The Business of Pre-Orders

I see it all the time on social media and in writer forums — independent publishers who put up a book for pre-order before the first draft is finished, and I cannot understand why.  Missing a pre-order deadline is a good way to get retailers annoyed and revoke pre-order privileges.  Yet miss the deadlines they do. 

Life interferes, and the next thing you realize, in a panic, that the dreaded upload date is here, and the editor is still working on that magnum opus.  Or three-quarters of the way through the first draft, you realize the story isn’t working.  Or better yet, you upload a placeholder manuscript with the retailer and then miss the deadline.  The nasty buggers lock your account and in three days, hundreds of fans will find a rough draft of the book on their eReaders instead of the finished product.  Might as well change pen names and genres after that sort of blunder.  Once you recover from the heart attack.

Yeah.  There are so many ways to screw yourself with pre-orders.  I didn’t even try until last fall, so there are only two releases with pre-orders to my name, but both went smoothly, and I have hundreds of satisfied fans.  However, not messing things up takes a certain amount of discipline. 

Sure, we see pre-orders for traditionally published books on retailer sites five or six months before they go live.  Perhaps even longer.  I have news for you.  When the traditional publishers put up a pre-order, that book is already in their hands.  The author has long since done his or her thing because the time between shot to bang, as we say in the army, can be up to twenty-four months in the traditional publishing world.

Yes, we independents aren’t tied to a traditional release schedule drafted up two years in advance.  Our shot to bang from the first word on the page to a finished product is a matter of, well, whatever the author can manage.  In my case, it’s four months on average, a fraction of the traditional world’s timeline.  But that doesn’t absolve us of proper planning.  We independents need to adopt a similar but shorter-fused regime when dealing with pre-orders.  Herewith is the Curmudgeon’s prescription for a sane independent publisher.

First, don’t put up a pre-order until the book is in your editor’s hands and you’re sure he or she won’t recommend a major rewrite.  Second, figure out when it’s coming back from your editor and approximately how long it’ll take for the final revision and proofing.  Then double that time.  If, for example, you expect to have a finished product in three weeks, set the pre-order release date to six weeks out.  When you have a finished product, you can always move the release date up.  Somewhat.  Better to move it up than delay.  Just note that the largest retailer, Amazon, won’t allow you to move it any closer than three days out.  This means if you’re ready on March 15th, the actual release date won’t be before March 19th (the day you’re ready plus three.)  Use the Amazon timeline as your lodestar if you sell there and elsewhere, for obvious reasons.  And if those reasons aren’t obvious, do go back to basics and study the ebook market.

What about uploading a dummy file ahead of time?  Never.  Don’t do it.  Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play allow you to put up a pre-order without a book file.  I just upload the cover, description, and metadata.  The only book file that ever gets uploaded is the final one — no chances of making a mistake.  The number of panicked writers on the internet who suddenly realize a placeholder file is going out instead of the final because they can’t read a calendar to save their lives is pathetically high.

What about retailers who won’t let you post a pre-order without a book file or force you to upload the final file more than three days before the release date?  Simple.  No pre-order through those retailers.  I inform my fans via my blog and social media that it’s not universally available.

Finally, using pre-orders as a marketing tool is a good thing.  Using pre-orders as an accountability tool that forces you to work toward a given publication date is a bad thing.  Life gets in the way, motivation goes down (resulting in crappy work), and burnout is a real issue.  Why increase your risk for no tangible gain.

Are pre-orders a useful thing?  Yes, but mostly if you already have an established fan base and you don’t run it for too long.  My two stabs at pre-orders — three weeks each — were successful, though not stellar, yet both books saw solid sales for an independent publisher.  Will I keep doing them?  Probably. But always in a disciplined manner.

The Business of Piracy

Another Monday, another alarm about a pirate website with our book covers and descriptions making the rounds on author forums and social media.  Face it, in this day and age, pirates will always be with us.  There’s simply no way to stomp them out short of disconnecting the internet, and then where will we independents be?  Seeing the outrage and the rush to file DMCA take down notices can be an interesting spectator sport if, like me, you’ve decided playing whack-a-mole with nasty people wasn’t a good use of your time.  Because it truly isn’t.  You may have noted that most experienced authors don’t climb on the alarm express when new pirate sites crop up because they know the truths I’m about to impart.

The internet is about 90% porn, 8% scams, and 2% honest commerce.  It means — leaving porn aside — that the scammers outnumber us by a wide margin.  We can’t win.  Governments can’t win.  Internet service providers (ISPs) can take a hundred per day offline and a hundred-and-fifty new scam operations will pop up the next day.  There are whole industries devoted to scamming in certain countries which shall remain nameless, meaning we can’t even expect ISPs and governments there to help.  Depressing, right?  Only if you allow it to be so.

Now, undoubtedly, a few sites have your precious books and are either giving them away or selling them.  But most — perhaps 99% — of these pirates don’t.  They scrape legitimate retailer websites for covers and descriptions (I can often identify which retailer they scraped based on the keywords and categories).  Why?  To attract idiots looking for cheap or free books, idiots willing to give out their credit card information so they can access the sites.  Why bother selling ebooks when it’s way more profitable to harvest credit card information.  By the time those tightwad morons figure out they’ve been had, their cards will be maxed out, and the money never recovered.  Oh, their banks will probably cover the losses, but the scammers have what they need.  That’s if they don’t sell the credit card information on the dark web, in which case it could be weeks or months before the morons find out.

What if it’s not credit card information they want?  Data is a commodity nowadays.  Sending a pirate site a DMCA take down notice gives them legitimate information they didn’t have.  There’s money in selling that sort of data on the dark web.  If the DMCA notice asks for a physical address, a name and an email address, as most do, then you may be courting trouble.  That bit of information can allow truly evil bastards to work on identity theft since you’ve now linked your work with more data.

And hey, in what universe would anyone expect a pirate — someone engaging in criminal activity — to honor a DMCA take down in the first place?  Sure, they might remove your books, but they’ll reappear.  Or perhaps be masked from your IP address so you can’t see them.  Trusting a pirate to follow international copyright law is asinine.  Besides, considering how many countries don’t care about enforcing copyright law unless an entity the size of Disney or Paramount complains, that DMCA notice isn’t worth the electrons wasted on creating it.  No one cares about independent publishers.

Here’s another truth.  The few pirate sites which really have your books don’t cost you sales.  The people who patronize them wouldn’t buy your stuff from a legitimate retailer in any case.  Some forums specialize in passing around pirated copies of your books.  Those who use them will never spend a cent on your magnum opus.  So there’s no point in crying over something that wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Bottom line, unless a legitimate site has copies of your books when it shouldn’t, as happened once to me when a user uploaded one of my novels to Scribd, don’t waste your time or emotional energy on pirates.  Scammers will scam.  By the way, Scribd took that down lickety-split.  Since then, I’ve listed my entire catalog on Scribd and we get along just fine, though the revenue stream is only in the double digits on my better months.

How can you tell if it’s a legitimate site?  Well, that can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re not wise in the ways of the internet’s darker side.  Best to ignore and walk away should the name not immediately ring a bell.  And even if it rings a bell, make sure you enter it via a URL you type in yourself, not via a link you found elsewhere.

But if you can’t identify the site, here are a few hints.  Run a search on the site name, but without the prefix (www.) or suffix (.com), and see what comes up.  Chances are a search on a scam site name will bring up a lot of unsavory hits, such as sites selling pills for various ailments, especially ED, or sites in foreign languages and scripts, or even porn sites.  When those results crop up in a search, you can be almost 100% sure it’s a scam designed to harvest credit card numbers or personal information.

I know our first impulse is always to protect our intellectual property.  But rushing into the web’s nastier corners whenever a pirate site crops up and the alarms sound on author forums and social media is just plain dumb.  Take the time to see what sort of site it is.  If you get the slightest feeling that it might be a scam, walk away.  Don’t even think about filling in a DMCA notice.  And remember, 99% of readers are honest.  They won’t visit pirate sites.  The 1% that frequents them deserve everything they catch.  Don’t join those losers by giving sites your personal information in the hopes they’ll remove the web page with your book’s information on it.  And by the grace of God, never try to download a book from a pirate site to see if it’s a readable copy of your magnum opus.  Not even if it’s free.  That’s the best way of ruining your computer and giving scammers access to everything on it.  The internet is rife with viruses, trojans and other malware, and they spread via unsafe downloads.

When the inevitable pirate site alarm rings on your favorite author forum or social media, step away from the keyboard.  Make yourself a cup of tea. And if you have time to waste, do a little snooping, but wear your virtual hazmat suit.

The Business of Reviews

Is there anything more controversial than reviews in the world of publishing?  I mean beyond the recent phenomenon of cancel culture.  See all those five-star ratings — they have to be fake.  And all those one-star ratings — the book must be total garbage.  Or never mind the ratings — this looks excellent/crappy/intriguing.  Oh, hey, a few of those scathing reviews look like jealous authors trying to pollute a successful book.  What a mess!

Just as price signals quality, so do product ratings and reviews, whether we like it or not.  Yet those ratings and reviews are about the most subjective things an author and publisher faces.  One reader will love, love, love, while another reader hates, and often it has nothing to do with the quality of the book.  Perhaps the story somehow invalidated the reader’s cherished world views or mocked deeply held convictions. I’ve had a book one-starred by a reader who objected to female military characters.  Then there’s the dreaded one-star that has nothing to do with the book at all, but with the retailer having somehow failed the reader’s expectations.  Sometimes, a publisher can’t win for trying.

But reviews and ratings are social validation on retailer and reader platforms, and there’s no getting around that fact.  And my, do some authors ever engage in drama over reviews.  You’d think they were operatic prima donnas!  For this discussion, I will assume well written, well-edited and properly formatted books, or as I call them, viable products.  Badly written, badly edited, or badly formatted books deserve every bit of opprobrium they receive.  So here’s my take on reviews.

Reviews are opinions, which inevitably brings up the famous Dirty Harry Callahan quip about opinions (mentioned in my very first rant) being like a certain part of the human anatomy.  Opinions are subjective, even if the reviewer has a Ph.D. in literature.  Writing is an art not a science.  If reviewers call your work crap, is it?  In their minds, sure.  Otherwise, probably not.  Of course, the same can go for a reviewer who gushes five stars with every sentence.

Reviews are for other readers, not authors.  If authors wish to have books critiqued, they can easily find groups whose sole purpose is helping each other improve.  And that means authors and publishers should avoid reading reviews on their books because nothing good ever comes of obsessing about a one-star.  Yes, it’s hard to do.  I regularly fail, though I’ve become somewhat inured to criticism since I know my work is good — otherwise, I wouldn’t be one of the most successful Canadian science fiction authors no one’s ever heard of.

The review system on Amazon, the biggest retailer of all, is broken.  There’s no doubt about it.  It’s worse in areas other than books, but books aren’t immune.  Authors and publishers are gaming reviews.  Even Amazon games reviews of its imprints.  Guess what?  Readers are smart.  They can tell when a book’s reviews smell gamey.  A book that’s been out for only a day and already has a hundred five-star reviews is no longer trusted by the average readers.  Savvy readers might not even consider a book unless it has a more balanced distribution of reviews — unless they’re already fans of the author or someone they trust recommended the author.

What’s a publisher to do, or not do?  I already mentioned not reading reviews of your books.  But if you read them, do not, under any circumstances, engage with the reviewer.  Just don’t.  Go back to my point about reviews being for readers.  Engaging with reviewers on your book’s Amazon page is a tad creepy.

Don’t obsess about getting reviews.  If your book is a viable product, and it sells, reviews and ratings will eventually come.  It might take a few weeks and a lot of sales, but they’ll come.  You need to sell a lot of books for every review, hundreds, or even thousands.  Readers aren’t inclined to leave reviews unless they feel strongly about your book.  Ratings without an actual review, yes, you’ll see more of those and as of early 2020, Amazon seems to be catching up with the other retailers by allowing a star rating and no text.  I’m aware some marketing services won’t take books without a minimum of reviews, but this is something you can’t rush.

What about paid reviews?  I see it all the time on various author forums — newbies so desperate about reviews to the point where they’ll hire sketchy review services and pay big bucks for that desperately sought after five-star social validation.  Not only is it against Amazon terms of service to pay for reviews, but most of these review services won’t even read your book and write a vague, boilerplate paragraph signifying nothing.  Is it worth losing your Amazon account for a lousy five-star review most savvy readers will recognize as bunkum?  No.  Never, ever pay for a review.

And those nasty drive-by smears left by nasty little people, a few of whom are unsuccessful authors?  You can always ask Amazon to take them down, but even when they’re against the terms of service, Amazon won’t do a thing.  Refer to my earlier advice.  Ignore them.  Any book that attracts attention by spending weeks in a category’s top 100 will attract drive-by smears.  I’ve had my share.  Yes, it’s infuriating, but the internet is filled with infuriating individuals whose sad lives make them want to harm others.  And by all that’s holy, do not engage with that sort of person, especially on websites devoted to readers, where carpet-bombing an author’s entire catalog with one-star reviews occurs more often than you would think.  In fact, the best way to be victimized by what an author for whom I have a lot of respect calls Common Internet S*** Gibbons (CISG) is responding to their malice.  Ignore them and walk away, no matter what.  CISGs eventually tire of being ignored and look for other potential victims on whom they can spew their venom.

Bottom line, reviews are not for authors or publishers, but for readers, by readers.  Let them show up organically.  Don’t force the process.  If you’re the sort who sends out advance review copies to a list of trusted readers, more power to you.  I’ve never done so and never felt the need to do so.  But make sure you don’t violate Amazon’s terms of service.  And if your book never gets reviews, then perhaps it doesn’t evoke strong feelings in your readership.  Folks forget books that are blah moments after reading the last page.  If it doesn’t get reviews because you’re only selling a handful of copies a month, you have a bigger challenge than merely zero reviews.

For the record, all reviews on my books are organic.  I never went looking for them, nor do I send out advance copies.  I also never engage with readers other than on my blogs and on social media, where it’s appropriate, and never ask for or discuss reviews (see my earlier rant on branding) with one exception. All my books have a polite request at the end which states:

“If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review with your favorite online retailer to help others discover it.”

The Business of Branding

We authors like to think of ourselves as tortured souls driven to pour out our deepest emotions on the blank page, preferably while wearing a stylish scarf and sitting at a corner table in a quaint little café.  We want to bleed ink and make the world love us. But the truth isn’t quite as dramatic or clichéd.  We create a product that we hope to sell.   If we’re traditionally published, then the publisher is responsible for the selling part once they buy the rights to our product.  Or at least, we hope they take on responsibility for selling beyond merely producing the book and placing it with retailers.  It doesn’t seem to happen all that much if you’re not a big-name author or the next hot literary genius.

But if we’re independent publishers, we’re responsible for the book’s entire life cycle, from writing the first word of the first chapter to keeping it alive as it fades away on our back list.  It means we have to act like the traditional publishing houses in all aspects, albeit on a microscopically small scale.  And that includes branding, which is often defined as [t]he process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

And what are our respective brands, whether traditionally published or independents, you ask?  The answer is simple:  our names.  People don’t buy books because they’re published by Hachette, or McMillan or Penguin Random House (they missed a good opportunity by not calling themselves Random Penguin House after the merger, but I digress.)  They buy books based on the author’s name. 

Yes, I incorporated my publishing business as Sanddiver Books Inc., and that name with its associated logo is on the copyright page of every book I’ve published and on the spine of every print edition.  But while it identifies my corporation and its brand, that’s not my brand as an author.  My brand is Eric Thomson.  It’s the name associated with my work in the minds of readers.  People don’t buy books published by Sanddiver Books Inc.; they buy books written by Eric Thomson. It makes that name my publishing business’ most valuable asset, just as your name is your publishing business’ most valuable asset.  We authors must safeguard our names at all costs and that means we must avoid anything which might reduce its value in the eyes of our customers.

The opportunities to ruin one’s good name in the internet age are endless.   The most obvious is by publishing a badly written or edited novel.  Traditionally published authors have the advantage of quality control measures built into the traditional process.  We independents need to replicate that process to a certain extent, which means investing in editing software, hiring an editor, using a proofreader, having others read and critique it, etc. 

You know what I mean, right?  If your first published novel has a grammar mistake or typo every second paragraph, has Hollywood movie-sized holes in the plot, or isn’t well written to begin with, your brand isn’t off to a good start.  None of us are as competent as we think we are, so spend time and money on the right tools.  A crappy first book isn’t the end of the world, but it makes perfecting subsequent books that much more important.

Another good way to damage your brand is by behaving badly, whether in person or online or by opining on controversial subjects.  If you’ve read my author bio on my website, you’ll be aware I’m a retired army officer, and we have a sacred rule for discussions in the officers’ mess.  Avoid any subject touching on religion, politics or sex.  That rule has been around for a long time, since well before we invented computers, and there’s a reason for it: avoiding unpleasantness.  It’s a rule author should adopt. 

None of us are successful or famous enough to weather controversy unscathed in this era of cancel culture.  Even Stephen King was recently mobbed online after making a statement that triggered the perpetually offended.  Will it hurt his brand?  Doubtful, but if you’re reading this, then you, like me, are unlikely to become a household name. It means we can’t afford to associate our brand with controversy, no matter how we feel about freedom of expression or the value of our opinions.

I realize some authors thrive on being controversial.  They also have the sort of thick hide most of us will never develop and an established fan base that feeds off their pronouncements.  I admire them, but I’m also painfully aware of my limitations, both as a person and as an author, so I avoid doing or saying things that might affect how readers see my brand.  I daresay most authors share my limitations, not least because we tend to be introverts.  If that’s not you, then please ignore my advice because it doesn’t apply.  And more power to you, by the way.

The characters in my books speak for me when it comes to how I see the world.  However, Eric Thomson, their creator, doesn’t engage in political or social debates on the internet.  I might do so in real life, as myself not as Eric Thomson the author, but then only with people I trust.  Yes, the temptation to argue with an ignorant twit on social media can be overwhelming at times, but you must resist it at all costs, even if you’re in the right and they’re not only wrong but offensively so.  Live vicariously by following controversial, rhino-skinned authors on social media.  You’ll see cruelty artists at work tearing ignorant twits to shreds.  It’s magnificent. I follow several and they never cease to entertain me.  Their books are pretty good too, as you would expect from such larger-than-life personalities.

The same applies if someone attacks you or your work.  Walk away.  Don’t argue with a reader who trashed your book, don’t apologize if a reader is offended by something you wrote.  Don’t engage, period.  Interact only with positive people.  Ignore the negative ones.  Always act like a professional publisher, because your good name depends on it.  The easiest way to get carpet-bombed by one-star reviews on Goodreads or retail sites is openly feuding with readers or other authors.  And if you’re hit by one-star reviews you know are malicious or even attempts by rival authors to harm your business, ignore them.  Readers are smart.  They can tell the difference between a hit job and a genuine review.

Bottom line, your name is your brand.  Don’t damage it.  If you figure controversy will help strengthen that brand, then have at it.  You’re a braver author than I.  The safest course for your publishing business is to deliver a consistently well-written and well-edited product, one which will make readers devour your backlist and look for the next book. Equally important is to behave like a professional in all of your interactions under your brand name.  After all, employers wouldn’t allow you to behave like a jackass on company time or in a way that besmirches the company brand.  Why would it be any different for us independent publishers?

The Business of Free

There are, broadly speaking, two sorts of independent authors.  Some are happy to publish a few books and satisfy a nagging artistic itch — money be damned.  Art for art’s sake, if you will.  If you’re in this category, my rant isn’t for you.  Carry on doing whatever you want.  The second type, while still very much enamored by the art of writing, also seeks income from publishing books.  It could be either as a supplement to regular employment income or, more often, as a way of becoming a full-time author, unconstrained by dull, soul-sapping jobs.  If that sounds familiar, then this rant is for you.

One of the more notable phenomena unleashed by the flood tide of self-published books is the whole idea of free.  Giving away your work for nothing in the hopes of what precisely?  Ebook retailers — Amazon in particular — are awash in free offerings, and I daresay many of those books aren’t even worth what a reader pays for them, i.e., nothing.  That’s both the beauty and the tragedy of this new era.  Anyone can publish, regardless of talent or ability.  But I’m not here to critique the ever-growing ebook slush pile.  This blog is aimed at authors trying to make money from their art, and that means understanding the role of free books in an increasingly messy ecosystem.

First, a few basic principles.  One, price signals quality.  It may not make sense at times, but such is human nature.  People will naturally attribute a greater quality to a potato peeler bought for $10 from “Kitchens R Us” than one bought for a buck from the Dollar Store.  It might be the same crappy peeler made in the same Chinese factory, but never mind. 

Second, when people pay real money for something, they will have a greater tendency to use the product, read the book, etc.  This leads to the not so startling conclusion that free ebooks downloaded from retailers have a much lower chance of ever being read than ebooks for which someone paid real money. 

Third, confirmation bias is alive and well in the realm of book purchases.  To wit, free books will often be hit with more bad reviews than paid books.  Human nature is such that most people will not want to signal how bad they found a full-price book lest it reflects badly upon their own choices.  Therefore, they rationalize.  Free books, on the other hand, are fair game for the most vicious one-star reviews because the reader has invested nothing other than his or her time, something he or she considers valuable when measured against an uninspiring novel.  This means they can signal their virtue as discerning individuals without admitting they made the mistake of paying money for garbage. 

Fourth, well, this one is pretty obvious, giving away books will not earn you any money, and will not affect your book’s rankings on bestseller lists.  And no, achieving a #1 ranking on the Amazon free books list does not mean your book is a bestseller.  There is no sale involved, which means said ranking is virtually useless other than stroking a writer’s ego by making him or her a “bestgiver.”  Remember, publishing is a business endeavor and businesses exist to generate income, otherwise they have no purpose.

At this point, you might ask where does that leave the whole concept of free?  As with so many facets of business, there is a time and a place for everything.  Even giving away a high-quality book you slaved over for months on end.  Of course, there is never a time or place to give away low-quality books.  Low-quality books should never see the light of day because they inevitably tarnish your brand, whether or not you offer them for free, but the subject of branding will be for another rant.  Nor will I discuss giving away books as advance reader copies, because that’s a different concept.

Publishers offering free (or radically discounted) samples is a tried-and-true marketing technique that has been proven over and over.  Attract the consumer with a taste, and if he or she likes it, paid sales will follow.  Even the scummiest of drug dealers understand that concept and use it to nefarious ends.  So far, so good.  But what’s a sample in publishing?  While it can be an excerpt from a new novel tacked onto the end of an existing one, I’ll focus on the idea of an entire book as a sample because that’s what we’re essentially discussing.

Simply put, if you have a series, whether it’s three, four, ten or twenty books tied to one another, offering the first in series as free is the sample.  You’re hoping that by getting a positive taste of that free story, the reader will eagerly buy the subsequent volumes at full price.  And yes, it works, as does offering a first in series for 99 cents.  That’s what I call the smart use of free, whether you make the first in series permanently free or severely discounted, or only do so for periodic promotions.  If you don’t have a series and put a standalone book out for free, you’re not offering a sample.  You’re just giving away your work.

What about publishing a new book for free to put your name out there, then making it paid after the initial rush of avid readers downloading yet another free ebook they’ll never read?  Returning to first principles, price signals quality.  An author so eager to entice people into downloading books by offering them for free right off the bat and not as part of a strategy to draw readers with a first in series isn’t signaling quality, sorry.  That author is signaling desperation, which, human nature being what it is, shows the author doesn’t think his or her work is of sufficient quality to command even the price of a crappy cup of coffee.  And, of course, putting that new book out for free means you don’t earn any money during the most productive portion of its life cycle, the first 30 days after publication.  If you’re not interested in making money from your hard work, then okay.  Fair enough.  But why are you still reading this rant?  You’re not part of my audience.  This blog is to help authors who want to succeed in the business of writing once they master the art of writing.

And that leads me to a few uncomfortable truths.

A lot of self-published authors can’t write a decent novel to save their lives, and probably never will.  Offering bad writing for free won’t change that.  It’ll simply make sure the author’s brand is mud, which doesn’t matter unless said scribbler develops talent over time and eventually produces commercially viable products.  Then the past will come back to haunt him or her with all the negatives you might imagine.  Sure, art for art’s sake is fine.  Most painters, sculptors and other artists don’t have the necessary talent to stand out from a crowd of mediocrities either, but if they’re happy doing their thing and don’t expect the adoring multitudes to offer them money, it’s all good.

Seriously, folks, if you can’t sell your books for love or money and are stuck giving them away, then perhaps you should make time for self-reflection and honestly decide whether you have what it takes.  And more importantly, why you’re in this racket.

But let’s say you can write well and spin a good yarn, meaning that with a proper cover, you produce a commercially viable product.  Does that mean instant success?  Of course not.  Overnight fame and fortune are rarer than an honest politician or seeing the Yeti family on a shopping spree in downtown Katmandu.  If you think publishing a book for free is a good way of circumventing the hard marketing effort necessary to achieve name recognition and subsequent sales, you’re not a serious player.  You’re a unicorn hunter.  It can take many books and many years to finally find traction in a business clogged with competition because of the ridiculously low entry barriers.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint, as they say.  And so many lousy writers are offering free books nowadays that your magnum opus will not stand out in any way.  In fact, you’ll be tarnished by the same reputation for bad quality, despite your book’s intrinsic merits.  That’s Human Nature 101.

How about this for an uncomfortable truth?  Independent authors have conditioned a not inconsiderable segment of the reading population to look only for free books.  Human nature, right?  But it shows there’s a race to the bottom which affects all of us.  And quite frankly, I’m not okay with mediocre authors or authors unwilling to do the hard work necessary for success dragging the market down.  My work has value.  Imagine a world where authors can no longer make even a tiny living off their efforts.  How many will keep writing?  And if they walk away, what’s left?  Mainly crap?

And one final truth.  The heyday of success via free offerings is probably behind us.  The sense I get from the independent publishing scene makes me think 99 cents is the new free.  Again, price signals quality, and plenty of readers have been burned by wasting their precious time on mediocre free books.  They won’t look at them again.

In the business of independent publishing, success takes effort beyond simply producing a good story.  A lot of it.  If you can’t be bothered to put in that effort, I think I speak for those of us who do when I say please find another hobby.  Free offerings remain a tool in every author’s marketing strategy, though one with decreasing effectiveness.  But they have a specific time and place.  If you’re serious about the business of writing, you’ll learn what that is and use free judiciously.  Here’s a hint.  Free does not belong in any rational launch strategy, no matter what you’ve been told.  Unless you belong to the art for art’s sake crowd, in which case, why the heck are you still reading this?

For the record, I have never given any of my books away, though I’ve run many limited duration 99 cent promotions on several of my firsts in series.  My debut novel, published in 2014 and leading off a seven-book series, has been permanently set at 99 cents for the last year after being launched at full price and spending four years at full price.  It sold over 2,000 copies in 2019 and the aggregate sales of its six follow-on books numbered 8,000 copies during that same year.  So the concept of offering a low cost sample works.

As always, the above is my opinion.  If I’ve made you think about the value of free as a properly thought out strategy, even if you disagree with my views, then my work here is done.  Go forth and do as you will.  Just don’t complain to me if you’re not having any success.

The Business of Research

How often do we see aspiring independently published authors show up on various internet forums and ask the sort of questions they could answer for themselves if they only did a modicum of research?   One of my favorites was an aspiring military science fiction author with no knowledge about military organizations coming onto a forum and asking other authors to educate them.  Or the most recent one where an author was questioning a retailer’s payment practices when they could have called up the relevant page on the retailer’s website and obtained all their answers.

We’ve never had access to so much information, thanks to the internet.  Long gone are the days when I had to spend hours in the municipal library searching through the stacks to find that elusive bit of data.  Now, thirty seconds with a search engine and I find more than I need, and all from the comfort of my home office.  Yet people seem lazier than ever.

I constantly see aspiring authors pop up in forums and on social media asking that someone spoon feed them knowledge they can get with just a little effort and research.  Guess what, all you research-averse people, our time is valuable.  When you ask an established author to spend time educating you on something, that author isn’t doing his or her primary job, writing, editing, and running an independent publishing business.  The old saying time is money applies to independent publishers as well.  When you ask for my time because you’re too lazy to research, you’re essentially demanding a service for free.  We have a saying in the Army for people like that: RTFM — Read The [expletive deleted] Manual.  And if you don’t know how to search for information, learn.

Oh, I still help people out.  I’m a curmudgeon, not a monster.  If I know the answer to a question that can’t be easily found, or it concerns a matter that few can tackle and falls into my area of expertise, sure, I’ll take a few minutes to write up a brief reply.  But if the answer to a question is something anyone can find by searching on the internet, often, I’ll merely leave a link to a relevant web page.  However, that’s only when I’m in a charitable mood, and I’m finding myself less so with time.

Look, independent publishing isn’t just a business; it’s one where self-reliance is paramount.  The clue is in the word ‘independent.’  If you can’t be bothered to do as much research as possible before calling for help, then perhaps you should find another activity.  If you don’t have a clue how the military works and you don’t want to spend time to learn through research, don’t write military science fiction.  If you can’t be bothered to read and understand the terms and conditions set by retailers when you sign up with them to list your books, perhaps it would be best if you stuck to playing with tongue depressors. 

And by all that’s holy, do not ask for answers to legal, financial, or tax questions on the internet.  I’m a former Chartered Professional Accountant, and I cringe every time a well-meaning author tries to help someone with such subjects and gets it wrong because the consequences of making mistakes can be devastating.  Don’t be that well-meaning author.  Be the smart author and refer the person to a professional in his or her jurisdiction.  I don’t give out advice wearing my former CPA hat even when I have the right answer at hand.

What’s my bottom line?  Take the time to understand the business before stumbling through social media or online forums all the while chirping for help like a baby bird wanting to be fed.  I’ll gladly help people with complex questions, but if it’s clear that they didn’t even try to research the matter beforehand, I will not waste my time, because my time is valuable.  It’s worth real money, and I’m not in the business of being an unpaid mentor for the lazy.  Like any business, independent publishing is for self-starters, those who aren’t afraid to put in the hours and spend every waking moment learning something new.  RTFM, folks.

The Business of Outrage

Are writers more prone to drama than non-writers?  Some days it certainly seems like it.  Perhaps because we spend so much time creating dramatic situations, we end up believing drama is normal.  Unfortunately, drama is bad for business, especially when you’re an independent publisher, and your reputation is directly linked to your good name.

Not a week goes by when I don’t see an indie bursting with outrage online at one perceived issue or another.  It could be anything, such as [insert retailer name] is screwing me out of my royalties, or refuses to make my book live on their site, or refuses the ad copy I submitted.  The list is endless.  Dig a little deeper, and it becomes clear that often the writer either hasn’t read or doesn’t understand the retailer’s terms and conditions. Or the publishing business in general.  But until a kind and more experienced soul clears up the matter, turmoil and doubt hover over the masses of ill-informed independent writers while outrage feeds on itself.  By the way, based on what I’ve seen in the last while, you’re more at risk of being screwed out of your royalties by a small press than a big online book retailer. 

And what of the indies who vented their outrage only to discover they were wrong?  Those of us who are working hard to support the notion independents can be just as professional as the big five will consider them foolish at best and idiots at worst. Those outbursts almost certainly harmed their reputation — perhaps not among readers, depending on the forum they used to vent — but among fellow independent publishers.  And since we indies believe in helping each other succeed, one too many public outbursts will result in experienced and successful publishers steering clear. If you’re like me and pay attention, you’ll already have noticed well-known indie names vanishing from popular author forums.

That means you should make sure you understand the situation, the terms and conditions, the retailer’s requirements, etc., before complaining on the internet.  If you can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on, dispassionately explain the situation and help will come.  Indulge in needless drama and it won’t.

What about more contentious issues?  Sure, we all have our opinions on various subjects, and we see things happening around us and around the world that make us angry, sad, combative, or argumentative.  And that’s fine.  Human nature 101, right?  But the business environment is no place for internet outbursts of political or social rage.  Your reputation as an independent publisher depends on your brand.  Loudly and publicly denounce those whose political views are opposed to yours, or worse, demonize them, and that brand gets tarnished.  It may or may not cost you readers.  A few authors do very well out of being openly controversial, but they’re in a tiny minority.  Most of us don’t have a thick enough skin to wade into controversial issues, nor do we have a brand so strong we can afford to offend or alienate readers. 

If you wish to proclaim your views on such issues, be prepared for pushback, perhaps even damage to your brand.  I keep my views to myself, though my readers might get hints through my writing.  I don’t wade into online discussions on politics or contentious social issues, no matter how private the forum.  But that’s self-censorship, you might say, proudly wearing your politics on your sleeve.  No, that’s life.  Words and gestures have consequences.  If you’re prepared to accept them, more power to you. 

However, alienating a segment of your readership or your professional peers, those who can pass along their hard-won experience and help you succeed, is no way to run a business.  Publicly badmouthing your employer comes with consequences, right?  Why should the independent publishing world be different?  Keep your views or your outrage on contentious issues off the internet, and your brand won’t suffer.  If you must weigh in, be professional, dispassionate, and show respect for those of differing opinions.  In other words, behave like a civilized adult.  Don’t self-destruct in public.  Otherwise, I’ll be watching your train wreck as it happens in real time with a bowl of popcorn in my lap, and I don’t need those useless carbs.

Then there’s the mob outrage which can destroy not only careers but also lives.  We’ve all seen it in recent times.  Supposedly an author says or writes something that might be deemed outré or offensive, whether it’s by a tiny minority or a larger segment.  The howls of outrage ring out on social media and the pile-on begins, whether the accusations against that poor author are true or not.  You may know it as ‘cancel culture.’  Considering how ill-informed the mob generally is, those accusations are likely to be exaggerated or outright lies.  Don’t join the mob.  Look at the evidence, form your conclusions and if you’re not affected by the matter, go on your merry way without saying a word.  If you’re affected by it, then there are professional and dispassionate ways to go about finding a resolution.  Mobbing isn’t one of them, and neither is cancel culture. 

Mobs have driven authors out of business, destroyed organizations, and worse.  Don’t join that sort of drama because it will tarnish not your just your brand but independent publishing in general.  I will cut off all contact with anyone who indulges in mob action against a fellow author and publisher or attempts to stir up outrage on the internet.  I recommend you do the same.  Those of us striving for professionalism need to stay above the ugliness, not add to it.  There’s already more than enough out there thanks to thoughtless individuals ruled by raw emotions and a deep sense of entitlement rather than rational thought.

Bottom line, there’s no place for drama or outrage in business, no matter how you feel.  I know it’s hard to keep passions in check, especially since we writers have a well-developed artistic side.  Even I end up occasionally reminding myself that a professional public face, especially on social media, is vital for the good of my publishing company and my brand.  If I want to wallow in a bit of drama, I make sure the characters in my latest work in progress are the ones involved, not my name or that of my business.

On the Business of Impatience

The desire for instant success is an all too common human foible.  Along with the need for validation, as I discussed in my previous blog post, it’s a manifestation of the untamed writerly ego.  And leaving your ego to run wild never ends well.  Disappointment is merely one of the more benign outcomes you will experience.

We’ve all seen previously unknown authors suddenly burst upon the scene with a lucrative contract from one of the Big Five publishing houses, their book high on the various bestseller lists, nominated for major awards and movie rights being optioned.  Why them and not me, you might ask while envy eats at you from the inside like acid.  Of course, that burning sensation could simply be the lousy curry you had for supper.  Who knows?  To quote the lyrics of a song from my favorite band, we all seek “fame, fortune, and everything that goes with it.”  Yes, even I would be tickled pink if I were to suddenly find fame.  But the chances of that are on par with my getting a hole in one playing golf, considering I haven’t hit a single ball during the last few golfing seasons to begin with.

We independent authors are, realistically (except for a tiny minority,) mid-listers, not New York Times bestsellers.  We’re not the ones who’ll be credited as executive producers when HBO or Netflix makes a miniseries based on our work because our books will never be brought to the screen, big or small.  And that’s okay.  However, it does mean leashing the ego as we contemplate a realistic writing career.

What do I mean by realistic?  First of all, the vast majority of us independents will never become household names, appear on Oprah or find our books on the shelves of the nearest Chapters-Indigo (or whatever your country’s largest bricks and mortar bookstore chain is.)  That’s just a fact of life.  The vast majority of us will also likely never make big bucks.  And the vast majority of us will not become rising stars on the independent literary scene either.  Of course if your motto is “ars gratia artis” then you don’t care.  But most of us are in this not just for art’s sake but to build a career.

Yes, some independent authors find their audience with the first book they publish and never look back.  But most won’t find that audience until they’ve published several books.  Sadly, some will never find it.  What does this tell us?  One of my favorite expressions when it comes to independent publishing is that this is a marathon, not a sprint.  It takes persistence and sustained effort to gain traction.  If your first book has disappointing sales, and it’s not due to quality, cover and blurb issues, don’t get angry.  Don’t flail about for magical solutions.  Don’t enter pay-to-play contest.  Don’t sign up with vanity publishers.  Don’t give it away for free right off the bat.  And please don’t become a self-promotion whore — there’s nothing sadder than authors spamming social media with variations on ‘buy my book.’ 

On second thought, there is something sadder: ‘buy my award-winning book’  when it’s clearly a pay-to-play award they bought for big bucks.

So what’s my prescription for lack of instant success syndrome?  Write the next book.  And the one after that.  Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that many, perhaps even most authors only gain traction after they’ve published several quality books, especially when those books are part of a series.

This is where the virtue of patience comes into play.  Impatience can easily damage your brand, and there’s no recovery from that.  Impatient authors looking for that quick success often imperil their careers before they even take off by making bad choices.  The internet forgets nothing.  That author spamming social media with ‘buy my most excellent book’ risks tarnishing his or her brand before ever gaining traction.  Or paying for dodgy services with money they’ll never recoup.  Or maybe an impatient author will try to gin up productivity and get a series out in record time by skimping on quality in the hopes of gaining traction.  I’ve seen plenty of variations on the theme of impatient authors self-destructing since I first entered this business.  And once your name is mud, you might as well walk away from it and start over under a new name.

But shouldn’t marketing get that first book off the ground?  It might.  But I’m probably not the right guy to discuss that subject, since I don’t spend much time and money on marketing.  However, my sense of the indie universe is that the more books you’ve published, the better your marketing efforts will work because readers will see you as a serious player with skin in the game rather than a dilettante.  If you’re asking readers to invest their time and money into reading your work, making it clear you’re not a one-hit wonder helps.  For what it’s worth, I’ve noticed that my sales take off every time I publish a new book and my Amazon sales graph looks remarkably like it does when I get that rare unicorn of all marketing blessings, a BookBub feature.

So what’s the bottom line?  If you enter into this business with low expectations, you might be pleasantly surprised.  If you enter it intending to become the next big thing with your first book, you’ll almost certainly be disappointed if not devastated.  Persistence is key.  There’s an author group I belong to which preaches precisely that: build your catalog and eventually, you’ll build your audience.  And guess what?  It works.  As a wise Jedi Master once said, “Patience you must have.”  A successful independent publishing business isn’t built on a single breakout novel.  Leave the pursuit of breakout novels to the traditional publishers — that’s what their business model increasingly depends upon.  For us independents, the business model is a strong catalog developed over the course of several years.  And that catalog must be supported by a professional brand. 

For the record, I didn’t have a clue about this business back in 2014 when I basically tossed two novels into the mysterious Kindle Direct Publishing universe within two weeks of each other.  I’d written them twenty years before and never found an agent, let alone a publisher.  Each eventually spawned a multi-book series, one of which gave rise to three spinoff series.  Those two novels didn’t generate stellar sales at first, at least by my current standards, but since I wasn’t yet serious about writing as a career back then, I wasn’t worried.  I didn’t do much marketing, let alone spam social media with pleas to buy my books.  I simply went on to write their sequels.  It took those sequels and their sequels before my audience grew to the point where I gained traction as a publisher.  Marketing helped, but nothing succeeds like hard work and persistence married to patience.

If you’re not willing or able to put in the necessary hard work over the course of several years, then perhaps you don’t have the right abilities or mindset to develop a successful independent publishing business built for the long term, and that’s okay. We all have different capabilities and aspirations, but we should all learn to restrain our egos and ensure our expectations match our efforts.

Seeking Validation is not a Valid Business Model

Writers are human beings with needs, feelings, and many questionable tendencies, just like everyone else.  Shocking, I know.  But in many respects, writers, akin to other creators such as musicians, painters, or graphic artists, are also more vulnerable than the average person.  We need to be told our art is good.  Not by our friends and relatives but by the world at large.  What do we need?  Validation.  When do we need it?  Now! 

In my last post, I spoke about the proliferation of predatory pay-to-play literary contests.  They and other phenomena designed to separate a hopeful and naïve writer from his or her money have arisen for a reason since nothing happens in a vacuum.  Those of you unfortunate enough to remember Economics 101 (I’m sorry to bring up bad memories — really, I am!) understand where there is a demand, there will be a supply.  Need validation?  Someone will be glad to provide it — at a price.

Back before the days of ebooks and the independent publishing industry they unleashed, an aspiring writer had two paths.  One was to spend years querying in the hopes of landing an agent willing to represent their magnum opus, no matter the chances were less than Bigfoot hunters finding irrefutable proof he exists.  The other was to pay a vanity publisher to produce their book, but with no real hope of ever selling a single copy.  Landing an agent, then getting a publishing contract was the holy grail.  It signaled to the world that a book was worthy and its author a literary success.  Validation at last!

However, paradigms shift, and we independent publishers have bypassed agents and publishing contracts.  We not only write our novels, but we also put them up for sale ourselves via major online retailers.  But that means no more jumping for joy at your work being publicly validated when an agent lands you a measly advance that you’ll probably never earn out, with no guarantee of the publisher buying the rights to any subsequent books.  Yet us independents not only manage to put our books out there when no traditional publisher will even look at them, once we find an audience through determined marketing efforts and a bit of luck, we also make more money than most traditionally published mid-list authors.  Sometimes a lot more money.

Hmm.  Let’s see.  Money, fine.  Control over one’s writing career, fine. No gatekeepers.  Excellent. Wait a minute!  Where’s my external validation?  Who and what will tell the world I’m a literary success? 

The writer’s ego will not be silenced.  It craves recognition, a place on bookshelves, a seat on literary panels, nominations for awards, long lineups at book signings, interviews on Oprah, on the BBC, and with Shelagh Rogers on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s show “The Next Chapter.”  It craves reviews in major newspapers and a place on major bestseller lists.  It wants to hobnob with Stephen King, JK Rowling, and George RR Martin.  Human nature strives mightily to win every single time and the profiteers out there know it.

My last post discussed predatory pay-to-play book awards.  Those are merely one manifestation of a questionable supply meeting a growing demand from authors in need of ego-stroking.  That dream of a traditional publishing contract, even if it brings in less money?  It’s still alive and well in the hearts of many because it means someone in authority (questionable as it may be) has deemed a book worthy.  And if a book is worthy, so is its author.

These days we have vanity publishers re-branding themselves by offering ego-stroking for a steep price.  Here’s the basic rule that overrides everything else: money flows only from the publisher to the author, never the other way.  A publisher who contacts you to praise your latest book and offers to publish it for you under a co-payment program where you invest a few thousand dollars is a vanity publisher — a crook.  Authors should never be asked to pay for publishing their work.  And that contract the publishing firm Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe sent you out of the blue isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  Worse yet, it’ll probably make you surrender all rights to your work in perpetuity.  How’s that for external validation?  Sign on with a vanity publisher and all it validates is that you’re an idiot.  Send a publisher money because it’s a co-payment publishing deal, and you just validated yourself as a fool.  Always check Writer Beware https://accrispin.blogspot.com/ to see if the nice publishing house that reached out to you is looking for an easy mark.  Chances are almost 100% it is.

Then you have the crooks who specialize in offering desperate authors ancillary services such as marketing deals for a steep price.  Hey, pay us a few hundred dollars, and we’ll list your book at the Whateveritis Book Fair.  Sure, they might even do so, but if you think it’ll bring on the sales and the recognition, you’re validating yourself as a naïve bumpkin.  Again, consult Writer Beware.  Spend a few hours reading the entire website.  You’ll come out of that exercise more knowledgeable, less foolish and utterly cynical.

Legitimate small presses are a different beast, but can still present serious pitfalls for authors.  Sure, you get validation in that a legit operation thinks your book is worthy of their imprint.  You might even enjoy decent editorial and graphic design services at no cost, but you’re essentially at the small press’ mercy.  And life hasn’t been kind to many of those small presses, leaving authors without income and with their rights locked up.  Again, consult Writer Beware before signing up with a small press.  The story of ChiZine Publications is a cautionary tale worth reading: https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2019/11/scandal-engulfs-independent-publisher.html  If going with a small press is because you can’t or don’t want to handle the business part of publishing yourself, fair enough.  If the main reason is for external validation, you may wish to rethink your motivations.

What’s my bottom line?  Seeking external validation comes at a price unless you’re the next big thing in literature, and chances are pretty good you’re not.  Sometimes that price can be steep.  Sometimes it’s devastating.  If you’re intent on a career as an independent publisher, a better solution is changing your validation paradigm.  Sure, I’d love to meet Shelagh Rogers in person.  I’ve enjoyed her radio programs for decades and would be honored to answer the Proust Questionnaire on her show.  But I know that’ll never happen.  Nor will I ever enter into trad pub contracts except for subsidiary rights, such as audiobooks, foreign language rights or the like, because I can make so much more money publishing my English-language books as an independent.  Sure, it’s more work, but that’s what independent means.  It is, however, more lucrative.  When I look at the typical advance paid to mid-list science fiction authors nowadays by the trad pubs, I have to laugh.  Rarely will that advance ever earn out with the measly royalty rates grudging given to authors. I often make more within the first few weeks after a book’s publication, let alone over its lifetime.  External validation, even from entirely honorable and legitimate channels, carries a real cost.

However, all is not lost.  Independent publishers can condition themselves to find validation from their readers through sales, through reviews and ratings, through Kindle Unlimited pages read and through the money deposited in their bank account each month.  Sure, that’s a big paradigm shift.  The ego will resist dismissing all of what it craves in favor of small validations each time a new reader enjoys your books.  It will resist the mercenary-like validation of money even more because a writer’s ego needs plaudits, not filthy lucre.  But it can be done.

For the record, I derived a sense of external validation when Tantor Media approached me for the audiobook rights to three of my novels.  Yes, I’m just as human as the rest of you despite the scurrilous rumors.  But it hasn’t been particularly lucrative and has hardened my determination that I will never enter traditional publication contracts except for subsidiary rights. It also proved that external validation comes at a price.  I’ll share a little secret with you.  I like to consider myself one of the most financially successful Canadian science fiction writers no one’s ever heard of, and I smile at the fact that many of my traditionally published peers still need to hold daytime jobs while I don’t.  Perhaps one day, I’ll become known, but that’s not something I worry about. Should Shelagh Rogers’ producer ever contact me to appear on her show, I’ll let you know when the interview airs.  But don’t hold your breath.

If the above makes you think about the cost of external validation, then I’ve done my job.  I won’t think less of you should you keep seeking it, so long as it’s done intelligently.  The ego is a hard beast to master.  Few of us succeed at doing so consistently.  But giving money to vanity outfits will earn you a ticket on the ship of fools currently docked at pier sixteen.  Do your research, then make informed choices.

The Business of Awards

One of my biggest bugbears concerns all the pay-to-play book contests out there.  Sure, there are plenty of legitimate literary prizes, big and small, and I have no beef with them.  But there seems to be an increasing amount of predatory book awards aimed at naïve authors suffering from the need for external validation.  What do I mean by pay-to-play or predatory contests?  Those are the ones where:

  • there is an almost endless list of categories, and you pay more than just a nominal sum to enter each of them.  Hint: $80 isn’t a nominal sum, although perhaps $20 is;
  • the list of judges is not available or made up of unknowns connected to the organization running the contest.  Hint: proper literary judges are independent, and their nomination to a prize panel is widely advertised;
  • the contest organizers send unsolicited emails encouraging you to enter;
  • they offer winners overpriced services, cheap stickers, dumb certificates, and other useless crap in exchange for yet more money, and
  • everyone’s a winner!

Sound familiar?

I see a lot of independently published authors on social media proclaiming themselves to be “award-winning.”  Sometimes, the title stems from legit contests and more power to them.  But all too many essentially bought that award from a predatory pay-to-play contest.  And yes, I think less of them and will touch nothing they write.  In fact, I secretly laugh at the fools.

Now here’s the big secret no one wants to talk about.  Proclaiming yourself an “award-winning author” when it’s not an instantly recognizable literary prize such as the Giller, the Man Booker, or the Nebula, to name but a few well-known English language examples does nothing to help sales.  Whenever I want a chuckle, I look at the sales rankings and reviews of these pay-to-play award-winning books.  Yeah.  Not in any way remarkable.  In fact, they’re often utterly sad.  I won’t name names, but for example, one author busy proclaiming award-winning status on social media can’t even sell a single copy of said book in some major English language markets.  Most dodgy award winners aren’t doing any better.  Those whose sales surpass mine are rare, although there are some, and I’ve never even won so much as a booby prize.  Mind you, some of the bigger legit awards are becoming questionable nowadays because ideology is increasingly pushing literary merit to the sidelines.  The Sad/Rabid Puppies phenomenon that caused the Hugos to implode a few years ago didn’t occur in a vacuum.  However, those awards aren’t my concern since they deliberately snub independents.

Where does that leave you, dear scribbler?  It’s a free world.  If you want to pay big bucks for a shiny and utterly worthless sticker on your book cover, who am I to object?  Yes, I’ll consider you a fool, but then my opinion is unimportant because I’m not in the business of providing external validation to insecure authors.  But this blog is about the business of writing, and my self-imposed mission is to make you reflect before you unwittingly put on a dunce cap.   So here’s the bottom line.

That $200-$300 (or, God forbid, even more) you spend on entering a contest won’t do much to raise your profile or generate sales.  If your book is blah, and/or your blurb sucks and/or your cover induces seizures, it won’t find more of an audience with that shiny sticker and your proclamation it’s an award-winning book penned by an award-winning author.  Readers aren’t dumb, dear writer.  If your book is uninspiring or downright sucks and yet you claim it won a prize, guess what?  They’ll think as I do and consider you a fool at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.  Spend that money to improve your product, and if your book, blurb, and cover are as good as they’ll ever be, spend that money on advertising.  You’ll generate more sales for each dollar spent than handing your hard-earned bucks to a bunch of crooks who pretend they’re in it to help independent authors succeed.  And the people running dodgy contest are crooks.

How can I tell whether a contest is legit, you ask?  Easy.  I gave you the main clues above, but there are resources available on the internet.  Consult them before you spend a single cent.  The ones I always check when I see a dodgy “award-winning author” on social media are:

If, after consulting those two essential resources, you find that the contest you wish to enter is dodgy, but you enter anyway, then clearly, this blog isn’t for you because I have no patience for fools.  Authors who knowingly enter dodgy contests are directly responsible for their proliferation and the ongoing victimization of naïve, validation-craving writers.  If you entered a dodgy contest before reading the above and won a prize, don’t be a fool and proclaim yourself award-winning.  You didn’t win an award; you bought it.  Instead, make sure your work stands on its own because that is how you’ll develop long-term success.

For the record, I never entered a literary contest, never won a prize, and don’t care whether the literary world ever recognizes my work.  My external validation comes from the money deposited in my publishing company’s bank account every month.  And I no longer buy books based on their prize-winning status.  I avoid them like the plague because awards increasingly no longer signal quality.

Should my characterization of dodgy indie book awards and the fools who pay-to-play offend you, remember, it’s just my point of view, and you know what Dirty Harry Callahan said about opinions.

Here’s a sticker for you, on me. Enjoy.