It's Hard To Market Older Stories (Even If They're Still Good)

Because of the way algorithms control social media, it is very possible for you to make the same post a dozen different times, and every time you share it that post will be seen by different people. Unless you get a lot of outside support (likes, shares, retweets, big comment screeds, and so on) chances are good that any individual post is going to quickly fall by the wayside. That's why a lot of authors have to adopt the carnival barker style, regularly repeating their sales pitch every time enough of the crowd has shifted so that fresh ears are hearing their pitch for the first time.

There's a strange thing that happens when you are constantly releasing new work, though... you feel almost like you can't talk about your older stuff anymore. It came out, you talked it up, you shot your shot, and now the buzz has died. Why bring it up again if people weren't interested?

Because the people who might actually be interested in it likely didn't see it when it dropped, that's why.

Case in point.

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!

Always Trying To Push What's New

I create a lot of content. I update my blogs several times a week, I put out new articles on Vocal, I have between 1 and 3 fresh RPG supplements dropping every month, and for the last little while I've had new videos coming out every Friday. You add in occasional novels and bigger projects on top of all that, and it's easy for stuff to get lost in the shuffle.

Like this beautiful re-release, for example.

The urge is always to push whatever just came out, because fresh content always seems to get more interest. It's new, it's shiny, and it still has that hot-off-the-press smell. But the thing about stories (and to a lesser extent a lot of RPG-related content) is that they have a really good shelf life. If someone hasn't read them before, then they'll have the same experience picking the book up now that they would have had back when it was new. And in more than one case it may take seeing the same book a dozen different times before someone finally overcomes inertia and decides to get a copy for themselves.

Still, it's hard to feel like there isn't a time limit on when you can talk about a project. Especially if said project wasn't particularly popular when it dropped, and now it feels like you're just trying to make fetch happen, so to speak.

Something I try to remember, though, is the tale of Tolkien's most famous trilogy. Because we tend to think of his books as colossal smash hits (which they are), but they didn't start off that way. They grew slowly, influence reaching into cracks and crevices to take hold of the imagination. The same is true for the works of Lovecraft, which were largely forgettable during his time, but which made their way into the public consciousness through re-writes, re-imaginings, and expansions.

Just because something doesn't kick open the door to the bestseller list the second day of its release doesn't mean you should give up on it. Let it breathe, take a few, and then remind people it exists. Because a second, third, or fourth round in the ring might be what it takes for your book to get the knockout it deserves!

Speaking of Forgotten Volumes...

Like I said above, I write a lot of stuff. And even if you're a dedicated fan of my work, it's easy to miss stuff. So I wanted to take a second to remind folks of the stories and books that are out where which you might have missed... and if your pocket book is a little slim, don't worry, a lot of them are free!

First, The Free Stuff

If you're in the market for stories that will stick with you, and keep you turning the digital pages, then the following are completely free to read! Not only that, but a number of the vignettes from my RPG supplements have gotten the dramatic reading treatment over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, so make sure you head over there, take a listen, and subscribe to the channel so I can keep that wheel turning!

- Waking Dogs: A World Eaters Tale: The first of my Warhammer 40K stories, this one details one of the original World Eaters awakening briefly from the haze of violence and wrath he's been lost in. And all it takes is a single moment of clarity to change his destiny forever. This tale has an audio version done by A Vox in The Void as well!

- Field Test: My second tale of the grim darkness of the far future, it deals with an inquisitor, an ork rock, and a secret weapon. When deployed, however, it is more devastating than anyone could have imagined. This story also has an audio version, for those who want to check it out!

You should also check out the Silver Raven Chronicles, a series all about punching fantasy fascists in the back alleys of Kintargo. A chronicle of the Hell's Rebels adventure path, the current installments include:

- Part One: Devil's Night: A mysterious vigilante prowls the streets of Kintargo.

- Part Two: From The Ashes: A protest becomes a riot as the new "mayor" attempts to establish control.

- Part Three: The Raven's Nest: The burgeoning rebellion establishes a secret base.

- Part Four: Circles in Salt: The Ghost joins the Silver Ravens, striking a blow against Thrune.

More Forgotten Volumes

If you're in the market for longer books (or you just want to check out some stuff you may have missed), then you should definitely check out the following!

- Tales From The Moot: A collection of short stories from the Wereolf: The Apocalypse RPG setting, this volume contains work by yours truly, as well as several other writers. Intended to be the first in a series of similar products, it hasn't found its audience just yet.

- Old Soldiers: For folks who can't get enough decommissioned super soldiers, this sci-fi thriller will be right up your alley. It's been ten years since the end of the war, and Pollux is still trying to come to grips with everything that happened... when an assassination plot goes wrong, though, he gets what's left of his old squad together to get to the heart of the matter. Whoever pulled the trigger on this thing is going to learn they should have just let these old soldiers fade away.

- Marked Territory and Painted Cats: The first two installments in my Hard-Boiled Cat series, these novels feature the adventures of a hard-nosed alley cat by the name of Leo. The Maine coon mostly tries to keep himself out of other people's business, but trouble keeps coming down his alley to find him. Curiosity's gonna get this cat killed one of these days, but it's gonna have one hell of a fight on its hands when it tries.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Unlikable Characters Can Sink Your Story

As writers we often struggle with walking the fine line when it comes to characters who aren't likable. Not characters who aren't nice, who aren't kind, or who aren't friendly, but characters who the audience simply will not be able to bring themselves to like. It's why we focus so much on trying to make relatable, complex characters that have something to offer even if they're clearly in the wrong... but we don't always manage that.

And it's bad enough when these characters are in supporting roles, or they're the villains. But sometimes we plug them in as the main protagonist, and that can be a kiss of death to your readers' interest.

If this character isn't dead in 2 chapters, I walk.

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

What, Precisely, is "Unlikable"?

As I said in the opening, an unlikable character is a very specific type of character. Namely they are someone that we, as the audience, cannot really get any purchase on when it comes to feeling any kind of empathy for their motives, or who we cannot identify with in some way. The Phantom of The Opera is a serial killer, a blackmailer, and a child groomer, but despite these monstrous qualities we can still empathize with him. We can feel for someone who was so outcast from society that he eventually fell to using such methods because he felt they were the only ways he could get what he needed.

You see similar results with nearly any popular anti-hero, villain, or sarcastic support character in our stories. Magneto is a super-powered terrorist who views himself and other mutants as superior to baseline humans, in addition to being a killer and an egomaniac. He's also a Holocaust survivor with a deep and abiding empathy for those he feels have been outcast, used, and abused, and so from a certain perspective his actions aren't unreasonable. The Punisher is, at his core, a serial killer whose victims number in the hundreds (if not thousands). However, as I mention in The Punisher is Evil, he's also a deeply compelling character whose traumas and burdens can leave the audience fascinated and horrified in equal measure.

I could keep naming names from pop culture, but you get the idea. From the Joker to Hannibal Lecter, a character being evil, deranged, or wrong in almost every way doesn't necessarily make them unlikable.

I'm sure you get the idea.

Unlikable characters are characters who don't offer us these intriguing insights. They aren't a mixed bag, combining awful or atrocious actions, beliefs, and histories with redeeming qualities or sympathetic traits. They don't have different facets or secret internal lives. They aren't struggling against something far worse than they are. They're just... unlikable. And characters who are negative experiences all the way around suck out your enjoyment as a reader if there is nothing to balance them out in the narrative.

For example, say you have a character who is absolutely caustic to interact with. They never have a single pleasant thing to say, and they're utterly draining to try to work with. This is a trait of both the modern take on Sherlock Holmes we saw from Benedict Cumberbatch, but also the character of Dr. House portrayed by Hugh Laurie. And if that was all there was to those characters, we could put up with them for a little while... but not that long. Certainly not long enough for them to be the main characters, much less the faces of their respective shows. We need more dimensions to these characters to put that behavior into perspective; we need something likable about them, whatever form that takes.

With Holmes we get glimpses into his life and see what it's like living as the kind of person he is. We see his excitement over new problems, and we occasionally see him realize when he's gone too far before he attempts to make amends. With House we see the physical pain he's in, and we get enough glimpses of the character that we see he does genuinely want to help a lot of the people who come to him. That despite the flippant attitude, unpleasant demeanor, and occasional reprehensible behavior, he does believe in what he's doing.

That's the balance in action, which allows characters to have unlikable or abrasive traits, but which can still make them good characters.

So Everyone Has To Be Likable Now?

The answer is obviously no. Just like how ships carry ballast, so too a story can find a practical use for unlikable characters. The key, however, is that you need to use them properly so they don't sink the ship.

Even tools have their use.

The main use for unlikable characters is as antagonists. If your book has white supremacists, big corporate union busters, crooked cops, and so on, you generally don't need to make those characters feel relatable to your audience. Ditto if you have space tyrants like Darkseid. Unlikable characters make great foils if you need a protagonist to look like they are unquestionably in the right in a given storyline, even if they're using extreme or questionable methods.

However, if a character is going to be unlikable you should consider how much time they're on screen, and how much counter is provided to them.

For example, say you're writing a legal thriller and our protagonist's boss is just unlikable. A slave driver who always offers empty promises of reward for extra work, slacks off, takes credit for other people's work, and is just a condescending prick. He doesn't have a tragic story about early onset dementia, he isn't overcompensating because he's trying to be a good mentor and failing... he's just an abusive boss trying to get more work out of one of his employees. Maybe throw in some sexual harassment for good measure if we want him to be an absolute scum bag.

If your audience only has to see him a couple of times in the book, he can fill his role pretty well. He quickly establishes that he's an obstacle that we're meant to hate, but without taking a toll on the reader's energy. Maybe he's in two scenes briefly, and a phone call or email as the story goes on. So he's a presence that we know about, but we aren't saddled with the burden of actively interacting with him in the story. The more of that you have to do, the more energy it takes from your reader.

Unless, that is, that interaction comes with a counter of some kind.

Say that the boss comes into a scene, and is just scumming it up. We have to deal with that, and it can be draining. However, if you introduce a counter to the scene, it mitigates that unlikable character's impact and mixes things up. Say, for example, there's another manager present. Or an investigator who works for the firm, but not for this guy. Someone who can actively call out, or take actions to counter, the unlikable character's bad behavior. This can balance out the scene, allowing you to keep the unlikable character's contributions to the story, but without your audience sighing and asking, "When is this guy getting hit by a bus? I'm so goddamn sick of him!"

Just don't make your protagonist unlikable. They don't have to be a good person, they don't have to be morally righteous, and they don't have to be kind, friendly, or upbeat... but unlikable protagonists will kill readers' interest faster than almost anything else.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Can Fan Fiction Help You Sell Your Own Books? (Yes... With Some Luck)

Most of us are at least passingly familiar with fan fiction. A lot of people read it, and for a lot of writers it can be a comfort zone, or a project that comes with training wheels before they go out and carve their own worlds from scratch. However, one of the best-known things regarding fan fiction is that you are not allowed to sell it, since we aren't talking about public domain properties, here.

That doesn't mean you can't still use it as a tool to increase your earnings as an author, though.

It's not a guarantee (nothing in this world is), but if you are someone who has been looking for a professional reason to play around in an already-established sandbox, this might be what you've been waiting for.

After all, there's a lot of readers out there waiting to meet you!

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!

Finding Readers in Your Fandom

Fan fiction has a long (and occasionally contentious) history, but these days fan fiction communities tend to be left alone as long as they aren't directly selling/profiting off of the intellectual property in question. While there have been notable exceptions, such as Disney siccing its lawyers on fan artists, or the big blowup with Games Workshop coming after fan animators for projects in their Warhammer 40K setting, incidents like these have become less and less common over time.

So, let's say you wrote a fan fiction piece that got pretty well noticed within the community. Even if your story gets thousands of reads, that doesn't directly put money in your pockets... however, it can act as a billboard for you to try to get those readers interested in some of your other work.

As an example...

One of the better examples that comes to mind are my short stories Waking Dogs: A World Eaters' Tale and Field Test. Both of these are fan stories set in the grim darkness of the far future that is Warhammer 40k, and both of them have been mildly successful in terms of being circulated among the fandom. They even reached the point where someone on Reddit who had no idea I was the author recommended that I read them if I were looking for more good content... which is sort of a surreal situation to be in.

However, if you scroll all the way to the bottom of those stories you'll notice that I have a section that directly links to more of my work. Not only that, but I specifically draw attention to my sci-fi noir thriller Old Soldiers, which is also about gigantic, genetically-engineered super soldiers created to fight a war for survival against unknowable alien entities. So the logic goes that if readers enjoyed my take on Warhammer 40k stories, maybe they'd like to take a side step into a novel that's in the same ballpark, but most definitely in a universe all its own.

I used a similar strategy with my fantasy series The Silver Raven Chronicles, which has been cataloging my RPG group's run through the Hell's Rebels adventure path. Following the events of a pre-written campaign, the series is meant to capture the attention of those who would enjoy stories about leading a rebellion, and punching devil-worshiping fascists in the face... but it also acts as an attention-grabber so that folks will check out my other stories like The Irregulars, or my daggers and witchcraft novel Crier's Knife.

It is worth noting that for this strategy to work, you need to actually get the attention of the fans in the community. Sometimes you can do that with one story, but sometimes it will take more than that. You'll still need to create the best possible piece of fiction you can, and to spread it as far and wide as possible so that it doesn't go under anyone's radars. And even if people see it and react positively to your tale, that's no guarantee that they'll actually read any of your other work, or buy your other books... but they might.

And that is more or less what marketing is about; weighing the odds, and rolling the dice on what your audience might do.

Incidentally, for those who are curious, the Silver Raven Chronicles has 4 installments at time of writing:

- Part One: Devil's Night: A mysterious vigilante prowls the streets of Kintargo.

- Part Two: From The Ashes: A protest becomes a riot as the new "mayor" attempts to establish control.

- Part Three: The Raven's Nest: The burgeoning rebellion establishes a secret base.

- Part Four: Circles in Salt: The Ghost joins the Silver Ravens, striking a blow against Thrune.

Option Two: You Can File Off The Serial Numbers

There is another option you have available, as well. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of energy, but you can make it work for you if you so desire. In short, if you have a popular fan fiction that has a noted number of fans, you can re-work it to remove the intellectual property that isn't yours (while keeping the same core structure of the narrative) and re-release it as a novel that your built-in audience can then support.

As another example...

The books Freya's Baby, Tearing Down The Wall, and Freya's Baby Shattered are all by Alice Liddell, whose work you should definitely check out. While she's published literal dozens of books that cover all sorts of genres and topics, these particular books have their roots in one of her fandoms... namely the Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold!

Alice has been a part of that fandom for years, and back in 2011 she wrote what turned out to be a pretty popular fan fiction. It was available online for years, and as such things go had a pretty decent fan following. However, reading back over it, she realized it could be improved... and if she was going to improve it, then it was also possible to remove the scaffolding of the cartoon's intellectual property at the same time. So she took it down, retooled it, brought it up to standards, and turned it into an original work.

According to the author herself, this garnered some mixed responses. Some readers were excited, eager to pick up copies of their own to see how the story had changed. Others threw a hissy fit that it wasn't free anymore. However, if we're talking about how the sausage is made when it comes to fiction, recycling a project and turning it into something fresh, while also keeping at least a portion of its existing fan base (who are now brought even more deeply into your orbit as a creator) is nothing to turn your nose up at.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Make Sure Your Story Hook Doesn't Give Readers Whiplash

One of the oldest pieces of writing advice out there (and one that I've given myself on this very platform) is to make sure you open your story with something to hook your audience. You want them to be immediately interested and invested, struck by what hits them on the first page. Put another way, if this is not the most interesting part of your character's life (or at least the beginning of that interesting part) then why are we starting here instead of somewhere else?

However, it's all too easy for us to be dishonest with our story opener. To slap down something we think will generate a lot of engagement and interest, but which really isn't reflective of the narrative going forward. And there are few things you can do that are more guaranteed to piss off your audience than that.

Just gonna take this down a bit...

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Don't Open a Vegan Meal With a Steak

Let's say you had a delicious vegan meal prepared. The courses were filled with unique spices and styles, making use of breads, fruits, spreads, nuts, and more. But you wanted to start the meal with something special... something that really draws your audience's attention. So you open with a medium-rare steak, prepared right at the table, the scent and sizzle of the red meat filling the room.

That sounds absurd, right? Because sure, there may be some people who are down for both of those things, but if someone is a vegan then the intro is going to turn them off before they get to the rest of the meal. And if someone is there for more tasty meat, chances are good they're going to be disappointed by what comes after the steak. So why the hell would you do that?

It's not a great look, is what I'm getting at.

Sadly, this same logic is something that a lot of writers will do to hook their readers, who will then feel they were lured in under false pretenses.

An example of from Writer's Digest is a story that opened with a pulse-pounding, adrenaline-pumping car chase. It was engaging as hell, no doubt, but it also created certain expectations within the reader. Which became a problem after the introductory hook, because this story was a romance about a woman falling in love with a doctor, and there wouldn't be any further action scenes going forward.

A hook is definitely important, but it also needs to be consistent with your narrative. You don't want to have a high-fantasy opener that turns out to just be a dream, and this is actually a book about a girl trying to get along in a new high school if that sword-swinging dream sequence has nothing to do with the rest of the narrative. You don't want a high-octane shoot out in a club to lead into a quiet, meditative story about a man going into the woods to find himself. These are teasers that don't match the tone, genre, and expectations of the rest of the story you're trying to tell.

Could someone make those examples work? Sure, you could. But to make them work you'd need to work them into the narrative in a meaningful, organic way. You'd have to cover the seams, and make the whole story feel like it was all of a piece, rather than like you took two different books and stitched them together because the intro you had wasn't engaging enough.

First Impressions Are Important

Think of engaging your reader like a job interview. What impression do you want your story to give, and will it follow through on that impression? Because if someone is looking for a hard-hitting detective story and a novel shows up with a gritty murder investigation, but then once it's been hired devolves into a messy relationship drama with no investigation going on, readers are going to feel they were lied to during the interview. And those who were looking for a messy relationship drama likely passed on the book because it came to the interview smoking an unfiltered cigarette and wearing a rumpled trench coat with a 5 o'clock shadow on its face.

Be consistent, and don't give flash you can't back up.

With that said, I wanted to give an example of an introduction that I felt moved smoothly into the following book. Because "Profanity Heralds Discovery" is the introductory fiction for Silkgift, the City of Sails. And I think it sets the tone of the place nicely, while giving readers an introduction into what they should expect going forward.

Currently trying to get the Azukail Games YouTube channel monetized, so if you'd like to help me in that endeavor, give the video a like and a share, and subscribe to the channel!

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Authors Hate Marketing Gimmicks Too (But Nothing Else Seems To Work)

There was a film I saw forever and a day ago. In this film a male character dresses as a woman, and so women (including a woman he's very sweet on) let their guard down around him and speak their minds openly. Our lead's crush says something along the lines of, "All this dancing around the subject is exhausting. I wish a man would just say to me, 'I think you're beautiful. Would you like to have sex?' Get it right out in the open and cut to the chase." Then, when no longer dressed as a woman, our protagonist says exactly what she told him she'd like a man to say to her. Rather than finding this forward, open way of speaking engaging and enticing, though, she slaps him for being a cad and stalks away.

This scene (which I believe is from the film Tootsie, but my search-fu has failed me so I can't be sure) comes back to me time and time again whenever I try to market my books to a broader audience. Because everyone says they'd rather have creators who dispensed with the gimmicks and just made a straightforward pitch as to why people should buy their books... until we do that, and get metaphorically slapped for being nothing but a bunch of crass, jaded sell-outs who are only interested in the money.

Seriously... what do you want from us?

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!

Trust Me, We Hate Marketing, Too.

Every writer I've ever met got into the profession because they liked writing. While many individuals have other passions, or other parts of the job they like, I have never met anyone who writes books just because they need something interesting to challenge their marketing skills.

Put another way, most of us like writing books. Most of us hate actually selling books.

Yeah, we like money. We just hate marketing.

Writers, by and large, are people who just want to tell our stories. Most of us are happy enough to be interviewed (rare as that seems to happen to a lot of us), and if we're feeling particularly bold we might be willing to go up to a microphone and do a reading. Some of us can even afford to get a table at a convention, trying to catch the eye of people walking by, judging on a split second from their conversation, tee-shirts, or cosplay whether our books are the sort of thing they'd like to read.

Then there's social media marketing... which is what those of us with little to no budget and a relatively small or niche audience can afford to do. And it is where the frustration of this mixed messaging cranks itself up to 11.

Because if you listen to the majority of people on the Internet, they tell you there's nothing they hate more than deceptive marketing ploys. They don't want creators using giveaways to get their information, they don't want articles and videos on one topic to act as backdoor segues to make a sales pitch, and so on. Those who acknowledge that creators are people with bills to pay (which isn't everyone, of course) usually say they'd rather have a creator just out-and-out pitch their project so they can make a decision on if they want to buy it. No elaborate promises, no big commercials, just say what it is, what the price is, and let them know what they're buying. If they want it, they'll buy it. If they don't, they won't.

In practice, though, nothing gets you more hate as a creator than just showing up and saying, "Hey, I wrote this thing! I think it's pretty cool, so check out the free sample, and consider buying yourself a copy if you like what you see?" It doesn't matter if you follow the rules of the group/forum you're in regarding how often you post. It doesn't matter if you just make a single post about your project. Even when you follow all the niceties and requests set forth in the rules, the surest response you're going to get is people calling you a spammer and demanding you be banned from ever darkening this corner of the Internet again. Because while they might say they just want you to be upfront with your intentions, that is rarely true in practice.

You Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar

While this saying isn't technically true (as I pointed out in my How To Make an Apple Cider Vinegar Fly Trap for those who like DIY content), the metaphor works well enough when talking about marketing. Because as soon as you make it clear you're selling something, people will cover their ears and walk away (or berate you because you expect to be paid for the time and energy you put into creating something). Which means that we often have to pull an Odysseus, and wheel out the Trojan Horse in order to get people to actually consider what it is we're trying to sell.

This video is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I've spent the past year and change writing books for my "Sundara: Dawn of a New Age" fantasy RPG setting, but it can be like pulling teeth trying to get people interested in the project. Even if they play either Pathfinder Classic or Dungeons and Dragons 5E. Even if they've complained they wish they had a different setting to play in. Even if they're fans of my past work. As soon as you say, "Hey, I have a new setting for sale," they scroll on by like I tried to reach for their wallets through their monitors.

That's where this video comes in. It's content marketing, plain and simple.

This video lets the audience see me, the creator. It lets them hear my voice, and makes them acknowledge that a real person was behind this product. I kept it conversational and low-key, just like I was talking with someone around a gaming table. And while my purpose is to get people interested in the Sundara setting, and buy links are provided in the description, I focus on talking about how I removed alignment from the game, and on showing players the possibilities this creates, while also discussing how difficult this would have been to do in a setting that wasn't being built from the ground up. All of that because I want people to engage with the discussion about this setting, and to get them interested in seeing what it has to offer.

You could argue that's less than honest, as at the end of the day the goal is still to get people to buy copies of these splats. However, Shakespeare gotta get paid, son, and if just saying, "I made this cool RPG setting, please give it a look and consider buying a copy of your own?" doesn't move books then I have to do something else. And if that something else is learning how to make videos (a skill I am still trying to come to grips with) in order to come at my potential audience from an unexpected angle, then that's what I'm going to have to do.

Do I want to do that, necessarily? No, not really. It takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to write scripts, rehearse, set up my space, get my cat to be quiet, figure out my tone, edit out flubs, do reshoots, and so on, and so forth. If I had 500-1,000 people (not really a big audience) who were willing to buy a copy of every RPG splat, novel, or collection I released whenever it dropped, chances are good that I wouldn't be making videos on the topic. I probably wouldn't write as many blogs trying to boost my own signal, or spend quite so much time sharing links to all my stuff on social media hoping to bump my earnings high enough to pay my bills at the end of the month. Instead I'd be banging away on the next splat book, the next novel, etc.

But I don't have that audience. And since just showing up and saying, "I've written this book, this is what it's about, here's a free sample so you can decide for yourself if you like it," doesn't do the job, it's time to pull out a marketing gimmick. Because, and this is the truth of the matter, if they didn't get results then we wouldn't use them.

Incidentally, for those who did enjoy the above video, consider subscribing to the Azukail Games YouTube channel. It looks like I'm going to be putting up content their for the foreseeable future, and if we can hit that 1k subscribers and 4k watched hours of content in the past year mark then the publisher it going to be a lot more likely to let me do bigger, more involved productions than the relatively short videos I've been putting up there for the past little while.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Look Beneath A Story's Surface When Taking Lessons From Other Writers

Every writer out there has studied the works of those who came before, especially when it comes to the books that personally inspired their work. A lot of us could probably hold lectures on the things that really stood out and affected us, whether it was the tragic elements of Frankenstein, the unique interpersonal dynamics of Avatar: The Last Airbender, or the tone and gothic atmosphere of the 1980s/1990s Batman comics.

With that said, a lot of us can enjoy and be affected by stories without really popping open the hood and getting at what makes them work (or what made them work in their time). This can often lead to writers learning the wrong lessons when analyzing these works, which is why it's a good idea to dig a little deeper to be sure that you're putting the right tools in your toolbox going forward.

Oh... oh there's a LOT going on in here...

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Knock-Offs and Genuine Articles

A long time ago I wrote an entry titled Your Fantasy Novel Probably Sucks, and Professor Awesome's University Explains Why. The short version of that post is that a lot of people who want to write fantasy novels grew up influenced by Tolkien. While not a bad thing in and of itself, they often wanted to follow the blueprint he'd laid down with an epic trilogy of books, big world building ideas, etc. The issues was that these stories often lacked characters to act as audience focus; characters who have the same heart as Samwise, the same mystery as Aragorn, or the determination of Frodo.

Put another way, a lot of folks end up copying the style, the sound, and the aesthetics of arguably the most famous trilogy in fantasy at this point, but their vehicle lacks an engine. And without that drive, the story just sort of sits there, doing nothing, and going nowhere.

Hmmm... why isn't it moving?

We can see this in all sorts of creative endeavors, and from all kinds of creators. Another good example is Zack Synder's adaptation of Watchman, as it could be argued that his personal politics and opinions caused him to utterly miss the point of what the original creator Alan Moore was laying down. Snyder got the aesthetics of the story, and he understood the basic reversal (treating superheroes as part of the real world, and the implications thereof), but he utterly missed the commentary Moore was making on that power fantasy of superheroes that made it such an effective deconstruction of the genre. So we see characters like Rorschach portrayed as heroes, rather than as the monsters they were intended to be. We also see the glorification of the superhero, instead of how it is (arguably) something that wears one down, and rarely solves any problems. And so on, and so forth.

From romance novels to zombie stories, killer clowns to Viking-esque fantasy epics, the classics become classics for a reason. And if we want to tap into these tales and understand what makes them tick then we need to look beneath the surface to get to the heart of the matter.

Look Beyond Aesthetics

A lot of the time when authors miss a message it's because they were focused on the outward structure of the story, missing what was going on deeper inside of it. As a result, when they apply their own creative touch it feels like they perfectly recreated the wrapper around a Reese's peanut butter cup, but they completely neglected the delicious treat inside of it.

It looks right, it smells right... taste? Why bother with that?

Stories that stick with us affected us for a reason, even if we aren't always sure what it was at the time. And it's true that sometimes a story will hit us harder because of factors that aren't of the author's doing (it reminded you of someone you cared about who gave you the book as a gift, it was the first "grown up" story you read, etc.). The stories that we keep coming back to, though, and the ones that really stand the test of time, tend to have messages inside them. They have characters who are interesting and compelling, and they deal with themes that spark our imaginations.

Magic systems, sci-fi gadgetry, fantasy species, mood and storytelling flair are all nice things to have, but these things are often the icing on the cake. And while you can construct a cake-like replica made out of just icing, it isn't going to satisfy the audience the way a genuine cake would. So keep that in mind when you start drawing inspiration from authors who came before you, and asking what elements of their stories you're trying to add to your own repertoire going forward.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Direct Donations Really Are The Best Way to Help Creators You Love

 I talk a lot about how to best support creators on here, mostly because a lot of the content consuming public doesn't actually know the ins and outs of how their activity translates into funding for those artists they like. And this week I wanted to remind everyone that if you want to keep the creators you like in business, the best thing you can do is give money to them directly. It doesn't have to be a lot, but services like Patreon, Ko-Fi, etc. are your best bet when it comes to making sure your favorites can keep food in the cupboard and rent covered from month-to-month.

Incidentally, folks who get to the end of this and decide they want to help fund my efforts are encouraged to check out The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page in addition to my Ko-Fi!

Seriously, every little bit helps!

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!

Eyeballs Versus Donations

When most of us think of supporting the creators we love, we think about following them on social media, sharing their posts, buying their books, reading their blogs/articles, or watching their YouTube videos. And all of that is helpful, don't get me wrong... but it's not always as helpful as just handing the artist you love a tip and saying, "You do good work, champ, keep it up!"

And to illustrate this point, I'd like to throw some numbers at folks.

- YouTube pays roughly $3-$5 per 1,000 video views.

- Spotify pays roughly $0.04 per every 10 streams (meaning you need more than 200 streams just to earn $1)

- Vocal (where I put articles like 5 Tips For Playing Better Evil Characters) pays $6 per 1k reads if you're a Vocal+ member. Half that if you use the free version.

- Sales for an RPG product like 100 Cults to Encounter can range from $0.15 to $0.40 each.

- Sales for a novel like my sword and sorcery tale Crier's Knife range from $2-$4 each.

Now ask how popular something would need to be to pay your rent.

Looking at this, there's no denying that your eyeballs and activity have value as a member of an audience. However, even if you leave a video, stream, or channel on all day, you probably didn't earn that creator more than a handful of nickels. Even if you spent hours every day digging through a blog or article archive reading everything you found, it would be worth maybe a couple of dimes. Even buying a copy of three dozen RPG supplements, or an arm load of novels, would only earn that creator a couple bucks.

Incidentally, this is the reason so many individuals have sponsors for their work. Even I was lucky enough to get a sponsor for my article How To Build The Catachan Jungle Fighters in The Pathfinder RPG, and that sponsorship was really the only meaningful payment I received for putting that guide together.

Now, does that mean you shouldn't listen to music by bands you like, watch YouTube videos of creators you enjoy, or read blogs? Absolutely not! We all create this content for it to be enjoyed by people like you. However, in order for traffic alone to pay our bills we would need a truly massive audience who were all tuning in and reading/listening/watching every single day, sharing the links on their socials and making sure our signal got boosted to hell and back.

Most of us don't have that. We probably never will, no matter how hard we work.

Direct Support is What's Most Effective

Do you have $1 you could spare to help keep a creator whose work you enjoy flowing? For most of us out there (even those of us with very limited budgets) the answer is probably yes. We could scrounge 4 quarters from the couch, and pass that along to an artist we love.

We could. But most of us don't.

So come on... help a fellow out here?

Consider this. I have just over 800 people following my Neal F. Litherland Facebook page at time of writing. That's really not a lot of followers for a professional creator. However, if every person who has elected to follow me all went to my Patreon page and pledged $1 a month, my monthly bills would go from, "Making me sweat bullets as I struggle to make ends meet," to, "Everything's paid for, I can actually save a little bit, and maybe splurge on a pizza on game night."

Hell, if even half of the people on that page all became $1 patrons, my bills would be covered. Things would still be close, but I would worry far less than I do now. I might even be able to take my foot off the gas a little bit to work on larger projects that don't have a 1-month turnaround because I could financially survive long enough to get new novels, RPG campaign paths, or equally big projects finished and ready for my readers to check out.

Again, the lesson here is not that we should all stop streaming music, watching videos, or reading blogs. Rather that we need to all acknowledge that if we really want to help the creators we love actually cover their bills that it's better to just give them a little tip, in addition to watching, listening, sharing their content on social media, buying merch when you can, etc.

Because it just makes the bigger impact... even if all you're giving is pocket change.

Also, before I forget, if you haven't subscribed to the Azukail Games YouTube channel yet, please do so! Audio dramas, world building, game discussions, and more are going on over there, and we're trying to get the thing monetized by the end of the year. We need 1k people and 4k hours of watched time in the past year, and we're nowhere near that level.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!