Marketing Images for Books and E-Books.

It's hard to believe that this book marketing image was originally created using pencil-crayons, typing paper cut-outs and scotch tape on black bristol board. The text was added with Paint.NET.

When I shot the picture, the flash was turned on, and it resulted in a big spot of glare, and I thought the shot was ruined. However, I stuck it into Nero Photosnap and fiddled around with lightness and contrast, as well as the different colour channels. I also probably sharpened it up, although it was some time ago.

The next in the Shalako Publishing series of PODs, (print on demand) paperbacks will be, 'The Case of the Curious Killers.' It will be another 5 x 8" book. Recalling how it felt to hold the 'On the Nature of the Gods,' paperback, with its really good cover art, I am looking forward to uploading this one on CreateSpace and seeing what it looks like.

That's no reason to rush the process, and as long as I can put out one a month or so the schedule is fine. It also leaves me open to other things, not the least of which is to get out in the fresh air after a long winter. That one should be out in the first week of May, followed by 'The Shape-Shifters' in June.

Oh, I almost forgot: here's an excerpt from, 'The Case of the Curious Killers,' a kind of space-opera.

>>>

The music had a syncopated, throbbing, thumping bass-line. A ragged cheer went up from clumps of youthful aliens here and there, and they came running out to the center, forming up in couples, trios, quads and odd-numbered formations. The biggest was a v-shaped formation, which looked like a club, due to the striped colours of their knee-length silken t-shirts.


This was merely the overture. He observed in fascination, as the bodies, including more of the alien types, began moving in a curious, shambling gait. Hartle caught the rhythm, and began to groove a little himself, conscious that he danced like a white man at the best of times. Their bizarre, long-armed, bandy-legged, ape-like shuffle was intriguing; he had to admit. As the music and the people began to speed up, he became aware that Sim was trying to grab his elbow and not having much luck.

“We must get off the dance floor.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I want to see this.”

“Watch from the side of the room!” Sim was practically shouting at him now.

He agreed a little unsteadily as they tried to make their way. What had been an empty, open space, was now covered in whirling dervishes, gymnasts, acrobats…when he felt the first hard elbow graze his rib cage it took a while to sink in.

“Excuse me, neighbours.”

The trio spun away. Then he took another hard one to the ribs just above the left kidney.

“That was a punch!” Sim was plainly frightened now.

A rock-solid, chitinous body slammed into him and he went down. He heard a shrill keening sound from the creature as he kicked upwards viciously. It scuttled right over him, putting a barbed foot-pod partly in his mouth, and suddenly his rage cracked wide open.

“Get your dirty alien mating-claspers off me, you creepy thing!” He shouted, all vestiges of courtesy and deportment gone.

Rolling and tumbling, he came up in a half crouch, hoping the thing was hurt real bad.

“Have your lost your marbles?” He bellowed at Sim. “You should have told me about the dancing.”

A quad of dancers, moving quickly in his left peripheral vision, targeted him. After a flurry of mutually exchanged blows with various members of the group, just as suddenly they broke off to engage another quad approaching. Hartle was furious, and came up again like a mongoose battling to make a cobra its dinner.

He ran at the bunch who had just attacked him, only to be grabbed and spun around, and he lost sight of them in eddies and currents of the dance. Lifting a leg and straightening it out real quick, Brendan managed to kick the boy who had grabbed him right in the face. There was a hot gush of satisfaction as the splash of blood vented. The boy’s two partners dragged him away by the legs, trailing bright yellow goo across the highly polished black tiles.

He had one brief moment of relative peace while the ebb and flow continued, and always that beat. Brendan gasped for air, with Sim beckoning from fifty metres away. Rival groups were attacking each other, and always, in time to the beat. Two big crabs came at him and he leaped on the nearest one’s head. Hartle tried to twist its antennae off by grabbing one and yanking as hard as he could. He kneed it in the side between two legs as he did so. The scream was so loud it startled him and he leaped off again with no trophy. He bared his teeth and growled and they both ran away.

Only fifty metres! In this crowd, it might as well be the other side of the Goddamned Galaxy!

“Fuck you all! Fuck all of you!” He stomped back and forth spitting mad. “Come on, you gutless fuckin’ little pukes.”

He bellowed, and then he was running at the wall of deadly dancers. Surreal in its bizarre incongruity, a spotlight followed him as he ran…

Wetness, warm and sticky, clouded his left eye. He brushed at it with a sleeve, and crashed into the line. Something in someone cracked with a brittle sound, and there came another shrill cry. His head jolted into his neck, there was greyness and stars, literally a flash of light in his head. He was pounding a fist into something’s abdomen. There was madness in him.

He lifted a knee into an obvious spot but got no response. He jabbed a thumb into its eye and it thought better of continuing the encounter. Again, someone raked his belly but it was a glancing strike and the clothing snagged and protected him. He popped it one in the kisser. Spinning, he was all arms and legs. A hole opened in the crowd, and he took a running, jumping dive, sliding to a halt right at Sim’s feet.

It was an oasis of peace and a kind of relative quiet here on the edge of the dance floor. Rolling over, he laid there, hoarse breath rasping in his throat. A semi-circular gaggle of citizens, all dressed in their Easter Bonnets and finery stared down at him.

“That was very impressive, young man.” An older female something or other with green eyes and head shaved bald stared at him through huge blue plastic pince-nez.

Four football-sized breasts heaved under her thin white blouse.

“You’re the best dancer we’ve seen tonight, at least so far.” Very upper class, you could tell by the diction, the terse elocution.

Maybe it had something to do with the long yellow bill, like a spoonbill or an egret. He got up stiffly.

“May I ask a personal question?”

She nodded, beckoning for something in a champagne-style glass. She only had four fingers, perhaps evolved from something like the tip feathers on a condor? Wow.

“What’s that thing sticking out of your ass?”

“It’s my tail, young man. We’re from Gallienus. We’re descended from avians.” She explained with a gracious nod.

“You’re very beautiful.” She simpered back at him and pecked at her stemware, filled with little multi-faceted pellets about three millimetres in diameter.

They were red and black. He had his breath back. She really was beautiful, in her own way. Her obviously male companion whispered in her ear and the pair of them giggled, nuzzling and cooing over some private joke, like mourning doves nestling together on a branch in winter.

END

Utopia 101: When all books were created equally well.

What if we lived in Utopia? What if every book in the marketplace was a great book? What if, the editorial gate-keeping process ensured that every book regardless of genre, whether it was fiction or non-fiction, self-help or sheer escapism, met all the critical criteria of ‘a great book?’ What if no one who bought one felt ripped off, or disappointed, or let down in any way? What if nice, safe profit margins were just assigned to publishers, and so they could even take a few risks, and publish books they loved but thought maybe wouldn’t sell too well?

Is it even possible? What makes a great book on diamond cutting might not be too interesting to some readers. Reading Tolkien might not be very suitable for an apprentice diamond cutter who just wants to learn his trade. It would be useless. Surely, we would have the wit to choose our own book purchases from a long list of titles in every category imaginable.

It seems evident that in a world where all books were somehow created equally well, none could really stand out above the crowd, yet genre-preferences would enable some to enjoy greater financial success than other, equally good books. There are far fewer readers who actually want to read a book on diamond cutting. Lots of people want to read fiction, including fantasies like ‘The Hobbit.’ Would it be necessary to review books, or couldn’t we just stick our hand in a bin labeled ‘fantasy,’ and pull out something equally good, every time, on the very first try? How would all equally good books be priced? Shouldn’t all hard cover titles cost the same, and wouldn’t all trade books in a certain size be the same price? It’s only fair, right? They’re all ‘equally-good,’ right? Ebooks, where there are no material costs, would be equally priced—and cut right to the bone…right?

(Would this impair or promote ‘competition?’ Amongst whom, the publishers, or the writers?) *

If every aspiring writer had to compete in the big leagues, going up against Jonathan Swift or ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ or ‘War and Peace’ their first time up to the plate, or if any brand-new non-fiction writer had to go up against ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,’ or maybe Winston Churchill, how would they do? You would be up against people who had first-hand knowledge and had lived the story.

They’d probably strike out, three times in a row, and they’d never get another ‘at-bat’ until hell froze over. That’s because there is a ‘glut’ of aspiring writers. The majority have little or no training, just a desire. In some cases, there is the desire to learn, in some perhaps not. We also have no experience. None. Not until we’ve done it a few times. It’s not enough to serve in the trenches to pay our dues. We have to go ‘over the top’ once or twice, taking the battle into the enemy’s camp. Only then do we know what it’s all about.

The good news is that all the rules of the game changed recently due to the rise of a newer technology, and new methods of publishing our work. We don’t have to take on Tolstoy or Voltaire our first time up to the plate. We don’t have to pursue agents and publishers for fifteen years or more until we get noticed. While some would argue that Amazon is itself a kind of vanity publishing, we can avoid the traditional vanity predators that still dot the landscape. Hey! We don’t even have to spend money on postage, ink and envelopes. This will not make things any easier. It’s just different from the way it was before. The playing field has been leveled and it is a sea of anonymous, hungry, and unwashed faces. The towers that dot the landscape are now isolated, cut of from water and sources of supply, and heavily outnumbered. They cannot withstand long years of siege.

There has always been independent publishing. Take a pdf on a CD and go to a local printer. Get an estimate. Get some books printed. There has always been vanity publishing. Take a CD and go to a vanity publisher. Hand them the file and a cheque. If this was the extent of the business plan, it generally failed. The difference is that now it is easy, and it is also free. The game is open to anyone who fancies themselves as a writer. Now, my plan involves slow but steady growth over the long term. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not going to make any headlines, but to rely on an instant bestseller is infantile.

The world of business, mean and arbitrary, Darwinian as it is, evolves constantly. We either evolve with it, or we will be consumed by it. Over the short term, I just need to learn my new environment, to discover and adapt its resources to my needs.

For those with the right attitude, this represents the opportunity of a lifetime. For others, it represents a big survival challenge. If competition improves the breed, then we must assume the survivors, better yet, those who thrive, to be the fittest, the smartest and the fastest when it comes to meeting those challenges. They will be those with adaptable skills and staying power. They will endure. One of their challenges is the writing of a good book. It goes with the territory.

It looks like those authors who learned their trade by the old model might still have some advantages. This is only true in the short term. They have a following, an audience. But they also have to learn a few new tricks, or they simply won’t survive. They might have to forgo the safety net that a major publisher has always provided. This was something that aspiring writers always prayed for. An agent. An editor. A proofreader and a typesetter, and a cover designer, a few good marketing and promotions people. Some of this old infrastructure will have to adapt, or perish.

We will have to learn the basics of promotion, in a new, online environment. Independents will have to look, for the most part, to the readers for their validation. In an industry which is in some small part fueled by vanity—hence all the vanity predators—there must also be some massive insecurities. This sometimes manifests itself in a sense of moral outrage. To think that some anonymous, hungry and unwashed person would engage in that most anti-social of all activities, the writing of a book, and try to compete with the big boys…well, it’s just wrong. And all the wrong sort of people want to do it. The book is the most revolutionary tool I can think of in terms of human evolution. Hell, even business evolution. I guess you could say they just don’t like it. They don’t want to be our colleagues, and maybe they don’t have to.

It is a free country, after all, or about the closest we have ever come to Utopia.

Please feel free to contribute a comment or observation to this piece.

*Does war impair, or promote, commerce? If you can answer this question, you are a hell of a lot smarter than I am. Anyway, you probably just got it out of some classic and well-regarded old book, written by some brash young feller who was considered a ‘radical’ for his time and place.

A Book is a Tool

'On the Nature of the Gods,' a 5 x 8" paperback.



A book is a tool for getting inside of someone's head. Unlike the scalpel, it is not invasive, and the seeds planted only grow over time--assuming they don't fall on barren ground. Taking into account the neuroplasticity of the brain, this only makes sense. That's why books are so important in school and in the learning process.

When I got my proof copy of 'On the Nature of the Gods,' I took it home and opened up the cardboard package. The 5 x 8" is a more desirable product than the 6 x 9" of 'Redemption,' that I produced last month. It's thicker, at about three-quarters of a inch, and it's much more my idea of what a paperback should be.

One of the nice things about working with a good cover image, is that it makes an amateur look good, and I'm pretty lucky to have found the image on Morguefile. Major publishers would overlook this source, as it's not an exclusive license. Any other person could use that image. What it is, is free, which is vital at this stage of the game.

At $10.99 cover plus an estimated $7.00 for shipping, we're looking at an $18.00 product, if a reader buys one online and is willing to wait for a week or ten days for the book. So far, I haven't really put a lot of thought into buying cases of print on demand books at a major discount, and flogging them at hobby festivals or at a flea market, but you never know! Crazy enough, it just might work...

To put it in perspective, the 4 x 7" of 'The Case of the Curious Killers' on Lulu.com goes for $13.99 and by the time it gets to the reader's house it's well over $20.00. That one came out at 435 pages, and 'On the Nature of the Gods' is 296, 'Redemption,' 216. When you think of how books are made, there are more machine operations and probably more waste in the smaller product.

Since books are produced from boxes of paper rather than rolls of newsprint, the logic of size and waste after trimming means that the 5 x 8 costs two dollars more than the 6 x 9. But to me, it's a much nicer product, and every decision we make, whether as writers or in daily life, involves some trade-offs and some compromise.

The plan is to publish either 'The Shape-Shifters,' or 'The Case of the Curious Killers' on the first of May, and then the other one on the first of June. At some point I'll make POD paperbacks of 'Heaven Is Too Far Away,' and other titles as the impulse drives me, or as seems logical. I only have so many left to do, which limits the choices. However, I would like to find a better image for 'The Paranoid Cat and other tales,' and if I had an absolute killer image for 'Heaven Is Too Far Away,' I might be a little more eager to do the PODs.

Also, I've been upgrading the cover images for the e-books as I go along, and now I design the image with a paperback's requirements in mind--I'm staying a half-inch back with the titles, etc. The process once learned, can be streamlined and improved, and new refinements become possible with knowledge and experience.

To make a long story short, I am 'changing my brain,' to use Dr. Daniel Amen's term, and at the same time, learning a valuable new skill. This is a very positive thing, and one I can thoroughly recommend. I've never actually read his book, but he was all over PBS and I used to watch the fund-raising telethons, where he was a favourite guest.

101 Ways (NOT) to Kill Stephen King.

(My evil twin wrote this. I'm tied up in a chair and watching him destroy my online life.)

Number 101: drop a watermelon on his head as he walks down Rodeo Drive.

Number 100: substitute Ex-lax for his Viagra.

Number 99: publish that picture of Stephen sitting on the toilet eating an apple.

Number 98: mention that if it wasn’t for him, Jack Nicholson would be nowhere.

Number 97: tell him Steve Buscemi is going to play him in the movie of his life.

Number 96: close the Coney Island eatery around the corner.

Number 95: put him in a room with James Frey.

Number 94: put him in a room with Oprah and James Frey

Number 93: put him in a room alone with his thoughts.

Number 92: put him out in a big open field, with bright sunshine, and fresh air, and lots of open space, where deer and antelope play.

Number 91: tell him Charles Manson is his biggest fan.

Number 90: make him move to Sarnia, Ontario and write a book on Canada’s Oil Heritage District.

Number 89: tell him police psychological crime experts are using his work as college texts.

Number 88: put him in a room with no door.

Number 87: tell him he needs to redecorate.

Number 86: mention that he should have been a country western singer.

Number 85: cautiously inform him that he doesn’t even have a stalker.

Number 84: take away his morning latte.

Number 83: rip holes in his underwear when he is sleeping.

Number 82: hide his shoes—all of them.

Number 81: if he speaks to you, reply in French.

Number 80: tell him that people watch him.

Number 79: tell him that no one is watching.

Number 78: ask him for a photo for the tabloids.

Number 77: ask him to smile for the camera.

Number 76: ask him what expensive and stinky kind of cheese he likes.

Number 75: ask him if there is a vein of dark humour running through his works.

Number 74: if he says yes, ask for an example.

Number 73: tell him you have never seen one of his movies.

Number 72: tell him you are big fan of Dean R. Koontz.

Number 71: admit that you have not read the book you are interviewing him about.

Number 70: put a rattlesnake in his pocket and ask him for a light

Number 69: put an electric blanket in the tub for him

Number 68: ask him to upload photos of his dinner to facebook

Number 67: ask him to tweet something evil to his followers

Number 66: ask him for a critique!

Number 65: ask him if Google helped him write that

Number 64: ask him, ‘Conan or Tarzan?”

Number 63; talk French to him while sharpening a post-hole auger

Number 62: tell him he has poop stuck to his leg

Number 61: mention that certain classic books would be unpublishable by modern standards. (Fuck, that one even makes me edgy.)

Number 60: tell him he should self-publish an e-book

Number 59: ask him if he is in Wiki

Number 58: remove the rotating blade from his shaver and substitute 900 lbs per square inch of vacuum power.

Number 57: (my sentimental favourite,) the spike from the phone handset a la Dr. Phybes.

Number 56: tell him you once had a threesome with Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi

Number 55: tell him, “You can write a romance novel in about two weeks and some people are making quite a good living at that.”

Number 54: tell him your own mother won’t read your work, so you reckon he should.

Number 53: say you are his biggest fan and plan on being buried in a piano crate. (He might bust a gut laughing.)

Number 52: ask him if he was ever on CB radio

Number 51: tell him you picked up a pair of size six roller skates at a flea market and they had his name inside.

Number 50: mention that he hates flattery and sees right through it.

Number 49: note that he ‘fits a certain kind of profile,’ and then move on.

Number 48: always say, ‘I love what you did with that character, that what’s his name guy.”

Number 47: invite him to the Kabuki theater.

Number 46: mention that his characters smoke too much.

Number 45: ask if he’s ever done hard time.

Number 44: tell him he should go camping a little more often.

Number 43: put itching powder in his housecoat.

Number 42: remove the drawstring from his pajamas and then pull the fire alarm.

Number 41: offer him a big contract for a Regency novel but say he can’t use a pen-name.

Number 40: ask if he’s planning another teen vampire novel.

Number 39: put electric eels in this swimming pool

Number 38: bad brake job

Number 37: tell him he has big, hairy, hobbit feet

Number 36: ask him where you’ve met before

Number 35: stick him in a phone booth with fifty heavy people

Number 34: abandon him in the Serengeti, all covered in barbecue sauce

Number 33: poison ivy up the wazoo

Number 32: ask if he’s going to go it alone

Number 31: tell him his cello playing sucks

Number 30: show him this list before it’s done

Number 29: withhold his Letters to Santa privileges

Number 28: don’t let him pray to Satan before he goes to bed at night

Number 27: How are we doing here? Are we okay for time?

Number 26: note the resemblance to Letterman

Number 25: tell him you want to be his bitch

Number 24: provide him with an endless supply of peanut butter and jam sandwiches, free of charge as a promotion

Number 23: ask him what he’s doing for world peace

Number 22: tell him you prefer airport novels

Number 21: ask him what’s his favourite humour magazine

Number 20: tell him there are three Playboy Bunnies with Uzis and rocket-launching tits in the next room

Number 19: hide his Mennen Speed Stick

Number 18: offer to shave his scrotum with a rusty saber

Number 17: unscrew the light in the fridge, and then install a guillotine inside of it

Number 18: see above, only a big hammer instead of a blade

Number 17: ask if the Three Stooges was a kind of horror parody

Number 16: douse his driveway with Crazy Glue

Number 15: ask if that’s a hair transplant

Number 14: substitute plastic explosive for the tofu

Number 13: you know what, I’m thinking #14 should be higher up the list

Number 12: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Ad infinitum

Number 11: there is no number 11, you’ll have to wait

Number 10; and so on and so forth, et cetera

Number 9: put a big mousetrap out with some cheese in it, but this will only work if he doesn’t have his glasses, hence the low position in the list

Number 8: ask him to ‘try this insulated vest on’ and then step back quickly, thereby giving him a heart attack

Number 7: a banana peel at the top of the stairs

Number 6: a banana peel at the bottom of the stairs

Number 5: spray-paint his socks fluorescent orange, I agree: not very effective

Number 4: switch all of his gotchies for ones slightly smaller, and do this once a week for however long it takes

Number 3: loosen up the nut that holds the seat on his mountain bike

Number 2: hide his Preparation H (didn’t we do that one before?)

Number 1: submit this story to his shadow website, ‘www.iamnotstephenking.com’

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a hundred and one ways (NOT) to kill Stephen King. And I am a dead man, but it's okay, I have lived long enough for nature and for glory. Goodbye, cruel world.

-louis

Experimenting with Literary Styles.

This is an excerpt from ‘The Shape-Shifters,’ a paranormal fantasy. Never say ‘abnormal’ fantasy. The book is available in a number of fine bookstores, and has a couple of very nice reviews.



Editing an excerpt in a new style.

Janet managed to get her dad and the kids in the truck, all properly bundled up against the cold, with the kids clutching a few small presents for Grandma and Grandpa Herbert.

She eased down the snow-covered street, greasy from being churned up and half-melted by traffic. There were literally dozens of cars parked along the curb as everyone was attending to the roles of guest and visitors, hosts and hostesses. Many of the neighbouring homes were lit up, and people could be seen coming and going in a self-conscious manner, mostly strangers but for this once-yearly ritual.

“How’s the truck running?” asked her dad, predictably enough.

You could almost set your watch by it.

“Um, it’s hard to start sometimes,” she said. “I think it needs a new battery.”

“Why don’t you get it fixed, and I’ll pay for it,” suggested her father.

Janet gulped in thanks and said she’d try to get it done after Christmas, but before New Year’s.


Experimenting with style.

A rational goal for 2012 is to bring up our game a notch and elevate the prose style to international, professional standards. This is the sort of level where acquisitions editors don’t just chuck the manuscript after three lines without actually reading the story. Readers browsing the online bookstore don't click 'close' and move on. The best place to experiment with style is in the short story market, because we can re-write old stories that were rejected and try them somewhere else.

This is a valid test, because over the last six months, I’ve had a uniform 100 % rejection rate, and that can’t be entirely blamed on the economy and increased competition, or an influx of submissions from people who wouldn’t normally submit, but are presently unemployed. Also, some of them stories have been rejected multiple times. We have some data, in other worsd. If I don't experiment and change the style, the only real difference is that I have been submitting entirely to professional markets, which are a hard sell at the best of times. The idea is, if I start to place stories again, stories for money, then maybe it was the style they were written in that stopped them from being picked up before.

So let’s edit the piece above in the light of new knowledge, and some soul-searching, which I would prefer not to do. It goes with the territory, though.


Janet managed to get her dad and the kids in the truck, all properly bundled up against the cold. The kids clutched a few small presents for Grandma and Grandpa Herbert.

She eased down the snow-covered street, greasy from being churned up and half-melted by traffic. There were dozens of cars parked along the curb as everyone was attending to the roles of guest and visitors, hosts and hostesses. The neighbouring homes were all lit up, and people were coming and going in a self-conscious manner, mostly strangers but for this once-yearly ritual.

“How’s the truck running?”

Her dad’s question was predictable enough. You could almost set your watch by it.

“Um, it’s hard to start sometimes. I think it needs a new battery.”

“Why don’t you get it fixed, and I’ll pay for it?”

Janet gulped in thanks. “I’ll try to get it done after Christmas, but before New Year’s.”


Notes: we’ve removed the word ‘literally,’ which some editors hate, and done a few things with the dialogue. We’ve changed a few words and taken some out. In this piece we’ve gone for the ruthless suppression of dialogue tags and adverbs, which is arguably the most prevalent modern style among professional writers and editors. Nothing has been added to the piece, only rearranged or taken away.


Study the competition in your market.

The nice thing about having an Amazon account is that you can download all sorts of free e-books and see where other people are at in their writing. Some of them will impress as very competent. Those are the ones to compete with. If we work hard, learn the craft, and set out to compete with the best, instead of just being content to be ‘better than some other guy,’ we will make out just fine.

The trouble with Facebook is that while you can develop a stream of sources and information, by looking for and clicking on all writers or all editors and publishers, you indicate a ‘preference’ for certain types of people. Facebook’s algorithms will then present you with an ever-increasing ratio of the exact same kind of person. Somehow the readers get lost in all of this.


Reading is a relationship.

Reading is an intimate form of relationship. Relationships require honest effort. It is by establishing a relationship with readers that a writer can be more successful in expanding the circle of people who read their books. When I read posts by people who are also interested in writing, it makes me ask questions about my own work. It has definitely been a phase in my own development.

But...

Who is the reader? The reader is a person who really doesn’t know a darned thing about writing, who doesn’t much care if the story follows some arbitrary or academic rules of composition. They may never try to write a story, or a book. They don’t care. They are looking for a good read, not a blog post on grammar and punctuation. We’re not out to impress the reader with our knowledge or our ability to study and improve. All we want to do is to improve our skills, and tell a better story. We must tell it as well as we can. The more we understand our tools, the better will be our story-construction. Ultimately, the writer and all their tools should just evaporate and disappear from the page. This leaves only the characters and their challenges, surrounded by their environment, speaking their minds clearly and engaging in actions that are easily followed by the average reader.

Listening to other writers all the time will drive you crazy. Listening to the readers, figuring out exactly what they need, is far more important.

As for adverbs, dialogue tags, statement attributions, there are schools of thought and each has its advantages and limitations. They must, because they are tools.

Everything else is just style. To arrive at a style is the result of accident or choice. As for getting more readers, it just takes time, and some well-written books and stories. Going for the most modern, up-to-date literary style for the magazine market, where space is at a premium and where they are perhaps more avant-garde stylistically, is an experiment that is certainly worth trying. I always check and sometimes re-write short stories before submitting them anyways, so this is just one more little thing to look out for. And now it's in the tool-box.