There are a number of great science fiction and fantasy authors who feel that the Hugo awards have become irrelevant because the folks voting–only those who are members of Worldcon–do not represent science fiction and fantasy fandom.
But this is not only about the fact that the voting block is not a statistically valid sample of fandom. It’s also a campaign against what Larry, Brad, and many others see as a politically correct shibboleth in parts of the publishing community that they feel short shrifts authors who do not toe the liberal political line.
Two years ago, Larry Correia decided to give this issue a lot of attention. He did this by asking his fans to purchase a Worldcon membership and then consider a list of authors he thought were very good but didn’t necessarily reflect the prevailing values of the traditional Worldcon audience. Last year he repeated the effort and created a shirt-storm (I like that image so much better than the one that includes flying poops). This year, Brad is carrying the banner. Read Larry’s post Sad Puppies 3: The Slatening? to see this year’s slate of alternative folks and a summary of why these guys are doing this.
I’m friends with Larry and Brad. And I do not like the Should Police coming out and telling me I should or must include more X in my stories and less of Y, whatever that X and Y may be.
But, I’m wondering if storming the Hugos is the right way to do this.
Yes, the Hugo award has a lot of brand equity. But must the Hugo represent fandom?
Is Sad Puppies attempting to storm the castle and force upon Worldcon something Worldcon members don’t care for?
Let’s go back to the original issue that Sad Puppies is trying to shine a light on.
Reader Kim wants more of X and less of Y in his or her books.
But instead of saying, “Geez, where in the crap do I find books with more of X and less of Y?”
Instead of trying to get with a bunch of folks and saying to suppliers, “Hey if someone would write more of X and less of Y, we’d buy it! Look at this market that’s dying for product!”
Instead of developing the More X and Less Y website dedicated to helping readers who like that find their books.
Instead of that, Kim says, “Gosh darn it! All books should have more X and less of Y. And if they don’t, they’re, they’re, they’re bad, and bad for you, and probably make kids smoke! And we should make all stories conform.”
And the mandated “should” is where things get all tangled up. That should is what Sad Puppies is speaking out against.
So instead of trying to stomp out differing opinions or requiring all authors to write stories with some allotted amount of XY content, would it not be more productive to simply work with our wonderful free market to try to create a new silk road (or pave the existing one fit only for camels) that connects readers who like XY stories with authors who are happy to write them?
I think it would.
At the same time, this same argument could be applied to the Hugos. Instead of trying to force Worldcon members to change their ways, why not let them like the stories they like, but create a fresh new award that seeks a broader base? It would require work to build its brand equity, but maybe that’s a more effective long-term strategy.
It’s kind of like the New York Times best seller list. There are many problems with that list, including, but not limited to, the fact that it can be gamed. But instead of trying to change it, USA Today came up with something much better. Yes, “NY Times Best Seller!” still has huge brand equity. But USA Today is gaining on it. And as the market learns more and more about the difference between the lists, USA Today’s will only grow in luster.
I suppose it’s true that you sometimes do indeed need to storm the castle. And maybe this one needed some barbarians to show up and sack it. But I wonder if it’s time to pivot. I’m wondering if in this case the best long-term strategy wouldn’t be to simply build an armored division of M1-Abrams with air and sea support and make the castle irrelevant. Maybe this is something to think about for next year.
“More than 50% of all traditionally-published book sales of any format in the US now happen on Amazon.com.”
That’s just amazing. But I found something even more amazing this week.
Author Earnings released a report this week of their analysis of a million titles on Amazon. Data Guy, the tech guy behind the software gathering the information and crunching it, posted this graph in the comments.
Do you see the amazing thing?
Well of course you do, I gave it away in the title of the blog. Science fiction and fantasy sell MORE units than thrillers.
More.
What?!
For, like, ever I thought SFF was a tiny portion of the market. Not so, my friends.
Some may say, well, but this only represents Amazon. What about the channels traditional publishers sell through? Author Earnings explains a way to account for that in their report. Basically just double the size of the purple and red bars. If you do that I think thrillers might just edge SFF out. But it doesn’t dwarf it by any means.
Furthermore, for an indie author, I don’t worry about those other channels because they’re not really a viable option for me. My world is selling online. And the online market for SFF is the SECOND BIGGEST MARKET after Queen Romance.
Oh, BTW, next book in the queue is volume 1 of Lord of Bones. It’s going to start with something like this.
The four men did not leave. Instead, they spread out just a bit in shallow semi-circle in front of Blaze.
Four of them. One of him. There was definitely going to be blood.
“You don’t want to do this,” Blaze said.
The big one drew his sword and swung it a bit to loosen his shoulders. “Oh, but we do. Because you’re not handing over the blackmeal. And we’re not leaving without it.”
No, he was not going to hand that over. Couldn’t. Not if he valued the lives of his wife and boy.
Two of the others drew their swords. The fourth brought his staff up and laid it on his shoulder in a two-handed grip.
The big one would be the obvious target to take first. But Blaze knew that would be a mistake. The big one was there just to focus his attention. To fix Blaze in place. And then the silent one would slice him up the side.
The man with the skinny face said, “Old man, the vultures will be picking your eyes out before lunch.”
Blaze said, “Well, if you’re so determined, let’s not keep them waiting.” And then he rocked forward.
I’ve not forgotten the Dark God series. I will finish it, but I need to get this smaller volume of Lord of Bones out.
Last week, I was booted out of Codex Writers, a private, online writer’s group that I’d been a member of for somewhere around fifteen years. I’m not broken up about it, but the reason for said booting is interesting, unexpected, and worth a post.
Over the years, writers moved in and out of the group, but there were usually somewhere around fifty to a hundred members active on the boards. We discussed the writing craft and business. We held writing contests. We provided critiques. People shared interesting things about their lives.
The group has moderators. And the moderators got together last week and decided John Brown had to go.
Why?
What, of all the sins one may commit online, triggered this?
Was it refusing to stop posting pictures of cats?
Using too many emoticons?
Infecting everyone’s pages with Russian spam bots?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I know what you’re thinking. Surely, John, you must have
been posting in a belligerent, arrogant, and strident way. You must have been a
jerk.
That’s what you’d think.
I assumed that’s what the problem was too. I invited those
who were angry and hurt to come to my personal thread and explain what it was
that was making them so hurt and angry. A number took me up on the offer. And,
to my great surprise, one of their criticisms was that I was too polite.
One person posted that my politeness made her think I was sealioning (a new term to me). Other’s agreed.
Another person said that my polite manner surely indicated I wasn’t sincere. Other’s agreed.
In fact, one of the moderators stated that being polite was part of the insidious problem that was John Brown. She said that my politeness had suckered folks in to letting my awful behavior go on too long.
I was offensive, and I was too dang polite about it.
So what was I doing?
Well, I was asking for evidence.
Don’t ask for evidence
My sin was suggesting that some claims being made about a
certain topic seemed to be premature. My sin was in looking at the evidence
being offered to support some of these claims and firmly stating that I
couldn’t see how it supported the conclusions.
On every topic on the forum, we could question claims and
discuss evidence in an effort to figure things out. But there was one topic, as
I learned, for which a number of the active members and the moderators decided
that was forbidden.
The topic was systemic or “institutionalized” discrimination.
On the forum, most of the discussion was how it related to publishing.
They explained to me that it was offensive for me to want to
see if the evidence actually supported the claims. It was offensive to post when
I couldn’t see that it did.
You might wonder how in the world can that be offensive.
After all, evidence is one of the first things we ask for when people make
claims.
If Billy Joe comes up to you and says, “Son, aliens done landed in my yard last night. I swear it on a stack of Bibles.” Most of us would want some additional evidence.
We’d want to see the video he took and look at the burn mark
in his lawn and the broken branches he said were made when their ship landed.
And we’d want to see the report showing that the residue collected off the
swing set was a substance unknown to mankind.
But it isn’t just claims about aliens that we do this with.
Historians do it about history.
Scientists do it about science.
Courts require it for reaching verdicts.
Heck, we even do it when we look at movie reviews—we use
those reviews as evidence that the movie is going to probably be good or bad.
Evidence.
We’re always looking for evidence to see if our guesses are
right. But on this topic, wanting evidence was offensive. I was told it was
“hurtful” and “damaging.”
The logic of micro-aggressionism
How could folks get to the point where wanting and
challenging evidence for claims was a bad thing?
Well, quite easily. And they aren’t the first to do it.
And lest you think this unfortunate logic is found only in
obscure writers groups, you need to know it has spread to many American university campuses.
That means it’s eventually coming to an organization near you. And that means
chances are good that you or someone close to you will have to face, at some
time or another, online or elsewhere, an angry mob (or moblet, as the case may
be).
So let’s examine the logic so that when you do, you’ll be
able to see the response for what it is, name it, and bring its tenets out into
the light and show them for what they are.
Here’s their logic.
ONE, each of us
has our individual prejudices, biases, and beliefs about the world.
I’m sure you agree with this. It seems pretty obvious. One guy might think soccer is for wimps, and another might think football is for lumbering meatheads. Of course, it’s not just about sports. We also hold views about people from other groups. Depending on your experience, the media you’ve been exposed to, and the statements and behavior of those around you, you might have unconsciously picked up certain beliefs about Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Germans, Swedes, Whites, engineers, clowns, etc.
TWO, it’s likely there are others out there with the same prejudices and biases. Some of those ideas will be held in common by smaller percentages of the population. Others will be held in common by larger percentages of the populations.
I’m sure you agree with this too. A lot of Americans like football, but some don’t. A lot of Europeans like soccer, but there are some who don’t. We can see this with our beliefs about various groups. For example, ask anyone in the USA what they think about Nazis, hippies, or hockey players, and you’ll find a handful of common responses.
THREE, various prejudices
and biases can get perpetuated in the society. This is what the
micro-aggressionists call systemic discrimination.
I’m sure you’re nodding along here as well. Americans have
loved football for generations. Europeans have loved soccer too. Views are passed
on from parents to children. They’re passed on via the media. There’s a
systemic introduction to and reinforcement of those likes, dislikes, and
beliefs.
I think we’ll all together here.
However, this is the point where the micro-aggressionists diverge.
When those who have bought into the micro-aggressionist
views see any disparity between groups they focus on (ethnic minorities, women,
and minority genders), they claim, FOUR,
that the disparity between the two groups MUST be because of systemic discrimination.
Nothing else could be the cause.
I was told it wasn’t up for question. Furthermore, I was told that you can’t prove such things anyway. It’s “like ecology.” And so I shouldn’t ask. I was also told that questioning simply proved that I was lazy and ignorant, because if I’d done any amount of thinking or study, I’d agree with them.
But it didn’t stop there. They claim, FIVE, that if you question their default answer, you’re not only an ignoramus, but you are also hurting others. Literally hurting them.
The very act of asking for evidence, they say, is a micro aggression,
a micro threat, a micro attack. It’s a tiny assault. And those tiny assaults
perpetuate the discrimination. So if you disagree, you’re bullying and hurting.
If you question, challenge, or want evidence, you’re damaging people’s lives.
And this all leads them to their final conclusion—SIX, if you won’t voluntarily stop, you
must be made to stop. You must be silenced. And if you can’t be silenced, then
you must be banished.
Did you see where they went off the rails?
Multiple factors
The fact is that there are a LOT of factors that could cause differences in the situations between two people. And commonly held prejudices or biases is ONLY ONE of them. And until you’ve really dug into it, there’s no way to tell how large a factor it is, or if it’s a factor at all.
Here are just a few of the factors that have been shown to
have significant effects on a person’s success:
Birth order
Beliefs about self-efficacy
Grit
Work ethic
Whether you were born and raised in a single-parent family
How wealthy your family was
Self-control
Whether you graduated from high school
Certain pollutants in the environment
Where you lived
Your height
Your level of attractiveness (and it’s different attributes for men versus women)
Your age
Learning disabilities
Reading ability
Level of activity in a religion
General health
Notice that none of them have anything to do with ethnicity,
skin color, or gender. To ignore these as contributing factors in any given
situation is not only simplistic and wrong-headed, it can be harmful.
For example, why do Blacks have such high murder rates in
some of our biggest cities?
Micro-aggressionism would ignore all the many factors above
and assume that it must be some form of systemic racism. It would demand you
accept that explanation. And tell you you’re ultimately contributing to a
perpetuation of high murder rates if you question it.
Luckily, there are others who are looking into that issue. One strong correlation is with high out-of-wedlock birthrates. Another, with the spike in the late ’70s, is with unleaded gasoline. Or was it simply the boom in males aged 15-24? Or is it possible that murder rates are caused by different mixtures of factors at different times? Look at the graphs here.
What if a major factor is out-of-wedlock births? That has nothing to do with discrimination. It has everything to do with a life choice. And if that is indeed one of the main causes, then we can help save thousands of lives by figuring out a way to help the kids in those cities make better life choices and avoid getting pregnant outside of marriage. What if a pollutant is a compounding factor? Working on fuzzy claims of racism isn’t going to take lead out of the air.
But those under the sway of micro-aggressionism gloss over all of that. They are like doctors who diagnose every symptom as a sign of a broken leg.
Your chest hurts?
It must be a broken leg.
You’re bleeding from the head?
It must be a broken leg.
Your belly is distended?
Dang, another broken leg.
Criminalizing disagreement
The second error the micro-aggressionist philosophy makes is
in thinking disagreement is bad.
Yes, it can be uncomfortable when people disagree with you.
Yes, disagreement, even when polite, can stress you, raise
your anxiety level, or make you lose sleep.
But if you forbid disagreement, then you lose all of the
good things disagreement and the challenging of ideas brings.
Things like science and the search for truth.
Things like votes for women.
Things like civil rights.
The progress of our society has only been possible because
we’ve been able to disagree. When we begin to think disagreement is bad, we
start down a road that ultimately leads to a tragic end. One we’ve seen over
and over.
It’s the road of the Taliban and ISIS. The road of the Inquisition.
The road of the KKK. It’s one of the main roads that leads to oppression.
In the last century, Joseph Stalin, the champion of
socialism, the champion of the common man, the one who wanted to wipe out
inequity, killed an estimated 9-20 million non-combatants. Compare that to the estimated
11-12 million Hitler and his Nazi regime killed. What was Stalin’s view on
disagreement? “Ideas are far more powerful than guns,” he said. “We don’t let
our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”
Indeed.
To Stalin, disagreement with his socialist ideas was
hurtful. It was damaging. It perpetuated inequality. Those that expressed even
a whiff of it were either shot or shipped off to the Gulag, the wonderful
forced-labor prison camps where people died in droves.
Mao, Pol Pot, and others all felt the same way about their
programs.
But the micro-aggressionist philosophy blindly ignores that. It ignores they all started with the righteous cause of equality.
Sure, in the beginning, it might feel like the yellow brick
road, but that path doesn’t lead to Oz. It doesn’t even lead to the witch’s
place. That road leads to Mordor.
If you go there and raise that regime, you’d better hope two
little fellows show up who have the courage to disagree.
The truth is that disagreement is like the tension and stress you feel when you workout and build muscles. It leads to a healthy, vibrant, and strong society.
Banning disagreement is like banning exercise. The result is a dramatic loss of health. A society of couch potato, Ding Dong hunchbacks.
What now
The writer’s group I got kicked out of is filled with good and interesting people. I wish them no ill will. And, again, I’m not broken up about being thrown out. Oh sure, there were good conversations and helpful insights. But, ultimately, it means one less distraction. And that’s good for me getting books out the door.
However, the ideology that some there hold is simplistic, unhelpful, and wrong. It’s not going to take them where they want to go. We know because we’ve seen how that movie ends.
And it appears it hasn’t run its course yet in our society. Which means at some point in the future, you’re probably going to meet folks who have, out of the goodness of their hearts, fallen for this logical trap.
I hope you find opportunity to speak up.
When you do, I hope you treat them politely and with good humor.
And I hope you clearly and unfailingly disagree.
Extras
If you want to know more, here are some great reads and
interviews to get you started.
How we pick up unconscious biases
“The Hidden Brain”. This is a Radio West interview of Shankar Vedantam. Nobody conducts interviews better than Doug Fabrizio. In this one Vedantam shares fascinating insights about how we pick up our unconscious biases.
Thinking,
Fast and Slow by Daniel Khaneman. A good-humored and groundbreaking
tour of the two systems in the mind that drive the way we think and the
resulting cognitive biases.
“What
exactly is a microaggression?” By Jenee Desmond-Harris. Another article
from Vox that explains what microaggressions are from the point of view of
someone who agrees with that philosophy.
The First Amendment by the Cornell Law School. An overview of what speech is currently protected and what isn’t.
An example of civic dialogue between a classical liberal and someone who disagrees.
During LTUE this year I sat down with John Goodwin, who manages the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contest, to chat about the contest, my win, and other writerly topics. I had a great time with John.
If you’re a new writer or illustrator working in the science fiction or fantasy genres, I strongly recommend you submit each quarter. There is no fee and the prize is generous. Best of all, it comes with a week long workshop with pros.
On November 24th last year, a little over 13 months ago, I released my first indie title—Servant: The Dark God Book 1. That release was the official rise from the sideways swamp crash I had with Tor Books.
BTW, sideways swamp crashes in publishing, which can be caused by all sorts of reasons, are not uncommon. Most writers will take a hit or three in their career. That’s just part of the writing business. The question is what happens after the swamp crash?
In my case, I got to work. And, boy, was it a lot of work.
The results have been positive. It was not a phoenixian rise from ashes to glory; it was more like a damp crew patching the ship in the jungle with whatever they had at hand and then launching with nothing but a few birds making any noise. We are by no means past the many perils and obstacles on the path–right now a solid hit from just about anything could knock us out of the sky.
But we are airborne.
We are flying.
And by that I mean the business is delighting readers and generating income.
I’ll probably hit close to 23,000 paid sales since that launch. The large majority of them were for Bad Penny. To give you some perspective, a single title will make the official Publishers Weekly bestsellers lists (of traditionally published authors) hardback and paperback categories when the title has sold around 100,000 copies in the year. The top dogs report sales of a few million.
It’s clear the John D. Brown crew has got a ways to go.
But we don’t have to reach that lofty level to be viable. It would be awesome. At the same time, it’s helpful to be realistic. There are somewhere between 300-400 titles on the adult hardback and paperback list combined. The same on the children’s lists. So I estimate there are around 700 traditionally published books, fiction and non-fiction, that sell at those bestseller levels. That’s out of the millions of trade titles available on Amazon.
The good news is that the majority of writers making a living don’t appear there. The fact is that you don’t have to sell 100,000+ copies of a single title in a year to make a living. In the indie world, you can do just fine with what Russell Blake calls base hits and doubles.
So are we making a living?
Those sales have generated enough net profit to purchase us a nice used vehicle and a few other things. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (as my neighbor Mike Carr used to say), but making $10-20k can’t replace the day job. Not even close. Still, it’s a beginning.
Will our crew make it?
Can they survive the ferocious flying monkeys?
Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I want to summarize a few things I’ve learned about indie publishing and give a few shout-outs.
First, I want to thank all the readers who decided to give one of my books a shot. From the reviews and sales, it appears the majority found just what they were looking for (and there was much rejoicing).
Second, a big thanks goes to Larry Correia. Not only is he generous and enthusiastic, but his audience is as well. The Monster Hunter Nation made a definite difference for me this year.
I want to thank LL Muir and Diane Darcy, two romance writers who have been incredibly generous in sharing their indie insights and support.
Devon Dorrity and Dixon Leavitt spent hours, HOURS, of their time helping me with covers. I can’t thank them enough.
I also need to thank the Codex Writers. There’s a small group of us indies there, and they’ve all be very helpful in sharing insights about what’s worked for them and what hasn’t.
This is retail. If your product is not somewhere that people can see it, they won’t buy it.
I was in Wal-Mart the other day. My sister calls it the Evil Empire, but she’s a Tarzjay snob. I myself am a value shopper. I want what I want, and I want to pay as little for it as possible. At the same time, I’m not going to go out of my way to get it because searching around costs time and money. So if I’m looking for something in Wal-Mart and I don’t see it on the shelves, guess what? I buy something similar that will do the job.
Wal-Mart used to stock Marzetti’s Ranch Dip. The best vegetable dip EVAR. But then sometime this year, they stopped stocking it.
Why?! Why do they stop stocking stuff the moment I find it?!
I mourned for a few seconds. And then I purchased the Lighthouse dip. It’s good. If they put Marzetti’s back on the shelves, I’ll switch back immediately. But the point is that if it’s not in front of my eyeballs when I go shopping, I ain’t gonna buy it.
And I’m finding retail is the same with ebooks as it is with everything else. You can have the best product in the world, but you aren’t going anywhere with it until you are visible to your buyers.
2. There are a couple of ways that I was able to make my stuff visible
The way to make my stuff visible was not by publishing on Amazon, Nook, and the rest.
Publishing means nothing.
Think about it. There are, right now, 3,079,561 books in the Kindle bookstore.
Yes, three million!
If those were physical books, and we lined them up spine-out like we do on a bookshelf, and we assumed the spines average about an inch in width, they would make a line 48.6 miles long.
For us Utahans, that’s a line of books that stretches from the Mormon temple in downtown Salt Lake City, past Provo, and ends in Springville! (Look up your own local distances to get an idea.)
That’s the kind of visibility you get by publishing your book, which is nada.
So if getting it in the store that’s 50 miles long didn’t help, what did?
Getting on a bestseller list.
I sold thousands of copies of Bad Penny on Nook when I was on the Nook’s top 100 list. I rose to #3, in the entire Nook store, then hung out around #50 for about a month. And when that burst of sales that made me #3 fell out of the algorithm (30 days later), I fell off the list. My sales dropped like a stone. Not to nothing. But they were a fraction of what they had been.
How did I get that #3 slot to begin with? The same way I rose to #30 for a few hours in the Kindle store, then slowly dropped to the 1,200s for a few days. I got it by placing an ad with the king of book advertising services, aka BookBub.
How did I get onto BookBub? Here’s their requirements and tips. Please note that the reviews of Bad Penny were part of what made the book appealing to BookBub.
How did I get reviews? By using other ad services to make my book visible and getting mentions on blogs like Larry Correia’s and a few others. And by following recommendations in the book Let’s Get Visible and Your First 1,000 Copies and the suggestions of others who are selling well. And that’s a key thing too–looking to see what folks who are selling well are doing, not those who aren’t.
Of course, readers also liked the books enough create word of mouth. And I can track some of my sales spikes to specific posts or people. The ultimate goal is to have so much word of mouth that everyone’s talking about you. But until that time, I ain’t going to rely on word of mouth alone.
Why not?
Because I’d like to increase my odds of success. I’d like to accelerate them. And thinking that word of mouth alone is going to do that flies in the face of everything I’ve learned about retail. Read what I had to say about books and lemonade and tending your garden for more. Consistent efforts with methods that actually have some track record of success seem to have helped a great deal.
BTW, Bad Penny is currently in the top 10 of three of Amazon’s thriller lists. I guaran-dang-tee you that being on those lists is a big factor in me selling somewhere around 60 copies a day. I saw that with Nook. Being visible starts a virtuous cycle–more people give you a try; if they like the book, they spread the word, which leads to more sales, which keeps you visible, which prompts more new readers to give you a try. Yeah, you’ve got to be good. But you’ve got to be visible first.
3. In most cases, books in a specific genre are substitutes
When readers purchase a book, they are looking for a certain type of experience. And my book’s experience isn’t so singular that readers can’t get something roughly similar from another book.
I love Lee Child. But Robert Crais provides an experience that’s basically inside the same ballpark. So does Nelson Demille and a whole host of others, including me.
If Lee Child stops writing or slows down his production to one book every four years, I’m not going to stop reading thrillers. There are plenty of other authors that give me the general adrenaline, surprise, action experience I’m looking for. I’ll be sad, but there are a lot of good authors out there. And I’m sure a few will become my new Lee Child.
Of course, we aren’t all exactly the same. I provide a noticeably different tale than Lee Child does even though we’re in the same Lone-Ranger-vigilante-justice action genre. And so, if I produce the best tale I can, I will find some readers will come to prefer me to Child because I line up more with their tastes than he does.
In addition to continue to work on visibility and craft, this means I’ve got to up my production. I’m going to try for 2.5 brand new books in 2015. That’s nothing for some folks. But that’s a good stretch goal for me.
4. There is no one sure-fire way to success
Even though visibility and studying your craft helps, nobody I know who is doing well has a replicable step-by-step program that guarantees success. There are some activities that seem to make the odds better, but there is no guarantee.
For example, from what I wrote above about BookBub, you’d think that’s the brass ring. Nope. I know other authors who have run promos with them and didn’t have near the success Bad Penny did.
Russell Blake’s advice on this seems to square best with my experience. See the links to his blogs here to see what I’m talking about.
5. Figuring out how to make a living with this has a lot in common with Lean Startup principles
The basic concept behind lean startup is that when you’re in a market without a lot of info on what works, the company that wins is the one that learns what works the fastest. And you do that by conducting experiments.
You experiment to see if you’re offering any value to the intended audience. You experiment to see if you’re promo methods are actually feeding your engine of growth. You experiment to see if your audience really is big enough.
The experimental approach taught in the lean startup stuff has freed me from a lot of anxiety. Success or failure is not about me personally. It’s about my techniques. It’s about my craft and business skills. It’s about me learning how to learn quicker.
I’m approaching my thriller and epic fantasy properties as experiments. I’m approaching various visibility methods as experiments. My current state of craft is an experiment. If what I’m doing with my current properties doesn’t work, I can pivot and experiment with something new.
The question is whether I can learn what works–to find an opportunity to add value and provide that value–before I run out of runway.
The bottom line is that I love developing stories and sharing them with readers.
I knew this already, of course. But having the ship up and flying again made it hit home in a big way. I enjoy the process of developing a story. I love the research, the story generation, the surprises that come along the way. And I love the emails I get and the discussions I have with readers who have read my books and enjoyed the heck out of them.
So that’s the big summary.
Year two stands before us. Let’s hope John D. Brown and company can learn and produce at higher levels than we ever have before.
Have a wonderful 2015!
Edit 1/14/2015: Here’s John Ellsworth, another indie author, with a similar tale. Although I’m jealous of his seven books in a year. I need to get cracking!
I just finished Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire by Bret Baier. It’s a New York Times bestseller that takes you into the world of Ronald Reagan, his rise to power in politics, and his role in ending the Cold War. And it does in a personable way with gentle humor throughout.
I enjoyed the fascinating behind-the-scene insights about the personalities involved and the clarity about what really happened. And how the book brings Reagan to life, as if he’s almost there. Along the way you’ll also get insight into Mikhail Gorbachev, the assassination attempt on Reagan, and more.
Baier is the chief political anchor for Fox News. In 2001, he became the station’s chief Pentagon correspondent and ended up traveling to Afghanistan 11 times and Iraq 13 times. In 2007, he became the station’s chief correspondent to the White House. More importantly, Baier seems to be one of the few journalists these days who is simply trying to get and report facts instead of spin. And that’s exactly what he’s done here.
If you like biographies or history, if you want to know how the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. stepped back from decades of mutually assured destruction, if you want to get a view into how diplomacy is done, then I think you’ll love this book. And you’ll probably love it even more if you can listen to the audio book version, read by Baier himself, which also includes a recording of Reagan’s speech to the students at Moscow State University. I listened to it via the Overdrive account my public library provides. Baier’s reading was terrific.
I have cut my consumption of bread to almost nothing. And so when I want a slice, I’m not going to waste it on run-of-the-mill sandwich bread. I want something delicious. And the best bread we’ve found is the La Brea Bakery bread that’s sold at Smith’s and other Kroger food stores.
Our favorites are the cranberry walnut loaf, the toasted sunflower honey loaf, and the pecan raisin loaf. These breads are made the old-fashioned way with a substantial crumb and a crackly, chewy crust that’s a joy to eat. And unlike the bread from a chain bread company that will remain unnamed, these loaves are actually fully cooked.
We just got two loaves today on our trip to Logan. We came
back home, cut a few slices, popped them in the toaster, buttered, and ate with
some chicken noodle soup. Pure bread heaven.
#
With that bread you might want some bratwurst. Not grocery store brats. Real brats. If so, I found the spot to get them (thank you, Larry Correia). There’s a gem of a butcher’s shop in Morgan, Utah called Bingham’s Custom Meats. It’s clean, well-lit, and nice-smelling. The people there are friendly. And they have over thirty different flavors of brats.
Bratwurst, by the way, comes from German. It’s made up of
two words. “Brat,” which means finely chopped meat, and “wurst,” which means
sausage. At Bingham’s they don’t add nitrates or any other preservatives. Their
recipes are pork mixed with various sets of spices.
So far I’ve tried nine of their flavors, and they’ve all
been delicious. They’re great for a low-carb diet. A Bingham’s brat and a bunch
of cooked vegetables makes an awesome lunch. If you want, you can also just
slit the casing and cook the sausage patty or stir fry style.
#
I’ve also cut my consumption of sweets. Which means if I eat
something, I want it to be worth it. And so it gives me great pleasure to
report my discovery of a wonderful flavor of Aggie ice cream at the USU Creamery—it’s
called lemon custard.
I know. Lemon ice cream?
And when I say ice cream, I mean ice cream. This is not a
sherbet. And let me tell you right now, this ice cream is amazing. It’s amazing
all by itself. It’s amazing with a banana, which they sell at the creamery. Furthermore,
for a little fun, if you combine it with the regular Aggie chocolate, the two
together taste like a Tootsie Roll. No lie.
I had it last month, and the month before, and I can’t wait for
another date with the wife to go enjoy another scoop.
20 Comments
I agree with you on this! Just because Hugos have been the most prestigious Science Fiction award a SciFi author can get doesn’t mean we couldn’t make a new one that gets votes from scifi readres all over the world. 🙂
The Nebula is up there too. It all comes down to what you want to recognize and promote.
So true, John. If you create a new one (I’ll call it The Quantum for the moment) and readers see that the books that they enjoy fill the Hugo list, and the ones they like are in Nebula, but the ones that really turn them around, make them think, make them feel, make them love to read even more are in the Quantum list–then they will begin to give it power. It will become the Second Foundation.
I write YA sci-fi, and one thing that I’ve noticed is that, with no exceptions I can think of off the top of my head, all YA authors treat each other nicely. What is it about adult sci-fi and fantasy tear each other apart, both publicly and harshly?
I don’t know. Is it the infusion of political stances, of crusades for right and wrong, however that’s defined? Do you find that in the YA community?
It may or may not be the right strategy, but it definitely got some attention, and that can’t be a bad thing.
There are an awful lot of folks that read SciFi and Fantasy in the seventies and eighties that don’t read it now. The Hugo conundrum is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve read several of the blogs on this subject, and there are several ex-readers of these genres that are willing to get their feet wet again, now that they have an inkling that there might be writers of the “old school” out there, albeit either Baen writers or indie.
I think the more attention the better right now.
About awards? I think there ought to some acknowledgement that the genres have splintered, and that the SJW saturated stories should get their due, and the old school stories should get theirs.
Just my auld two and a half pence on it.
Yes, all the magazines seemed to take a weird turn. And the editorial houses seemed to follow, although there were many exceptions. I dropped my subscriptions to Asimov’s and F&SF in the early ’90s because the stories just bored me.
Politics are definitely talked about by the YA community, and the genre definitely leans left. Nine out of ten authors are female, if that has anything to do with it.
So much for my theory. Or, if it all leans left, maybe the minority is too much a minority to care to make waves?
The Sad Puppy campaign has gotten a lot of attention in a couple of interesting places. There’s an article on Breibart that showed a lot of people the issues in SFF, and on Mike Glyver’s blog there’s an interesting conversation going on.
My thought on this is it might not change what’s going on in the Hugos, but the attention appears to be bringing back some old time SFF readers.
Give someone that hasn’t had a good space opera to read in twenty years, something that fits, they might start looking for more of the new stuff to read.
If someone was an avid fantasy reader twenty years ago and more, and couldn’t find anything to read at the end of the nineties and gave up, Larry Correia and the Harry Dresden series might bring them back.
That can’t hurt us, the indies and the aspiring writers.
Very true.
You really nailed it, John. The issue with Brad’s Venn diagram is that his exact diagram is identical to one you would have created when the Hugo Awards were created, and people don’t seem to understand that it was designed that way.
It’s a small group that created an award that represented a small group. The disconnect here is that thanks to those people’s dedication the award is considered prestigious and people are mistaking prestigious with “represents all of fandom,” but at its heart it is still a small group award.
It’s like complaining about the Nebulas because they only represent the opinion of writers. Well, exactly. Replace Nebula with Hugo and writer with con attendee, and the logic still applies.
Right. And I think shining a bright light on it, has been helpful. But I think the best alternative is an award that does what Sad Puppies really wants.
Totally agree with this. Thanks for the well-reasoned post.
I hate it when someone tells someone else that the thing they like is “wrong” or they like it for the “wrong reasons”.
No reason to go take away someone else’s toy; have a good time with your own toy and people will come over to see what you’ve got going on.
Yes. I’m in agreement. It’s time for a new SFF award, of the type that takes into account the tastes of mega-readers.
In other words: It’s not an award for the most high-brow SFF book (that might be the Hugo). And it’s not an award for the most popular SFF book (that might be Goodreads Reader’s Choice). Any reader who’s read at least, say, 30 SFF books that year can nominate candidates. But that’s the requirement–not how much you can pay, not who you know, not what social media you’re on. Just how much you read.
To me the argument loses any credibility when it claims most Hugo voters aren’t part of fandom
That wouldn’t make sense, would it? However, I don’t think they claim they aren’t part of fandom. I think they feel they don’t represent the vast majority of fandom. The Worldcon circle should probably be a smaller circle within the larger one.
I think the award should be tied to SLCC. You can add a comic category to keep it relevant to all the attendees there.
I would name it the “Saltys”
Now that’s an interesting idea.
The disconnect here is that thanks to those people’s dedication the award is considered prestigious and people are mistaking prestigious with “represents all of fandom,” but at its heart it is still a small group award.
The disconnect needs somewhat better explanation. It isn’t that “people” are mistaking prestigious, it’s that the people handing out the award were touting it as “represents all fandom”. “People” is entirely too nebulous, too ambiguous a word to use here. With the Nebulas it’s known that it’s a writer’s award, and in fact a specific group of writers, i.e. the SFWA. Pulling back the curtain on the small group nature of the Hugos is partially what SP has been about.
Is SP the best approach? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is the approach that’s in play now though. One could certainly get a good story out of some alternative approaches. Who knows how the world will look 70 million years from now with Sad Puppies, and without?
I agree with you on this! Just because Hugos have been the most prestigious Science Fiction award a SciFi author can get doesn’t mean we couldn’t make a new one that gets votes from scifi readres all over the world. 🙂
The Nebula is up there too. It all comes down to what you want to recognize and promote.
So true, John. If you create a new one (I’ll call it The Quantum for the moment) and readers see that the books that they enjoy fill the Hugo list, and the ones they like are in Nebula, but the ones that really turn them around, make them think, make them feel, make them love to read even more are in the Quantum list–then they will begin to give it power. It will become the Second Foundation.
I write YA sci-fi, and one thing that I’ve noticed is that, with no exceptions I can think of off the top of my head, all YA authors treat each other nicely. What is it about adult sci-fi and fantasy tear each other apart, both publicly and harshly?
I don’t know. Is it the infusion of political stances, of crusades for right and wrong, however that’s defined? Do you find that in the YA community?
It may or may not be the right strategy, but it definitely got some attention, and that can’t be a bad thing.
There are an awful lot of folks that read SciFi and Fantasy in the seventies and eighties that don’t read it now. The Hugo conundrum is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve read several of the blogs on this subject, and there are several ex-readers of these genres that are willing to get their feet wet again, now that they have an inkling that there might be writers of the “old school” out there, albeit either Baen writers or indie.
I think the more attention the better right now.
About awards? I think there ought to some acknowledgement that the genres have splintered, and that the SJW saturated stories should get their due, and the old school stories should get theirs.
Just my auld two and a half pence on it.
Yes, all the magazines seemed to take a weird turn. And the editorial houses seemed to follow, although there were many exceptions. I dropped my subscriptions to Asimov’s and F&SF in the early ’90s because the stories just bored me.
Politics are definitely talked about by the YA community, and the genre definitely leans left. Nine out of ten authors are female, if that has anything to do with it.
So much for my theory. Or, if it all leans left, maybe the minority is too much a minority to care to make waves?
The Sad Puppy campaign has gotten a lot of attention in a couple of interesting places. There’s an article on Breibart that showed a lot of people the issues in SFF, and on Mike Glyver’s blog there’s an interesting conversation going on.
My thought on this is it might not change what’s going on in the Hugos, but the attention appears to be bringing back some old time SFF readers.
Give someone that hasn’t had a good space opera to read in twenty years, something that fits, they might start looking for more of the new stuff to read.
If someone was an avid fantasy reader twenty years ago and more, and couldn’t find anything to read at the end of the nineties and gave up, Larry Correia and the Harry Dresden series might bring them back.
That can’t hurt us, the indies and the aspiring writers.
Very true.
You really nailed it, John. The issue with Brad’s Venn diagram is that his exact diagram is identical to one you would have created when the Hugo Awards were created, and people don’t seem to understand that it was designed that way.
It’s a small group that created an award that represented a small group. The disconnect here is that thanks to those people’s dedication the award is considered prestigious and people are mistaking prestigious with “represents all of fandom,” but at its heart it is still a small group award.
It’s like complaining about the Nebulas because they only represent the opinion of writers. Well, exactly. Replace Nebula with Hugo and writer with con attendee, and the logic still applies.
Right. And I think shining a bright light on it, has been helpful. But I think the best alternative is an award that does what Sad Puppies really wants.
Totally agree with this. Thanks for the well-reasoned post.
I hate it when someone tells someone else that the thing they like is “wrong” or they like it for the “wrong reasons”.
No reason to go take away someone else’s toy; have a good time with your own toy and people will come over to see what you’ve got going on.
Yes. I’m in agreement. It’s time for a new SFF award, of the type that takes into account the tastes of mega-readers.
In other words: It’s not an award for the most high-brow SFF book (that might be the Hugo). And it’s not an award for the most popular SFF book (that might be Goodreads Reader’s Choice). Any reader who’s read at least, say, 30 SFF books that year can nominate candidates. But that’s the requirement–not how much you can pay, not who you know, not what social media you’re on. Just how much you read.
To me the argument loses any credibility when it claims most Hugo voters aren’t part of fandom
That wouldn’t make sense, would it? However, I don’t think they claim they aren’t part of fandom. I think they feel they don’t represent the vast majority of fandom. The Worldcon circle should probably be a smaller circle within the larger one.
I think the award should be tied to SLCC. You can add a comic category to keep it relevant to all the attendees there.
I would name it the “Saltys”
Now that’s an interesting idea.
The disconnect here is that thanks to those people’s dedication the award is considered prestigious and people are mistaking prestigious with “represents all of fandom,” but at its heart it is still a small group award.
The disconnect needs somewhat better explanation. It isn’t that “people” are mistaking prestigious, it’s that the people handing out the award were touting it as “represents all fandom”. “People” is entirely too nebulous, too ambiguous a word to use here. With the Nebulas it’s known that it’s a writer’s award, and in fact a specific group of writers, i.e. the SFWA. Pulling back the curtain on the small group nature of the Hugos is partially what SP has been about.
Is SP the best approach? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is the approach that’s in play now though. One could certainly get a good story out of some alternative approaches. Who knows how the world will look 70 million years from now with Sad Puppies, and without?