What is a book worth?

Seriously, you tell me. In real life terms, hard cash, what is a book worth to a reader?

Before digital publishing, the price of a book was defined by several real world costs. The cost of paper and ink. The cost of running those things through a book binding machine. The cost of distribution. The cost of paying staff at a publishing house to edit and layout the book, and the cost of giving a cut of profits to the retailer. A small margin on top to pay the writer and generate a small profit for the publisher. Real world things that can be priced and added up to make a cover price for the book itself. It’s interesting, and slightly depressing, to note that the smallest part of that equation is paying the writer. The value of a book might be £7.99, but the value of the story inside it was never considered a significant part of the equation. Pennies really, for the one thing the whole transaction rests on.

Digital publishing has exposed the fallacy of this. There is no paper. There is no ink. No book binding machine has been employed. Distribution is practically free. The retailer cut is still there, but it’s much smaller. If you’re publishing yourself, the cost of a cover, layout, and good editing is affordable. After publication there are a few months when, if your book is selling a modest amount, the profits are paying back those early costs. After that you hopefully break even, and then much of the money being made is going to the writer. Suddenly, the price of the book is all about the value of the story. That’s what readers are paying for. It’s a complete reversal of how things were. The cover price no longer represents the ownership of paper. Instead, it represents the cost of storytelling.

What that cost actually is has been the subject if much debate. Big publishers still price high. In some cases, they price almost the same for an ebook as they do the paperback or hardback, at least on release. Readers aren’t stupid. They grumble about this, and they’re not wrong to do so. They have already paid for their Kindle (other devices are available), they can see perfectly well that there is no paper or ink involved, they might not have a detailed knowledge of book distribution but that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant of the fact that buying a book online and having it download in a second means that the publisher isn’t paying for a lot of the things that make up the cost of the paperback. They might not know what an ebook should cost, but they have a pretty intuitive understanding of what it shouldn’t.

But is a novel I spent weeks and months writing really only worth pennies to the reader, which is what I would have taken per sale under the old system? I hope it’s apparent that this isn’t the case.

The problem is that after those start-up costs are recovered, and the book breaks even, the question changes. It’s no longer what price paper? Or what price distribution?

It’s what price art?

What is the real world value of me telling you a story? This is difficult in all sorts of ways, because in the absence of ongoing real world costs, it’s a question of perceived value. What a reader is willing to pay is all about the value they perceive. It’s the same with all art, and it’s hard to define. What one person thinks is too much, another will think is a bargain. Stories are things that work on a personal level, different for every reader, and that defines their value differently for each person who reads them.

So how do I turn something unquantifiable into a cover price for an ebook?

If you’ve browsed ebooks online, you’ll know that many novels are priced at $2.99. That’s become a norm, but only because Amazon says so. When I self-publish with Amazon they’ll give me 70% of the cover price every time a book sells – but only if the book is priced at $2.99 or more. Any less, and the author’s cut drops to 35%. Now, 35% is excellent, still a jaw-dropping slice of the pie for authors used to the tiny fraction they would have expected per sale of a paperback in a book shop ten years ago, but if you want to make this writing gig a living then you’re going to be heavily in favour of 70%. And really, $2.99 for a whole novel? Readers are fine paying that. It’s cheap.

Which is why it’s the default option for authors. The cheapest price point they can be at on the higher royalty rate. We’re nervous of pricing higher because everybody else is selling for $2.99 – we don’t want to look like the expensive option if a reader is looking at two books and has to decide which one to buy.

This is a false worry though, because books are different. I genuinely don’t believe readers buy books based on cost comparison. They buy based on want. When I see a book I want, I don’t compare it with others based on the cover price, because those others are not the book I want. They’re different stories. I want this story. I might wonder what format I’m going to buy it in. Is this a story I want to read on my Kindle, or is it a book I want to pay extra to have a shelf copy of? Price might come into that. I have never looked at the price of a book and not bought it because a completely different book by a completely different author was cheaper.

When I publish Craven Place later this year, you will either want to buy and read it or you will not. How much another book costs won’t have anything to do with whether you want to this one.

So, what price art? As I mentioned above, there are some prices that are too high. However, I think that some prices are too low too.

Last week, I raised the cover price of the ebook editions of Thy Fearful Symmetry and Cuckoo. Not by much – I’ve jumped from $2.99 to $3.99 in the US, with an equivalent hike elsewhere in the world (up to £2.49 in the UK from the previous £1.99).  Still cheap, but no longer the cheapest. When Craven Place is released, it will also have a cover price of $3.99.

I’ll be watching what happens very carefully indeed, because this would be a dreadful thing to be wrong about. At the moment, I can’t really tell. Over the last fortnight sales have been really slow. All I can say, and it reassures me slightly, is that they haven’t changed. That trickle of sales didn’t vanish when the cover prices went up. They stayed the same. Hopefully that means that readers don’t care, because the price is still within what they consider to be perfectly reasonable. That would be good, because in terms of trying to make a living at this the small adjustment makes a bigger difference to my income than you might imagine.

As ever, I’m interested in what you think. What’s too much? What’s too little? Does the above make sense to you, or am I barking up the wrong tree? Remember, I’m no expert at all this. I’m sort of making it up as I go along, albeit after reading as much on how this side of publishing works as I can possibly absorb.

This week:

• You know when you’re juggling too many things, and some of them are hot, and some of them are pointy, and it’s vitally important that you don’t drop any of them, but inevitable that you’re going to, and you’re just juggling and juggling and waiting to find out what’s going to drop first and how much it’s going to hurt, and you get the giggles at the futility of it, and that makes it even more likely that something will drop really really soon? That. That is what my week felt like, and none of it was to do with writing (and is why I’m a day late with this post). In fact, I thought I’d got nothing useful done at all, but that’s not quite the case…
• I launched The 52. I want you to help me make stories. It’s like a Kickstarter, but with art instead of cash. If I get 52 images from you, I’ll write 52 stories in response. There’s more to it than that, and you should read this and join in. I’ve been hesitant about writing about the project as part of the Freelance Leap, because the whole project is counter-intuitive in a business sense. It’s art for art’s sake. However, it’s going to have an obvious impact on my plans (if enough art arrives to fund it), so I will probably relent.
• I moved the release date for Craven Place back a month. I’d planned for it to be on sale at the start of June, but my scheduling was a bit ambitious and so we’re going for the start if July instead. However, all of you who are subscribed to my email newsletter can expect to get an ebook copy for free before the end of May. Sign up at the top of the page, and read it before anybody else can.
• Speaking of which, edits on the novel have just started dropping into my inbox, as I’ve been writing this on Saturday morning. I’m looking forward to going through these…

It’s been a very short story few days. On Tuesday I showed off a couple of new covers for upcoming books with new stories from me in them. On Friday, I looked at whether short stories had a place in my upcoming year of freelance writing (they do). Yesterday, I read you the opening of one of those new stories through the medium of my actual face.

Today, I’m getting The 52 up and running.

Starting on January I’ll be publishing a new short story here every week. I don’t know what they’re called, or even what they’re about, because I haven’t written them yet. I need your help for that.

Earlier this year I asked people to recommend me their favourite book. The response was fantastic, as I hoped. People like to share the things they love. I’m working my way through the selection now, and having a great time doing so. Not all have turned out to be my favourite book, but each is taking me somewhere I never would have gone if left to my own devices.

I want to do that with writing too. I want to get to places I can’t on my own.

That’s where you come in. I want you to send me images. Things you photographed. Things you painted. Things you drew. Things you made.

Scenes, landscapes, items, moments, shapes and shadows.

Beautiful, sad, funny, weird, sinister, quirky.

I don’t care what it is or how much immediate sense it makes. I just has to be an image that you somehow captured or made, and that you think looks neat.

Each one of the images will be the starting point for a story. Because the story will come from an image I’m not responsible for, it will be a thing that could not have happened if it were just me typing on my own. You and I will have made something brand new.

If you don’t have an image you want to send, go and make one.

If all works out, I’ll publish a story a week here on this blog, and at the same time possibly via a second service (I’m looking at Wattpad) where readers can get it for free. Your image will accompany the story, and you’ll be credited however you like.

At the same time, you’ll have my permission to do things with the story you inspired. You could make more images to go with it, or write the sequel, or turn it into a short film, or graffiti it across a city one street at a time like an enormous puzzle, or print up some postcards and send it to people you know in weekly installments, or have it tattooed on your body, or have it tattooed on my body*, or get together with friends and turn the best bits into a drinking song, or…

Well, whatever. Do cool things with a story you helped make. Or do nothing, and just be pleased it exists. It will only exist because you do, which is one of the most exciting things about making art.

Obvious Questions From Imaginary Third Party

1. Why? Because I like the idea. Because it’s absurd, and ambitious, and might be fun. Because planning out how I’m going to try to turn my writing hobby into a living has reminded me that it’s good to do things just for the hell of it too. Because I like connections and chaos.
2. What happens if it goes wrong, and you can’t write 52 stories in a year? I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but if that happens then the world will end. Immediately and without warning.
3. Really? No.
4. What happens if you don’t get 52 images? I’ll either abort the project, or change the title. One or t’other.
5. What happens if you get more than 52 images? I’ll either write more stories, or be spoiled for choice.
6. If I send something, will you definitely use it? No. If I get a lot, I might not be able to.
7. That will make me sad. Me too.
8. Will these be horror stories? I don’t know. Not necessarily, and that’s not the aim. They’ll be whatever they decide to be. It’s fair to say though that I’m unlikely to decide to write 52 stories about kittens and fluffiness. You never know though.
9. Have you got plans for these stories in the future? Not really. If they’re good, I might see about publishing them as one or more collections, or having somebody else publish them. The images will never be reused without the permission of the person who owns them though.
10. Why are you telling us about this now – it’s ages until December! To give people time to submit something. To see if anybody wants to play at all. If it becomes clear early that I’ll have enough to go ahead, then I’ll probably start writing towards the end of this year.
11. Isn’t that cheating? No.
12. What if I send something and don’t like the story you make? That will make me sad.

Some other points, to be clear.

Once posted, both the story and the image will stay on my website and Wattpad (if I go that route) indefinitely. I will never charge people to enjoy them there.

You own your image, and can continue to do whatever you like with it even after it appears here. You’re giving me licence to post it in the places described above for an indefinite period. If I ever want to use it again, I’ll be in touch – and you can say no. I’ll always keep you personally in the loop about what’s happening to the story you inspired, even if I’m not re-using your image. When your story is published on this site, I’ll email you so you don’t miss it.

I own the story, and can do what I like with it after it’s published. As I said above, you can do what you like with it too – up to a point. There will be some loose conditions. You’ll need to credit me as the writer. You won’t be allowed to change the story or the words in it without asking me first (because, for good or bad, my reputation as a writer is about the words). Whatever you do, I’d like you to keep me informed too. Finding out what can happen to stuff when I step back is part of the fun.

The only story you can do cool things with is the one your image inspires.

At the top of this page there’s a ‘Contact Richard’ link. If you’ve got any questions or concerns at all about any of this, drop me a line. You can also post in the comments below, and I’ll reply.

So, will you help? Will you make a story with me?

Please send stuff to storywright [at] gmail [dot] com. In the subject field of the email put ‘The 52′. In the email itself I’ll need your name, and if you have a website you want me to link back to if and when the story appears then let me know (but you know, feel free to introduce yourself if we don’t know each other!). By sending me an image, you’re promising me that it’s yours.

And please share this post. I really want The 52 to happen, but it’s a true collaboration. I can’t do this one on my own. I need you.There are magic sharing buttons at the bottom of this page, but anything you can do to tell people who might want to play (even if you don’t) will be deeply appreciated.

Apparently, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. I need people, so let’s see if that’s true.

*Actually, don’t do that. Or anything else that involves me being abducted against my will, tied down, and repeatedly stabbed.

Below, as promised, you will find my enormous face reading the first page or so of my short story ‘The Mystery of the Rose’, out loud, using actual words.

I don’t read my work in public very often, and this is perhaps why. In fact the only time I’ve ever done it was at the World Horror Convention in Texas a couple of years ago, to a group of amiable drunkards (writers, basically). That seemed to go very well. Perhaps you should go and have a few drinks, then come back.

‘The Mystery of the Rose’ is set at the end of time, in Philip Purser-Hallard’s extraordinary City of the Saved. Every human who was ever born or ever will be lives there in a non-secular afterlife that everybody assumes will last forever (the City is big – about the size of a galaxy). ‘Mystery’ will be published in the next month or so by Obverse Books. They tend not to do pre-orders, as they don’t like taking your money and keeping you waiting. As soon as the book is available, I’ll let you know.

Philip Purser-Hallard has done his own series of trailers for the stories in the book, wisely avoiding public humiliation by doing it with typing. You can see what he says of ‘Mystery’ here.

Currently reading (novel): The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Currently reading (collection): The Diamond Lens and other stories, by Fitz-James O’Brien

Currently reading (anthology): The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stores, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer

Currently reading (non-fiction): The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner

What about short stories, though? Where do they fit in?

In any self-employed scenario, time is money. Your income is limited to what you can produce in the time that you have, and time is short. I’m sure Seralan Sugar would agree that I should put my energy into those areas where I can make the most money. Nobody can do everything. The things that I pick need to be whatever pays best, right?

Short stories don’t pay best. There are a very small handful of top paying gigs for short stories that might net me over a grand. For that same reason, they can pick work from the most popular writers in the world. It’s not a level playing field up there, and only the blindest of luck would see this happen for something I write. It’s not impossible, but not the norm. I’ll submit, because only a fool wouldn’t, but it’s not something I’ll base any income projections on.

Further down the scale, and an average professional rate for short genre fiction is around five cents a word. The last story I sold at this rate was ‘The Sandfather’, which is about 3600 words long and which can be found in Dark Faith: Invocations. I made in the region of $180, or £120. Let’s, just for the sake of talking, assume an ‘average’ short story to be worth this. In truth, there’s no such thing as an ‘average short story’, but walk with me through Fantasyland here.

I wrote ‘The Sandfather’ in a single day, long hand in a notebook. It took me a couple of hours to type it up and edit it. Maybe another hour to give it a final go over before I submitted it to the editor. A half hour or so to go over suggested edits that came back. Let’s call it a day and a half of actual work. That’s incredibly fast for me – pretty much as good as it gets. Three and a half thousand words of short story takes me a lot longer to produce than three and a half thousand words of novel – short story words have to work harder because there are fewer of them, and for that reason tend to take longer to find.

Assuming I could write short stories at that rate consistently (I can’t), had a day off every week, and could actually find a professional market for every single one of those stories (I couldn’t), my earning potential from writing short stories full time would be…

£360 per week. £18,720 per year. Before tax, and only if I move to Fantasyland. That’s an acceptable minimum income, but not a very realistic one, and I’d have to do nothing else and be successful every single time. It might be more possible that I could produce a short story per week for a year. £6240 a year, but again only if I’m successful selling each story at pro rate every single time. Which would never happen.

So with a business hat on (note to self – buy cool hat), when putting in the same number of hours writing novels is easier and potentially more profitable, the only sensible thing to do is… that. Stop wasting time writing short stories. Use that time to write novels and novellas. Pretty simple.

So I’m going to do that, right? Stop wasting my time on short stories?

Of course not.

If you’re stopping by each week just to read this Freelance Leap stuff, it’s probably easy to miss the key point. I summed it up right at the start, when I told you why. I’m not jumping into this because it’s going to make me a millionaire. If I just want a decent wage for my time then I already have a perfectly good dayjob. I’m jumping in because I want to tell more stories, and the only way to have time to tell more stories is to make a living at it. I’m trying to plot this all out business-style because I think that will increase the chances of making it work.

I’ll keep writing short stories, no question (in fact, no choice – couldn’t stop if I wanted to). It makes no business sense at all, but that’s what I’ll do.

And just because it’s not the most profitable thing I could spend time doing, that doesn’t mean there aren’t merits to it. For a start, money is good. It all adds up. That £120 is very welcome here, thank you very much. The whole self-publishing model I’ve talked about is based on small amounts coming in over long periods, and topping that up with an occasional story sale is no bad thing.

Short stories are also business cards, in their own way. They’re an introduction to editors and publishers you might want to work with on other things – if I hadn’t sold a short story called ‘Secrets (Never Told)’ to Shroud Publishing’s anthology Beneath The Surface then my novella Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow would never have been written and published. More importantly, each short story is a little introduction to some new readers who might end up picking up other things I write. From that point of view, the more I have in print the better, as long as it’s read. In fact I want to write more short stories, not less. My goal is to write forty during the Leap Year, and submit them.

But I only want them in print in good places. Short story ‘markets’ are a dime a dozen, but most of them will never be read by more than a handful of people. The same technologies that make it easy for me to publish a novel myself makes it equally easy for an editor to publish an anthology or magazine himself. The world is flooded with their efforts, but only a proportion are of a quality that would make readers happy. My personal rules for what constitutes a market I want to associate with aren’t changing. They are:

• Does it pay pro-rate? If it does, then the editor or publishing company is investing up front in the quality of the book. Professional rates encourage professional authors, and the standard rises. Readers will buy them, because good writers are in them. Pretty simple really. I’d like those readers to find my work there too.
• Is it going to be a great book? I’ve submitted stories to books offering less than pro money, because I think the book is going to be great. It’s a judgement call, and for me is based on who the editor is, the publishing company’s track record, the size of the readership, and other things (like – do I actually have an idea for a story they might want!).
• That’s pretty much it.

On principle I’ll continue to avoid, like the plague:

• Any ‘market’ offering a pro-rata share of royalties in lieu of actual payment. If the whole project is so poorly planned that a publisher hasn’t even budgeted to offer some sort of payment, then I don’t have much faith that the book will be worth much to readers.
• Any market that pays in exposure… really? Do I even need to state why this is insulting? Over fifteen hundred people stopped by this blog last month – far more than most of these anthologies are going to sell. If I want exposure and no money, I’ll can sort that out myself right here. Nobody should be selling stories for ‘exposure’, even (or especially) the newest writers. No publisher should be insulting authors by making that offer. A token payment I can live with, if other factors are in place (it’s going to be a fantastic book to be involved with, or there’s a built in readership you want to say hello to, or preferably both). Suggest to me that I should give you my work for nothing because that will be good ‘exposure’ for me, and I’m likely to do something unpleasant to you. Your offer makes you an idiot or an outright fraudster, and your book will at best do nothing at all for me as a writer, and at worst tarnish me by association.

So there you go. Forty short stories over the Leap Year, submitted to markets that meet my personal rules for such things. That’s what I can control – how many end up in print is another matter, but I’ll do my part. At the end, in September 2014, I’ll have a better idea of how useful or not the whole thing has been.

I also want to write another 52 stories across the year, but that’s for something else. But only if you help. On Sunday I’ll be blogging about that, and the nature of Dandelion Time. Do come back, and be prepared to share widely. You and I are going to collaborate, I hope, and make cool new stuff.

Next week… well, it’s been fun chatting about broad planning and big picture stuff, but it’s time to get on with it. See you in seven.

This week:

• I wrote stuff, but not nearly enough. Saturday was a good day, working on a novella for 2014 release. Sunday should have seen me finish a short story, but didn’t, and it’s all been downhill from there. A mixture of ongoing pain problems and a furiously unpredictable week of dayjobbery have been the major disruptors. Must do better this week.
• Craven Place did not make the planned progress – it’s still with an editor, and until it’s back neither I nor the cover artist can take the final steps to finish. These things happen, and I’m not cross – mostly because if it hadn’t been for The Wobble then the editor would have had it four weeks earlier, and has already had to rapidly shuffle everything to still be able to work on it. I am a naughty client. Hopefully it will drop into my inbox ‘any day now’.
• I started publishing direct to Kobo devices, instead of doing it through a third party. Publishing on Amazon for the Kindle is easy and good – but the Kobo people have found all sorts of ways to improve on what their bigger rival offers a self-publisher. It’s been very easy indeed. Cuckoo and Thy Fearful Symmetry are already available to buy for the Kobo. Go and do that.
• I hiked up my ebook prices across the board. I suspect I’ll tell you why next week.

Yet I am tired and in pain, and cannot think of anything wise or witty to say. Please imagine that I have inserted a Sad Face here.

Emergency covers, to the rescue! I knew there was a reason I hadn’t posted these yet. Two new books, due over the summer, each containing splendid new story-blasts from me to you.

First up is More Tales of the City, edited by Philip Purser-Hallard and with a cover from Cody Quijano-Schell. Forthcoming from Obverse Books, this smart paperback features stories set in the City of the Saved, a galaxy-sized metropolis at the end of time where every human and partial human who ever has or will be is resurrected to live an everlasting afterlife.

My own tale is ‘The Mystery of the Rose’. The story is (deep breath) a first person narration from Ian McKellen’s version of William Shakespeare’s Richard III, who is spending his unlikely afterlife trying to be something other than the schemer he was writ to be, and ends up investigating the dark mysteries of his own historical namesake. The story is told in blank verse (as befits the source material). Richard III was the first of Shakespeare’s plays that I ever read parts of aloud, while studying it at A level. My love of his plays stems back to that moment.

So, Shakespeare’s Richard III at the end of time, sharing a city with neanderthals and cyborgs, as he roots around in the misdeeds of the actual, historical Richard III? All narrated (in my head anyway) by Ian McKellen? Needless to say, this was challenging to write – but absolutely insane fun. I hope you put this on your list of things to buy this summer – I think the whole book (I’ve read the manuscript, including the other stories) is the sort of thing that will surprise and delight you. Although just about everything I write has dark threads woven through it in some way, this story is one that people who don’t take well to outright horror stories can safely pick up (the same goes for everything I’ve written for Obverse Books to this point, though I may spoil that slightly later this year). The City of the Saved stories are set against the backdrop of all humanity, and thus they can and do contain all sorts of storytelling styles and themes.

One thing I took care to do when I wrote ‘Mystery’ was read it aloud, a lot. It’s easy to forget sometimes, so powerful was his impact on English language storytelling, that Shakespeare made plays. Everything he wrote was designed to be spoken out loud, and I wanted this to work that way too. In the not too distant future I’ll record myself giving a reading of the opening of the story (um… me, playing Ian McKellan, playing Richard III, in the distant future… don’t think about it too much or you’ll give yourself a headache). I hope some of you might be tempted to read it aloud too, when you get your copy. If you’re brave enough to post a video online of you doing so, I’ll even send you something awesome for free. Details to be… um… invented.

Second up, I give you Nightscapes, the first volume in what will be at least a trilogy of modern horror anthologies from Nightscape Press. Last year Nightscape published Richard Salter’s World’s Collider anthology, which many of you checked out. Richard took that book to them already finished, they loved it, and they published it. Nightscapes is a bit different, in that it’s their own in house anthology, and the first in what they hope will be a signature series for their line. I have high hopes for it too – in the eighteen months or so that they’ve been in business, they’ve already shown that they have excellent tastes in fiction.

My story is called ‘Skins’. It draws from Scottish mythology, and modernises some of the still very relevant themes found therein. I give you selkies, human trafficking, brothels hidden on city streets, and the loss of innocence. A much darker affair than ‘Mystery of the Rose’, firmly rooted in horror, but possibly not quite what you expect.

I wrote it in a blur one Sunday, longhand, in a single session. That only happens for me when a story has been stuck in my head for months and is pretty much bursting to get out. The result is something complex, but very pacy and driven – it’s thrilling, sad, and hopefully horrifying in a way that’s about the real world and not just made up beasties of lore.

And look, the fools have put my name on the cover! No longer is my formal alias ‘and Other Authors…’. That alone makes this a landmark book, that you should definitely own. Practically a collectible.

Both books coming very soon indeed, and paperback and ebook versions. Watch this space.

Currently reading (novel): The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Currently reading (novel): The Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris

Currently reading (collection): The DIamond Lens and other stories, by Fitz-James O’Brien

Currently reading (anthology): The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stores, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer

Currently reading (non-fiction): The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner

So, at this point the plan is all but in place. I’ve got awesomeballs spreadsheets that count things in super-exciting ways, I’ve got data on how sales have worked in the last two years, I know what I’m going to self-publish and what I’m going to try and approach traditional publishers with, and I’ve got a year aside to try and make it all happen. Wow. Looking good.

I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting though. Something… I don’t know… something important.

Oh yeah. Words. Writing some. I nearly forgot about writing the words.

Which is a bit silly, because that’s what all this is supposed to be about. I mean, if I don’t write any words, what am I going to put on my awesomeballs spreadsheets? Still, with all the planning and thinking you’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve forgotten the bit where I actually have to write stuff.

Which, let’s face it, is the easy bit. That’s why I almost forgot about this post.

Did you hear that sound? A sort of wet, splattery noise in the middle distance? That’s the heads of several writers reading this exploding at the mere suggestion that writing fiction is easy.

It is though. It’s really, really easy. Easiest thing in the world. Sit down. Make stuff up in your head. Type it out. Doddle, that.

That’s another thing that’s taken me forever to work out, because writing is supposed to be hard. Everyone says so. It’s about exposing your soul, bleeding onto the page, suffering for your art…

Bollocks. Oh, you can get stuck sometimes. You might dither over plot choices, or be unhappy about how a story shapes up, or get a bit uncomfortable about how much of yourself you’re exposing to the world. Those things just aren’t that big a deal though. The quest for perfection can be a bit frustrating, but the only way to get over that is to… well… get over it. Or, you know, actually be perfect. Bit of a tall order, that last one. As nobody is, it’s probably not a good idea to set it as an achievable goal.

Writing is only hard because most people who do it have the luxury of making it hard. The truth is though, my dayjob is a hundred times harder, and a lot less fun. If I screw up badly at my dayjob there are all sorts of potentially serious ramifications, for other people and myself. Real life serious. If I write a bad story, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m going to fire me? I’m a harsh critic of my work, but not that harsh. I’ll just write something else, and try to make it better.

Writing isn’t a problem. Where many writers have real difficulty is in structuring time. Making good habits happen. I’m not remotely immune to this. As a professional hobbyist I also have a dayjob, so writing necessarily has to happen in my spare time. I’ve also got a wife and daughter whose company I enjoy. Writing is something that I squeeze in when I can.

I’ll be taking a rather different approach when it’s my job for a year, as you’d hope. For a start, I’ll be keeping exactly the same office hours as I do now. I intend to be at my desk at eight-thirty every morning, take a half hour for lunch somewhere around midday (probably when my lady pops home from work) then crack on until about four thirty. That may not be how it works out long term, but it’s a familiar pattern that I might as well stick to until I find something that works better for me. The only difference is that instead of spending those hours dayjobberising, I’ll be making up stories instead. I really don’t need to reinvent the wheel on this. I’ll stick with what I know. The habit already exists, during those hours. I might as well make use of it.

That alone should put to bed all questions of productivity. If I sit down and write fearlessly during those hours, words will happen. Once I have words, I can do all the other stuff I’ve been thinking about.

I’ll also, potentially, have more free time. That sounds strange from this distant point, but if I can keep to those hours then I won’t have to squeeze writing in around the edges anymore. I’m sure that some of my evenings and weekends will still end up on the sacrificial altar, but only when there’s good cause. Right now, I feel bad if I don’t fill every spare second of my time writing stories, and that’s not healthy. My wife and daughter might even end up seeing more of me than they do now. I haven’t mentioned that to them yet, in case it fills them with dread…

It’s a possibility that makes me extremely happy though.

We’ll see how it all works out. Right now, all I can do is jot it down as a starting point, and then find out what happens in September. I have a feeling that if I can make the habit stick, a lot of other things will fall into place around it.

There’s only a couple more planning posts left to write, I think. One on the value of short stories, and another (linked) post about Dandelion Time. That should cover the next couple of weeks, and then I’ll stop plotting what I want to happen, and start tracking what I’m actually doing. We’re very close to the release of my novel Craven Place now, and in my head that’s more or less the start of the experiment. It’s one of three major things I want to have in place before I step away from the dayjob. I’ll tell you about the other two, and what my calendar looks like, in the not too distant future.

This week:

• I nudged both the copy editor and cover artist for Craven Place to make sure things are still on track. They seem to be, and I now know what the cover of the novel looks like (tweaks aside). It’s a beautiful thing. With a little luck, the novel will be technically ready to go out the door next week sometime.

• I took out a promotional ad for Thy Fearful Symmetry in the ebook newsletter Bookgorilla. It went out, apparently, to several thousand subscribers. It was a complete waste of money. For a hundred bucks, I ended up with maybe twenty sales of the novel. I’ve tried this sort of advertising before, and this is the first time I haven’t broken even (I’ve usually run to profit). I’ve no idea why – it’s a very packed newsletter, and I wonder if it highlights so many books that it’s easy to get lost in the mix. Anyway, your mileage may vary but I’ve written that one off.

• I signed up for a Kobo publishing account. At the moment my books are available in the Kobo store (a rival to the Kindle, same sort of device) via a distributor called Smashwords, who also distribute to the Nook store, the Sony Reader store, and others. That’s okay, but the reporting is slow and it takes days and weeks for changes to listings to show up in the store when they’re submitted. Sales reports are also months behind (though not as bad as many traditional publishers would offer). When I publish the books direct I’ll have live data, and that’s to the good. The only place I publish direct right now is Amazon, for the Kindle, and having the live data on sales etc is fantastic. In the coming months, I hope the Nook store opens up self-publishing options outside the US too.

• I wrote some stuff, but less than I should have because I’m still struggling with a wrecked back, and can’t stay comfortable for very long anywhere.

And that’s it for this week. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The Saturday Novella awaits, with Short Story Sunday on the far side.

The manuscript itself is away with my editor of choice, one Mr Danny Evarts, and that seems to be ticking over nicely. With a bit of luck I should have ebook versions ready to go off to reviewers very soon. I’ve drawn up my own lists, but if you’re a reviewer who enjoys murder mysteries, ghost stories, or both, please drop me a line. If you’re not a reviewer but know one who is interested in that sort of thing, please let them know where to find me (or let me know how to get in touch with them). It may be that I’ll find them anyway, but I’d hate to miss someone who’d love the book.

At the same time as I’m contacting reviewers, everybody signed up to my newsletter (signup box on the right, at the top of the page) will be offered the ebook version for free. This will be a few weeks before the book is available to buy on the Kindle and in paperback (it will be launched at the start of June, but newsletter members will get their advance copies in the next week or two), and a few months before it’s available to buy for the Nook, Kobo, etc. Go and sign up now, or you’ll miss it.

Although things are going well with the book, I’m running about a fortnight behind my schedule. The fault is entirely mine, because just as I was about to send it off to Danny so he could get to work I had what is known in the trade as The Wobble.

Yes, that’s an actual writing term. Ask any author. Even if I just made it up, they’ll know what I mean anyway.

I proofread it and panicked. What I noticed, that I hadn’t before, is that it isn’t about anything.

Oh, stuff heppens. There’s plot, and an eccentric group of characters, and mystery… but there’s no theme. My first novel Cuckoo is at heart about identity and prejudice. Thy Fearful Symmetry is about faith, and what the word means to different people. Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow is, despite its pulp heart, also about identity and what’s left when your world is ripped away.

Craven Place… isn’t about anything.

I delayed sending it away and started on what I thought would be a back-breaking new edit, to find a theme and pull it to the fore.

Instead, I read it and came away puzzled. I still liked the book. In fact, I enjoyed it more on that read than any previous ones. It’s fun, and quirky, and spooky. I made hardly any changes at all even though it isn’t about anything except, I hope, telling a cracking little story.

That’s good enough for me. Why on earth should I force it to be something isn’t?

I think that panic came mostly from pretentiousness, as though just telling a good story wasn’t good enough. I can still bluff an interviewer if I have to. I can say that the book is about perception, and how it shapes reality. That’s a cheat though, and I know it. Murder mysteries and ghost stories almost always have perception and reality at their heart. They wouldn’t be mysterious otherwise. The Sherlock Holmes canon can be described the same way if you want to write a thesis on it, but that’s still academic nonsense. In real life they’re just stories in which interesting characters get involved in tightly plotted events. That’s what makes them such fun – their weight doesn’t come from a thematic brush with the meaning of life. It comes instead from the density of the plot and the sheer joy  of the characters.

Craven Place fits that category of fiction, I hope (although I’m no Arthur Conan Doyle). If it’s good it’s because the plot, atmosphere, and characters grab your attention and take you along for the ride. If it’s bad, it’s because they don’t.

And that’s okay. My inner literary snob will have to step outside for this one. I’ll let him back in when he calms down a little. He’s being a bit of a fool, pretending he doesn’t gobble up this sort of story as a reader.

Possibly, somebody else will point out what the book’s theme is in the future (because stories are only ever half-finished until a reader fills in the gaps). If they do so, I am going to nod and pretend that I always meant it to be so.

When that happens, promise me that you’ll keep a straight face. No need to give the game away.

Not long to go now!

Currently reading (novel): The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Currently reading (novel): The Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris

Currently reading (collection): The DIamond Lens and other stories, by Fitz-James O’Brien

Currently reading (anthology): The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stores, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer

Currently reading (non-fiction): The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner

This story will be my Saturday project for the next couple of months. I’m busy with a novel during the week, and short stories on Sundays, but every Saturday I’ll be dropping those and using what time I can squeeze from the day to fill this book.

A lot of writers start a story and stick with it until they’re done, letting nothing else get in the way. I’ve tried to work like that, but it’s too frustrating. There are a lot of things I want to write, and they get impatient. I find myself thinking about one thing when I should be doing the other. Letting myself work on two or three things at once eases the frustration I get at not being fast enough to get to the next thing. It also gives me a break from each story without my having to actually stop writing – writing long fiction is draining sometimes, and switching projects for a day or two seems to keep me from burning out.

It’s taken me a long time to work that out. I used to feel that if I took a break from writing one story, I was somehow failing as a writer. The very fact of needing a break made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough, and I’d stick with it until I imploded, getting less and less done each session. Breaking the week up a little lets me go back into each project a bit refreshed.

These two big projects should also benefit from being completely different in tone. This novella is crazy fun. It’s pulpy, big, and colourful. The novel has a more sombre tone, and a more serious intent. It’s fun to write too in its way, but is also grimmer by far. It’s full of characters that reflect parts of me I’m not sure I get on with very well – the alcoholic, the obsessive, the manipulator – and while exploring them is liberating, it’s good to take a break and just go a bit mental with the novella.

So, a good day writing. It’s Short Story Sunday tomorrow, and I’m finishing a tale a started last week. That one’s fun too, and with luck I’ll get it sent off to a waiting editor next week. Starting stuff is always fun, but finishing is even better.

Currently reading (novel): The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Currently reading (novel): The Festival of Death by Jonathan Morris

Currently reading (anthology): Chiral Mad, edited by Michael Bailey

Currently reading (anthology): The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stores, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer

Currently reading (non-fiction): The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner

So, what’s the point of publishers? Do they have any place at all in my own business plan? The nature of the relationship an author and a publisher can have has changed spectacularly over a very short space of time. Until very recently, publishers were the only route to readers. If you couldn’t interest somebody in publishing your book, it would never be read. The value a publisher brought to the relationship came from that sole monopoly on readers, and it was a painful and time consuming process addressing it. My first novel Cuckoo went to eleven publishers before it finally found an editor who wanted to take it on. That process took two and a half years. I didn’t see any money off it for another eighteen months. Three and a half years, to see any income generated from the work taken to write it.

In 2011 it took me about two months to format and prepare the same novel to self-publish. It started selling immediately, and covered its setup costs within weeks. At the moment it’s my bestselling title in terms of numbers (though Thy Fearful Symmetry will probably overtake it this year), and has generated as much income as I ever earned from the two publishers who had it before.

The basis on which publishers had value to an author has pretty much vanished now that self-publishing is being better used by authors, and the industry is struggling to replace that value. I don’t need a publisher to release a book, distribute it widely, and have people find and buy it all over the world. I can do that myself. Although publishers often still offer advances, these are usually small amounts, and if you have the patience to play the long game they don’t add up. As a relative unknown, I’d be lucky to get an advance equal to a month’s salary from my dayjob, and that’s after all the time spent finding somebody who wants to invest in it in the first place. That advance could well be split – half on acceptance, half on publication many months later. About two weeks income from my dayjob each time.

Compare that with what I said about Cuckoo – after less than two years, it’s more than halfway to earning the same amount I’d expect as an advance. I expect it to be all the way there in the next eighteen months. Side by side with the timescales of finding a publisher, then having it actually be published, it looks set to earn me the same money in about the same time, and will then keep on earning beyond that. Some authors command larger advances of course, even first time authors if the publisher thinks they’ve found something special, but that’s rare. If I’m building a business plan, I’ve got to do it on worst case scenarios, not wish fulfillment.

So what value can a publisher offer me, personally, that makes partnering up with one worthwhile? The big publishers are a write off for me, at least right now. They’re so far behind the curve on how readers are finding books that they offer no real value at all. They don’t promote much beyond their biggest hitters, and much of what they put out sinks or swims on the efforts of the author to make a go of it. I can do that myself, and be earning more per sale from each book because I don’t have a publisher taking a hefty cut of the book’s profit. Big publishers are elephants – they’re solid and impressive from a distance, but they aren’t agile, and the current publishing landscape needs agility. That’s why they’re in so much trouble. A change happens, but they’re big beasts. They can draw up a plan and implement it, but that takes lots of departments, many meetings, and a serious period of development. By the time they launch anything, another eight changes have made their adjustment irrelevant.

However, traditional publishing as a whole isn’t a write off. While the big international publishers are about two years behind the curve, and falling further behind, there are smaller independent publishers who are finding that their very size makes them much more nimble. What they can offer somebody like me are as follows:

1. Reach. Reviews in places I can’t otherwise get them (national magazines and periodicals mostly). As a self-publisher, I also can’t arrange for my books to be in bookstores, supermarkets, airports, etc. Those remain the sole preserve of the traditional publisher. The value of both is in visibility – more people finding my stories. However, it only balances out if the publisher pushes that book hard. Without the extra effort, a few single copies of a given book might end up on a shelf in a store, but they’re not going to be in a pile at the front, in an eye-catching three for two offer that Joe Bloggs might notice when he wanders in. Unless they get a push from the publisher and bookstore, having them on a shelf where the chances of them being found are reasonably slim when they’re next to eight copies of everything Stephen King has had published doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. It might impress friends and family (unless my book is in a window display in Waterstones, I’m fairly sure my mother will never be sure that I’m doing it right). I would love to partner up with an independent publisher that works to make the books they release truly visible. I’ve four of those on my wish list who might be interested in the sort of thing I write.
2. Inbuilt readerships. Big publishers try to be all things to all people. They throw a lot into the pond and wait to see what sinks and what swims. With only a few exceptions, they do the publishing, and then the author is left to get on with it. However, there’s a growing wave of smaller independent publishers (they’ve always been there, but they’re finding themselves in a surprisingly strong position now) who are cultivating what they love. They’ve usually got a much narrower focus, and build lists of high quality books within specific areas of interest. They then cultivate a readership of their own, who learn to trust that they really like the (say) steampunk novels that Publisher X puts out. Next time they want a steampunk novel, they’ll go straight to that publisher and try out their other books. The independent becomes a trusted brand. For this reason, they’re very picky. However, they’re not closed shops either. They look for new voices and ideas to expand their own readerships, while offering the in built readership they’ve developed to the author. At this stage in my career, I want to partner up with some of these independents, if they’ll have me. I’ve about six that I’m really interested in submitting a novel too, four of which are also the publishers I mentioned in point one.
3. Intellectual Properties. Writing on spec, for worlds you don’t own. I’ve dabbled with this with my Iris Wildthyme and Doctor Who stories, as well as an upcoming City of the Saved tale (more on that very soon). Again, the benefit lies in an in built audience. These stories, as well as being terrific fun to write, are also an introduction to readers who might work their way back to my other titles. Creatively, I also really like the challenge of them (though it can be a nightmare when you find one that you can’t mesh effectively with your own style, as I found last year). I’m not actively pursuing these opportunities at the minute, but I’m keeping half an eye out for them, and need to work out how to be proactive in finding the ones I’d be a good match for and pitching myself to the publishers in question.

And that’s about it. Six publishers I really want to work with, with research needed to see if I can find opportunities in the intellectual property sector. I’ll be finishing two novels this year that I’ll hold back from self-publishing, because I hope they might meet the needs of one or more of the publishers that excite me. Because there are so few I want to work with, it won’t take too long to get a yes or no from them (the novels won’t be in limbo doing endless rounds of slush piles for years), and if it doesn’t work out then I know I can still produce them independently later on. No loss, but quite a lot of potential gain. It’s a way to find out if I’m right about this anyway – it’s one thing observing the industry, but another to experience and learn from it. You can only really do that from the inside, so I’ll have a go and see what happens.

A tentative fusion approach then. A lot of self-publishing (at least four books in the next twenty months), with a couple of things aside that might give me the chance to work with publishers that I particularly admire. That’s a world away from ten years ago, when I would have taken any publisher at all if it meant I could release a book. It’s bizarre to think that for a relative unknown like me, self-publishing has become the least risky way to build an income as a writer, with the gamble now being traditional publishers. Oddness, but I actually think it’s true.

So, that’s eighty per cent of what I’m going to do. Next week though, I’ll be having a look at playtime. As much as I need to be looking for viable approaches to make freelancing work, I think it’s vitally important to remember to play. That’s the fun of it after all. For me, playtime is about stories being the world in odd ways. Neil Gaiman gave an excellent keynote speech at the London Book Fair about trying things that are allowed to fail. I liked it a lot. Next Friday, I’ll be working out what I’m going to make of my own Dandelion Time, and how you can help if you want.

As ever, your comments on this – particularly if you think I’m getting it badly wrong – are very welcome. Some of the above only settled into place after discussions that took place after the last entry (thanks Kevin, Brian, Lincoln, and Glen, particularly). Even if I don’t agree with what you want to say, it’s hugely valuable having the discussion. With all this theory (we’re still at the early stages) it’s easy even for me to forget that I’m going to actually put this into practice.

April 2013 Summary: With a few days left to go, April’s books don’t balance. A couple of royalty payments on Cuckoo and TFS came in, which was nice, but that didn’t cover my expenses for the month. They’ve been higher than usual to be fair – as well as standard costs like the hosting of this website, I bought two promotional slots for May, both for TFS (a month long ad at the well browsed Apex Books website during May, and a targeted email mail-out called BookGorilla that reaches readers who sign up for it, according to what they say they want to hear about). I’ll be keeping a close eye on whether they pay off, so I know whether either are worth doing again. The shortfall is actually pretty small – less than the price of a couple of cinema tickets. If I hadn’t decided to take a chance on Apex and BookGorilla then I’d be in profit, albeit not very much. Looking forward, May is going to be a bigger miss. I’ll be paying for the layout and editing on Craven Place, as well as the cover for the book, before the month ends. It could be June before I see another month of actual profit, then. It will be interesting to see how things add up over the first financial quarter, April to June.

April 2013 Update: And a day after I wrote the above, the month broke even thanks to an unexpected payment from Smashwords on all ebook formats other than Kindle. Excellent.

Still, since the spasms have worn off and I’m back to plain old predictable pain (unpredictable spasms = even more not fun) I’ve been pushing myself to get some stuff done. Yesterday, I plotted a book I’ll be starting to write on the weekend. It will be my Saturday novella for a while, and I’ll return to it once a week until it’s done. The book is called The Weighing of the Heart, and if you’ve been following for a very long time you’ll remember that title. I tried to write it ages ago, but got derailed, so I’m scrapping everything and taking a fresh run at it.

Which gives you an idea of how far I’ve planned ahead. I’ll have at least four more books available by the end of next year, starting with Craven Place in (hopefully) a month or two, then moving on to a trilogy of novellas in 2014 of which Weighing is the second. I’m terrifically excited about all of them.

If you have kept a eye on my stuff for a while, it might have occurred to you that I’ve combined my forays into self-publishing with a desire to take care of unfinished business. Consider:

• Cuckoo, where this all started, had been out of print for several years before I re-published it in 2011. I knew there was a small demand for the novel, as I received pleasing emails asking after it every now and again, and had looked at approaching publishers to see if they were interested in putting it back in print. The idea of publishing it myself landed before I could send it off, and now the novel is more widely available than it ever was. Unfinished business the first.
• Thy Fearful Symmetry was a novel that I started over a decade ago, that some people had read the first chapters of online or as an eserial, but which went rapidly off track and wasn’t finished. Now it is, and it’s in print (and still collecting terrific reviews). Unfinished business the second.
• Craven Place began life as a movie that was filmed but never released (the production company’s money ran out before it completed post-production). I own the rights to novelise my script (which I wrote to spec after devising the plot and characters with the director of the movie), and always wanted to make sure that the story reached people that way. Stories don’t deserve to die because money goes away. Shroud Magazine started to serialise it in their free digital magazine, but that didn’t work out in the end. In a couple of months, the story will be in the world for anybody to explore. Unfinished business the third.
• The trilogy of novellas I’ll be releasing in 2014, across the year, started a long time ago with a free book I produced as a sampler called The Flesh Remembers. That was available on my website for a long time as a free PDF download. I didn’t finish the other two, as I didn’t feel able to handle distributing the first story wider. That’s not a problem anymore. By the end of 2014, the trilogy will be done and available. Unfinished business the fourth.

As for the future? At the moment, I haven’t planned much past the trilogy. However, the things that are on the board to be self-published include the theatre novel I planned out ages ago, and a serial of six novellettes I started and abandoned when I realised the chance of finding somebody to publish a series of such short books was slim to non-existent. Also unfinished business.

There seems to be a strange dividing line in my head regarding what counts as unfinished business, and what are whole new projects. Some of the new projects, like the current novel and the next I’ll be writing, have been around in my hind-brain just as long the ones I mention above. Perhaps it’s because they haven’t been started in any way shape or form – they were ideas waiting to happen, and not things failing to happen.

At some point, the unfinished business will all be put to bed, and I’ll have caught up to the new projects. How I’ll go about putting those into the world is another matter altogether, and one I’ll be looking at in tomorrow’s freelance blog.

One interesting thing to note, for me anyway, is that many of these ideas lost impetus because of confidence. I’m a very confident writer – making stories is not a problem. My lack of confidence was in publishers and what they wanted. Was there a demand for what I was writing? Will anybody ever get to read this, or am I wasting my time and heading for disappointment? Should I move onto a more ‘marketable’ idea? These are all things that I shouldn’t have let get between the story and me, but I did. These days I’ve the confidence to let you decide whether a book I write should be read. I trust the books to find their readers.

Now that I don’t have to worry about whether a publisher thinks a story is meritorious or timely, I’ve a fresh energy for all of it. I can write, knowing readers will get to judge for themselves. I’ve said before that I don’t think a story is ever complete until somebody reads it, and the freedom to let these be finished is liberating.

Oh yes, there’s one more project planned for 2014. It’s big, and I need your help. I want you to help me make stories. Pop back on Saturday, and I’ll tell you how.

Currently reading (novel): The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Currently reading (anthology): Chiral Mad, edited by Michael Bailey

Currently reading (anthology): The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stores, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer

Currently reading (non-fiction): The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner