In Today’s Journal
* Self-Defeating Quote of the Day
* I Got a Great Question Yesterday
* Yesterday I Forgot
* This Is a Busy Time of Year
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Self-Defeating Quote of the Day
“I’ve written four books now and it always comes down to, do I have enough fortitude to keep going until I figure it out? Finishing the first draft is always the hardest part. The inner critic is deafening and problems abound. You just have to keep going. Books are made in revision. Nobody gets it right the first time. You can fix anything. But you can’t fix something that isn’t finished. The feeling of finishing a book? There is nothing on earth that compares.” Signe Pike in an article for Writer’s Digest magazine
Read that again and look at all the negativity! Pure, distilled critical voice. This writer is actually CALLING ON her “inner critic” to “figure it out” and then complaining that the critical voice is deafening. Irony, anyone? Sigh. Here, let’s do a comparison:
“I’ve written 103 novels and 10 novellas and it always comes down to sheer fun and excitement. I don’t sweat having ‘enough fortitude.’ I just wish I could write longer at a time. My ‘inner critic’ is practically non-existent. My books are made by my characters. Because I trust my characters I get it right the first time, I don’t need to ‘fix’ anything.” Harvey Stanbrough
Signe and I agree on one thing though: As she wrote, ‘The feeling of finishing a book? There is nothing on earth that compares.”
Of course, her way is probably better. Whatever “works,” right? Snort.
Try writing into the dark, folks. You have nothing to lose but baseless, self-defeating fear. And you’ll have a ton of fun.
If you’ve never heard of writing into the dark (or WITD), visit the Journal website and key WITD into the Search box in the sidebar.
Or download the Journal Archives FREE and search those.
I Got a Great Question Yesterday
A writer emailed me to ask, “Do you ever send out copies to reviewers for marketing? I’ve been seeing a lot about that lately on the various social sites and I’m not sure if it’s really helpful or a waste of time. … I see a lot of writers utilizing reviewers to spread the word on the various social platforms. Any thoughts on this?”
Yes, in fact I do have some thoughts:
From long experience, I believe good reviews are vital. But no, I don’t send out ARCs for review. I also don’t read whatever reviews I do happen to get. I don’t pay any attention to them so they won’t get into my brain.
But reviews are still essential for spreading the word about your writing, and a lot of readers depend on them. To clarify, GETTING them is essential. NOT READING them is also essential.
Way back almost 11 years ago, I heard Dean Wesley Smith say over and over again that the best marketing you can do is to write the next story or collection or novel.
So that’s what I did. But that’s also ALL I did. I also always bore in mind that “the opening sells the story, and the ending sells the next story.”
Today, I wish I’d delved into marketing back then, if only a little.
I wish I’d collected reader emails and built a list, but I didn’t. I wish I’d looked into Amazon and BookBub ads, but I didn’t. I’ve only just started that process now, over 10 years into the process, and I still don’t have a list of reader emails.
So today (I’m 72) I’m writing mostly for the sheer joy of it. My primary payment is being the first person ever to see and hear my characters’ stories.
If my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren decide to engage an agent and/or work on marketing some of my work, I have zero doubt they’ll get rich beyond their dreams.
A lot of my stuff is rife with possibilities for movies or TV series, but I’ll probably never do anything with it myself. I love writing it too much to worry about it.
I’m sitting on several million dollars worth of IP, but barring a miracle, I’ll probably never reap the harvest. Which is fine.
And please understand, I’m not complaining here. What’s past is past, and I prefer looking forward.
But do I hope you’ll learn from my stupid error in judgement and market your work. Because it’s worked for so many before, here’s what I suspect will work:
- Build a fan base by collecting reader emails.
- If you have the patience to do so, publish at least some of your work to Amazon’s exclusive KDP Select program to reap the marketing benefits of that. Then pull it out after 3 or 6 months and publish it wide.
- Consider seeking traditional publication with at least some of your work (tradpubs get more reviews). I’ve been tradpubbed before, and I ordered a copy of Novel & Short Story Writers Market (Writer’s Digest Books) to help me with this next year.
- Send your short stories to tradpub magazines first, then indie publish them in collections when you get the rights back.
- Keep writing. Consistently. You can’t get reviews for (or otherwise market) something you haven’t written.
- Novel series sell best, then novels, then short story collections. Give that to your creative subconscious and write accordingly.
- Skip all the bullshit myths and believe in yourself. Pull up your big boy/girl underwear and write into the dark. There is no better way to tell an authentic, original, true-to-your-voice story.
I hope this helps some of you. But bear in mind, even the best advice in the world will do nothing for you if you don’t actually put it into effect.
Yesterday I Forgot
two of those “writing related” things that are necessary but take time away from my writing. So I caught up:
First, I created a cover pic for The Waller Files and put it up on StoneThread Publishing. I got input back from my first reader, so this morning I made the changes I agreed with, then published it to D2D and Amazon, where it will release on January 4, 2025.
The Waller Files is the most twisted and maybe best novel I’ve ever written. I’m not joking. It’s a great pulp PI mystery. If you like that sort of fast-paced thing, I think you’ll enjoy it.
I also published it to my online discount store at Payhip where you can buy it right now for only $4.
But I also forgot I hadn’t written this week’s short story for the Bradbury Challenge yet. So I started that too. I’ll finish it this morning. Then I’ll probably start the next novel.
This Is a Busy Time of Year
I know. I hate when a guy points out the obvious by telling you something everyone already knows, yet I just did exactly that. Sorry.
For me, in addition to pursuing my goal of completing 20 novels this year, between now and the end of the year I also have to
- write the next novel (grin),
- construct the promo doc and cover for my upcoming novel, then release it on my Payhip discount store and set it for release on January 18 at D2D and Amazon,
- write one more short story for the Bradbury Challenge (for next week), and
upload a bunch more of my short stories to my Stanbrough Writes substack. Unlike the previous stories there, beginning in January they will all be ‘new’ stories I’ve written during my recent involvement in the Bradbury Challenge since September 2024.
Okay, I got that last one done yesterday. Now I have stories slated to publish every Friday from now through May 9, 2025. Of course, I didn’t post the erotic ones. I’ll either start a new opt-in, adult-only site for those or publish them in a few collections later.
Then in the first few days of January I’ll need to
- compile and upload to the Journal website the free 2024 TNDJ PDF archives,
- write another short story for the first week of January, and
- start the first novel of 2025.
That’s my version of what Vin Zandri calls “The Writer’s Life.” Isn’t it wonderful?
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Top 10 Book Marketing Articles from BookBub in 2024 I recommend you bookmark these. And read and use them.
Interesting Copyright and Workshop Fun Another sale, sort of.
21 Popular Romance Tropes These are also story ideas.
Challenges for 2025 Dean offers three (paid) challenges. You could do any of the three with me at no cost and win prizes. Just sayin’. Email me if you want to do any of those challenges with me.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 1410
Writing of “The Jimson Stage”
Day 1…… 3014 words. To date…… 3014
Fiction for December………………… 69595
Fiction for 2024………………………. 815695
Nonfiction for December…………….. 21520
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 384090
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,199,785
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 3663
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 19
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 103
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 269
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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