You Have To Read The Whole Thing, Dammit!

Remember that time your friend agreed to watch a movie you really love? You got settled in, turned off the lamps, made sure there were snacks, and checked they were ready. They gave you the thumbs-up, and you started the movie. And they were paying attention for about... 10 minutes. Then they got a text, and they pulled out their phone. And they scrolled for a bit. Then they had to get up to get a different drink. Then they went to the bathroom again. Then they readjust on the couch, and you heard them snoring. Then like 15 minutes before the end they blink their eyes open, grunt, and say something like, "This movie makes no sense... why do you like this?"

This is what's going on in books right now, because apparently some people are just reading the book's dialogue and nothing else. And while there are a lot of authors out there wondering how to combat this, unfortunately, this falls into the area of, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

Holy shit... this book is way more dense than I thought it would be...

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

You Can't Control What Readers Do (Or Don't) Do

I haven't talked much about BookTok, or whatever the reader-sphere is called these days, but there has been a trend that I wanted to weigh in on today. Because one of the issues that's come up is there are a lot of people who set themselves ridiculous reading goals for the year. Some of them are as high as 500 novels! And a lot of authors have been scratching our heads wondering just how someone could do that, short of being in prison and just spending every day trying to read as many books as possible.

So how do they do it? Well, there's a lot of tricks. One of them, though, seems to be just reading the dialogue in the book, and nothing else. Which you might be thinking is a terrible way to experience a book, because unless it's something like The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy, you likely need more than just the conversations had between characters in order to follow the story the author laid out.

That train is around here somewhere...

 

Now if you're reading something like The Lord of The Rings, where a lot of what makes the story interesting is the richness of the setting and the events being described, you're going to miss a lot of what's on the page. Hell, if you want to read The Road by McCarthy you're going to stumble through it wondering what the hell is going on, and what you're supposed to be getting out of this book if you only focus on what's in the quotation marks.

Are there books that are dialogue-heavy where you can get the gist of what's happening based on the banter? Sure there are. However, the purpose of this article is not to judge the effectiveness of the ways people are trying to get around the act of reading. Because whether it's only reading the dialogue, or listening to an audio book at double the speed like literary nightcore, or whatever else someone tries to do, the point is that if a reader is focused on just plowing through the text as fast as humanly possible, they probably aren't going to get the intended experience of your book. And in a lot of cases it's unlikely they even managed to comprehend what was happening.

Because when you write a book, you're essentially preparing a meal for your readers. And whether that meal is a succulent steak with garlic potatoes, a juicy burger and cheese curds, teriyaki stir fry, or a buffalo chicken salad, there's a flavor and intention behind those things. But readers who want a literary mukbang are trying to cram as much text into themselves as possible for no reason other than to say that they read an arbitrary number of books for... some reason.

And at the end of the day, we can't tell readers how to enjoy our books... or not enjoy them as the case might be.

Because yes, it is frustrating when someone reads your book, and clearly misinterprets what's on the page, or tries to insert their own symbolism in places where you didn't intend there to be any. It's frustrating when someone says they'll read your book, but then doesn't. Even if they bought a copy. It's frustrating when someone tells you they identify as a reader, but then just read the cliff notes of books and act like they're a literature lover. But at the end of the day authors need to take a deep breath, and realize that past a certain point, they cannot affect the behavior of the reading public out there. All you can do is write the best book you can, and put it out there for folks to read.

If they choose to essentially put the audio book on fast forward, or only read conversations between characters, or even to just read reviews instead of cracking the cover themselves and treating the experiences as basically the same thing, there's nothing you can do about that. The only people who are losing out on the experience at this point are the so-called readers.

I predict this fad will end. That soon people will re-embrace fandoms and stories instead of just trying to hold up a plaque with Read Biggest Number of Books on it. Because reading isn't about the memes. It's not about clout. It's about stories... and if someone isn't interested in actually reading a book, then there's nothing we can do to make them.

Instead, focus on people who are reading. Because that is who wants what you're making.

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (a channel full of short stories, many of which are mine)

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!

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 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!

No One Knows What They Want Until You Give It To Them

There is this weirdly pervasive idea among the general populous that authors are just allowed to do whatever they want with regards to their work. Whatever whimsical ideas come to them, they can just follow those ideas however far the muse leads, and then when the book is done they hand it over to the company, and they get handed a big fat check to go off and do it all again.

Oh, if only. Unfortunately, this is the made-up, manic-pixie-dream-girl version of being an author that only exists in TV shows and movies, largely as a way to make a very boring job look exciting to those outside the author's own head. In reality, authors who are trying to make a living are bound by the market, and even more explicitly, by the tastes of their audience. And I say this with all the love in my heart, and as someone who still has a lot of sensory issues surrounding food, but a lot of readers are particularly picky eaters. Until they aren't.

And that means we have no idea if what we're doing is going to work or not... which is frustrating, because we still have to try to predict the future like our lives depend on it.

Which we've found, time and again, is basically impossible.

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!

Nobody Knows What They Want Until You Give It To Them

I raised a lot of complaints a few years ago in my post Variety May Be The Spice of Life, But It's Often Too Risky (As A Creator), and it mainly focused on the issue of how so many people will find one thing that they like, and then stick with that one thing come hell or high water. And this takes a lot of different forms. You'll have readers who only read a very specific niche of books, or even a single series of books over and over. You see this habit in gaming where, as an example, you'll have players who enjoy the World of Darkness, but they only ever play 1 of the dozen interlinked games set in that world, and they don't even want to look at the others. Or you have people who played Dungeons and Dragons once, and decided that was the only game for them, they aren't interested in anything else.

And as a creator, this can be a truly double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you find something that resonates with an audience, then you have folks who will buy your books, watch your videos, listen to your podcast, etc. However, if you try to go off in a different direction, or to do something unexpected, you may find they aren't interested in coming along with you. It's the equivalent of people who only want to hear their favorite band play their greatest hits, but nothing else. However, even if you stay within that wheelhouse, people might get bored with what you're making, even if it's ostensibly what they want to see, and what they were asking for.

And you can get trapped into playing things safe, even if that's no guarantee that you're actually going to get the interest, attention, views, and sales that you want.

What floor was it supposed to be on, again?

I feel some examples might work best here to illustrate my point.

Consider the supplement 100 NPCs You Might Meet At The Tavern. This was my 11th supplement I'd written for Azukail Games, and it is one of the most generic supplements one could ask for. It was the latest entry in a rather crowded field, and judging by the numbers it should have sold all right, but not amazingly.

 

This is the best-selling supplement I've written, and it's currently Platinum on Drive Thru RPG.

Why is that? Was it the format? The subject matter? The fact it was general use for most high fantasy games? Was it the low cost? Was it that it hit the market before generative AI flooded everything so badly? Or did the preview just jive with enough Game Masters that they wanted to snap it up? There is, unfortunately, no way to know, or I'd be rich right now.

Trying to interpret those sales is maddening, but trying to read the tea leaves is an unfortunate necessity of the job. And I'll fully admit that while I've written dozens of NPC lists in the same vein as this supplement, none of them every did that well. And some of them, like my recent 100 NPCs To Meet After The Zombie Apocalypse, still haven't even cleared the Copper level requirement of 51 copies sold.

Unfortunately, audience input isn't usually any more reliable as a source for decision-making. As an example, a lot of readers have wanted me to write more adventure modules, particularly for my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age fantasy setting. However, for all the requests, my recently released A Night At The Slaughterhouse Inn hasn't received much in the way of interest. I have a vocal contingent of folks who enjoy the stuff I've written for Changeling: The Lost, but while 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments To Find In The Hedge has hit Electrum status (one of my top sellers on Storytellers Vault), the follow-up supplement 100 Unusual Things To Find At A Goblin Market barely cleared Copper status despite members of my audience directly, and repeatedly, asking for it.

What makes this even more complicated, though, is what's riding on the outcome. Both my publisher and myself have bills to pay, and we pay those bills by writing games, supplements, and in some cases novels, and selling them to the public. If the things with my byline on them don't move copies, neither of us will be able to stay in the black. And since we don't have much of a discretionary budget, we need to make sure that, even if we don't put out hits, they can't be duds. Which means that when something seems to do well (even if the reason why it did well is a completely unreliable guess) it's a straw we have to grasp at because it seems like a better idea than closing our eyes and firing blind into a dark room, hoping there's a target, and that we can miraculously hit the bullseye on it.

When you've only got nickels and dimes, you can't afford to lose them.

So how do we avoid this damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't sort of situation? Well, that is where you all come in as the audience! Because you are the ones who have the power to actually move the target in front of the shot so that it lands.

The Power Is Yours (Literally)

While publishers, studios, and marketers know how to play the game when it comes to manipulating keywords and pushing their products out there so that as many people as possible see them, they don't have the ability to force something to be a hit. All you need to do is look at the number of huge blockbusters that didn't even make back their budget, or the number of books that were supposed to be bestsellers that left the reading public cold and indifferent (you know, like the Robert Galbraith novels before it was revealed what famous phobe was behind that pen name) to see this in action. It is you, the audience, who decides whether or not something is or isn't successful.

Because it doesn't matter who wrote something, or how much hype was put into it, if people collectively shrug and ignore it. And, on the other side of the coin, it doesn't matter how small an indie creator is if people collectively decide, "This thing. We like this. We're going to tell all of our friends about it!"

Let's have some fun with math. I've done this before, but for a laugh let's do it again. And the number we're going to use here is 10,000, because according to some of the folks I've spoken to over the years, 10,000 sold books was the standard for a New York Times bestseller. It's arbitrary, but possible when discussing something blowing up in terms of support.

 

- 10,000 copies of a full RPG like Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic? I'd be looking at something like $110,000 in my pocket, and I'd be immediately working on fresh supplements for it.

- 10,000 copies of a novel like my sword and sorcery tale Crier's Knife? I'd be looking at something like $30,000, which isn't buy-a-house money, but is absolutely get-started-on-that-long-promised-sequel money.

- 10,000 copies of an RPG supplement like World's Oldest Profession: A Baker's Dozen of Brothels? That would still be worth around $3,000, and that would be one hell of a weight off my shoulders.

- What about 10,000 reads on one of my Vocal.media articles? Well, that would be $60... not huge, but not nothing, and hey, it's free to all the readers out there!

- 10,000 subscribers on YouTube is 10x the number of people it takes to unlock monetization, and if all of those people watch at least half an hour of content on the channel, it becomes an earner overnight!

- 10,000 followers on one of my social media platforms? That's usually around the time the platform monetizes you as a creator, allowing you to make money for posting on Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Take a moment, and realize just how small 10,000 actually is, as a number. A decent weekend at a mid-sized convention has 10,000 people in attendance. I've met people whose high schools had nearly that many people in them when class was in session. There are college campuses that easily have 10,000 people on them. I'm a part of dozens of Facebook groups and subreddits that have FAR more than 10,000 members in them. Now ask what 20,000 people all acting together could do. Now think about 50,000. How about 1,000,000?

That's the point I'm making here, and it's the same point that every army and labor organizer has been making for centuries. Because any one person only has a limited amount of influence or support they can provide. But as the chain letter says, if you tell 2 friends, and they tell 2 friends, and they tell 2 friends, then 30 connections down the line there's going to be a massive word of mouth about a particular author and the things they make.

So don't be a passive consumer of content who lets the algorithm decide what to feed you. Go out there looking for new art to experience, and when you find something that you think is great, tell people about it, and support the creators however you can. Because at the end of the day, all we can do is make the art... we need you, the audience, to participate for it to actually allow us to make a living.

Spare A Moment, and Click A Button?

Speaking of the power of a mobilized audience, I wanted to tag a call to action (or a request for help, however you read it) at the end of this week's post. Because my audio drama series that I launched in partnership with Alice Liddell, The A.L.I.C.E. Files, has been struggling uphill, and we're on something of a deadline. We just finished Season 1 a little bit ago, and we're gearing up to push the story forward... but we need your help.

In order for a YouTube channel to be monetized at all it needs to have 500 subscribers, and 3,000 watched hours. In order for it to be fully monetized (which means you get ad revenue, as well) it needs to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watched hours.

Right now we have 380 subscribers, and just over 1,800 watched hours... and we need to get those numbers filled up by the end of the year, otherwise YouTube is doubling the requirements, which is going to effectively lock a lot of smaller channels and creators out of ever getting their piece of the pie when it comes to being paid for the traffic their free videos bring in.

I just outlined the power the audience has, and I talked about trying new things to see if something outside your usual shows, books, and games actually piques your interest. So even if audio dramas aren't usually your thing, give this one a few episodes to grow on you! We've got weird Westerns, collections of two-sentence horror stories, Victorian nightmares, and more, all of it wrapped in a sci-fi reimagining of Alice in Wonderland!

So give it a chance to surprise you. If you like what you see then give the videos a thumbs up, leave a comment or two, and subscribe to the channel! And if you make it to the end of Season 1, leave a question on the Ask Me Anything About The Carroll Institute.

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (an audio drama channel I launched with Alice Liddell)

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 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 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.

Turning Mistakes Into Inspiration (A Series Writing Tip)

Authors, as a rule, have a tendency of trying to keep their stories straight. And that goes double if you're writing to an outline or plot points. However, if you're working on a series, it's entirely possible that something you did in part 1 is going to contradict what your plan actually was for part 5, 6, or 7. And while the urge might be to go back and change the earlier installments, take a moment and ask whether it can send your story in a more interesting direction to leave things as they are, and to go off in a new direction.

I have an example from some of my own work this week, but word to the wise, spoilers ahead for The A.L.I.C.E. Files... and if you haven't checked them out yet, I highly recommend subscribing to the channel and at least taking in the first season, which we just finished.

Because this is a strategy that I've put to a lot of use.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Why Did She Say "Foundation"?

For folks who haven't tuned-in to this ongoing audio drama series, the premise is fairly simple. A young woman is made an impossible offer by the shadowy organization known as the Carroll Institute, which comes with a suspicious amount of money and some really stellar benefits. It's revealed once her contract is signed that the Carroll Institute is an organization dedicated to exploring parallel dimensions, and "Alice's" job is to review the reports sent to her by the archive.

But while she's on the phone with her new supervisor, Marianne refers to it as the Foundation instead of the Institute.

Now, I'm not going to lie, this was a mistake on my part. Somehow I made it all the way through the scripting, recording, and editing, and that was a mistake that just stayed in all the way until the episode went live. For those who don't know, a Foundation is an organization that primarily gives out grants to other organizations, whereas an Institute is something that has a research arm. So, clearly, the Carroll Institute falls into that latter definition... but given that the episode was already out, and it would take a lot of work to edit this one word, I didn't want to start the entire process over for such a small change. Which left me asking the question; why did the Assistant Director of Anomalous Exploration refer to the Institute as a Foundation?

Well, the boring answer is that Marianne is overworked, and she misspoke while she was on the phone with Alice. However, this is a sci fi reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, so I didn't want to have boring, mundane answers to questions like this. So instead, the answer that's currently in place (and this is where we get into spoiler territory) is that Marianne is not from the same dimension that Alice is. Marianne is a transfer from a parallel timeline, and in the world she's from she did work for the Carroll Foundation, which operated as a kind of branch office for the Institute as a whole.

It's the same reason she mildly abuses her authority, and imports Right Stuff Cola products for her department... that soda company went out of business years ago in Alice's dimension, but Marianne enjoys the product, so she ensures she and her people have easy access to it.

It's good for morale... and it's probably cheaper on the budget.

And this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Just because something is a mistake, that doesn't mean you can't use the Bob Ross strategy and turn it into a happy little accident. Especially when that accident opens up some interesting questions about the story and its progression as you go forward.

Now, if you haven't actually published your story yet, the easy thing to do when you find a mistake or an issue is to just edit it in the moment so you can have a smooth, polished story. But when you're working on a series, that isn't always an option. Whether it's an ongoing audio drama, a novel series, or just a collection of short stories, you don't always have the option to go back and change things around once you've already put the "mistake" out into the world... and even if you do have the option to go back and edit, it can often be more trouble than it's worth.

So take a moment, and ask what other directions the story might go in, which will turn that screw up into a seed you planted early on that will bear fruit later.

And for folks who don't follow the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which you should also subscribe to along with The A.L.I.C.E. Files), I did talk about this topic in terms of roleplaying games as well!

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (a channel full of short stories, many of which are mine)

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!

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 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!