Why You Should be Writing Short Fiction

Update: I'm so pleased this post has had thousands of hits over the last year and is energizing so many writers to take up short fiction. But I fear a number of readers don't read the whole piece and assume I'm telling newbie writers to self-publish their first efforts at story-writing. 

Please don't do this. 

Here's what I say further down in the piece. "I’m NOT advocating that new writers self-publish your fledgling short fiction. A few self-pubbed singles by a brand new writer won’t get anybody’s attention. (And they may embarrass your future self.) To succeed in publishing—whether self- or traditional, you really need to put in your 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours."

Seriously. Reviewers can be brutal. Don't put yourself through that. Learn to write first. It's way harder than it looks. Take classes. Get critiques. Fail miserably and try again. It's what we all do. 

You don't expect to play in a major tournament the first time you pick up a golf club and you don't drive in a NASCAR race the day you get your learner's permit. Give yourself some time to fail in private. Failure is how we learn, but we don't need to do it in the public marketplace. 

What—short stories? Aren’t they just for writing classes? Why would I waste time on stuff that doesn’t pay?

Because it does. And this isn’t an April Fool joke.

Last week Amazon announced it has sold over two million “Singles” ebooks since the launch of their Singles program a little over a year ago. Yeah. 2 MILLION.

The short stories sell for between $. 99 and $1.99 and the authors keep a 70% royalty. Many of the top sellers are by name authors, like Lee Child, Stephen King, and Jodi Picoult, but others are by unknowns, according to Kindle Singles editor David Blum.  (The 70% royalty is only for official Kindle Singles. If you self-pub, anything sold under $2.99 gets a 35% royalty.) 

But this is where you should be doing a happy dance and shouting from the rooftops: THE SHORT STORY IS BACK! This is nothing but good news for authors no matter where you are in your career.

After three or four decades of evaporating markets, the short story has found a new home in the ebook.

OK, we’re not reliving the halcyon days of the mid-20^th century when short fiction in weeklies like The Saturday Evening Post paid more than the average book advance does today. But short fiction fits the ADD-attention-span lifestyle of the E-age, and people are willing to pay for it. (Which is yet another reason NOT to give away your fiction on your blog.) 

I think it’s time for all fiction writers to start re-thinking the short form. Personally, I know I haven’t spent enough time on it. During the decade I spent writing and re-writing my “practice novel” I could have been building an inventory of short pieces that would be a gold mine now.

Unfortunately, most novice writers I know are still doing the same stuff I did. They’re putting all their energy into book-length fiction or memoir and not bothering with short pieces, except maybe for a flash fiction contest or special event.

In fact, I visited a critique group not long ago where one writer complimented another with the misguided advice that he shouldn’t “waste” his crisp little story—he should turn it into a novel.

In other words, she was telling the writer that instead of sending a 10,000 word short story to Amazon to sell for 99 cents, he should spend two years turning it into a 100,000 word novel, which he could sell on Amazon for…um, 99 cents. (OK, not all self-pubbed ebooks are priced that low, but even at $4.99, the bottom line news isn’t good for the author. Especially if he puts money into editing and design.)

Of course, back in the Jurassic days when I started writing, that critiquer’s advice would have been perfectly sound. In the 1990s, most magazines had stopped publishing fiction and short stories had all but disappeared from the publishing world. Mega bookstores were in their heyday: book-length fiction was happening.

So aspiring authors were told to keep our eyes on the big prize and put our energy into churning out novels in the popular genres like chick lit, cozy mysteries, and family sagas.

I’ve amassed quite a collection of half-finished books in those genres—all sadly out of fashion now. But if I had been writing short stories instead, I could be raking in the dough. (Not that any time spent writing is wasted. Everything we write improves our craft.)

But I didn’t feel drawn to writing short stories. I write genre fiction. Back then, short stories were expected to be literary. Yes, there were still some paying gigs for genre stories in super-competitive markets like Women's World, Asimov’s and Ellery Queen.

But mostly we were urged to write enigmatic tales of suburban angst and send them off to collect rejection slips from literary journals with a circulation of 26 and names like Wine-Dark Snowflakes of the Soul, or The Southeastern Idaho Pocatello Community Colleges North Campus Literary Review. All with the hopes we’d finally be rewarded with publication and payment of one free copy.

But ebooks have changed all that. Not just because of Kindle Singles. Short story anthologies are springing up all over. They don’t all pay, but if you can get a story into an anthology with some well-known authors in your genre, you’ll be paid in publicity that would be hard to buy at any price.

I’ve been offered a number of opportunities to publish fiction in anthologies this year that have really paid off. The Saffina Desforges Coffee Collection reached #1 on the anthology bestseller list as soon as it was released last December, and the Indie Chicks Anthology (which sent its profits to charity) has been a steady seller for six months—and now that it’s free it’s topping a whole lot of lists. Plus I look forward to having a story in the rom-com Martini Madness anthology coming next winter with the fabulous ladies from WG2E .  

I’m not advising anybody to ditch that magnum opus—most novel writers get frustrated when forced to write exclusively in the short form. But I’m saying it makes sense to put an equal amount of energy into shorter pieces.

Instead of putting every idea that illuminates your brain into your novel, give a few of them a spin in short stories first.

A few months ago on this blog, legendary mystery author Lawrence Block wrote about his success with self-publishing his inventory of short stories, and a few months before, Sci-Fi bestseller Jeff Carlson wrote about his success self-publishing a novella. It shot to number one in SciFi with no help from his agent or Big Six publisher.

But you don’t have to be accepted at Kindle Singles or have a famous name to benefit from publishing short-form ebooks. Consider the following things I heard this week:

1) A bestselling author decided to put some of her old stories on Amazon. As an experiment, she didn’t use her famous name. She told me she made about $500 on them last month. These were works she was told “had absolutely no commercial value.” But she put them out there, “in case someone was interested.” It seems they were—because “in spite of absolutely no promo...people are finding them and buying them.”

2) An indie writer wrote me with this advice: “unless you have a break-out success with a novel, [the short story] is probably more lucrative as a return on time invested. I can make as much per sale on a ten page short story as on a 120,000 word novel.” And I know many indies who use a short piece as a free download to introduce readers to their work.

3) My editor wrote that one of his authors recently self-published a short piece she wrote on a plane and “writing, formatting, cover, etc. took less than a day.” It got 6500 downloads in the first week. 

So the magic formula for writers right now might be “less is more.”

I do want to stress that the above writers are all successful, published novelists with hard-earned expertise in their craft.

So I’m NOT advocating that new writers self-publish your fledgling short fiction. A few self-pubbed singles by a brand new writer won’t get anybody’s attention. (And they may embarrass your future self.)

To succeed in publishing—whether self- or traditional, you really need to put in your 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours.

But you can maximize your efforts by putting more of those hours writing short fiction. When it’s time to make your professional debut, you’re going to have some serious inventory.

If you’re still unconvinced, consider that short fiction is much easier to adapt for the screen than novels. The following films began as short stories: A View to a Kill; The Birds; Breakfast at Tiffany's; Brokeback Mountain; Children of the Corn; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Dead; Don Juan DeMarco; Don't Look Now; Double Indemnity. (And that’s just from the A-D list on Wikipedia.)

The best thing is that while you're getting yourself established, you don’t have to keep those stories in a drawer. One of the great things about short fiction is that it’s re-usable. Most zines and journals only ask for first rights (And be very careful with the ones who want more.)

Gone are the days when those obscure college literary journals were the only game in town. New zines are springing up all the time, and there are contests everywhere online—some even have cash prizes. (I suggest subscribing to C. Hope Clark’s newsletter, Funds for Writers for vetted info on contests.)

Contest wins and credits for a few stories published in some good online zines look very nice in a query letter or bio, too.

So forget the so-last-millennium advice to concentrate on novels. Polish those short pieces and prepare yourself for a 21st century audience.

If, like me, you can’t kick your book-writing habit, try writing a short piece about a secondary character in your WIP. It’s a great exercise for exploring your character’s backstory, and once your novel is published, it can benefit you in lots of ways:

• It could make you a nice chunk of change as an e-single.

• It might go into an anthology where it could get you new readers.

• You can offer it as a free download for some inexpensive publicity.

• Hollywood might come calling. (Hey, you never know...)

Even if you’re unpublished and have a long way to go before you publish your first novel, I suggest taking time to work on some stories and build your inventory. And I recommend you enter a few contests and submit to those zines. You might just win something.

“Award-winning writer” has a nicer sound than “unpublished novelist,” doesn’t it?

********

What about you, scriveners? Do you write short fiction? Have any of you had success with singles? We’d love to hear about it.

INDIE CHICK FANS: The Indie Chicks Anthology is now FREE and topping the freebie charts in memoir and fiction anthologies. And Indie Chicks are going places! Lizzy Ford just gota great review in USA Today , and Shea McLeod just signed a three book deal with Amazon’s new romance imprint, Montlake. You can read this week’s inspirational piece from YA author Julia Crane is here.

Ruth Harris is guesting at Romance University this week. Check out her great post on what makes a hero sexy .

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Procrastination: Myth, reality or your best friend in disguise?

 by Ruth Harris

I’d like to start this December 25 post by extending my heartiest congratulations to those Master Procrastinators who are still putting off their Christmas shopping. You’re the pros and we salute you!

Now to the rest of us:

My mission (and I chose to accept it) was to blog about The Big P so I turned to the global authorities on said subject. Not shrinks. Not self-help gurus. Not cubicle dwellers. Not housewives with a sink full of dishes & dust bunnies under the sofa. But … ta da!…wait for it!…the true, undisputed Rembrandts and Picassos, the acknowledged geniuses of the Art and Craft of Procrastinaion: Writers!

Who are able to luxuriate in every exquisite moment of guilt, self flagellation and despair. Who can wring every last drop from an orgy of self-loathing about not-writing. So, when I requested some info and insight, here is what I got:

            •           Humor, bitter

            •           Snark

            •           Promises to get back to me later (I’m still waiting)

            •           A single instant reply—which on closer examination turned out to be a

                        deviant form of procrastination

            •           Constructive, prescriptive recommendations

            •           Denial

                          

Jill Metcalf (Jill’s webpage) is the multi-published, award winning author of 5 historical romance novels. Jill took the competitive approach:

  “I would have answered this sooner but...I had to build a sand castle. Then I remembered, I don’t live near a beach. Then I remembered I had to make my bed...but it was made, so I un-made it and made it again. Then I remembered I had to do laundry, but I’d already done the laundry and it was dried and folded...so I washed it all again. Then I remembered...LOL.  I’m the Queen of Procrastination.”

As the Queen of Typos, I am honored to share my throne with Procrastination Royalty.

Still, all is not sand castles and laundry. Jill concluded by saying: “I have never failed to meet a deadline or an obligation. If I give my word, I keep it.”

Fact is, HRH, the Queen of Procrastination, has obviously found a way to make procrastination work for her. 

Shelly Thacker, (Shelly’s webpage) a bestselling author of historical and paranormal romances published by Dell and Avon, took a practical, constructive approach: “When it comes to beating procrastination, visuals work best for me. I like calendars, checklists, and charts. I keep a calendar next to my computer with page goals spelled out for each week, and a checklist of chapters completed so far. Watching those numbers go up is very motivating.”

For more tips, Shelly posted an excellent article which you will find here.

Shelly’s article is loaded with helpful—and very effective—ways to beat back The Big P. Her advice is practical, very doable and it works. She’s a pro who knows what she’s talking about.

Lawrence Block, (LB’s Blog) that sneaky devil, answered instantly (really!): Turns out keeping a beady eye on his email and replying quick-as-a-flash is Larry’s creative and (obviously) efficient way to devote himself to You Know What.

In the interest of complete disclosure, I must point out that LB’s method is certainly efficient. He’s been a bestselling writer for over fifty years, the author of the bestselling Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series plus many, many, many more titles. Larry has written under a number of pseudonyms and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1993. His Liar's Bible: A Handbook for Fiction Writers and other books of writing advice are considered classics.

Consuelo Saah Baehr: (The Repurposed Writer) Years ago, Consuelo and I shared the famous/infamous editor, Michael Korda, when we were being publishing by Simon & Schuster. Consuelo’s been TradPubbed but now has gone digital. She’s the bestselling author of Nothing To Lose  and here’s what she has to say: 

“I was a procrastination junkie and, like all career junkies, I hid my addiction by doing hard things that looked good on paper but were not my real life's work.  Hey, I have a glamorous job, leave me alone.  

“Still, many mornings, I would get some whispers from the soul hole:   You haven't written anything new in years.  I bought a procrastination tape and wrote out my list. Write another book, lose twenty pounds, re-align my sinuses and my septum.

"’You are a doer,’" screamed the man on the tape. I listened to him every day.  Nothing.

 I tried magical thinking.  Nothing. Until about a year ago life shoved me in the path of the moving train called KDP.  

“My brain said "No."  Please.  Too hard. Two people told me it wasn't hard.  It was easy—Joe Konrath and Zoe Winters.  I thought, well, I can just put one foot in front of the other so I tried it.  I tried it early in the morning when I still had clear faculties and got lost in the work. 

 “I realized that the best antidote to procrastination is momentum. If you can take a few tiny steps and keep going, momentum will pull you along.”

Liliana Hart, multi-award-winning author of romantic suspense and mystery fiction,  (lilianahart.com) nailed it. Quoth Liliana: “Procrastination is commenting on your procrastination blog when I have 30k words left to write on a book that's due at the end of the month.”

Liliana was polite enough not to tell me to bug off with my stupid questions. And I wasn’t clueless enough to pester her again, either. I know a busy woman when I hear from one! And I also know Liliana will meet her deadline!

Now we come to the deniers. Or maybe they’re the realists. But there are writers who simply don’t believe in procrastination and/or being blocked (IME, very often the same thing).

Robert B. Parker, (http://www.robertbparker.net/author) of the Spencer and Jesse Stone series, didn’t believe in The Big P. He thought writers should think of themselves as plumbers.

You’ve heard of plumbers who don’t show up when they’re supposed to but have you ever heard of a plumber who couldn’t fix a faucet because he was in procrastination mode?  No way. He could say his kid was sick, he could say his car broke down, he could even say he had a terrible hangover and couldn’t fix your faucet.

But if you called him and the message on his voice mail informed you he was alphabetizing his complete collection of Super Bowl tapes and couldn’t fix your faucet, he’d be booted out of the plumbers union. Basically, Parker’s advice was: “Shut up, sit down, and write.”

D.D. Scott, bestselling romantic comedy and humorous mystery author  (ddscottville.blogspot.com) and Reigning Goddess of WG2E sees it the way Parker saw it.

D.D. was succinct. And pithy, too.

 She said, and I quote: “There's no such thing as procrastination...just get your butt in your chair & get your BITCHOK Groove in full gear!!!”

“BITCHOK?” I asked D.D. “Wot’s dat?” 

She explained: Butt In The Chair, Hands On Keyboard.

I replied: lmao. Although on second thought, I probably should have said lmbo.

D.D. and Parker are pros and they have the impressive body of work to prove it. 

Yeah, Ruth, I hear you say, but what about you?

I’m strictly a minor-league procrastinator and indulge only infrequently. In my experience whenever I start diddling and futzing around, organizing my spices or rooting through my medicine cabinet to get rid of the expired aspirin and cold meds, it means that I’m stuck. My sub-conscious is sending me a message and the message is always the same: You screwed up. Somewhere. Somehow.

Whether it’s a problem with plot, voice or characterization, procrastination is an alert, telling me to figure out where I’ve gone off track. To do that, I go back to the beginning—I mean that literally, we’re talking Page One here—and read very, very attentively and carefully until I can figure out what the problem is—whether one of omission or commission.

So, if you’re like me, you will consider procrastination your friend. The ally who is sending you an important message and doing its best to help you write and finish your book.

To make one final comment about the myth/reality/agony of procrastination, here’s an anonymous observation—sometimes attributed to Monty Python:

“Procrastination is like masturbation.  At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself.”

So have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year and, whatever else you do, stop diddling around & finish the damn book!

So, scriveners, what are your favorite procrastination techniques?


This just in from MWiDP! Anne's Hollywood mystery, THE GATSBY GAME is a Christmas freebie on Amazon for the next three days. It hit #40 in Free Contemporary Fiction yesterday. And GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY  is only 99 cents for a limited time.

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Lawrence Block Talks Self-Publishing

Yes, that Lawrence Block.

I can’t quite believe we have one of the most successful mystery writers of all time here on our blog! Mr. Block is the author of over fifty novels and even more short stories, including his two long-running series featuring P.I. Matthew Scudder and gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr.

Read Lawrence Block's Blog

He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the Edgar and Shamus Awards. He’s the recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan and received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. The list of his awards goes on for days.

He’s also a master teacher who has authored some of the great books on the craft of writing, including one of my favorites, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit

So why would a superstar turn to self-publishing? Read on:

D-I-Y Publishing—

New Tricks for an Old Dog

by Lawrence Block

It was in 1954 that I first entertained the motion of writing for a living, and a few years later I was doing it. I sold a story to Manhunt in the summer of 1957, and by the end of the following year I’d published a batch of magazine stories and articles, and written and sold three novels. (Most of the stories have been recently republished by HarperCollins in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends; the novels—Strange Are the Ways of Love by Lesley Evans, and Carla and A Strange Kind of Love by Sheldon Lord—are newly available as Open Road eBooks.)

In 1964 I took an editorial job in Wisconsin and stayed there for eighteen months, but with that exception I’ve spent all my working life as a free-lance writer.  (And in fact I did write a couple of books during that year and a half of honest work.) The friends of my youth were in the same fragile boat, chasing the same dragon—or white whale, or what you will. We spent many long nights, generally with glass in hand, and we talked about everything—God, how we talked! You’d have thought we were still getting paid by the word, even away from the typewriter.

We often talked about publishers. I don’t think we saw them as the enemy, or regarded the writer-publisher relationship as inherently adversarial. But it seemed to us, as I suspect it has seemed to every writer since Homer, that they were ham–handed oafs who did everything wrong. The fault, dear Bruce, was neither in our stars nor in ourselves; it was those dimwit publishers who kept us off the bestseller list.

And of course we dreamed of doing their job ourselves. Why let some twit in a Brooks Brothers suit screw up our careers when we could screw them up ourselves? Self-publishing was a seductive fantasy, but it was never more than that.  Because, while we may have been crazy, we weren’t flat-out stupid. While publishing was not yet the multinational corporate industry it has since become, and while enterprising fellows did start successful operations on not much more than a shoestring, they put in eighty-hour weeks and hustled like mad. Publishing wasn’t something for a creative type to engage in on nights and weekends, after his real work of making up stories was out of the way. You needed capital, you needed distribution, you needed no end of unattainable expertise.

But in 1985, with my nights and weekend already given over to an interactional seminar for writers, I decided to venture into self-publishing.

It was a special situation.  I felt the need for a book version of the seminar, both for attendees to take home with them and to make the material available to the many people unable to get to one of our sessions. My publisher at the time was Arbor House, and they’d done quite well with Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, so I might have persuaded them to take a shot at Write For Your Life—but I couldn’t delude myself into the notion that this would be a book with broad commercial potential. 

No, the book’s natural market would be limited to writers who’d taken the seminar or were thinking of taking it, along with readers of my monthly Writers Digest column. I was reaching precisely those people with my print and direct-mail advertising for the seminar, and I could easily piggy-back a pitch for the book in those ads.  The book didn’t need to be in bookstores, so I didn’t need a distributor.  All I needed was books, and if I was ever going to publish anything myself, this was my chance.

Besides, the sooner I had books in hand, the sooner I could sell them.  A publisher would take a year or longer. By using Arbor House’s production guy, who did this sort of thing in his spare time, I got books professionally produced in a couple of months. I printed 5000 books, and, even though I was unable to process credit card transactions, I managed to sell just over 4900 of them by the time Lynne and I got out of the seminar business.  (It had been great fun, and produced some positive results in people’s lives, but all the income went to hotels and airlines, and we were working our butts off for 50¢ an hour. And I was also beginning to feel uncomfortable with the role of a Writing Guru, and knew it was time to get back to writing.)

Self-publishing.  A success, all in all, and by no means an unpleasant experience.  Still, I never expected to find myself doing it again.

Right.

What changed, of course, was the world. I was aware of eBooks 20 years ago, and knew right away that they had a future, but wasn’t sure any of us would be alive to see it. Kindle was the game-changer, and Amazon’s self-publishing program didn’t just level the playing field. It broadened it as well.

I got right into it, making a handful of backlist titles available for Kindle. When Open Road came around and made a deal for 40+ backlist books of mine, I took down the few I’d published myself—except for a couple of novelettes that I thought of as pieces of string too short to save.  I left them where they were, and they went on selling a few copies a month, and when I noticed the numbers creeping upward, I started uploading various uncollected short stories at 99¢ a pop.

Gradually I learned how to buy stock photos and make my own eCovers; it turned out to be easy to do, and sometimes the results were better than any number of covers to have graced my books over the years.  Some of those short stories got two or three downloads a month, but others got two or three dozen, and my top sellers got two or three hundred. 

It wasn’t long before I had two dozen stories out there, on Nook as well as Kindle. I could know at a glance exactly how they were selling, and I could refresh the page every ten minutes if I wanted. (And even if I didn’t want to.  I mean, if you’re not going to be obsessive-compulsive about something, why bother with it at all?)

I didn’t self-publish, for Nook or for Kindle, any of my Matthew Scudder short stories.

I had nine of them, and the more recent were on my hard drive in digital form, so it would have been a cinch to render them eVailable. And I knew they’d be popular with readers. The only thing that held me back was the thought that they really ought to be a book.

Well, that was easy enough.  Just gather them together into a single file, think up a title and slap it on a cover, and publish it the way I’d published the short stories.

Or I could do it right.  Add a vignette previously published only as the text of a limited-edition broadside, and write another wholly new story to cap off the collection.  And make of the whole something rather more professional than my previous Nook-and-Kindle efforts.

I had lunch with two friends of mine, the screenwriting/directing team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, and left the table with an idea for that new story, along with Brian’s offer to contribute an appreciation of Matthew Scudder. 

Now I was really determined to do it right, and I arranged for the folks at Telemachus Press to do the heavy lifting—scanning the non-digital stories, proofreading the nightmarish OCR scans, formatting the text for all eBook platforms, and performing all the tasks that make a world of difference.

I wrote the new story, plus an afterword that put all the stories in historical perspective. I found a stock photo, picked a display font.  I wanted to make sure the cover was outstanding, because somewhere along the way I decided to gamble on a Print-on-Demand paperback edition.

Available Here Just $2.99!

You don’t need a full play-by-play.  What’s remarkable, it seems to me, is that it was the middle of July when I first thought about doing all this, and on September 30^th the eBook went live on Kindle and Nook. Two weeks later, on Friday, October 14^th, I took delivery on 500 gorgeous trade paperback copies of The Night and The Music, and by Saturday afternoon I’d shipped 350 copies, filling all my prepaid orders.

It is, I assure you, a slow way to get rich.  But it is clearly a very fast way to bring a book into existence, a book which might well otherwise not exist at all, ever.  I’d already discovered this with two collections of Writers Digest columns, The Liar’s Bible and The Liar’s Companion, which Open Road brought out as eRiginals, and confirmed it with Afterthoughts, a piecemeal memoir composed of the afterwords I wrote for Open Road’s editions of my backlist titles.

These were all books that seemed unlikely to provoke interest, let alone enthusiasm, from a traditional commercial publisher.  But readers have been finding them, and saying nice things about them, and my world is fuller for their presence in it. 

I might have found a publisher for The Night and the Music.  I never looked for one.  I wanted the experience of self-publishing in this intrepid new eWorld. I knew it would be interesting, and I figured it would be fun.  So far it’s been both.

And will it turn out to be profitable?

I think so.  One of the first decisions I made was to price the eBook at $2.99. No end of folks assured me that this was too low, that I was leaving money on the table, that Scudder fans  would gladly pay two or three times that for a new collection. I was told, too, that a low price would somehow be demeaning to the book.

I decided I wanted to maximize my audience, and had come to believe that the price-sensitive eBook market would reward a low price.  (As for a low price demeaning the book, I decided that was crap; there are enough egos I have occasion to worry about in my daily life, and I don’t need to ascribe an ego to the book and take care not to bruise it.)

At $2.99, it looks as though the eBook will cover its expenses within six weeks of publication, if not sooner.  Once it does, everything’s profit.  The paperback, higher in price at $16.99, cost more to publish, and there are ongoing printing and shipping costs for every copy I sell.  Even so, it’s already edging into the black.

And there’s Otto Penzler’s $150 leather-bound collector edition, too, limited to 100 signed and numbered copies. I won’t get too much out of that beyond a gorgeous book for my library, but that’s okay—and its mere existence makes the trade paperback look like a remarkable bargain, and the eBook an out-and-out steal.

But all of that’s secondary, really.  The Night and the Music is a book, for heaven’s sake! A new book, filling a spot on the shelf where once there was but empty space. Whether the shelf is physical or virtual, there’s my book, and don’t she look grand?

So would I do it again? 

Not with my next new novel, which I’ll be delighted to publish with Mulholland Books, who did such a fine job with A Drop of the Hard Stuff. Not with Jill Emerson’s next effort, should she happen to write one, which I’d hope to publish with Hard Case Crime, who’ve done so well with Getting Off. Not with a batch of backlist titles, which I hope to see ePublished by Open Road.

But with the right material, and at the right time, and if I continue to enjoy the whole process as much as I’m enjoying it right now…

Yeah, you bet I’d do it again.

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And he designed that brilliant cover himself. Amazing. Self-publishing is now officially mainstream.

For me, one of the most positive messages here is: short fiction is back! For so many years we’ve been told to treat short fiction as “beginner” and “practice” writing, because short stories make no money and anthologies are impossible to place.

But they’re back in style with ebooks. These days—with people reading on their phones and tablets while on the go—the short form is very reader-friendly. You can sell them one at a time or as collections.

Also: $2.99 seems to be the sweet spot for ebook pricing.

How about you, scriveners? Does this ease any doubts about self-publishing? Do you have any short stories in your files that might make good ebooks?

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This week my blog tour will make a stop at Mystery Writing is Murder, the blog of Elizabeth S. Craig/Riley Adams, author of the wonderful Memphis Barbeque mysteries. I’ll be talking about bad writing advice.

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6 Prescriptions to Cure the Heartbreak of Being Published

This is a post for every author who’s been in rejection hell—hoping, praying, and bribing assorted deities—living for that day when you finally land the book contract that will make all your dreams come true.

You know who you are: you’ve spent forever learning to craft a perfect query, sent it off to carefully chosen agents, and now you’re checking your email hourly, only to find one-line rejections or worse: that existential nothingness that is the trendy new rejection.

I feel your pain. I’ve been there. Like, for years.

But guess what? It could be worse. You could actually get that book contract! According to Ruth Harris, living your dream can sometimes become a nightmare.

Being published in real life is awfully different from what you see on Castle. (BTW, I love me some Nathan Fillion, but do you ever see that guy actually writing?)

Ruth isn’t telling you to give up your dreams. But reality checks are good. They help silence that demon that whispers in your ear that you can't be happy until you get published. Turns out: being published--even with a big, splashy corporation--has very little effect on happiness, and it can actually be a big downer. 

Ruth has worked as an editor at a number of Big Six houses, including Bantam and Dell, as well as making it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list many times—so she knows what she’s talking about here.

Please note: We’re not telling everybody to self publish. Self-pubbing works for some writers but not others. Choosing the small, independent publisher route is a better path for some of us, and others do reach Big Six Nirvana and actually enjoy the process. But it’s good to keep in mind there are going to be major hassles no matter what your level of success.

Also remember that most authors can use a good agent—one who’s keeping up with this ever-morphing industry—so don’t stop sending out those queries. But what you can do is tell that little despair demon to shut the #%*& up: things are tough all over. 


And if you want a little silliness from me this week, jump over to Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog and read the story about How the Trafalmadorians Saved My Writing Career. 


--Anne

Rx:  6 PRESCRIPTIONS TO CURE THE HEARTBREAK OF BEING PUBLISHED (or at least dial it down to mere heartburn)

by Ruth Harris

We’re in answered prayers territory here: You signed your contract, the editor just loves your book, it’s set in the schedule, you’re on your way! So what could go wrong?

Let me count the ways.

1. Strikes One, Two & Three: Your Cover, Publicity, and/or Distribution Stinks

You hate the cover. Your agent hates the cover, everyone who sees the cover hates it. You point out that your book is romantic suspense but the cover shouts supernatural horror. You ask for a change but you’re told it’s “too late” — even though we indies know how quickly a cover can be created.

What goes wrong with the cover can go wrong in all sorts of other ways:

• crappy blurbs,
• slashed print orders,
• crummy distribution,
• no ads, publicity or promotion,
• lousy reviews or
• no reviews at all these days now that “no one” reads newspapers any more.

Or, as once happened to me, a new publisher who was intent on proving that her predecessor (the publisher who bought and loved my book and was going to make me a star) didn’t know what he was doing. Guess whose ad budget got slashed? Guess who the publicity department didn’t give beans about? Guess whose option wasn’t picked up?

Rx: grow an armadillo hide. Publishing is a hazardous business with lots of pitfalls along the way. Anyone who’s ever been published can tell you that—with war stories and bruises to prove it.

2.  Johnnie Superstar rains on your parade

You’ve passed the cover hurdle. Your book looks great and your agent even got you a decent publicity and promotion budget. So far, so good. BUT, turns out, Johnnie Superstar’s drugs-rehab-and-kinky-sex-with-celebrities memoir is going to be published the same week as the book you’ve poured your heart into for three years is about to be published.

Where does that leave you? In a word: Nowhere. JS’s books are stacked to the rafters. Yours has two or three copies placed spine-out in the back. If you’re lucky.

Plus, you can forget about radio, TV, newspapers, magazines. Celebs grab attention. You’re a talented writer with a debut book or maybe even a decent track record but you’re no celeb and no one except your Mom is interested.

Rx:  Hire your own PR rep. Your publisher might—or might not—like it but you own PR rep can be effective self-defense. Still, you’re  dependent on what else is happening at the time your book launches: a breaking news story, someone important gets married, divorced or dies, financial markets take a nose dive, a politician’s homosexual affair/corrupt business arrangements/”love child” is revealed.  Make a calculation based on dollars and cents, come up with a budget and stick to it. Maybe luck will break your way—or maybe not—but at least you’ve invested in yourself.

3. Speaking of money—don’t count on it

Your book isn’t going to do very much to help pay your bills. Seriously. Publishing Money comes in VERY slowly and is doled out in teaspoon-sized amounts.  Let’s assume you sign a contract for $15,000 (actually pretty good these days).  Payments are due 1/3 on signing, 1/3 on acceptance, 1/3 on publication.

That means you get three checks for $5000 less the agent’s fee: $4,250. Those checks will probably be spread out over three years. You will pay taxes on that money and will probably never see another dime unless, miracle of miracle, your book earns out. But don’t hold your breath. “Earning out” happens about as often as Gwyneth Paltrow flies Coach.

Rx: Keep your day job.

4.  Upward mobility bites you on the butt

Susie Q is a talented writer, she signs a 3-book deal with a small but flourishing publisher. Her books sell well, she decides to dump her agent and hire a more powerful agent. SQ and new, more powerful agent decide she’s outgrown the small publisher and is ready for the Big 6. Agent holds auction, moves writer to impressive Big 6 house. Susie Q loves her agent, she loves her editor, she thinks her books are getting better and better. And maybe they are but, for whatever reason, they don’t sell.

When Susie’s option comes up, her Big 6 publisher passes. Still, the agent has clout and Publisher X would like to butter up agent-with-clout so Susie gets another deal. Two books, this time, less money, but still Susie will be published by one of the Big 6. Problem is, her new editor leaves, the replacement has no interest in Susie and doesn’t return Susie’s calls. Pretty soon, agent-with-clout doesn’t either.

Basically, SQ will have to start all over again. With a new, less impressive agent and, to “erase” the downward trend of her sales numbers, she will write under a pseudonym.

Rx:  Beware the grass-is-greener syndrome. If your publisher is doing a decent job for you, think carefully before jumping to the next level. Upgrading can turn out well—but not always.


5: Being published isn’t very exciting

 In fact, except for the moment your agent calls to say s/he made the sale, the writer is treated mostly as an irrelevant PITA. Multi-published author ConsueloSaah Baer explains:

“Simon and Schuster bought and published the book [her first] and sold paperback rights to Avon. Publication of three subsequent novels followed with equally renowned publishers and foreign rights sales. Galleys arrived, book jackets arrived, bound books arrived but I couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t much joy in it. I was lucky, wasn’t I? One day I stopped writing completely and could not galvanize the will to return. It was only in Spring of 2011 that I figured out why I, like many writers, went silent after initial success.

“Imagine my surprise when I realized that traditional publishing was total bleakness interrupted by ten minutes of happiness when your agent called to say she had sold your book. Next came a year of silence while the book was “produced”. Once the book was edited, the writer was uncoupled from the project and advised to ‘forget about the book and go write the next one.’ Publication was brief and uneventful. The salesmen (you heard right) decided the print run and if it was in the low five digits, the book was DOA.

“Two years of your life had been eaten up. The Prozac months followed.”

Rx: Go indie. The book is yours and now the control is yours, too.

6.  Your wildest dreams come true--the downside

 You make a ton of money, your books are everywhere, the movies come calling and the movie actually gets made. With Brad Pitt starring as you! So now you’re a millionaire, you’re invited to the best parties, if you’re a guy, beautiful women will come on to you. You’ve got it made, right? Champagne and caviar every day, right?

Wrong. You now have to deal with tax attorneys, accountants and whether or not to move to a state—one you might not like all that much—for tax considerations. You also have to deal with dollar-drunkenness—think of the stars and athletes who end up dead broke and you’ll understand what I mean.

Even so, you’re confident you can handle all that but, as a mega bestselling author once told me: “You don’t drop your friends. Your friends drop you.”

What he meant was that his friends couldn’t handle their jealousy and envy and so they stopped hanging out with him. Sad, but true.

Rx:  Grow your armadillo hide even thicker. There’s a dark lining to every silver cloud. People you love—even including your own family—might not necessarily love you back, not after you’re a lot richer and more famous than they are. 

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So, tell me, writers, if you’ve been published, was the experience all that and a bag of chips—or something else? If you haven’t been published yet, what are your dreams/hopes/fantasies and do you think you’ll be able to cope with success?

Coming up in the blog: We’ve got two fabulous blog guests coming in November—

• Book Reviewer DANIELLE SMITH of Chick Lit Reviews and News . Danielle is going to tell us how to query a book blogger, what her pet peeves are, and how to find reviewers in your genre.

• Legendary mystery author and writing guru LAWRENCE BLOCK will be guest posting about his personal adventures with self-publishing. Usually you’d have to go to a writers’ conference or an MFA program to hear from a superstar like Mr. Block, so I’m totally jazzed he’s going to be visiting.

• And in December, we’ll have a visit from one of my all-time favorite bloggers, Romance author RONI LOREN. 

• Also in December, Anne will be interviewing agent Laurie McLean, of the Larsen Pomada Agency, who is going to be giving us some very exciting news. 

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Where Do You Get Your Ideas? There's an App for That! How to Create Your Personal Idea Goldmine.

Today we have our first regular monthly post from Ruth Harris. Ruth is in NYC, so she very well may be without power today, so if we don’t hear from her, we can blame Irene. All of you East-Coasters, hang in there: you’re in our thoughts.

I think the most common question a writer gets is "where do you get your ideas?" Some of us find it hard to think of a simple answer, but now, it's easy: just tell them there's an app for that!  Ruth suggests you use an app like Evernote to preserve random ideas and articles as you browse. I checked it out and it looks pretty awesome. It’s free to download for Windows, so I’m going to try it. I don’t know if anything can really organize my hoard of yellowed clippings, grimy notebooks and random bookmarks, but it’s worth a try.

This is the kind of article I love to read—one that tells you NOT to feel guilty. Go ahead and read those trashy magazines and tabloids. It’s research, people: research! 

The Passive Guy seems to agree with Ruth. He had a post this week telling us to read bad books. 

And, Ta-Dah! Ruth also has a stupendous announcement that represents a major pinnacle for this blog: Our November guest (November 13^th) will be the legendary crime fiction writer and writing guru LAWRENCE BLOCK!!!

I’m so jazzed.

In other blog news, Two posts from this blog made the top 25 in the Write it Sideways compilation of 101 top fiction writing tips:  #11 12 Signs Your Novel Isn’t Ready to Publish and #25 Can You Write a Publishable First Novel?

Wealth Creation for Writers

by Ruth Harris

Writers are always being told to read, but since just about every writer I know—Including me—is an almost-obsessive reader, that advice is more or less like offering style advice to Coco Chanel.

Instead, I want to explain how your ordinary, everyday reading—whether on the Web, via Kindle, iPad or Nook, in dead tree versions of magazines or newspapers—can be your own personal gold mine of ideas.

Once you delve into that mine, you will be able to find ways to connect unrelated ideas—one of a writer’s most potent weapons. You’ll also discover new vocabularies, find important clues to the creation of characters and plots and feel confident that you will never run out of ideas.

1. Read anything and everything. Never feel guilty about picking up a magazine or Web surfing as long as you make note of stories that pique your interest and ideas that flash through your mind.

2. Consider an app like Evernote. Or at least keep a notebook to scribble down a few words. (Honestly, any writer who doesn’t have a note book—paper or electronic—should have his or her writing devices impounded.) 

3. Connect the dots. Connecting apparently unrelated ideas is the writer’s version of magic. An example is Michael Lewis’s Vanity Fair article about Germany’s national character and German finances. In his article, ML points out how the Germanic dual obsessions with cleanliness and filth (shit/scheisse) resulted in German banks holding a boatload of worthless bonds. The bonds, rated AAA, looked clean from the outside but were dirty (crap) on the inside.

This connection of ideas is basic to a writer’s tool box: an aspect of the German character/the bond market, seemed, on the surface, unrelated. But together, they provide spine and energy to what might otherwise be a dull article about European finance.

4. Look backward.  In his famous 2006 commencement speech at Stanford, Steve Jobs commented that you can only “connect the dots when you look backward.” It’s what writers do: it’s why characters are unforgettable, stories are compelling and plots offer twists and surprises. It’s only when you look backward that you can see connections you miss when you were going forward. That’s why it’s essential to make note of your everyday reading and what jumps out at you.  

OK, how does this work?

Here are a few stories that got my attention recently:

• One involved an importer who took a chance on selling a prized variety of Pakistani mangoes costing $80-$100 a box even though he would probably lose money on the deal.

• Another was about a Chinese beauty queen being trained to enter (and win) the Miss Universe contest.

• Yet another was about how Hewlett Packard’s purchase of Palm, which looked like a bad deal at first, is now looking good.

I doubt I will ever write about Chaunsa mangoes but it’s entirely possible I will write about pride. Perhaps, one day, my note about the Pakistani-American importer who put pride before profit to distribute what are considered the world’s most delicious mangoes will be just what I need to make my point. 

The Miss Universe contest doesn’t interest me but Luo Zilin’s determination and hard work—the dance lessons, the English lessons, the etiquette lessons, the practice in cat-walking and the media interviews—do interest me. They might, one day, help create a character. 

I also don’t give a hoot about Hewlett Packard’s corporate machinations but a decision that looked bad at first but turns out well later offers the potential of a great plot twist.  For example: Mr. Wrong who turns out to be Mr. Right.

Here are some other ways non-literary reading can improve your writing.

5. Increase your vocabularies. (Please note the plural.) Just about every world has its own jargon and, if you want to write with style and verve, you need to find out what people who occupy those worlds say and how they say it.

• Fashion magazines, style blogs and catalogs are filled with photos and descriptions of clothing. In them you will find a whole vocabulary with which to describe your character’s clothing and wardrobe in a way that brings them alive and makes them real to the reader. Stilettos or clogs? Polos or Tees? Grunge or business casual? Black tie or white shoe? The vocabulary of clothing is complex and rich.
  
  


• Beauty and grooming sites are filled with photos and comment, some of it snarky—some of it sincere—about exactly one subject: how people look. With their help, you can turn your descriptions from insipid to inspired. Good hair day or bad plastic surgery? Muffin top or too rich and too thin?

• The business pages are a source for jargon as well as fantastic information on occupations & careers: your characters have to make a living, don’t they?

• Niche magazines or blogs—bass fishing, ice climbing, stamp collecting, arctic biology—will open new dictionaries and provide information for the alert writer.

6) Find unlimited plot ideas. Does you WIP need more struggle and conflict? Success and failure? Triumph and tragedy?

• Go to the sports pages. Seriously. Almost every story is basically about how an athlete, talented or otherwise, overcomes—or doesn’t—golden-boy good looks, a reputation for dogging it, a lousy attitude in the clubhouse, jail time, injury, scandal, depression, poor parenting, mean and/or incompetent coaching.
  
  How the tournament winner holding the silver cup is a guy no one ever heard of. How the overlooked utility infielder gets the game-winning home run and the overpaid hot prospect blows the save. How the local hero is a good guy who gives more than just money to the charities he cares about. Why a big, hulking defensive lineman takes growth hormones to get even bigger and more hulking. How Tiger Woods rose to the pinnacle and why he then fell from the heights. What Novak Djokavich did in order to defeat Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal. How the American women’s soccer team won, and whether or not Serena can win again.
  
  Besides, it’s not just the drama and the schmaltz, it’s also about the language: sports are all about action and sports writers are great with verbs.

• Business magazines: They’re full of stories of loss and triumph. Read between the numbers and statistics and tap into the emotions they generate.

• And don’t forget the tabloids: Yes. Those guilty glances at the headlines in the supermarket are an endless wellspring of sex and scandal: a great plot in every crazy headline.

The last thing I want to point out is that when you create a gold mine from your everyday reading, that mine will be yours and yours alone because it will be based on what you care about and therefore you and only you will be able to mine from it.

The mango importer who interests me is another writer’s yawn. The connection I made between a Chinese Miss Universe contestant and her methodical determination might leave another writer rolling his or her eyes. The fascination with which I read Michael Lewis’s article about the connections between the German character and the German economy might cause another reader to flee to the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.

So don’t feel guilty about your “light” reading. It’s your own personal gold mine. You’re the only one who can create it—and the only one who can profit by it.


What about you, scriveners? Where do you find your ideas? Do you keep notebooks? File newsclippings? Use Evernote? Do you read tabloids and tell yourself it's research? 

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