The Author’s Big Mistake, apparently, is to respond to a bad review. All that happens is the writer makes themselves look foolish and unprofessional. Witness this spectacular meltdown from Jacqueline Howett over a bad review of her self-published book, The Greek Seaman. To compound her misery, this went viral enough to hit the major broadsheets. Even if they say bad things about us writers, the reviewer is meant to be aloof and sacrosanct. Otherwise it’s just a big circle jerk that helps no one.
What if the reviewer is less than honest in their intentions?
A link to another spectacular author meltdown appeared in one of my social networking feeds. This one saw Mike Coe attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost following Jane Smith’s negative review of his book, Flight to Paradise. A fellow writer had posted the link as a good example of a self-published writer overreacting to reasonable criticism. I thought the same, until I read down to the part that revealed the reviewer had only read four pages.
Four pages! How can anyone seriously review a book after reading only four pages? That’s like writing a review of a movie after seeing only the first three minutes. I’m sure there are many movies where the film critic would have liked to have walked out at the halfway mark, but they can’t, because they’d be violating their role as a critic. I know Smith has clear rules and a ‘fifteen typos and you’re out’ policy, but her review is four paragraphs long and talks about ‘poor characterization’…from a book where she’s read only the first four pages. I’ve read plenty of books where the main characters haven’t even showed up by then! Slamming a book because the writing is so bad it’s painful to turn the page is one thing, but I’d be peeved too if a reviewer read only the first couple of pages of one of my stories and started to comment on broader issues of characterisation and plot (although not enough to attempt to break the world record for most consecutive comments after a blogpost).
I might be wrong, and I’m prepared to apologise whole-heartedly to Jane Smith if this is the case, but after reading more of her reviews my gut feeling is her selfpublishingreview is a troll site with the main aim of beating up self-published writers for the temerity of going it alone. She also runs a blog entitled “How Publishing Really Works”, which sets my ‘ulterior motives’ alarm bells ringing. A bad book is a bad book is a bad book, and this is true whether it was shat out by one of the Big 6 or a lone, misguided scribbler, but some people are vehemently against the whole principle of self-epublishing in general.
I’m sure plenty will keep on submitting to her for review. They’ll see the carcasses of past maulings and think, That won’t happen to me; my book is good. We’re daft like that. I think I’ll pass on this one, though. I don’t see the point when the game is so heavily stacked it’s impossible to win. Or rather, if someone has an axe to grind, the last thing you want to do is give them an axe.
Oh, and to prove it’s not just those crazy self-published types that go apeshit below the line, enjoy Eric Anderson making the Author’s Big Mistake over Catherine Hakim’s review of his latest book in The Guardian.
Right, that’s enough of the serious posts for a while. Coming next…back to the sexy succubus smut…
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
There is no self-epublishing bubble (but you might not find gold…)
GuardianBooks announced on twitter “Two epublishing doom-sayers on @guardianbooks today.” I’m not sure I’d trust either with a crystal ball to be honest. In particular, I think Ewan Morrison’s argument that self-epublishing is a bubble is spectacularly off.
At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.
I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.
This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.
As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.
When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.
And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.
For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.
The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.
Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.
It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.
More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.
The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.
If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.
At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.
I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.
This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.
As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.
When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.
And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.
For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.
The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.
Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.
It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.
More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.
The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.
If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I've had better Januarys...
It's been an odd month.
Ideally I'd have been promoting Succubus Summoning 101 coming out as a book (my first actual novel!) about now. Unfortunately, what I assumed to be the simple process of converting a finished word doc into the many different ebook formats turned out to be anything but. The awesome Selena Kitt of eXcessica publishing had given all us eXcessica peeps a straightforward step-by-step guide on what needed to be done, which was great until I found out one of the pieces of software behaved very oddly on my M$ Vista laptop (I know, I know, the computer came with it and I was too lazy to change it). What went in as a lovely, nicely-formatted novel ended up looking like bloody gibbets run through an industrial saw when it was spat out the other end.
I'm really not helping myself with character names like Cέrμləa and Mamǝḵā Bēyˁṯān.
Or an insistence on using this as a chapter heading:
But hey, a first novel is like your first wedding--you want everything to be shiny and perfect. So I bashed my head against the monitor in an attempt to get it right, working with software seemingly designed for alien thought processes.
Then I came down with gastric flu and got knocked on my back for a few days, because why not, it's January 2012. Ugh.
Not the best month, as I said.
At least the worst is over. I'm not sure when exactly Succubus Summoning 101 is coming out. It's pencilled in for Feb 3rd. Watch this space.
Now, hopefully, I can get back to doing some damn writing.
Ideally I'd have been promoting Succubus Summoning 101 coming out as a book (my first actual novel!) about now. Unfortunately, what I assumed to be the simple process of converting a finished word doc into the many different ebook formats turned out to be anything but. The awesome Selena Kitt of eXcessica publishing had given all us eXcessica peeps a straightforward step-by-step guide on what needed to be done, which was great until I found out one of the pieces of software behaved very oddly on my M$ Vista laptop (I know, I know, the computer came with it and I was too lazy to change it). What went in as a lovely, nicely-formatted novel ended up looking like bloody gibbets run through an industrial saw when it was spat out the other end.
I'm really not helping myself with character names like Cέrμləa and Mamǝḵā Bēyˁṯān.
Or an insistence on using this as a chapter heading:
But hey, a first novel is like your first wedding--you want everything to be shiny and perfect. So I bashed my head against the monitor in an attempt to get it right, working with software seemingly designed for alien thought processes.
Then I came down with gastric flu and got knocked on my back for a few days, because why not, it's January 2012. Ugh.
Not the best month, as I said.
At least the worst is over. I'm not sure when exactly Succubus Summoning 101 is coming out. It's pencilled in for Feb 3rd. Watch this space.
Now, hopefully, I can get back to doing some damn writing.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Numbers from a Newbie Writer's First Year
Here's the latest post I put up on the Self-Publishing Revolution blog detailing how my first year as a self-published(ish) writer has gone. Thanks to everyone who supported me through buying my books and I hope you enjoyed them! More to come next year!
I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.
That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.
I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)
More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.
Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.
Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).
For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.
Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!
All the best for 2012!
I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.
That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.
I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)
More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.
Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.
Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).
For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.
Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!
All the best for 2012!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Some Naughty Little Bondage Elves For Christmas
The season of new manyeyedhydra stories is not quite over. Literotica have kicked off their Winter Holidays competition and I have a runner. Because it's the season of goodwill, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., I did the usual thing and entered a nasty horror story with lashings of gratuitous and inappropriate sex.
You might never look at Santa the same way ever again:
"What Bad Boys Get For Christmas."
Perfect bedtime reading for unruly children...
Bad Horror-Head! Get back in your cave!
With another anthology opportunity/deadline presenting itself and my glacial art skills leaving the cover for Succubus Summoning 101 still at the top of the Urgently To Do list, this is a bad month to attempt NaNoWriMo. I think I'll set myself my own personal NaNoWriMo from Mid-Nov to Mid-Dec to see if I would have achieved it with a clear run right from the start.
You might never look at Santa the same way ever again:
"What Bad Boys Get For Christmas."
Perfect bedtime reading for unruly children...
Bad Horror-Head! Get back in your cave!
With another anthology opportunity/deadline presenting itself and my glacial art skills leaving the cover for Succubus Summoning 101 still at the top of the Urgently To Do list, this is a bad month to attempt NaNoWriMo. I think I'll set myself my own personal NaNoWriMo from Mid-Nov to Mid-Dec to see if I would have achieved it with a clear run right from the start.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Succubus Summoning NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual writing competition to encourage people to quit procrastinating and finally focus their energies to spit that novel out. It’s a simple goal – write 50,000 words in the month of November.
I’ve been wanting to give it a go for a couple of years, but in the past I’ve been too busy finishing up final edits for anthologies and panicking about deadlines to take best advantage of it. Technically, this year is no different. I still have the cover/final tweaks to finish on Succubus Summoning 101 and need to finish two stories for a fourth collection. Then I thought, what the heck, I’ll sign up anyway. I might not get to 50,000, but if I get a good chunk of a novel idea done it will have achieved its purpose.
I also have an outstanding writing project that could use a little push to get over the edge. It’s time to finally drag Succubus Summoning 201 off the backburner and continue Phil’s (mis)adventures.
I’ve been wanting to give it a go for a couple of years, but in the past I’ve been too busy finishing up final edits for anthologies and panicking about deadlines to take best advantage of it. Technically, this year is no different. I still have the cover/final tweaks to finish on Succubus Summoning 101 and need to finish two stories for a fourth collection. Then I thought, what the heck, I’ll sign up anyway. I might not get to 50,000, but if I get a good chunk of a novel idea done it will have achieved its purpose.
I also have an outstanding writing project that could use a little push to get over the edge. It’s time to finally drag Succubus Summoning 201 off the backburner and continue Phil’s (mis)adventures.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
2011 2nd Quarter Royalties
My second quarter royalties for 2011 came in from eXcessica today. At $180 I think it's safe to say I won't be handing in my notice at work tomorrow. :)
$180 is still $180. Can't sneeze at that. Both Succubus for Christmas and Succubus for Valentine's Day have sold nearly 150 copies each now. With Succubus for Halloween coming out next month (more on that later!) I'm hoping it'll create enough of a bump to take the overall year up to somewhere between one or two grand. I know my stories are far too extreme to ever trouble the mainstream, but it's nice to have a little sideline and maybe sow the seeds for a little longterm notoriety.
Thanks to everyone who bought the books and I hope you enjoyed them. Plenty more on the way if all goes to plan ;).
Now the question is, how much of that $180 to plough into a nice book cover for Succubus Summoning 101 after I finally acknowledge I'm too rubbish to do it properly myself...
$180 is still $180. Can't sneeze at that. Both Succubus for Christmas and Succubus for Valentine's Day have sold nearly 150 copies each now. With Succubus for Halloween coming out next month (more on that later!) I'm hoping it'll create enough of a bump to take the overall year up to somewhere between one or two grand. I know my stories are far too extreme to ever trouble the mainstream, but it's nice to have a little sideline and maybe sow the seeds for a little longterm notoriety.
Thanks to everyone who bought the books and I hope you enjoyed them. Plenty more on the way if all goes to plan ;).
Now the question is, how much of that $180 to plough into a nice book cover for Succubus Summoning 101 after I finally acknowledge I'm too rubbish to do it properly myself...
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Back from the Dead(line)
Ugh, that was painful.
I used to be good with deadlines. Sure, I used to faff around and procrastinate like everybody else in the time leading up to the deadline. Then, with the deadline suddenly imminent, I’d burst into life and get the project finished in a blaze of activity.
Nowadays that bursting into life is more like a feeble stirring followed by a resentful crawl leading to something being spat onto the screen a few weeks later, maybe.
It’s been the same for the last stories of every anthology I’ve written so far. This one was worse as I lost confidence in my ability to do the story justice about halfway through writing it. Normally I’d have tossed it back into the ideas file and gone back to it later, but I’d already made a commitment to contribute to one of eXcessica’s fundraising anthologies and didn’t have an adequate back up plan.
Anyway, it’s done. It’ll be appearing in one of eXcessica’s anthologies next year. I had to pretty much drop everything and focus on finishing that story, even though my productivity went to hell. I hate it. It’s an ugly baby that probably deserves to be drowned in a bucket. Maybe I’ll grow to like it after a few months. I didn’t like Arachne’s Web much after I took the route-march approach to getting that one finished as well. I like it better now.
Deadlines, avoid ‘em I reckon. Write whatever wants to be written and then pick whatever’s most suitable at hand when the time comes around.
Time to get this blog back up and running at regular intervals again!
I used to be good with deadlines. Sure, I used to faff around and procrastinate like everybody else in the time leading up to the deadline. Then, with the deadline suddenly imminent, I’d burst into life and get the project finished in a blaze of activity.
Nowadays that bursting into life is more like a feeble stirring followed by a resentful crawl leading to something being spat onto the screen a few weeks later, maybe.
It’s been the same for the last stories of every anthology I’ve written so far. This one was worse as I lost confidence in my ability to do the story justice about halfway through writing it. Normally I’d have tossed it back into the ideas file and gone back to it later, but I’d already made a commitment to contribute to one of eXcessica’s fundraising anthologies and didn’t have an adequate back up plan.
Anyway, it’s done. It’ll be appearing in one of eXcessica’s anthologies next year. I had to pretty much drop everything and focus on finishing that story, even though my productivity went to hell. I hate it. It’s an ugly baby that probably deserves to be drowned in a bucket. Maybe I’ll grow to like it after a few months. I didn’t like Arachne’s Web much after I took the route-march approach to getting that one finished as well. I like it better now.
Deadlines, avoid ‘em I reckon. Write whatever wants to be written and then pick whatever’s most suitable at hand when the time comes around.
Time to get this blog back up and running at regular intervals again!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Adamsing My Deadlines
Whoosh. That's the sound of deadlines whizzing by.
Literotica's Nude Day Contest. FAIL.
The story morphed into something too long and complex to get done in time. I'll stick it on the back burner and chip away at it in time for next year's competition. (This happens a lot. The Christmas story I've got lined up for this year was supposed to be for the competition two years previous :) )
eXcessica Anthology. CRITICAL.
Damn, another story way outside my comfort zone. I really should stick to the big-boobed succubi I know and love. I've got an extension on this one, but I'm probably going to be quiet for the rest of the week while I get it done.
Hmm, now how in the hell am I supposed to make two people skinning each other alive romantic and erotic...
Literotica's Nude Day Contest. FAIL.
The story morphed into something too long and complex to get done in time. I'll stick it on the back burner and chip away at it in time for next year's competition. (This happens a lot. The Christmas story I've got lined up for this year was supposed to be for the competition two years previous :) )
eXcessica Anthology. CRITICAL.
Damn, another story way outside my comfort zone. I really should stick to the big-boobed succubi I know and love. I've got an extension on this one, but I'm probably going to be quiet for the rest of the week while I get it done.
Hmm, now how in the hell am I supposed to make two people skinning each other alive romantic and erotic...
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Prick-Tease Muse
I think my muse might be a prick-tease. All of Saturday before me and she's off shopping/drinking/tormenting poor misguided souls. Come Sunday and just before I'm due to head off to cricket practise she's back with fiery inspiration.
Write this story now, now, now!
I know her lies. If I cry off practise, she'll be gone again within an hour and it'll be another afternoon lost to the great time-suck that is Civilization. I'm better off getting out in the sunshine and giving the little (cancerous malignant creators of filth) grey cells a good airing.
Looming deadlines are always odd for me. Sometimes they spur me on, other times I grind right down to a halt. Time for a project switch methinks to get the juices going again.
A prick-tease muse, hmm. Given the kind of stories I write, I really shouldn't be that surprised . . . :)
Write this story now, now, now!
I know her lies. If I cry off practise, she'll be gone again within an hour and it'll be another afternoon lost to the great time-suck that is Civilization. I'm better off getting out in the sunshine and giving the little (cancerous malignant creators of filth) grey cells a good airing.
Looming deadlines are always odd for me. Sometimes they spur me on, other times I grind right down to a halt. Time for a project switch methinks to get the juices going again.
A prick-tease muse, hmm. Given the kind of stories I write, I really shouldn't be that surprised . . . :)
Friday, June 10, 2011
Non-Human Morality
When it comes to non-human characters I like them to be . . . well, not human. This means they probably have a set of attitudes, thought processes and values which are completely alien to us. Not everything, some stuff’s going to be the same, but enough for some of their actions and responses to surprise every now and again.
The Doctor from the BBC’s series Doctor Who is a classic example. Alien. Looks human. Big big heart(s). Saves the world multiple times. But every so often is a bit . . . weird. The current actor playing him, Matt Smith, has got that whole a-bit-too-weird-to-really-pass-for-human thing down perfectly. Tom Baker was also brilliant (although I suspect he might actually be an alien marooned down here on earth . . .)
That little spice of alienness is really important to me. I hate reading urban fiction with vampire or werewolf protagonists where the characters display a completely human array of emotions and reactions. If the author hadn’t told me the character had fangs, super-strength, was centuries old, whatever, I doubt I’d realise they weren’t human at all. Feels like a waste (Although I can’t argue with the success of that genre. Maybe my wrong is everybody else’s right! :) ).
I think this is why I might be so reluctant to write anything from one of my succubus’s point of view. It’s hard to avoid humanising a character and takes away a lot of their mystique.
The Doctor from the BBC’s series Doctor Who is a classic example. Alien. Looks human. Big big heart(s). Saves the world multiple times. But every so often is a bit . . . weird. The current actor playing him, Matt Smith, has got that whole a-bit-too-weird-to-really-pass-for-human thing down perfectly. Tom Baker was also brilliant (although I suspect he might actually be an alien marooned down here on earth . . .)
That little spice of alienness is really important to me. I hate reading urban fiction with vampire or werewolf protagonists where the characters display a completely human array of emotions and reactions. If the author hadn’t told me the character had fangs, super-strength, was centuries old, whatever, I doubt I’d realise they weren’t human at all. Feels like a waste (Although I can’t argue with the success of that genre. Maybe my wrong is everybody else’s right! :) ).
I think this is why I might be so reluctant to write anything from one of my succubus’s point of view. It’s hard to avoid humanising a character and takes away a lot of their mystique.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Erotica: When Your Chapter Has No Sex
I’ve started posting the “Locked in with a Succubus” chapters up on Literotica. It’s the first time I’ve gone outside of the Erotic Horror category. I thought I’d try and see if I could pick up some new readers by posting in the NonNuman category instead (and then promptly lose them as the story heads off into too-dark territory). The first chapter (intro + part 2) went live yesterday.
It has the worst score of any of my Literotica stories.
(lower even than "The Biggest Tits in the World", where I screwed up and tossed out a mental image most readers spotted right off was simply impossible—although I do have a fix now)
That’s something I was expecting and knew I’d have to take on the chin. People like their erotica to have, you know, naughty bits.
It’s always a dilemma. I like my sex scenes to be surrounded by a strong story and the problem with Plot with Porn as opposed to Plot? What Plot? is sometimes the plot heads off into areas with no sex. So what do you do? Crowbar in the naughty anyway, or cross your fingers and hope the story is compelling enough to keep the readers interested until the next pair of jiggling boobs appears on the horizon?
I’m a bit weird, so the story is always sacrosanct to me. No sex unless it fits naturally into the plot.
Fortunately for me, when you write about succubi, sex always naturally fits into the plot!
I was going to combine "Locked in with a Succubus" into one single piece, but I think it might diminish the impact of all those teasing little chapter endings. It’s given me some ideas on how to put my 4th collection of short stories together. I’ll see what happens on Literotica over the next couple of weeks. If everyone gets bored waiting for the hot stuff to happen and buggers off, then I’ll know it was a failed experiment.
It has the worst score of any of my Literotica stories.
(lower even than "The Biggest Tits in the World", where I screwed up and tossed out a mental image most readers spotted right off was simply impossible—although I do have a fix now)
That’s something I was expecting and knew I’d have to take on the chin. People like their erotica to have, you know, naughty bits.
It’s always a dilemma. I like my sex scenes to be surrounded by a strong story and the problem with Plot with Porn as opposed to Plot? What Plot? is sometimes the plot heads off into areas with no sex. So what do you do? Crowbar in the naughty anyway, or cross your fingers and hope the story is compelling enough to keep the readers interested until the next pair of jiggling boobs appears on the horizon?
I’m a bit weird, so the story is always sacrosanct to me. No sex unless it fits naturally into the plot.
Fortunately for me, when you write about succubi, sex always naturally fits into the plot!
I was going to combine "Locked in with a Succubus" into one single piece, but I think it might diminish the impact of all those teasing little chapter endings. It’s given me some ideas on how to put my 4th collection of short stories together. I’ll see what happens on Literotica over the next couple of weeks. If everyone gets bored waiting for the hot stuff to happen and buggers off, then I’ll know it was a failed experiment.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Riddles and Validations
A little bit of tubthumping I did over at The Self Publishing Revolution.
Riddle me this:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
(I haven’t, by the way, but if you’d like to help me achieve this goal and have a liking for weird, kinky horror, please feel free to mosey on over here…)
It’s easy to be insecure as a writer. There aren’t finishing lines to cross first, opponents to punch out or teams to score more points than. As with most creative endeavours, where quality is subjective, it’s hard to tell if you’re any good or not.
Acceptance with a publishing house gives validation, or so the argument goes (although Joe Konrath refers to it as an example of Stockholm Syndrome). It’s a stamp of approval. Get that deal—and the advance—and a writer can say with authority, “Yes, I am a real author!”
The problem with self-publishing is the ‘published’ part is always going to come with air quotes. If any old oik can shove their badly written mush up onto Amazon, then ‘being published’ no longer feels like an achievement. For that reason self-publishing is often pushed aside and treated as a special case. If the author had to do it themselves, they probably weren’t good enough to be published in the first place. I think many of us have held this view at some point and some almost certainly still do. Check the membership guidelines of professional writers' organisations like the HWA and SFWA and you’ll see very clear stipulations on what does or doesn’t count as a valid publication for obtaining active membership.
Now that the ebook explosion has burst the dam, how important is the traditional stamp of approval?
As validation goes, that stamp is only a proxy when you think about it. To use a simple fantasy analogy, it’s an entrance exam granting permission to go and slay the dragon. Congratulations! You passed. But you still have to go and kill that dragon…
If someone else decides to skip all those stupid trials, goes straight to the dragon and hacks its head right off, are they any less of a dragonslayer?
In this case the dragon—and true validation—is finding an audience, whether it is small and distinguished or massive and lucrative.
What happens when more and more writers choose to go it alone, not because they aren’t good enough, but because it makes more economic sense than signing away a huge chunk of their royalties? Clauses like this (from HWA’s active membership requirements)
will cease to make any sense. As will references to 5¢/word rates and minimum advances.
Riddle me this:
Person A gets a $5,000 advance from an accredited publisher, but only goes on to sell a couple of hundred copies. Person B makes $10,000 a month selling 99¢ self-published ebooks on Amazon. Which one is the professional author?
(I’m not trying to bash the HWA, by the way. I was a fresh-faced wannabe member a while back and I found them helpful in terms of market information and discovering new writers I hadn’t read before.)
Which leads us back to the original question:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
My gut says the answer is this:
Riddle me this:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
(I haven’t, by the way, but if you’d like to help me achieve this goal and have a liking for weird, kinky horror, please feel free to mosey on over here…)
It’s easy to be insecure as a writer. There aren’t finishing lines to cross first, opponents to punch out or teams to score more points than. As with most creative endeavours, where quality is subjective, it’s hard to tell if you’re any good or not.
Acceptance with a publishing house gives validation, or so the argument goes (although Joe Konrath refers to it as an example of Stockholm Syndrome). It’s a stamp of approval. Get that deal—and the advance—and a writer can say with authority, “Yes, I am a real author!”
The problem with self-publishing is the ‘published’ part is always going to come with air quotes. If any old oik can shove their badly written mush up onto Amazon, then ‘being published’ no longer feels like an achievement. For that reason self-publishing is often pushed aside and treated as a special case. If the author had to do it themselves, they probably weren’t good enough to be published in the first place. I think many of us have held this view at some point and some almost certainly still do. Check the membership guidelines of professional writers' organisations like the HWA and SFWA and you’ll see very clear stipulations on what does or doesn’t count as a valid publication for obtaining active membership.
Now that the ebook explosion has burst the dam, how important is the traditional stamp of approval?
As validation goes, that stamp is only a proxy when you think about it. To use a simple fantasy analogy, it’s an entrance exam granting permission to go and slay the dragon. Congratulations! You passed. But you still have to go and kill that dragon…
If someone else decides to skip all those stupid trials, goes straight to the dragon and hacks its head right off, are they any less of a dragonslayer?
In this case the dragon—and true validation—is finding an audience, whether it is small and distinguished or massive and lucrative.
What happens when more and more writers choose to go it alone, not because they aren’t good enough, but because it makes more economic sense than signing away a huge chunk of their royalties? Clauses like this (from HWA’s active membership requirements)
With the sole exception of comic books, self-published work can not be used for qualification purposes. "Self-published work" is defined as written material disseminated by the author (for example, email or electronic publications, publication on the author's Web site, or printed publications sold on consignment or solely by the author), or written material whose basic publication costs are defrayed in whole or in part by the author.
will cease to make any sense. As will references to 5¢/word rates and minimum advances.
Riddle me this:
Person A gets a $5,000 advance from an accredited publisher, but only goes on to sell a couple of hundred copies. Person B makes $10,000 a month selling 99¢ self-published ebooks on Amazon. Which one is the professional author?
(I’m not trying to bash the HWA, by the way. I was a fresh-faced wannabe member a while back and I found them helpful in terms of market information and discovering new writers I hadn’t read before.)
Which leads us back to the original question:
What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?
My gut says the answer is this:
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Other online authors with stories like me
Here's some links for some similar online writers. I suspect most of these might already be familiar. Feel free to add any I've missed in the comments.
I'll start with the general:
Literotica
Biggest sex stories site on the web? They have everything. My stories lurk in the Erotic Horror section. They also have Non-human and Sci-Fi & Fantasy categories for people that like happier endings. I usually check either the Last 30 days Top list for horror or enter "Succubus" into the story search every so often to see if anything interesting popped up. The quality is as you'd expect for an amateur writers site, but there are some gems to be found.
MonsterGirlUnlimited
Monster Girls galore. They have a fanfic section with lots of stories in progress. Kenkou Cross's Monster Girl Encyclopedia is the primary influence despite my best efforts to hijack the forum to my own nefarious purposes. A place to go if you like stories where the girl doesn't end up killing the boy at the end.
Eka's Portal
And for those of you that prefer Girl eats Boy, there's Eka's Portal. It's predominantly a Vore site, but there's a slight overlap for lovers of sexy, predatory females. Some of my stories (Flesh Pitchers of Prague, Wrapdance) fall into this overlap and I post them up there every so often. There's other writers/artists tackling similar themes. 4ofSwords(used to be ohida) runs a regular writing group thread I keep meaning to submit stories to, but never get around to doing.
Lost Boy's Other-Worldly Story Links
Quite possibly dead. Updates very rarely nowadays. It does have a fantastic collection of good stories. This was the first place I blundered into when searching for succubus fiction on the net.
And the writers:
mjm202036
The first writer I stumbled upon, so it's all his fault. His Castlevania fanfic got the idea of a succubus perfectly I thought. She kills through sex and in a way that feels more concrete and realistic than a nebulous energy/spirit/soul/aura drain. Both his Lustful Summoning and Succubus Ranch series are highly recommended. He's been a little quiet of late, so go prod him.
Oblimo
It's Always Time is a great goo (slime) girl story that features a fairly clever plot alongside all the messy sex. I haven't heard much of him of late, but if he's still out there he should probably stick the story up on amazon and make some money from it (hint hint).
4OfSwords
Likes a sexy female pred. Ranges from vamps to full-on vore. Damn good artist as well.
Xxxecil
Boobs! Gigantic Boobs! Boobs of the apocalypse! Always fun.
AJ Watson
Some good fantastic femdom-y succubus-y type stories. Also needs prodding.
Bobsamade
Borrowed Verde's garden and filled it with some fascinating creations.
There's others I've undoubtably missed or not got round to finishing yet such as Galloglaich's Cemetery Summons series and bashfullyshameless's Angels, Demons and Alex series (nominated in Literotica's sadly pointless and horribly abused end of year awards). As well as others I'm too tired to remember as yet another blog post has ballooned into a huge essay. Feel free to mention any I've missed in the comments. I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting succubus stories.
Happy reading!
I'll start with the general:
Literotica
Biggest sex stories site on the web? They have everything. My stories lurk in the Erotic Horror section. They also have Non-human and Sci-Fi & Fantasy categories for people that like happier endings. I usually check either the Last 30 days Top list for horror or enter "Succubus" into the story search every so often to see if anything interesting popped up. The quality is as you'd expect for an amateur writers site, but there are some gems to be found.
MonsterGirlUnlimited
Monster Girls galore. They have a fanfic section with lots of stories in progress. Kenkou Cross's Monster Girl Encyclopedia is the primary influence despite my best efforts to hijack the forum to my own nefarious purposes. A place to go if you like stories where the girl doesn't end up killing the boy at the end.
Eka's Portal
And for those of you that prefer Girl eats Boy, there's Eka's Portal. It's predominantly a Vore site, but there's a slight overlap for lovers of sexy, predatory females. Some of my stories (Flesh Pitchers of Prague, Wrapdance) fall into this overlap and I post them up there every so often. There's other writers/artists tackling similar themes. 4ofSwords(used to be ohida) runs a regular writing group thread I keep meaning to submit stories to, but never get around to doing.
Lost Boy's Other-Worldly Story Links
Quite possibly dead. Updates very rarely nowadays. It does have a fantastic collection of good stories. This was the first place I blundered into when searching for succubus fiction on the net.
And the writers:
mjm202036
The first writer I stumbled upon, so it's all his fault. His Castlevania fanfic got the idea of a succubus perfectly I thought. She kills through sex and in a way that feels more concrete and realistic than a nebulous energy/spirit/soul/aura drain. Both his Lustful Summoning and Succubus Ranch series are highly recommended. He's been a little quiet of late, so go prod him.
Oblimo
It's Always Time is a great goo (slime) girl story that features a fairly clever plot alongside all the messy sex. I haven't heard much of him of late, but if he's still out there he should probably stick the story up on amazon and make some money from it (hint hint).
4OfSwords
Likes a sexy female pred. Ranges from vamps to full-on vore. Damn good artist as well.
Xxxecil
Boobs! Gigantic Boobs! Boobs of the apocalypse! Always fun.
AJ Watson
Some good fantastic femdom-y succubus-y type stories. Also needs prodding.
Bobsamade
Borrowed Verde's garden and filled it with some fascinating creations.
There's others I've undoubtably missed or not got round to finishing yet such as Galloglaich's Cemetery Summons series and bashfullyshameless's Angels, Demons and Alex series (nominated in Literotica's sadly pointless and horribly abused end of year awards). As well as others I'm too tired to remember as yet another blog post has ballooned into a huge essay. Feel free to mention any I've missed in the comments. I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting succubus stories.
Happy reading!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Short, Sharp Dose of Reality
Last week I got my first real quarterly royalties cheque. At the princely sum of $84 I think the appropriate comment is “ouch!”
Oh well, we can’t all be Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking.
If I take the perspective of wanting to be a full-time writer, it's fairly terrible. There's no way I'd ever be able to live off that.
Thankfully, I don't have to take to take that perspective. I'm fortunate enough to already have a full-time job, one I enjoy and is relatively well paid. I can take the other perspective. I'm doing something I like (writing stories) and receiving money for it.
$84 is still $84. That's the second half of the kindle I already bought with money from a Literotica contest plus some books to load it up with. It's more than I ever picked up trying to slog through the old fashioned route of submitting to horror/sci fi magazines and certainly $84 more than the manuscript would have got languishing forgotten on a slush pile somewhere.
It's not all. My first book is still out there, still picking up the same trickle of sales. That means in another three months I'm going to get another $84 or so. Actually, there's two months of the second book's sales on top of that, so it's probably going to be more than eighty bucks. And then later in the year I have a third book coming out. It's easy to see how it can start to mount up. I can't live off it, but on top of my regular salary it's a nice extra to put towards a vacation, or a new TV.
One of the points I've seen raised is the current explosion of self publishing and 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing will kill writing as a viable profession for all but the already wealthy. I don't really see this. A lot of authors had to start off juggling other jobs with their writing until they made enough to leave the day job behind. An advance can help with this sure, but it can backfire horribly if the first book tanks and they aren't picked up for a second. This is even assuming they make it through the gatekeepers. The vast majority don't and won't ever see a single dime for the manuscript they spent a year or two lovingly putting together.
With self publishing a writer can start to see a return as soon as the book is finished and use this to tailor their life accordingly. I go into work every morning and I write on my spare time. I won't need to think about changing this unless my income from book sales starts to outweigh my regular salary, or my spare time suddenly becomes a lot less spare. And of course, even being comparatively unsuccessful in the meantime still generates a bit of extra cash for a few luxuries.
I enjoy writing and it makes me a bit of extra money. Can't really complain about that.
Oh well, we can’t all be Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking.
If I take the perspective of wanting to be a full-time writer, it's fairly terrible. There's no way I'd ever be able to live off that.
Thankfully, I don't have to take to take that perspective. I'm fortunate enough to already have a full-time job, one I enjoy and is relatively well paid. I can take the other perspective. I'm doing something I like (writing stories) and receiving money for it.
$84 is still $84. That's the second half of the kindle I already bought with money from a Literotica contest plus some books to load it up with. It's more than I ever picked up trying to slog through the old fashioned route of submitting to horror/sci fi magazines and certainly $84 more than the manuscript would have got languishing forgotten on a slush pile somewhere.
It's not all. My first book is still out there, still picking up the same trickle of sales. That means in another three months I'm going to get another $84 or so. Actually, there's two months of the second book's sales on top of that, so it's probably going to be more than eighty bucks. And then later in the year I have a third book coming out. It's easy to see how it can start to mount up. I can't live off it, but on top of my regular salary it's a nice extra to put towards a vacation, or a new TV.
One of the points I've seen raised is the current explosion of self publishing and 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing will kill writing as a viable profession for all but the already wealthy. I don't really see this. A lot of authors had to start off juggling other jobs with their writing until they made enough to leave the day job behind. An advance can help with this sure, but it can backfire horribly if the first book tanks and they aren't picked up for a second. This is even assuming they make it through the gatekeepers. The vast majority don't and won't ever see a single dime for the manuscript they spent a year or two lovingly putting together.
With self publishing a writer can start to see a return as soon as the book is finished and use this to tailor their life accordingly. I go into work every morning and I write on my spare time. I won't need to think about changing this unless my income from book sales starts to outweigh my regular salary, or my spare time suddenly becomes a lot less spare. And of course, even being comparatively unsuccessful in the meantime still generates a bit of extra cash for a few luxuries.
I enjoy writing and it makes me a bit of extra money. Can't really complain about that.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Using Fetishes for Fun and Fear
People get turned on by different things. What they get turned on by has a habit of creeping into their work. Take Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Did you notice all those long lingering shots of beautiful women's feet hanging out of car windows? And this scene from From Dusk till Dawn gains a whole extra context to my formerly innocent little mind. Who says writers don't have any perks.
A little fetish fuel can add some spice to a story. Where it doesn't work so well, in my humble opinion, is when it becomes the sole focus of the story. In those stories I find I can't relate to the protagonist at all because I don't get the fetish and therefore the character's actions come across as odd. Fine for people in the niche, but of little use outside of it.
Playing through Monster Girl Quest reminded me how smart a lot of Japanese creators are at playing to the fetishes. Loli's, Big Tits, Bondage, Giantesses, Mind Control - take your pick, there's something for everyone. Darkstalkers, a considerably more mainstream game, gave us the iconic succubus, Morrigan, but there's a whole host of other quirks to add a bit of extra spice. Most of the comedy anime/mangas featuring harems will pull the same tricks to ensure everyone has a character to latch on to.
That isn't to say these things are innately perverted (okay Monster Girl Quest is - it's designed to be). From Dusk till Dawn is still a tense crime movie that morphs into an outrageous vampire film halfway through. With a bit extra if you happen to like feet. It's spice. If it's so much the audience starts to feel a little icky, then you've dumped too much curry powder in the Balti.
Unless you want...ahem...to make people feel a little icky.
I like mixing up horror and erotica for the mindfuck factor. Targeting fetishes plays an important role in this. What's a turn on for one person, can be twisted into something creepy and horrific for somebody else. One's reading it for the sex, the other for the horror. They're both getting something from the same story. Everyone's happy (at least until Horrorhead rears up and squicks everyone out).
My own weakness. With story titles like Crushed Between Her Breasts and The Biggest Tits in the World, it's all rather boring and obvious really...
A little fetish fuel can add some spice to a story. Where it doesn't work so well, in my humble opinion, is when it becomes the sole focus of the story. In those stories I find I can't relate to the protagonist at all because I don't get the fetish and therefore the character's actions come across as odd. Fine for people in the niche, but of little use outside of it.
Playing through Monster Girl Quest reminded me how smart a lot of Japanese creators are at playing to the fetishes. Loli's, Big Tits, Bondage, Giantesses, Mind Control - take your pick, there's something for everyone. Darkstalkers, a considerably more mainstream game, gave us the iconic succubus, Morrigan, but there's a whole host of other quirks to add a bit of extra spice. Most of the comedy anime/mangas featuring harems will pull the same tricks to ensure everyone has a character to latch on to.
That isn't to say these things are innately perverted (okay Monster Girl Quest is - it's designed to be). From Dusk till Dawn is still a tense crime movie that morphs into an outrageous vampire film halfway through. With a bit extra if you happen to like feet. It's spice. If it's so much the audience starts to feel a little icky, then you've dumped too much curry powder in the Balti.
Unless you want...ahem...to make people feel a little icky.
I like mixing up horror and erotica for the mindfuck factor. Targeting fetishes plays an important role in this. What's a turn on for one person, can be twisted into something creepy and horrific for somebody else. One's reading it for the sex, the other for the horror. They're both getting something from the same story. Everyone's happy (at least until Horrorhead rears up and squicks everyone out).
My own weakness. With story titles like Crushed Between Her Breasts and The Biggest Tits in the World, it's all rather boring and obvious really...
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Also found in Britain!
A couple of nights ago I had a pleasant little surprise as I realised both my books are available on amazon.co.uk and are also doing slightly better, at least on ranking. I thought they were only available on the US site for some reason.
Yeah, I really am that out of touch with everyday reality.
I was corresponding with an old university friend. He mentioned a colleague who'd picked up a nice deal with Puffin (I won't mention the name as no children's writer should ever have the misfortune of being linked, however tenuously, with the sexual atrocities I regularly type up on my laptop). We were both quite envious.
I looked for the guy's book on Amazon.com and was surprised to see the kindle version ranked down in 200,000's. Okay, British author, might not have had much of a push out in the states. I flipped over to amazon.co.uk.
Kindle ranking around 25,000. That makes a little more sense.
On a whim, I put M.E.Hydra in and was surprised to see my books come up. Cool, Selena must have put them up on the UK site as well. Okay, so how are we doing?
7,000.
That was an eye opener. Christmas was also at 15,000.
Okay, so I don't know entirely how the rankings work in reality. It could mean I happened to sell five copies on that particular day. And 7,000 is awful if you're used to the success stories on Joe Konrath's blog. I don't really care. There are 500,000 or so kindle ebooks on the UK amazon site and at that one point in time my book was doing better than 493,000 of them. I don't have an agent. I don't have a deal with a big publishing house. I'm not even at a super low price. I still have my regular 9-to-5 job.
I love this new ebook revolution. For anyone that's ever dreamed of being a writer, now they actually have a realistic chance of achieving their dream. The future looks so promising.
And I intend to fill it with such tales of twisted perversion...
Yeah, I really am that out of touch with everyday reality.
I was corresponding with an old university friend. He mentioned a colleague who'd picked up a nice deal with Puffin (I won't mention the name as no children's writer should ever have the misfortune of being linked, however tenuously, with the sexual atrocities I regularly type up on my laptop). We were both quite envious.
I looked for the guy's book on Amazon.com and was surprised to see the kindle version ranked down in 200,000's. Okay, British author, might not have had much of a push out in the states. I flipped over to amazon.co.uk.
Kindle ranking around 25,000. That makes a little more sense.
On a whim, I put M.E.Hydra in and was surprised to see my books come up. Cool, Selena must have put them up on the UK site as well. Okay, so how are we doing?
7,000.
That was an eye opener. Christmas was also at 15,000.
Okay, so I don't know entirely how the rankings work in reality. It could mean I happened to sell five copies on that particular day. And 7,000 is awful if you're used to the success stories on Joe Konrath's blog. I don't really care. There are 500,000 or so kindle ebooks on the UK amazon site and at that one point in time my book was doing better than 493,000 of them. I don't have an agent. I don't have a deal with a big publishing house. I'm not even at a super low price. I still have my regular 9-to-5 job.
I love this new ebook revolution. For anyone that's ever dreamed of being a writer, now they actually have a realistic chance of achieving their dream. The future looks so promising.
And I intend to fill it with such tales of twisted perversion...
Monday, February 21, 2011
Beware the 'quick' story ideas...
Blegh. Another weekend gone and about the only writing done was dragging what I thought would be a simple little short story idea painfully over the last thousand words or so needed to complete it.
I've had that happen a few times. Usually I let an idea gestate in my head for a while until it picks up the missing pieces. Sometimes I'll have a story arrive that's nearly already full-formed right away. Then I get the foolish notion to take a break from the current writing project to scribble down the story right away. I mean it's all there. I practically don't have to think. Surely I'll be able to bash that out in a couple of days.
It never works out that way. I wonder if it's because the story already seems so fully formed. It's too rigid. There's scene A to scene B to scene C and chunks of cool dialogue that have to be rammed into the appropriate holes. What seems seamless in the mind doesn't always fit together when typed on a computer screen. Then it becomes a bloody minded exercise to bludgeon the story into place.
It seemed so simple at the start.
Take one arrogant online massage parlour reviewer. Add one savvy receptionist prepared to call bullshit on his wheedling for a discount/freebies. After all, what kind of serious reviewer would announce themselves beforehand. Project further and imagine how the lovely naga, Amanda, would deal with an incredibly rude client and...
Ewww. I thought she was one of my nice ones. Horror-head, did you really have to hijack this?
I've had that happen a few times. Usually I let an idea gestate in my head for a while until it picks up the missing pieces. Sometimes I'll have a story arrive that's nearly already full-formed right away. Then I get the foolish notion to take a break from the current writing project to scribble down the story right away. I mean it's all there. I practically don't have to think. Surely I'll be able to bash that out in a couple of days.
It never works out that way. I wonder if it's because the story already seems so fully formed. It's too rigid. There's scene A to scene B to scene C and chunks of cool dialogue that have to be rammed into the appropriate holes. What seems seamless in the mind doesn't always fit together when typed on a computer screen. Then it becomes a bloody minded exercise to bludgeon the story into place.
It seemed so simple at the start.
Take one arrogant online massage parlour reviewer. Add one savvy receptionist prepared to call bullshit on his wheedling for a discount/freebies. After all, what kind of serious reviewer would announce themselves beforehand. Project further and imagine how the lovely naga, Amanda, would deal with an incredibly rude client and...
Ewww. I thought she was one of my nice ones. Horror-head, did you really have to hijack this?
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sticking with Dead-Tree Technology
One of the things I was happy to pick up over the Christmas break was a fresh set of A5 writing notebooks. It seems a bit weird to still be writing out stories longhand in the age of word processors and other computery goodness, but I find that works best for me. I’m old enough to remember my mum typing up estimates for my dad on a fancy electronic typewriter, but not old enough to have ever used one myself.
I keep trying to kick the habit. Ink and bits of dead tree, I mean it’s so primitive. Look, there’s this lovely shiny laptop with a blank screen all waiting to be filled with words. And look at this keyboard, so much faster and more efficient at producing words than that awkward scratching.
It never works out that way. It’s that delete button. It’s far too easy to use. If you’re of a slightly perfectionist bent (which I am), the delete button is the concrete block waiting on the tracks to derail the writing process. It’s too easy to get stuck at a point in the story, writing and re-writing variations of the same sentence over and over until I completely lose the thread of where the story was supposed to be going in the first place.
I like my little writing pads. They’re the tortoises—slow and steady—of the writing process. They’re a little more portable than laptops and don’t run out of battery. I like taking one with me to lunch and getting a couple of extra pages done over the break. I like the steady accumulation of pages until a story or chapter falls out. I like how I can write any old bollocks to skip snags, because it’s only the first draft after all.
With discipline (and maybe some tape applied over the delete button), I could do most of this on a word processor. I think I like the little pads because they're a clear separation between first and second draft. It doesn't matter if the first draft was done on paper or typed in Word, I usually end up typing the whole thing again for the second draft. I find it's the best way to trim out all the needless fat from a story. Copying up from a notebook is easier than having two Word's open and the fonts at magnifying glass size.
Alas poor trees, it may be a while before I'm weaned off you yet.
I keep trying to kick the habit. Ink and bits of dead tree, I mean it’s so primitive. Look, there’s this lovely shiny laptop with a blank screen all waiting to be filled with words. And look at this keyboard, so much faster and more efficient at producing words than that awkward scratching.
It never works out that way. It’s that delete button. It’s far too easy to use. If you’re of a slightly perfectionist bent (which I am), the delete button is the concrete block waiting on the tracks to derail the writing process. It’s too easy to get stuck at a point in the story, writing and re-writing variations of the same sentence over and over until I completely lose the thread of where the story was supposed to be going in the first place.
I like my little writing pads. They’re the tortoises—slow and steady—of the writing process. They’re a little more portable than laptops and don’t run out of battery. I like taking one with me to lunch and getting a couple of extra pages done over the break. I like the steady accumulation of pages until a story or chapter falls out. I like how I can write any old bollocks to skip snags, because it’s only the first draft after all.
With discipline (and maybe some tape applied over the delete button), I could do most of this on a word processor. I think I like the little pads because they're a clear separation between first and second draft. It doesn't matter if the first draft was done on paper or typed in Word, I usually end up typing the whole thing again for the second draft. I find it's the best way to trim out all the needless fat from a story. Copying up from a notebook is easier than having two Word's open and the fonts at magnifying glass size.
Alas poor trees, it may be a while before I'm weaned off you yet.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
New Year's Writing (Non)Resolutions
There’s probably going to be a ton of these spunked onto the web. Given how just about everyone breaks their resolutions before the holiday season is over, I’m going to engage some reverse psychology and create some resolutions for things not to do in the hope I break them spectacularly.
1. I’m not going to write faster.
This needs work. When I first started writing stories for Literotica I told myself I wasn’t going to get bogged down with the self-doubt and obsessive perfectionism that had afflicted my horror short story writing and just have fun. Now I’m starting to take it a little more seriously, the stories have grown more complex and elaborate and the flaws have crept back in. This year I want to get back the fun and less worrying about what I’m writing.
2. I’m not going to make more frequent blog posts.
Related to 1 above. More writing and less chiselling. Often I’d have an idea of something to post, tie myself in knots with attempting to write it and then abandon the whole thing because it was taking too long. These are supposed to be quick blog posts, not graded essays.
And now the individual writing projects.
3. I’m not going to polish Succubus Summoning 101 up and get it ready for publication.
I should have done this earlier. It’s popular on Lit and about the right length for a novel. Plus, if I don’t do it, some sleazebag will probably try and plagiarize it as has unfortunately happened recently to various Lit authors.
4. I’m not going to finish Succubus Summoning 201
Ugh. Important rule for building up a fanbase—don’t leave them waiting months for the next chapter. Sorry peeps. 203 has been stuck on the backburner for a while now, mainly because the 201 arc has a plot I thought I needed to work out in advance. It’s a fallacy of course. I wrote 101 a chapter at a time and it dropped nicely into place.
5. I’m not going to finish two more short story collections.
This is the tough one. I should be able to get one done, but getting a second finished will be very much dependant on speeding up my writing, especially as I don’t have much left in the pool of already finished tales.
Now let’s get down to breaking those resolutions as fast as possible!
1. I’m not going to write faster.
This needs work. When I first started writing stories for Literotica I told myself I wasn’t going to get bogged down with the self-doubt and obsessive perfectionism that had afflicted my horror short story writing and just have fun. Now I’m starting to take it a little more seriously, the stories have grown more complex and elaborate and the flaws have crept back in. This year I want to get back the fun and less worrying about what I’m writing.
2. I’m not going to make more frequent blog posts.
Related to 1 above. More writing and less chiselling. Often I’d have an idea of something to post, tie myself in knots with attempting to write it and then abandon the whole thing because it was taking too long. These are supposed to be quick blog posts, not graded essays.
And now the individual writing projects.
3. I’m not going to polish Succubus Summoning 101 up and get it ready for publication.
I should have done this earlier. It’s popular on Lit and about the right length for a novel. Plus, if I don’t do it, some sleazebag will probably try and plagiarize it as has unfortunately happened recently to various Lit authors.
4. I’m not going to finish Succubus Summoning 201
Ugh. Important rule for building up a fanbase—don’t leave them waiting months for the next chapter. Sorry peeps. 203 has been stuck on the backburner for a while now, mainly because the 201 arc has a plot I thought I needed to work out in advance. It’s a fallacy of course. I wrote 101 a chapter at a time and it dropped nicely into place.
5. I’m not going to finish two more short story collections.
This is the tough one. I should be able to get one done, but getting a second finished will be very much dependant on speeding up my writing, especially as I don’t have much left in the pool of already finished tales.
Now let’s get down to breaking those resolutions as fast as possible!
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