If A Tree Falls In A Forest (The Reason Authors Are Always Promoting Their Books)

We've all heard the question, "If a tree falls in a forest, and there's no one around to see it or hear it, did it actually fall?" Now, from a raw physics perspective, of course we know it fell. You just told us it did. Even if there aren't human beings nearby to perceive the tree falling, that doesn't change the fact that it fell. Philosophically, though, the question is asking us whether something that happens with no one there to perceive it truly occurred. Or, taken another way, does it matter if the thing happened if no one ever knows about it?

This is what creators are dealing with, and it's important for folks to understand this. Because we can write all the novels, make all the videos, record all the audiodramas, and so on that we want... but if no one sees them or hears them, we may as well have done nothing at all.

So... are you watching? Are you listening?

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!

NIMFYP (Not In My "For You Page")

Academically I think we all know why authors are constantly trying to promote our work. Simply put, if we don't do it then no one else is going to do it for us. Because if we had a PR team willing to do all the marketing on our behalf? Hoo boy, I can promise you there wouldn't be a peep from probably 90% of authors out there.

We want to write books (or short stories, or make audio dramas, etc.). We don't want to be making promo posts any more than you all want to be seeeing them.

However, we need to do those things, because if we don't then you're never going to find out about our books. Whether it's making posts on social media, writing blog entries about our process, or even making mini commercials or audio teasers for the books that show up on YouTube, we have to do everything we can to try to get eyes on our work, and to get people talking about it.

But as Alice The Author pointed out recently on her channel in A Plea To Bookstagrammers, people just keep barking at us to shut up... even if they actually like the things we make, and especially if they tell us they "respect our hustle" but are sick of hearing from us.

This is, in my opinion, the digital equivalent of the old NIMBY problem... Not In My Back Yard.

NIMBY is the disconnect between someone saying they want something to exist, but not wanting that thing to exist anywhere near them. They want low-cost housing for poor and disenfranchised people, but they want it somewhere else so they don't have to look at it. They want prisons to keep dangerous people locked up, but they wouldn't want one anywhere near their town. They want expanded highway systems, or job training centers, or data hubs, or whatever else it is they believe is going to be a social good... but they don't want it in their back yard where they'd have to look at it, and where it might affect them, personally.

This is how someone can say, "Authors work hard, and we should support them so they can keep writing books!" and, "I'm just so sick of nothing but promotional and marketing posts from creators!" in the same breath. Because they mean both things sincerely... but the disconnect is they want other people to support those authors. They want other people to see those promotional posts, and to give their money to these writers. They just want to float in an online space where they don't have to see yet more ads trying to get them to buy this, read that, watch this, and so on, and so forth.

And you know what? That's a fair desire. Seriously, it is. The Internet is so jammed full of advertising (both obvious and concealed), that it's easy to feel fatigued when you scroll through a group or your For You Page, and you just see more and more of the same.

However, if you are someone who wants authors to survive (whether it's authors in general, or just a handful whose work you actually like), put your money where your mouth is, or stop saying that you support us in theory, as long as you don't have to actually do anything.

Put another way, we need your praxis, not your theory.

Thoughts And Prayers Don't Do Squat (Take Direct Action)

A disclaimer for this section. If you are already actively supporting creators in the ways you are able to, whether that's buying books, writing reviews, following them on social media, sharing their posts, watching their videos, listening to their podcasts, or whatever else, you can sit down.

This message is for all the people in the back who didn't hear me the last time I put this out there. And there are a lot of people who don't like hearing this, but you need to internalize this if you're going to actually help creators at all. Are you listening? Good, because this is important.

If you are not taking specific actions to help creators, you are doing nothing. If you are proclaiming that you support them as creators, but then actively attempt to avoid doing anything helpful, you might actually be doing less than nothing.

And no matter how many people you think are helping, it's probably about 10% of that number, as I pointed out in Your Audience Support Is Like A Reverse Iceberg.

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that you have to do everything in your power to support every creator out there simply because they are a creator. What I am saying is that you need to be aware of how your actions do (or in many cases don't) help the authors you care about, and whose work you want to see more of.

For example, are you buying merch from creators, or giving them money directly so they can keep making stuff? Are you following them on social media, interacting with their posts, and actually reading the articles or listening to the podcasts and videos they make? Are you sharing their stuff on your own social media channels, or spreading the word in groups you're part of because you want to help boost the signal? Are you leaving ratings and reviews?

Or are you just sitting back and wishing them success?

Because while I don't wish to malign anyone's spiritual practices, I believe the most important attitude you could adopt is to be the change you want to see in a creator's world. Don't wait for a random fan to come along and discover their work... be the fan who tells your friends and family about the stuff they make. Be the person who leaves the comments on a creator's video that gases them up, and tells them how much you like what they're doing. Be that person who shares their work in another group so when they find their own creations out in the wild it makes their heart swell.

Don't just sit around waiting for someone else to help... be the first one to offer your hand. Because if enough people pull together, you can suck someone out of the clutches of the algorithm, and raise them up so they can finally take a deep breath, and throw themselves into their work with gusto!

If we all did that for the creators whose work we love, it would be a lot easier for them to survive, thrive, and in the end give us more of the art we want!

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.

Cause And Effect - The Physics of Your Plot

Have you ever been reading a story, and it just seemed like nothing was connected? The protagonists were running around just flipping switches and hitting buttons, the villain seemed to be taking random shots in the dark, and the entire book just feels like a bunch of unconnected stuff that's happening rather than anything you might generously call a plot?

This can happen to the best of us. When it does it's best to take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember a very simple rule. Cause and effect is how things work in the real world, and it should be what determines the series of events, actions, and reactions in your story.

It's all connected... or at least it SHOULD be.

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!

Cause And Effect In Your Narrative

If you're writing a story, the things happening in it should follow a logical progression, and they should be connected in a way that's easy for your audience to keep up with. If the local rec center is going to be torn down because they can't afford to pay for the repairs to bring it up to code, that leads to our protagonists looking for ways they can fund the repairs. Maybe they band together to do summer jobs, arrange some kind of charity walk-a-thon, or enter a dodgeball tournament where the prize money is exactly what the rec center needs to be saved. At this point there's usually some kind of complication (a corporation tries to stop them from raising the charity, a team of bullies signs up to make sure they don't win the tournament, etc.), but in the end they usually pull off the win, and they get to keep the little piece of their community.

This series of events has an easy-to-follow logic... more importantly there's a sensible cause-and-effect you can follow. A problem arises, our protagonist(s) seek a solution, they deal with some setbacks, and ultimately achieve the ends they set out to in order to resolve the problem.

Just follow the strings, and it all makes sense!

Now, it should be noted that characters (much like real people) do not always take completely rational, logical actions. The characters may lash out, act impulsively, or attempt to do something out of fear, greed, or selfishness... but even in instances where that happens, your audience should be able to understand where they were coming from, and why they took those actions.

The point is that no matter what actions your characters take, your audience needs to be able to see where those actions came from... and, preferably, that the actions taken have sensical escalation. This last point can sometimes trip authors up because we want to make things more action-oriented, or make the stakes feel higher... but it can end up making a story feel melodramatic at best, and silly at worst.

For example, say that our plucky young team of dodgeballers square-up with their rivals who are trying to scare them off their quest to win the tournament. Now, assuming this is a YA-style narrative, it's quite possible that the bullies go a little too far and end up pushing the protagonist's team around, maybe causing an injury to one of them that's just bad enough they can't play (like a sprained ankle, a broken arm from a bad fall, or something similar). What would not be in keeping with the tone, style, and genre would be one of the bullies taking out a handgun and threatening to shoot the protagonist dead right there in the park if he and his team don't withdraw immediately from the tournament.

Now, a confrontation like this does happen in the Stephen King story The Body, but that is a coming-of-age story about a group of friends walking through the wilderness and coming to terms with their own mortality. It's also been made extremely clear that the kid who pulled out the gat has a particularly bad home life, and likely has a screw or two loose in his head. It's a little extreme, but it's tonally consistent, and it's something we as the audience can follow. But it wouldn't be appropriate for a YA-style story about friends saving a part of their community through a relatively wholesome activity/sport.

So, keep that in mind when you sit down to tell your story. Make sure the actions of all persons make sense, and that they have an internal logic the audience can follow... but also make sure your story isn't going from 0 to 60 in the space of a sentence or two for no reason.

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!

Creators Need Your Help (Even When It Looks Like They Don't)

I want to take a moment to talk about the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios. This channel, by all measures, is a pretty big success on the platform. It's been around for a decade and a half, most of its videos have view counts in the hundreds of thousands, it has half a million subscribers, and a relatively robust Patreon and Ko-Fi audience. It's also the channel where the very popular series of video essays titled The Alt-Right Playbook is posted, and it broke down a lot of rhetorical devices and arguments used by those on the right side of the political spectrum.

To all appearances, the channel and its host should be doing well. However, as a recent video he put up states in the title, Being A YouTuber Bankrupted Me.

And this is something I wanted to talk about today. Not just to try and push a little support toward a creator and video essayist whose work I enjoy and admire (though seriously, help out if you can even if that's just subscribing to his channel and watching some videos in his archive), but to try to drive home something to everyone out there.

None of us are doing well. Even if it looks like we are, we are literally 1-2 months away from everything crashing down without meaningful support from people like 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!

We Can Never Have Too Much Support

There is a common misconception among the general public that creators are either wealthy, or we're making ends meet without too much difficulty. And part of this is likely because when you think of the richest people out there, chances are artists of one stripe or another come to mind first. Whether it's YouTube creators like Mr. Beast, authors like Stephen King, movie stars, pop sensations, and so on, the assumption is that if a few of us are rich beyond an average person's wildest dreams, then surely the rest of us are doing all right? In addition to that there are fictional portrayals of creators such as on the TV show Castle where the successful novelist has a level of wealth that can solve an episode's entire plot, or even on shows like Two and a Half Men where a washed up songwriter wrote a single jingle years ago whose royalties can pay for an obscenely indulgent lifestyle.

However, I've met a lot of authors in my life. I've also met my share of podcasters, YouTubers, RPG designers, as well as a handful of marginally well-known singers and musicians... and do you know what all of them had in common? No matter how much money you thought they were making, I could guarantee that you weren't even remotely in the ballpark. Nearly all of us are broke. Period.

Seriously... it's depressing how broke we are.

And why are we so broke? Well, there's the fact that a lot of our rates for stories haven't actually gone up since the early 1900s for a lot of publications. There's the fact that platform decay across social media has made it nearly impossible for us to reach an audience like we could even a decade or so ago. There's the fact that if someone buys a $15 book that only $1-$3 of that makes it into our pockets, so we have to move tens of thousands of books a year just to keep our heads above water. There's the fact that Covid killed a lot of conventions (and seriously harmed those that survived), where a lot of us could make sales in-person. There's the fact that creators are given bare crumbs by platforms like YouTube, Spotify, etc., so that we need to rack up literal millions of views/listens in order to get even a $100 check at the end of the month...

But that's mostly the modern problems we're dealing with as creators. The truth is that being a professional creative has basically never paid well except for a handful of us that get plucked up by the zeitgeist, who make smart business decisions, or who are supremely lucky.

I cannot count the number of times I've met someone who I consider a more successful author, game creator, etc., and they always ask me the question, "So what do you do?" not because they're being dismissive of my work, but because it never occurs to them that this is my full-time job... because even at their level, their creative work isn't enough to cover their needs. Most other creators I know, even the really successful ones, typically have a retirement (quite common among the hard sci-fi crowd who had a military career before they started writing), they have a well-paying day job (I can think of one union welder and one regional sales manager I've shared con space with over the years), their spouse is actually the house breadwinner (which you wouldn't think was the case for someone who designed one of the major games in the World of Darkness, and who has a bestselling fantasy series under his belt), or in some cases they have an inheritance or trust fund that just lets them write without worrying about keeping the bills paid.

If you remove all of those folks from the general pool of creators out there, and only count those of us who are doing this full-time to support ourselves, there aren't a lot of us out there. And a majority of us (myself included) live in poverty, dependent on the whims and support of our readers to help us keep the lights on and the words coming.

And I don't mean that as hyperbole. I mean real-life, qualifies for Medicaid, uses food pantries, barely-makes-enough-to-pay-taxes poverty.

To Be Clear, "Support" Comes in Many Forms

When most people hear the word support they immediately close themselves off because it's become synonymous with money. However, while beoming a Patreon patron or throwing a tip into my digital jar (via my Patreon page or my Ko-Fi respectively) is always nice, I completely get that's not something a lot of folks can do. However, as I've pointed out several times in this blog, as well as in other places, support comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. In addition to giving creators money directly, or buying our books and other merch, support also looks like:

- Following our social media pages (bigger subscriber counts makes the algorithm friendly)

- Interacting with our posts (comments, upvotes, shares, etc. all make a difference)

- Consuming our content (watching videos, reading articles, etc., as that can get us paid)

- Sharing things we make to reach a wider audience (we literally can't do this on our own)

Even if you cannot personally pay a creator's bills by handing us money, you can do your part to boost our signal, and get our view counts up... the hard part is that we need a lot of people all working toward the same goal. And like I said a while back in episode 16 of Tabletop Mercenary, Audience Support is a Reverse Iceberg, we're lucky if 10% of our audience actually participates at all. And of that 10%, less than 10% of that number actively supports us by upvoting posts, sharing on social media, watching/reading any time something new comes out, talking us up to their friends, etc.

I want to end this off on a note of real talk for anyone who got this far. This isn't just unique to me, as a creator. This is a situation all of us are facing. We aren't just out here shaking a tip jar because we want a little extra money from you... we are literally funded by what you choose to do or not do as members of our audience.

So if there are creators out there that you like (whether it's me, or someone else), please, actively support them in any way you can. If you have money, support their crowdfunding endeavors, or buy some of their merch to show there are people out there who want more of it (hell, a single tee shirt gives them more revenue than an entire month of streaming a podcast on your mobile device). Leave ratings and reviews to help them get noticed more, follow their socials, tell your friends and family... and if you really want to make a creator's day, leave them some nice comments.

Seriously, we get so much hate on a daily basis. Sometimes it really helps us stop the candle from going out for someone to just tell us they really liked a story we wrote, and they can't wait for the next installment.

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.

Don't Let AI Rot Your Brain (Why You Should Never Use ChatGPT As A Writing Tool)

When you first start a workout regimen, it can be equal parts hard but invigorating. You're moving your muscles in new ways, you're getting used to new poses, new lifts, new everything. You might even be changing your diet, if you're going really hard. But pretty soon, you'll feel that shiny new exterior start to wear thin. You'll start dragging yourself to the gym, and grumbling under your breath between sets that you wish you didn't have to do this. You wished there was some other way... some magic shortcut you could take to just get trim, strong, and firm without all this sweating and straining.

And there are a thousand and one scams promising to give you that. A special diet that will melt away pounds of fat without any extra work. A little device that will shock your stomach into a six pack. A simple routine found only among a secret sect of monks who are all absolutely ripped. A little pill that will give you the get-up-and-go you need to make your gains.

This isn't about crash diets and exercise scams. This is about ChatGPT.

It's like fake diet pills, but for your writing.

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!

The Only Person You're Cheating Is Yourself

We've all seen companies and individuals jamming generative AI programs into everything. They've infected our search engines, they're all over social media, and they're infesting the marketplace as scammers offer entire novels "written" by these programs in hopes of making a quick buck. And if you're the sort of writer who wants to skip the hard work and fast-forward to the story being done, these plagiarism programs offer you the siren's song you want to hear. They promise you complete stories, unique stories, and then you'll be done in a record amount of time. They swear they're just going to take the work out of writing, handling the grunt work that's dragging you down.

They're promising that you'll get rippling, six-pack abs while laying on the couch and pounding chips by the family-sized bag. All the results, and none of the fuss.

Don't you want those gains already, bruh?

If you've ever been on a crash diet, or used a fitness gimmick, then you already know what the problem is. Because sure, it might get you some short-term losses around your waist, or give you some temporary feelings of health, but if you use these things long-term they're going to do serious harm to your body.

And that's what ChatGPT does to your brain.

Because for all the hype around this program and what it can supposedly do to mimic human thought and speech, there are stories out there of people who used it as a mental crutch until their academic legs atrophied under them. There are stories of high school and college students who had it write their papers, but then found that when it came time to take their final exams they have no actual knowledge or learned skill to call upon. There have been people who tried to use it to write legal briefs, and found that it was quoting cases that never happened, attempting to sound smart when the machine is just guessing. There are people who've used it to try to get ahead at work, and people who've used it for regular socialization who suddenly flounder when they no longer have a program telling them what to say or do.

It's the equivalent of sending a robot to the gym to lift weights and run on the treadmill for you. Yeah, the work is technically being done, but you aren't getting any stronger from doing it. In fact, if all you do is sit at home on the couch, you're getting weaker while letting the robot go through your routine for you.

That's what generative AI is doing to you. Because it's hard putting words on the page day after day, honing your skills, and finding just the right turns of phrase. But if the Internet goes down and someone hands you a pen, you can still write a story... and probably a pretty good story, if you've been putting in the work to really build your skills. But if you've been letting the computer do all the heavy lifting for you, and someone asks you to pick up the 250 lbs. you keep saying you're capable of bench pressing, it's going to crush you.

Git Gud... You Won't Regret It!

Writing is not just about putting together a short story, a novella, or a novel. It's also about honing the craft, finding your voice, and becoming more accomplished as a creator. For this reason, it's important to remember that even failed attempts are worthwhile. There is something to be learned with every assignment, every story, and every experiment... but you have to do it yourself. Otherwise you're never going to make any progress as a writer.

So yes, it's going to suck. You're going to tear out notebook paper, wad it up, and toss it in the garbage. You're going to reread something, sigh, and hold down the Delete key until it's all gone. And you're going to have those moments where you know something is wrong with your narrative, but you just can't quite put your finger on it.

Stick with it. It's going to be valuable when you realize you can shred your way through stories that once would have given you serious trouble, or that even on days where you're phoning it in you turn in Grade A work by most people's standards.

Don't take the easy way out... it's a lie. It's always been a lie.

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!