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

10/10/2021 • 7:45 PM 1

Every Writer Needs a Gari

I’ve taken a bunch of writing workshops, but one thing I learned that I consider most valuable is about managing expectations. A very successful author stood at the front of the room and pulled a manuscript from her bag. The stack of paper bound by rubber bands was replete with Post-It Notes, all corrections from her editor. I don’t know whether it was her line editor or copy editor, but I can tell you the notes were copious, several to a page. That’s normal. Expect problems and recruit more pairs of eyes to comb your manuscript.

When I worked at Harlequin, we had many tiers of editors and proofers working on each manuscript. A few typos and whatnot still slipped through the net. We can aim for excellence, but perfection will always hover just beyond our grasp. You know why? Because we don’t know what we don’t know. Everybody needs a safety net. Whether you pay an editor or recruit a passel of beta readers (preferably both), pobody’s nerfect.

As I write this, I’m going through revisions on two new books (coming soon). I didn’t know the difference between a chartered accountant and a CPA. I didn’t think to check, either. However, my beta reader caught it. He also knew that it’s not restauranteur (with an n). It’s restaurateur. Somebody reading this doesn’t believe me because they, like me, have been spelling it incorrectly their entire lives. (For more on why the n is left out, enjoy this article from Mental Floss.)

Every time I think, Yeah, I’ve gone through the manuscript a few times. Surely, it’s pretty clean. Nope! And why? I’m not careless and I’m not an idiot, but I don’t know what I don’t know. The idiosyncrasies of comma placement often befuddle me. When I read a sentence, sometimes my brain fills in blanks so I miss something that should or shouldn’t be there. I publish in American English, but I sometimes write in Canadian. There are subtle differences and nuances, like whether to write Grade 4, or fourth grade. Some regional or Irish idioms that I grew up with would sound odd and unfamiliar to American readers.

Writing primarily for an American audience, I’ll take something for granted they may not. For instance, I wrote, “She took up after them,” instead of “She took off after them.” To me, took off connotes speed. Took up means the chase is on, but the runner is trailing and not catching up. Once our masterpieces are sanded smooth, readers stumble less. You want an easy glide path into their brains so you can highjack the feed of their consciousness. That’s where recruiting help comes in.

Fortunately, I have Gari Strawn of strawnediting.com on my side. Among Gari’s strengths are her tireless curiosity and a keen eye for details. I also suspect she sleeps with the Chicago Manual of Style under her pillow. She knows things, eases my stress, and allows me to focus on the story.

Confused about when to write a number out or type the numeral? Trained as a journalist, I was stuck in the AP Stylebook mindset until Gari reminded me of CMOS guidelines. Russ, my beta reader, and Gari, my assiduous editor, help to make my work better and clearer. Even Batman had Robin watching his back, so, no, most people cannot reliably edit their own work. Some authors will push back on this idea and say, “I’ve been an editor so I can edit my work.” Put aside the premise that you don’t know what you don’t know. To those writers, I would ask, “Why would you want to work without a net?” Please tell me it’s not pride. Would you rather hear about your misses privately and correct them, or read about them publicly in a negative book review?

Good editors and capable beta readers are out there and they do want to help you. If it’s not an editor, work with other writers. Recruit a team of beta readers. Since I began working with Gari, I’m more confident when I hit that big scary button marked Publish.

Something may still slip through, but that’s the case with every published book. Manage your expectations, strive for excellence, let others help. Expecting perfection is unhealthy and unrealistic, but making your books as wonderful as you can manage is much easier on you in the long-term.

~ I write killer crime thrillers and apocalyptic epics. Get the links to all my work at my author site, AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: Editing, Editors, writing advice, writing tips, beta readers, editing, editing books, editors, Gari Strawn, how to find a good editor, how to find an editor, proofreaders, proofreading, Robert Chazz Chute, self-publishing, why use an editor, why use beta readers, writer, writing, writing books

07/08/2021 • 2:03 PM 1

Reading and Writing Distractions

Once upon a time, two of the most recognizable figures were Muhammad Ali and Ernest Hemingway. They could go anywhere in the world, and they would be recognized in the street. You know what Ali was famous for. Hemingway was famous for writing, of course, less so for boxing. Being a savvy multiple streams-of-income author, Papa advertised liquor, too. Since the media revolution, all entertainment and infotainment markets are fractured and fragmented. We went from three TV channels to…how many streaming services are there now? I don’t have enough fingers and toes for high math.

But our problem, Dear Writer, is not just about too many things to track. You’re being tracked. Within the strict parameters of our media consumption algorithms, consumers tend to stay in their lanes. If you’re into K-pop, you’ll be fed more K-pop. If not, not. Data-driven platforms are watching and if you buy one toilet seat, they’ll serve up ads for all the toilet seats, bidets, and cushy tushy accoutrements you ever imagined and never needed.

Which brings me to publishing

There are more choices now and that’s great for everyone except when it’s not. If you dare to seek out the unknown, there’s plenty of it. However, the unknown will tend to remain so to those lucrative masses we dream about reaching when we’re penning a new masterpiece. To earn money writing books instead of some more likely venture, every publishing guru recommends drilling down in your genre. Romance is too broad a category. Mercenary/kidnapping/rescue romance caters to a specific audience. Cultivate that garden and you’ll have less competition and a smaller yet defined audience to seek out, advertise to, and serve. Within those fences, write at least two or three series with on-brand sexy covers and repeat until you’re sick of it, but sick of it on a yacht.

Westerns are out. Weird western gothic love triangles featuring murder by ouija board, a hotshot lawyer/city girl obsessed with maple syrup, a hot illiterate cowboy who sees ghosts, and a tough but tender rodeo clown into bondage? That’s in!

Ahem. These are just examples of drilling down, folks. Don’t jump on these frivolous examples as if it’s the military sci-fi trend kicked off by Chris Fox when he wrote Write to Market in 2016. Many writers didn’t take his advice to research a popular-yet-not-overcrowded genre they enjoy and write for it. They took his research seriously, though, and jumped on the military sci-fi bandwagon. That’s why there are so many covers of spaceship ass on Amazon. (Shout out to the excellent Six Figure Authors Podcast for the spaceship ass reference.)

Meanwhile, if you’re still querying agents, they still don’t know what they want, but like the infamous ruling on pornography, they’ll know it when they see it. They demand to be delighted and each agent has vast swaths of queries they’ll dismiss out of hand with a sneer. Research your agent first so you don’t end up as a sad example they mock to entertain strangers on Twitter. You don’t want to see your manuscript get this hurtful and unprofessional treatment: “Some pathetic creature dared to send me his heartfelt memoir of divorce and the loss of his parents as the Sandwich Generation suffers on! Har-har-har! What an asshole!”

In short, competition is stiff, so choose your targets carefully.

In independent publishing we are no longer subject to gatekeepers and, yes, in most ways there is no better time to be a writer than this moment. Just don’t underestimate the competition for eyeballs. The same distractions that keep you from writing are keeping your potential audience from reading. Gird your loins, guard your mind, write well, and write something that will distract your target audience from their crying babies, eating, and the fact that the world is on fire.

~ Hey, in case you don’t know me, I’m Robert Chazz Chute. I write killer crime thrillers (try The Night Man) and apocalyptic epics (read AFTER Life right now!) You’ll find links to all my books on my author site, AllThatChazz.com. And thanks, that’s super cool of you, you sexy undistracted butterfly.

Filed under: publishing, Writers, writing, writing advice, books, drilling down on genres, how to query an agent, marketing advice, marketing algorithms, querying agents, reading, Robert Chazz Chute, what's hot in books?, writing, writing advice, writing books, writing fiction

06/01/2021 • 7:25 PM 4

Writing at Turtle Speed

I am currently writing the final act to my new apocalyptic novel, Endemic. I’m not going to kid you, this has been a long time coming. I have not been blazing through this journey through 2020 to now. I’ve poked at the manuscript, much like one might poke a bear carcass with a stick to make sure it’s dead. (Pro tip from a Canadian: Don’t do that.)

I do have a large backlist, but if you haven’t published anything in over a year, readers tend to forget the magic that is you. Without advertising or a little prodding, potential fans and algorithms tend to become oblivious to your existence. As a writer, you may feel so out of it that you must, like me, double-check the spelling of algorithm every goddamn time you use the word.

Pre-pandemic, there were times when I published five books a year. A couple of them were anthologies, but still, that was quite a respectable pace of productivity for me. 2020? Not so much. By not so much, I mean I published nothing new at all. However, I’m beginning to think that’s okay. When approaching a steep hill and a sharp curve, it’s good to slow down. If this is your writing life, too, I want to tell you that’s okay.

Here’s why I am giving myself a break

My bestseller took three years to write. This Plague of Days is a trilogy about the zombie apocalypse, but it didn’t start out that way. The first book was a story of disaster and survival. It’s a slow build with Latin phrases quoted from a mute kid on the spectrum trying to cope with the end of the world. It is an ambitious story and I rewrote it so many times, I can’t even guess how many drafts I revised before I got to the books that are still my steady sellers. (I should also note that my fastest full-length novel took 30 days with a pace as frantic as its composition. I love that novel no more nor less than others.)

Some writers may have found themselves trapped at home and amazingly productive during the pandemic. That’s not me. I hid in my blanket fort and, as someone who suffers health anxiety, became even more hypervigilant to emerging symptoms. COVID-19 has not been great for my mental or physical health, but more on that tomorrow.

Flash forward to writing Endemic

This new novel has some common ground with This Plague of Days. The main character is intelligent but, like Jaimie Spencer, she’s a very unlikely hero in an apocalypse. She’s a former book editor turned urban gardener fighting marauders. There’s great action, but hers is also a psychological story. She’s a neurotic outcast trying to survive on her own. Major handicap? Her psychotherapist is dead. That doesn’t stop her from talking to Dr. Rosa, but the deceased aren’t that much help. The main character, like me, has voices in her head. That input is not always helpful.

I slowed down to write Endemic, but the manuscript has turned into something special because I took my time. There are levels to this that explore what happens to the psyche under stress and duress. As a result, this novel will be my most personal book to date. There is a chapter called Three True Things that spring directly from my childhood experience. Let me tell you, it’s not a little disturbing to discover events from your childhood fit neatly into a story about the end of the world.

This is not say that if you write faster or slower, your narrative will become more or less rich. Everybody writes at their own pace. At some point, any writer in a Facebook group has been scolded, told that if you write too fast, it’s gotta be a bad book and you’re a hack. Ignore those judgments. That cliche doesn’t come from a kind place and that knee-jerk from jerks against pulp speed is simply wrong. Mileage varies. Some writers are simply faster than others. Others take it slow. Some books spring to life easily and others are hothouse flowers that need to be nurtured and coddled.

What matters is, do the readers in the target demographic dig it? Don’t listen to other writers too much. They tend to use only one measure: their own experience. On the subject of the speed of creation, I’m reminded of the old George Carlin joke about driving: Anyone slower than me is an idiot and anyone driving faster is a maniac!

Some writers take more time and some stories require more time to germinate. For my story to reach its potential, I had to take my time. For my health and for the betterment of this story, I drove about as fast as a I would in a busy parking garage.

Fortunately, after so much contemplation and taking copious notes, I’m speeding up in the home stretch. Endemic will be published this fall. Going slow has not helped my visibility or my career as an author (yes, there are cons to the pros). However, beyond that dent in my fender, I have no regrets.

~ Check out my books on my author site, AllThatChazz.com.

BONUS:

The first book in the AFTER Life Trilogy, Inferno, is now permafree and available wide on just about every publishing platform you can imagine. It’s a zombie apocalypse story with a twist brought to you by artifical intelligence, brain parasites, and nanotechnology with ambitions to give the human race a makeover. Look for AFTER Life by Robert Chazz Chute, wherever you want to dig my swing.

**AFTER Life, the first book in the trilogy, is followed by AFTER Life Purgatory and AFTER Life Paradise**.

Filed under: writing advice, writing tips, After life, how fast should I write, pandemic writing, Robert Chazz Chute, writing books, writing careers, writing fast or slow, writing in the middle of a pandemic, writing novels

05/11/2020 • 7:55 AM 1

Help for the Anxious Writer

If your book idea feels thin at first, consider that Ice Road Truckers barreled on for 11 seasons and found an audience. If you’ve got a grand idea for a novel, but it’s not springing onto the page fully formed, I have some suggestions. If you’re unsure of yourself as a writer, I’ve got ideas about that, too.

When you lack confidence:

You don’t have to stop where you are today.
If you write more than one book, each level of success will vary. Think in terms of moving forward instead of dwelling on failures.
Go deeper into characters’ back stories to find the way forward.
Elucidate motivations and deny what each character wants. When desires conflict, you’ve got drama.
Do you have the basics? Who, what, where, why, when and how.
Play to your experience and strengths, but it’s not necessary to write what you know. Write what you care about.
Go deeper on specifics without beating the reader over the head with your deepest research.
Get the details right. For many readers, procedurals and process are porn.
Set the scene to give the reader a sense of time and place. Don’t forget the smells and feels, the sense and impact of the location, but don’t go too hard on the weather report.
Find the next step in your plot by finding a logical move, but don’t succumb to the first easy answer that springs to mind.
Discover the logical surprise twist. Defy the reader’s comfort in thinking they know how the story will unfold.
Smooth out the bumps later so it looks like you planned the entire narrative from beginning to end.
Too much editing as you go will impede progress. You’ll have a sharp Chapter One with no Chapter 2.
Make your characters distinctive. Giving one twin a porkpie hat he adjusts and readjusts for 200 pages isn’t special enough.
If two characters sound alike and perform the same function in the story, they might as well be one person.
Put the manuscript aside and give it more thought so you look like a genius later.
Put it aside and don’t think about it. The answer often appears when you come back to it fresh.
Don’t put a manuscript aside for too long.
Don’t get overwhelmed or too precious about storytelling. Plenty of half-drunk half-idiots sitting around campfires have told entertaining yarns for thousands of years.
Focus on the A to B to C in the first and second draft. Action flows from character and is character.
Themes will emerge later. Don’t set out to write a theme. A manifesto has no plot.
Entertainment is Goal #1. Don’t set out to educate with a novel. That souffle will fall flat.
Your main character needs a fatal flaw or they’ll be boring. Too perfect is boring and inhuman.
Your protagonist needs more obstacles in their way. Heroes and heroines have to be smoked in the oven a long time before they’re done.
Your villain needs the complexity of nuance and a purpose they believe is noble. No one thinks they’re the villain.
No character should feel like a red shirt, easily sacrificed. Henchman #3 has a family and feelings, dammit!
Don’t allow a smart person to do a dumb thing just to make a plot work. That’s the sound of gears grinding in a rusty machine.
Avoid a story with one tone, particularly if it’s one grim tone.
Heroics and horror both have room for humor when the wit is well-placed (but if you aren’t funny, don’t force it).
Fight scenes and sex scenes are similar: they both need to acknowledge the breath, heat, emotion and effort involved.
Read more in the genre to make sure you’re hitting the tropes without surrendering to cliche.
Drop the boring parts and concede that not every idea is worthy of a novel. Your idea for a full-length novel might make a better novella or short story.
Make your characters more relatable but don’t succumb to the critic who says, “People don’t act like that.” This character, your character, acts like that.
Decide your protagonist is unchanging and the series is episodic (e.g. Sherlock Holmes) or decide on a story arc that allows for character growth. Ignore reviewers who demand your character be fully actualized immediately. They don’t have the patience to understand what you’re doing with that character in the next book.
Dare to write a bold plot point, but too many coincidences are death.
Disguise your deceptions until the big reveals strike.
Contextualize the fantastic with normality to enhance the suspension of disbelief.
Read your manuscript like a reader, not like a writer.
Pick your allies carefully. Writers are much harder to please than casual readers and their motivations are sometimes suspect. (Hint: most readers are of the casual variety looking for distraction and escape, not an argument over comma placement.)
Let go of what isn’t working. Harvest wheat, cut chaff.
Go deep to create an immersive page turner. Make a movie in their heads.
Find an editor you trust who is out to help you, not tear you down. Some editors get into this biz for the wrong reasons.
The right length is the word count that gets to the end of the story.
Rely on feedback from your real readers, not randos.
Rewrite to make the reading experience richer.
Revise for clarity.
Edit to get where you’re going at the right speed, avoiding detours, potholes and plot holes along the route.
Drop the ten-dollar words but don’t talk down to your audience.
Do not overwrite character descriptions. You’ll interfere with the movie in their heads.
Have fun. If you’re having fun, readers probably will, too.
Are you getting up from the desk often enough? Moving? Getting some air and enough sleep? Feed the body, energize the brain, charge up Ole Ink Hill.
The only reason you dislike your manuscript might be that you’ve reread and rewritten it too many times. Your personal draft limit will vary. Send it to your editor when you hit the wall.
Cute can work. Too twee? Less so. So much depends on what you’re writing. Consider the variables. Listen to your heart when you write. Listen to your brain when you revise. Listen to your editor before you publish.
These are broad guidelines. Sometimes it is better to tell rather than show. If it plays, it plays.
Some write like they talk. When done well, it will sound natural.
Some try to write as if they’re 17th Century British nobles.
Let the words come from you. With revisions, You the Writer will come across smoother than You the Person with Cookie Crumbs Down Your Shirt.
Stop being so precious about writing. This is art, not a procrastination project. You want it to be excellent, not perfect.
Lives do not hang in the balance, not even your life.
Finish.
Edit.
Proof.
Publish.
Some will love you no matter what you do. Some will hate you no matter what. Most don’t give a shit. Let go of demanding that your family care about your high calling. Stop caring about anyone outside your target audience. What does your brother know, anyway? He’s obsessed with golf and foot fetish porn.
Don’t depend on one book to make you famous.
Write another book.
Somebody’s going to hurt your feelings. Nobody hits a home run every time and not everyone’s opinion gets equal weight. Look for support in the right places.
You’re not writing a novel. That can feel overwhelming and possibly a terrible waste of time. Instead, you’re writing a little short story each day (or most days of the week, anyway). Each short story just happens to connect to the next short story. These stories are your chapters. Writer 45 to 55 or so, and behold! A book! See? Easier than it sounded at first!
Relax. Enjoy telling your stories. Focus on process now, not outcome.
With enough at-bats, you have a better shot at hitting home runs.
Don’t talk about writing more than you write.
Don’t give up unless you hate writing.
If you hate writing, there are plenty of other things to do that probably pay more.
If you love writing, there’s not much else to do.

*If you prefer outlining, there’s nothing wrong with that and you might end up writing faster with fewer hiccups and less anxiety. Your mileage may vary and that’s a blog post for another time.

~ If you enjoy apocalyptic epics or killer crime thrillers, I’m your guy. Find all the books by Robert Chazz Chute at my author site, AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: the writing life, writing, writing advice, writing tips, how to plot a book, how to write a book, how to write without an outline, novel writing, Robert Chazz Chute, the writing life, writer, writing, writing advice, writing books, writing without an outline

03/09/2020 • 8:01 AM 1

How to make a plot work

Simple anecdote:

There’s a pie cooling on that windowsill. Steal it.

Novel Plot:

There’s a pie cooling on that very high windowsill and the doors are all locked. No ladders allowed. Make the pie nigh impossible to steal and add in twists, reversals, false victories, and false failures.

Make the quest compelling throughout with memorable characters. Possibly get away with stealing that pie. Maybe, maybe not as long as you make your reader care.

That is the very complex made simple.

I put fresh faces on three covers last week. Here they are.

**The words have the power to save the world or end it,**
**and it’s now in the hands of one man.**

**America has fallen to fascism. It’s up to Kismet Beatriz to start the revolution in New Atlanta, the fortress of the rich.**

**When bad guys chase the prodigal son back to New York, family secrets will be murder.**

Find them all on my author site: AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: writing advice, anecdotes, Cover art, fiction, fiction writing, new covers, novels, plots, plotting, Robert Chazz Chute, writing, writing books

02/20/2020 • 5:31 PM 0

Writing: Pet Peeves

The following post appeared on my Facebook fan page. Thought it might be of interest here, too.

Last night I told you I didn’t care for characters doing dumb things to create artificial drama in a story. It’s fine if the characters are already dim. It’s annoying when they’re supposed to have bare minimum intelligence but act like morons to get to the next plot point.

Classic example:

The slasher victim runs upstairs where she’ll be trapped instead of sprinting out the back door. They’re often athletic cheerleaders in those movies. My daughter’s a cheerleader and tumbler. She could backflip away from a masked killer with a knife faster than he could run.

What else makes reading a chore?

1. Big blocks of text, run-on sentences and sentences that are not varied in length.

2. Exhaustive physical descriptions of characters. Readers usually fill in those details based on a few broad brushstrokes.

3. Cruelty for its own sake. Jesus Diaz has endured torture, but it does not devolve into torture porn. Instead, the dialogue is witty and clever, and the scene advances the plot. He’s a hitman, but he often talks and cons his way out of trouble.

4. Footnotes. I’m reading a novel called Dietland at the moment. The descriptions are fresh. (“My heart fluttered like a moth caught in a lampshade.”) However, the footnotes are a superfluous gimmick meant to lend credulity to the fiction. No need.

5. Chapters that go on too long.

6. Ending the story forty pages short of the end of the book.

7. Getting bogged down in so many technical details that the reader is beaten over the head with the writer’s research.

8. A story with one grim tone. I want a roller coaster ride where I can cry one minute and laugh the next. I slide lots of jokes and irony in amongst the horror. When done right, it doesn’t spoil the tone. It enhances the reading experience. Talk to any nurse, funeral director or cop. Gallows humor abounds in the face of horror.

9. Lazy writing turned The Walking Dead from somewhat interesting into a hilarious hate watch. Lazy writing asks you to overlook too much and makes the adventure too easy.

Another example is an old legal drama called The Rainmaker. The premise is a young, inexperienced lawyer takes on the system and wins. The problem with the screenplay is things go far too smooth and easy for him at every turn. He breezes through the plot unopposed. It’s a win without a triumph if the bad guys fall over just because you show up.

10. An unsatisfying ending. Hate ’em, but there are all kinds of endings.

I can do happily-ever-after. (Citizen Second Class yields an unexpected kind of happy-ever-after, for instance.) Sometimes it’s happily-ever-after-for-now. Triumph that comes at great sacrifice is good. I like to offer slivers of hope for the future, even amid chaos. I enjoy Twilight Zone endings. I don’t mind a good cliffhanger at all as long as I see it coming. (Hence, This Plague of Days, Season One is called This Plague of Days *Season One*, just like a television series should leave you breathless for the next season.)

What’s an unsatisfying ending? Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds was a triumph of special effects for its day. I guess that’s why no one noticed that screenplay was missing a third act. It’s kind of like how Johnny Cash was a great success but he didn’t sing so much as talk.

Johnny Cash, the original white rapper. (Did I just blow your mind?)

What are your pet peeves?

~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute. I write killer crime thrillers and a lot of books about the end of the world. Check out all my books at my author site, AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: writing, writing advice, fiction, pet peeves, write better, write right, writing, writing books, writing pet peeves

04/07/2015 • 11:21 AM 0

Write more, write faster, sell more

Camp NaNoWriMo is on now and it’s not too late to jump in.

It’s only the second week of April’s Nano and I’m powering along, really happy with my story. It’s all very Buffy. I came up with the first draft to The Haunting Lessons in eighteen days during November’s NaNoWriMo so I’ve got a good track record of getting it done, especially when other writers are watching.

With Camp Nano, it’s you and ten other cabin mates cheering each other on. I find the friendly competition encourages me to move forward and write longer. (I’m up to about 16,500 and expect to finish the draft to the third in the Ghosts & Demons Series this month. (You can pre-order the second in the series, The End of the World As I Know It, here.)

I’m using the Pomodoro App again, and loving it.

Writing isn’t a problem for me, but sometimes I’m reluctant to start. Pomodoro gets me going and I often keep going even though the app gives you scheduled breaks. There’s something about a timer clicking down in the background that makes you want to beat the clock. Then I cruise on, powered by Pomodoro Technique inertia. Try it.

Google sheets.

Within Google docs are easy-to-use spreadsheets. I started using them for recording my tax receipts. Turns out, I love them for lots of reasons, like tracking word counts, productivity, weight loss, food choices. Only that which is measured is changed. I talk about that quite a bit on the all new, All That Chazz podcast. Find out more at AllThatChazz.com.

~ More on productivity soon. In the meantime, after a hiatus to reorganize (and for his wife to have a baby), Kit Foster of Kitfosterdesign.com is back and working full throttle to provide excellent ebook cover designs, web banners and paperback covers for authors and publishing houses everywhere. Check out his portfolio at KitFosterDesign.com and make your next book cover work harder to sell more books.

Filed under: writing tips, Camp Nano, Camp Nanowrimo, demons, ghosts, kitfosterdesign.com, NaNoWriMo, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, sell more books, writing, writing books, writing faster

12/29/2014 • 5:20 PM 0

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Filed under: publishing, books, Crack the Indie Author Code, horror, how to write books, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, self-publishing, writers, writing, writing books

10/15/2014 • 9:02 PM 3

As a writer, what’s optional? What’s necessary? What’s real?

1. I think charity, political action and social justice is important. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important.

(For instance, I’m trying to help a guy find a kidney.)

This post is about doing what’s necessary and managing our time better as writers and publishers. Don’t click away. It’ll be fun. You’re going to like this post a lot, trust me, but before we proceed, please consider that at least one good kidney is what’s really necessary. Please sign your donor card. Follow @RSawatsky and retweet him. #DudeNeedsAKidney! Spread the word to change and save lives. Thank you.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming…

Organ donation matters to all of us but Amazon and Hachette’s machinations really don’t much. I try not to get too caught up in industry debates that don’t affect me and hurt my productivity if I give them too much energy. I’ve commented on Amazon versus Hachette, but I don’t live and breathe that debate because I feel no agency in changing the outcome. Amazon and Hachette are gonna do what they’re gonna do.

Meanwhile, I’m publishing my fifteenth book at the end of the month. (That averages out to five a year, so clearly I’m a slacker.) My point is, it’s better that I spend time telling stories instead of scurrying around the ankles of giants.

2. If you can’t afford to pay an editor, you can swap services, use your writing group or crowdsource. Finding a good editor is hard. Harnessing the hive mind, if you have enough solid people on your side, is easier in some ways. If you can afford to hire an editor, don’t stop there. You probably still need to crowdsource to get a lot of eyes on your manuscript before you release it. More proofreaders in your beta team now mean fewer problems later.

Beware of people who approach you about editing your next book. Better not to answer them. Best to depend on the team you develop and choose. Finding help gets easier as you go along. Don’t despair and take the time you need. Also, there’s zero shame in taking that job you need to pay for the professional assistance you need. You’re a full-time author if you put in a lot of hours, no matter what job is listed on your tax form.

3. I got a bill. As a result, I have never been so focussed as I am now on the famous 80/20 rule. That which does not advance my writing career in some tangible way is a waste of my time and I am ruthless. Priorities are: family and friends, exercise, writing, a certain degree of social interaction and the pursuit of happiness along career lines.

I write and exercise early in the day to make sure that gets done. Everything has a schedule and I am plugged into it.

Why exercise? Because we’re sitters and sitting is the new smoking. Self-care puts the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting other passengers in need. Do that or we’re all gonna die.

4. Experiments are conducted. That which works, stays. That which does not is jettisoned. Bookbub and BookGorilla and Freebooksy are still in. I try smaller services sequentially (separating promotions) to see if they have an effect on daily sales. They don’t (for now) so they’re out. I’ll revisit them periodically to see if they’ve grown their subscriber lists substantially, especially if they’re free services.

If I can spend an afternoon at some kind of author event and if I’ve just reached one new reader and touched their hearts? I’ve wasted that afternoon.

I’m not playing small ball, anymore. I don’t hang out hoping for individual conversions. I make alliances with my fellow author army for mass mind invasions. I experiment with keywords and categorization. I give sermons to the masses. Scalable stuff. I don’t want twelve disciples. I want a vast cult of love that spreads among strangers by word of mouth in airport lounges and through the matrix as fast as the newly converted can warble at each other excitedly about my last book and my next book. I am a happy infection.

Don’t get me wrong. I love every reader who gets me. I’m not trying to sound harsh. I’m trying to maximize my time because I’m not immortal (yet.) Only the willing are drafted. I’m prepared to sell my books and ideas but it’s an invitation, not a hard sell that makes me hate myself and lose psychic energy.

If I have to spend time convincing them to take my book into their hands? They aren’t ready for me. They’re ready for James Patterson. Godspeed.

5. It’s best to hire someone to do your graphic design. I always recommend Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. He is awesome and if you employ his talents you’ll undoubtedly sell more books.

If you can’t do that (due to financial emergency or scheduling issues), kdrenegade and picmonkey are options that work best together. There are many editing programs. Whatever we do won’t be as good as what a professional can do for us, but it might do until we can redo those covers with the pros.

Do do your best or you’ll rue your doo doo book covers.

6. Book formatters can make your work look great and elevate your art with their art and sensibility. Pay them if you can afford to do so. Otherwise, let’s not be quite so hard on amateur formatting attempts as long as it’s functional.

For instance, book formatters will insist that your print book must begin on the right. The people who care about this are book formatters. They can be hypercritical of details no one else notices. Also, unlike the formatting experts, I prefer seeing the title at the top of each screen of an ebook. I tend to read ten books at a time and the header they disparage as unprofessional reminds me which book I’m looking at instantly. (Did I mention I don’t have a lot of time to spare? Yeah.)

If you don’t care about certain details, you can do it yourself without expense or worry you’re doing too much that is wrong. Experts love to tell you you’re wrong. Non-experts, too. Especially non-experts.

There is much to obsess over. This is not one of those things. Prioritize what matters to you.

7. I blog when I have something to say. Otherwise, I write books.

Chasing the dragon by posting to a blog twice daily (or more) in an effort to boost blog traffic is so 2004.

8. YouTube videos of cats freaking out = a gravity well from which no one escapes. Don’t go there. If you do, you’ll write one less book this year.

You can’t feed your cat by watching cats on YouTube unless you film your own cat to make money on YouTube. You didn’t think all those crazy situations caught on video were accidents, did you? No. That’s a conscious plan to monetize cute (and steal your writing time.)

9. Don’t complain. Never explain.

Someone at Thanksgiving dinner and on Christmas Day is caught up in outdated misconceptions of what you do. This is an energy suck. Do you really want to have that same conversation about how ebooks aren’t real books, the smell of paper blah-de-blah and your publishing venture is not legit unless a trad publisher pays you a pittance and abuses you with ferocious contract terms?

Don’t get sucked in. Instead, agree with the Uncle Bozo. Tell him he’s absolutely right. He hasn’t changed his mind about anything ever, anyway, so stop butting foreheads. Your aspirations don’t matter and books don’t pay. Tell him what he wants to hear.

Then tell him, “Fortunately, you can remedy that.” Thank him for his concern as you say, “I’ve got my books in the trunk of the car. You can buy them right now! Thanks again! Be right back!” Don’t wait for his reply.

Bring them all. Before he can protest, tell him you have change for big bills. (With Square, you can also take his credit card.) Refuse to leave until those boxes are empty and his trunk is full. His choice is to buy your stuff or admit he was being a prick and trying to make you feel bad about your aspirations.

Uncle Bozo will never bother you again.

10. Look to others’ successes to figure out how to proceed and what practices to copy.

Don’t waste a minute worrying that everyone else is playing this game better and getting luckier and selling more books than you.

They are all doing much better (often succeeding by accident while you try guile!) They’re all doing great and thinking about buying a boat. You suck. I suck, too. I know! I know! But worry doesn’t help that. Writing the next book helps that.

You’re going to write that next book, anyway, no matter what the “market conditions” are. So go do that. No bullshit.

And stop checking your sales dashboard stats for green arrows ten times a day!

~ This post was briefly titled, “As an authorpreneur…” Then I changed it to “As an writer…” and it went out like that. Oh, for God’s sake! We now return to our regularly scheduled self-loathing….

Filed under: author platform, publishing, Rant, #dudeneedsakidney, @RSawatsky, a call to arms, authorpreneur, bloggers, blogging, books, kidney donation, kidneyforruss.wordpress.com, no bullshit, organ donation, project management, publishing, readers, Robert Chazz Chute, Russell Sawatsky, selling books, Time management, writers, writing, writing books, writing life

10/04/2014 • 4:10 PM 7

What if What We Think We Know About Writing, Publishing & Promotion is Wrong?

Problem:

Blogging is dead. I’ve been spinning out gold here for years. Maybe I should have spent more time writing books instead because my blog stats are fairly static. This site gets pretty decent traffic when I post, but it’s not growing as I’d hoped. Still glad to do it because it’s a compulsion, but I don’t do it as often and I don’t do it to sell books. I’m here to gain allies, share information and rant when the pressure builds too high.

My book sales come through Amazon promoting me, perhaps the occasional ad, pulse sales and, most important, word of mouth. I experiment with categorization and keywords and KDP Select. I write surprising books with many twists and turns and emotional gut punches. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been teetering on the cusp of success a long time and sometimes that’s lonely and sad. That’s when I stalk around the house naked, overcompensate for my doubt, pour a stiff coffee and start shouting, “Tonight I shall drink from the Chalice of Glory!”

Solution:

We all need an author page, but do we really need to blog? Instead, go where it’s easier for consumers of information to consume. Twitter, when used well, is one option and less time-consuming.

Note, too, there are far fewer podcasts than there are blogs. I’m back podcasting after taking a hiatus. My podcast stats not only bounced up nicely with one new episode this past week, but the numbers were pretty steady in my absence. To catch the latest All That Chazz podcast (The Hit Man Edition) click here.

The Oft-repeated Wisdom May be a Lie.

Gird your loins because this is going to get scary. Here’s what we think we all know for sure:

Market your books by writing more books.

Well, yes and no. If you have a hit, your new adoring readers may want to read everything you write and then it finally will pay to have a huge back list. However, it amazes me how many readers are very genre-specific in their tastes. More books doesn’t necessarily translate to more sales.

I know this goes against everything you’ve read and it goes against what I believed until recently. But, as Tucker Max said on the Self-Publishing Podcast recently, “Book discovery is broken.”

My Evidence:

1. Some authors are making good money writing fairly crappy books, and fairly few. (So much for the “Make-it-great-and-it-will-certainly-sell meme.”) What makes them hot? Genre choice is one major factor, I suspect.

2. It’s surprising how many authors seem to do okay with their first book or two. Or they get featured on podcasts and whatnot despite being relative novices. Is it their marketing machine, their genre of choice or luck? (More about the touchy subject of luck in a moment.)

3. It’s disheartening to find (in my informal and unscientific survey) that there are solid, experienced authors who:

(A) appear to be great at marketing,

(B) have an impressive number of books to sell, and yet,

(C) one of their series is actually selling and just about everything else is not. Read (C) again. Aren’t you glad your girded your loins? I know it’s counterintuitive, but it’s what I’ve been told by authors with a lot of books out there (as in more than thirty).

Some authors are blaming cannibalization from Kindle Unlimited for their recent sales dip. Or is it that the recession still rolls on in too many places? Or is it that readers already have too many free books to read? Can we blame our sales platforms? The narrow availability of Bookbub and the ineffectiveness of non-Bookbub sales tools? As a last resort, I suppose we could blame ourselves, but don’t wallow. I’m here to open the Box of Depression, not stuff you in deeper.

The Lie We All Need to Believe

On a recent publishing podcast, somebody who is making many thousands of dollars a month said something like: “Any author with persistence will make it big.”

Math says that’s not true. We won’t all make it big. Many of us won’t make it at all. Like the stock market, everybody can’t ride high by sheer force of will. If persistence alone were the issue, I’d have fewer writer friends constantly worried about money. I think some of us have to work smarter, but many of us are certainly working very hard. Telling us to bear down even more isn’t really helpful and may be damaging to our health, our relationships and our self-esteem.

About luck

People who do make it big will usually say something humble about being lucky. Then they’ll detail the strategies to which they attribute their success. They might be right or they may be rationalizing. They might not attribute enough of their success to luck and organic growth. But more important, can their experience translate to ours? If you’re not in the same genre and working in the same time frame with the same resources, can you replicate what they did to earn readers?

My strategies going forward:

1. Still blogging, but less so. Podcasting more. Worrying less.

2. I’m holding off on the spin-off of the Hit Man Series I’d planned. Common wisdom is that many thriller series don’t seem to take off until you’re at book #5 or above. Hollywood Jesus and The Divine Assassin’s Playbook, Omnibus Edition just launched and I’m at Book #3. I hope to bring the sales of my crime novels up as the charms of my funny Cuban assassin, Jesus Diaz, are discovered. Therefore, I’ll write more of the Hit Man Series, faster. Come for the action and stay for the jokes as he falls out of the frying pan and into the napalm.

3. Work in popular genres. I’m not talking about chasing trends so much as acknowledging that I can write in more genres than I’ve allowed myself in the past. To get where I need to go so I can write more on a full-time basis, the work needs to pay.

Choosing more popular genres first is the equivalent of choosing to paddle the white water to get where I need to be (and get there faster.) I can still make any book a labor of love without throwing away profitability.

For instance, I love my upcoming time travel book. I’ve been stunned to discover there are a lot of fans of time travel who are asking me to hurry up and put that one out. My next book is another crime novel, but I’ll get to it all. I am putting books out faster now, but it may be speed of production within a genre (not necessarily flat numbers of books) that helps me avoid the infamous Cliff of Visibility from which we drop after thirty days on the market.

I also produce more books because, as with this blog, it’s about doing what I love. Produce as much as you want, but don’t pin all your hopes on any one book. Just write because you want and need to.

Opening up to New Possibilities is Another Way Forward

Recently, a publisher approached me about writing a ghost story for an anthology. It’s an honor to be asked, but that genre doesn’t appeal to me. Or rather, it didn’t appeal to me.

I noodled with a few ideas. Then I started losing sleep over it. Unless we’re talking Poltergeist, my problem with ghosts is their lack of agency. What does a ghost want? How are they a threat? How could I make readers care? Did I really want to write this at all?

The key question I ask for all my book ideas persisted:

How could I transform an old idea into a fresh and cool story?

She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn’t ask about my insomnia, anymore. She just meets me at the breakfast table with, “Busy brain?” The insomnia finally paid off. I found the hook and the angle I needed to get into the story. I want to write for that anthology now because I found the key to the main character. I also want to write a series of books on that foundation.

I never looked down on ghost stories. I just figured they were for other writers to write. Now I know I can still write whatever I want. The difference is now I’m going to let myself play in a much larger playground.

Excuse me. I have to go write a metric crap-ton of books now. For the love of it.