In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A Great Analogy
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A Great Analogy
I was talking with a friend via email a few days ago. He’s both an interim pastor and a fiction writer. Like so many, he likes the idea of writing into the dark, but hasn’t quite been able to pull the trigger on it yet.
During our conversation, he handed me maybe the best analogy I’ve ever heard. He wrote,
“My best sermons come when I set aside the critical mind. I can really tell the difference.”
Here’s my response:
“In a sermon, God is your main character. You trust Him and let Him speak through you. You’re only a vessel, interpreting His words to form them on the page in the best way you can.
“If you let go and trust the earthly characters in your creative subconscious, they (and you) will do the same. That’s why writing fiction is such great fun for me.”
As an aside, we also talked briefly about sales. He wondered about my percentage of sales through various venues.
First of all, I advise everyone to Go Wide, meaning publish to as many venues as you can. More is always better.
Here’s what I told him, pretty much verbatim:
“I’ve never sold many books directly from my own site before. And when I did so, it was only through me telling others to browse the site then email me with their selections. Now I’ve added discounted actual buy links directly to the book pages and, in places, to the genre pages.
“The vast majority of my sales come through Amazon, which is too bad, given their price controls.
“For example, I wanted to charge $14.99 for Writing Better Fiction. It’s well worth that or more.
“But if I charge $14.99, Amazon will pay me only a 35% royalty ($5.24). At $9.99, Amazon will pay me a 70% royalty ($6.99). How in anybody’s math does that make sense?
“That’s when I decided, finally, to sell my books directly to the reader. I can undercut Amazon and all the other sales venues out there, and that will both save the reader a few dollars and increase my own royalty to 100%.”
Okay, that’s it for today.
I’m writing again, and I’m anxious to see the current book end. I already have another story in mind, and I want to get to it soon.
Oh, and I also need to compile the Blackwell Ops Soleada Garcia Subseries (7 novels) and get that published. I have an inkling a flash sale is coming, but only through StoneThread Publishing.
Ya’ll have a good day—if possible, a good writing day—and I’ll talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Episode 904: All Lost in a Supermarket
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 450
Writing of Blackwell Ops 21: Johnny Mercer
Day 1…… 4190 words. To date…… 4190
Day 2…… 2599 words. To date…… 6789
Day 3…… 3380 words. To date…… 10169
Day 4…… 2812 words. To date…… 12981
Day 5…… 1726 words. To date…… 14707
Day 6…… 1866 words. To date…… 16573
Day 7…… 4349 words. To date…… 20922
Day 8…… 2244 words. To date…… 23166
Fiction for March…………………….…. 16337
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 180969
Fiction since October 1……………… 4884024
Nonfiction for March…………………… 13890
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 113080
2024 consumable words……………… 294049
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 4
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 86
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections………………… 31
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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