Magnum Thrax has a five star average review rating on Amazon.com!

Okay, it only has one review.

It's a great one though, and warms the cold cockles of my cruel heart. Someone enjoyed the book, and that, somehow makes it all worthwhile. Never mind the vast sums of coffee money it has generated, the ten bucks means nothing to me.

But saying Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom (A SEO name drop, naturally) has one positive review just sounds kind of, oh, I don't know–needy. Far better to say it has the much coveted and highly prestigious five star average rating. Because marketing. Disingenuous hyperbole is what makes it professional sounding. And this is a shameless hype machine of a blog, unburdened by advertising rules and regulations and truth and all that nasty stuff that keeps us from embellishing our accomplishments with thick layers of lies and fabulist exaggerations. And what is a novel, if not the work of a fabulist?

Besides, the five star average may not last long, and like the Dodo may never be seen again (despite all the devout effort of de-extinctionists everywhere), so I better capitalize on the opportunity and shout it from the virtual rooftop of an unread blog in the middle of the great internet wastelands.

Or is it presumptuous of me to assume that my blog is in the middle?

It could be coveted real estate.

Perhaps there are other worthy unread blogs that are competing for pride of place in the middle of nowhere. If so, let me just reassure you that there's enough room in the emptiness for all of us. Let us draw warmth from each other and our outrageous dreams.

I took a screenshot to capture the five star average for all eternity:

They say one should never respond to a review, positive or negative, so I will say nothing but that I am going to raise a glass filled with an alcoholic beverage and drink all of it while thinking of the unmentionable.

I will say no more.

Quest for an Audience Part… uh…

So, where am I with all this self-publishing schtuff? This online flim-flam word jam? What have I learned from writing Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom?

A lot, actually.

Great deal about writing, of course. POV. Editing. Character development. Plotting. Structure. Outlining. Nanotechnology. Fonts. Coffee. The pros and cons of eating various types of junk food while pounding a key board (the winner: wine gums. No fuss, no muss, last awhile, kinda chewy, interesting texture, sweet).

Mostly I've learned what not to do (Doritos. Awfully messy).

I totally think Shakespeare was going in this direction when he died.
MacBeth would be so much better with fembots, lasers,
and explosions, don't you think?
I wonder why don't they let me in English classes?

I know the market is saturated. It's like a single french fry injected with the contents of an entire ketchup bottle. And I'm talking one big damn bottle of ketchup, something you'd buy at Costco and wheel out on a dolly. With over three million books on Kindle alone, you need to be very, very good to stand out.

Things are very different from 2010. Like Netscape 1994 vs. Chrome 2015. Night vs. day. Burning centre of the sun vs. far side of Pluto, yada yada. You get the general idea.

There are lots of free books out there. Thousands and thousands, and hundreds of new ones every day. It's difficult to even give books away unless you have an absolutely captivating cover and bang on blurb. Think concise. High concept. Story outlines that can be conveyed in one single, sweet sentence and still blow people's minds.

To rise above the vast ocean of books, you need to write populist material which gains readers and reviews quickly. Otherwise, your book sinks into oblivion.

And you need to be fast and capitalize quickly on success. Write a 'book' (30,000 to 45,000 words) per month, all part of the same series, and keep pumping them out in order to stay in the spotlight.

How am I going to squish all
these stupid ads into this one page?
Is it even possible?

Otherwise, you sink into Oblivion. On the plus side you get to hang out in Iceland with Tom Cruise.

Writing one book will get you nowhere and no readers.

You need a series.

And of course there are exceptions that prove the generality.

All of which, in hindsight, seems blindingly obvious. Of course you need a series. Of course you need to define your 'property' quickly, simply and memorably. If I'd bothered to do the research, I'd have known all this going in.

I suppose I kind of did, in my typical butt-backward, muddled sort of way.

It's always been tough to make headway as a writer. Most books put out by traditional publishers sell under 500 copies. And publishers carefully pick through the materials they receive, rejecting virtually all of them. They publish only a small handful of what they consider the very best submissions. The cream of the crop. And these select, elite few still lose money most of the time. They require megahits to pay for not just their rents and salaries and promotional costs, but for all the money losing books as well.

It's like that in film and music too.

Seems like a crazy business model if you stop and think about it. Like setting out to make widgets, only 99 per cent don't work and cost money, and I bet the farm on the 1 per cent that do to pay for everything else. It just sounds weird.

Going... into... banner...
overload... UNNNH

I boldly (if I do say so myself) decided to write a book and let the cards fall where they may. Much like most other bright eyed, bushy tailed novices, I imagine. Not exactly a sound business plan.

But I can do you, dear (imaginary) reader, a favor: if you have somehow stumbled across this site in search of answers, and you are an aspiring writer, I can tell you this, in all honesty and humility: get your behind over to kboards, The Passive Voice, or Dean Wesley Smith's site and take a gander at what they have to say. Smith in particular seems to have his head screwed on straight. I think he may actually be a real person too, which is nice to see on The Internets.

Oh yeah: I've now done the free book promo deal. Yessir: moved about 1,400 copies, which is pretty good, all things considered (people don't know me from a stranger standing outside their window late at night). Don't know if that will lead to reviews or not. We'll see. That was the primary objective, but it's not something I have any control over.

Something I can control: wrote a couple short stories set in the Thraxverse to put up in the wake of the freebie promotional blitz. Got one up on Kindle now for 99¢: Future Fossil, a Magnum Thrax Short Story. I think it's fun, wild and whacky and just plain crazy, but YMMV.

And that's about it. I'm pretty happy with my due diligence in regards to my book and efforts to get the word out, even if my advertising banner campaign was utterly inept. I compared myself to Douglas Adams, which just the kind of outrageous and dubious claim real marketers might make. Take that, internet curmudgeons! Sadly, cheeky ad banners don't work.

Now I face a dilemma: do I write more in the Thraxverse, or try something else? Like, say, standing outside windows, or randomly washing motor vehicle windshields at intersections? Perhaps I will try and build a functioning spacecraft out of macaroni (see if anyone gets THAT reference).

Without much in the way of feedback, it's hard to say. I had fun writing the book, imagining a whacky future reality and a creating a slew of off-beat characters.

This is way too wide for my blog, but by God... boundaries cannot contain me! RAAAH--

May be time to zig rather than zag.

My one and only mobile ad.
One day, it will be a valuable collectible item.
I suggest you pull it off onto your drive immediately.

Right?

Booyah, biatches!

Buehler? Buehler?

Future Fossil: A Magnum Thrax Short Story

Published a Magnum Thrax (you know, this wild and crazy book) Prequel Short Story: Future Fossil.

Return to a screwed up future filled with mad mutants, religious raptors ushering in the rapture, and scantily clad fembots totting big guns. Because tropes are great fun.

The opening:

The leopard spotted tank raced across the searing hot salt flats, pulling a train of wagons loaded with oak barrels. A large, Vegas-style sign spun atop the turret, emblazoned with ‘Pleasurepit Five’ in neon pink. 

The vehicle slowed as it approached a rock formation that jutted out of the salt ocean. It paused, engine revving. 

The ruin of a big purple transport rig lay forlorn in the sand to the right. The windshield had been shattered and the glittering purple paint was streaked by ragged claw marks. 

Far above, in the crystal blue sky, drifted advertising clouds shilling products that hadn’t been made for a thousand years.

The tank's cupola swiveled towards a cleft in the rock to the left, wide enough for a vehicle. There were signs on either side of the entrance, promising water and goods for gold, and death for those who couldn’t pay.

The engine roared. Greasy smoke belched from rusted exhaust pipes. The tank charged up into the narrow passage, clipping the sides of the granite canyon. Sparks and stone chips sprayed out form each impact as the tank raced recklessly forward. 

Several harrowing hairpin turns later, the metal beast pulled out of the canyon’s cool shadows into a gloriously sunlit sand cove. The walls were lined with stacked, makeshift residences constructed out of salvaged materials looted from ancient buildings. Along the north face, cog wheels mounted on steel supports suspended a rickety freight elevator over a thirty-foot wide hole in the ground. Above it was a wooden sign that proclaimed, "Welcome to Utan Oasis."

The top turret hatch popped open, and an impossibly good looking man stuck his head out. Full head of glorious hair, sharp cheek bones and square jaw. Genetically enhanced. He wore wrap around sunglasses and a Seventies-style white disco suit that never, ever got dirty. 

His name was Magnum Thrax. He was eighteen.

“Kal!” he called. “Kal! Where are ya, buddy? It’s Thrax!”

Silence.

“KAL!!!"

Thrax swore. It’d been a week since he’d last had radio contact with his friend. He bit his lip and scanned the compound.

No one in sight.

Dust blew. 

An unsecured door clattered in the wind.

Thrax tapped on the tank surface with the butt of his rifle, and hauled himself out. “C’mon, ladies. Time to play hide and seek.”

Other hatches clanged open and five impossibly beautiful women, wearing skimpy outfits of latex, fishnets, and camouflage, clambered out. They hefted incongruously large energy weapons that hummed with gigawatt-voltage menace. 

“No sign of your friend?” asked one of the ladies. She wore a white armband with a red cross on it. Thrax struggled to remember her name. Candy. Team medic.

“Nada. Gotta find him,” proclaimed Thrax, roughly running a hand through his hair. "I gotta!" 

Check out the whole thing over on Amazon. Give it a read, recommend it with wild abandon, and click endlessly on the like button. If, that is, you feel so inclined. I know I do.

How much do writers make?

Short answer: not a lot.

Take a gander at the graph above.

According to The Guardian, author income has collapsed to 'abject levels': a British survey of 2,500 working writers in 2013 found the median income was a mere £11,000, down 29% since 2005. When all writers were included, the average income was £4,000 in 2013, down from £8,810 in 2000.

The minimum standard of living income in Britain is £16,850.

For many, writing is either a hobby or a secondary job (at least, in terms of income. Soul fulfillment wise, might be the other way around). Only 11 percent of authors earn their entire income from writing, which is also down from 40 percent in 2005. This coincides with the collapse of revenue for newspapers and magazines and the rise of independent publishing. Classified sections used to pull in up to half of newspaper revenue, and now they’re on Craigslist—for free. And with millions of self-published books available, a tough market is getting tougher.

I was talking to a former journalist a couple years ago, after the 2008 recession hit, and she claimed newspapers have been using interns to write material that would once have been done by paid journalists. Sadly, these young people are jumping from one internship to another, without any prospect of getting rewarded with a paid job down the line. It’s like a form of volunteer slavery, accessible only to those who have alternate forms of income to fall back upon, or rely upon family support.

The whole system is in upheaval as revenue streams dissipate.

The music industry isn't any better off:

After 20 years in the music business, (Diana Williamson) says she’s seeing songwriters “leaving in droves. If you can’t make a living, if you can’t afford go to the dentist, you’re going to leave.” This is a lament you’ll hear from artists everywhere these days: We can’t afford to do this any more. The well has dried up. Freelance rates are what they were when the first Trudeau was in power. Rents rose, and royalties fell. Novelists are becoming real-estate agents; musicians open coffee shops.

This sense of doom and gloom has spawned websites such as Newspaper Death Watch. On the plus side, papers have been pushed out of their complacency and are now trying hard to innovate, monetize, and remain relevant. Marc Andreessen, for example, is bullish on the future of the news industry and sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

Let's hope he's right. People are going to want news in some form or another. Yet things are likely to be in a state of flux for the foreseeable future, as technological change accelerates and leads to further shifts in the way books are delivered and 'consumed'.

And then there is Will Self, who wrote a cheeky article for The Guardian called The novel is dead (this time it’s for real):

'How do you think it feels to have dedicated your entire adult life to an art form only to see the bloody thing dying before your eyes?… I do not mean narrative prose fiction tout court is dying – the kidult boywizardsroman and the soft sadomasochistic porn fantasy are clearly in rude good health.'

What a relief. I was worried for my soft sadomasochistic porn fantasy's prospects.

One thing I found surprising was that most of the authors on top of the NYT bestsellers list aren’t making a living at it. Novelist Lynn Viehl, writer of the bestselling Twilight Fall:

'My income per book always reminds me of how tough it is to make at living at this gig especially for writers who only produce one book per year. If I did the same and my one book performed as well as TF, and my family of four were solely dependent on my income my net would be only around $2500.00 over the income level considered to be the US poverty threshold (based on 2008 figures). Yep, we'd almost qualify for foodstamps.'

Which makes the mad production rate of indie writers understandable: some produce a book a month, albeit short ones of roughly 35,000 words, and report income of tens of thousands per month, far higher than most in traditional publishing. Which is awesome. It can be done.

James Smythe, a sci-fi author who’s won awards and been given glowing reviews, has not yet had any of his five books for HarperCollins earn out. That means none of them have earned back the advance he was paid to write them. They lost the publisher money, as most books do, because publishers are often overly optimistic about how much a book will earn. He teaches at a university to make ends meet:

"Being a writer can't be treated like it's a job. It maybe was once, but no writer can treat it as such nowadays. There's no ground beneath your feet in terms of income, and you can't rely on money to come when you need it.”

The industry survives on breakout hits, which subsidize the much larger number of failures. For publishers, its a matter of throwing enough stuff at a wall, waiting to see what sticks, then lavishing all their attention upon it. Which leads them to 'prey' upon self-published authors in the same way large corporations 'prey' on small, innovative startups. Innovation is costly, risky, and difficult for large, calcified corporations to do effectively. So they sit back and watch while daring, nimble startups take the risks. When one is finally successful, they sweep in, buy them out, and save themselves headaches, development costs, and risk.

Little wonder publishers keep a sharp eye on what sells in the indie market.

I went to a talk by Hugh Howey last year, the author of the best-selling WOOL series, and he said that when publishers first came after him, they only offered him $50,000 for publishing rights. He said no, but they kept coming back with higher offers. He continued to decline. Eventually the number reached into the millions, along with very favourable terms. Finally he said yes. But if he’d not held out, if he’d had any doubts about his work, he’d have gotten poor terms.

Everyone is out for the best deal they can get, after all, on both sides.

Bottom line? It's a tough business that requires perseverance, dedication, and hard work. Those who rise to the top are the ones writing a thousand words or more every day.

Me? I've got no plans to quit my day job.

But I hope you can.