Social Media Half-Life

When it comes to social media, Twitter is my go-to platform. It is simple and easy to use.

I do not like Facebook. I have encountered far more nasty people on Facebook, than I have on Twitter. So that is a huge turn off right there.

Secondarily, though, I just don’t care for the presentation of Facebook. It comes off as clunky and a bit antiquated to my mind. Not as bad as GoodReads, which is the absolute worst IMO, but clunky nonetheless.

Nevertheless, I do maintain a presence on Facebook. Mostly because it is a giant among social media platforms. The same reason why I have my books on Amazon, even though I don’t like the company.

The other day, I got thinking about the effectiveness of all the tweeting and FB posting that I do. Is it worth my time? Am I getting any bang for my buck? Buck, in this case, being time investment.

Tooling around the great World Wide Web, looking for an answer, I found the website of ScottGraffius.com — and made the discovery of social media half-life. Read the article: https://scottgraffius.com/blog/files/social-2023.html

In case you’re wondering what this half-life thing is, here’s a definition:

Half-life is the time it takes for a piece of content to receive half of the total number of engagements that it will ever receive.

For social media posts this is the time it takes for the post to receive half of the attention it is ever going to get.

Tweets get buried pretty quickly in the newsfeed. 

So it is not surprising to me that half of all potential readers will see my tweet within 24 minutes after I’ve posted it. And 50 minutes later — that tweet is gone from the newsfeed.

Which means, that my once a day appearance on Twitter is probably a waste of time. My tweets have all vanished by the time I leave the site for the day.

Of course, they are there should anyone look at my personal Twitter page. And people obviously do go there, because my pinned tweet is re-tweeted. Nevertheless, unless picked up by someone else, after 50 minutes that retweet is gone.

So if you do not have a large number of people retweeting your tweet throughout the day — it is gone within 50 minutes after you’ve posted it.

Facebook has a longer half-life: 1.75 hours for a post. However, there are some who think FB nukes your post from the newsfeed after 2 hours. Which means an FB post may only have a 2 hour lifespan, instead of 3.5.

Of course, the post will still be on your profile or page should anyone go there — but how many do? That, my friends, is a good question.

From the little that I’ve talked with folks about their FB habits, I’d say nearly everyone just looks at their newsfeed.

Also on FB is the “problem” that I get very few, if any, shares. A like is fine, but a share will extend the post’s lifespan. No shares and I’d say posting is next to worthless.

So what can we take away from this half-life info?

I haven’t come to any definite conclusions. However, initially, I think I have to agree with the gurus that using social media to sell books is pretty much a waste of time. The ROI is way too low.

It wasn’t always that way for me. Twitter did result in sales. But, alas, no more. Nothing but crickets for the past couple of years.

As an experiment, this past Sunday I tweeted every 24 minutes for half the day a book I had on sale for 99¢. And on FB, I posted every 1.75 hours for the same book for half the day.

The result? I sold one, that is 1, copy. All that time investment (4 or 5 hours), and I made 35¢. I’d say it wasn’t worth it.

I do have 2 auto-tweet platforms that I use. But they won’t tweet more than every hour. Which might work. I may give it a test run.

But is all of this time investment worth what will probably be a minuscule ROI? 

Once set up, the auto-tweeters will run on their own. But I do have to set them up and periodically change the books. And hopefully avoid Twitter shutting me down for spamming.

Yesterday, Monday, I conducted another half-day test on a full-price book. The result? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No sales.

So I probably have my answer. Tweeting and FB posting don’t drive sales. Or any significant amount of sales.

Now something to think about is this: a YouTube post has a half-life of 8.8 days. And the average half-life of a blogpost is 2 years.

There are those who argue that blogging is dead. Perhaps it is. But if it is, there are millions of folks who haven’t gotten the news.

So what if I combined blogging with vlogging? That might end up being the best combo. It is something to think about.

And maybe the best of all possible worlds is building an active fan base on my mailing list. But that’s a thought for another post.

Want I do know is this: Twitter and Facebook take up at least a couple hours of my day — and I am only on each platform once a day! For all that activity what are my sales? Zilch. Nada. Zip. Zero.

The one advantage, and probably the best advantage, lies not in selling — but in all of the good people I’ve met. And it’s pretty difficult to put a price tag on them.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

 

Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mysteries on Amazon!

Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles on Amazon!

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Kickstarter for Fiction

We’ve all heard the numbers. Over 7 1/2 million books on Amazon. Over 3,500 new titles added every day.

The gurus tell us we can beat the odds and become a bestselling author. All you have to do is pay them hundreds or thousands of dollars. And they will make it happen.

Hundreds or thousands of dollars? For one book? But, hey, it’s only money and they guarantee that your book will hit some bestseller chart (usually obscure) on Amazon.

The questions I ask are:

      • A bestseller for how long?
      • Will I earn back my investment?
      • Can I duplicate the results on my own?

The odds are you won’t earn back your investment any time soon. Nor will you be able to duplicate the results on your own. Because if you did, the guru just lost a potential future customer and maybe created a rival. And that’s bad for business.

As for how long your book will be on the bestseller list — does it matter?

No, I don’t think it does. Because a bestselling book that ends up losing you money is simply a loss. No matter how many copies you sell.

Think about this: aside from Patterson, Rowling, or King, name me a bestselling author from 20 or 30 years ago. Fame is indeed fleeting.

And if you can name one, that’s only one writer among many, many tens of thousands. That’s something to think about.

Bestselling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson blew the lid off Kickstarter setting an all time record of over $41 million in pledges for his latest campaign. All I can say is that it got my attention. (If being a bestselling author was so great, why was he doing a Kickstarter?)

I took Dean Wesley Smith’s free Kickstarter workshop and took a long look at whether or not Kickstarter was a viable platform for me.

And that’s a valid question to ask about any platform. Is it valid for me?

Let’s face facts. Amazon is glutted. The odds of anyone finding your book are pretty doggone remote.

Most people don’t look beyond page 1 or 2 of the search results. If your book isn’t showing up there, for all intents and purposes — it doesn’t exist.

Couple the above with the fact that a search returns more sponsored ads and Amazon promos than search results — so there’s even less chance for someone finding your book on a search. Even if your keywords are perfect.

To put all of our auctorial eggs in the Amazon basket is, in my opinion, just plain stupid. I didn’t always think so. But years of minuscule sales have convinced me otherwise. There’s just too much competition, no matter what category you put your book in.

Practically speaking we independent authors are also independent publishing houses. Which means, whether we like it or not, we are businesses. Our job is to sell our books. Does it make sense to try to sell your wares in an overcrowded marketplace?

If you were selling apples, would it make sense for you to go to the same place where everyone else was selling apples?

Might you not get better results adopting a different sales plan?

Why do you think these gurus are teaching courses and selling their services? It’s easy money compared to selling books.

Remember: the people who got rich in the California Gold Rush weren’t the prospectors. It was the people selling stuff to the prospectors.

In my tooling around on the Kickstarter site, I was surprised at the number of authors who are in fact funding their projects. Sure there are a lot that don’t fund — but there are a lot that do.

I’ve supported a half-dozen projects and gotten loads of goodies in addition to the items I pledged for. Plus I found myself a couple new authors I want to follow. I’d say that was a win-win situation. Win for the author and a win for me, the reader.

I just finished writing the 9th Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation. I’m going to use it to test the Kickstarter waters.

If I’m successful, I plan on doing more Kickstarters and will hopefully build an audience there, plus earn some cash along the way to fund my business. Others are doing so. Why can’t I?

And remember: Dean Wesley Smith has a FREE workshop to help you get started on developing a successful Kickstarter campaign. He’s run many successful campaigns. 

Get the workshop here: https://wmg-publishing-workshops-and-lectures.teachable.com/p/kickstarter

If you are a fiction writer and haven’t gotten any traction on Amazon, perhaps Kickstarter is a place you need to consider as an option.

My thought is this: if there are too many cooks in the kitchen — find another kitchen.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, keep thinking outside the Amazon box.

CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

 

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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Wyldwood Books

In the 6 years I’ve been an independent author-publisher, I’ve met a good number of very talented indies. Sad to say, most are little known.

I’ve also seen a fair number of these very talented folks move on to other things. And we readers are the poorer.

One such little known writer is Crispian Thurlborn. He’s an incredibly talented and mature writer. I love his books and promote them often.

But he’s also a very talented and accomplished graphic artist. And that’s what I’d like to showcase in this post.

Wyldwood Books
Bespoke Book Designs and Services

Wyldwood Books is his graphic design website. And quite frankly, he can handle what you need for your book covers, promotional materials, book trailers, wallpapers, you name it. And the work is done speedily and at an affordable price. The latter is very important for me as I’m retired and on a fixed income.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll let his art do the talking. Here are some examples of the quality work that Wyldwood Books does.

Interested in a trailer? Check out mine: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2cjTgIpddk

Need a book cover? Here’s the cover for the prequel volume in my Justinia Wright mystery series:

Branding? This cameo was made for my Justinia Wright series:

In need of mockups? Here are 2 from the Pierce Mostyn series:

And if I ever get my act together and make The Rocheport Saga boxed sets, I have these fabulous promo images:

I’m one happy customer. You can be too.

Wyldwood Books
Bespoke Book Designs and Services

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy marketing!

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The Business of Being Indie — Part 2

Last week we took a look at the business side of being an indie authorpreneur. We saw that there are writers who are making piles of money, and those who are strong mid-listers. The mid-listers aren’t on the bestseller lists — but they earn enough to make a decent living. Then there are the rest of us.

We also learned there are no magic wands. There is only work.

TANSTAAFL

Robert Heinlein, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, popularize the term TANSTAAFL — There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

TANSTAAFL is at the core of economics — and business is economics.

Everything has its cost. Nothing is free. Somebody somewhere always foots the bill. It may be free to me, but somebody is paying for it to be free to me.

So why is it many writers don’t see selling books as a business? I can’t tell you. However, all one has to do is take a look at Penguin Random House to know that publishing is a business. There is a bottom line. The company, or sole proprietor, either makes money or goes out of business.

There is a third path that indie authors can take: they can write and publish books as a hobby. And some indies do take that road.

Most, however, have dreams of quitting the day job and telling stories for a living. It is possible. But it takes work. As I quickly found out after just a few months.

The Business Model

Barring the one in a million chance I am going to write a runaway bestseller like Gone With The Wind or To Kill A Mockingbird at my first go, I am going to have to work to sell my books. So how do I do that?

We said last week that McDonald’s success lies not in its burgers and fries, but in the location of its restaurants.

A good location provides traffic. The traffic will see those Golden Arches and say, “Hey, I’m hungry. I’ll grab a burger. I don’t have to go out of my way to get lunch.” And McDonald’s makes money.

What we have is:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy = Money

If we want to make a lot of money, there’s a third step:

Traffic —->Desire to Buy —->Scale up = Lots of Money

That is the business model in a nutshell. All successful businesses follow that model.

We indie authors must generate traffic to our books. We must make those books so attractive that lookers become buyers. And if we want to make a lot of money, then we have to scale up the business.

Some Ways to Get Traffic

The first step is to get eyes on your book. How do you do that?

Word of mouth. People like your book and tell others about it. The best advertising.

Social media. Works something like word of mouth. Is perhaps most effective if people read your book, like it, and then go on and tell their followers about it.

Promotions. Tactics such as loss leaders, raffles/sweepstakes, and giveaways can get eyes on your book and gain you buying readers down the road.

Advertising. Paying for ads to get your book before potential readers is an expensive, yet frequently used tool. You will need deep pockets at the beginning until you learn how to make advertising effective so that it will sustain itself through sales.

The Mailing List

After nearly 6 years in the independent author/publisher business, I am convinced of one thing: indie authors are mail order businesses.

Think about how people get your books. They get them by mail: email or snail mail.

We indie authors are mail order businesses.

Which means we need to create and build a mailing list.

There are lots of tools available with which to build your list.

      • You can ask people.
      • Social media is also a way you can attract people to your list. Although, I don’t get many sign-ups from social media.
      • Giveaways. Give away a reader magnet using ProlificWorks or BookFunnel. This works best if you join a multi-author promotion, because you will get more traffic. Be aware that you will get a lot of freebie grabbers. But you will also get some gold.
      • Raffles. I never used a raffle. But from what others say, they can be successful. They can also be a miserable failure. In the end, they are just another form of the giveaway. You will get a lot of chaff and a small amount of wheat.

Initially, I asked people I knew if they would like to be on my list. I didn’t ask everyone, just those who I thought might be interested

Once I got a small list established, I used ProlificWorks to build my list. I offered my first in series free, and joined several promotions. I got a lot of subscribers. And a lot of unsubscribers. And the latter are fine, because you don’t want them on your list if they have no interest in you. Mailing lists cost money.

To make your mailing list effective and cost efficient, you will need to periodically winnow the list.

Perhaps once a year send an email to those subscribers who don’t open any of your emails or who don’t buy anything and ask if they are still interested in being on your list. To show that they are interested, you can have them click on a link to your Amazon book page.

Those that don’t click or tap the link remove from your list. Because those folks aren’t interested in you or your books.

Some people advocate having a lot of subscribers on your mailing list. Because according to statistics, they say, a large list equals a lot of sales. And perhaps that is true. But a mailing list costs money. It is not free. To make it an efficient and effective list you will need to get rid of those people who show no interest in you. That is just good business.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading — and writing!

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The Business Of Being Indie—Part 1

Indie authors are actually independent author/publishers. And quite frankly, while many, if not most of us, are decent writers — nearly all of us are poor businessmen. In other words, we suck at the publishing part of our business.

McDonald’s

We think of the restaurant with the Golden Arches as a fast food eatery. But McDonald’s primary concern isn’t burgers and fries — it’s location. Their primary concern is real estate: buying the best location in an area. Because the best location will bring in the most traffic — and traffic translates into burgers and fries sold.

Success Stories

I like reading indie success stories. I find them to be a source of inspiration and encouragement. If they can do it, why can’t I?

And there are some very significant indie success stories. Mark Dawson, Michael Anderle, Nick Stephenson, Joanna Penn, Craig Martelle, Diane Capri, to name a few.

But there are also success stories we don’t hear about very often, such as PF Ford, Patty Jansen, and Lindsay Buroker.

If the above mentioned authors can make significant money from their pens, why can’t I?

Roadblocks

There are, though, significant roadblocks on the road to making a living from telling stories. Let me point out two.

Ignorance. Yep, lack of knowledge. Specifically mail-order business knowledge. 

Because, whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, we indie authors are, at the heart of it all, mail-order businesses.

How do your readers get your books? By snail mail or email. Very few of us are in bookstores. So if your readers and mine get our books by mail, we are mail-order business persons.

To succeed, we need to get rid of our business ignorance and learn the ins and outs of mail-order business.

Belief in the Magic Wand. Most of us think that our business model goes something like this:

Write book —>Wave Magic Wand —>Thousands of Sales

However, we soon find out that there is no magic wand. We write our books, publish them, and ask ourselves why isn’t anyone reading my Great American Novel?

Generally speaking, people don’t read our books because they don’t know they exist. With millions of indie books published on Amazon, how are readers going to find my book? Because Amazon is a business too. They are going to drive traffic to the books that sell and will therefore make them money. The infamous Amazon algorithms see to that.

There is no Magic Wand. We have to go to work and drive traffic to where our books are. Which means we have to find the traffic, our potential readers, and get our book in front of their eyes. This takes work. There are no Magic Wands. There is just work or excuses for not working.

These two roadblocks kill off most indie authors. Because writing for a living has always been difficult, with few being successful at it. And nothing changed with the advent of ebooks.

Tune in next week to find out what work we have to do in the hope of getting eyeballs looking at our books.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading and writing!

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Literary Fiction

Were Ernest Hemingway alive today, would he make it as an independent author/publisher? I don’t think so.

Why do I write that? Because literary fiction is a tough sell to the indie reader. Not that a reader of indie books won’t read literary fiction, because some do. I for one.

However, Lit Fic is not the main diet of the indie reader. Genre fiction is. And genre fiction written in serials. 

When we look at Literary Fiction in comparison to genre fiction, we see the problem immediately: most Lit Fic is standalone, and how the heck do you categorize it to get a reader’s eyes on it?

With genre fiction, it’s easy. There are all manner of tags one can use. For mysteries there are: crime fiction, serial killer, detective fiction, police procedural, cozy, amateur sleuth, along with the general mystery and murder mystery.

But what category does a book like The Remains of the Day fall into? Or The Old Man and the Sea?

Amazon does put The Old Man and the Sea into the Sea Stories category, but is it really a sea story? It certainly isn’t what I think of when I think of the sea story category. I think of Patrick O’Brian, and the Horatio Hornblower books. I might think of Moby Dick, or a book by Joseph Conrad. But Moby Dick isn’t really about the sea or whales, and while many Conrad stories involve the sea, they aren’t actually sea stories either.

The Remains of the Day is in an even more difficult place. Classic British Fiction. Now that tells me a lot. And therein lies the problem with indies selling Lit Fic — what the heck do you call it?

Since the indie reader basically demands genres and serial fiction, I think therein lies the answer. And the indie writer of Literary Fiction has no better a model than Anthony Trollope.

Trollope invented the novel series with his Barchester Chronicles: six novels that take place in and around the cathedral town of Barchester.

The six novels loosely follow each other. Although they can be read as standalone books. What they share is a locale and a set of characters that show up in each of the books, but with each novel having a different main character.

Because Trollope touches on so many different aspects of mid-nineteenth century British society, we can fit these books into many categories.

The books are historical fiction and religious fiction. They could possibly be called Christian fiction, although they aren’t evangelical in nature. They are about small town life, church politics and specifically Anglican Church politics, middle-class life, and married life. There is a fair amount of romance, always a campaign for Parliament, so we could call them mildly political novels. They could also be called comedies of manners. And they are filled with humor.

Trollope, as if he had foreseen Twitter, made it easy of us to tweet his books. And therein lies the key to an indie author’s success in writing Literary Fiction: write a series of standalone novels that involve the same locale and a general set of characters.

The old format for the TV series works well here: a main trio of characters, a supporting cast of around nine, and a uniform locale; each week one character is the focal point of the episode. Gunsmoke ran for years on such a formula, as did every other series when I was growing up.

And Anthony Trollope gave us the formula over a century ago.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading (and writing)!

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Men’s Fiction Revisited

A knowledge and understanding of history gives a person a depth of perception that is noticeably missing from those who are only savvy with current events.

There was a time when men had fiction that catered to them, catered to the things that men find interesting. Today, though, this isn’t so much the case. Yes, a man can find contemporary novels and stories written with a male audience in mind. However, in my experience, they are few and far between.

Some time ago I outlined what Men’s Fiction might contain. I’d like to revisit the concept of Men’s Fiction and why I think it is of vital importance that a BISAC category for Men’s Fiction is created — and soon.

A cursory search of the internet will reveal the concern in the publishing industry over the statistics showing a decline in book buying and reading in the States.

Personally, I’m not convinced the stats portray an accurate picture. As the now defunct Author Earnings website repeatedly demonstrated, book buying is quite healthy. 

The reason for the discrepancy lies in the fact that most indie authors don’t use ISBNs, which is how the book industry keeps track of inventory. Thus all those books with no ISBNs are never counted. They are invisible to the bean counters sitting in the treasure rooms of the corporate publishing houses.

What the stats actually reveal is a decline in purchases of traditionally published books.

As for those surveys showing a decline in reading and that men aren’t reading fiction, I’ve previously discussed male reading habits. One of which is that men tend not to be social and demonstrative in their reading. Which means men simply may not be accurately represented in the survey results.

I know men who read, and men who don’t. I know women who read, and women who don’t. I know men and women who never touch fiction. And those who only read fiction.

The simple fact of the matter is that the surveys may not be accurate.

Another factor which is likely to throw a spanner into those stats on book buying are the folks who basically buy used books and only used books. As a case in point, I rarely buy a new book from a corporate publishing house. Yet, I do buy a lot of traditionally published books — virtually all used. New books are just too dang expensive.

In addition, today the frugal book buyer is having a field day with all the free books that are now available on the internet — and I’m talking about the freely available public domain books one can find on Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg Australia, Faded Page, and archive.org. As a further case in point, I have downloaded books and magazines by the hundreds from these sites. All for free. After all, I’m retired and living on a fixed income.

Personally, I think reading is alive and well — and I think the male reader is nowhere near needing life support.

However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. Which is why I think the book industry and indie authors need to be careful not to exclude the male half of the population. The book industry and indie authors need to make sure that there is fiction boys and men will actually read, not stuff the industry hopes they’ll read.

Male readers prefer, for the most part, the genres of adventure, humor, horror, and science fiction. They also tend to shy away from books that are focused on relationships (such as romance).

The male reader also has a strong preference for main characters who are men, men he can relate to, and for male writers. This may be due in part to the current stereotype that reading fiction is something only women do. And thus boys especially need the male writer and male main character to avoid being seen as a “sissy”.

Gender issues aside for the moment, if we want boys to read — we writers have to give them something they will actually read. They aren’t going to read books about androgynous main characters. Or books where the main characters are female. They just aren’t. If we want to capture those young male readers, we need to give them boys and men they will respect and we need to give them storylines boys are interested in. It’s as simple as that.

This year I’ve been exploring and reading the fiction of the old pulp magazines. I’ve discovered writers such as H. Bedford-Jones, Talbot Mundy, Erle Stanley Gardner, Max Brand, Seabury Quinn, Alison V. Harding (almost certainly the pen name for Lamont Buchanan), and Hugh B. Cave. I’ve gotten reacquainted with Carl Jacobi, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank Belknap Long, and E. Hoffman Price.

The above writers (save for Harding) all made their living from writing fiction — and writing fiction for men. In fact, Blue Book magazine at one point proudly declared that their stories were “for men, by men”. Pretty doggone clear who their audience was!

So what have I gleaned from my reading of pulp era fiction?

The main character is always a man. He’s strong, smart, and very capable. He is a man of good morals, and is polite and considerate, unless unduly provoked. Then he is liable to deck his antagonist. Or he may deal him a witty barb that figuratively knocks him out. The pulp fiction hero is what every man would probably like to be. There are no angst driven heroes in pulp fiction. There are no heroes who are physically or mentally challenged. We’re thinking Jack Reacher types here.

There’s frequently a love interest. The woman is, surprisingly, given all the stereotypes, a strong personality who can go toe to toe with the hero. She is a woman who is strong and capable. A woman the hero can and does admire — that’s why he falls in love with her.

However, men have a need to be a knight in shining armor; a protector of those who are not as physically strong as they are. And they also have a need to pursue their love interest. If the woman is easy to get, then she really isn’t of interest as a mate. 

So even though the woman with whom the hero is in love can drink, swear, and dispatch a dozen bad guys, she will need to be pursued and at some point she will need rescuing. And rescue her he will. The rescue is the ultimate display of his love for her and also proves to her she wasn’t wrong in her choice of him for her mate.

Pulp fiction is often laced with humor. Men love a good laugh, and pulp fiction provided it. Laughter helped to ease the tensions of a hard day at the office or on the assembly line.

Action. Almost all of the stories are filled with action. Pulp fiction heroes are men of action. They aren’t navel gazers.

Adventure. Pulp fiction stories and novels are mostly tales of adventure — regardless of the genre. Men live for adventure. There’s a bit of the wandering spirit in all of us guys.

What I found in reading pulp fiction surprisingly corroborates the research Kate Summers presented in her article “Adult Reading Habits and Preferences in Relation to Gender Differences”.

Which to my mind means the pulp writers and magazine editors knew their readership and gave them what they wanted. Strong men. Strong women. Humor. And plenty of action and adventure.

The corporate publishing industry is dominated by women. And evidence shows they have little interest in catering to the reading preferences of men. Which is a shame, as they are leaving a huge revenue source untapped.

Which leaves us with the men writers who are independent author-publishers. What does pulp fiction teach us men who are indie authors? I think it means, if we want to tap into an audience that is starving for good stuff to read, that we write Men’s Fiction. 

Fiction with strong, intelligent, and wholesome male leads. Fiction with women who are the equal of the hero, but are also all woman. Not the kickass heroine who is too often a man in drag. Fiction with plenty of action and adventure.

Pulp fiction was commercial fiction. It was written and published to make a buck. It was meant to be disposable, casual reading. It was pure entertainment. Pulp fiction was not meant to be great literature, but then Shakespeare wasn’t intentionally writing great literature either.

We men who are indie authors, could also do a world of good by writing fiction for boys. Because if boys learn to love reading, then we writers have them for life. 

Kate Summers concluded her essay noting that while gender equality is important, when it comes to reading, and especially reading for leisure, it might be better if we just gave men and women what they want to read. I’m sure glad a woman wrote that.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Men! Read Fiction — It’s Good for your Brain!

Men are a marketing demographic. Retailers know this, and market accordingly. Check any website or catalog that carries goods for both men and women. The retailer segregates the two, and makes separate appeals based on what motivates each sex to “Buy! Buy! Buy!”

So why the heck are publishers ignoring men? We noted last week that the publishing industry (and by extension, authors) ignores men in favor of women. Why write off half of the potential marketplace? 

That doesn’t sound like a wise business strategy to me. Perhaps that’s why traditional publishing is constantly re-trenching and brick-and-mortar bookstores are in trouble. I remember when there were scores of publishing companies. All independent. All vying for authors and their books. Today they are all imprints or divisions of 5 mega-corporations. A very sad state of affairs.

So why do publishers and many authors ignore men? It’s because they believe the myth that men don’t read, and especially don’t read fiction. Note the operative phrase: believe the myth.

Popular indie author Mark Dawson has said that the readership of his John Milton thriller series is more or less evenly split between men and women. Perhaps somewhat shading towards men, but not by a large margin.

The books in the series generally rank in the top 5,000 in the overall paid Kindle store and in the top 100 of such sub-categories as Crime Action & Adventure.

Readers buy hundreds of Dawson’s books every day and at least half of them are men. And he is just one writer. 

Men don’t read fiction? Rubbish!

However, I will concede that there are men out there who don’t read fiction (in fact, I know one).

So for those men in your life who don’t read fiction, this post is for them.

I’m going to riff off of an Art of Manliness blog which is very good and I encourage everyone to read it.

Reading fiction is good for people in general, but is especially good for men who lack in some of the skills at which women naturally excel. Yes, guys, the women have us at a disadvantage and we need to play catch up. So let’s have at it!

Reading Fiction Strengthens Your Theory of Mind

At the risk of over simplifying, theory of mind is our ability to perceive what others are thinking, feeling, and perceiving. It’s our ability to get inside another person’s head. It’s our ability to “read” another person.

We see someone smile. Theory of mind is what tells us if, to us, the smile is warm and genuine, or perfunctory, or phony.

The famous poisoned cup scene in The Princess Bride is a hilarious example of theory of mind at work.

On the opposite side of the coin, when a baby puts his hands over his face and thinks because he can’t see me that I can’t see him — that’s a theory of mind fail.

Women are better at theory of mind than men. However, there’s an easy way for men to strengthen their theory of mind muscle — yep, that’s right: read fiction.

Studies have shown that reading fiction strengthens one’s theory of mind. So let’s hear it for reading fiction!

Reading Fiction Makes You More Empathetic

Empathy is when you feel what the other person is feeling. Empathy is having the same emotional reaction as someone else.

If my friend tells me his mother died, I know what he is going through because I’ve had the same experience. And most likely experienced the same emotions he is experiencing.

Women are generally more empathetic than men. So once again, guys, we need to even the score. We need to read fiction on a consistent basis to strengthen those empathy muscles.

Why is empathy important? Humans are creatures of feeling. Sure we think. But feelings are primary. They are lodged in the oldest part of our brains. When we can share feelings with another person, doing so builds a bond between us and them. And that breaks down barriers. Bonding builds relationships and civilizations. Civilizations you say? Yep. Because a civilization is nothing more than a group of people who’ve bonded together.

So, men, if you aren’t reading fiction — hop to it! We have a civilization to build!

Reading Fiction Increases Creativity

Reading fiction is a form of play. A form of make believe.

Reading fiction allows you to experience the world in new ways, or to experience new worlds. Fiction allows you to pretend you’re someone else, and do things you’d not normally do — or maybe never do.

Fiction allows us to re-evaluate beliefs. It challenges our preconceived notions. Makes us defend, or toss, our beliefs.

Nearly half of us are at least in part kinesthetic/tactile learners. That means we learn best by acting and playing and by hands on experience. In other words, we learn best by doing something while getting the information.

Fiction reading, being a form of play, is one of the best ways for kinesthetic/tactile learners to learn new ideas, to learn about life. This is especially true if the reading experience is out loud and shared with one or more people.

Fiction stimulates our creativity. It helps us to be dynamic, creative beings. So, guys, let’s read some books!

The Type of Fiction Doesn’t Matter

The positive effects upon the mind of reading fiction are not tied to a specific genre or “quality” of fiction. In this case, all fiction is equal. Read the classics. Read westerns, or sports stories, or spy thrillers. Read comic books or graphic novels. It doesn’t matter. It’s all good.

What does matter is that you read — and that you read fiction.

So men, if you aren’t reading fiction, pick up a book and dig in. Or get an audio book if you’d rather listen. It’s all good.

Women may be from Venus, but men are from Mars — and Martians read fiction!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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From Reader to Writer

Readers become writers when at some point they say to themselves, “I can do that.”

Or they just know the writing life is for them. An intuitive sort of thing.

With the advent of viable e-books, a new breed has risen up. I call them the gold rush writers. They see writing as a get rich quick scheme. And there are quite a few who are making significant piles of money. But as with most prospectors in the gold rush, most writers aren’t making those piles of money. In fact, it’s the middle man who is: the man who sold shovels to prospectors, and the ones selling covers, and formatting and editorial services to writers.

For myself, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t read. My mother read to me when I was young, and, even though she wasn’t a very good reader herself, she instilled in me a love for reading that has never left me.

Along with never remembering a time I wasn’t reading, I don’t remember a time when I wanted to be anything but a writer.

Unfortunately, my parents were of a practical bent and writing was just too dreamy and artsy-fartsy for their tastes. I got no encouragement from them to write.

However, a person who truly wants to write can’t be held back and I did write some during my school years, got one or two things published in the school lit mags, had a play produced in high school, a poem published in a fanzine, and that was about it.

After school, life and family responsibilities took over and the writing got pushed to the back burner.

The bug, though, had bitten and in 1989 I wrote my first novel, a mystery, Festival of Death. The book took me a year to write, but I wrote it. When finished, I sent it out, got a rejection slip, took another look at it, and decided it needed work, as most first novels do, and put it in the drawer.

I made a few more attempts at fiction. Had one or two pieces accepted in fanzines. And then switched to poetry.

Never in a million years would I have thought of myself as a poet, but it was via poetry that I found my initial writing success.

During the 1990s, and into the new century, I wrote several thousand poems, had hundreds published (mostly in e-zines), and eventually became a “name” in the small world of English language Japanese-forms (we’re talking about haiku, tanka, and renga).

The Internet is fragile and its content ephemeral. What is here today, is gone tomorrow. And most of my published poetry is no longer extant. The myriad of pixels have vanished. The e-zines are gone.

As I approached retirement age the fiction bug bit me again, but this time very hard. Poetry didn’t provide a big enough canvas anymore. I wanted the space a short story or novel provided. I wanted to create interesting characters and saddle them with impossible problems.

And so it was, I gave up poetry and returned to fiction. I had many false starts. Mostly because I thought I had to outline my novel. And I can’t outline worth a darn. When I finally learned there was such an animal as the “plotless” novel, and such a creature as the pantser — I knew I could finally write fiction. After all, I never planned my poems. I was a pantser poet. Why not a pantser novelist?

I never looked back. My first novel as a pantser was a monster of 2000+ pages. A sprawling cozy catastrophe completely un-publishable as originally written — it nevertheless broke the ice.

I’m now revising and publishing The Rocheport Saga as a series. There are currently seven volumes, with more to come.

Next was Festival of Death. I love Tina and Harry and couldn’t let them languish. I hauled the original manuscript out of the drawer, kept the first chapter and the ending, and rewrote everything else. A much, much better novel the second time around, I went ahead and self-published it. And have chronicled many more adventures of Tina and Harry, Tina being Minneapolis’s most unusual private eye.

The life of Lady Grace Hay Drummond-Hay is every feminist’s dream. I don’t understand why no one has written her biography. A fascinating woman who lived in fascinating times: the period between the two world wars. A prominent and well-known journalist in her day, it’s sad to see she is virtually unknown today.

She became the inspiration for my own Lady Dru alternative history novels. Of which I currently have two.

I’ve always loved horror and have several short stories and the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation series published.

And as long as I have breath there will be more ideas coming from my pen, and that makes me want to jump out of bed every morning and get to work.

The e-book revolution has allowed me to realize my dream. I’ve had enough rejection slips in my day to know I don’t like them — and to know they come from the subjective whim of another person, a person who just so happens to have the title “editor”. But a person who puts his or her shoes on the same way I do.

Editors aren’t infallible, nor are they omniscient. They make mistakes and their knowledge of the marketplace is limited. Most are in fact simply buyers for their publishing houses. And as such tend to be very conservative and not willing to take any chances.

Today’s e-book revolution puts the work of writers before readers — and lets us readers make the decision concerning a book’s future.

However, while writing is easy for me, marketing is a nightmare. And no writer hoping to get his or her work read can avoid marketing. Somehow we writers have to get our books before readers. And we readers will never know a book is out there unless someone tells us it is. There are just too many books for us readers to possibly know them all.

I once read that 3000 new books appear each day on Amazon. Amazon, however, only promotes those books on which it can make money. In the end, those are darn few. Most books, therefore, languish in Amazon’s dusty book basement. And many good books, sad to say, are sitting on those dusty shelves.

Why are good books not seen? Mostly because the author isn’t marketing them, or isn’t marketing them effectively.

Some authors believe in the magic wand. They say, “I’m a good writer and my friends like my book. It’ll sell.” Then they’re disappointed when it doesn’t. And it doesn’t sell because too few people even know it’s out there. One book in a sea of millions is the same as one needle in a haystack. There are no magic wands.

Marketing is difficult. It has few established rules, involves a lot of guesswork, and many years of experience. It also takes money. Maybe not a lot. But if a writer doesn’t have the money, then any amount is a lot.

I’m in that category. I don’t have a lot of disposable income. Therefore, I have to think harder and smarter about marketing. I just can’t throw money at the problem in the hopes of finding a solution. And I know there are no magic wands. I am going to have to do something to get people to find my books. And I want them to find my books. I want more readers. I think my books are good reads. Others think so, too. Those that have found them, that is.

IMO, Patty Jansen has laid out the best course for indie authors to follow if they want readers and would like to make a living from telling stories. It’s my plan to get more readers and hopefully make a few bucks while I’m at it. Art for art’s sake is fine. But it’s better if lots of people can appreciate it — and that takes marketing. And while I’m at it, you can find all my books here.

Even though I’ve moved from reader to writer I’m still a reader. Reading is my favorite form of entertainment. The number of books is endless, they’re fairly easy to find, and one can read anywhere and at anytime.

Currently, I’m reading the delightful Flaxman Low occult detective tales and Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin stories.

Let me know what you’re reading. And the more obscure the book, the better! If the book is by an indie author, and I like it, I’ll give the author a little free publicity.

Comments are always welcome, and, until next time, happy reading!

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The Mars-Venus Thing, Part 2

                             Mars vs Venus

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, so it’s said. Mark Gungor’s “Tale of Two Brains” humorously describes this difference.

Last week, I began taking a look at these differences and how they affect fiction writers. I concluded with the idea that men who read fiction are the collateral damage of the contemporary fiction scene.

This week, I want to look deeper into the notion men don’t read fiction. Before I do, I’d like you to read two articles. They are excellent and describe the problem eloquently. The first is by Jason Pinter and the second is by Porter Anderson.

Okay, now that you’ve gotten the background material, let’s look at what those two men have to say about men and fiction and what the ramifications are for indies.

Big corporate publishers believe the maxim “Men Don’t Read”. Consequently they don’t publish for men or market towards men. As Pinter points out, when there aren’t many books on the market for men to read, they’re going to do something else with their time.

While Pinter excoriates Big Publishing concerning men and reading in general, Anderson focuses on fiction. Where the bias is even greater. In fact, Anderson’s statements regarding his own and men’s attitudes in general are supported by Kate Summers in her study. (Here’s a pdf version where the tables are visible.)

As Mark Gungor would say, men have a drawer labelled “fiction”. As writers, I think we need to fill it.

Since men prefer men authors (prefer is the operative word here), it seems only logical men should write for men; at least some of the time. But do they?

Hugh Howey’s protagonist in Wool is female.

Felix Savage’s protagonist in the first three books of his Sol System Renegades series is female, and a lesbian to boot.

Michael Anderle’s protagonist is female.

TS Paul’s protagonists are female.

The list can go on and on. If men readers say they prefer men writers and men main characters (as Summers notes in her article), why aren’t we men indie writers writing for them? That is the question we need to be asking ourselves.

Mark Dawson’s survey of his mailing list (some 60,000 persons at present), revealed that readers of his John Milton series are evenly split amongst men and women. Proving Summers’s survey to be spot on: while men favor men, women are much more eclectic in their reading preferences. As Mark Gungor notes: men are not as flexible as women; it has to do with how our brains work. And we all know men are lousy at multi-tasking.

Today’s cozy mystery field is, like romance, dominated by women. Women writers and women protagonists, with the requisite love story.

However, once upon a time men wrote cozies and with men as the protagonists. A few examples:

  • David Crossman with his Winston Crisp series.
  • William L DeAndrea’s Matt Cobb series.
  • Edmund Crispin and his Gervase Fen mysteries.

And there are others. Today, however, men have abandoned the field to women. Or perhaps the big corporate giants pushed the men out and indies followed suit.

Mark Coker’s Smashwords is heavily biased towards romance. From his own survey, half of his catalog consists of romance novels and 73% of the top 200 bestsellers on Smashwords are romance. It is well-known that Coker is cozy with romance writer organizations. Why? Perhaps he, too, believes men don’t read fiction. And wants to go where he thinks the money is.

It’s my desire to see us indies get out from under the publishing bias of the corporate giants and start catering to both sexes. After all, if half your potential market is men and the other half women, why not write for both? I mean, seriously, who wants just half a pie?

One way to do that is to have a man and woman as a dual protagonist. Men will go for the combo and so will women. Certainly a win-win to my thinking.

For cozy mysteries, the female amateur sleuth can hook up with a guy in the first book. And then in subsequent books, the two solve the crimes together. That would satisfy the romance part and would provide a strong draw for men readers.

The problem this attitude of everything for females in the fiction world causes for young men and boys is that they are turned off to reading. “It’s for girls.” “It’s for sissies.” And the drawer marked “Reading” remains closed. And perhaps never opens.

As Anderson points out in his article, ebooks just might be the best thing that could happen to men. We can read anonymously. Which is really what most of us men want. Yet, indie authors, who primarily publish ebooks, seem to be mainly writing for women. ‘Tis a pity.

Or perhaps indie men authors genuinely think men want to read about kick-ass hot women main characters. There might be some truth to that.

The pulp market of the 20s, 30s, and 40s certainly understood the power of a scantily-clad heroine being rescued by the hero. However, today’s writers seem to forget the hero. Adolescent boys and young men are into wish fulfillment. As Kate Summers notes, almost half of the men surveyed need to identify with the main character. If there is only the heroine, where is the wish fulfillment? If there isn’t any, the guys go elsewhere. Once again, reading is for the female of the species.

Independent authors are independent. We are the ones to buck the corporate giants and their preconceived notions. Unfortunately, the “get rich quick” crowd has flooded the indie field and lost somewhere in the quagmire is the male reader. Because we all know men don’t read fiction. BULL.

I have a friend who says he prefers non-fiction. Then he’ll go on and list novel after novel he’s read and asks if I’ve read it. He prefers non-fiction. Yeah, right.

The male reading public awaits. From grade school readers to us old guys. Give us books men can relate to.

One more example. Of the nine cozy mysteries I’ve recently read, all of the protagonists were women and three of the four writers were women. I enjoyed most of the books. They were light entertainment. Disposable reading.

I recently read a short story with a male protagonist, “01134” by Crispian Thurlborn. The story was profound. It was profound because mano a mano I saw something of myself in the main character and Thurlborn’s powerful writing made the experience alive. The story was “entertainment” in a philosophical, thought-provoking, and emotional manner. Definitely not disposable reading.

Indie writers, please don’t forget us men who love to read fiction. And there are a lot more of us than you think.

Comments are always welcome. Until next time, happy reading!

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