Invisible Readers, Tricks of Perception, and Not Selling

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The internet is a tricky place. To me, it’s very much like a sorcerer’s castle filled with echo chambers and mirrors like the kind you’d find in a Robert E. Howard novel. Those who live in the castle often forget that the vast majority of folks out there aren’t in that keep as often as they are, and they’re not conversing or interacting with them in the same way, either.

I see this every day. I’m online a lot for work-related purposes, but the effects of being online so much mean that I hear about the outrageous and the unusual often. (Rarely, if ever, do I see solutions. Solving problems is boring. Pointing them out is easier.) Truth be told, I would be considered a super-user. If you want to see depictions of what internet usage really looks like and how income is a factor, check out www.pewtrusts.org.

The perception that popularity sells books is dangerous because it’s not necessarily true. The other piece to that is money. Of those who know about you, which percentage of that are your readers. Of those readers, who is willing to spend money on your books?

Why is this important to remember? Writers don’t sell books. Writers write books. Writers can promote books, but unless you have a shopping cart set up on your own site? Retailers sell books. So your best chance of selling more books is either to a) write a better book b) write more books or c) market the books you do have hoping your efforts will have a direct impact. c) is madness. Marketing never ends. This is what people do for a full-time job. You need data, measurable actions, etc. You could drive yourself crazy and take precious time away from your writing.

When online stores do sell books, there is no guarantee yours will ever resonate with readers. This is fact. You cannot bank everything on the popularity you think you have, because you really don’t know what will take off, what won’t, how that will financially impact you, or how long your popularity will last. (Or, as I like to put it: the only thing writers have control over is the blank page.) Remember, too, there is a specific sales pattern that almost every retail site follows which always favors certain titles. I know we don’t want to think of our books and games as products, but in terms of sales, that’s what they are.

So what of your presence online? Those who are online every day paying attention to what you’re doing are the anomaly. From that subset, you may get some folks interacting with you, but you’ll also get readers who never do and still buy your books or games. Not everybody seeks out the creator and when they do, they don’t necessarily do it to converse with you or buy what you want them to. For example, I see a lot of “writing advice” websites out there. Does it help sell your fiction? Telling how the coffee is made (or, as an alternative how you make your coffee) and selling a unique brand of coffee are not the same thing. You could be known for one and not the other. You could sell one side of that coin, too, and not the other — or both.

Knowing how readers interact with us and when is only one part of this discussion. We also have to assume that we don’t really know those anonymous readers perusing our thoughts and websites and blogs. We don’t always know the “who.” Is that an agent? Publisher? Reader? If you are always negative, always pointing out the flaws, always critical: what does that have to do with what you do best? Your Art? Then, when folks do hear about you, it’s not when you’re at your best. Typically, links shared occur when that topic goes viral — which is an outlier and not indicative of people as individuals, but moreso when folks are upset.

Almost everything I do online is intentional based on how I’ve structured my business. When you see advice and whatnot on my website, it’s because I am sharing about what I do to get work and to build a solid, professional foundation. When I talk about process, like I have for Redwing’s Gambit, it’s to show how much I love writing and all the things I do to tell good stories. But, this is not the same thing as selling books. This is more to talk about who I am knowing that a reader may interact with my website now or at some point in the future. Social media is different. Twitter and Facebook are more personal, because they’re more ephemeral, but they are still me. I have good days and bad days but in between, social media is about me the writer, not me the book.

What I want to see more of, is the celebration of what we do as writers, our books, and each other. I don’t care if you’re self-published or not. Veteran or not. Why? Well, for an incredibly selfish reason. I believe everyone has a story to tell and that the world changes for the better when people read. I believe that literacy can only occur through great books, through fans passionate about what we’re writing, and through the excellent people in both aspects of the publishing industry I’m involved with. More of that. PLEASE! Because when we do this? And get folks excited about books? That puts the emphasis back on great storytelling and less so on internet popularity. The more readers there are, the more everybody — regardless of visibility — wins. In my mind, you cannot be online expecting to sell books without trying to attract readers. Forget who they are and how they interact with us, and you will either fall into the traps laid by faulty perceptions or completely ignore why you have a presence online in the first place. I don’t care if you believe you’re online for yourself or not; you are putting a piece of yourself into a new medium and your words don’t fall into the abyss, regardless of who’s reading them or not.

So, to sum up: you the person is not you the book. Stop the hard sell. It doesn’t work. You wrote the book. What next? Write another one. Find readers. How? By writing. Not selling. By engaging. Not selling. By making smart decisions with the folks you choose to publish and sell your books. Stop trying so hard! STOP GIVING AWAY ALL YOUR RIGHTS AND UNDERCUTTING WHAT YOU’RE WORTH. Be awesome. Be yourself. BE REASONABLE. Don’t worry about other writers “surpassing” you, because the success you perceive doesn’t impact what’s on YOUR screen. Congratulate them. Write the book you want to read. Read more. Don’t sell. Let the salespeople sell. You need to write the damn book.

And, finally…

You do not have to make your own cool, you are your own cool. Stop worrying about what anyone else thinks and keep writing — change the world one reader at a time. STOP BEING AFRAID. If you truly, deep down, want to write about something in particular and it’s right for you, the way will open. (It has for me.)

Now let all the b.s. from the day/week/month/year go and tell me a good story, dammit! Thrill me and chill me. Give me your fiction and your non-fiction. Say something about the folks whose work was so amazing it touched you. This is what we writers do. We give our readers an experience. Let’s give them everything we’ve got.

Write like your life depends on it — I do!

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June 5, 2013
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Criticism Begins With A “C.” For Conversation.

There's a trojan on your computer

There has been a lot of criticism aimed at the SFWA Bulletin in recent weeks that has now resulted in a task force. Laura Anne Gilman summarizes the issue on her blog and Jim C. Hines has a link list of the commentary.

My take on this entire situation is very simple: criticism provides an opportunity to have a conversation. There is a reason why those conversations haven’t happened regularly or as noticeably in the past. Obviously, the internet has changed how we give feedback both as ourselves and in a group. Now we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly for all to see.

Regardless of what you think about these criticisms, whether you feel they’re necessary or not, I believe there is a gift to be found here: the opportunity to learn, empathize, and listen to what the audience is saying.

The end of that discussion and what decisions originate out of that conversation is, of course, different for different people and businesses. However, I feel that the worst possible scenario is to stop listening altogether.

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June 2, 2013
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Soap, Old Dirt, and Mud

Spike and Giles... Together at Last

If you were to lean in, very closely, you will hear a deadly rattle as a few manuscripts emerge through a final round of revisions and proof corrections. Feels like I’ve shaped a cyber-golem out of nanite-mud and clay, and we’re about to release it into the wilds.

As I emerge through this, though, I’ve had a thought about taking risks. See, working for someone else, the parameters or the sides of the box are usually determined by a number of factors ranging from approvals to the scope of the project already being defined. Freelancers don’t get to make a lot of calls; sometimes they do and other times they don’t. But when you pen original works, whether they be blog posts or novels, you determine where the sides of the box are.

The challenge with this, though, is that if you were to take every internet post, every forum thread, to heart — you would never write. Why would you? If everything you’d done was going to be ripped apart, shredded, presented as wholly inaccurate, and how dare you? (Sometimes, even before that person has even read or encountered or consumed, too.) Or, in the case of some work-for-hire writers, getting the same treatment for works you didn’t write and had nothing to do with? Now, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, folks are very positive or say nothing at all. Freelancers can influence outlines and the like as well. But, in the case of many blogs and forums, articles are written to tap into your emotionally-charged centers so you wake up and pay attention. A technique which is manipulative, sure, and also finanically-beneficial to many sites. They get paid in *website visits*. Writers get paid per *word* sold.

But what the opinions? Should that affect how we shape the rawness of your your art? Mine? Should we avoid taking (what other people deem to be) risks just because people prefer works to be sanitized with soap and water?

No, and I am telling you this now, because it will come up later. This is a consequence of being connected so closely to one another. But taking creative risks is who we are as artists. We will take better chances if we understand what the rules are or play around with them to break them, but risks matter. If we don’t, stories and games and photos and sculptures and songs and everything else will stagnate. Without us, there will be no questions asked. There will be no arguments had. There will be no discussion. And we will be lost in a sea of opinions, doing what we think is right before we even try something new. Our art then, would become predictable and flat and repurposed. Safe.

I would rather get my hands dirty and take risks than live my writer’s life in fear. Half the time, *I* don’t feel that what I’m doing is risky. I just do what I do because I love it so. That doesn’t mean I won’t be smart about the choices I take in my career. I still have to worry about the business end of the equation.

Still, even I have had my “Come to Poe” moment. Do I trust myself? Yes. And to me, that’s all that matters. Because without that trust, then why would I bother taking any risk at all?

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June 1, 2013
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