AKA

A couple of updates today—some good, some not so good. Let's get the negative news out of the way first. Sales of The Mountain Lion King haven't exactly been record-breaking. There could be several reasons for this. I didn't do any promotion. I don't have a following on social media. I don't even bother with social media. Times like this are when my antisocial tendencies come back and bite me in the butt. The romance market, and the ebook market in general, is glutted beyond belief. Anyone with Word and the Smashwords style guide can format and upload a book, and thousands of people are doing so. This is the sea I tossed my novel into. I shouldn't be surprised that after a month it's already sunk out of sight.

Or maybe I just wrote a bad book. It happens to the best of us. More often to the worst of us.

I hope that's not the case here. But I have to look at my track record. The last book I wrote that had significant sales was Belonging, and that was a long way back. None of the books I've published since have set the world on fire, unless people are burning them.

New books are supposed to spur sales of previous books. According to theory, at this point my backlist sales should be picking up and providing a satisfying passive income. 'Tain't happening. The new books have been going belly-up while the old books just sit there.

Clearly I am doing something wrong.

I tried a blitz of publicity a while back. Sales stopped dead. I'd better develop some marketing skills, pronto.

While I'm at it, I'd also better develop much better writing skills. If I'm writing bad books, I need to stop that and start writing good books. I wish there was some magic storytelling software I could use to punch up my plots. I firmly believe the ability to tell an exciting story is more important than actually being able to write. Most past and current bestsellers support this theory. Look at John Grisham's early output and you'll see what I mean, after you've stopped turning the pages.

While I work on improving my craft, there's a quick and easy thing I can do to improve my chances. If I'm writing bad books, then my rep's already shot. Anybody spotting my name on the new-this-week lists will make a face and click elsewhere. Solution: use a pen name. The books won't be any better, but the readers will think it's someone else. I might pick up some first-time sales before readers wise up and move on.

Whoever I end up being this time around, I'd better be consistent. So far my romance output has jumped all over the place. I started with M/F, switched to M/M, wrote a couple M/M/F ménages, and took a break to write a YA novel with no sex. Mountain Lion King is M/F, with a single tame sex scene. The book before that, Jessalina's Pets, was a threeway with a couple steamy encounters, and side action between the two guys. All of this happened under a single byline. Any readers I may have started out with must be confused as hell by now.

So I'm going to try an experiment. My current WIP will be marketed to a different publisher, under a different name. If it does well, I'll follow up with more of the same. Fortunately I've got enough ideas in this particular niche to keep things going for a while. Maybe I can build a brand along with a readership.

If this doesn't work, I'll switch genres again, along with the byline. I haven't made my mark on horror or mystery yet.

# # #

I checked under the sink again this morning. No signs of mouse habitation. So far the only dead body I've found was the one under the stove. Earlier in the week I finally gathered my courage and looked under the couch. All clear. Ditto for under the bed, the bureau and the chair in the living room. When the maintenance guy came to clean my furnace, I warned him what to expect. He reported finding no dead mice. There could be rotting corpses behind the furnace, but neither of us was going to move the thing to check. I have no sense of smell, so I'm covered. Let the next owner worry about it.

# # #

Finally, a panic moment. Last week, one of the two bulbs in my bedroom ceiling light burned out. These are those new halogen lights, which supposedly last longer and use less energy while costing a lot more money. I can't tell whether they last any longer or not. I do know the one burned out while I was sitting in bed. Last night the other one—well, it didn't exactly burn out. It exploded. I was walking right under it at the time. There was a CRACK and the light went out, leaving light bulb shrapnel all over the rug. In my entire life, I have never had a bulb explode, though it happens all the time on Supernatural. Maybe I'm a demon. It could explain my lack of sales if I really am writing bad books.

So this morning I changed the bulb. It was manufactured in China. Ah, that explains it. China's the country that puts lead in everything, including children's toys and reusable grocery bags. China is trying to kill us. Well, you missed me last night, nyah nyah nyah. I'm going to retaliate by writing a truly horrible book that Chinese hackers will pirate. Then it won't sell and they'll all go out of business and starve. Vengeance is mine.

Bad

First things first: you folks don’t have to yell at me. No, I did not get a manuscript out on the market or a story uploaded to Amazon. But I am making serious progress. I’ve been averaging two to 2-1/2 pages per day on the Talbot’s Peak novel. That may not sound like much, but for me it’s a lot. More than the occasional page or half a page I generally write. As for the porn, about half of that’s typed onto the laptop. I should have the typing finished by the weekend. Then I can start formatting and look for a cover artist. I’m still waffling on what pen name I’m going to put on it. I may just go for a single name, like Cher or Madonna or Nebuchadnezzar. That way there’s no chance of me duplicating an existing person’s name and landing in legal hot water. All across America the dozen Anita Dicks just heaved sighs of relief.

Best of all, once these two are on their way, I know which one I want to work on next. I’m building momentum! It helps that the weather’s getting colder. I’m less inclined to go ramming around and more inclined to stay in the house and work.

Got the leaves raked, too. I’ve been busy this past week.

# # #

One more quickie before we get to the main topic. I’m reading Stephen King’s new one, Mr. Mercedes, and it’s got That Racially Charged Offensive Word in it. That answers my question about political correctness and censorship. It doesn’t answer the other question: if a newbie author writes a book and uses That Word, will they be told to clean up their prose? I can’t answer that unless it happens to me or until some writer it has happened to contacts me and tells me about it. Therefore, my conclusion is: it’s okay to use offensive language, provided a) you’re writing mainstream fiction, b) your book comes out from a big publisher with a lot of lawyers, and c) you’re already a megaselling author with a huge international following. Granted, I can’t recall ever seeing That Word used as part of a title, so there may be limits in place no matter what your standing.

# # #

And now, at long last, the main event.

The other day a friend sent me an odd book recommendation. It wasn’t the best book she’d ever read. The characters acted in ways that left her going, “WTF?” Which didn’t stop her from finishing it, or reading other books in the series. They are, in the parlance, page turners.

Yeah, I know how that is. I’ve read The Da Vinci Code. And Twilight. And The Firm. Dear Gawd, The Firm. The critic who wrote, “Grisham’s characters give new meaning to the word ‘cardboard,’” hit it right on the nose.

Didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop turning those pages, cardboard characters and all.

There’s a difference between good writing and good storytelling. It’s possible to have one without the other, as many bestsellers have proven. If forced to choose, I’d rather have good storytelling. The story is what really matters, not how well or how poorly it’s written. The story’s why we’re reading in the first place.

I don’t mind bad books, but they have to be good bad books. The ones that have that certain magic something that makes you keep turning the pages. Twilight had it. The Hunger Games had it, along with better writing than Twilight. Stephen King’s books have it by the bucketload. Stevie himself has admitted he’s not the world’s greatest writer. Sometimes he hits the bar, sometimes he misses. But damn, can he tell one hell of a story. Bet that explains why he's popular.

For the movie equivalent, I give you Star Wars. Think about it. Once you get past the rousing score and the special effects, the movie’s not that good. The plot’s older than prostitution. The characters are one-dimensional ciphers. The dialogue is clunky and clichéd. (Harrison Ford reportedly told George Lucas, “You can type this shit, but you can’t say it.”) Lucas himself didn’t think his “little space movie” would amount to anything. When it premiered in Hollywood, he was on vacation in Hawaii.

How many times did you and your buddies see Star Wars back in 1977? In my neighborhood, it packed ‘em in tight enough to play for a solid year. So what if the plot was creaky and the dialogue sucked? Lookit that friggin’ spaceship! That movie had a ton of magic, and we kept going back again and again to bask in its glow.

Imagine doing that in a book. The words and phrases and sentences you use may not be the best you could have picked, but it doesn’t matter. Your intent, your emotions, the magic overwhelms even clumsy word choices. Do it right and the reader won't even notice you. They'll be caught up in the story, even if it’s illogical, or the characters, cardboard though they are. They may throw the book against the wall, but not until after they’ve finished it.

Congratulations. You have just succeeded as a writer.

How do you learn storytelling? Wish I knew. The best you can do is read, read, read. If a book is bad but you can’t put it down, that’s the one you study. If it’s just bad, with no redeeming qualities, well hey, pick a wall.

Remember, even truly bad books have their uses. They’re proof that even crappy prose gets bought and published. If these turds made it onto the shelves, your chances just improved. Happy storytelling!