Goodbye, Sweet Onion

I've been enjoying articles from The Onion since about 1996, and using it regularly since about 2000 or so, but now the ride is over. I hit the Paywall.

I'm not sure if people in the US are receiving this yet, since they started out "experimenting" with walling off "foreign" users, first in fall 2011- excluding areas where there are large concentrations of American soldiers in combat, so as to not penalize members of the Armed Forces for their service. It seems they started in the UK, because, according to their mysterious sources (ones I am clearly unfamiliar with), UK readers are accustomed to paying for online content, and really don't mind it.

(Granted, I am not from the UK, but this sounds like BS to me - anyone in the UK want to comment and let me know how much you love paying for online reads?)

Now, being a "foreigner", I have also hit the paywall, so that is that. I'm really not interested in keeping a running count in my head to tell if I've read my "five free" articles in the past 30 days, and of when my new 30 day period has started, etc, etc. Screw that! It brings to mind the annoyance of the old dialup internet where you actually had to keep track of how long you'd been online to make sure you didn't go over the monthly allowance. (Anyone else remember those hideous days?)

Thus, I have decided that it's simply not worth clicking on any links to The Onion shared on Facebook, etc, because clicking and then hitting the wall sets my teeth on edge. Not worth it when the title is likely the funniest part.

And, to be honest, I just don't think of checking The Onion as much as I used to, so maybe it has waned for me, anyway. Luckily, the AV Club has, so far, not been touched by the Paywall, so we can still have our Red Meat binges. Otherwise, you might really see me get pouty. But, realistically, how long with that last while tied to the New Coke?

(By the way, I've been told that there are numerous ways to work around the paywall, but (1) I don't find it worth figuring out, (2) I'm not willing to adjust my computer system to read The Onion, and (3) I prefer not to work around such things, as it feels uncomfortably close to theft to me at that point. Instead, I will respect their paywall - but I also won't be paying.)

This has made me think about copyright, and monetizing, and how people deserve to get paid for their work, and so forth. In the end, I must agree that it's their site, and they have every right to set up a paywall, even if being a long-time reader has left me feeling some irrational sense of abandonment. I guess the ad/merchandise/Kindle revenues weren't paying the bills, especially since their TV dept went live and the writers joined the guild, so I can understand their need to make some money. (Though, I must say it's rather silly to start a TV wing if you don't have the plans in place to support it from the get-go.)

Bottom Line: Their work, their site, their rules, and good luck to them.

But, considering the vast wealth of LOLs on the internet, I remain pretty unmoved to pay for The Onion, especially while it is currently in place to only penalize non-Americans. Sorry, but that offends me a bit. If we filthy foreigners aren't welcome, we can go elsewhere, Xenophobes. (Wow, that was a bit more vitriolic than I meant it to be - sorry!)

Well, fare thee well, Onion. I hope it works for you, and I hope this doesn't just kill what ad revenue you are getting when people just stop visiting. I hope this isn't a good five or ten years too late to catch your relevancy. I hope you can earn what you need.

As for me, I will enjoy the memories I have. I recall one religious studies class when a classmate brought in a print-off of the article about Harry Potter books starting a Satanic cult in a second grade class. The guy actually thought it was a real article! Oh, how we laughed. Ah, good times. If you don't recall the article, that's too bad. I would link it, but you know... Paywalled.

Well, nothing to see here, folks. I guess we'll all have to go and do some work instead of reading The Onion and pretending we're working.

Thursday Thurteen: Book Promo Outside the Box

(And, yes, I know I misspelled Thirteen. I'm living on the edge here. Deal with it.)

My fiction has been published and for sale since 2010, and since shortly before that I have made it a point to discuss "the Biz" with other authors - learning the ropes, discussing Craft, spreading the good word, making connections, soaking up the gossip, and chewing on the Big Subject: sales and promotion.

I've joined forums, discussion groups, etc, etc, and this keeps coming up - How on earth do you sell your ebook?

Don't get excited that this post will help you, at all, since I clearly don't know, either. I was a fiend for doing marketing, taking guest spots and interviews everywhere for a while last winter, and you know what I made? Bubkes, that's what I made. Well, okay, maybe not quite. $17, I think, is more precise.

So, obviously, I don't know anything about selling an ebook.

Well, that's not entirely true. I know the rehashed ideas everyone recommends - blogging, guest blogging, social media (all sorts), interviews, posting your sales links ad nauseam, etc. I've even paid out for promo, and nadda. Aside from an interview on a Big Site and reviews, I haven't seen any of the normal things work.

Thus, I hereby announce Enough Is Enough.

I'm done with the "normal things." It's time to go to the mattresses on this whole promo game.

Therefore, this week's Thursday Thurteen (TM):

13 Promo Plans with Flare

1. Shave the title of my book into the President's dog's pelt. (Not saying which President, or President of What; just a President.)

2. Convince George Lucas to release yet another butchered version of Star Wars with Greedo not shooting first, but wearing a t-shirt with my website url on it. Come to think of it, that would still be better than the "revised" versions.

3. Hire sky writers in every city to find the last remaining adult readers of m/f contemporary romance.

4. Once I find said last remaining readers of m/f contemporary romance: Give them puppy eyes until they cave.

5. I think prisons may be an untapped market for romance novels. (Makes "To Do" note for later.)

6. Change the title of my novel to How to Make Millions Publishing to Kindle!

7. Step One: Find a Leprechaun. Step Two: Wring his bloody neck til he makes with the luck.

8. Step One: Steal Underpants! Step Two: ... Step Three: Profit!

9. Start a cult.

10. Revise manuscript and add a vampire businessman who likes BDSM. We'll call him... Edw...mund.

11. Travel the rails, living colourfully, until I die of a gamey foot - only to have my work discovered, posthumously, by an enterprising young writer for the NY Times in hipster glasses and a $200 plaid shirt who has a thing for novelists-turned-hobos.

12. Go back in time and somehow ensure I am born the lovechild of Amazon's CEO. Or at least that of the dude who's in charge of their sales rankings and "Special" lists. Or that of the guy who has college photos of either of those two that they'd prefer not be seen. (It's a fluid plan.)

13. Get caught sexting steamy excerpts with a member of the Royal Family.

Well, there you have it. How can I possibly fail this time, right?

Oh, and hey, while you're here, why not check out my Amazon profile? Free shoeshine with every hundredth purchase.* Honest, you'll see your face, guv'nah.

*Offer void everywhere. Some restrictions apply.

Writing What Sells

On a forum today, and many times before, I have been left to shake my head at how overt some writers are with their desire to write "whatever will sell." Here's an example (compiled and fictionalized out of many such threads):

"So, I hear sex stories sell, so I think I should do that. What type of sex story sells best? Also, how short can it be before people stop buying it? Is 1,000 words enough, or should I make it 4,000? How quickly can I crank out 2,000-word sex stories, and how different should they all be before people stop buying them? I don't want to be bothered reading any erotica to see what it's about, so just explain to me what the most profitable ones all share in common."

Honestly?

As a reader, this kind of discussion skeeves me out. When I see a writer baldly announcing, basically, "I don't give a crap about the story, or anything else, I just want to know the recipe for soaking money out of the marks" it makes me want to never, ever read any of their mass-produced crap, ever, let alone buy it.

Writers, please be aware that open greed is noted, and readers don't really like being seen as sheep. Especially not sheep watching the farmer trying to throw together the easiest sheep ramp at the lowest creative cost.

Pretty nasty, this "must make dollars" attitude amongst writers.

No, I don't believe writing is 100% inspiration, and, yes, I firmly believe that art cannot exist with economics. Sure, we all want to be read, and to sell. But, in my opinion, it needs to start with a good piece of writing.

So, if you are asking "what piece of crap can I throw together to make you buy it?" the answer is none, frankly.

Go find some boglands to sell to tourists.

Dirty Word of the Day

Did that make you look?

I don't mean the really nasty seven bad words.

The Dirty Word of the Day today is Advertising.

Yes, I know - an erotica writer should have better bad words that. Sorry to disappoint. Actually, I do have many more enjoyable bad words at my fingertips, but this one is a special curse. It deserved its own post, I think.

Advertising is the part of this whole writing business I hadn't really considered before I decided to leap into publishing. I guess I sort of had a vision in mind of Other People taking care of that. Who, I'm not exactly sure - the Publishers, I guess. I mean, didn't Bridget Jones work for the marketing department of a publishing company? So, some pubs out there must do some marketing, I assume. Helen Fielding wouldn't lie to me, would she?

But, I think to get in bed with the kind of companies that do the advertising for you, you need an agent and the decades of prayers, dark rituals, gift baskets, etc, that it likely takes to make it with an established company with funds for such things. Oh, and proof that your books can earn back the money they shell out - i.e. a damn good backlist to your name.

Sadly, I have none of those, so I'm pretty much on my own flogging my books, published through smaller companies who ask us to handle the lion's share (if not all) of our own marketing.

I've been learning a lot about this side of the business, I admit. Been working the social media, Tweeting and re-Tweeting until my hands fall off, trying to get my name out there with a happy connotation. Sure, none of it's worked yet, but it may eventually. Hey, I've only been in the business officially since October 2010 - Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

I've also only had a handful of titles released, and as I rectify that (hopefully with some bigger companies in the near future), I suspect name recognition might start to climb a bit.

But, today I am thinking of honest-to-goodness advertising. Which makes me a little ill, to be frank.

As a consumer, I am very used to ignoring ads and cursing spam - even going so far as boycotting the really aggressive ones. Therefore, the thought of becoming one of those guys makes me feel a bit filthy.

Okay, I know: "No one can read your book if they don't know it exists."

Yes, I have heard this, and am really trying to dig its practical applications. But, when it comes right down to it, Tweeting sales links icks me out. Nor do I really believe it works, since I would never buy anything from a sales link sent to me via social media. My mind marks it immediately as spam, and that's it for me. I might post such a thing on the release day, more as a "Ommigosh, I can't believe I'm on Amazon" sort of thing than anything else - but I can't bring myself to keep going with them. As a result, I now only use Twitter to chit-chat and share bits of my writing, and for networking among other book folks, which is really much more fun, anyway.

So, I think: Perhaps purchasing ad space is a bit more savory, since it is obvious and somewhat honorable. Everyone knows the deal - an ad is placed in a space that looks like an ad, and paying attention to it is fairly voluntary.

But, even with paid ads, there's a bit of a sticky wicket. Most of the sites I could afford to advertise on are basically only visited by the authors with ads there and maybe the blogger's mom. The sites with actual traffic are way out of my price league. It's not even a matter of, "Will this make my money back through the ad?" it's a matter of, "Which bill will I skip paying this month so I can make this initial layout?" Yes - it's not good.

However, a little boon came my way recently. The site The Romance Reviews gave me a handful of site credits for signing up, and they happened to be running a sale on their monthly ads at the same time! Now, starting today, I have my first real ad up someplace that seems to get relatively good traffic - for a whole month!

The ad-less (and sale-less) wonder is ad-less no longer!

I'll let you know how it turns out. If this experiment works, I might consider trying more low-key paid marketing over the next few months. But, realistically, I'm not likely to pay out tons and tons to promote books that aren't ever going to earn that money back. I like writing; I enjoy seeing my books available; I love to see reviews and notes from people who've read them. I'm proud of my books so far, and I look forward to seeing what I can do in the future. In the end, rankings on Amazon are nice, but they wouldn't make this worthwhile if I didn't have fun doing it. And worrying about marketing really doesn't add to my authorial enjoyment, that's for sure. So, I will take it as it goes - I'm learning a lot, and, with luck, it'll all pan out in the end.

Welcome to a new month! Happy sales to all, and to all a high ranking!

Child Characters in Romantic Fiction

I was reading a HQ SuperRomance a couple of days ago that dredged up one of my pet peeves.

I can't stand it when children are more like props than actual characters. Yes, occasionally they talk, but when they are just "Generic Girl Child Aged 3" it looks like no effort is put into making them real people. They weave in and out of the story only when needed - usually only as a source of conflict for either party as they anguish over having a "readymade family" to deal with. The main characters are very seldom home, with the child in any convenient care (daycare, with the neighbours, etc) - some books don't even bother to explain who is watching the child while Main Character 1 and Main Character 2 are off having their passionate picnic. (What parent goes on a daytime picnic in a pretty park without at least wondering if they should bring their child?) The absolute worst: When they are merely written into the book so they can sustain some major medical trauma for the purpose of bringing the parties back together again, having never attained more than prop status throughout the book. That last one kind of disgusts me.

Now, I have also seen some great romance novels where the child acts/seems like a real kid, and the parent-character actually thinks/speaks of the child once and a while when s/he is not directly involved in the scene. I have seen some great books that allow the child to interact with one or the other main character directly; where they have a scene alone together instead of the child just wandering in the room during important "grown up plot talk." Some books give the child character some development, which is hard to do with any secondary character and really rewarding for the reader. I have even seen some who allow the child a POV scene or two!

I am a mom who is parenting a 3 year-old on my own at the moment - I just can't handle novels that relegate the child to the status of a desk chair. I know my son has a very distinct personality - he acts and talks in an idiosyncratic way, the same as adults do. I also know that most mothers and fathers think/talk about their child a lot.

Now, I know none of us wants to read pages and pages of parents bragging/fretting over their kid, but I really do appreciate it when writers make me believe the child, and the family unit, is real.

Please stop using child characters as mere props. A child is not a potted plant. That child character some writers ignore would likely be the center of the main character's world - that is not an issue you can ignore and still maintain realism. Okay, I admit this view is largely based on a very personal understanding of parenting, but it's one reader's opinion, and I am willing to bet I'm not the only one.

Daily Dose of Frustration: Non-"Zany" Need Not Apply

Right now, I looking for a publisher for my new novel - my NaNo story, which is currently in editing and re-writing. I am hoping to submit by the fall, so I'm casting around for the best shot for publishing. I am looking for something mid-class this time - not too small, but not too lofty, either. Some company that sees half decent sales, makes some token effort at marketing and can help me produce a quality book. Not too huge a list of wants.

This week, I came across this lovely little snippet on a submission instructions page of a mid-range ebook pub:

Contemporary Romance: Fun and whimsical, these books should showcase your sense of humor and focus on a modern couple in a zany situation.

"Zany"?

Really?

Zany only, huh?

Damn you Bridget Jones. Damn you.

So, fine. I understand that people like zany. I can appreciate that. I love Bridget Jones, actually. But, honestly, is this the only market out there? Readers only want to read zany romance (if it doesn't involve sulky vampires, that is)?

My NaNo novel is not a zany romance, nor is Strings Attached. Now, this does not mean I am devoid of humour (in fact, my new WIP is a comedy), but these first couple of full lengths are serious contemporary romances. Not quite melodrama, but focusing on honest emotions and mature, realistic people. Not zany people.

(Zany people are, like, girls who wear red dresses a lot, which randomly get blown up by the wind, right, and inexplicably carry bunches of daisies way too often? Zany guys, I can only assume, wear a messenger bag all the time.)

(Yeah, I don't have any of those.)

So, it seems I am simply not zany enough for the category of contemporary romance in today's market.

Perhaps I should see if I can re-write into it a pouty nosferatu as Plan B...