Busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

The girl of your nightmares.

Dang, I’m as busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest lately. Tomorrow I proof, one more time, the French translation of ‘Stud Farm,’ or ‘Le Haras.’ That one will be loaded up onto Smashwords and Kindle.

The reason is simple. I want to get more products in the stores by Christmas. And I still don’t feel like working on my novel. But it also makes a lot of sense to focus on one thing at a time.

So when I publish, why not do a bunch of them, when I do short stories, write short stories until I puke, right?

Right.

But you get the idea. And when I get back to the novel, smash out two to four thousand words a day or until I burn out or go postal, which doesn’t make much sense when you own the place.

I’ve just clicked publish for one of my pen-names on Kobo, and he’ll be up to four titles on there soon enough. That’s an experiment—I just want to see what happens.

Today I put up new marketing images for ‘Snake Girl.’ For some reason that didn’t go through on Kindle Direct Publishing. I hit the button again and we’ll see what happens. That image is up on Smashwords.

My collection ‘Ghost Planet’ is all set to go. I generally write fast, edit slow, and publish with painstaking attention to detail, insofar as I can.

I always download a copy, and check for formatting, and other errors. It’s better not to do it half an hour before bed time in case there is a glitch, but a book can always be unpublished. You’re not supposed to un-publish books, as they lose their rankings, but a brand-new book has no ranking to worry about. I’d rather get it right, and I’ve been known to fiddle endlessly and upload multiple times in order to do so.

The collection ‘Engines of Creation’ is on the launch platform, waiting for the green light, which I figure will be about December 1.

At some point I will set aside a day or two and do the Print on Demand (PODs) of ‘Core Values,’ and the two collections. Those files take a couple of hours, maybe two and a half. The real time killer there is making the marketing images conform to the Createspace template as I use the free ones. They key thing is to keep all text back one half inch from the edges. Making it look nice is another ball of wax altogether, as on an ebook there is no trim size—you can go way out to the edges of the image in the search for artistic integrity or something.

Whatever.

Research.

I like to do the research. Bearing in mind I’m just window shopping, I went to Future Shop, and looked at an all-in-one touch-screen computer, a desktop one. That one was $899.00 with one Terrabyte hard drive, and I think six Gig RAM. The machine came with a mouse, keyboard, and Karmin-Hardon speakers. Apparently they have a disc drive, a slot on one side of the screen.

I don’t think my arms are long enough to use the touch-screen. I sit a ways back from the screen. I don’t want to put on reading glasses and stick my face up to within fourteen inches of the thing.

I really don’t want to sit that close.

So then I went to Staples/Office Depot. They had a nice machine, two Terrabyte drive. That one had eight Gig of RAM, and I would need that to run Adobe CS-6, which is good for making book covers, right?

That machine was $649.00 and was basically just a base unit with no other accessories, no screen, etc.

At The Source, the machine there, a base unit, was on the counter for $374.00.

That one had six Gig of RAM and as I recall one Terrabyte. (Am I spelling that wrong?)

The other thing is programming. Staples/Office Depot has a service, $149.00, to set up the machine, this involves transferring your old files to the new machine. A new version of Windows was quoted at $225.00 or thereabouts.

So I need to define what the machine is for. Any old thing will work as a word processor.

But in order to speed up the email inbox, to be able to go on Facebook without it locking up within two minutes, and to make marketing images and to begin the CS-6 learning curve; requires much more machine than I presently own.

I have speakers, and my keyboard works fine. The mouse is a piece of crap and it’s driving me batty. My 18.5” screen is a cheapie, and a bigger one with higher resolution would be a real treat. But is it strictly necessary?

I’d give my left testicle some days, for a good, swiveling, reclining office chair.

That would be pure luxury. Especially if it was all black leather padding with shiny chrome casters. I’m using one of the kitchen chairs and that’s not too good.

With the low-budget internet service, it is unclear just how much faster the inboxes would go with more RAM. I think it would help, ah; but I am anything but an expert, which as you may have heard goes kind of like this: “Ex as in has-been, and spurt as in drip under pressure…”

You get the idea.

END

Production Goals.

Setting some goals and getting confused.

Production goals are pretty simple things.

What would I like to make and when would I like to make it?

In order for that to happen, what work, preparation or construction, administrative or research, do I need to do and when do I need to do it?

For starters, I would like to have a completed first draft of my twelfth novel by October 1, my originally stated goal. It is true I wrote 28,669 words in thirteen days beginning Sept. 1/13 and it is also true that a novel is a minimum of 60,000 words and that my deadlines are self-imposed.

I don’t know, I think I just burned out on that one for a while.

I don’t like things hanging over my head by a thread, like the semi-famous sword of Damocles. I took the last few days to do other things. So far, I’ve upgraded the marketing image for The Clone, published Repalatron Raceway and something else, I forget what! I’d have to go look.

Force Multiplication Theory.

In terms of force multiplication theory, what you want to do is to make every soldier do double duty. Your soldiers have better weapons and better training. (You are an army of one. – ed.)

I am five people, -- ed.

You get much more firepower out of them. This is important in battle, because you want to win.

In terms of a story, by publishing it in another language, for example French, you get to use the same marketing image twice, and since they cost money, that’s a consideration. You’re also producing work faster, and publishing more often, important in gaming the ‘passive discoverability’ algorithms.

These exist in two forms, machine and biological. (Biological includes other people as well as your own internal biology. You want to improve your own performance as well, right?

The basic premise here is that the more stuff you have out, the easier it is to buy a book from you!

I kid you not, especially if you’re camping out in as many genres as you can manage.

If it took two hours to write a story, a translation takes more like forty minutes. Also, they’re not so critical—you can let them simmer on the back-burner while doing other stuff. You get to keep twice as busy, and in business as in life this is a good thing most of the time. Because some days you just can’t write and we all get that from time to time. This is a good time to develop your already existing products.

So I need some production goals. In fact, I was thinking of taking a page out of Dean Wesley Smith’s book and writing a list. Seriously, I’m going so fast here I get confused sometimes. The other day I typed the wrong author’s name into the publication data on Amazon, and to compound the error that was the wrong book file, too. I did catch it in time, so it wasn’t that serious.

It might be handy to have a list, one where you can literally line things up in sequential order and then check them off in sequential order. NASA does it, and you can too. Right?

For today, I need a blog post, and voila! One magically appeared, like it was some kind of bun in the oven whose time had come.

I need a marketing image for The Stud Farm because that one’s been around so long it’s got stretch marks on its lips…I’m kidding, ladies and gentlemen.

One more face-lift, and that book’s going to have to start looking for a good razor. That’s all I’m saying, ladies and gentlemen.

I have two more translations ready to go. One needs an ISBN, and voila! Holy Schmoley, I must have remembered to order another block of ten yesterday. Need I say more? Those two files are ready to go, with images and everything, even. I can load them up when I’m comfortable doing so, like after one more read for bits and pieces of French grammar and spelling.

Are you with me, Moriarity?

The Evil Dr. Schmitt-Rottluff sends his regards, incidentally, before I forget.

So what else do I need:

A marketing image for my third short story collection. The second one’s in the bag (Engines of Creation) and in fact that one is locked and loaded, right in the launching platform, on both Amazon and SW. The two Frenchies are not uploaded yet. It takes five to six hours to assemble a collection, format it, do the admin stuff, (ISBN and image searches) and there you have it.

 I could sure use 1,000 words on my novel today.

 A new marketing image for The Case of the Curious Killers, in fact most of the old titles.

 A POD of collections #2 and #3. A POD of Core Values, which I have never gotten around to.

 I would like to focus on short stories during November.

 Sounds to me like I’m busy enough for the next six weeks. If I can get novel #12 out, on or about October 1/13, then it’s likely to be in all or most stores by Christmas week. That’s a rational goal.

 A marketing image and ISBN for the new mystery (book #12 career-wise.)

 I probably have enough material for collection #4, but that one can wait for a rainy day.

 More short stories published as stand-alone titles.

 Figure out what the hell I’m going to do for novel #13.



Writing in Public. Dean Wesley Smith.

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=10184

Okay, I just published this, too:

The Healer. Louis Shalako

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F2JZPMM

This one is more suitable for the younger readers, as is Repelatron Raceway. When I get enough of them, I’ll link them in a series, the name of which is yet to be determined.



END

Promotion.

Giveaways: if only this was real.

Promotion.

We have a couple of basic choices in promoting our books. We can go on Twitter and a hundred other social platforms, post, tweet and auto-tweet our product links fifty times a day, and hopefully move a few books off the shelf and into the reader’s hands.

The other choice relies on ‘passive discoverability.’ This is when people simply ‘find’ your book. On electronic platforms such as Kobo or Amazon, when they buy a book or merely look at a book from another author, they will be presented other options, all lined up in a row. It’s like a bookshelf physically arranging itself for the customer, as it ‘knows’ the customer’s previous purchase history, their age, gender, and of course the category they’re looking at. It doesn't present them with books they've already bought in that store, for example. If your book is in the same genre, there’s a mathematical probability that it will be presented, ‘sooner or later.’

All other things being equal, (and they aren’t) if there are 10,000 books in a category, then each book would ideally be presented once for every 10,000 unique visitors to that category. (There are other factors such as duration of visit and the number of browsing customers at any given moment, which limit the number of options they may be presented with, and few people look at thousands of books in a session.)

This is where the all-important rankings come into play. The highest ranked book is presented first, and so forth and so on.

However, things are never equal. Stephen King’s releases sell more initial copies than any unknown author. If someone looks at one, and it’s number one in category, they are more likely to be presented with the number two, three and four authors in that category—the electronic store has concluded, all governed by algorithmic equations, what choice is most likely to please a customer of such a ‘configuration.’ It’s another way of describing an individual in mathematical terms a simple machine can easily understand. A customer-fan of that genre, in other words.

In passive discoverability, the keys are fairly simple: a good cover, a good product description, a popular category, good reviews, and more than anything, frequent publication by the author. The quality of the book matters too, but until someone actually buys one, it means nothing in terms of ‘gaming the algorithms.’ There are more complex biological algorithms, which govern such human reactions after-sale, including word of mouth, surely the most effective form of promotion. We can even control this to some extent—by writing good books and moving some of them off the shelves, for example by promotion of free titles. This is where the tweets and posts come in.

The only way to game total ‘passive discoverability’ (i.e. no other forms of promotion being used) is by publishing something new as frequently as possible. New books pop out in a stream of new releases. They’re at the top of a list for however brief a time. The best way to game the algorithms is to first and foremost, write good, entertaining books, and to do it as often as possible. This why people who publish exclusively on Amazon use the Select Program. It’s a way of moving some books out the door.

So your book is at the top of a list when first published. For that exact moment in time, that book has as much chance as Stephen King’s new book, assuming good product presentation. It all depends on how many people are looking at the new releases, and not much else, algorithmically. Without sales, without downloads, those books sink very quickly.

Most authors will probably choose a mix of the two techniques. You want people to go and look at the books, and you want someone to buy one once in awhile. The higher you go up the rankings, the better your odds become of selling your next book. (All other things being equal, which they are not. Ever. Because the customer choice is so subjective.)

Social Media.

My personal opinion is that social media is overrated in terms of booting up bestselling books. Yet it is not entirely useless in marketing books. It must be understood, exploited, but not abused endlessly. Without social media I would not be selling a single book. With it, I sell a few. That is the real revolution in independent publishing. I’m selling a few books. This is a requirement for further success, and it must be exploited systematically and rationally in order to be most effective over the long haul.

Writing a series.

If readers like a book, a story, or the characters in it, they want more. This is why TV has spin-offs and why Agatha Christie wrote Hercule Poirot books, Miss Marple books, and characters like Mack Bolan and Matt Helm had such a long career. People recognized a good read by the character names on the cover.

Rather than writing a whole bunch of standalone novels, using the same characters allows for more development, more world-building, and it provides much more material for the reader to ‘discover.’ As the author goes along, they know so much more about the world they create that it does get easier to write them after some time.

Linking a series.

Smashwords now has a ‘Series Manager’ where authors can link and number their books if they are part of a series. Kindle Direct Publishing has a field for that in the publishing page.

This is a good tool. I was conflicted by the need, or even just the method of indicating that some of my books were in a series. It felt clunky to write it into the product description, and I really didn’t want to put a big red #1 on the cover of my first one—how the hell would I know if I could do another? I only have a novella and two books in the series, and yes, I am writing the third. But it felt presumptuous and so I didn’t do it. Now there’s an easy way. For promotions, the first book in the series should be free. You can tweet with a good conscience, because you’re giving away free product. It’s a legitimate promotional tool

Free giveaways.

Some people scoff at free giveaways.

“Don’t such authors value their own work?” I read that in a blog somewhere, it was quite hurtful at the time.

(You’re danged right I do.)

“Would you like to supersize that meal?” How about 24 ounces of Coca-Cola to go with that burger and fries?

It’s only twenty-nine cents more.

I find it hard to believe that after all these years Coca-Cola Corporation (whatever) doesn’t value their product, and yet they still keep giving it away…

You want new readers. You want people to download free books. The algorithms are predicated on information technology and information theory. You can game those algorithms, by getting people to buy, take, borrow, lend, or review, or even just look at your book.

The more people look at your book, the more people will buy it. Store traffic is one thing, that’s different across platforms, but you want them to stop and look at your book if you can possibly get them to do it.

Spam.

Spam is shit in my inbox, where I have to click on it to look at it, and I have to search for an unsubscribe link, and yet I’ve never been to your website. I’ve never done business with you.

Spam is wasting my time and slowing down my inbox.

Now, if you want to post pictures of cupcakes on Facebook, well, that doesn’t bother me at all.

If you don’t like all the spam on Twitter, I have no idea what the hell you’re doing wrong. Maybe you should switch it off, and watch a football game, as no one, (or hardly anyone) has ever complained about all the commercials there, even though they say they don’t like commercials and yes, they can be kind of annoying. Right?

Twitter is like an old party-line phone, only instead of half a dozen other households listening in, anyone in the world can sign up and eavesdrop on your ‘private’ conversations. It is a form of communication, I will grant you that. Like any form of communication, it can be exploited, effectively or otherwise.

Here’s the real value of any social network: you can go on Facebook and click away, (judiciously, or you end up in Facebook jail) and build up an audience or readership of 5,000 friends. You can go on Twitter and build up an audience, even buy one, of 100,000 or a million followers. Let’s completely ignore what it is that you’re posting. This is the real revolution in social media—an obscure guy, an isolated person, perhaps some lonely old fart on a microscopic pension, can go in, learn the system and build up a following, over time of course, that might not rival Tumblr’s recent 38 million unique visitors in a month, but something that does the job.

How many books a month would you have to sell to make it worth your while? I would love to sell 200 books a month. This would go a long way. I could buy a car or pay insurance or something with that kind of money.* It is by no means a bestseller, as it might be sales of a dozen different titles. It’s not the sort of money that attracts big investment, but then it doesn’t require a large expenditure up front for infrastructure. In a recent blog post Hugh Howey, ‘Wool,’ etc, suggested that almost anyone should be willing and even able to invest $2,000 in order to launch almost any successful business. (I think that’s what he said.) I’ve done better than that. My first three years involved a cost of about $30.00 a month initially, although the bill has gone up for the internet. Only recently have I been buying marketing images from Canstock, for a total cost per book cover of about $5.65, which includes tax. Now, over the years, I have probably spent my two grand. Never at any time did I have two grand to invest in a business; I just did it anyway, using all available and alternate means.

That stems back to my training, (all too brief) as a journalist. Get your story out by any means necessary. Period.

***

Comments on this blog are always welcome.

*I’d love to sell 2,000 books a month and throw this lousy pension back in their faces…

END

Here are some of my titles on iTunes.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/louis-bertrand-shalako/id412091968?mt=11

Hugh Howey's Advice for Aspiring Authors.

http://www.hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/

Ulysses on Deck.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

“Ulysses on deck!” Sturdy Xenophanes bellowed, white foam breaking over the red prow of the vessel.

“A fine morning.” Ulysses spoke, the words denying the lowering cloud and stiff gusts coming in off the port bow of the ship. “How are the men?”

“In a fine fettle, with the smell of home on the breeze. They’re chomping at the bit, sir.”

“Three knots and our course is fine.” Talaimenes was the helmsman, reporting at a glance from his chieftain. “The fog is now much thinner.”

Sucking in a deep breath of fresh, cool air, Ulysses marveled once again at how the vessel rode the hard chop just as competently as the day she was launched. A brazen shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and made the sea sparkle and shimmer like tiny golden dancers in torchlight. Pulling his cloak in tighter, he nodded in satisfaction.

“So many years gone.” He was philosophical. “We have earned a rest—and our keep for the days of our lives.”

“Tell them.” The eyes of Xenophanes shone with some inner joy, a kind of sweet pain that no one could share in mere words these days, not after all they had seen and done. Ulysses regarded the familiar figure of his friend with a slight frown and then his visage cleared.

“Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” He strode to the front of the poop deck and put his hand on the shoulder of the time-keeper. “I want to talk to them. Hold her steady, give them a moment to rest.”

“Halt! Raise oars! Steady! One…two…three…” Chromis was a steady soldier and a masterful sailor.

Looking back at the helmsman, Chromis gave a nod.

“All stop, sir.”

“Thank you.” He took a moment, to clear his mind and purge his lungs of old air.

Ulusses faced the rowers from the poop deck. Expectant faces looked up in anticipation and respect. Men once young and innocent were somehow different now, a little wiser and a little sadder. A little older now. A moment of grief passed over him, for there were too many missing faces.

Flinching from the cold spray, the wind strong on his neck, Ulysses stood there and tried to memorize the look of every single one of them. He would never forget this moment for as long as he lived.

“Men. I cannot tell you what an honour it has been. I am proud to call you my friends. It also humbles me. We have seen our brothers throw their lives down for us, and we have done it for them. No commander could ever ask more of his men than I have asked from you. And you have given your all. No soldier can give more for his country than you have done. I am grateful for my life, and your service. I thank you for coming and am deeply relieved that so many of you will be going home.”

Tears rolled down Xenophanes’ cheeks and some of the others as well.

Equally at home in the palace and the camp, loved by his people and feared by his enemies, his words were magic. Ulysses was master of every stratagem. But that didn’t explain the love. He was a fierce and cunning soldier. Ulysses had led them to victory, and every one of them waited breathlessly.

The silence was profound, even over the waves and the wind. He studied their faces, each of them, one by one.

“Sarpedon, the bold! Let no man ever say that a Greek was a coward, or a traitor, or lacked honour. Tlepelemos! Let no man say that Greeks do not do justice to their fellow man. Enyo! Let no man say that a Greek does not have gratitude, or give thanks and credit where it is due. Briseis! Let no man say that a Greek cannot be trusted or will not keep his word. Petrus, the noble Petrus! Let no man say that Greeks are not loving husbands, good fathers and honest men. Xenophanes, whose eloquence has graced this voyage with wit and wisdom. And you, Pollux, whose love knows no boundaries…and you, Antenor, let no man say that Greeks do not stand by each other’s side when the time has come. Gentlemen, I wish I could tell you what a privilege it has been to serve with you. Mere words fail me in this time of need. I honour you all, and I thank you for your friendship.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Then all the rowers stood up and shouted the name of Ulysses, as the ship began to drift, and then there was only one more thing left unsaid.

Holding up a hand and waiting for quiet again, Ulysses spoke with finality.

“Back to your oars, my friends. It is time to go home.”

The shouting and the thumping of oar handles went on for some time. He was inclined to overlook it, just this once.

Smiling the length of the ship, he nodded at Xenophanes. Then he turned and watched for the green hills of home, as the wine-dark sea broke time and again over the prow, and the waves smashed against the sparkling wet bow.

***

“So what do you think, Xenophanes?” The sardonic Frigattenkapitan Gerhard von Bluecher was the neutral observer from the Imperial German Navy.

According to his own account, he was just there from the future to get a little experience before going on to some obscure diplomatic post.

“He’ll head straight to the bar, just you watch.” Xenophanes was his usual morose self, but then it was his job to pay off the crew and Ulysses was holding back thirty percent for provisions, repairs, breakage, sales from the slops chest, and withholdings from future advances.

This was a kind of usurious interest against loans in advance, taken from the men’s own pay.

“Hmn. That’s why he pays you the big money, eh, my friend?” Von Bluecher was joking.

“Yes. I’ll skewer him under a pseudonym, of course.”

Xenophanes kidded himself that he was a playwright and a poet.

“Of course.”

That was the trouble with the ancient Greeks. While their pens were indeed mightier than their swords, their biggest problem was that the bastards simply couldn’t be trusted to keep a contract. That mutual distrust would be crucial in the times that lay ahead for folk of whatever era, now that all of humankind past and present was threatened by the time-travelling Eridanae.

It would come back to haunt them, or he wasn’t a shrewd judge of character, both individual and national. These people couldn’t hold a candle to a true German.

A German would rather die than break his word or become a hypocrite.



***

The Process of Writing a Novel.

(Niels Noordhoek, Wiki.)

“Bang-bang, three shots rang out, a woman screamed and her guts fell out, and there on the floor, with his asshole tore, lay terrible Dan McGrew…” – my old man.

Writing a novel is a process. It doesn’t all happen at once, like you just add water and stir.

My twelfth novel is up to 26,000 words out of a projected 60,000+.

So what do we have so far?

We have a murder, a woman screaming, we have an initial crime scene investigation, we have interviews with those closest to the victim. In other words, we have Inspector Gilles Maintenon of the Surete, and the trusty, broad-shouldered Detective-Sergeant Andre Levain, along with some new people, doing their jobs. They’re gathering evidence and investigating the murder of Muriel Ducharme, a rich old lady with four sons of disparate characters, tempers, and prior histories. Also, her beautiful niece Sophie was staying with her at the time. She had a cook and a couple of servants and according to all accounts not an enemy in the world, in fact you’d have a hard time finding anyone with a bad thing to say about her.

As any good cop will tell you, prior history is the best indicator of future behaviour.

(In other words, Louis seems pretty likely to finish this story? – ed.)

Something like that, — ed.

(My number one heckler, ladies and gentlemen.)

While the first chapter seems pretty long on description, at this point in the process, (there’s that word again,) I’m laying in sufficient groundwork to support a desired ending. That means that there is a fair degree of going back and forth in a manuscript of about 65 pages so far, with no chapter titles for reference, just trying to find some person and throwing in a necessary bit of ‘groundwork.’

This can included clues, something they said, saw, or noticed, something about their previous experiences—I just discovered one of my characters studied economics in London, U.K. for example, and at some point you will lose track. Even more interesting, in a series, information in one book can support some plot point in another book. For example, Maintenon was a widower in a previous book. In this book, he’s still a widower, or I would have to account for why he isn’t. Simple, really. Also, guys in a previous book can’t refer to events in a subsequent book—it’s a paradox because it hasn’t happened in their world yet.

(“Fuck, he’ll work in Schrodinger’s Cat before he’s done.” –ed.)

(Hey, — ed., Shrodinger’s Cat walks into a bar. And doesn’t.)

(And don’t be giving away plot points, either, ya son of a bitch.)

Approximately 30,000 words would be halfway to a complete first draft. Now is a very good time to go right back to page one and just start reading the story, keeping a good pen and some blank paper beside the keyboard.

Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, I already know who committed the crime, how it was done, why it was done, why it was done in such and such a way. I know these people intimately, because I created them and breathed life into them and then they started to act like real people…perfectly normal, rational, everyday people with hopes and dreams and desires of their own. Right?

***

If I end up cutting a book, it’s like I wasted time in the writing of that material. Why not write just exactly what I need in order to get from Point A to Point B, and nothing more? Why not skip what some lady’s dress looked like, or what the wallpaper in the parlor looks like. I can add that in during the re-reading and re-writing process. The structure is only important right up to the point when the book is finished. After that no one cares, least of all I, because it is invisible to the reader.

They just got sucked into the story and can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

At that point it is no longer structure. It becomes full, complete, and a coherent whole. Each stated fact or event in the book contributes to the ‘truthiness’ of the outcomes in the book.

If it rings true to life, if people can see it happening inside their heads, then it has become a work of art, whether an author chooses or not, (and it could be a girl, too,) to express it in those terms is their own decision. (Or hers.)

Prior history is the best indicator of future behavior. Anyway, the books are all free for a little while longer.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/louis-bertrand-shalako

If you're still with me, thanks for reading my story.