C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

09/14/2014 • 10:13 PM 1

Sell More Books Top 10: Variables that build success

We often don’t know for sure which strategies sell more books so we have to fire a lot of bullets into the darkness. Last week, the best advice I heard, repeated from a couple of authors, was about the willingness to experiment.

When it comes to radioactive isotopes, infant juggling and indie publishing, it’s good fun to mess around. Play with the variables to sell more books. What are some of those variables? Here we go:

1. If your cover doesn’t sell the book hard enough, change it.

Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire wasn’t selling the numbers I wanted. I changed the cover.

**2. I played with categories for the Hit Man Series.**

My funny and luckless assassin is Cuban, so I tried the Hispanic & Latino category. Didn’t work. I switched it back. Each failure is a refinement. It’s not permanent so relax and fire more shots into the dark.

3. I’m experimenting with keywords, too.

Did you know you don’t have to use a single word (i.e. crime, thriller, action, romance) for keywords? You can add up to seven phrases and it can pay to make them less generic. Cater to your niche and, for more on this strategy, listen to Nick Stephenson’s interview on the Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast with host Simon Whistler. It’s called “Quadruple Your Kindle Sales.” That got your attention and turned you into a podcast listener, didn’t it?

Don’t forget to play with changes to your book descriptions, as well. Use keywords where appropriate. Don’t fall into the trap of awkwardly stuffing keywords into the description so it sounds like you’re straining to please search engine robots.

While you’re plugging podcasts into your head, please do listen to my interview on Episode #60 of Rocking Self-publishing. We had a lot of fun talking about how to enjoy marketing your book.

4. I changed the cover for my poetry book, too.

Poetry is hard enough to sell so don’t handicap your efforts with a sad cover like I did. I changed the cover using an image from Pond5 and switching back and forth from two photo editors, Picmonkey and KD Renegade.

As always, I recommend the awesome cover design work of Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. He wasn’t available this week, so I improvised. It’s an improvement on the original cover (which was my fault, not Kit’s. The original crap cover was my design, too.)

5. My biggest change was long overdue.

My first book was a fun, funny and thoughtful short story collection to read on the toilet. It’s called Self-help for Stoners. Unfortunately, I uploaded my first indie published foray through an intermediary. To make changes to the text cost a lot of money. It needed another edit so I have reclaimed the book from the intermediary. Huzzah!

I did the edit for the second edition. I added bonus material (big tastes of two of my series) so it could act as an introduction to my kind of crazy. Finally, it’s also a sales funnel to my newer books.

I can do more with this book now, like experiment with variables. I can play with the price, keywords and categories. I can change strategies as needed and put it in KDP Select and try countdown deals etc,….

The print version of the second edition will be for sale again soon so I’ll have more to sell for the Christmas season. Most important, with these changes, I’m delivering a better reading experience along with all that awesome hilarity. It’s a relief to be back in the driver’s seat.

6. Speed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about production speed as marketing. I’m changing my production timetable. The third book in the Hit Man Series hits October 1.

The goal is to put out another crime novel thirty days after that. Thirty days later, the plan is to put out a time travel novel. The books are all written and in the editorial pipeline. I’ll also add an omnibus edition of the first three books in the series.

The goal is to avoid falling off the cliff. All authors experience the cliff. After a month on Amazon, your beautiful baby is old news and sales tend to begin to slide as you disappear from the list of freshly minted books. Publish a new book more often and all your sales may be buoyed…assuming all the other variables are properly in place. For instance, if the story sucks, nothing can save us.

7. Accept failure as part of the play in the gears.

Please keep in mind that you can put all the sales variables in place, but that does not necessarily mean the book will move. It should move more, but there are too many variables we can’t control. Maybe you’re going head to head against a book with tons of mojo and money behind it. Maybe you’re at the top of a genre that is stone cold. Maybe the book just isn’t that good or you’re an unrecognized genius. (So many of us are. I empathize.)

All we can do is write more books and play with the variables that we can control. I should get a blurb for the Self-help for Stoners cover, for instance. That task is on my list. Blurbs help. More reviews help. Maybe more review copies to book bloggers is something to change up. Or do you need to change the book bloggers on the list you already have?

8. Make plans.

This might be a new idea you want to resist because you’re an artiste, dammit! I know, but work to word count or page count goals and editorial deadlines, anyway. I always get more done when I pretend I’m a grown up.

9. in that vein, establish systems.

When you learn the steps to how to do something once (e.g. putting out a podcast or compiling manuscripts in Scrivener), write what you did right. That way, you don’t have to start at zero knowledge each time you repeat the task. Systems are flow charts of mistakes you corrected. It’s a great way to avoid making the same mistakes with your next project. Put it in a binder within reach of your desk. Update it as you go.

Sure, taking the time to put what you’ve learned into binders sounds like drudgery. However, systems actually make you efficient and eliminate the drudgery of reinventing the wheel each time. Tiny course corrections steal far less from our precious writing time. (Tip: Take screenshots of your winning Scrivener process to make it less tedious.)

10. Speaking of finding efficiencies, track results.

That which is not measured cannot be improved. Repeat the variables that seem to work. Dump what doesn’t work, no matter how much you loved those seemingly brilliant ideas. Old ideas that don’t work can weigh us down as we climb the mountain.

BONUS:
Get better with each book.

This will happen organically. It will happen faster if you organize the variables in that binder.

Pretty soon, you won’t be firing bullets in the dark. You’ll see what hit and become a sharpshooter.

Filed under: author platform, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Amazon, authors, divine assassin, Hit Man Series, hollywood jesus, how to sell more books, indie publishing, little book, little book of braingasms, nick stephenson, poetry, Robert Chazz Chute, Rocking Self Publishing Podcast, self-help for stoners, sell more books, selling books, Simon Whistler, Stoners, thrillers, variables, Write Your Book, writers, writing

09/09/2014 • 8:28 PM 1

A Quick Top Ten: Make revisions painless

Books in progress litter my desk. As I revise manuscripts, there are certain words I watch for. When I see them I ask, “Who cares and who needs it?”

Here are some of those watch words and cautions:

1. Sentences that begin with “And…” (It’s not that it’s wrong or bad, but it’s often not necessary.)

2. Sentences that begin with “And then…” Sentences are sequences and usually work without this tip to the reader.

3. He felt, she heard, he sensed, she saw… Just describe the scene. Not “She saw a crocodile rise from the swamp.” Instead, “A crocodile rose from the swamp.”

4. Was. This crops up a lot in most writers’ first drafts. “She was fighting,” becomes “she fought.”

Gerunds are passive and they are not our friends, especially when overused. I don’t use adverbs much, though I don’t ban them. It’s a novel, not a telegram. Besides, I’m suggesting crafty guidelines here, not edicts about what not to do.

5. Look out for: just, own, up, down, so, it. These are words that we add to sentences that sometimes fail to add meaning.

Just surfaces a lot. We can often do without “just.” Or we might use only or merely.

“He sat down in the chair,” becomes “He sat in the chair.”

“So, he murdered the butler,” becomes “He murdered the butler.”

“Their own boat,” becomes “Their boat.”

“It” often replaces the noun you should probably use. “It’s up to you,” could be, “This caper is up to you,” or “The fate of guinea pigs everywhere is up to you.” See how it’s better? I mean, see how specificity improves clarity?

6. Careful of exclamation points that hype excitement that does not exist.

7. Semi-colons have fallen so far out of use that they now stop readers cold. Punctuation should be visible, yet not visible. Punctuation marks are the life-preserver under your seat on the plane. You know it’s there, but you don’t want to pause a moment to think about why it’s there.

8. Use dialogue tags besides “said” sparingly. Let what is said carry the weight of the message.

9. Empty pleasantries are death.

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Good.”

This trite exchange is what we do every day. In a book, it’s a waste of time. Also note that those four lines possess no conflict. A better way to go would be to answer “How are you?” with “You’re late.”

Or try, “He greeted her at the conference room door with an officious sneer and ushered to her seat without a word.”

If the dialogue isn’t clever or funny, or if the exchange fails to reveal character or advance the plot, skip it and go to the action.

Don’t count on readers’ patience. Tell the story.

10. Everyone watches for run-on sentences. We break those up, of course. Also consider varying sentence length.

Sentence length is not something many readers will register consciously, but lots of short sentences together can feel stilted and staccato. (This device can be used to great effect in an action sequence or to make a point, however.) Many long sentences in a row tire the reader and can feel like a drone.

This problem is easier to recognize when you read your manuscript aloud. If you run out of breath before the end of a sentence, it might be too long. Or you need to do more cardio.

~ Robert Chazz Chute hates to tell anyone what to do. Ever. He’s also a fan of the sentence fragment, so this isn’t about being the grammar police. It’s about helping writers and editors make books more readable. These are guidelines. The only rule is, if it plays, it plays.

FYI, the third book in the Hit Man Series is Hollywood Jesus, Rise of the Divine Assassin. This funny, gripping crime novel launches October 1, 2014. Early feedback says it’s the fastest pace to an adventure since you fell off your bike and got road rash when you were a kid.

HJ COVER FINAL LADY IN RED

The Omnibus will be launched at the same time.

PLAYBOOK COVER FINAL

Filed under: Editing, manuscript evaluation, Writers, writing tips, #amwriting, books, crime novels, divine assassin, editing, Hit Man Series, manuscripts, problem words, publishing, revising, revisions, Robert Chazz Chute, writers, writing

09/01/2014 • 10:37 PM 3

The Chazz Redemption: Course Corrections along the Publishing Way

There is much to do. I wrote the first drafts for three books in two months. If you’ve noticed I’m not posting quite as often here, that’s why. I’m gearing up for Christmas (yeah, I said it!) and trying to catch up on a list of new priorities. Here they are:

1. I’ve got Self-help for Stoners back from BookBaby. It was my first book and I wasn’t confident I could upload it myself way back then. I was so shy. It’s out of the hands of the intermediary so now I can make changes without it costing an organ donation (because all my organs are my favorites.) After a fresh round of edits for the next edition, it’ll be available again.

2. I’m behind on my print editions of This Plague of Days. Catching up with Season 3 fast. The Omnibus will be ready soonish (i.e. a month if the formatting goes as planned.) I’ve developed a list of people I want to send the TPOD Omnibus to. Time to get the series more attention and reviews.

3. I think I’ll make Murders Among Dead Trees available in print, as well. I happen to think it’s one of my best books. Print is mostly a promotional tool for me, but paper versions are also important to some readers. Print is also useful as a price anchor for the ebooks. It lends legitimacy. Plus, I have a book fair coming up.

4. I’ve got to track outgo better than I track income. I want less drama at tax time and I have to trim expenses.

5. The next book in the Hit Man Series is now with the beta team. I’m going to change the title and change how the book ends. I decided to do that as soon as it went out to beta readers. Panic is so creative. These are small but important tweaks because I’m going to rebrand the series. (More on that in another post.)

6. Revise two more books. One novel is in time travel and the other is a crime story. The plan is to come out with a new one about every 30 days to boost my visibility. The cliff we all tend to hit thirty days after a book launch is horrific and I already swing back and forth from depressed to somewhat manic.

7. What’s changing with the new writing? Shorter books, generally. I still have another huge standalone book banging to escape a drawer.

Also ahead? Faster pacing. More jokes. (More on that another time, too.) I have deadlines in my mind. If I don’t meet sales targets with certain books, I’ll be changing genres. I’ll also be embracing pseudonyms. Readers of this blog know I’m averse to pen names generally. However, I reserve the right to change my mind when it suits me and when evidence arises to my first opinion.

8. Get back to podcasting. I’ve taken the summer off for a number of reasons. It’s time to find some guests for the Cool People Podcast (check out the guest page here.) I also need to finish up the Higher Than Jesus read on All That Chazz.

After that read is done, I plan to change the podcast format a bit. It’s time for a revamp with books, too. It took me years to write This Plague of Days. I’m proud of it. It’s my Star Wars. Now I’m focusing on series books that come out faster.

That’s enough of a list for now. I have more to do, but long to-do lists are just another way to procrastinate. For more fun, write a to-done list. Plan to accomplish something specific and by when. Write it down and cross it off, all in one day. Feels good.

The kids are back in school and I’ve been bone-deep grieving dead friends.

Time to get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, Red.

Filed under: author platform, What about Chazz?, books, fiction, Literature, Murders Among Dead Trees, omnibus, publishing, publishing plans, Robert Chazz Chute, selling books, This Plague of Days, writers, writing

08/25/2014 • 8:23 AM 4

#Retweet this Top Ten: For the love of Twitter

Though often useful, Twitter can be a strange place. For instance, I just discovered I’ve been blocked by a user who retweeted me. That was odd because I’ve never had a nasty exchange with them. What did I do? That bothered me for a few seconds.

No, that’s a lie.

It bothered me for about a minute. I hate a mystery, so I googled the user who blocked me and checked out their website. Into the second minute of cyber stalking I realized I was acting like a guy who should be blocked. I let it go and I’ll never know what terrible thing I did. (Cries into pillow, wipes tears, big breath…)

Besides, I was breaking my prime directive about Twitter. Twitter is for in-between times. It’s not a primary activity. Writing books is what I do. Everything else — bathing, childcare, self-respect — is secondary.

Tweet when you can’t do something more productive and keep it fun.

Here are ten more Twitter productivity tips:

1. I look at a lot of Twitter profiles. If the avatar is just an egg, I don’t follow back. The default avatar suggests a spam account or a lack of care or effort.

2. If, in an attempt to be humorous, the profile description sounds aggressively mean, I don’t follow back. Why people do that is a mystery. It can’t be that effective, can it? Is that how mean people gather into rage storms across the Internet? (But don’t be too bland, either. Gimme some salt and sugar, please.)

3. If a Twitter profile says your name and then simply, “Author”? I don’t follow back.

I don’t think that’s enough effort even if you’re a really famous author. At least tell me your genre because readers don’t read everything. Add to your description so I have an idea what I’m getting into.

4. When I decide to follow someone, I’ll often look through their Twitter feed first. I want to get some sense of the user’s personality and interests or at least see if they tweet and retweet useful information. Don’t follow back too randomly. What use to me is a huge following of cement mixer companies?

5. When I follow on Twitter, I don’t send DMs.

It’s not that I really see anything wrong with direct messages. Some people think direct messages to new followers are impolite or spammy. I don’t think they have to be. (You followed, after all. That implies a little bit of buy-in to me.) However, I don’t send DMs for a more practical reason: They rarely add value and my feed is overwhelmed with direct messages. It’s a time management thing and really, there are very few diamonds glittering under the outhouse.

6. Instead of sending a direct message to new followers, I generally try to retweet something from their feed. I’m looking for the helpful or humorous. If I see that and retweet it, that’s a way of acknowledging them without sending a generic direct message.

7. The favorite button is another way of acknowledging new and old followers. I used to think I’d use the favorite button as a reference to come back to the link. That doesn’t happen. I either read the link immediately or it’s somewhere far back in the rearview mirror. For time management purposes, I guess that’s best. I use it as a “like” button on Facebook.

8. Don’t just read your notifications feed looking for mentions of the magic that is you. You won’t get information or engagement that way. Just like a dinner party, if you are only interested in you, you’ll live alone in that fascination.

9. Don’t expect an acknowledgement for every retweet.

I read a rant from one Twitter user who got angry because she expected a thank you for each retweet. I’m generous with retweets of good material because I want to curate good stuff for my followers. Too many people retweet me for me to be able to thank them all individually. There are only so many hours in the day. (I do try to retweet or say thanks for devoted retweeters, but Twitter is a fast-paced assault of information so let’s not be too precious about it.) Share generously.

10. Don’t just curate good stuff. Generate sometimes, too. If I’m following you, it’s because I’m hoping you’re awesome. Let us get to know you. If you put out a decent amount of good information and make a few jokes, followers may even forgive you for the occasional plea to “Buy my book.” Just don’t use those exact words.

BONUS

I use Manageflitter.com to manage Twitter, delete fake followers and delete those who don’t follow back.

If you want to follow me, I’m @rchazzchute. That’d be nice…assuming you don’t sell cement mixers.

Filed under: author platform, author platform, authors on Twitter, Robert Chazz Chute, Twitter, using twitter, using Twitter better

08/22/2014 • 9:58 PM 3

Beat the World’s Plot Against You

Life happens. It’s time for me to happen to life, not the other way around.

In the last few days, someone stole from my family and made my daughter cry. A close friend’s child died. Frustrations dot the landscape. I thought I’d be done another book by now but life keeps getting in the way. Clearly, it’s time for a pattern break.

“Rise up and take the power back.” ~ Muse from The Resistance

I am not a flake, but I speak it fluently. Once upon a time, someone told me to pick up every penny (back when Canada had pennies.) The act of picking up pennies in the street was supposed to be a message to the universe: “I am open to abundance!”

After picking up a filthy penny in the rain, it occurred to me the message I was sending the universe was, “I’ll take whatever crumbs you choose to send me.” Worse, I was sending myself a message: “This is all you’re worth.” Screw that hippie bullshit.

1. Everybody feels pushed around sometimes. Push back by doing a kindness to someone else. Transmute the energy into something positive.

2. Tonight I spotted an author’s comment on a troll’s review, thanking them for the mean review. Authors: Cherish your fans. Set trolls to ignore. You do not have to pretend to love the whip. Stop being grateful for crap. I didn’t think the author was classy and above it all for petting and encouraging the troll. It looked more like grovelling for a penny covered in dog crap.

3. Exercise. Don’t feel like taking out frustrations on weights and ellipticals? Find your jam. Dance. Make love. Make sex. Rock on. Get happy. When we act happy, we fool our bodies and brains. No? Not yet? Dance harder.

4. Get enough sleep. Black out your room. Sleep naked. Fewer blankets are better. Can’t sleep? Revisit #3, points 5 & 6.

5. Phone a friend. Complain, but not for longer than three minutes. Then ask about them. Get out of your own head. Help them solve their problem.

6. You don’t need advice. Hardly anybody does. Just give yourself the same advice you’d give a friend in the same predicament.

7. Write. Not your book. Not yet. Write what you will do (not to do. Will do.)

Choose the two top priorities. Everything else on a long list won’t get done. Mark what time you will do these things. Keep that appointment.

8. Write. Make it the first thing you do. If not that, write at your high energy time.

9. Eat something that’s good for Future You. Don’t eat what Now You wants. Now You wants a hot fudge sundae on acid. Future You wishes you’d eaten a salad.

10. Do it all again until your are out of the unproductive funk. Then keep doing it. Write on. Write harder. Can’t make happy art? Fine. Fierce art is awesome, too.

Or do what you want. This is what I’m doing.

Damn it.

One day soon, we’ll all be brilliant together….

Filed under: getting it done, writing tips, bloggers, blogging, books, depression, goal setting, goals, overcoming resistance, procrastination, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, sadness, writers, writing, writing advice

08/15/2014 • 3:31 PM 2

TOP 10 in Publishing: What’s changed again? Amazon.

If hope you enjoyed my interview with Simon Whistler on The Rocking Self-publishing Podcast (see the post below this one for details if you missed it.) We recorded the episode on July 4. It didn’t take long at all for some details to change since the interview. Here’s what you need to know:

1. Yes, on too much coffee, I can get pretty manic. Also, some of the interview was edited for excessive Sean Connery impressions.

2. I was in Kobo briefly. I made $27. Finally and at last! I can retire! …Mm…no, actually, I pulled the plug on Kobo except for some short stories.

Everybody agrees. The folks at Kobo are nice people. Then I heard a horror story of someone who couldn’t move books on Kobo even when Kobo promoted them! I was to meet with the good people of Kobo in Toronto. After evaluating the track record and potential, I blew off the meeting so I could stay home and write and edit my next books. The trip literally wasn’t worth the gas. I do hope things will improve in this regard in the near future for Kobo and several other platforms. Amazon needs healthy, not anemic, competition.

3. Kindle Unlimited was introduced soon after the interview. Seeing so little movement on Kobo, I promptly pulled out and slapped my books back into KDP Select. With their value added proposition, suddenly there is more marketing juice to squeeze out of Amazon.

4. Kindle just announced they will reward early adopters of the program by relaxing the 10%-read-to-get-paid rule on the first round. They also added to the shared fund for borrows. I missed out on the money bump when they introduced KDP Select in the first place. I wasn’t going to miss out again.

5. Since returning to Select, My KU earnings frequently surpass my regular sales. People are taking to the program. This is especially nice because This Plague of Days, Season One is a whole book, the first in the trilogy. It’s selling at just 99 cents. More readers are willing to check it out through the KU program. That pays roughly a couple bucks per borrow instead of 30 cents. Am I a huge success, yet? No. However, I’m getting exposure that other platforms can’t seem to give.

6. This Plague of Days is getting promoted on a couple different lists by Amazon. Seems it’s getting some traction with teens most, science fiction second and fantasy third. (Interesting, yes? Maybe I should revamp the sales descriptions to skew away slightly from horror since its layers and appeal may lie elsewhere.)

7. Amazon just upped the ante in the value added column by opening up the pre-order button to little guys like me. Holy crap! I have some thoughts on how that could be useful, but I’ll save it for another post once I’ve gone through their submission process firsthand.

8. When we recorded the interview, Simon and I discussed whether the Amazon-Hachette debacle would still be a thing by the time the interview aired August 14th. As I recall, neither of us were that optimistic the battle would be over by then and we were right. In an attempt not to bore the audience or appear dated too soon, we largely avoided that discussion. We’re all suffering Amazon versus Hachette fatigue, aren’t we? Looking forward to the titans figuring it out for themselves.

9. We had a great time with that interview and I hope you laughed along with us. There’s some good information sifting through that hour of self-publishing talk. The field is growing and changing so fast — or at least Amazon is changing their game so fast — several things changed in a very short time.

The other platforms? Um. Can anybody name an innovation from any of the other platforms in the last six months? (There must be something, but nothing strong has stuck with me.)

10. What didn’t change? Pretty much everything else. I’m still glad I serialized This Plague of Days but I don’t intend to serialize again (too many gears and pulleys and cons versus pros on that machine.)

What’s next?

More series (not serialization) and another omnibus edition.

Stay tuned.

Filed under: Amazon, author platform, self-publishing, Amazon, author interview, book marketing, books sales, Hachette, KDP, KDP Select, Kindle Unlimited, KU, Marketing, Robert Chazz Chute, Rocking Self Publishing Podcast, Sales, sales strategies, self-publishing, Simon Whistler

07/24/2014 • 9:56 PM 5

In each chest a clock, its spring wearing

Tonight I thanked a friend and said goodbye for the last time.

It is a grim ritual, this business of the last goodbye. My friend didn’t look like the man I knew. He appeared as a sleeping wax figure, an ill-conceived doll imitating the man, the fingers too long and too thin. He was a poor approximation of the funny, vibrant, fit fellow named Wayne. He brought joy wherever he went and now he is dead at 56. Fifty-six used to seem old, but I was very young then.

I write horror that is an escape and a distraction. This is real life and it is often horrific in the end. When such good people disappear from our lives so suddenly and unexpectedly, this is the Slow Rapture of the Taken Too Soon. I’d be furious if I didn’t feel so empty.

By now you’re wondering why on Earth I’m telling you this.

Wayne was a bucket list man. Beside his open casket, there were many pictures: Wayne in marathons; Wayne playing golf, canoeing, cycling; Wayne with his loved ones on trips and fishing with his boys. He was immune to stress. He laughed easily. He made others laugh often and strangers soon became friends.

The visitation was a huge crowd as impressive and varied as the photos from his short life. I was privileged to know Wayne well. He was a positive force for good in the universe whose heart suddenly shut down without warning a couple of days ago and I am utterly devastated.

When I’m stuck for a plot point or searching for the hidden joke, I close my eyes and I wait for the right question. When I have that, the right answer will appear. So…why am I telling you this? Does this belong here? Maybe not…

But then the answers flood in:

Because I wish Wayne was a writer so I could open a book and still have his cheery voice in my head.

Because Wayne did a lot of good things with the time he had.

Because my friend knew the power of the bucket list.

Because if you’re waiting to do something, like fulfilling your dream of writing and publishing a book, I need to ask you to stop waiting. Please.

When I told Wayne I was taking a leave from my day job to dedicate all my time to writing, he smiled and said, “It’s your bucket list.” Wayne knew men in his family often didn’t make it out of their 50s. He knew the value of time.

There isn’t time to procrastinate. That’s why I’m telling you this. Do what you need to do. Your life is more important than your writer’s block. Push through. Every clock is ticking down, some fast, some slow, but there is always less time.

This is not a threat or useless fury or powerless sympathy card verse. This is me, in grief, searching for the meaning and the inspiration to move forward. Last night, I wept for the loss of my friend. I did not write. Wayne would not have approved.

Tonight, I’m back to writing my book about a guy with a time machine trying to correct the mess he’s made of his life. Sadly, it’s fiction. We can’t go back. The clock ticks in one direction. Wayne’s clock has wound down, but if he were here, he’d tell me to get on with my obsession. He’d smile again. I so wish I could see his easy smile again.

Each book we write is that time machine, taking us closer to what and when and where we need to be. That’s one place we can often make strangers smile. Through intelligence and imagination and creativity, together we’ll find the answers to all those desperate wishes, whether it’s writing stories to distract readers from pain or breaking cruel diseases’ grip on our mortality.

Today, for you, do more than the dishes. Work in the bucket list. Work on your bucket list.

Goodbye, Wayne. Thank you so much for being you. I’m changed because you came this way. I won’t forget.

My screen is a watery blur now.

And we write on.

Filed under: Books, What about Chazz?, What about you?, Writers, writing tips, breaking through, bucket list, death, friends, grief, loss, Robert Chazz Chute, writers, writing

07/22/2014 • 12:58 AM 4

TOP TEN: What you were waiting for…THE THONG OF COURAGE!

Ten Rules About Everyone:

1. We’re all scared. The ones who say they aren’t haven’t experienced loss yet or they’re afraid of appearing weak. It’s okay to be afraid. Fear can be wise, but not so useful it should take over your life. Feel that fear and wear The Thong of Courage!, anyway.

2. We’re all frightened of being wrong or looking stupid. Worse, some graceless people are hoping to catch us making one wrong move. Worse still, at some point, we will all be caught.

What do we do next?

We snap The Thong of Courage! to remind us we are not defined by our mistakes if we learn from them. Forward! Down the Catwalk of Begin Again! Work it!

3. Everyone thinks they’re right all the time. Statistically impossible. Never happens. However, no matter what you do, someone is sure you’re wrong because you didn’t do it their way.

That’s okay. They think their subjective opinion cancels out yours. Maybe it would have yesterday, but today? Today you’re wearing The Thong of Courage! Behold, The Power of Thong!

4. We are all dependent on each other. Our stories are often about the one person who makes all the difference that saves the world. That’s almost always false.*

*Notable exception: a Russian officer defied military command protocol when the computers in his bunker told him US ICBMs were on the way. While his peers demanded a decision, he remained calm and thought it through. He averted global thermonuclear war by ignoring all the warnings on his screen. He determined that the attack was a computer malfunction and, of course, he was right. There was no “of course” about it at the time, though. We came so incredibly close to not being here and most people don’t even know it happened. His name is Petrov and that day he was wearing two Thongs of Courage!

5. We all envy people without knowing their struggles.

An author who is incredibly fortunate and gifted discovered that someone who had been a friend would not attend the launch party for her book. The friend was envious. What the friend did not understand was, even with all those blessings, nothing comes easy. It’s all work. There is no one clear path forward.

One person’s success takes nothing from another’s potential. When we slip The Thong of Courage! up our thighs and give a little wiggle, we feel inspired, not thwarted, by what others have achieved.

6. We are all humans. That means weakness. That means strength. To be human is a special thing, but too often we fall in with tribalism and blind nationalism. We choose teams and sides and brands. We see other people as The Other and distrust too easily.

“When we only seek enemies, we only find enemies.” That quote is from Superman in a Justice League of America cartoon I watched when I was eight. Often true, too. Superman is so thonged up, his underwear looks too thick to be a thong.

7. When we operate from fear, we often make bad decisions. (Bad news considering Items #1 and #2, eh?)

We’re scared we’ll get screwed over by Kindle Unlimited. We’re afraid of what Amazon might do someday, like change the royalty to two pennies. However, there’s not enough data yet in the first case and we’re worrying over a hypothetical in the latter.

But Thongers? We unite in the Now of the Isness of This Moment. Feel the raw psychosexual power of The Thong of Courage!

8. Worries about hypotheticals will still sneak under the Thong sometimes. What if we don’t have enough money to pay the bills if we get sick? Will we have enough money to get an education to get a good job? What if the roof leaks? There are infinite negative hypotheticals.

Projecting negative possibilities into the future isn’t as useful as it once was. If you’re reading this on a computer (as opposed to psychically), you probably aren’t in a survival situation where you have to figure out how to cure meat in case the crops fail.

What might be more useful is to use our imaginations to attack problems and be proactive about the future. Instead of getting stuck in paranoia, try pronoia. (That’s the state of suspecting the world could be a positive place and not everything is terrible and out to stab you in the eye with an icicle.) Pronoia is the magic stuff The Thong of Courage! is made of.

9. We are all more alike than we’d like to think.

I met a macho guy from another culture. He spoke in familiar, aggressive rhythms. He was forceful, but a nice guy. If I heard that same tone in another language, I might suspect he wasn’t a nice guy. However, as I listened to him in English conversation, I wanted to laugh at my foolish preconceptions. The guy only sounded angry. He was pontificating about pop culture to his friends.

As writers, our tool is imagination. When we aren’t writing, many of us use our imaginations as a weapon against ourselves. We fuel worry and create stress and that tears at the fabric of the Thong of Courage! True Thongers depend on evidence, not irrational, fearful maybes. We can use our imaginations for good. Start with pronoia. (#8)

10. We all seek validation. Too much, I think. We hope readers recognize our brilliance. We want Someone Else We Respect (and may not even know) to give us the nod and let us into the Successful People Club. There is no club. Worse, luck is more involved than we’d like to think in success. Worse still, if it existed, membership in that club would often be temporary.

Most of us won’t get such public validation. The outliers — those few, stellar successes — will be chosen for acknowledgement, adoration and jealousy, yes. Mid-list authors who do reasonably well will toil on, keeping the size of their checks secret. They’ll shut up about making $40 ~ $60,000 a year in part because it’s more than most get but also because it’s not as much as they’d hoped and they’re embarrassed by arbitrary expectations. Someone won’t approve. Always, someone won’t approve.

Most of us will fail by the usual monetary measures and chances are excellent Mom and Dad will lose sleep over the lawyer you could have been.

So don’t write for validation. Seeking other’s approval is not The Way of the Thong! Don’t wait for your parents to give your writing career their blessing. Stop expecting everyone to understand your obsessions. Do the work. Write. Write for the joy of creating and what comes will come. Or it won’t. Doesn’t matter. You’re a writer in an awesome thong, for God’s sake!

We talk about writer’s block too much. Write through the fear to create joy in yourself and possibly in others. It’s supposed to be fun for you and the reader, you know? It’s not really all that hard, either.

You know who really needs The Thong of Courage!? Roofers in the hot sun and sweaty ditch diggers and worried caregivers and people with real problems who don’t have the joy of being writers. We are so lucky to do what we do. When we understand that, we won’t even need The Thong of Courage! anymore. We’ll go commando, naked and unafraid.

You are the answer you’ve been waiting for.

Do it.

~ My name is Robert Chazz Chute. I write stuff. Pantsless.

Filed under: getting it done, What about Chazz?, What about you?, writing tips, aspirations, blogging, books, Courage, disappointment, envy, fear, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, rules for writing, rules of writing, thongs, trying, validation, work, writers, writing

07/20/2014 • 11:51 PM 7

What are you waiting for?

Here are Ten Rules About No One:

1. No one is waiting for you to get your life together. They want results, not excuses.

2. No one is waiting for your next book. They say they are, but they will forget you soon and they have plenty of other things to do. Be memorable and come back quickly.

3. No one is waiting for your next blog post, so don’t apologize when you miss a day or three. Get to the topic instead.

4. No one is waiting for you to organize or self-actualize. That’s your business. Organize to build your business. If business is good, you’ll get closer to self-actualization, too.

5. No one is waiting for you to get past your procrastination, so write now.

6. No one is waiting to rescue you. If you need help, ask. Otherwise, everyone assumes you’re fine. Chances are good you’ll still have to pull off your own rescue, though. We are all struggling.

7. No one is trying to hurt you…probably. What’s more likely is they’re taking a verbal or written swing at you because of their own ~~crap~~ issues. You did nothing wrong. You’re just the nearest target. Or they’re wrong. Or they’re just too stupid to see (or care) what you’re doing. Or, worst case scenario, they’re right.

Never mind. We are sharks. To live, we move forward or we die.

By the way, if it’s a physical swing they’re taking at you, be brutal enough to get away, smart enough to stay away and strong enough to call the police.

8. No one is an extra in the movie that is your life. Each is the star of their own movie.

9. No one remembers what you said. They remember what it’s like to be around you. Give them a reason to come back for more.

10. No one needs you to succeed and some would prefer you didn’t. You need to succeed and you won’t succeed with everyone. You can succeed with someone, though. Start with you.

What are you waiting for?

~ Robert Chazz Chute is a suspense novelist. And tonight? He is pissed at himself and others. Make him happier. Buy a book. Thank you.

Now off to get some more writing done, because Chazz DOES NOT WAIT. WAITING IS OVER. Happy Monday!

Filed under: author platform, What about Chazz?, What about you?, books, disappointment, life, move forward, reviews, Robert Chazz Chute, success, tips, waiting, writers, writing

07/18/2014 • 11:44 PM 2

Kindle Unlimited: Connection and Market Correction?

Kindle Unlimited is up and running at Amazon. For about ten bucks a month, readers can read a lot and authors will get paid if 10% of the book is read. Across the writerverse, we are speculating. Is it good news or bad news?

I suspect it’s good news. Here’s why I’m not worried:

1. There are other subscription services and there wasn’t really much outrage about them. Questions, certainly. Usually the question was, “Is this new thing I’ve never heard of legit?” Since it’s Amazon, the question is often, “Why are they out to destroy the world?”

The answer is, they want to own it, just like every other company. Competition and all that. That’s all of us. We’re all selling something, so let’s keep calm and bang a gong.

2. Those other subscription services have failed to usher in The End Times. This is one marketing idea among many. Some of the loudest concerns seem to be raised from a section of the marketplace that generates no new ideas. I’m suspicious they are decrying Amazon’s potential for success because they’ve failed to remain agile and open to new ideas. New ideas are always scary, but being scared and playing a defensive game is no way to score.

3. Amazon often knows what it’s doing. They test and survey ideas and probably didn’t come up with this just last week. They want reader and author participation so they want to make the new service profitable for Amazon and for us. If it doesn’t feel good, too many authors will drop out. A lot of authors left KDP Select’s Clause of Exclusiveness. This will probably bring a bunch back, to test the waters if nothing else.

4. You can limit your participation. It’s just for those titles enrolled in KDP Select so, just like always, any 90-day commitment you may choose today is only 89 days long if you change your mind tomorrow.

5. Anyone who subscribes to this service is a hardcore, enthusiastic reader. Different rules apply to power users.

The parallel to piracy is obvious. Some authors worry about pirates, but there is evidence that pirates are power users. They take a lot, but they also tend to be power buyers. Ultimately, I most want to connect with readers who want to read the next Robert Chazz Chute book. Power readers are more oriented to author brand and less so to particular genres.

To build 10,000 true fans, I need to find those people who say, “I liked the autistic boy versus the apocalypse. But I wonder how that voice shows up in Murders Among Dead Trees or his crime novels?”

6. Subscribers who will go for this deal are a subset of the reading public. It’s not for everybody. Many will stay away because they’re already paying for a gym membership they don’t use. They’ll prefer to buy books one-by-one because they’re already stressed out and guilty about they’re TBR pile.

7. If you’re making money from other platforms, stay diversified. If you’re unknown, this is another avenue to consider to become better known.

If you’ve already got it made, there is an argument that you might make more money if you lived in a plane of existence that doesn’t include Kindle Unlimited. If that’s you, you may need to work your massive email list harder, diversify further, sell direct or use a few dozen other strategies to stay relevant.

However, we have no data on that group yet. The good news is, they’re in a good position to finance adaptation.

8. When Amazon innovates, it makes me more hopeful because it’s more pressure on other platforms to up their game. The market is changing, but once again, it’s Amazon that’s innovating and trying new things to reach readers, not trad publishing or the other sales platforms.

If I were CEO of another sales platform, I wouldn’t be sleeping well. I’d be offering bonuses to my creative teams to be creative. Come up with new tools and plans to boost market share. KU is pressure that may squeeze a diamond out of their competition’s butt.

9. However, I’m not “all in” for Amazon. Some people think that. They don’t know I’m moving more of my books across many platforms and I don’t have anything in KDP Select at the moment.

I am in favor of experimentation.

I’ll have another couple of books ready soon. When they are ready, just as before, they’ll go into KDP Select and therefore into Kindle Unlimited automatically, too. I’ll see how they do and make more decisions from there.

We need more data, but cautious optimism seems reasonable at this point. Let’s try it out, maybe find more readers. Let’s write more, read more and worry less. In the end, it’s all about you, you, you and the readers you have not yet met.

~ Robert Chazz Chute is a suspense novelist who does not tend to be Zen about anything so, in light of today’s post, maybe there really is nothing to worry about in this one, tiny regard. Otherwise, we can be sure the universe is indeed out to get us. And it will.