bestselling authors

Caleb Pirtle III — Writer Extraordinaire

Caleb Pirtle III is one of the most successful writers who is not a household name.

Award Winner

Yet, he came out of the gate with a William Randolph Hearst award in his pocket for excellent collegiate journalistic writing. The first University of Texas-Austin journalism student to win the award.

And he hasn’t looked back. In the six decades since receiving that award, Caleb has been a reporter for numerous newspapers, travel editor for Southern Living, and editorial director for a Dallas-based custom publisher.

He’s won national awards and regional awards for his writing.

To date, he’s written somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 books, and several screenplays for television. And that doesn’t include the innumerable newspaper stories and magazine pieces he’s written. Caleb is one prolific writer.

All in all, he has had, and continues to have a successful writing career. And which one of us wouldn’t love to swap places with him?

Supports Writers

I met Caleb at that social media party known as Twitter, and soon to be called X, back in 2019. He gave me an award.

He named me as “One of the Top 25 Mystery Writers You Need to be Reading”. (Here is the link to the article: https://www.calebandlindapirtle.com/c-w-hawes-one-top-25-mystery-writers-need-reading/)

Needless to say, I was tickled pink to have achieved notice by an experienced, accomplished, and award winning writer. And thus began an acquaintance, which has since turned into friendship.

A Teacher

Caleb freely shares his knowledge and expertise. In addition, each of his books is a masterclass on how to use language to achieve the most visual results.

As an example, from his newest book Death in the Absence of Rain, he’s describing a drought:

…the sun just hangs high in the sky the color of dry bones in the field, cracking the ground around us, burning the land that rain hasn’t touched. There’s not enough green grass left to slip between the ribs of a mosquito.

There’s not enough green grass left to slip between the ribs of a mosquito. That, my friends, is poetry masquerading as prose. It is the quintessential Pirtle-ism.

His Fiction

While most of Caleb’s writing has been non-fiction, he has written some spectacular novels and novellas.

My introduction to Caleb’s writing was Lonely Night to Die. Three thriller novellas that, together, read like a novel.

Roland Sand, the Quiet Assassin, has gone rogue from a rogue agency within the CIA. Now he’s wanted by everyone.

The book was so good, I immediately became a Caleb Pirtle fan and have been buying up everything he’s written.

I think Caleb’s finest achievement may be The Boom Town Saga and his two contributions to the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles. Those five books contain the most fascinating characters and storylines you’ll find anywhere.

But anything by Caleb is good. Checkout his Amazon author page.

Supports the Writing Community

Caleb Pirtle is an amazing writer and a wonderful person. He has given much to the writing community over the years.

His may not be a household name. But the households of many writers know him.

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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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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Good Books You Never Heard Of

Sometime late last year I started reading three series by authors who advertised themselves as being New York Times, USA Today, and/or Amazon bestsellers.

I was so disappointed with the first book of the one series, I stopped reading a third of the way into the novel. It was just flat-out boring. The main character was an uninteresting unidimensional cardboard stereotypical kickass heroine. With Daddy Issues to boot. Even the promise of her becoming a vampire (and I love vampires) could not rescue my waning interest.

The second series I attempted was a sci-fi action series. I did manage to finish the initial novel. But it was a struggle. The main character was an angry cripple. Unfortunately he was also as flat and uninteresting as a pancake forgotten in the fridge. The villain was as unidimensional as Dr Smith in the original Lost in Space. And just as pathetic. The attempt to introduce a romance subplot was awkward and frigid. I didn’t go on to book two.

I got hooked on the third series from the blurb, but the first quarter of the initial book was just plain bad. The author clearly needed a ghost writer. The writing was wooden. The action unbelievable. The plotting, obviously cribbed from some “expert’s” plot point chart, was mechanical. If the book had been a paper novel, I’d have dumped it at the used bookstore and gotten some of my money back. Being an ebook, I’m just out the cash. One argument against ebooks.

I decided then and there I was not going to line the pockets of anymore “bestselling” authors. My money is too dear. I live on a retirement income after all.

As I’ve discussed before, a bestselling novel isn’t necessarily an actual bestseller. There are just too many ways to scam the system, or the system itself is rigged. A bestseller may in fact be a bestseller. Then again, the author or publisher or the raters could have manipulated things so the book simply looks like a bestseller.

I’m an avid reader. And it’s very true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or the reader in this case. What I like, you may not; and vice versa.

I don’t like Romance novels. Others eat them for breakfast. I don’t particularly like YA. Others read nothing but.

I’m not a fan of magic. Others love magic, even if the system is flawed. They don’t care.

In my opinion, the kickass heroine has been done to death. But there are those who love every kickass heroine who comes along.

That’s the beauty of art in any form — there’s an audience, whether large or small, for every artist.

Over the next few weeks, I want to shine a spotlight on some books, characters, and authors that are virtually unknown to the larger reading universe. Books, characters, and authors that I think deserve a much larger audience because they are very much worth reading.

Since attempting to read those three “bestselling authors”, I’ve launched a crusade to discover the hidden gems that are out there. Books and writers I thoroughly enjoy. Books and writers that deserve a much, much larger audience.

If you know of any that fit the bill, good books that aren’t selling, do let me know.

Next week, if all goes well, we’ll begin.

As many of you know, I’m in the middle of a major relocation. Moving from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I’ve lived for the majority of my nearly 66 years, to Houston, Texas.

Moving is chaos. Moving companies don’t operate on firm schedules. They have windows. So while they’ll pick up our stuff on Friday, the 24th, they may deliver it as late as the 7th of September.

Consequently, I won’t have ready internet service. So we’ll see what happens, knowing that at some point things will get back to a new normal.

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

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