Stop Telling Creators To Do More (Just Support Them, And They Will)

I know I usually bounce back and forth between the Craft and Business of writing, but this week I have a business topic that is really clawing at me. For regular readers this may sound like I'm revisiting an old chestnut, but given that the holidays are often a make-or-break time for artists out there, I wanted to plant a flag, clamber up onto my soapbox, and say this one with my full chest.

Stop telling creators to do more things! I promise you, we are up to our eyeballs, we're drowning, and the last thing we need is someone adding one more damn thing to the pile!

Seriously... we need a lifesaver, not an anchor.

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!

I'll Get RIGHT On That (In My COPIOUS Amounts of Free Time)

I'd like to give folks a primary example of what I'm talking about here. For those who don't know, earlier in 2024 my first roleplaying game Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic released after its successful Kickstarter. Now, to help bring some attention to this game, I have done all of the following:

- Regularly promoted it on social media

- Mentioned it often in my creator newsletter

- Started a FB page about the game for players to go for updates

- Featured dozens of articles about it on my fairly popular blogs

- Created supplemental material including Army Men: Medals of Honor and Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps

- Started a video series about it titled Tactical Plastic Report

Now, despite all of the things I just mentioned, it's proven tough to get traction on Army Men as a game. The Kickstarter succeeded pretty well, and there's usually some folks who claim it looks interesting, but it hasn't exactly had the impact that I'd like it to have.

The regular suggestion that keeps cropping up in my comments is that I should make an actual play of my game so that people can watch it. And while I will acknowledge that this strategy could be helpful, it also comes with a lot of obstacles that I don't feel like the people suggesting it completely understand. These include:

- Recording Equipment: I have a personal setup, but I don't have mics, cameras, etc. for the 4-5 people it takes to run a decent RPG.

- Space: I do not have access to a private space that is good for recording.

- Talent: You can't just put whoever in a chair when making this kind of video. Folks need to be engaging, comfortable on-camera, on-task, and willing/able to perform.

- Time: These things don't just happen. There's setup, testing, technical issues, running the actual game, doing multiple takes, and then on top of it there's all the post-editing it would take. This could all range from a dedicated several days of work, to several weeks of work.

Now, to be clear, I could make an actual play of my game, if I either really wanted to, or if I had some reason to believe that it would do really well. However, I'm very aware that the Internet is absolutely glutted with actual plays of various RPGs, most of which barely anyone watches. In order for this to be a good return on investment for my time, my energy, etc., the recorded play session would need to bring in not just thousands, but tens of thousands of views. The most popular video I've ever made is currently sitting at 4,600 views and some change, right now, and that thing was an absolute fluke.

More to the point, though, The Problem With Pentex actually has product placement in it... and despite all of that traffic, it has sold a single product to the audience who watched it. Just one. And even that one I'm not entirely sure about, because it isn't my affiliate links in the video.

Creators Need Support, Not More Tasks!

While the example of people commenting, "Just make an actual play!" is one specific incident, this kind of nonsense happens to creators every day, usually dozens of times a day. Some other forms it takes include:

- "I'd love you to make merch of this!" Not realizing that getting that merch made is likely thousands of dollars in investment, along with several months for an order to be fulfilled.

- "I really want you to write another book in this series!" I'm sure we'd love to do that, too. Books can take a year or more to write, and just as long to publish... most of us don't have two years of savings banked so we can just hope the new release does okay.

- "When are you going to release this in audio?" Audio books take almost as long to make as the original book itself, and even longer if you're doing a full cast, SFX, etc.

- "You should go to X convention!" Conventions cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to attend, and historically, authors do not sell much when they're present. I've only ever made a profit once in something like 12 years of going to cons.

- "You really need to get on this social media platform!" Okay, but building a following takes years on any platform, even if you're already established. This isn't the quick-fix solution so many seem to think it is.

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

Sure, I'll add that to the list...

Creators are struggling. Whether we write novels, make videos on YouTube, run podcasts, paint paintings, create audio dramas, or do any of a thousand other things, all of us are struggling. And what does not help are people coming into our comments and leaving off-the-cuff remarks about what new direction we should take our art, what platforms we should use, or the best new method we should use to improve our audience. Because unless you are a marketing professional, or a fellow creator who has been through the process, chances are you don't know what will work any better than we will. Not only that, but it's likely we have already considered your suggestion, and the reason we aren't doing it isn't because we didn't think of it, but because we simply can't afford to do it (whether that be a cost in time, energy, money, etc.)

What we need is support. Because support helps us increase our reach, pay our bills, and it helps us afford to make more art. And, ironically, support would also give us the time and breathing room to make some of those projects you're suggesting, but that we simply can't right now because those things (wait for it) don't have audience support behind them.

Because if I sold a 10,000 copies of both Marked Territory and Painted Cats? As soon as I was done celebrating, I'd be storyboarding Leo's next adventure. If every video I made for Tactical Plastic Report broke 5K views, and there were a hundred or so fans who were begging me for an actual play of the game, I'd start putting a crew together. And if folks demanded Literary Mercenary merch, then supported me when I brought out patches, stickers, pins, or more ambitious things, I would keep doing them. If I could get 5K views on my audio drama for the story Suffer The Children, and folks bought copies of The Rejects while leaving comments that they wanted the rest of the stories in that book dramatized, I would be on that ASAP.

If you actually, truly want a creator you follow to succeed, then you have to be part of that success. Because we don't get anywhere by ourselves. We are, in essence, crowdsurfing... and if we don't have people willing to hold us up, we're going to fall on our faces. And when that happens, some of us probably won't get up.

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

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

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

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

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

 

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

A Backhand From YouTube, Just In Time For The Holidays

I recently had a confluence of events happen that got me really excited as a creator! You see, I've been working with the Azukail Games YouTube channel for several years now, trying to get them monetized. I even went into overdrive last year when YouTube announced they were changing their standards for monetization, requiring channels to have 500 subscribers instead of 1,000, and only 3,000 hours of watched content instead of 4,000 to get monetized.

Well, we crossed that line a couple of days ago. I was in the midst of celebrating when I looked around, and saw the goddamn goalposts had moved. So I wanted to share my experience this week, and hopefully ask all the folks in my audience to help me pull off something of a Christmas miracle before we see the end of 2024.

It's not a great situation, and I could use all the help I can get...

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 The Hell Happened?

All right, let me set the scene for you. I started making videos for Azukail Games roughly three years ago at this point. They're one of my primary publishers, and they figured that video content would be a good way to promote the supplements we were making, and to diversify the content options our audience had. The goal was eventual monetization, but we had a long way to grow before we got there. We saw some steady growth over the first two years, and then last year YouTube announced their shifts in monetization policy. This lit a fire under me and Adrian (the fellow who runs the company and the channel), and we started working harder than ever to diversify the sorts of content we were making, to promote it in more places, and to try to get over that finish line. Even when the algorithm change hit in Fall 2023 and cratered our views, we built back, dusted ourselves off, and kept climbing.

Earlier last week we were at 2,980 hours, or thereabouts... roughly 20 hours away from that golden 3,000 hour mark we'd been told to shoot for by YouTube. Then my second World of Darkness video essay, The Problem With Pentex dropped, and had the closest thing we've managed to a viral success on the channel! In less than a week it racked up over 3,800 views, several hundred upvotes, nearly triple-digit comments, and it added close to 90 subscribers to our channel, which is a big damn deal for a channel our size.

So, in short, we blew past that 3,000 hour mark like a sprinter putting on a final burst of speed before they crossed that finish line!

So what's the problem? Shouldn't we be celebrating, and doing a victory lap after working for years to get to this point? Well yes, and we would be... if we'd actually achieved the goal we set out to achieve.

Because, you see, YouTube didn't actually change the requirements for getting ad revenue from your videos. In order to get a cut of that ad revenue, you still need to get 4,000 hours, and 1,000 subscribers. What they changed was that when you hit that 3K hours and 500 subs mark is that your viewers can now leave you tips, and choose to fund you via YT's version of Patreon. Things that are really helpful when you have tens of thousands of subs, but which are basically useless for a small channel, which we very definitely still are.

And that's the situation we're put in. We thought we'd finally achieved the goal we'd been working toward for years, only to find out that now we could accept tips straight through YT itself... something that's basically useless to us since Azukail Games already has a Patreon to fund the channel. And since we don't really do live broadcasts (it's just not the sort of content we make) none of those tools are any use to us either.

And while the above video did really well, blowing basically every video on the channel out of the water in terms of metrics, it hasn't blown up so big that it can single-handedly make up the extra 1,000 hours of watch time we need to hit that 4,000 hour mark and actually get our piece of the ad revenue... which is what we need in order to fund all the future endeavors we've been planning on.

What We Need From You!

While the latest World of Darkness video essay did really well, it really only added a few hundred extra view hours past the 3,000 hour mark. Realistically, we still need between 400 and 700 hours of additional watch time in order to get us over that hump, and to get our channel a cut of the ad revenue we generate. Revenue that Azukail Games can reinvest back into making new, better videos, as well as projects like the Chronicles of Darkness audio drama podcast Windy City Shadows, which is something I've been plotting out and trying to get ready for the day we finally get our piece of the pie (since big projects like that don't just appear out of thin air).

So, in short, we need everyone reading this to go to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and watch some of our content! If you just have time for a single video, watch The Problem With Pentex, or my earlier video essay The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost. But if you're willing to dedicate a little additional time to helping boost our signal, you could put on one of the following playlists instead!

- Spoken Word: This playlist contains all 50 of my audio dramas, and it's the second longest-running playlist on the entire channel! If you want a preview of what Windy City Shadows will be like, check this one out.

- Speaking of Sundara: This video series is where I talk about my fantasy RPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age for both Pathfinder Classic and DND 5E. So if you're looking for a new setting to try out this holiday season, come and take a tour of my world!

- Discussions of Darkness: A series where I talk about the World and Chronicles of Darkness settings, and how to avoid so many of the pitfalls and bad decisions that can leave serious black marks on your chronicle.

- Tabletop Mercenary: In this series I pull back the curtain, and show folks how you can make a living writing tabletop RPGs. If you've been thinking about doing this as a full-time job, or just as a side hustle, this is definitely a show you should check out!

- Tactical Plastic Report: This is a collection of videos I'm making about my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. So if you've wanted to get a tour of this game, and to listen to me talk about it as a creator, check this series out! It's the newest playlist on the channel, and you can currently get through all the videos on this list in a little under and hour.

There are only so many hours in a day, however, and YouTube tends to "revise" watch hours down if there are other videos playing on the same account, if too many videos are watching in too rapid a period of time, and so on, and so forth. So while I would definitely encourage folks to watch my videos as the primary means of helping, please consider doing the following as well:

- Sharing Videos On Your Social Media: You never know what is going to be the shout out that starts a genuine avalanche.

- Comment On Vides: Comments of at least 7 words shake the algorithm awake, and inform it that people are paying attention.

- Subscribe To The Channel: Subscribing makes a big difference to how the algorithm treats you as a creator. The more subs you have (and the more folks who hit the bell to get updates), the more the algorithm weights things in your favor.

At time of writing we have a little less than 2 weeks for us to hit this goal by the new year. So if you're someone who wants to help me end the year on a high note, getting the Azukail Games channel over this hump would be amazing. I have so many projects I want to pursue in partnership with my publisher, but it's really hard to justify putting together bigger, more expensive, time-consuming endeavors when the channel doesn't bring in any money to balance out that overhead cost.

Thank you in advance to everyone who takes a few hours of their time to help... your support of smaller publishers and creators is making a difference. Without you, we simply can't do what we do.

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

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

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

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

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

 

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

Learning To Weave Your Story Threads Together Takes Practice

There's an old phrase by a talented artist that (paraphrased) goes, "Painting is very easy when you have no idea what you're doing, and very difficult when you do." This also applies to writing. Especially because "writing" isn't just the act of putting letters in the proper order, and putting together complete sentences. Writers need to be able to choose the proper word to convey the right feeling and action in a scene. Writers need to be able to create compelling, interesting characters. We need to figure out conflicts, how to convey someone's personality through their speech, we have to build entire worlds...

And perhaps most importantly, we need to be able to tie it all together with a pretty bow on top.

That last part, though, is also a skill in and of itself. And like any skill, it's something you will get better at with time and practice... but you need to train your brain to recognize, and create, patterns in your work to make sure everything hangs together.

It only looks easy if you don't see all the learning that went into this.

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!

Pulling Disparate Elements Together (As If You Meant To)

As an example of what I'm talking about this week, I want to share a story from last year when I was running a live action game for Changeling: The Lost. For those who aren't familiar with the game, it's a modern fantasy roleplaying game where you all play changelings; humans stolen by interdimensional, god-like beings known as the True Fae. They tore out your souls, replaced them with magic, and altered you on a fundamental level. You escaped from their realm of Arcadia, and now you are trying to exist in the real, modern world. Your magic hides your supernatural nature, but you always have an eye over your shoulder, watching for your old Keeper to come back to reclaim you.

Anyway, I had between 11-20 some odd players in this game... that's 11-20 odd main characters whose goals and aspirations are what shapes the plot of the story we're all telling. So I had to balance out trying to make everyone's actions matter, giving them freedom and agency, and then making it seem like everything was part of one, cohesive whole.

In short, I was co-authoring a novel with nearly two-dozen people, and I had to make all of them feel like their contributions were seamlessly woven into the whole. Piece of cake, right?

In the first session of this game, I pulled several, random incidents out of my game supplement 100 Strange Sights To See In The Hedge. These incidents are totally random, and are simply meant to be filler for your story. But based on how players reacted to them, several of these incidents became canon to the unfolding story. The threads I wove together include:

- A small, fantastical bird alighting on a branch and croaking, "The Ashen Lord Will Devour Your Soul!" which startled one of the players.

- A hobgoblin is crucified on a tree bearing a sign that says Ironmonger, identified as a victim of The Ashen Lady

- A penguin in a Hawaiian shirt wanders down the forest path, roasting alive a fearsome briar wolf who tries to attack it. The penguin then begins eating the roasted wolf.

These three threads, for some reason, are what players decided to latch onto, and follow-up on, so they became the story threads. Worse, I actually misspoke when I said the Ashen Lady instead of the Ashen Lord in the second thread. So now I had a fresh element added into the mix.

That was when I got out my loom, and I started trying to pull all these disparate elements together into a singular whole.

The Ashen Lord and the Ashen Lady were True Fae who appeared to be contesting their shared title. There could be only one victor, and whoever wrenched it away would be the one who would walk away with the power. This created a political struggle between god-like creatures going on right at the doorstep of all the other players. Some wanted to ignore it, and some wants to join in. Some wanted to try to sabotage it so that both of them lost. But as they researched, delved deeper, and sought more knowledge about them, they uncovered more story.

The Ashen Lady was a recent upstart, and it's said she had stolen her part of the title from the Ashen Lord. More importantly, they found that the Ashen Lord had once been the Lord of Night, and that he had ruled alongside the Lord of The Sun. In an act of betrayal he had tried to slay the Sun King, throwing his realm into chaos as he usurped his power. Of course, True Fae are difficult things to kill, so it was likely that the King of The Sun was not dead, but merely hidden, or banished, and would remain so until his title was returned to him, or the conditions of the Ashen Lord's binding were broken.

What they found in the end of this plot arc was that the King of The Sun had, the entire time, been the penguin wandering the local Hedge! He had steadily been regaining his sentience, and some semblence of his power (hence his ability to breathe fire), but he could not speak or communicate who he was until his title was once again bestowed upon him... something the Ashen Lady had been attempting to do by stealing power away from the Ashen Lord.

Again, grab a copy if you're interested!

This is the kind of exercise that can help you, as a writer, weave together seemingly unconnected plot threads. Even if you don't finish an idea, the exercise of taking 2-3 different elements and pulling them all together into a cohesive whole is a way to train your mind into spotting and identifying patterns. Because even if a story has a twist ending, or a plot that seems to turn circles upon itself, pattern recognition helps us identify the structure of a well-told story.

This isn't the only time reaching out to earlier elements and building off of them in unexpected ways has featured in my work. I have a new upcoming addition to the Warhammer 40K fan series Gav and Bob (check out Part Four, The Emperor's Hand, and Part Five, Faith and Martyrs if you haven't yet) where I tie the whole plot up to this point together into a neat little package, for example. I also have an entire third novel for my hardboiled cat series which is all about tying up the loose end I left dangling in the original short story Leo debuted in.

When you start weaving something as complicated as a season of an audio drama, or a plot of a novel (or novels), this is an extremely useful skill to have... because you never know when that old, dangling plot thread is going to come in handy for you to tie up the current plot nice and tidy, or when Chekov's Gun is finally going to go off!

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

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

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

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

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

 

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

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

The 1 Gift Every Author On Your List ACTUALLY Wants

It's the holiday season, and we're all asking that same question we always ask around this time of year; what does that special someone on our list really want this year? Whether we're trying to get a gift for our parents, our siblings, our partners, our children, or even just friends, it can be tough. You want to get them something they'll like, something that's meaningful, but also something that feels personal and shows you took an interest in them. However, if anyone on your list this holiday season is an author, I'm going to save you a lot of time, energy, and effort on this one. Because there is one thing that every author out there wants, and it will make them absolutely beam this Yule time.

Are you listening? All right, here it is...

Support their work. That's it. That's the secret!

There you go! Now start placing orders.

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!

The Kinds Of Support You Can Give

All right, so you want to give the author in your life the kind of support they're going to appreciate, and which is going to make them feel special. I'm going to give you a descending order of impact regarding the kinds of support the authors in your life need.

#1: Become A Patron

Whether the authors in your life have a Patreon, they're still on Only Fans (yeah, some of us use it for writing rather than... other content), or they've got another way for their audience to crowdfund them, just do that. An extra $20 or more a month can make a big difference to a creative professional... and if you can get a few other family members together on this one, it's possible you all could quite literally pay their bills throughout the year so they can work without worry. Or at least make paying those bills a bit easier.

I cannot overstate how much direct assistance helps. And, of course, if you're not as tech savvy or you want to have a physical something to hand over, suspicious envelopes of cash are a great universal gift.

#2: Buy Their Book

It sounds obvious, but authors get paid when people buy our books... so just do that when you can! And sure, it might not be that big of a deal if just one person buys one copy, but ask yourself how many people are in this author's extended community? How big is their family, their friend circle, etc.? Tally up what kind of royalty check they'll have if all of those people bought a copy of their book, as well as getting one for their friends, in-laws, and so on, and so forth. And, while you're at it, imagine the look on their face as everyone in their circle comes up to ask them to sign the copy they got for Christmas. Also, review their books online, because once they break 50 reviews, that's when the Amazon algorithm starts actually giving them attention.

Seriously, I cannot overstate how that feeling never really stops hitting you when you're an author. And for those who don't know, I've got all sorts of books on My Amazon Author Page, so go check it out if you haven't! Or grab yourself a copy of my new RPG, Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic... after all, who doesn't love a new game for the holidays?

#3: Consume Their Free Content (If It Pays Them)

Whether the author in your life puts work on platforms like Vocal.media, they have a podcast, they livestream themselves doing something creative, they have a YouTube channel, etc., support on those platforms is what determines the size of their check. So read their articles, watch their videos, listen to their episodes, and leave upvotes, comments, and share it around as best you can. Even if you don't have money to spend, showing your support like this can help them reach a wider audience through you, which can be encouraging, but also boost their signal enough to help them gain traction so they can earn more.

For folks who don't know, you can find a slew of my content on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, as well as over on My Vocal Archive.

#4: Follow All Their Social Media Pages

You know how when you have an indie band that's playing their first handful of shows how there's nothing more discouraging than looking out and seeing no one but the other bands and their significant others? How there's no fans filling the space, and no one interested in their performance, but they pick themselves up and play anyway? Well, following a writer's social media pages is basically you choosing the be the warm body in the audience cheering them on.

This matters more than just moral support, too. The social media algorithms pay attention, and if there are people following their pages, liking the things they share, leaving comments of at least 7 words, and resharing the content, that will make them more likely to get bigger boosts from the website itself.

There's Something For Every Budget

Some of us have a big, fat budget to buy gifts with. Some of us just have time, energy, and a willingness to try to make our loved ones smile. But if someone in your life is an author, the best thing you can do is help support their work in whatever way you can this holiday season.

And who knows? If you're not already an avid reader of their work, maybe you'll find out you like their books a lot more than you thought you would!

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

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

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

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

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

 

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