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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.
 
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#177 ·
ShayneRutherford said:
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.
I didn't think he meant actually getting booted, but rather you're rendered invisible by virtue of not adhering to given marketing strictures within a given subgenre.

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.
Not a lot of room for experimentation if you're looking to make a full-time living as a self-publisher within a given popular subgenre, wouldn't you agree? I don't see experimentation when I look at the bestsellers, I see a lot of same-ness. By design. Because obviously, being the same is what sells. Where's the experimentation in that?

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.
Right, but how does contradict anything Shane had said about going against the grain in a given subgenre? Clearly, you have to adhere to the norms today, but doesn't that prove his point about narrowness of it all, and how at this point you have everyone trying to write the same five books?

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.
I didn't take it as belittling, but fair enough if you did. What I took from what he said is it's all become rather stale as self-publishing becomes more and more about sharpening and distilling itself down into its reader-friendly constituents rather than writing/creating unto itself. To the point where as a self-publisher it's rather discouraging from a creative standpoint. It's like we're getting to a point where we're following IKEA instructions - making sure PART J fits into JUNCTION K - rather than engaging the imagination and writing stories. The whole enterprise seems to be moving toward the assembly line model. Do you not agree?

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.
Completely fair, but what if we're talking about different things?

If I'm saying - or if Shane or anyone else is saying writing isn't writing (not to put words in their mouth, but as a hypothetical) - but instead I'm saying or someone else is saying it's become putting furniture together, then isn't also fair to say I don't find putting furniture together fun, even if I think writing is?

Maybe in that respect we don't actually disagree on what's fun, we just disagree on what it is we're each talking about, and on the reality of what self-publishing (with the goal of being full-time) is in the here-and-now.
 
#178 ·
I write unusual books for my genre. They sell just fine. I know a number of other people who write unusual books in that genre, too. Not one of us writes like each other, although there can be some overlap in our readership. Fortunately, readers don't require that all books be exactly the same.

Genres are huge and diverse. Romance in particular is a big, big tent. You'll never see everything that's profitable in a huge genre by looking at the top 100. There are lots of niches where a writer with a strong voice can make a mark. You do have to write what SOMEBODY or, preferably, many somebodies want to read, though, and find a way to alert them, "This is your book!"

There is absolutely no resemblance to putting together IKEA furniture. I write all kinds of things. I enjoy the heck out of it. They all sell. Some authors prefer to target more tightly. To each their own.
 
#179 ·
Corvid said:
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"?

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.

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.

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.

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.
The problem with this argument is that it basically boils down to 'people want to read stuff that isn't what I want to write'. But that's unfortunate, because people want what they want, and authors complaining about it isn't going to change that one simple fact. Authors will only ever make a living at their writing if they write what people want to read. If they're lucky, what they like and what sells will intersect. But if they're not lucky, continuing to write what doesn't sell and then complaining about the fact that people want to read something else isn't likely to fix the problem.
 
#180 ·
Amanda M. Lee said:
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.
In fairness, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but given you've built a great business on providing a strong, loyal readership with stories about characters they love... and it's something which is well-established through the years, and long-running, isn't it a given you'd find a lot of joy in continuing to do that? I'd assume most people would.

And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.

You may say no to some or all of this, and fair enough, but I'd be genuinely interested in your insights as to why that'd be your answer. Of course, "nothing is guaranteed", and "nobody owes you a living in this", but hopefully it's clear that's not what I'm saying, nor is it what I expect. There's more to it than that.
 
#181 ·
Corvid said:
In fairness, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but given you've built a great business on providing a strong, loyal readership with stories about characters they love... and it's something which is well-established through the years, and long-running, isn't it a given you'd find a lot of joy in continuing to do that? I'd assume most people would.

And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.

You may say no to some or all of this, and fair enough, but I'd be genuinely interested in your insights as to why that'd be your answer. Of course, "nothing is guaranteed", and "nobody owes you a living in this", but hopefully it's clear that's not what I'm saying, nor is it what I expect. There's more to it than that.
I don't believe that was the argument. You asked what was wrong with the statement, which included a declaration that writing to market was soulless and lacking in joy. I've never found that to be true.
 
#182 ·
Usedtoposthere said:
I write unusual books for my genre. They sell just fine. I know a number of other people who write unusual books in that genre, too. Not one of us writes like each other, although there can be some overlap in our readership. Fortunately, readers don't require that all books be exactly the same.

Genres are huge and diverse. Romance in particular is a big, big tent. You'll never see everything that's profitable in a huge genre by looking at the top 100. There are lots of niches where a writer with a strong voice can make a mark. You do have to write what SOMEBODY or, preferably, many somebodies want to read, though, and find a way to alert them, "This is your book!"

There is absolutely no resemblance to putting together IKEA furniture. I write all kinds of things. I enjoy the heck out of it. They all sell. Some authors prefer to target more tightly. To each their own.
This may sound disrespectful to you, and I don't mean for it to because I value your insights, but I don't know how else to put it - similar to what I'd said to Amanda... in fairness to newbies or to those still trying to build something, you're a self-publishing star who's well-established, with a loyal readership that you've built from a time when the market for self-publishers was a different reality from the one facing authors now. So, isn't it possible we're talking about different things here?

I completely understand why you would enjoy doing what you're doing, because aren't you running a business you've built over the long term to the point now where you can release 'x' with a certain expectation of visibility built-in? I'm not certain that's the reality facing unknown authors trying to gain a foothold in the here-and-now. I think for those authors they have to adhere to a far more restrictive set of criteria, and I get why and how they'd be pretty discouraged. To me, it does resemble IKEA furniture assembly.

However, I do admit, you make a great point about being profitable outside the top 100. At the same time, however, the top 100 is a pretty good arbiter of what's required to make a sizable enough income that you're doing this full-time, no?

Again, this is yet another example where I'd be happy to be wrong. And, feel free to tell me where I am.
 
#183 ·
Amanda M. Lee said:
I don't believe that was the argument. You asked what was wrong with the statement, which included a declaration that writing to market was soulless and lacking in joy. I've never found that to be true.
Fair enough, that wasn't the argument originally, and I did ask about Shane's statement. But, placing that aside, do you have any insights about any of the following:

Do you not agree gaining a foothold now in a given subgenre has become a rather soulless exercise of adhering to sameness? As a newcomer or as an unknown, I mean. Maybe that's impossible to answer from the standpoint of someone well-established. I don't know.

Do you feel things are pretty different now than they were a few years ago, or no?

Likewise, how do you feel about starting from scratch or as a relative unknown right now? Do you not look at any given top 100 and see a lot of restrictiveness there? Or no?
 
#184 ·
Corvid said:
And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.
Sub-genres have always been restrictive. That's what makes them useful to readers. And while trends have changed in the last several years, the trends back then were probably just as restrictive. Just different.

And yes, I can see how some people might find it discouraging that they can't just do whatever they want and have it sell. But I'm not really sure what your point is. Because there is no business that works like that. If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.
 
#185 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Or they got their start in 2011 and took advantage of the sparse competition and enormously powerful built-in advantages. They also probably got head starts on their
While I agree with what followed the above quote about the advantages in 2011, you have it totally wrong about competition in this period. 2011 was perhaps the most competitive since the inception of Amazon self-publishing. It was as if the entire slush piles of the world found a home in that year. Competition was that fierce there was a downward spiral to 99c prices and then free. Amazon had to step in to rescue authors from their own destruction by reducing the advantages that were available and took steps to encourage the higher prices we see today. You only have to ask the mods on here to look back at statistics on this site for participation. New threads would be posted and disappear in minutes as new threads were posted. Now, some posts can hang around for a day or more without replies.

Shane Lochlann Black said:
I didn't say Amazon was evil. I said the New Releases list isn't a new releases list and that as a result, rapid release is pointless.
I agree with you, but then I've always thought that the 30 new release period of visibility leading to a cliff was a myth created by authors that Amazon somehow gave you special visibility. Most people market like hell for the first 30 days, then run out of options and the book finds its own level, hence the 30 day cliff, unless you use AMS and the like or your marketing gets you a sticky cat rank.

Unless you can tell me different, new releases are shown when they meet criteria among thousands of others that are published at the same time, so their visibility on such a list is worthless and always has been. At least now they give new releases a label over the cover on AMS which can make up for not having reviews.

I'm just pleased you have exposed this myth that we have been taken in by.that had been propogated over the years.
 
#186 ·
Corvid said:
Fair enough, that wasn't the argument originally, and I did ask about Shane's statement. But, placing that aside, do you have any insights about any of the following:

Do you not agree gaining a foothold now in a given subgenre has become a rather soulless exercise of adhering to sameness? As a newcomer or as an unknown, I mean. Maybe that's impossible to answer from the standpoint of someone well-established. I don't know.

Likewise, how do you feel about starting from scratch or as a relative unknown right now? Do you not look at any given top 100 and see a lot of restrictiveness there? Or no?
You didn't address this to me, but I have a bit of relevant info here. A friend of mine who has a backlist of five books just got serious about advertising them two months ago. They're not the same genre, only two are part of a series, and she hadn't advertised them in years, so they were making next to nothing. But two months ago she was able to start doing FB ads, and so she started with a $5/day budget. The first couple of weeks she didn't make much, but last month she made about $500 profit. And that's after less than two full months of getting serious about advertising, and with books that don't conform to writing-to-market restrictions, either.
 
#187 ·
ShayneRutherford said:
The problem with this argument is that it basically boils down to 'people want to read stuff that isn't what I want to write'.
Did readers create what the bestsellers lists look like now, or did self-publishers, who constantly try and refine what it is they do into as distilled a reading experience as possible, i.e. deliver the tropes as efficiently as possible, akin to assembling parts? Does this not result in the mechanization of storytelling to the point where it becomes easy to see why some might not see the joy in it any longer?

But that's unfortunate, because people want what they want, and authors complaining about it isn't going to change that one simple fact.
You don't think it's warranted for would-be authors to examine the current landscape and become discouraged by what they see, and to express that? Of course, expressing discouragement isn't going to change anything, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but does that somehow make said expressions any less valid among one's self-publishing peers?

Authors will only ever make a living at their writing if they write what people want to read. If they're lucky, what they like and what sells will intersect. But if they're not lucky, continuing to write what doesn't sell and then complaining about the fact that people want to read something else isn't likely to fix the problem.
And, what if they view writing - with the aim of making a full-time living - as no longer writing, but instead as an act of furniture assembly? Is this not a valid viewpoint to have? To someone who does hold this view, do you not see how they might view that prospect as rather discouraging.

I get that having said view doesn't "fix the problem", but does that mean any conversation about the state of self-publishing in this respect is thereby rendered moot? If writing has become a mechanized assembly line process, how is that not discouraging? Where is the fulfillment to be had in everyone trying to write the same five books?
 
#188 ·
I think people have the idea that you have to do things one way and one way only and it is BS. The genre I write in doesn’t even have a proper category on Amazon. I don’t really follow tropes in the traditional way at all and my covers aren’t like other people’s, other than couple of people who copied mine. I’ve released 7 books in 4 years. I’ve been a six figure author for the majority of that time.
You don’t have to write within all these set structures that some people keep claiming exist. Yes write to market is a thing and good luck to anyone who makes that work but nobody who knows what they’re talking about believes it is the only way. I’ve personally written whatever I wanted. I write in series but with spinoffs etc that frankly confuse people occasionally.
What you have to do is work smart. I listened to people like David Gaughran and applied everything he said to my unique situation. My books built momentum slowly at first, and I reinvested into AMS ads when I was making money. My wife and I worked really hard to get good covers and the highest standard of editing we could. We’ve been increasingly dabbling with fb and bb for maybe the last year but those are very much works in progress.  We also built a 10k mailing list almost all organically with a 75% open rate. We did that by following the ‘superfan’  model and it has worked great. Frankly, being something very different to the majority that out there has worked well for us because we worked hard to find our audience. I’d rather be the only Malaysian restaurant in town than one of the fifty pizza places - not that I’ve anything against pizzas.
I also know a lot of people who’ve been successful in other areas of entertainment/the arts and honestly, the people who spend their time whinging never end up being the big successes in my experience. It’s the people who work hard and smart while maximising their talents by doing what they love that do. I’d also add it’s the people who can take criticism and learn from it that really improve. If you’re dismissing any reviewer of your book who didn’t like it as an idiot then you’re not very good at learning.
Also, focusing on how much easier it was before now etc is just not a good mindset. Making a living as an author has always been massively challenging. It should be. Getting people to invest their money and time in reading your book is genuine privilege.
 
#189 ·
Corvid said:
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"?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
Ignoring the fact that I'm one of the authors you're talking about (I made about 70k last year on a 5k budget and have never had a book in the top 100 of its subgenre), let's take a look at the top 100 for my subgenre.

I write New Adult Romance (characters are late high school/college aged) which is a massively competitive category, the heavy hitters there are all six figure/month authors. There are probably some content mill types, but unless they've hired ringers to attend conferences and signings most are real authors writing books. As we've seen with Amanda, one person can produce quite a few words if they're determined enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-New-Adult-College-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/6487838011

First of all, these covers aren't all the same. Yes, there's a lot of manchest. But also man face, woman face, couples, objects, black and white with colored lettering, fizzy pop colors, and the desaturated look I've come to associate with more angsty stuff.

I'm not even going to click into these books and read the blurbs because I can tell how much the gamut runs just from the subtitles and branding on most of these. And it's literally every flavor of romance.

Small Town. Mafia. MC. Medical. Bully. Angsty High School (different from bully, though similar). Brother's Best Friend. Second Chance. Accidental Pregnancy. Friends to Lovers. Enemies to Lovers. Older man younger woman. I'd likely find more tropes if I went beyond just title/cover.

Meaning it isn't just one trope, or even a handful, that you HAVE TO write to make money.

And you can have any of those with fast burn or slow burn. Steamy or clean. Angsty or Comedic. The permutations are literally endless if you have any creativity at all. The only thing required among them is a happily ever after and the beats dictated by the tropes that the author chose.

Furthermore, I've read enough of these to know what to expect from the authors here that I've read a lot of. Which is how you make money, by the way, developing a signature style, finding an audience that matches, and fulfilling their expectations over and over again all the way to the bank. That is NOT the same as paint by number.

I know if I pick up L.J Shen that I'm getting a manwhore, a naive heroine and lots of angst. Tijan will give me high school angst with a dreamy quality that doesn't exist in real life but gets me every time. Crystal Kaswell's books almost always have a "bad boy" who I know won't turn out to be actually abusive, which is good because I'm not into that. Colleen Hoover's characters will definitely go through something psychologically devastating with high emotion. Lauren Landish is light, fluffy and funny.

All of their branding reflects these qualities, which is why they make massive amounts of money.

The "market" isn't some set thing that never changes. It's just a group of people who all enjoy a certain thing that you can make a living wage serving content to. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of markets, you just have to find the one that fits what you enjoy and are good at writing.

If you can't find a market for what you've written, then identify a market you enjoy and write something that fits there. If you're not willing to do that, then yes you will need to find a new line of work if you like food and shelter.
 
#190 ·
ShayneRutherford said:
Sub-genres have always been restrictive. That's what makes them useful to readers. And while trends have changed in the last several years, the trends back then were probably just as restrictive. Just different.

And yes, I can see how some people might find it discouraging that they can't just do whatever they want and have it sell. But I'm not really sure what your point is. Because there is no business that works like that. If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.
I suppose the point is attempting to find solace in a disheartening reality. Maybe there isn't any to be had. Maybe the distillation of story writing we're seeing is something you have to get on board with, but I completely sympathize with anyone saddened by this prospect.
 
#191 ·
If you want people to buy what you�re making, you have to make what people want to buy.
By that logic, James Cameron and Edgar Rice Burroughs would have ended up working in construction. So would Gene Roddenberry. So would Andy Heyward. So would J.K. Rowling.

People don't have the first clue what they want until they see it. Ask Amanda Hocking. The problem with the current marketplace is there's no oxygen or sunlight for anything that doesn't fit neatly into some category that the algorithm can push and that the advertiser has an audience for in the drop-down. If there's no audience in the drop-down, it can't be advertised, ergo it can't make money.

Now think about that for a minute. I know for a fact Facebook is about to cycle Naoko Takeuchi out of the potential targeting options for ads. This woman is not only the richest woman in Japan, she personally changed the course of entertainment markets on five continents. If it weren't for Takeuchi-sensei, your favorite Marvel movie never would have happened. She took a HUGE risk and so did her publisher. Then Andy Heyward bet his company on the prospect that Naoko's vision was correct. Turns out they were all right and now what they all helped bring about is worth $14 billion. She has hundreds of millions of fans around the world. Doesn't matter. You can't advertise to her fans any more. *click*

The middle-grade market is off-limits to indies. Not only do the retailers bar indie titles at the door, it's illegal to advertise to the target market in the United States. It makes zero difference how compelling your book is. It is ILLEGAL to market it. You want to make a video that appeals to kids? Better prepare yourself for a $42,000 fine if the government decides you didn't label it properly. What if you make a book that appeals to kids? Are you next? What number are they going to type in the box this time? $50,000? $100,000? Does the government have the authority to fine you for the content you publish? Doesn't matter. You'll be perma-banned across the Internet if you get fined. Then you can go look for a job. lol a "job."

I can't make a game book. I can't make a branching storyline book or interactive fiction, or choose-your-own adventure. I can't make a shared storybook, or a party activity book. I can't make a cookbook. (I can't put pictures in a book unless they use a 30-year-old image format). I can't make a tabletop role-playing book. I can't make collectible books. I can't do comics (the delivery fees make it impossible to price them reasonably). I can't make a sing-along. I can't make an activity book. I can't make a workbook, or a textbook or a study guide or a vocabulary guide. Oh sure, I can volunteer to do any of those, and put my account on the line in the process, but you and I both know there is a zero percent chance any of them will sell. The retailer has no idea what any of those things even are. The advertising platform has no options to reach their audiences.

There might be readers out there, but we'll never find them, because our relationship with the retailer and advertiser is not cooperative. It's adversarial. "Do as you wish" sayeth Big Tech(tm), "but you better be right, or it's your ass."

I can make all of those things on my web site. I spent months building my own infrastructure (for obvious reasons), but I'll never be able to drive enough traffic to them, and I always run the risk of just having my site turned off because my ISP is tired of my non-traditional approach. If I take this stuff to social media I might as well just paste a sign to my face that says "BAN ME." Go visit my web site. Its title isn't an accident.

God only knows what rules I might break if I attempt any of this. I'd be banned on principle. Writing six more military Sci-Fi novels that are the same as the first four isn't interesting to me. There's no challenge in it. Could I write another half-million words of MilSF? Sure. Could I build a six-inch-high brick wall that goes on for miles? Sure. Why? How does that help me make my mark? I made six figures? Ok. So what?

I want to do something new. I want to do something that makes readers say "hey, that's pretty neat." I don't care if there's only 20 of them. I'm not interested in being in the top 100 on Amazon, regardless of how much money it makes. I'm a creative person. I want to create NEW things. That's what feeds my soul. If I fail, fine. But I want a goshdarn FAIR SHOT FIRST.

I didn't sign up for this all-risk no-paycheck business so I could be a goshdarn accountant.
 
#192 ·
ShayneRutherford said:
You didn't address this to me, but I have a bit of relevant info here. A friend of mine who has a backlist of five books just got serious about advertising them two months ago. They're not the same genre, only two are part of a series, and she hadn't advertised them in years, so they were making next to nothing. But two months ago she was able to start doing FB ads, and so she started with a $5/day budget. The first couple of weeks she didn't make much, but last month she made about $500 profit. And that's after less than two full months of getting serious about advertising, and with books that don't conform to writing-to-market restrictions, either.
I have to admit - for any discouragement I generally feel - I do find that anecdote encouraging, so I appreciate you for sharing it. Maybe that's the solace... in hearing that it is still doable to make a go of things without adhering to the assembly line. It would be great if that were true.
 
#193 ·
I think you're missing how truly "mechanized" writing for a publisher used to be. Harlequin told authors at what point hero and heroine should meet. When their first kiss should be. When to go further. How many pages the book had to be. How much sex there should be, and what words you could and couldn't use. And so forth.

I can't speak to what life is like for other writers. And, no, there's no magic sauce about having been around a long time, not really. I can't tell you how many authors were doing really well when I started and are gone now. Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying. I also cannot imagine that somebody with a fresh voice and a fresh take isn't more likely to break out than somebody trying NOT to stand out.

I suspect you're too cynical. Have you dug deep and checked out what is working in your preferred subgenre, with an open mind? Have you actually read the books and pondered why they work? Sometimes, books are just FUN. Or interesting, or captivating. They don't have to be redefining the genre or out in left field, the author just has to be good at being fun, or suspenseful, or whatever. As long as you deliver that bone-deep, basic thing that your reader comes to the genre or subgenre and, especially, your books for, as long as you have a style and voice they enjoy, you're good, and you can spread your wings all you like.
 
#194 ·
Caimh said:
I think people have the idea that you have to do things one way and one way only and it is BS. The genre I write in doesn't even have a proper category on Amazon. I don't really follow tropes in the traditional way at all and my covers aren't like other people's, other than couple of people who copied mine. I've released 7 books in 4 years. I've been a six figure author for the majority of that time.
You don't have to write within all these set structures that some people keep claiming exist. Yes write to market is a thing and good luck to anyone who makes that work but nobody who knows what they're talking about believes it is the only way. I've personally written whatever I wanted. I write in series but with spinoffs etc that frankly confuse people occasionally.
What you have to do is work smart. I listened to people like David Gaughran and applied everything he said to my unique situation. My books built momentum slowly at first, and I reinvested into AMS ads when I was making money. My wife and I worked really hard to get good covers and the highest standard of editing we could. We've been increasingly dabbling with fb and bb for maybe the last year but those are very much works in progress. We also built a 10k mailing list almost all organically with a 75% open rate. We did that by following the 'superfan' model and it has worked great. Frankly, being something very different to the majority that out there has worked well for us because we worked hard to find our audience. I'd rather be the only Malaysian restaurant in town than one of the fifty pizza places - not that I've anything against pizzas.
I also know a lot of people who've been successful in other areas of entertainment/the arts and honestly, the people who spend their time whinging never end up being the big successes in my experience. It's the people who work hard and smart while maximising their talents by doing what they love that do. I'd also add it's the people who can take criticism and learn from it that really improve. If you're dismissing any reviewer of your book who didn't like it as an idiot then you're not very good at learning.
Also, focusing on how much easier it was before now etc is just not a good mindset. Making a living as an author has always been massively challenging. It should be. Getting people to invest their money and time in reading your book is genuine privilege.
This was interesting to read, thank you.

Do you see any differences in making a living as an author now than say five or six years ago? Do you think the process has become more of an assembly line? I'm guessing not?
 
#195 ·
stacia_s said:
Ignoring the fact that I'm one of the authors you're talking about (I made about 70k last year on a 5k budget and have never had a book in the top 100 of its subgenre), let's take a look at the top 100 for my subgenre.

I write New Adult Romance (characters are late high school/college aged) which is a massively competitive category, the heavy hitters there are all six figure/month authors. There are probably some content mill types there, but unless they've hired ringers to attend conferences and signings most are real authors writing books. As we've seen with Amanda, one person can produce quite a few words if they're determined enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-New-Adult-College-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/6487838011

First of all, these covers aren't all the same. Yes, there's a lot of manchest. But also manchest, man face, couples, objects, black and white with colored lettering, fizzy pop colors, and the desaturated look I've come to associate with more angsty stuff.

I'm not even going to click into these books and read the blurbs because I can tell how much the gamut runs just from the subtitles and branding on most of these. And it's literally every flavor of romance.

Small Town. Mafia. MC. Medical. Bully. Angsty High School (different from bully, though similar). Brother's Best Friend. Second Chance. Accidental Pregnancy. Friends to Lovers. Enemies to Lovers. Older man younger woman. I'd finally find more tropes if I went beyond just title/cover.
Meaning it isn't just one trope, or even a handful, that you HAVE TO write to make money.

And you can have any of those with high heat or low heat. Steamy or clean. Angsty or Comedic. The permutations are literally endless if you any creativity at all. The only thing required among them is a happily ever after and the beats dictated by the trope that the author chose.

Furthermore, I've read enough of these to know what to expect from the authors here that I've read a lot of. Which is how you make money, by the way, developing a signature style, finding an audience that matches, and fulfilling their expectations over and over again all the way to the bank. That is NOT the same as paint by number.

I know if I pick up L.J Shen that I'm getting a manwhore, a naive heroine and lots of angst. Tijan will give me high school angst with a dreamy quality that doesn't exist in real life but gets me every time. Crystal Kaswell's books almost always have a "bad boy" who I know won't turn out to be actually abusive, which is good because I'm not into that. Colleen Hoover's characters will definitely go through something psychologically devastating with high emotion. Lauren Landish is light, fluffy and funny.

All of their branding reflects these qualities, which is why they make massive amounts of money.

The "market" isn't some set thing that never changes. It's just a group of people who all enjoy a certain thing that you can make a living wage serving content to. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of markets, you just have to find the one that fits what you enjoy and are good at writing.

If you can't find a market for what you've written, then identify a market you enjoy and write something that fits there. If you're not willing to do that, then yes you will need to find a new line of work if you like food and shelter.
This is an awesome post, and I appreciate your insights here. A lot of food for thought. I feel schooled... haha... but in a good way.
 
#196 ·
I only started just under four years ago.

Sure, there might be more people trying to release books and working to restricted models but that doesn’t and never has meant that there is only one way of doing things.

Again, I think time spent trying to decide how much harder it is now than then etc is time wasted. Even in the time I’ve been publishing things like Vellum, bookfunnel, kdp print has made the process easier in other ways. Careers are built on being able to provide a strong and distinctive product that people love. There’s several ways to do that and there always has been.
 
#197 ·
Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying.
It must be just like last year's big hit, but new and fresh.
 
#198 ·
Usedtoposthere said:
I think you're missing how truly "mechanized" writing for a publisher used to be. Harlequin told authors at what point hero and heroine should meet. When their first kiss should be. When to go further. How many pages the book had to be. How much sex there should be, and what words you could and couldn't use. And so forth.

I can't speak to what life is like for other writers. And, no, there's no magic sauce about having been around a long time, not really. I can't tell you how many authors were doing really well when I started and are gone now. Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying. I also cannot imagine that somebody with a fresh voice and a fresh take isn't more likely to break out than somebody trying NOT to stand out.
It's true, the old Harlequin model was one I hadn't considered. And, I appreciate what you've said here about the staleness and interchangeability. Definitely good points.

I suspect you're too cynical. Have you dug deep and checked out what is working in your preferred subgenre, with an open mind? Have you actually read the books and pondered why they work? Sometimes, books are just FUN. Or interesting, or captivating. They don't have to be redefining the genre or out in left field, the author just has to be good at being fun, or suspenseful, or whatever. As long as you deliver that bone-deep, basic thing that your reader comes to the genre or subgenre and, especially, your books for, as long as you have a style and voice they enjoy, you're good, and you can spread your wings all you like.
Ha... well, yes, I agree I likely have become too cynical about it all. To be honest, kboards discussions never seem to evolve all that often to the point where I see encouraging posts like yours, Shayne's, stacia's, caimh's, etc. Too often we shout past one another and rarely get down to brass tacks. It's no one's fault, just how things go in posting on a forum, I suppose. Anyway, I prefer the brass tacks.

In answer to your question, I do try to dig deep into a few subgenres that interest me as much as I can. And, I read... a lot, both in these subs and outside of them as well. It's definitely possible I dwell on the dreck that I read, and don't focus enough on what it is in some of this that causes so many people to buy it. Could be a glass half-full/half-empty thing. Maybe I'd convinced myself going in with many books that they are subpar from the outset, and so I can't see what it is about them that makes them bestsellers in the first place.

In fairness, I do think some of the dreck is dreck though too. It's possible I focus too much on it.

The book being fun is a pretty important aspect, I agree. And, thanks for the re-focus on what matters toward the end of your post. As per usual, I don't learn, and can't see things in a better light if I'm not shown where I'm wrong. So, I appreciate every time kboards rises to the occasion to show me where I'm wrong on a given self-publishing topic. Turns out, I'm wrong a lot, lol. But, that's good because I really haven't been liking how I've been viewing self-publishing as of late.
 
#200 ·
This seems to go into the same old argument.  Write what writers want...or write what readers want.

It reminds me of the basic argument in economics.  Does supply create its own demand?  Or does demand dictate what should be supplied? 

If a writer can introduce a new twist on a genre, or new type of genre, readers may decide they like it!  That's supply creating its own demand.  The "pet rock" of writing if you will.

However, it's usually 'safer' to go with seeing what readers are demanding and supplying that type of product.

I am having a lot of fun seeing how much I can walk that thin line in between.  Mixing up tropes to give readers what they think they want...but not exactly what they expect.
 
#201 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
ShayneRutherford said:
If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.
By that logic, James Cameron and Edgar Rice Burroughs would have ended up working in construction. So would Gene Roddenberry. So would Andy Heyward. So would J.K. Rowling.
This is not correct. All of the people you name (with the exception of Andy Heyward, as I'm not sure who that is) are masters of tropes. They created works for specific markets and nailed their tropes. James Cameron is the ultimate master of taking tropes and creating compelling work out of them. He colors inside the lines of his genre and he blows the doors off every time. He'd be nothing without writing to market.

Popular entertainment is based on "the same but different". This has been true for at least as long as I've been alive (slightly before the 80s). If you care about reaching as large a market as you can, you write to the market. It is not soulless or joyless or any of that. It is a creative exercise and it is extremely hard to do well. If you find the challenge of working inside those lines interesting, though, it is the most fun you can have.

If anything, that's the perspective I'd like to impart to any new writer - if you MUST WRITE, know that it's harder now than it's ever been (evergreen statement). Now forget about all that and get to it!
 
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