Another View--or two--on Self-publishing.

Most of you know my take on self-publishing. I've posted about it HERE. You also probably know that I am a reviewer at Underground Book Reviews--a site dedicated to reviewing "Indy-published books." We take a fairly broad view of "Indy," including small publishers, vanity presses (as long as they aren't imprints of a major publishing house), and self-published. At UBR, we're all very committed to providing honest reviews and feedback to authors, even when it means exposing them to some harsh truths about what they've put out. You can read about my approach to reviewing in this blog post: So, You Want Me to Review Your Book, and also at UBR HERE.

I've also written about the long haul of the writing life...it's a marathon, not a sprint. You can read my thoughts about writing as an endurance sport on author KW McCabe's website (and updated HERE in 2014), and about the patience required during the writing, querying, and publishing process HERE and HERE .

Yes, I've taken a pretty harsh tone for someone who did self-publish the electronic versions of my books (the print versions are published by Casperian Books, a full-service, no cost, fees, or book purchase requirements to the author, or, as the publishing industry truism says, "money flows to the author"). But, if you read those posts, you'll see that I'm not opposed to self-publishing, but I am very much against rushing to publish without "paying one's dues" by putting in the time and effort needed to learn and hone the craft.

Yesterday, an opinion piece appeared on Huff Post: Self-publishing: An Insult to the Written Word.

An insult to the written word.

Wow.

That's harsh. Even by my standards. And as a read through the comments (time-worthy) shows, many of her points really do lack validity. But, many of them don't.

A better, more evenhanded and accurate take on the impact of self-publishing on the reading and writing world can be found in Kristin Lamb's Blog Generation Author Snowflake & the High Cost of Instant Gratification.

This.

This.

This!

All authors and aspiring authors, all those who "won" NaNoWriMo in November and rushed to Create Space or some other instant-gratification site to "publish,"--you need to read this. Take it to heart. And while the "participation award" mentality may be more pronounced in the millennial generation, don't think any of us are exempt from the excitement and ego-stroking of some instant gratification. That's pretty clear in all the self-published novels from the 40-, 50-, 60-, 70+ year-old authors. While many are well-written, with great story-telling, an equal (or greater) number are premature publications, put out by "good writers" who didn't take the time and make the effort to become better, to strive for "great."

As Lamb predicted, the slush pile has been dumped in the reader’s lap and it has devalue what it means to say, “I am a published author.” It's been overrun with rough drafts from those who have always been told they're "good" writers. Sure, they're good--more than good enough for the writing in their life--the annual Christmas letters, the college-essays, their personal blogs. But is it good enough to be a "professional"--a published novelist?

Probably not.

In academia, good enough is a C...it's average. A "good" athlete doesn't walk on to a pro team without putting in an awful lot of work first. Why assume it's different for writing?

What's the solution to the glut of not-ready-for-prime-time published books out there?

That's the big question for all of us--authors, agents, publishers--isn't it?

We're still in the midst of the mayhem. A new model for publishing is still thrashing around, trying to emerge. It hasn't fully formed and worked out what it is yet.

I do think it's going to become more imperative for reviewers to give honest reviews, not just 5-star hoping for the same in return. I also think it's a disservice if/when reviewers only post a review if they can give >3-stars. That's not really helping anyone, is it? If an author has asked for the review, give it to them--the one they earn. They have every opportunity before asking for a review to find critique partners, edit, revise, rewrite, go through beta readers, rewrite again. Their failure in due diligence shouldn't give them a pass to not receive a bad review when it's merited.  Too many of us are worried about "revenge reviews" coming back at our own work if we're that honest. I'd like to think any petty, revenge-reviews would be obvious, so wouldn't really cause any real damage. Maybe that's naive.

We do need more review sites like Underground Book Reviews, where the reviewers are held to a high standard for our reviews (higher, at least, then I've found at some review sites where it's clear they're just pumping out 5-star reviews based on the back cover blurb and maybe some info they found on the author's website.). We are required to read the book, and we post the review the book earns, not the one the author necessarily wants.

Whatever the new publishing landscape turns into, one thing is clear: Self-publishing is here to stay. How does it become something that lets saying "I am a published author" retain its value?

I wish I knew.

Writing is an Endurance Sport

I wrote the following as a guest blog post for another site back in 2012. This subject popped up elsewhere recently (or continuously?) so tracked down the old post and am updating it here. (NOTE: only a week ago, I said this blog was going on hiatus. I lied.)

Writing is an endurance sport. That's been my mantra for the past few weeks years. Two months ago, Back when I first started querying my latest novel, Ye Gods! (titled Chupacabra at the time) I received a request from an agent for the full manuscript of my current novel, Chupacabra and I've been patiently waiting I waited patiently for two months to hear back. Patience may be a virtue but it isn't one of mine. I refrained from sending daily emails, but just barely. I did send a friendly note after six weeks and got a prompt reply that I was next in the pile.

This week, Finally, I received the "thanks, but no thanks" letter. The agent took the time to tell me what she liked and what wasn't working for her. Enough worked that she read the entire ms, but overall, something missed the mark. [Insert the sound you associate with a crumpling ego and dashed dreams here.] 

What's a poor author to do when, after spending months, even years writing and editing and polishing, an agent says "no" to their masterpiece? Not so long ago, the options were to persevere or give up.

But this is a new age in publishing; the options have expanded. Authors who have put in the thankless hours of finishing a novel (that itself is a huge accomplishment) no longer need face the demoralizing anguish of being told, "It's just not good enough." Instead, they can rail against literary agents for "not getting it," rant about "the gatekeepers," and justify their own work with, "I've read books that are worse than mine." Then they can run their ms through spell-checker and immediately proceed to the self-publishing option of their choice and send their book out into the world, ready or not.

I have that option, but I'm not going to take it. Writing is an endurance sport. There's more work to do before I reach the finish line and a marathon runner can't take a short cut and still win the race. Or, if they do, the win will be fleeting. Just ask Rosie Ruiz.

I also have the option to look for small publishers, as I did with my first novel, Marina Melee. For new writers, small publishers offer a great way to break into the publishing world. My publisher, Casperian Books, is easy to work with, provides valuable services like layout, cover art, press releases, and help with marketing that I wouldn't have had I self-pubbed. So why not go with them again? Because with their help I've learned a lot about selling books and I've grown as a writer. I'm now better prepared to approach agents and offer them more than just another manuscript in the slush pile: experience, and an appreciation for what they do.

Update: I'd given myself 1 year to query. I received four requests for the partial or full manuscript and lots of helpful feedback and encouragement, but no takers. In total, querying and waiting to hear back from those agents, I waited 18 months before deciding to approach Casperian Books again, and that's where it found its home. It took another 14 months to go through the editing and design process, develop the marketing materials, and get in the queue to be released. Ye Gods! came out in April 2014.

I'm now working on the sequel to Ye Gods!, The Un-Familiar. Because it's a sequel, I suspect an agent would be hesitant to pick it up, so I will again query Casperian. (I know that just because they published me once is no guarantee they'll keep publishing my books. I have to give them a quality product that they can sell!)

It took one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore, eight years between deciding to become a writer and selling his first book, Practical Demon Keeping.  He spent a year writing it, and almost another whole year polishing and editing before it sold. His persistence paid off. True, that was before the advent of easy, cheap self-publishing, but, would he have chosen that path had it been available? "I can't imagine marketing a book without an agent. I'm doing this to write, not to be a salesman. I left being a salesman to write books, so I'm happy to have someone to do the selling" (click here for more). Sounds like a no to me.

Moore's Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove sat on the desk next to me and motivated me while I wrote Chupacabra. His writing inspires me and his words in this interview even more so. I'm in this to write and I'm in for the long haul. As tempting as it might be to self-publish the current, pretty good version of Chupacabra, I'll get back to polishing, I'll work on the areas the agent suggested, and the story will be even better. When I do find an agent, with their help, it'll get better still. Update: so glad I went with Casperian Books. Despite many, many rounds of rewriting, revising, running through a critique group and beta-readers, self-editing, and hiring an editor, their editor found additional errors and recommended other helpful changes.

Am I missing an opportunity by not considering self-publishing? Maybe. But I think it's for an even better one somewhere down the road. Being a novelist isn't a sprint, it's an endurance sport. That takes patience and persistence. While I'm not known for the former, I have the latter in spades.

Meet La Señora Milagros Isabela Hernán de Santiago

My friend Bob Sanchez invited me to his blog hop, wherein we introduce the main character in our latest novel or work in progress. So today Señora Milagros Isabela Hernán de Santiago, who'll star in my upcoming novel The Unfamiliar, is joining me from Puerto Rico.

We first met La Señora in Ye Gods! She takes center stage in the Un-familiar as she
races to find the missing Carmen del Toro, her successor, before it's too late.

 

¿Como esta, Señora Milagros?

How do you think I am? I'm going through the change and I'm not ready.

That's a rather, um, personal problem isn't it, Señora?

It's going to be a global problem if I don't find Carmen.

What does Carmen have to do with your menopause?

Menopause? What they hell makes you think I'm going through menopause? I'm going through the change--the BIG one, not mere menopause.

Um, maybe you could clarify that for my readers, if you don't mind.

What's the problem? Did you not read Ye Gods!? You do know I'm a familiar, right? And all those stupid folk tales and fairy tales messed everything up. Familiars don't help witches, they help gods. Although, I can see where the confusion came from since gods do sometimes seem to use magic--although they don't, mind you. Gods are subject to the same physical and chemical laws of nature as everything else in the universe, they're just better at manipulating the elements.

 Anyway, familiars were created by the gods as personal assistants, and a means to keep their egos in check. In a rare moment of self-awareness, the ancient gods realized their gifts were too potent to trust to entities with big egos, like themselves. They recognized their arrogance was their weakness, so they created us. Familiars not only helped gods to find their true nature, but on occasion we have to humble them and snap them out of their delusions of omnipotence. Of course, that means we have our own powers. While creating us was a wise move, the gods, like anyone with power, were a bit paranoid. To avoid the possibility that we'd use our powers to overthrow them, they made our powers dependent on the presence, proximity, and strength of a god.

Like the gods, familiars selected their own earthly bodies. We know how important physical appearance—and the perception of it—are in exerting influence over our respective gods. Because of that, most familiars take the form of a cat. Even gods can't stay arrogant in the presence of a cat. I, however, chose a human. My god, known to most humans as the chupacabra, is a servant of the animals and as such, has a great ability to manipulate them, pull at their heartstrings, so to speak, so I chose to remain in human form when I became a familiar. But now that I'm ready to retire, I'll become a cat. That's the change I'm talking about. I'll live out my remaining days as the doted upon pet of my successor, Carmen.

Sra Milagros' retirement plan as Fifi.

Well, that sounds pretty good to me. Most people look forward to their retirement and having more leisure time, so what's the problem?
Carmen is missing. My very last duty to the god is to ensure he bonds with his new familiar. They have to be in each other's presence to do. I have to find both of them and get them together before I turn into Fifi.

Honestly, Senora, you don't look a day over fifty. You can't possibly be ready to retire. How old are you?

Fifty? Get your eyes checked. This is the body of a forty-year-old, forty-five tops. And I can't believe you're really going to ask me that. But, let me see...I became a familiar in...1850, when I was 33. I remember that because El Jibaro by Manuel Alonso had just come out not long before. That means I was born in...1817, so while I've been around for one hundred and ninety-seven human years, I've only been an active familiar for forty-nine years. We go dormant when our gods fade, you know. I don't count those years, so that makes me eighty-two, eighty-three next month.

Wow! You're pretty spry for 82.

Hibernating for 114 out of 197 years will keep you young.

This is who will play Sra Milagros in the movies.
(photo from wallalay.com)

Does your retirement mean we won't see you in book 3 of the chupacabra series?
You're the author, you should know that. But, for what it's worth, my plan is to complete my change to Fifi, curl up on a nice pillow in the sun and ignore all the crazy shenanigans. Whether or not you'll let me enjoy my retirement in book 3 (tentatively titled, Ye Goddess!) is yet to be seen. If you'd hurry up and finish book 2 (The Un-familiar) we could all find out that much sooner, couldn't we?

 

Now, I invite authors Sophie Schiller and Rebeca Schiller to join in the hop and tell us about the main character in their work-in-progress. (Don't worry--this isn't like a chain letter threatening bad luck and horrible things to happen if you don't jump in. No deadline, no threat, just an offer, should you have time in your busy schedules!)

 

Guest Blogger: Author Bob Sanchez

Today, I have the great pleasure of hosting author Bob Sanchez here at "Random Thoughts." Bob is the very talented author of the novels Little Mountain, Getting Lucky, and When Pigs Fly--all three could be considered mysteries, but each with its own unique flavor. The first is more psychological thriller, the second an action-packed, traditional detective story, and the last one (his first novel, When Pigs Fly), a comic crime caper.  
 
Come on in and get to know Bob a little better.

Bob Sanchez, Author of the novels
Little Mountain, Getting Lucky, and When Pigs Fly
(Photo courtesy of B Sanchez) 

Given the maxim, "Write what you know," how has your life prepared you to write such intriguing murder mysteries like Getting Lucky and Little Mountain? 



 Little Mountain, with
Detective Sambeth Long 

Both novels are set primarily in Lowell, Massachusetts, a gritty burg that gave America the likes of Jack Kerouac. I lived nearby for three decades, walked its streets, ate in its ethnic diners, explored its network of mills and canals. For Little Mountain in particular, I read a dozen books on the Cambodians’ humanitarian disaster and spoke with Cambodian refugees. My wife and I had sponsored a Cambodian family, one of thousands who settled in Lowell. So that was an experience I just had to use, though Little Mountain is complete fiction.

 

Mind you, I’ve been advised that Little Mountain is more thriller than mystery, as the villain’s identity isn’t hard to figure out.

You have great character names. Where do you find them?



When Pigs Fly, with
Mack Durgin, Diet Cola, and
Poindexter

When I was a kid, a neighborhood bully named Mike Durgin used to terrorize me. (It helped him that I was a coward.) When I remembered him a few years ago, his name seemed cool. Other names are usually just what pop into my head, as long as they aren’t in the local phone book. Getting Lucky was going to star Mack Durgin, but the guy turned out to have a different background, so I scrambled for a new name. Being dead, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster didn’t object to my borrowing their last names to create – wait for it – Clay Webster. My favorite name is Poindexter, literally the first one that came to mind.  Hopefully, it’s not too obvious a name for a young Tohono O’Odham girl to give to her pet javelina.

In the movie version of your novels, who gets the roles of: Mack Durgin and Diet Cola? Clay Webster and Bonita Esquivez? Sam Long?

If he were still alive, Pete Postlethwaite for either Durgin or Webster. Maybe María Conchita Alonso for Bonita Esquivez, François Chau (from Lost) for Sam Long, John Goodman for Diet Cola. He’d have to put on weight, though.

Can we expect any more adventures for Mack Durgin?

Getting Lucky, with
PI Clay Webster

Mack is lost in the desert somewhere, but I’m hoping to get him back.  But I’m working with Clay Webster on a new story set in Lowell.

Best piece of writing advice you've ever received?
Ass in chair.

Tell us about your writing muse.

My muse and I are not speaking to each other.

Omigod, where can I get Bob’s books?

http://bitly.com/bobsanchez. Thank you for asking.



Thanks for joining us today, Bob! We're all looking forward to Clay Webster's next adventure.

Finding the Baby in the Bathwater

Sometimes, we have to know when to throw out the bathwater. For me, that time is now.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
(Image from Phrases.org.UK)

I'm working on The Un-familiar, the next book in the Chupacabra Stories trilogy (Ye Gods! A Tale of Dogs and Demons, The Un-Familiar: A Tale of Cats and Gods, and Ye Goddess! A Tale of Dogs and Cats.) When I wrote Ye Gods!, I hadn't planned to write a sequel, or a trilogy for that matter. But when I finished and moved on, started writing a new novel, the characters from Ye Gods! kept interfering. Milagros and Carmen in particular, wouldn't stop whispering their stories in my ear.

Let me tell you how hard it is to write one thing with someone whispering something completely different the whole time.

I finally gave in. The Old Putters became a short story (for now) and appeared as Golf Goes On at Infective Ink and I got to work telling what happened to Milagros after the chupacabra, aka the god, aka Muggle, Paco, the dog, etc. went away.

The outlining process energized me. I know where this story is heading, I know the main plot points and how the characters interact, and I know all the returning characters really well. Some exciting and interesting new characters have entered the mix to stir things up, too.

My original outline for The Un-familiar.

I thought Marina Melee was complex, until I plotted out Ye Gods! I thought Ye Gods! was complex until I plotted The Un-Familiar. When I started writing, I knew this book would require me to move to a whole new level as an author. I felt up to the task.

I'm at about 50,000 words and have been for six months. I hit the wall of doubt. Is this working? Am I going in the right direction? Too much backstory? Not enough? I believe in my story wholeheartedly, but worry that it needs a more skilled writer to tell it properly. Can I become that writer?

Me, tearing my hair out in frustration over not being
able to capture on paper what I see in my head.

I've rewritten and revised these 50,000 words a few times now. I'm still excited by the story. I know, when finished, it's going to be my best work so far. I also know it isn't that right now. I haven't been able to put my finger on the flaw, and with 50,000 words invested, I hadn't been ready to call it quits just yet, but have been considering I might be better off starting over.

This weekend, I read Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. There it was--the magic I was missing. That's what I needed--to keep the magic and get rid of the rest. I now know what I have to do. I have to find the magic. I have to pull the baby out of the bathwater and get rid of the parts that are mucking it up.

I don't need to throw out my whole story. The magic is in there, but I've buried it in words and word counts, in explanations and backstory. Today, I'm going in search of the baby in all that bathwater. For the first time in months, I'm excited about The Un-Familiar again, thanks Neil Gaiman's magic.

A New Leaf...maybe

I'm turning over a new leaf. Maybe. If I stick with it. I'm not known for my long-term dedication or my attention span, but I'm going to try.

When I started this blog, I'd done the research, new what all the gurus of blogdom had to say about it, and I ignored it.

Me and my lavender hair---which has absolutely nothing to do with this post.
Growing out my gray hair, however, is another undertaking that challenges my ability to
stick with a project for very long. We'll see how that goes, too.

Not right away, of course. While I don't have the highest degree of stick-to-itiveness, I am very goal oriented. I like to set goals and then, at some later time, check them off the list. So, I began by setting the goal that I'd blog about something I was thankful for daily, for one year. The intent was to make me blog every day, as the blogging experts advised, and try to overcome my curmudgeonly nature by expressing something positive in my life each and every day.

I didn't last very long. Not because I don't have 365 things that I'm thankful for in my life, but because oh, the drudgery! Besides, the blog is called RANDOM for many reasons: it's random in when, how often, and what I post.

After a few years of increasing randomness, I'm going to try some structure again. My goal? Daily short postings on any old thing I happen to be thinking about when I log on. Part of this is to satisfy my curious, scientific mind about the efficacy of growing a readership (not just for my blog, but for my novels) through blogging and other social media. The conventional wisdom is that by blogging daily (or at least on a set schedule) readers will follow you regularly, too.

We'll see how long I can make it.

THE WRITING PROCESS BLOG HOP

The Writing Process Blog Hop is an author-run series, in which indie authors share a bit about their writing process, then pass the buck to the next guy. I’m following Amy Biddle, one of the co-founders of Underground Book Reviews and author of The Atheist's Prayer and Deb O'Neil at Writing Against the Wind. 

What am I working on?

I'm writing the sequel to Ye Gods! I'd originally planned to hold off on this, write something else first to wait and see how Ye Gods! does and if readers are interested in a sequel. No point in continuing the story if no one wants to read it, right? I'd started a fantasy/magical realism buddy-story about 4 long-time friends who golf together every day at the Charleston Municipal Golf Course, but the characters from Ye Gods! wouldn't shut up long enough for me to really get any traction on Old Putters, so I set it aside. I do have a short story, "Golf Goes On," based on the opening to Old Putters that's been accepted by Fear and Trembling, although I don't have a publication date for it yet.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

While there are a lot of novels that employee magical realism, I think the Caribbean setting in Ye Gods! adds a layer of authenticity to it. There's something about the tropics that makes us believe magic can happen there. I hope my experiences living in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands bring those settings and characters to life for the reader. In Ye Gods! the exotic setting lets people's imaginations run a little more wild than they would in suburbia. It lets the reader suspend disbelief, be more open to the magical quality of it all: There could be a monster lurking in the dense tropical vegetation. Those flickering lights could be a UFO. Those mysterious noises could be the chupacabra.

Waterfall on a Caribbean island (Dominica):
magic could happen here.

While Marina Melee doesn't have the magical realism component, I think the change in George over the course of the novel is due to that magical nature of the Caribbean. Most people think "oooh, tropical island---exotic, paradise," and become captivated, as George did. For people who actually live on tropical islands, the setting isn't "exotic," it just is, it's part of your daily life. Not that you don't recognize and appreciate the beauty, but it's background noise. You go about your daily life the way everyone else does, going to work, to school, the grocery store. You have to pay the bills, think about the cistern running out of water, getting the kids to school on time through the traffic. Throwing someone like George, who arrives in the "ooh, ahh" phase of enchantment, right into the work-a-day world of a tropical island, having to navigate a new culture, lends itself to a lot of humor as he adjusts from the idea of "it's all beaches and umbrella drinks" to "I have to pay the bills and supervise my staff."

Life on a tropical island: it really isn't this all the time!

Why do I write what I do?

Some of the best writing advice I've heard comes from Neil Gaiman: "write the story you want to read." (Thus, my working on "The Un-familiar" now, regardless of its eventual marketability.) He tells authors not to chase after the next big thing because no one can predict that. If you write the current "big thing" it won't be big by the time it gets published, unless you rush it to publication which is a big disservice to the craft of writing and a bigger disservice to the reader. I write what I enjoy reading: quirky satires that, on the surface might just be a fun story, but have some hidden depth that can make the reader think and laugh and look at the world in a different way. I love the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett. They're all masters at making the magical real and the real magical. While I don't think my writing is comparable to any of theirs yet, it's what I strive for.

How does my writing process work?

I'm not one of those diligent and self-disciplined authors who sits down and writes every day. I have to know what I'm going to write, otherwise I end up with gibberish that I'm going to delete anyway. Once I have the main idea of a novel, the "what if..." question and know a few characters, I spend a lot of time thinking about the story and "writing it" in my head. I think out the beginning, ending, and a few way points to get me there while I'm driving, swimming, walking the dogs, doing anything but writing. (Turns out, I make a lot of progress on the plot while doing yardwork, but don't tell my husband that or he'll use it against me!)

Once I have that, I make a plot-line or outline. For Marina Melee, I did it with post-it notes, index cards, and a bulletin board. Now I've moved on to a big roll of butcher paper and colored markers (see the photo below for the first outline of Ye Gods!) I link character interactions and related sub-plots with arrows, color-code characters, and run a timeline along the top of the scroll to figure out how I'm going to get from here (the beginning) to there (the end), hit the way points, and create and connect the dots in between. Then I start writing. Until I get to about chapter 3. Then I go back, re-do the timeline and write a synopsis. Yes, the dreaded synopsis--but I find it really helps for me to write a "pre-completion synopsis". When I write this pre-story-synopsis, I don't have the pressure of knowing "this is what's going to sell my novel to, or get it rejected by, an agent." This is for me. Do I know my story well enough to tell what my story is about in just a few pages? If I can't do that, I go back to the pondering stage to figure out what I'm missing, then redraw the storyline, before I get back to writing.

Mapping out Intersecting Plot Lines and a Timeline for "The Un-familiar."

If that sounds like a lot of work going on before I really make any meaningful progress, you're right, but to me, it seems like a lot less work than forcing myself to write every day just to meet a word count, then throwing those words out, or writing "the end" knowing I'm going to go back and tear it all apart in rewrites. That doesn't mean I don't do a lot of editing and some rewriting, but by the time I even start, I've rewritten it in my head enough times that I'm fairly confident the story I write is the one I wanted to tell.

Following me next week on the #mywritingprocess tour are:

Sophie Schiller, the author of Spy Island

and

 Jo Anne V Simson, author of Korea, Are You at Peace? and The God That Says, I Am.