Just Because I'm Not Writing Novels, That Doesn't Mean I Stopped Writing Fiction

I announced a little while back in So My Novels Have Been Unpublished (For Now) that the 3 novels of mine that have been unpublished should start coming back into print under a new publisher sometime this fall, and with luck all three of them will be back on the market by the end of the year. In addition to those 3 novels, though, I have one self-published dagger-and-witchcraft novel, as well as a collection of short stories that are still in-print, and those are all the physical books of my work currently out in the world.

Over the past year and change, however, I've had more than a few folks ask me when I'm going to put out a new novel. Will I write another noir cat mystery? More grim sci fi? Or will I show up with an entirely new premise?

Sadly, it's unlikely that I'll be writing novels for several years to come, if at all, again. And I wanted to talk about why that is, while also mentioning that just because I'm not writing novels that doesn't mean I've stopped writing fiction.

If anything, I put out more of that than ever these days.

And even better, a lot of it is free!

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!

Struggles and Realities

Full disclosure for folks who don't know, and thought the name of my blog was just a quirky little joke, but I'm a professional writer. This is my job, day in, and day out. And over the past decade or so, my margins have gotten thinner, and thinner with regards to what kind of earnings I need to justify my time and energy. And I know that, for me, writing a novel takes anywhere from 8 to 12 months for the rough draft, another month or so to edit it, and then once I turn it over to the publisher I've got between 3 and 12 months before it hits the market.

So writing a novel is an investment of somewhere between a year and two years of effort. And given that I tend to write them at around 500 words at a time, well, that's not that big of a deal, is it? Can I just not find time for that in my packed schedule?

No, actually. I can't. Not anymore.

Let me run you through what goes on behind the scenes.

During an average day I spend several hours on social media promotion (honestly it's one of the most frustrating tasks that is one of the most necessary for paying my bills). Then I have to add material to the two tabletop RPG supplements I have to turn in every month (because those have both an up-front payment and a royalty attached to them, so they're a priority). I update one of the two blogs I run (which are funded through my Patreon, and whose links earn me additional money if I make a sale through them). I record/edit video for the Azukail Games YouTube channel, The A.L.I.C.E. Files, or sometimes both. If I have any time left at the end of the day, I will work on a fiction assignment for a client if I have one, because when I hand those in, there's a check in my hand.

With all of that, I have enough free time to eat a few meals a day, go to the downstairs gym 3 times a week, and attend my bi-weekly RPG session for 2 evenings out of the month. That's it. My day starts when I roll out of bed, and it doesn't end until somewhere between midnight and 1 in the morning, depending on when I put the final words on that day's last project.

Now, this isn't me saying that I don't want to write novels anymore, or that I'm just not up to the task. If anything, I'd love to crack my knuckles, sit down with an outline, and get back to work on a full-sized book again. And if my books find an audience when they're re-released? If a good marketing campaign causes a booktok stir, or for some reason everyone starts paying attention to them? Well, if I don't have to cram so much stuff into every, single day, then I might just be able to find a little bit of room in my schedule to start working on another book.

I've got outlines and plots for days. Somewhere between 20 and 30 of them, at last glance through my notebooks. I could do nothing but write novels between now and whenever I die, and I'd probably still have more I wanted to write... but thanks to capitalism, that's not going to happen without folks out there raising a clamor, boosting the signal, and getting their friends into my fan club.

A Novel's Worth of Text Has Gone Into "The A.L.I.C.E. Files"

While I've written at least 17 RPG supplements this year, as well as 4 short stories, and a slew of blog entries, one thing I've been pouring a lot of work into is the ongoing audio drama of The A.L.I.C.E. Files. I launched this YouTube channel with Alice Liddell earlier this year, and we were hoping to grow it into a monetized channel where we could tell stories, dramatize some parts of our own books, and provide a fun tale for listeners to follow.

Well, I just finished editing the final episode for Season 1, and by my calculations, there's at least a novel worth of text that's been put on the screen thus far... and that's just for the main series plot. Alice herself has narrated the entirety of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a companion piece, and she's just started in on Through The Looking Glass to make sure folks don't run out of things to enjoy.

I bring this up here for folks who wonder where I've been putting my efforts, and what I've been making, because this is a project that's free, a little experimental for me, and that I've put a lot of sweat and thought into. However, it's also on a ticking time clock. You see, we need to get 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours on this channel by the end of 2026, because in 2027, requirements to get a channel monetized are doubling. I mentioned more details in my recent post Thanks To YouTube's Recent Announced Changes, The A.L.I.C.E. Files Needs Your Help!, but I wanted to try to raise awareness of this again.

Especially since we're currently at 362 subscribers and we're just shy of 1,500 watched hours... so we really need folks to help us pull this one out before we run out of time, and find ourselves trapped between a rock and a hard place.

So if you could, please:

- Subscribe to The A.L.I.C.E. Files

- Watch all our episodes (preferably without a VPN or ad blocker on, as those hours get ignored by YT)

- Leave upvotes and comments (especially if you have theories on the ARG elements going on in the stories).

- Share the links on social media, and tell your friends about the series

I have plans for at least a second season of the show, where I'd like to expand the format, the cast, and more... but all of this is going to be dependent on audience interaction, demand, and whether we can hit our numbers.

So if you can help, please do! And if there are other small creators you want to see succeed, do these things for their channels as well. It makes a huge difference at the end of the day!

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

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

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

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

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

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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

Diamonds Are Worthless (And What This Has To Do With Your Book)

Diamonds have, for most of our lives, been a symbol of wealth. We see celebrities dripping with these rocks, and everyone knows that in order to prove your love for your partner you propose with a big, fat diamond that probably cost several months of your salary. However, diamonds are actually a pretty common rock. Not only that, but with the ability to grow one in a lab, there's zero justification for them being so damn expensive.

So why do we think they are? And what does that have to do with your book?

The answer to both of these questions is perceived value.

How much do you think this is worth? Really?

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!

Value Is Made Up (And Too Many People Think It Isn't)

So, to finish the history lesson, the current campaign to convince us that diamonds are intrinsically valuable was started by the De Beers company in the early part of the 1900s. They controlled a huge part of the market, but their product wasn't seen as intrinsically valuable, and when the Great Depression hit and wallets got tight, they ran into a serious issue. The answer... a marketing campaign!

Decades of marketing were conducted to convince people that diamonds stood for true love and eternal devotion. Why did a shiny rock need to cost 3 months' salary? Because the people selling the rock wanted you to buy it at a grossly inflated price. And because one company controlled so much of the supply, they were able to determine to a large degree how many diamonds were on the market, and what that going rate was. The result was that generations of people see diamonds as a necessity for a successful marriage proposal, and that people think they're an extremely valuable commodity, when the truth is that the only thing that made diamonds so valuable was that the people who had all the diamonds said they were valuable over and over again until people believed them.

No, it's worth more than that. Yeah, that should do it!

What does this have to do with books, though?

People have this mythical belief in the idea of an author's skill, and the quality of their story, giving the book an intrinsic value. This means that if a book is good then it will sell a lot of copies, and the author will be rewarded for their efforts. I don't know if this is an offshoot of the prosperity gospel, or just the idea that a reader base of 10 million people can't be wrong, but this myth persists, and it is pervasive in the mind of the reading public.

It doesn't matter how many trashy, poorly written, low-quality books make the bestseller list, and have for decades. It doesn't matter how many Twilights or 50 Shades we have, so many people believe (often without questioning this belief) that if a book sells a lot of copies that it is a direct reflection of the skill of its author. The problem is that the quality of so many books, just like the value of diamonds, has nothing to do with their intrinsic value.

They sell copies because of marketing.

In the small sense, perhaps you came across one of those rare authors who has a solid pitch for their books at a convention, and they knew just how to target the parts of you that made you interested. Maybe you saw an ad that looked cool on a banner, or a book reviewer you enjoy couldn't stop gushing about it. It's possible the algorithm decided to show you this book in your recommended tabs over and over again, or maybe you were at a convention and you saw the author at a signing table with a line of folks, and you decided to ask about it.

All of those things can make a book look like it's successful (and thus popular and valubale by extension), but none of that has anything to do with whether or not the book is well-written. It says nothing about whether the plot is cohesive, the prose is engaging, or the writer sticks the landing. But all of these factors, from the cover art, to the name of the author, to how many conventions or bookstores you see them in, is a factor in you deciding whether you'll buy their book, and whether the price you pay is worth it.

I've said it before, but it's worth saying again. If you're an author, you not being able to build a massive, national marketing campaign to get thousands of people to buy your book doesn't mean it's not a good book. And if you're a reader, remember, just because you've never heard of someone, or never seen their book before, tells you nothing about their work... except that they probably don't have the money and connections to reach a bigger audience.

Just pick it up, and read a few pages. See if you like it. That is the only real way to detemine whether this is a book you're going to enjoy.

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. 

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)

- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (ongoing audio drama series)

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. 

Authors Are Viruses (And We Need Help Infiltrating The Wider Population)

We've all had that moment in our lives where we have seen something infecting the population. It started with just a few people, or maybe in a particular region, but then it started spreading. Maybe your younger siblings picked it up from their friends at school, and brought it home. And you and your parents, no matter how you tried, couldn't avoid it forever. Maybe it didn't get past your defenses, but maybe it did. And then you were a carrier, passing it on to your friend group, your extended family, and so on, and so forth.

Maybe it was a boy band whose catchy lyrics infiltrated your brain like an ear worm. Maybe it was a book series you didn't have an interest in, but the more you heard about it, the more you wanted to know what the fuss was all about. Or it might even have been that movie everyone had an opinion about, and you just had to figure out what it was for yourself.

Authors (and other creators) pass from person to person like viruses... and if we can't find a hold, and spread to the point where we've infected a sizable enough population to sustain us, we fade away and die.

These are the booster shots that help keep us vital.

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!

All About "Going Viral"

We've been hearing the phrase "going viral" for years. Artists or properties are, "viral sensations," and that's how we hear about them. And it makes sense. The idea is that a piece of art, a book, a story, a video, etc., has infected an audience. People who witness it, whether they become genuine fans or they're merely participating "ironically," spread the material. They share it with their friends and family. They post it on their social media pages. They put links in the comments section of articles and videos, and they talk about the thing in question on forums.

They are acting as carriers, and the more people they expose to the book, creator, etc., that they like, the more of a chance there is that new people will get infected as well. Not everyone, of course. Some people just don't get infected, no matter how many times they're exposed... but enough of them will.

For the love of god, shut up about that book, already!

The problem that a lot of us are running into these days is, well, it's becoming harder and harder for us to spread our signal, and it is having a real, detrimental effect.

Consider, for a moment, the way social media worked 5, or even 10 years ago. It wasn't perfect, but the algorithms at least attempted to make sure that people who followed you would see the posts you made. Facebook groups, subreddits, and even YouTube as a whole was focused on doing things that kept users connected to the creators and contributors on their platform. Twitter was, arguably, the king of this era because it allowed you to have direct access to creators and celebrities, no matter their status.

These days, though, social media platforms are focused more on promoting sponsored content, and creators who give them money. If you are one of those influencer-level folks (100K subscribers/followers or more) you are still surviving and spreading a bit, but even those operating at this level are having their signals throttled.

And all of the new-fangled social media platforms that have come out? They quarantine users, making it impossible for you to spread to them unless someone brings you and your content inside their bubble.

Whether we're talking about Discord, BlueSky, or a lot of other, similar platforms, they separate users from one another. Unlike platforms like old Twitter, which could have popular posts absolutely rip through the feeds of its users, spreading from person-to-person extremely quickly, Discord and its close family have everyone separated onto their own servers. So while you might have localized outbreaks if a particular piece of media gets popular within a particular server, you are not going to have the sort of spread you could have on open platforms with active discoverability, where people can rapidly transmit something to one another across groups, friend connections, etc.

All of this is to say that the modern landscape we're all trying to survive in is not the one that existed even a few years ago. If that old landscape was one where hordes of zombies ran roughshod over the whole of the land, we're now in one where obstacles stop populations from coming into accidental contact. What that means is that, if we want to get an old-fashioned virus going, then someone has to purposefully go into communities where people are, and start biting them.

Sadly, if we do that as creators, people will often do their best to shut us down or kick us out because they don't want to be our Patient Zero for what we're making. Which is why, at the end of the day, what we really need are other people to start the infection going for us. And that is really hard to get folks to do.

So if you're one of the many folks out there who are wondering what you can do to help a creator you like, just bite someone on our behalf today! Make a social media post, leave a review, subscribe to a channel, and tell your friends and family about a thing we made that you think is cool. Maybe they won't succumb to your bite and become one of our fans... but maybe they will. And if you bite two friends, and they bite two friends, then pretty soon you'll be responsible for your own viral event... and we need all the help we can get!

Support The Literary Mercenary

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

- My Facebook

- 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.