Take A Moment And Check Out My New Publisher Misti Media (If You Haven't Yet)

I mentioned a while back in So My Novels Have Been Unpublished (For Now) that 3 of my novels have been taken off the market, but I have a new publisher that's picked them up and loaded them into the magazine for release. At time of last check, though, they probably aren't going to pull the trigger on re-releasing my books until January of 2027... there were a lot of us that got swept up in the Histria Books purge, and there's plenty of titles that will be coming out in the new year along with me.

But since we're drawing close to the shopping season, and a lot of folks like to give books as gifts, I figured I'd mention some of the Misti Media titles to whet folks' appetites for the re-release of Old Soldiers, and my Hardboiled Cat series of books!

There's a lot of mysteries out there... so why wait?

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!

So What Sort of Titles Do They Have?

Misti Media has been around for a hot minute, and they currently have 72 titles on the market, all of which are available on Drive Thru Fiction (as well as a few other places, if you find a title you want to get from a different outlet). And while there's a pretty good variety of options out there, they've got quite a lot of mysteries and thrillers out there, which I'd definitely recommend checking out.

Two of the titles that most caught my attention (and this was before I signed my current contract) were (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight: Crime Fiction Inspired By One-Hit Wonders, as well as Gag Me With A Spoon: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Music of The 80s. These books were the reason I was pretty sure that Leo and his tales were going to fit in pretty well over at Misti Media. I also have a soft spot for anthologies, and since they're hard as hell to move copies of, I figured I'd give them a shout out this week!

Seriously, give it a look if you haven't!

However, if you're someone who is more in the mood for a novel instead of a bunch of bite-sized stories, and you'd like something on the cozier end of things, consider checking out Gone To The Dogs (The Gumshoe Chicks Mystery #1). There's a murder, a dog show, and a group of old high school friends who get together to find a killer. For those who prefer something more of a thriller, though, the alternate history novel Russian Amerika is definitely worth giving more than a cursory glance. In a 1980s where Russia still owns Alaska, this novel deals with a terrifying scenario that could leave bodies floating in the ocean, and international tensions rising higher than ever before.

So, while I'm sure at least a few folks out there are waiting for my books to get what I hope is their final re-release, consider looking through the rest of the Misti Media catalog for something to tide you over until Pollux and Leo are once again available... especially if you're one of those readers who likes to collect all the different editions of an author's work for your shelves!.

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.

When You Should (And Shouldn't) Sexualize Characters In Your Stories

There is a particularly distasteful trend that I've seen time and time again in books, and it seems to show up particularly in thrillers and mysteries, though no genre is truly safe from it. And while this isn't solely a male author problem, my fellow men are largely the ones I see doing this time and time again.

What is it, you ask? Sexualizing the descriptions of characters (and particularly femme characters) when that is not the point of the scene, and it often goes completely counter to the impression you want your reader to have of what's going on. It's the equivalent of watching a thriller, seeing an interrogation start in a dimly-lit police station, and instead of the tense soundtrack you'd expect to hear, cheesy funk from a porn movie starts playing.

It undercuts the story you're trying to tell, is what I'm saying.

Seriously, guys... you need to paint the right picture with the proper colors, here.

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!

What Perspective Are You Showing Us?

Full disclaimer here, I am in no way against sexy, spicy content in stories. I got my start on the current leg of my career writing romance and erotica, after all. However, it's important that you use the right tool for the right job, and that the words you're putting on the page are done so with specific intent.

And this isn't just Men Writing Women... but a particular subset where anything involving femme characters is inherently sexual, and that is always front-loaded in a way that undermines the surrounding story.

As an example of what I'm talking about, femme fatales are a staple of the mystery genre. Whether it's the beautiful client who walks into the private eye's office one hip at a time before trying to wrap him around her finger, or the stunning Hollywood widow who clings to our detective in a way that feels more amorous than scared, we see that sort of thing in a lot of stories. However, the role of the seduction in these stories is often a double-edged sword, meant to cloud the investigator's judgment, and to make the reader second-guess what's happening. Are these women actually interested in him, or are they trying to manipulate him? Or is it some combination of both? How can we know where the truth ends, and performance begins?

However, there are stories in this genre where every time a femme character is described, it's done so with rigorous attention to her body, and the thoughts of the male character (or sometimes just the narrator) being projected onto her. Now, perhaps this is being done to show the inner workings of a character's mind, but when this particular method of description doesn't have a greater purpose in the story, it feels exploitative. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is when we get a Tolkien-esque description of a woman's body that just goes on and on, only for us to find out she's dead, and these are the thoughts of the investigator looking at her corpse.

This sounds like an obvious no-no, but it's cropped up more than once in published novels I've held in my own hands. Because unless you're revealing that the character observing the corpse is a closet necrophiliac who is trying to do his job without letting anyone around him figure out what's going on inside his head, this is just tasteless. The same is true when we have our attention drawn to every waitress, secretary, and passing young woman on the sidewalk, getting a description that focuses only on their physical attributes, and how desirable they are in the eyes of the observer, usually breaking away from the rest of the scene entirely just to let the reader know that if this were a movie, all the background extras would be very attractive.

At best, this is distracting. At worst, it reduces your cast of characters to nothing but a collection of body parts, making it hard for readers to actually grow attached to anyone in the story they're trying to read.

She was getting handsy with me... too handsy... I lost count after seven.

They key to avoiding this is to go more than just skin deep, and to try to paint a portrait of characters we see in a way that really sticks with the reader, and that is more than just a collection of physical features and a list of their current wardrobe. Does this character have a commanding presence, are they soft-spoken, or do they have any physical tics? Do they have an accent, do they move in a way that suggests a background in dance, martial arts, or the military? Are there prominent scars, tattoos, or other things that might give a hint about who they are, and where they've come from? Are they abnormally large, or unusually small?

Most importantly, however, authors should avoid what I'm going to dub Selkie Descriptions. For those not familiar with the myth of the selkie, it's a shapechanging seal that can take on the form of a beautiful woman (there's another version of the myth where she's a swan, as well). When a man sees the selkie discard her animal skin, he steals it, and forces her to marry him. The similarity with dozens of other myths of supernatural creatures who look like beautiful women is this; they're by themselves, minding their own business, and then a man decides that her existing while being attractive is clearly meant as a temptation for him, and everything is in service to their beauty, his desire for it, and nothing else.

None of this is to say you cannot have characters, scenes, or descriptions which are sexy... but they need to be intentionally sexy. You need to decide that this is how you want your readers to experience a particular character, a particular scene, or even a particular piece of dialogue. Not only that, but often there's going to be contrast as we find out more about a character, or see them in other situations. As an example, finding out that the quiet librarian is a stripper on the weekends, and seeing the difference between her onstage persona and who she is in her regular life, should have a contrast in feeling and description, whichever side of her we meet first.

People, and stories, tend to have multiple facets. You can shape and carve them however you want to best tell the story... but consider what you're writing, and the way you're writing it, especially when it comes to the femme characters in your cast. Because no matter how solid your action, or how intriguing your mystery, if it reads like a fan service comic script, your story is going to suffer for it.

You can still do it, if that's the vision you have. Hell, you might even lean into it as a parody, or a spoof of genre conventions. But you need to be doing it on purpose, with both eyes open, rather than just falling back on sexualized descriptions and stereotypes that are just going to be sour notes in your story.

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!

If You Need More Writing Advice, Then Check Out "Alice The Author" And "Tabletop Mercenary"

I've been running this blog for well over a decade now, and I like to think that I've given folks a lot of good advice. Whether you're a writer looking to improve your craft, or an author with questions about how words on the page turn into money in your pocket, my goal has been to help people get to where they want to be, and to avoid as many pitfalls as possible on their own paths.

Things are pretty damn hectic on my side of the screen, though. So I wanted to take a moment to direct my readers to some other useful resources, while also explaining how checking them out can help me keep doing what I'm doing from week-to-week.

Help us keep helping 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!

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!

First Off, Tabletop Mercenary!

For folks who don't know, in addition to being a blogger, a novelist, a former journalist, and more, I'm also a tabletop RPG designer. And to help catalog that journey in particular, and to blaze a trail for folks who are thinking about giving it a go themselves, I put together the series Tabletop Mercenary over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel.

 

This series currently has 42 episodes, and you can listen to the whole playlist here. With everything getting tougher and tougher these days, keeping the numbers up for the channel is one way my publisher can continue to make money, which allows them to keep paying me and other creators to get our games on the market. So if you're interested in hearing more about my experiences in this little sliver of the publishing world, please check out the show... and if you want to help a little more, subscribe to the channel and check out all the other videos I've got on there as well!

There's something for everyone, so take a stroll through the archive if you're of a mind.

Up Next, Alice The Author

Alice Liddell, my partner and co-creator of The A.L.I.C.E. Files, has been writing even longer than I have. She's published dozens of books, she's survived the fashion industry, and she isn't shy about telling fellow authors (both the experienced and the hopeful) what's what about writing and selling books.

Now, I've mentioned Alice and her YouTube channel Alice The Author several times on this blog, but I wanted to bring her up again because we're currently dealing with a somewhat dire situation. She has to relocate in the very near future, and we're trying to open up as many income streams as we possibly can to help make that happen. Despite the sheer amount of great information on her channel for writing, publishing, marketing, and even which conventions to go to, Alice is still short a lot of subscribers, and about a thousand or so watch hours to get YouTube to allow her to monetize anything she makes... so she's just been doing all of this for the love of the game up until now.

Please go check out her channel today, and subscribe if you want to do your part to keep it going. And if you want to do more to help her cover her moving expenses (and just generally survive in this terrible world we live in), please review the blog entry Author and RPG Designer Alice Liddell Is Moving, And Really Needs Our Help To Make It Happen! It contains all the way folks can help her land on her feet, and help the both of us keep making things.

My Thanks In Advance For All Your Help!

With everything getting more expensive these days, it's harder and harder for creators to actually pay our bills. But every time we get new subscribers, and every time you watch our videos (with ad blocker and VPN turned off, if you can, as YT doesn't count those views) it helps us keep making stuff. We depend on all of you to help us spread the word, and find fresh readers and writers to join our community.

So thank you for reading, for subscribing, and for watching. Don't forget to upvote stuff you like, and to leave a comment or two if you're so inclined!

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.

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!