Kindle Forum banner

And The Hand Finally Closes Around Our Throat

20K views 220 replies 54 participants last post by  Corvid 
#1 ·
I noticed something odd about the release of my most recent book Bloodwing. So I went to investigate. If you'll recall my current plan relies on rapid releases, because that's the supposed key to wealth and riches on Jeff's yellow brick road of opportunity and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Well, my plan lasted a total of sixteen days. In that time I published about 57,000 words of new fiction. Fortunately I was smart enough to hold on to my rights. I don't trust anyone anymore and I'm about to explain why.

Here's my first book, The Praetorian Imperative, published July 20th, on the 51st anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08DDFXT6R&ref=nb_sb_noss

I use this URL for a very specific purpose. This is the URL we normally use to check and see if our books are in the right categories. Over there on the left are the dropdowns for each store. Here's the link for Bloodwing

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08F6MQ473&ref=nb_sb_noss

Now then, when you compare these two pages, you will rapidly discover a problem. (I did this logged out to prevent any shenanigans). When you examine the drop down for "Kindle Store" you'll find that the second book appears in various browse categories. Meanwhile the first book (which has identical keywords) appears in none.

Funny how this automated system can produce two totally different sets of results for two books (with identical metadata that are even in the same SERIES) that are right next to each other in my bibliography, isn't it? If my book isn't in any browse categories, then it won't get a sales rank, now will it?

You'll then find the second book (published three days ago) is absent from either new releases list, while the first book (published sixteen days ago) is on page nine of the 30-day list.

This isn't the first time I've discovered this. During my last investigation, it turned out books wouldn't appear on the new releases list until they've had at least one sale and have a sales rank. This, of course, creates the old "keep the poor people in their place" paradox: you can't be on the list until your book sells, your book won't sell because it's not on the list.

If you will go back and re-examine the links in the URL for the second book Bloodwing, you'll see that the page insists it also appears on the 30-day and 90-day lists. Except it doesn't, despite the fact it was published 72 hours ago. At least it doesn't appear before its series mate, which went live sixteen days ago. I took the liberty of looking up the "hot 100 new releases" lists in all SEVEN browse categories. Only the first book appeared at #70 on the list for two-hour reads. Neither book appeared anywhere else.

This is the 30-day military science fiction new releases list:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&bbn=158591011&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A6157856011%2Cp_n_date%3A1249100011&dc&fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1596653602&rnid=158591011&ref=sr_nr_n_16

The #4 book on the list is called Direct Fire. Must be one hell of a book too. 55 5-star ratings. Top 1000 in the store. Only problem is it was published 15 days ago. The book right after it Forgotten Empire, in the number five slot, was published 27 days ago.

Both are in Kindle Unlimited too but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (God knows nobody on this site is bashful) but this accounts for the very last avenue any author had on Amazon for organic visibility, absent some wild-ass random search result. If there is no organic visibility on Amazon, then it makes no difference at all how fast books are released, which means no matter what an author does, or how hard they work, they will get no sales on Amazon unless they bring their own readers. Amazon is not going to provide you with even one opportunity to put your book somewhere it might be seen unless you drop some cash on the table, even if you write two books a month.

In other words, you can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Getting favored treatment is mandatory. You cannot earn it. You must be chosen.

The other thing we can conclude from all of this is there are criteria for appearing on the "new releases" list that have nothing to do with whether your book is a new release. Actual new releases are locked out until those criteria are met (we have no official word on what those are) while the clock runs. Authors are left to guess, and what better use of an author's time than to speculate and experiment with "solve a puzzle, win a prize" on a site they don't control? It reminds me of people who believed there was such a thing as SEO while they fretted day and night trying to untangle the mixed signals they got from Google's search results. Then once they figured out how to get their sites visible, Google changed the rules and locked them all out again. These people were invited to believe that deplatforming is new. It isn't. De-platforming is something these sites have been perfecting ever since they put their plans in motion to centralize control and lock the people who built the Internet out. Yes, I sound like Jerry Maguire. You'll recall Jerry Maguire won.

Now I've sent an e-mail to KDP to inquire about this, and I'm sure I will get a very polite non-response. The bottom line here is that publishing a book and getting it in front of a buying audience has become a video game. It's us against Amazon, with our interlocutor doing everything in its trillion-dollar power to keep our books from getting to readers. Amazon wants exclusive rights. They want control over our pricing. They want to slap a $0.00 price on our book and whore it out for pennies while we send hundreds and thousands of fresh new customers to their site night and day. What do we get in exchange for all this? Practically nothing. Amazon takes what they like and then sits on our money for two months.

I'm not an elite. I'm not entitled to visibility or the privileges of being chosen. Neither of my books have sold at all, at least on Amazon. Did Amazon notify my "followers" (lol) I had two new books out? Apparently not. If you go to my book's pages you'll find Amazon isn't advertising anything on those pages. They're completely bare. See if you can guess why? Why would you advertise on a page where you know there will never be any traffic?

BY THE WAY:

I still have the stats from the last time I was stupid enough to spend money on AMS ads. I know exactly how many people visited the Amazon page for Dawnsong: The Last Skyblade over a four month period. You would be shocked to know how few people actually showed up on a site with millions and billions of customers.

I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work. All that matters is what number is in the database column labeled "morlock author type."

Amazon has decided that I shouldn't have a writing career. They have decided they are not interested in selling my books (unless I'm innovative enough to just hand them 30% of my gross in exchange for nothing) I was kicked out of a promising technology career in my mid-30s. I was kicked out and left to the streets when my uncle and felon grandmother stole my mother's house from me. Now I'm being kicked out of being an author after nine years of hard work. If I want a writing career, I'm going to have to build it myself, because when I try to work with others, I get lied to and cheated.

If you have a writing career in mind, and you are relying on Amazon, there are some things you should know: 1) You have a job 2) Your job is to send traffic to Amazon 3) You may receive an optional paycheck 4) You are subject to termination with or without cause 5) You work for a robot.

You are part of the new breed of corporate dream employee. You agree to occasional paychecks or no paychecks. You require no benefits or job security. You can be thrown out on the sidewalk on a whim. Your elite corporate paymaster controls the money and all your property. You will have a four-inch-wide leather strap tightly cinched around your neck before you are hauled up on the ever-accelerating treadmill to run for your life. When you collapse from exhaustion or die you'll be thrown in the trash to make room for the next slave.

I've written for Amazon for nine years and sold thousands of books. I still can't afford to go to the dentist.

Now go to this page:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

See right there under the video where it says "reach millions of readers on Amazon?" (This page hasn't changed at all since I signed up for KDP in 2011)

What they fail to mention is you are responsible for the millions of readers.

Amazon isn't getting another minute of my time.
 
See less See more
#152 ·
You seem determined to lose. How about taking all that energy and putting it into a determination to win? Fix what is not working. Congrats, rapid release of a short form the genre does not care for  with NO marketing and apparently very little established readership does not work. How WOULD It work? Could you write novels, save them up until you have three, make a marketing plan, save some money from that tech career, and try rapid release again?

Find what is not working and fix it. Find what is working and do more of it. That is pretty much the secret.
 
#153 ·
Bite the Dusty said:
Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.

I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release and advertise. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.
Usedtoposthere said:
I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone.

People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP's assertions. Fair play, I would say.
I agree with Usedtoposthere. Naysayings can be dangerous, especially when asserted as indisputable fact. I'm my own worst critic by far, and comments like these, if I'd happened across them earlier in my writing, would have just reinforced that nasty little inner critic of mine to the point that I might never have published anything at all.
 
#157 ·
For any newbies tempted to listen to the doomsaying:

I've been floating around indie publishing almost since its inception and I've seen a lot of people come and go. One thing I've noticed almost across the spectrum, is that successful people are all willing to do one major thing. They will ruthlessly re-evaluate any and all portions of their business, with an awareness that even long-held practices are no longer viable. They are not the people who want to write contemporary romance and complain about manchests. Or hand-wave away writing to market (and I don't mean trend) as something only hacks do. If you aren't willing to put potentially any and everything on the chopping block, then whatever success you manage to attain will be nebulous at best.

Just look at who survived the KU1.0 apocalypse and who didn't as evidence of this.

Things aren't impossible for newbies, like some suggest. A few things are harder and some things are easier. Yeah, there's more competition but there are also professional organizations and service providers that we could only dream of utilizing back in 2012. Just the sheer amount of info available for free now would have boggled my mind when I first started. I launched a new penname this year without any reliance on my old audience and it's been a wild success. It cost some money to get it going, but less than I would have earned with a few months at a part time minimum wage job. I would argue indie publishing is more of a meritocracy than ever because almost anyone can save or borrow a few thousand dollars to effectively launch a penname, even in the most competitive genres. We all have access to advertising platforms and word-of-mouth marketing.

Organic visibility isn't dead. I have an old penname with one book on it that I don't promote at all and it still moves copies pretty much every day.  People recommend that book to others who are new to the subgenre. I know because I occasionally see a rec pop up in FB groups. And it has to be coming up in searches for that niche. Trick is, that book has a market interested in it. It isn't spec fic about mutated butterflies written as long form poetry (there is no audience for this, btw).

Just to be clear, people not wanting to buy what you've written just because you deigned to write it, is not the same thing as success being impossible. Find an audience and then write something like the books they're already hoovering up. If you don't want to do that, it's cool, but don't complain about visibility on Amazon or pay-to-play advertising ruining your dreams of doing this full-time.

As an aside, rapid release ONLY works on books that are already market viable. If the books wouldn't sell a year apart, then bunching them up over a few weeks or months isn't going to change that. Rapid release helps your marketing dollars go further. And it increases the chances of a reader taking a chance on a new author, because there are likely several books already out in the series when they find you so you build an audience faster. Rapid release will not save books that we're going to sink like stones otherwise. Off-market books are off-market books, doesn't matter how quickly they hit the market. I would argue you don't even need ads, though they'll almost always help, but SOMEONE has to be picking up what you're putting down. I can think of at least a dozen people who made it to the four-five figure range/month without paid advertising.

If you've written dozens of books and still don't make enough to at least pay a modest mortgage, then you're doing something very wrong assuming financial success is your goal. Full stop. I'm not dumping on hobbyists or people writing simply because they want their words out in the world. But if you're trying to make money, then most of the factors at play are well within your control.
 
#158 ·
Usedtoposthere said:
I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone.

People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP's assertions. Fair play, I would say.
I didn't see your response before I posted. It wasn't directed at you or anyone specific really. A lot of people seem to think new writer's need protection from Shane or discouragement.

I'd like to think I'm like you, and the hardest part is now. That is comforting, but not what I expect. I expect the discouragement to come post-publishing will be a higher mountain to climb and overcome, but I don't know yet.

I've seen it both ways. I've seen Shane calling people's responses dangerous, and I've seen people saying his takes are dangerous. Personally, I don't see debating ideas in that light. I'm not saying Shane doesn't have a hand in it, the way he communicates is antagonistic, but he isn't the only one. Every time I've seem him post a thread that takes off, I've seem him treated as if he's posting in bad faith from the start. Maybe he's earned that, but the highest crimes I've seen are a resistance to reflect on logical fallacies in his own perspective and some foot-in-mouth analogies. I just think we can disagree and debate without shunning someone.

And that's not to say people shouldn't challenge him. That's actually why I appreciate his threads. The insights are valuable whether they come from him or someone else.
 
#159 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
We agree! Only took seven pages.
If anyone believes that you can just put some books up, releasing quickly, slowly, or otherwise, not even books in a form readers of your genre want, with no advertising and not much established readership, and be GUARANTEED success, their problem is not Amazon.

That doesn't mean rapid release doesn't work. It means rapid release with no advertising and no readership and in a not-what-the-market-wants format is unlikely to work. I guess the reason nobody bothered to contradict that was that we couldn't believe you were really expecting it to.
 
#160 ·
Wunder said:
The whole point of this thread (as said by the OP directly) is to point out the dangers of what they consider to be a destructive way of thinking. The OP has pointed to the idea of wasted time and people falling into extremely unhealthy work habits as a result of this line of thinking. In doing that, the OP treats that way of thinking as dangerous. Doing the same thing to the opposite way of thinking shouldn't be considered strange at this stage in the thread.

That being said, no one is trying to shun or silence anyone. We're simply engaging in a conversation. I'll also say that assuming someone who gets derailed by pages and pages of doom and gloom and misinformation contained in a thread on what is almost certainly the largest collective of self published authors anywhere 'doesn't have it in them' is dismissive at best.
I agree that treating any idea as dangerous is unproductive. I disagree that no one is shunning. The way some people are coming at him is different than other threads, and how he is communicating is partly to blame but it's a two way street.

Maybe it's dismissive, but it's my perspective. If writing, getting honest feedback, reevaluating, realizing my work wasn't good enough, letting go of years of work and starting anew didn't stop me, some person on the internet telling me not to bother isn't going to. And I imagine the discouragement that comes when competing for the attention of readers will eclipse all the above, but you know more than me about that.
 
#161 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Correct. Except that new authors don't have the experience to know better. That was my point.
That's not true. I pointed that out back on page 4 and asked a few questions, but you didn't respond.

If someone knows about rapid release as a tactic it's because they're hanging around author spaces like kboards before publishing, if they're hanging around author spaces before publishing they also know ads are essential to visibility overall but especially in the beginning.
 
#162 ·
Bite the Dusty said:
I agree that treating any idea as dangerous is unproductive. I disagree that no one is shunning. The way some people are coming at him is different than other threads, and how he is communicating is partly to blame but it's a two way street.

Maybe it's dismissive, but it's my perspective. If writing, getting honest feedback, reevaluating, realizing my work wasn't good enough, letting go of years of work and starting anew didn't stop me, some person on the internet telling me not to bother isn't going to. And I imagine the discouragement that comes when competing for the attention of readers will eclipse all the above, but you know more than me about that.
I didn't see any of the posts that were edited or taken away by the moderator. So, you definitely might have a point there. That being said, I redread the post I quoted at you the first time and I think it came off harsher than I intended it to. I apologize. You're certainly entitled to your perspective, as is everyone here.
 
#163 ·
#164 ·
People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.

It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.

Honestly, putting aside you don't like the person saying it, or even if it's just you don't like the way they're saying it, what is incorrect about the following?

Shane Lochlann Black said:
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming.

But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch.

The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same.

There's an entire universe of books we can't even think about writing because we're trapped in these tiny [expletive]ing cages in a lightless room and forced to write the same five books over and over again.

Is it possible readers are bored out of their minds? Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN--unsubscribed

Nobody wants to be here if it isn't fun, and I'm sorry, if every time I type three words I have to erase two I'm not going to inspire anything in my audience but somnolence.
Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.

Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.
 
#165 ·
Not writing something your market likes is like freedom of speech. You are free to write and publish whatever you like with the exception of rape or incest erotica, possibly, but you cannot really complain about the consequences.

That said, you do not have to write to trends, write super fast, put Manchest covers on contemporary romance, or whatever else to succeed. As long as there is a market for what you do. You can even create your own market, or try to. Clean romance was not a thing until it was.

If there is no sizable market, that is not the fault of Amazon. You could blame readers I guess for not liking experimental stuff? You can go on and write what you like anyway, though. Nobody is stopping you.
 
#166 ·
Shane, my understanding of your experiment was...would rapid release work on its own?  Would it counteract the need to market if Amazon really boosted the book up in the charts?

I think you've shown that in your case...rapid release without marketing has not worked.  Marketing would probably help a lot.  I think most people are in agreement about the marketing.  Maybe rapid release can work for some genres?

I'll never know because I don't write fast, and I haven't got the patience to hold onto a book once it's finished! :)
 
#167 ·
I think this experiment would have been much more useful and interesting if the OP had actually seen it through to the end instead of giving up and declaring results after the second book just because his non-selling book didn't make the top 100 by sales new release list. I also think it would have been more interesting and useful if he'd used novels, since it's pretty widely known that, as a general rule, novellas don't do terribly well for most people in most genres.

(Really not meaning to be mean or anything there. Just stating the facts as I understand them from this thread.)
 
#169 ·
Corvid said:
Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.

Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.
That's the thing though, people are legitimately disagreeing with the signal. Catty tones in response to the noise, notwithstanding. I don't dislike Shane, at all, although I think his righteous anger makes it hard for him to see the forest for the trees. His threads are always interesting and provoke lots of discussion. But I don't agree with the vast majority of the "findings" of this experiment.

"conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming."

Every piece of this is exclusively about knowing what people want and packaging it a way that's obvious to them. As a reader, if I want a dark vampire romance I'm not going to pick the book with a bright pink cupcake on it. A book could be exactly what I'm looking for, but if it's packaged in brown butcher paper and I never hear about it because it's not advertised, then it doesn't matter how good it is. I don't understand what any of the rest has to do with being deplatformed. That only happens, in my experience, if you're pushing explicit content where you shouldn't or violating TOC.

"But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch"
"The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same."

Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet. Romance has to have a happy ending, mystery has to have a murder, sci fi has to involve some element of future technology. Outside of that, there is all matter of creativity. Constraints are not the opposite of creativity, if anything I think creative pursuits are better when they're within some kind of limiting framework. Star Wars tore the world apart. But George Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon but couldn't afford the rights and the practical effects still look good today because they couldn't afford the CGI that Lucas really wanted. Some constraint is good, it keeps creative types from going off the rails.

Personally, I wouldn't have spent the last five years doing this full-time if I wasn't having fun. If writing books people actually want to read drains your joy, find another line of work.

"Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--"

Even just on this board looking at peoples sigs, there is a huge variety in content. If you look at the entirety of the Amazon store and see only more and more of the same, then I would argue that you're only seeing what you want to see and not reality. There are a bunch of authors who've put out paranormal midlife crisis women's fiction this year. Just in romance, I could list fifty niches where committed authors can start from scratch right now and make a living wage. I'm true something similar can be said of most genres.

People might react differently if these opinions weren't so strongly and bullheadedly stated when there is so much evidence to the contrary.
 
#170 ·
Wunder said:
I didn't see any of the posts that were edited or taken away by the moderator. So, you definitely might have a point there. That being said, I redread the post I quoted at you the first time and I think it came off harsher than I intended it to. I apologize. You're certainly entitled to your perspective, as is everyone here.
I didn't mind what you said, just felt like clarifying.
 
#171 ·
ShawnaReads said:
I think this experiment would have been much more useful and interesting if the OP had actually seen it through to the end instead of giving up and declaring results after the second book just because his non-selling book didn't make the top 100 by sales new release list. I also think it would have been more interesting and useful if he'd used novels, since it's pretty widely known that, as a general rule, novellas don't do terribly well for most people in most genres.
If the purpose of this thread is to give aspiring indies something to consider, then the above comment contains some crucial context.

To be clear, Shane's "experiment" consisted of:

July 20 - he published a novella with no promotion or advertising
Aug 2 - he published a second novella, also with no promotion or advertising
Aug 5 - he declared that his experiment proved that rapid release doesn't work. In his words, "Case closed."

Frankly, I think we all would have been more surprised if this "experiment" DID produce sales under those constraints.

With all that said, I do feel that Shane makes a valid point. I feel that rapid release is sometimes over-prescribed as self-publishing's magic bullet. Authors on this forum love to humble-brag about how they spend little or nothing on advertising. The truth is that rapid-release shouldn't be a strategy in and of itself, especially for a new writer who is starting without any following. And yes, rapid release can fail spectacularly if done poorly.
 
#172 ·
Corvid said:
People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.

It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.

Honestly, putting aside you don't like the person saying it, or even if it's just you don't like the way they're saying it, what is incorrect about the following?

Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming.

But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch.

The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same.

There's an entire universe of books we can't even think about writing because we're trapped in these tiny [expletive]ing cages in a lightless room and forced to write the same five books over and over again.

Is it possible readers are bored out of their minds? Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN--unsubscribed

Nobody wants to be here if it isn't fun, and I'm sorry, if every time I type three words I have to erase two I'm not going to inspire anything in my audience but somnolence.
Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.

Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.
What is incorrect? Okay, let's see...

1. You don't get booted off of Amazon for not following tropes, not following the market, not having the same covers, or for having ads that look different. You don't get booted off Amazon for any of that.

2. You're allowed to experiment with plenty of aspects of your writing. You just can't write pick-your-own-path books and then enroll them in Select.

3. We can write any kind of book we want -- with a few exceptions (some forms of erotica, for example). We aren't guaranteed an audience for what we choose to write, but we can write it. If we want to take a stab at making a living with our writing, it's extremely advisable to write what people want to read. But that's simply the law of supply and demand. If you want to sell something, it had better be something that people want. But it's a choice. We choose to write what we want or we choose to write what is marketable. Sometimes those things are one and the same, sometimes they're not. But it's still up to us.

4. Some readers might be bored out of their minds. But generally, what sells is what's in demand. So if you don't want to write about demons with glowing hands, don't. But plenty of other people are buying it, and enjoying it - judging by the UF lists - and belittling what other people like isn't really going to garner you a lot of sympathy.

5. Plenty of people seem to be having plenty of fun writing stories they enjoy writing. Just because one person isn't having fun doesn't mean nobody is.
 
#173 ·
stacia_s said:
Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet.
The problem is the narrowness of the experiment. He hasn't responded to my questions up-thread but I'm assuming in an effort to prove rapid release alone doesn't work, he hasn't used the tools at his disposal that would give his series the possibility of flight.

It's like trying to make a grilled cheese. You need bread, butter, and cheese. He's proven you can't make a grilled cheese from just bread, an experiment for an audience I don't think exists. If they do exist, they had to learn sometime that there's no one trick to instant success for any endeavor.

I wish he had put together all the ingredients, like alerting his mailing list, ads, and rapid release. Then we'd have something interesting to digest. Though, as others have said, this thread has some interesting discussion. It just could've been more than it is.
 
#174 ·
Corvid said:
People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.

It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.

Honestly, putting aside you don't like the person saying it, or even if it's just you don't like the way they're saying it, what is incorrect about the following?

Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.

Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.
I would argue that writing to market doesn't drain all the joy out of the business. I write what I like to read. I find joy in it. Over and over again. Much joy. Writing to market doesn't have to be soulless. I don't think most people even understand what it truly means.
 
#175 ·
stacia_s said:
"conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming."

Every piece of this is exclusively about knowing what people want and packaging it a way that's obvious to them. As a reader, if I want a dark vampire romance I'm not going to pick the book with a bright pink cupcake on it. A book could be exactly what I'm looking for, but if it's packaged in brown butcher paper and I never hear about it because it's not advertised, then it doesn't matter how good it is. I don't understand what any of the rest has to do with being deplatformed. That only happens, in my experience, if you're pushing explicit content where you shouldn't or violating TOC.
I took the 'deplatforming' wording as a rather creative way of saying, you'll be invisible or not shown/pushed at the 'Zon if you deviate, and not as deplatforming how twitter means it. I could be wrong there.

Regardless, I agree, if you're trying to sell a lot of your book, your book has to look like the other books which sell a lot. But, does that not entail "tighter adherence to market" as Shane asserted? Covers that looks the same. Ads that look the same. And, isn't he correct then to say "woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy"?

"But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch"
"The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same."

Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet. Romance has to have a happy ending, mystery has to have a murder, sci fi has to involve some element of future technology. Outside of that, there is all matter of creativity.
The bestsellers lists in these genres/subgenres present far more restrictive criteria than "happy ending", "murder", "future technology". Wouldn't you agree? Looking at those lists, and seeing what's selling, I don't think there's that much room for creativity at all. Creativity is for outliers, and outliers don't tend to make consistent, month-after-month money in this business. It's rather a lot of authors and content mills going above and beyond to ensure they're a lot like everything else.

Constraints are not the opposite of creativity, if anything I think creative pursuits are better when they're within some kind of limiting framework. Star Wars tore the world apart. But George Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon but couldn't afford the rights and the practical effects still look good today because they couldn't afford the CGI that Lucas really wanted. Some constraint is good, it keeps creative types from going off the rails.
I agree some constraint is good and will breed a certain amount of creativity, but I think in self-publishing now we're talking about constraint to the nth degree, and story structure now is more about scaffolding and ensuring plot point 'x' is hit on page 'x' or at story percentage 'x', etc.

Personally, I wouldn't have spent the last five years doing this full-time if I wasn't having fun. If writing books people actually want to read drains your joy, find another line of work.
Okay... but, if "writing books" has become trope-by-numbers, and make-covers-the-same... I mean, is that even writing anymore? Isn't it a bit dismissive to say 'find another line of work', when the line of work in question isn't actually what we're actually talking about? Maybe the joy's been drained because writing isn't writing anymore - it's become something else, like cabinet-making.

"Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--"

Even just on this board looking at peoples sigs, there is a huge variety in content.
Right, but how much of it sells to the tune of $50k+ per year? Variety within a subgenre isn't where winners are made, I would argue narrowness is. I would like to be wrong about this.

If you look at the entirety of the Amazon store and see only more and more of the same, then I would argue that you're only seeing what you want to see and not reality. There are a bunch of authors who've put out paranormal midlife crisis women's fiction this year. Just in romance, I could list fifty niches where committed authors can start from scratch right now and make a living wage. I'm true something similar can be said of most genres.
This seems completely foreign. How can you honestly look at the bestsellers lists in the given subgenres and say that they're not more and more of the same? Heck, there's entire services you can pay for whose entire reason for being is to show you how the bestsellers are similar and how you can be similar too. I dispute the idea you could start from scratch today and make a living wage being an outlier as a self-publisher in a given subgenre.

The existence of content mills is the counter-narrative. If you think of the Kindle Store as the ocean floor... life springs forth over the warm water vents. The content mills concentrate where the audience is, and the audience is interested in same-same. Being different is tough sledding, and not where a full-time living wage is to be found.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top