in Canada. They still sell for that price, and its MUCH cheaper to publish a book in the digital age. You can talk about inflation, I suppose, or increased salaries, but the writer's cut, the one who created the work, is the same. A novelist will make about $1 per book. A writer has no guarantees, no salary, and no benefits. So why are they still getting the shaft? Yes, a publishing company incorporates risk, but that doesn't balance the scales. Not when I can have my book printed on demand by Amazon for about $3 per book. Listen, if I were to sell enough copies myself that one of the big five wanted to offer me a six digit contract, I might take it, like Anthony Ryan, authour of Blood Song (very good book) did. And I'm not bad mouthing people who publish traditionally, especially my friends who write so brilliantly and are capable of winning literary awards. Hell, you SHOULD publish traditionally.

7. I'm as scared as I've ever been. Releasing something without getting "Industry Approval" scares the crap out of me. And I LOVE IT! Listen, if nothing you're pursuing scares you, or causes your stomach to dance, than you need to find what does and go after it. Just do it! The world doesn't care if you're happy or not, but people will notice when you find your passion and invest all you have into it. They'll get excited, too! Not just for you, but for themselves, because so much of life can be daily drudgery, the same old routine. Be alive, and let others find some uplift in what you're doing.

My wife tells me that she hasn't seen me this excited in a long time. I'm writing so much that I'm typing this blog with one hand. (The other is sore.) Whatever gifts you have, whatever gets you going, pursue that! DO it! It's nearly impossible to live a Kind Life when we feel like life is nothing but the same old crap. Don't fall into that trap. You can do it.

I've had these moments lately, where I imagine releasing Second Blood and about 15 people buy it. And then nothing. Six years of hard work and it's met with a collective 'meh.' You know what though, that's okay. I have other books coming, I'm having a hell of time writing them, and in the morning, I'm excited about what the day will bring. That's the real juice, my friends. And at the end of the day, if tomorrow sounds like a good idea, you're doing something right.

-Steve

Encouragement for Aspiring Writers

I discovered On Writing by Stephen King shortly after it was released about sixteen years ago. I'd never liked his novels, because I hated his genre. (I'd discover later he wrote many great stories, like the ones behind the movies Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me) But I'll never forget he advice he gave in the beginning of the book. If I wanted to be a writer, I needed to write a thousand words a day, and I needed to be reading and writing, in some form, 4-6 hours a day. If I wasn't willing to do that, I would never become a writer. Writers write, and writers read.

I took the advice to heart, and for the past twenty years or so, I've pretty much kept to that schedule, the only exception being the two years after my first(and only) literary agent abruptly stopped calling me back or contacting me. The devastation of that rejection took a long time to recede. But, as King said, writers write. And I was a writer. By that time I'd worked as a youth worker for a number of years, as well as a plethora of low paying jobs like telemarketing, door-to-door sales, and retail. At the time, it didn't matter, because I was a writer first, even if I was only getting paid for a few articles here and there.

As the years wore on, I remained as steadfast as ever, and kept to the schedule. But I started to get more finicky. (Consistent rejection will do that.) I even finished an entire book, and refused to send out a SINGLE QUERY. Not one. Finally, in 2008, I started Second Blood, an epic fantasy. Many of the books I'd written in the past were thrillers, but when it was done well, nothing beat a comfy chair and a good medieval yarn. I'd begun to doubt the literary gods would ever see fit to give me another magical phone call from the Captains of the Industry, so I figured I might as well write the type of book I loved to read.

The first two years were exciting. I could feel it coming together. With help from my writing friends, I felt satisfied with my work and sent it away. I'd spent a full month crafting the query letter, knowing that I only had a 0.4% chance of being asked for pages. I waited anxiously. Within a few days, the emails began to come, and every time I opened one that held "RE: QUERY, Second Blood" in the subject line, my stomach did a little dance. Some agencies wrote me back, some didn't bother, but they were all form rejections. Not a single personal note. (A sign of interest)

Even accepting my bias, I'd thought my book to be as well written as many I'd read on the market, so I kept trying, revising and editing until my fingers could hardly form a fist and my eyes were blurry from the strain of the monitor. Every year I sent out new queries. Every year I wrote a new synopsis. Every year I received a resounding NO from the Captains of the Industry (Really, it was probably a college student working as an assistant editor with one eye on her phone. Unsolicited queries are slush piles.)

for five years this pattern continued, and during that time I never considered publishing the book myself. "Vanity" publishing was for people unwilling to walk the hard paths, the ones who weren't good enough. it never occurred to me that luck and knowing people in the industry mattered as much or more than talent. My arrogance rested on my naivete.

(I'm not always a pompous jackass,
 but when I am, I prefer Dos Equis)

HOWEY CHANGED EVERYTHING

I came across Wool, by Hugh Howey, and everything changed, even as the industry began to shift. Self-
published books were no longer the field of vain lawyers writing yet another self-important memoir. The discrepancy between what the publishers charged and royalties paid to writers (about 1$ for a 15$ trade) was shifting the playing field. So were e-readers. Amazon tapped into the market first, and soon writers were uploading their stories, and charging customers a fraction of the price they'd have paid in the bookstore. And the writers were finally (let all gods be praised) making money, even though the books themselves were being sold for a fraction of the price.


This past January I started to seriously considering publishing my work myself. It'd long been known that most writers had to market their own work anyway, even through a traditional publisher. I investigated for months, reading different sites, combing for information.

And as of now, it would be insane for me to consider pursuing a traditional publisher. In the next few months, I'll publish Second Blood Part I. And while I'm hard at work finishing the edit to Part III, I've also started two other novels, both urban fantasies. Knowing that I am not going to have to scale a wall to get my work out has changed everything. I'm turned forty a couple of years ago, and in the traditional route, that's a bit old to think about having a writing career. But now? Well now, I have to write. And read. And write some more. The work is going out, and I need to be ready.

These days, I've upped my words ante to 3000 a day. Plus this blog. Plus the social media activity. It's a lot, but for the first time in many years I'm excited about the process again. I'm excited about sharing my work. And I'm excited that I might be able to provide a little more for my family. Be encouraged my friends, Stephen King was right.

Writers write.

Writers read.

And now, writers publish.

Steve

NOTE: For my writing friends, self-publishing sensation Hugh Howey has a great blog. Here's his post on his advice to young writers. And JAKonrath has a great blog as well.