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!