Authors Could Write So Much More If We Weren't Always Promoting

One of the most common things people say when they look at my body of work is, "Wow... you write a lot of stuff!" And they're not wrong. I run two blogs, I have an archive on vocal.media that I'm regularly expanding, I write between 1 and 2 TTRPG supplements every month, I put out 1 video per week for the Azukail Games YouTube channel, I've got half a dozen novels to my name, and in between those things I write short stories that wind up on channels like Altered State Adventures or A Vox in The Void.

However, do you know what I spend the majority of my day doing so I can put a roof over my head, and keep food on my table? Promotion.

And I hate it. But this is the reality that so many people don't realize about being a writer... a majority of what you do in a day isn't actually writing.

It's the part of the job no one wants to talk about...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

Getting Back Up On The Soap Box

This topic has been on my mind recently because for some reason I was having trouble sharing anything of mine on Facebook for the past week. I could post just fine to my personal and author pages, but anything else the site was basically blocking me from sharing, claiming that I was posting too often. So I basically haven't been doing much on Facebook for a week or so... and I was doing nothing on at least a few of those days.

Now, on an average day, I'll post in between 30 and 50 Facebook groups. Sometimes it's more, and sometimes it's less, but that's an average spread. Not only that, but in addition to FB I need to make posts on Reddit, Blue Sky. Tumblr, and several other places... and this takes hours of my day. By having FB no longer something I could use, I freed up probably 1-2 hours... especially because the site requires you to stagger out your posts throughout the day.

And what did I lose in visibility? It's hard to say, but generally speaking FB isn't worth much to me. A few dozen blog reads here, maybe 15 views on a video there... I can't remember the last time I actually sold something based on a FB post.

And what did I do with the time I got back? Well, it allowed me to focus on other tasks that I could then clear off my desk. The total amount of time I spend using that site was probably the equivalent energy and time it takes me to write a blog post just like this.

So what if I spent an entire day just writing instead of posting on half a dozen social media sites to promote my work... what could I get done then?

Glad you asked. Because on days where the Internet has gone down and I can't post, I basically finish all of my usual writing tasks by lunchtime. At that point I'll often record some scripts to get ahead on my audio dramas, I'll start a short story I didn't otherwise have time for, or push ahead into the next RPG supplement that I didn't have the energy for with a day full of promotional posts.

Because it's not just the time that promoting your work takes. It also sucks up energy, focus, and creative juice that you then don't have to work on other things. Just like how going to a day job can suck out your desire to write, promoting the things all day can leave your battery empty, and your soul exhausted.

So Why The Hell Do I Do It?

I probably made promotion sound like a constant uphill grind with little to no chance of reward that leaves you feeling empty and exhausted, wondering why you even bother. Unfortunately, that's just how promotion works when you don't have a fat stack of cash to buy ads, or a slick PR team to handle the job for you.

However, I write things professionally... which means I have to at least try to reach my customers. And though my way is often barred by the capriciousness of search terms and shadow banning, and every social media platform is decaying at an accelerated rate, I have to do what I can to try to reach folks.

Because like I've said before, it does not matter how much stuff I write. I have over a hundred videos on YouTube, over 300 articles in my Vocal archive, nearly 200 TTRPG supplements available on DTRPG, half a dozen books for sale... but if no one reads them, watches, them, or buys them, I don't make any money.

Authors don't get paid for what we produce. We get paid for what we sell... period.

Let's say that I kept writing novels, TTRPG supplements, and making audio dramas for the rest of my life. If no one actually reads them, listens to them, or buys them, then I make no money. No ad revenue from online traffic, and no royalties from sales. Conversely, say that I stopped writing tomorrow, but for some reason my hardboiled cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats became a huge phenomenon. They sell tens of thousands of copies a year, and two seasons of a smash animated TV show are commissioned based on these books. If that happened, I could kick my feet up, cash my checks, and do whatever the hell I wanted.

That's why I (and so many other creators) have to spend so much time promoting, and why you see us making post after post about our work... because we don't have enough readers, subscribers, and supporters for us to not do that.

Trust me, we would love to not spend half our work day trying to tell everyone out there about the things we've made... but that's not an option.

Unless, of course, you help us spread the word! Because while I've said this before if I had 1,000 fans (or, hell, even 500 of them) who actively spread the word every time a new release of mine dropped, I could basically just make a post or two on my professional pages, or send out a newsletter, and just let my audience spread the word on my behalf.

So please... if you want the writers you follow to be able to create more and promote less, take a few moments to subscribe, comment, and share the things we make... it really is a massive help, and it weights the odds of finally making the algorithm work in our favor for once.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Having Trouble With Your Villain? Write An "Am I The A**Hole?" Post In Their Voice!

Writing a good villain is hard. You need to decide if you want them to be relatable and human, or monstrous and terrifying. You need to balance them being a serious threat, with them not being so competent and powerful that your protagonist has no chance to defeat them. They need to be flawed, but also compelling. Understandable, but with an air of mystery and threat to them.

And that is not an easy thing to do.

However, this week I wanted to talk about a little trick you should consider if your villain is giving you trouble... consider writing an "Am I The Asshole?" style post in their voice to see if it helps you get a handle on them.

And, before we progress, a shout out and a thank you to Dara Williamson for suggesting this trick!

I've been brooding about this... guys... am I the asshole, here?

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

No, Seriously Though... Am I?

So, I've got to come clean here, and I'd like honest input from people.

I had a rough childhood. I was raised by a single mother, and I had to get a job as soon as I was able to. Things were hard all around, so when a recruiter came around and offered me a deal that sounded too good to be true I took it without asking too many questions. I spent a lot of time on foreign soil with a weapon in my hand, and I lost a lot of myself there... literally, and metaphorically. But I also met a girl. Things got serious, and even though it was against protocol, she ended up pregnant. I swore to myself I was going to be there for her, and that I was going to do what my father couldn't. Everything went to hell, though, and I lost her, and my kids.

Or, at least, that's what I thought.

I dedicated myself to my position after I got the news that I'd lost them. I can't lie, I went to some dark places, but I told myself it was in the service of a greater good. That whatever the failings of my methods were, they were better than the alternative for everyone.

I recently found out that, despite what I'd been told, my children survived. Both of them had been placed in foster care, and neither of them knew about me, or their mother. I was enraged by that, but at the same time I knew I had a chance to do for them what hadn't been done for me. They didn't know me, but I wanted to open the door for them, and bring them into my life... but I didn't come right out and tell them who I really was. I admit I should have, but I ended up playing coy for far longer than I meant to. My son, who was as headstrong as I ever was, reacted quite negatively when I told him the truth, and offered him my hand. I admit, with my position being what it is, I haven't heard the word, "No," in a long time. I definitely overreacted, and we got physical. I injured him worse than he did me, and while I'm disgusted by what happened, I'm also so proud of what I saw. That fire in him, the courage he showed... it reminds me of better days.

I don't want this to be the only impression he has of me, and I don't want to make the same mistakes with my daughter that I'm making here with him. Other than keeping better control of my temper, and not cutting off my son's hand to win a light saber duel, what can I do here?

I get that I'm at least a little in the wrong, but at the same time I feel like this could still be salvaged if I could just make them see things from my side, you know?

I'm doing the best I can as a quadrapalegic war veteran.

For those of you who have never been to the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole, this is not an uncommon structure for these kinds of posts. You have someone who, from their perspective, seems to be taking reasonable actions. Sometimes they'll even make small admissions that they overstepped or overreacted, but they want it to seem like they're in the right. Or, in some rare circumstances, they're genuinely confused and trying to get outside opinions as to whether what they did was really wrong, or if the other party is blowing things out of proportion.

However, I chose such a well-known villain and story for my example to show something else that is particularly useful for this exercise; ask what your villain leaves out of their admissions. Not just that, but what do they leave out because they don't know, and what do they leave out because it would shape the narrative in a way they don't like. As an example, phrasing this story in a way that (if you don't know) implies that our poster came from a hardscrabble life and joined the military, was deployed overseas, developed psychological problems and likely lost limbs, is not inaccurate. It also lays the groundwork for what comes later. Someone who has survived that kind of life, and then thrown themselves into their position as an enforcer of the will of their empire, is not someone you could expect to act with kindness, empathy, and compassion. Those traits, which may or may not have once been present, have been buried, hidden, and rarely used, leading to conflict and trouble when they attempt to brute force their way through a messy, emotional matter like a family reunion.

What isn't mentioned is that our poster is a person with significant authority in a fascist regime. He doesn't mention that both his children hate that regime so much that they have been radicalized against him, and are working not just against him on a personal level, but against everything he represents. He also doesn't mention any of the murders he's committed, or those he hasn't prevented from being committed. Perhaps they aren't mentioned because they aren't germaine to this discussion. Perhaps it's because the villain is so jaded that he doesn't even register those deaths as people... it's not until presented with individuals who have a connection to him that they become real in his mind. Or it might be that he knows it would make him look bad, so he doesn't mention them, purposefully shifting the narrative to the conflicts between him and his children as individual misunderstandings, rather than matters of a galactic empire attempting to stifle the voices of its own citizens, and leading to a fometing rebellion.

If you've never tried doing this before, consider writing sample versions like the post above. As long as the character in question is capable of thought and written communication, you can write something like this for them. Jason Voorhees, Thanos, Horus Lupercal... pick a villain you know fairly well, and try to present their view of a situation in their own words. And if the exercise works for you, consider trying it with your own villains if you ever have difficulty truly realizing them on the page.

Also, if you're looking for a similar exercise for your other characters, consider Making A Dating Profile For Your Character (Seriously, It Helps).

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

The Reason Social Media Sucks For Everyone These Days (Not Just Creators)

Social media these days sucks. That's probably a statement you've heard before, and it's the sort of statement that sounds like the usual old person griping about how things have changed since their day. You hear it with fashion, movies, music, and every other aspect of life, so of course people are going to complain that social media was so much better when they were young, and in the prime of their life.

As someone who depends on social media for at least part of my living, though, you aren't imagining it. It really does suck more now than it did before... and if you're a creator, that's a storm that just might sink your boat.

And it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

The Enshittification of Everything

I really wish I could take credit for this term, but alas, I cannot. Enshittification, or to use its more polite term according to The Chainsaw platform decay, is basically a microcosm of the capitalist mindset on fast-forward.

So how does it work?

Well, the first stage of the cycle is where you create a platform, and do everything you possibly can to attract a huge user base to it. You charge little to no fees, you provide great features, you keep it open to as many people as possible, and most importantly you provide something of value to your audience. Maybe you're a search engine that gives fast, accurate results, an online storefront that gives you access to a massive amount of products at a low price, or maybe you're a social media platform that gives people a smooth timeline, ease of use, and the ability to connect to all of their friends.

Once a platform has made itself valuable to the users (often by running at a deficit, or by barely breaking even), that's when it starts altering its priorities. Maybe your social media site or your search engine starts slipping in more ads. It's subtle at first, but they're bringing in revenue, and they aren't too big of an eyesore. Maybe your video streaming platform ads a second ad at the beginning, or has several ad breaks throughout longer videos. Maybe your digital store now has "recommended" products at the top of your search results that are paid placement from clients who want to make sure shoppers see their stuff first. The platform isn't terrible yet, but it's taking its first steps down the path to hell.

Just sign here on the dotted line, if you will...

The decay continues as the platform's greed increases. Now the platform is choking off the signal for average creators, trying to squeeze money out of them to force them to pay for ad space. This also stops users from seeing anything from their friends, family and community. The platform increases the cost to bigger clients for ads as well, making it a huge pay-to-play market. In the end, no one other than the platform is getting anything out of this arrangement.

By the time you reach the end of the decay cycle, you have a platform that is rotten to the core. It's trying to squeeze its clients, its users, and the service it was providing is being actively degraded as it tries to charge you for more, and more, and more. And when all is said and done, there will come a point where everyone on both sides of the corrupt middleman dusts off their hands and simply says, "No more." They abandon the platform, moving on to somewhere else, and leaving the platform without the blood and treasure it needs to keep itself alive. Maybe it backs up and readjusts its course, but it's entirely possible that the platform just dies, leaving a power vacuum for something else to try to take its place.

This is Happening To Social Media Before Our Eyes

If you've been watching the trash fire that is Twitter, then you've seen this kind of action in real time. While the platform had its flaws before Musk took over, he put on the gas on the enshittification process. He started removing features users liked (and firing a lot of people to reduce the overhead), charging for things which were previously included (the ongoing saga of how much users would have to pay for the blue check mark), and actively alienating both users and clients with the way the platform was run.

Twitter is, of course, not the only platform dealing with this kind of decay.

We see it with Facebook, where user signals don't travel nearly as far as they once did, and creators are constantly encouraged to pay for advertising if they want people to see their posts. We see it on Reddit with the removal of fixes and work arounds that helped keep many communities functional. We see it on YouTube as they enact more and more stringent guidelines on many creators if they want to be monetized, eliminating entire genres of content off the platform, and leading to a bizarre kind of doublespeak as people try to avoid invoking the wrath of the algorithm.

And we're all suffering from this. The users in our audience, the creators writing books, running blogs, and making videos, and the companies who want to find a place to sell their products or sponsor us as creators... we're all getting squeezed.

And it's why so many of us rely on straight crowd funding these days.

I've got the numbers myself, just from my own little corner of the Internet. In ye olde days, I could share a blog post from Improved Initiative, or even from right here on The Literary Mercenary on just Facebook, and it would usually get around 400 hits just from the groups I shared it in. That was my bottom floor. If it was a popular topic it could get up to 800 or 1,000. If I also shared it on Reddit, I could easily see it climb to between 1,500 and 5,000 hits.

These days? I'm sharing my articles in more than double the locations on Facebook, and it generates about 20-50 hits. On Reddit I'm also going into more subs than I ever did in the past, and I'm lucky if a single post even breaks 1,000 hits. For something to get more than that it has to really catch the attention of a community, and start a small firestorm of replies, shares, etc. And even then, the reactions from the community are worth so much less than they were in the past, making it a monumental task to even be seen, much less to make sales.

So What The Hell Are We Supposed To Do?

As I said back in Why Writers Hate All These Twitter Alternatives (Hint: It's Because They're Useless), all of us are caught in the whirlpool of the drain of enshittification. It's not just Twitter, or Facebook, or Reddit, or YouTube. It's not just Amazon, or Netflix, or any other titan of industry... it's all of them. They grow as big as they can, crush their competition so they're the biggest name in town, and then they start turning the screws until eventually there's no more blood left in the stone.

So what are we going to do? Unfortunately, the answer boils down to, "Try our best to survive."

And that also means we need to rely on our audience more than ever.

Surviving has a lot of aspects to it. On the one hand, we need to try to navigate the changing faces of the platforms we're already using, even as they decay right under our feet. On another hand, we have to try to keep an eye out for replacement platforms that give us more tools, a more direct connection to our audience, or which help us find a bit of breathing room. And while we're doing all of that we still need to find time to actually create new content, write new books, or whatever else it is we're doing.

And let me tell you... it is exhausting trying to navigate a sinking ship day in and day out while also keeping an eye on the horizon for a more seaworthy ship, and remembering to play enough music for people to hear us. And most of us could really use a life preserver right about now.

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Online Clout Isn't Worth Much (And Is Rarely Helpful For Your Bottom Line)

The whole purpose of stepping up onto your soapbox and crowing about your books, your videos, etc., is so that people will actually take the time to check out what you're doing. However, this week I wanted to point something out. Because there's a lot of advice out there (including on this very blog) that focuses on getting yourself the widest possible audience by acquiring as much online clout as you can... but that doesn't go as far as we often think.

Talk is cheap... so cheap, in fact, that it's free.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Sell To People Who Are Buying

The common wisdom when it comes to marketing is that you need to camouflage your sales pitch so that you look like any other post out there. Whether you're disguising an article about The Satanic Panic by asking folks to share their stories about it in a gaming community, or you're asking a message board to share their best GM advice to start a conversation around a supplement like 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master, the idea is that you're burying your lead. The goal is to get so many likes, shares, and comments from the conversation starter that the sheer amount of traffic your post gets is going to result in at least some boost in reads and sales, depending on your goal.

On its face, it's good advice. Hell, I've given this advice myself in 5 (Specific) Tips For Increasing Your Vocal Media Reads Using Social Media. However, I feel like this needs to be tempered with a big, fat asterisk... namely that this kind of strategy might get you clout on social media, but it doesn't usually put any money in your pocket.

Seriously, I cannot overemphasize the disconnect, here.

This can feel extremely frustrating as a creator, because you often end up with numbers that don't match up. For example, if you make a post on Facebook that gets hundreds of comments and thousands of reactions, or if you make a Reddit post that gets a slew of upvotes and comments, then your expectation is that people at the very least read what you had to say, and engaged with your content before promptly going to the comments to share their thoughts.

My experience is that this isn't the way things go. Instead of reading the whole post, and checking out the "further reading" link, most people are just going to react to the headline, or the cover image, without actually stepping on the land mine you've so carefully laid out for them. What that means is that, at the end of the day, you've put a lot of time, energy, and effort into starting a conversation that doesn't actually get you anything you can pay your rent with.

Generally speaking, you're going to get a lot more out of just posting a link your article, video, or book and making a pitch as to why people should check it out without all the smoke and mirrors.

Clout Isn't Worthless (Even If You Can't Pay Rent With It)

Getting upvotes, likes, shares, follows, etc., is a good thing, no question. It helps you get seen in the algorithm, it builds your audience, and makes your name a more visible part of the community you're posting in. It also breaks up your feed so that you're not just constantly sharing links to your work all the time.

However, while those things are positive, and will help in the long term... they don't get you paid right now. And that's a problem if you're actually planning on making a living off of your work.

Even if it's a small living.

As with so many other things in life, it's all about finding a proper balance. Because putting together a mix of straight-up links to your books, supplements, videos, etc., that will help pay the bills, and then breaking up that flow with longer, more involved posts that generate conversations and interaction, generally keeps moderators off your back, and allows you to keep yourself in the spotlight at the same time.

But, as with all other things, it's important to manage your expectations, and to remember that just because a post generates a lot of upvotes, shares, comments, etc., that won't necessarily translate to you getting a lot of reads, views, or making sales. It would be nice if it did, but unfortunately everything when it comes to finding your audience is taking shots at a moving target, and hoping for the best.

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!