Crossing the line…
[Last Friday in my newsletter, I strongly advised authors to avoid the Indie Authors Coop. Here’s why.]
OK, I’m not talking about Mr. Trump here, but there is a wall involved: I’ve been banned from Indie Authors Coop! That’s an e-wall designed to keep me out. Warning: it’s an exclusive club; no struggling authors wanted! The line I crossed was saying that having a successful book is like winning the lottery—that there’s luck involved (I said it again in my last post). Apparently, the narcissistic authors who have banned together in this forum don’t want to hear any of that—they call it negativity. The truth hurts, I guess. I’m banned, and I say, “Good riddance.” I don’t need to associate with people who don’t remember what it’s like to struggle as an author, and even less with people who don’t realize how lucky they are. Their attitude? They’re successful, so screw the rest of us. That attitude is typical of Big Five authors—the Authors Guild is full of them—but are these indies any different?
Yes, I was told that I crossed the line by mentioning that luck is involved. Luck is involved—writing a book is one thing, but having its readership grow into an avalanche is a rare phenomenon. I’ve been saying this for years. (See my course on fiction writing.) It seems like a fair warning to starry-eyed newbies who think they’re going to be the next Hemingway. It’s simply a dose of realism. Hard work only gets you so far. Having a successful book is like winning a lottery, not PowerBall—one hopes that the odds for the book are better than 1 in 292 million—but a million-dollar scratch-off. And that goes for traditionally published authors as well as indies.
And it’s not just sour grapes on my part—or negativity, as some IAC members call it (“some” means enough to get me banned). The stats show that it’s rare that a book becomes a bestseller (whatever that means—the NY Times keeps their formula as secret as the formula for Coke, but it’s biased to hell because it includes big book barn purchases). The biggest retailer in the business, Amazon, has stated that most books sell less than 500 copies. They have more access to the stats than I do. Maybe Amazon is wrong, but it’s the best info I have. And you really don’t need to believe Amazon; you can see it in their rankings (new books have biased rankings, so check out those published more than six months ago).
Interestingly enough, 500+ new readers across my entire catalog, not just one book, is all that I need to release the next one. I have two manuscripts in the wings ready to take the stage. They’ll stay there until I can afford to publish them. (See the business model discussion below. If anyone is interested, one MS is #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”) Or, maybe I’ll just post them up on Wattpad eventually (I have a lot of free stuff in “Steve’s Shorts” and on Wattpad—check it out). OK, that’s some sour grapes, but they make the best cognac!
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a great writer or not. In fact, there are many cases where badly written books win the publishing lottery. Which reminds me of a piece of terrible advice I got on IAC: write to market. Yeah, I’m supposed to imitate “bestsellers” Fifty Shades of Grey or Gone Girl? Some authors do exactly that, getting lost by jumping on a bandwagon with everyone else who jumps on. Have you noticed how many books there are now with the title Gone Something? I note that and duly ignore the book. I’m a prolific reader, and I feel insulted if an author tells me s/he writes to a market. I want new stuff, not the SOS (interpret that as you like). As an author, I guarantee you every book I write is different. I’ve never jumped on bandwagons and never will, unless you count trying out different genres (YA or fantasy, for example) as bandwagon-hopping.
The book market is as fickle as the stock market. The only thing an author can do is write the best novel s/he can, and then hope for some luck. “Best novel” has many interpretations, but “just like X’s bestseller” isn’t one of them (never use that in a query to an agent, by the way, because s/he might hate X’s book!). The author better show some originality. There are things s/he can do to create conditions for a successful book, but only readers will make it successful, and there’s luck (karma, fate, position of celestial objects—call it what you want) that comes into play for that. Denial of that element of luck is hiding your head in the sand (seems to be a national pastime these days).
I see it all the time. Somebody is successful at something and then states that her or his success is all due to hard work. (IAC members e-screamed this.) What a bunch of BS! Hard work is generally a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. That somebody thinks admitting luck is involved tarnishes her or his success, I guess, but this attitude is the sign of a small mind without a shred of humility. Why is saying so crossing the line? Is that really enough to get me banned from an authors’ forum—an indie authors’ forum, no less? Just another example of people in denial about the truth grouping together to exclude misfits who dare to have contrary opinions. If I ever have a successful book (I’ll take that >500 copies sold definition), I’ll consider it luck. The hard work is already there.
To be fair, I tend to lurk and learn on these sites more than comment. Commenting gets me in trouble. (FB is the worst offender: comment something there and someone jumps on their soapbox and begins to rant and insult you—maybe multiple someones.) On LinkedIn, they started to censor me, and Hitchcocks’s birds, the trad-pubbing establishment, started pecking away at me—my e-blood spattered through LI’s discussion groups. At IAC, there wasn’t much e-blood—they just banned me. I went thre because, after LI, IAC was an opportunity too good to pass up: get away from the agents, PR, and other traditional publishing wonks and their slaves, and live among the indies, who are supposedly doing the same thing I’m doing (more on this below). Except the indie authors on IAC are the same as the Big Five authors dominating the Authors Guild, comfortable in their success and assuming they know everything about the book business.
They don’t. They have blinders on. I stated my business model has always been like crowd funding (long before that existed, by the way). I think it’s still valid. They don’t. The model is simple: pay the cost of publishing my next book with the royalties from previous books. If IAC members used that, they’d have a lot more books in their catalogs! My idea: Supposedly some of your books are successful, others aren’t, but integrated over your entire catalog, you should be OK. IAC even had a thread recommending that the next book helps the sale of previous books, an idea that goes hand in hand with my business model. But maybe they’re right. Maybe my business model sucks. But they didn’t offer any valid alternatives, which is typical of clubish naysayers.
Again, to be fair, I was learning more on IAC than I ever did on LinkedIn, especially in responses to my comments. Most everyone was helpful: try A, do B, etc., etc. I’ve been in this business for 10+ years and have tried almost everything that they proposed, though. The suggestions I hadn’t tried cost too much to implement. Several suggested BookBub. It’s too expensive and another club you can’t easily enter—I’ve discussed all the negatives about BookBub before in this blog and in my lessons on writing fiction. One person wanted me to create a pen name, redo all the covers of my 22 books, and republish under that pen name. Ignoring the fact that that sounds unethical as hell (Amazon might not like it, for example), I couldn’t afford that. I publish each book on a tight budget, but 22 times $N pub costs is serious money for anyone except maybe Mr. Trump! And my $N has no room for BookBub.
One nice fellow on IAC (I’ll admit there are many, but presumably not those who run the site and/or are in the ban-Steve crowd) narrowed that down to changing a few of my covers, the ones not professionally done. I had already decided to do that over the next few years. In general, I do what I can. Another person’s suggestion was also cost effective: read books on book marketing. But I’ve read and reviewed them even! No one, especially marketing people, really has new ideas anymore, and those authors of self-help books for indies are just stealing your money. You’re much better off perusing writing forums that are free—just not this one, which, like LinkedIn, deals more with the business end than the actual writing. Remember: the first necessary condition for a successful book is to write a GOOD book!
While I’ve experienced pernicious exclusivity from indies before (for example, Joe Konrath’s library initiative), IAC’s attitude seems over the top: I don’t see that I crossed any line with IAC. I recommend that all indie writers stay away from the Indie Authors Coop. The majority of the authors there, including the founder, are narcissists who can’t accept that anyone disagrees with them and want everyone to say how great they are. IAC is just the indie version of the Authors Guild. Such groups are country clubs who limit their memberships. The very fact that you need a sponsor to get in should have been a warning to me. IAC is like George Clooney’s $30K/plate dinner, International Thriller Writers, and Augusta National before Tiger Woods—exclusive.
In fact, while it’s useful to peruse forums dedicated to writing skills, it’s probably safer to stay away from ALL authors’ groups (you never know where those lines are). Other authors want you to buy their books; they don’t give a rat’s ass about yours. Stick to Goodreads, where the readers are. (OK, there are some authors there, but they’re generally prolific readers too.) IAC is to Authors Guild as Bolsheviks are to the Czars—sounds like a revolution, but you’re still just left with another bunch of SOBs controlling things. IAC’s true face is now exposed for the public to see.
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Rogue Planet is now available for all reviewers on Net Galley.
The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. This novel, which is a bridge between the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” and the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy,” considers the following question: how will the U.S. government in the future handle all those old people with classified secrets in their head? This is just a Smashwords sale. The book will be priced at $0.99 until June 1, reduced from $2.99. The coupon code is MP45S (type that in when you order—be sure and specify the format you want). Pass the word to your relatives and friends.
In libris libertas….
