Short Stories, Werewolves, And Rolling The Dice on a Book

There are a few things I've learned over the years as an author. Perhaps the biggest thing, and a lesson I learned early on in my career, was that selling the reading public on short stories (much less on short story anthologies) is really damn hard to do. Additionally, while there are a lot of folks who might read an ebook, convincing people to buy something that's ebook exclusive is also one hell of a marketing feat to pull off.

So, of course, my dumb ass proposed a project that was both a short story anthology and an ebook exclusive. And while I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew, I don't regret rolling the dice in the slightest. I might, however, need a little bit of help from all my regular readers out there to really pull out a decisive win on this one.

Seriously, check it out if you haven't yet!

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The Seed of The Idea

For folks who don't know me, I spent a lot of my teenage years as an avid reader of RPG tie-in fiction. If you're not familiar with the term, it refers to stories that take place in the same world as a roleplaying game, and they're meant to act both as supplemental reading for folks who enjoy the game, but also as a funnel to pull in people who aren't players, but who might consider trying out the game after reading a story they really liked. From Battletech to Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms to Bloodshadows, these stories were my introduction to so many worlds it's easy to lose track all these years later.

These books were extremely common in the 1980s and 1990s, and even up until a few years ago there were several companies putting out regular novels and short stories meant to keep their existing audience happy while luring in a new audience with tales of adventure and horror alike. I even managed to land one of my own short stories, The Irregulars, with Paizo during the Pathfinder Tales era. It's still available, for those who'd like to check it out!

Come on... you know you want to.

While there are still plenty of these books for sale, they aren't produced with anything near the regularity they once were. Which makes sense, because as many companies shift budgets and adopt different marketing strategies, this method of engaging the public likely wasn't as effective as others. Especially when you consider how much time, energy, and sheer sweat goes into publishing a book, and how easy it is for them to lose money rather than make it.

However, while reading through the rules and limitations on Storyteller's Vault (the community-use platform for White Wolf/Onyx Path RPG properties like Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, etc.), I noted that it expressly allowed fiction to be set in the approved games provided that it was faithful to the published setting. While these stories had to be published on the Storyteller's Vault platform, and they could only be published in electronic format, it was still an option.

And, as they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Why An Anthology?

After examining the options available, I decided to propose Tales From The Moot, an anthology of short stories for Werewolf: The Apocalypse that had the framing device of stories told by the various tribes of werewolves around their fires about the great deeds they'd done, horrors they'd witnessed, and so on. I took the idea to High Level Games because I felt that a book of short stories would pair nicely with the 100 Kinfolk project I'd penned for them previously, and that the two could act kind of like companion pieces.

But why an anthology, though?

After some back and forth on precisely what shape the project should take, and how much time and energy I wanted to sink into it, I eventually proposed it as an anthology for several reasons. The biggest among those included:

- Faster Turnaround Time: If you have half a dozen people writing a book, it gets done faster. That's just math.

- Shared Marketing Efforts: I have no illusions about the size of my audience, and I figured it would be easier to market a book with half a dozen other contributors helping out.

- Effort V. Return on Investment: I was more than capable of contributing 1-2 good short stories, but the more I had to put in, the more it would need to earn to be worth that effort.

There were also drawbacks to using this format, of course. For one thing the earnings would be split between contributors, meaning that each of us only gets about .30 per sale (which is less than my affiliate cut for actually selling a copy of the book through one of my links by about .10 for those who are curious). Additionally the more people who are part of a project, the bigger the chance there is for something to go wrong (someone has to duck out, there's delays caused by family or health crises, etc.). And there was definitely a lot of reshuffling, reaching out, and follow-ups that had to be done to finally get this project out in front of the reading public.

At the end of the day, however, I didn't expect this project to be some viral sensation that paid my bills for the rest of the year. What I was hoping to accomplish was that this book would act as a proof of concept that there was an audience out there for tie-in fiction, and that it was a viable product worth pursuing... in no small part because I'd like to write more stories about some of my favorite games.

So Why Am I Telling You All This?

I told you all that story so you would have context for what I'm asking this week. Because the one truth I've tried to drive home in my Business of Writing posts is that financial success and quality of writing are not really connected at all. Books full of great stories and interesting prose will languish in bargain bins unseen and unread, while poorly-written schlock climbs to the #1 slot and makes its creators rich beyond the dreams of mortal men. What decides a project's success isn't the talent or drive of the writers... it's the voice of the readers who scream for more.

Whether you're someone who enjoys RPG tie-in stories, a person who likes werewolves, or just somebody who wants to see me write more fiction in general, I would like to ask you to please check out Tales From The Moot. My goal is to get it to at least Copper sale status (51 sales), though Silver status (101 sales) would be preferred. If we manage the former goal, creators will make about $15. The latter would net us each $30 or so. More to the point, though, even selling that many (or that few, depending on your perspective) copies would mark this out as a success by RPG product terms.

So even if you're somebody who wouldn't usually pick up an ebook, or anthologies are something that is a once-in-a-while thing for you, consider giving this one your time and energy. Especially if you want to help lay the ground work for future projects that might range across the World of Darkness, into Golarion, and other settings with community use platforms that are ripe for new tales to tell!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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3 Tips For Formatting Your Manuscript (So Editors Won't Want to Stab You)

Writing isn't easy. It's a long, winding road that takes a combination of guts, perseverance, and no small amount of luck, in order to reach that shining plateau of professional success. You'll meet a lot of people along the way, and some of those people are going to be editors. In order to make a good impression on your editors, here are some basic formatting rules you should follow, regardless of what your manuscript happens to be about.

Trust me, you'd rather have them as friends than enemies.

Rule #1: The Tab Key Is Now Dead To You

Never say its name again. Ever.

The tab key has likely been your friend for years now. When you first started writing papers, you were told in no uncertain terms that you hit the tab key in order to indent your text. Well, that was true then. However, you're not printing out a book to turn in for a grade. You're going to send it off to be published. And that means your old friend tab is just going to drag you down.

Why is that? Because in the age of the ebook, and digital publishing in general, the tab key is persona non grata as far as your software is concerned. If you're trying to publish a manuscript into multiple formats, then the first thing you'll notice is your hundreds of tabs have completely screwed up your page appearance. Either you get a page covered in bizarre spacing, or you get a page with no spacing at all, making it impossible to tell where one part ends, and another begins.

What You Should Do Instead

Go to the options in your word processor. Click Format, and then click Paragraph. Once you're in this screen, you set the first line indent to .5, and check the box that says Automatic. After you've completed that simple step, boom, your manuscript will automatically format your paragraphs in a way that will transfer over easily, regardless of whether you're using an Amazon, Smashwords, or Adobe format for your finished project.

Rule #2: Stop Putting Two Spaces After Your Period

Seriously. Stop that shit.

This one is a little less cut-and-dry than the tab issue, but it's still something that irks the living shit out of a lot of editors. You see, the whole reason that people have been taught to put two spaces after a period was that during the days of typewriters and real, physical newspapers, that was how publications in New York did it. The problem was that typewriters weren't universal, and when you were inking the day's happenings you didn't want your page to look too crowded. Some American papers used two spaces, some used one.

However, you're not writing your manuscript on a typewriter. You're writing it digitally, and you can assume there's a uniform number of spaces both in ebook and physical format.

What You Should Do Instead

Just stop. Really, it's that simple. Not only that, but if you're writing a 100,000 word manuscript, you'll cut out entire blank pages that were otherwise spread throughout your work.

Rule #3: Stop Thinking Page Count, Start Thinking Word Count

Seriously, it doesn't matter what page you're on.

This is another one of those changes that came about thanks to publishing, as an industry, going digital. The reason that page count doesn't matter is because you could take the same story, publish it in a dozen different formats, and get a different page count every time. In .epub you have 25 pages, in the physical anthology you have 20, in .pdf you have 16, etc.

You know what doesn't change? Your word count. That's why publishers use word count as the basis for the heft of a manuscript instead of page count. Because a 100-page novel may be thick or thin depending on spacing, but 50,000 words is 50,000 words no matter how you cut it.

What You Should Do Instead

The best way to achieve this mindset is to write projects that fill a certain word count. Anthology calls will typically ask for short stories in 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000-word increments (but 20,000-word novellas are not unheard of). If you participate in calls like these, even if your stories aren't chosen for inclusion, you begin to get a sense for how many words it takes to tell a story of a certain size. That sense of story will allow you to lengthen or shorten a project during the plotting/brainstorming phase, ensuring that you don't end up shooting for a novel, and winding up 30,000 words short of where you wanted it to be.

This concludes my introduction to formatting. If you are an author, or an editor, and there are other habits you find lurking in the slush pile which you feel deserve extra attention, then please use the form on this page to send me an email.

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