When In Doubt, Write a Blog Post.

Louis Shalako

When in doubt, write a blog post.

I’ve just finished a romance, a short story of about 13,000 words. At some point we have to start a new story, but until I know what it is, it’s kind of hard to get going. What you can do is to create a doc file.  I take it from Calibri, 11-pt and set it up as TNR, 12-pt. Set that on the desktop and it’s a reminder that you need to keep moving.

What I learned in 2015.

I learned I can write five novels in a year. I had never done more than three before that. I learned quite a few things, some of which are personal and some of which pertain to the business and craft, the art of writing.

When I first started writing short stories, they really were short—six or eight thousand words seemed like a lot. All of the early stories were meant for the submission market. There are markets where the word count is only one, or two, or three thousand words.

Writing a short, tight story for submission is a skill. The trouble is, when you’re not getting any action and you want to publish it yourself.

On virtually all of the available platforms, the minimum price is either zero or $0.99. I’ve seen people charging $2.99 for a 200-word children’s book (an ebook).

I’ve got stories that are less than 2,000 words set at the same price.

While it is true we give a lot of books away for free, and we do have to make at least some of our costs back, the person that does actually purchase a book has to overcome their reservations.

They could just as easily buy a $0.99 full-length book as your short story. This is why I always put that in the product description. "A short story of love and murder," or whatever.

So at some point I had to learn how to take the nugget of an idea, and pound and hammer on it, to heat it up and draw it out into a long, fine wire. I had to weave that into a tapestry, and rear up a great fabrick, if I was going to sell it for ninety-nine cents. Most of my more recent short stories are in the 10,000 to 15,000-word range. I don’t have a big moral problem with marking that at $0.99.

People will scream when I say this, but for the really short-shorts, there’s no reason why there couldn’t be a 49-cent price point. I would use it without hesitation. I might be making more sales than I presently enjoy, and the fact is that we need to get some results once in a while.

In 2015, I decided to throw off a lot of hero-worship or something, and to learn to think for myself.

Why was I following a lot of famous writers on Facebook, for example? I couldn’t afford their workshops. I didn’t agree with some of their marketing advice. I did in fact take the writing tips to heart, I listened for all I was worth, and in the end, I ended up making a lot of decisions based upon what other people were saying. For the most part, they were all traditionally published, and trained, and had all of those expectations. They had the experiences that I probably never will--and might not actually need, in order to succed in an indie and evolving market. They're always giving advice on the mass market--where the indie market might be just a bit different from trying to produce big-budget blockbusters, time after time, trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience, because that was the only commercially-viable way to do things...their logic is as circular as mine, possibly even more so.

I wanted to do some non-linear, intuitive, marketing experiments. For that, I really don't need them guys. The funny thing is, they know a lot.

They were talking about a lot of things, from pricing, and layout and formatting, and covers and agents, and contracts. They talked endlessly about traditional and indie publishing.

At some point I just got tired of it. The other thing was, what exactly, did I expect some of these guys to do for me? I never got into any really long and involved discussions with them. It’s not like some really big hand is going to come down from the sky and lift you up—that’s just not the way it works.

As far as making myself useful to them, they were all traditionally published authors, with careers going back twenty, thirty, forty or even more years in one or two cases. I was clearly incompetent in their eyes, and that was probably true on some objective level as well. They clearly wouldn’t want to waste too much time on a guy like me.

The fact is that I really didn’t know much when I started. I was brash, and untutored. I was also a hard worker, fairly well organized, and showed all kinds of heart right from day one.

And still, what in the hell did I expect them to do for me?

There really isn’t much of anything they could have done—with our mutually-irreconcilable points of view.

Some guy comes along on their Facebook feed and he’s editing his first two books for self-publication.

Any number of them must have thought I was either a total idiot or the complete asshole, whichever one fit better into their world-view. It must have comforted some of them greatly indeed to know that I must inevitably fail.

That hasn’t happened yet, but oh, well.

I took the better influences that I got from them and used them to the best of my ability.

Throw in a pinch of showmanship, put a little mustard on there, hit the first fuse on the pyrotechnics and you really got something.

Now start singing your lungs out baby, because these nice people are going to feed us…

END

Photo by Louis. Perch Creek Habitat Management Area.

On Submitting That Novel.

Louis Shalako

This is not criticism. I’m not complaining. I’m not bitching, or whining, neither am I pissing and moaning, or grousing or griping or any of those sorts of things.

Basically, I’m kind of doing my research, which is vital as an aid to thinking.

That’s all—just thinking.

I've been reading all these literary agent’s websites. The ones that might represent mystery or crime fiction are looking for 'upscale' works. I’m not too sure what that means. It has been said that authors rarely know what genre their own book fits into. My new book is a literary/crime/romance/suspense/satire/smack in James Patterson’s face kind of a book.

Hey, fuck, what am I supposed to say.

But that’s why I wrote it.

One agency wants a list of works that might be in competition and an explanation of why a book might be different, etc, etc.

The old, “Please read a few of our books and please tell us how your book fits into our catalogue,” sort of thing.

Regarding some publisher's submission guidelines, I saw at least one or two that are asking for the author's marketing plan. If I had a marketing plan, I would probably follow it.

What, you don’t have no fucking plan for my book?

Years ago, I went to the library and used something called the Media Market Guide and copied out, longhand, a bunch of addresses. There were dozens of Canadian publishers in there. 

Some of them are still around. 

It seems to be a shit-load of work to put together a simple query. It's not something that can be done in five minutes, that's for sure. As for the literary agents, this list is strictly Canadian and there aren’t very many of them. Not all of the listings have clickable links.

Quite a few of the names ring a bell. I would have been submitting to these agencies, somewhere around 2006, perhaps earlier or later.

When I looked at the list of Canadian publishers, I found quite a few dead links. Quite a few of the imprints belong to a couple of publishers who dominate the landscape in this country.

They’re not accepting un-agented submissions.

Ralan has a list of book markets. Quite a number do not accept un-agented submissions. 

Quite a number will be closed to submissions at any given time. One listing that has always bugged me is Poisoned Pen Press.

When they say, “Self-published and POD authors need not submit,” I’m inclined to take them at their word. Please understand, I’m already published under some pen-names. But I’m not going to lie to them and say I’ve never been published. We’ll let somebody else take the moral low ground. They’re currently closed to submissions anyways.

It can take the most excellent writer years to get an agent or place even one single book with a major publisher.

I’ve only spent a few hours at this, maybe three or four hours today, and I started off by looking at Canadian publishers. (Duotrope costs money, so I don’t use it. They have a free trial. If you don’t opt out by the end date, the odds are your credit card account will be charged until you terminate.)

It’s not that I can’t write the query. I would think that each and every query would be individually tailored to the agency in question, although the building blocks, i.e. the first three chapters, the author bio, might be common to other submissions. Some markets probably do accept simultaneous submissions. My expectation is that a 60,000-word ‘literary mystery novel’ is going to be a bit of a hard sell. I’ve never seen myself as anything other than a pulp-fiction writer. It is, in fact, what I set out to do all those long years ago.

My first six manuscripts netted me about a hundred and twenty-five rejection slips. I’ve had a few books rejected since then. On the more positive side, I got three contracts from what I can only describe as an aggregator, back in about 2006, before anyone really knew what that meant. That publisher at least had a two-year contract, (ostensibly). One well-regarded Canadian publisher of sf/f asked for a partial of Shape-Shifters, but declined after reading chapters four to seven. They were sort of considering Time Storm, (as an ebook, which I hadn’t even heard of at that time) but I screwed that up. I think I was petrified with fear or something—that was a long time ago, and basically, I just screwed it up. I’ve never blamed them for that fuck-up, for I clearly wasn’t ready for that big a change in my life…

It’s not a big surprise that when I did learn more about digital self-publishing, I gave it a try.

When the money doesn’t roll in like the surf, when it seems almost impossible, (using any sort of rational and recognizable means) to build sales and build what is (theoretically) a business, it’s pretty easy to get discouraged.

Is that why I’m submitting?

Of course not.

I wrote my nineteenth novel to be submitted. It might be a good thing that I wrote the book before taking any kind of look at possible markets. But I wrote this book, for better or for worse, to be submitted and that’s what I’m going to do.

I will submit the thing somewhere, and then write a few short stories. The odds are I will start my twentieth novel by about the middle of December. I never quite know what I’m going to do next until it just happens one day—a short story going a bit long or something.

Other than that, it really is a bit of a game. The more you learn about it, and the more you study it, and the more experience that you gain, the better the chances of winning. Fuck, at least once in a while.

I’m not going to turn this into sheer drudgery.

(If I wanted a fucking job, I’d go out and get one. – ed.)

Oh—and if all you want is money, there are a million better ways to earn it.

We play games to amuse ourselves. Anything else is just bullshit.

Let’s just say that I have my price and I have my concerns. I don’t know how much I’m willing to do for you.

If we’re not making a lot of money, at least we’re doing what we want and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Wish me luck, that is, if you believe in that sort of thing.

END

The ODSP and That Advance Against Royalties.

Dubkat, our mascot here at Long Cool One Books.

Louis Shalako

Okay, let’s say you’re a client of the ODSP and you’ve sold a book project to a traditional publisher.

Forget the intricate details of the actual book deal. Forget rights and licenses, signings and conventions where everyone pats you on the back and wants your autograph.

The key thing is that you’ll be getting an advance against future royalties.

Since we’re operating as a business under ODSP guidelines, we’re allowed to earn $100 a month without penalty against our benefit cheque. We’re also allowed an ‘automatic expense deduction’ of $100 a month. This is similar to, but not the same as the Work Related Benefit of $100 cash which the government would send to a client employed by somebody else. They could work two hours a week and still get that cash.

So. Let’s say you get an advance of $20,000. It's in the form of a cheque, and all in one lump sum. You’re allowed the first two hundred free and clear. After that, the ODSP wants their money. They figure their share is $9900. Sure seems simple enough. They’ll just stop your cheque for eight or nine months, until you’re paid up. 

They will still (arguably) maintain other benefits, such as dental, medical, drug and eyeglasses.

You would basically be living on ‘their half’ of the advance money until you are good with them again. Presumably, you’ve stuffed the rest into your business account, keeping everything nice and separate from your personal affairs. Your business account is now $2900 over the allowable limit. You’ll be asked to spend it down, take it as income, or invest back into the business. Investing back into the business is problematical for someone still living below the poverty line, and expenses must be incurred during the month the income arrived.

Since you’ve already been assessed an overpayment, theoretically, you should be able to take it out of the business account (maximum of $7000 allowable) and just put it in your personal account. The trouble there is, depending on the size of the advance, you also have a limit (six or seven grand) of how much you can have in the bank. Yet isn't this what you’re sort of supposed to be living on…it’s very difficult to explain the guidelines, but if you don’t understand them, you’re going to get stung.

Yeah, they’re real nice that way. The tax people recognize averaging of income, over a period of years, to make an assessment of what you owe, at the present time. 

The ODSP does not recognize this concept.

According to my worker, the ODSP is interested in ‘cheques cashed and deposits made’. 

They're not all that worried about you living below the poverty line.

It would be wise to have some kind of plan in place to deal with this kind of financial challenge. After all, you haven’t had any money at all for quite some time. The fairest thing I can think of is to hang onto as much of it as possible, for as long as possible, and to do with it what you want when you want it. This is not the way the ODSP generally works. It’s a publicly-funded disability pension, and they all have their restrictions, no matter what the jurisdiction. This one just happens to be Ontario.

In terms of being $2900 over the limit in the business account, (remember your $9900?) theoretically you could buy computer components, perhaps an ereader, perhaps a tablet or laptop might be appropriate to the business. You still have the challenge, where the ODSP will never tell you up front just exactly what might be acceptable and what might not—although their reporting form shows a box called ‘approved expenses’, it is more probably a case of them assessing things after they have happened. What if I bought a five hundred dollar phone? The trouble is, I don’t really need anything that expensive. And they might very well say it’s for personal use, and so it’s not accepted. In which case, I just pissed a bunch of money away, where I really didn’t have to—not exactly a sound business decision. And it would now be income, and then they want their fifty percent, sometimes double-dipping because you're already in over-payment mode. 

It is as complicated as it sounds. Most disabled people really don't have that much business experience, and we are all too easily burned.

And you have to get all this shit down in the month you received the income—the big advance we’re talking about.

Your ‘legitimate’ business expense might be denied. Yet any other businessman could have the same phone and write it off, or some portion of it off, against the business.

It gets worse when dealing with the ODSP, for your twenty thousand dollars (income)  is now above the basic personal exemption for income-tax purposes.

Basically, the challenge there is to show the ODSP, probably using current tax tables, exactly how much money you’re going to owe the tax people, (in Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency) at the end of the current fiscal year.

I have to be honest with you. Dealing with the ODSP, after the fact, and sort of telling them what happened after it happened is real bad policy. I don’t think it necessarily needs an accountant, just to figure out some simple numbers. You have to be able to explain it to the ODSP, in terms that they can understand and accept.

It would be very wise to go in, talk to the lady and ask a few questions, as specific as you can possibly make them. As thorough and full and complete as you can make them, and try and get any answers in writing, which generally-speaking they aren’t all that eager to do. If nothing else, it adds to their workload.

Therein lies the challenge. It’s a social challenge, it’s a challenge of personal communication. 

You have to find the nerve to go in there and ask all these questions.

Diplomacy is an extension of war by other means.

You can’t get all loud, uptight and sweaty with them, because it’s not going to do you one damned bit of good.

As it is presently constituted, the game doesn’t look very winnable.

Not very easily, anyways.

END