I was just over at Joe Konrath's blog, which can be found here http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/. His latest post is on the subject of million dollar ideas, and it really got me thinking. He should be proud of this because not much can achieve this these days.
The concept of a truly original idea came to me when I was a teenager who played guitar in a rock band many, many years ago. It didn't take me long to graduate from learning to tune a battered old acoustic with a warped neck and nylon strings. My playing sounded like a cross between a harpsichord and a banjo, but I soon bought my first electric guitar and started writing my own songs - such is the learning capacity of the young. I was excited, but I soon discovered that just about whatever I wrote had been written before, usually by Lennon and McCartney.
Writing books presents a similar problem, and the more books that are published the worse this problem is going to become. Some genres don't demand originality at all, although it can help. Romance springs to mind, here. I admit that I have never read a romance novel of any kind, but I have read a lot of romance novel premises, and they all seem to be just about identical to the next one. Crime is another one where very few variables are required. Corpse found, suspects introduced, suspects grilled, second corpse found, red herring introduced, murderer caught. Over and over again. The originality in this genre often comes from the location of the crimes or the detective (or killer) himself.
A genre that seems to demand more originality is certainly the technothriller, but it doesn't come easy because so many great writers have "got there first". Thanks to the laws of physics that govern the passage of time, it was easier for a writer to pen an original technothriller in 1980 than it is in 2013. If cosmologists are right and the universe really will start contracting again back to an infinite point, I guess one day it might be the other way round and someone could write Jurassic Park before Michael Crichton (hang on, time running backwards... an original technothriller idea....?.... I doubt it - it almost certainly exists already, somewhere, and that is the problem).
As I point out in Joe Konrath's blog, literary fiction is more forgiving to those who want to write original fiction, but genre readers demand certain conventions are met, and that is the problem. Ultimately, original concepts are getting harder to find as more and more are successfully mined and published, but that is different from an original plot and original characters, which are easier to achieve. One concern I have with seeking total originality is that it can lead to absolutely ridiculous stories. For example, we could be pretty original if, in the style of a 1950s B movie, we wrote a book called Attack of the Killer Hot Water Bottles, or The Day The Flying Washing Machines Came To Earth. The difficulty is creating a concept that is not derivative or ridiculous and we can all say this is impossible until the next one gets published, and we'll a shout "why didn't I think of that?"
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Zombies & End of the World Fiction
Here I thought I'd write a little bit about the content of my first books, rather than the process of self-publication.
This means zombies.
But what are zombies? In our time (i.e., the post-Romero era) we use the term to describe any kind of undead being, usually a human being. Traditionally, the term comes from an African Bantu language via Haitian Creole, and refers to a corpse animated by witchcraft. In most modern depictions the witchcraft element plays a secondary role, or is often not mentioned at all, and this could be because what modern readers are more interested in is the chaos caused by zombies and the gore when they are killed, rather than what caused them in the first place.
The popularity of zombie books at the moment is linked, in my view, to a sense of deconstruction in the real world in the post-GFC era. Corrupt banking practices have been exposed on both sides of the Atlantic, and it has become obvious to most people that the levels of sovereign debt in many countries can simply never be repaid. Unemployment is up thanks to off-shoring and technology is also playing a part in making more people jobless, especially in what is left of the manufacturing sector. This has caused people to question the system like never before, and it is no coincidence that having squeezed wizards and vampires until their pips squeaked, people are turning to apocalypse fiction like Hunger Games, and also zombie books and other dystopia as a way of trying to understand what is happening all around them.
As I say above, zombies predate all of this in one form or another. In modern times they stretch from Romero to the killers in Stephen King's Cell (2006), which also incorporated modern technology as well in the form of the cell phone delivery method. Other modern fears that are able to mix well with this sub-genre are those of out of control viruses. These can be made all the more sinister if we make them man-made, synthetic viruses created on purpose for some nefarious reason, which is the case in my story, Razed. The existence of collusion, conspiracy, etc., at the heart of government is becoming almost de rigueur in modern dystopia these days (not to mention just about every thriller), and perhaps I will write a little about why I think that is another day, but again it is linked to our real history and our understanding of the function and activities of government.
In the meantime... we have zombies running wild in the streets. Society has broken down; there is no one around to help you and you are on your own.... HELP.... so what is the appeal of "end of the world" books?
I can't help noticing that with the eminent exception of Matheson's I Am Legend (1954), the end of the world story is a peculiar British fantasy, made most famous by Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids way back in 1951, and of course later in Terry Nation's Survivors in the mid-1970s. Perhaps these stories are a reaction to the overcrowding of England, and the fantasy being that a new, cleaner world is reborn from the ashes of a burnt-out post-industrial state; where a lack of resources becomes an abundance of resources after a period of trial by fire and water, or more usually, infection; where unaffordable property becomes freely available property, and a new freedom is found. Perhaps the fantasy is about stepping away from the grime and failure of the post-industrial, and re-embracing a kind of agrarian wonderland, after all, these fantasies usually contain the same basic elements: 99% of people wiped out, then the few survivors must battle through a series of threats before finally enjoying a newer, cleaner life on a self-sustainable farm somewhere.
As for zombies, they are, of course, an allegory for a dumbed-down public, one that we imagine exists everywhere but in our own homes, one populated by people who don't understand what "they" are doing to "us". Of interest to me, and I have alluded to it already here, is that for us to be truly frightened by something we must in our hearts believe in its possibility, if not its likelihood, and it for this reason that in our somewhat cynical digital age we have created zombies from technology (usually in the form of an escaped virus, or in King's case, a "pulse" sent from cell phones), whereas originally they were created by witchcraft. But in a world where few believe in the latter, we must turn to the former if we are to frighten ourselves.
Anyway, there it is.
This means zombies.
But what are zombies? In our time (i.e., the post-Romero era) we use the term to describe any kind of undead being, usually a human being. Traditionally, the term comes from an African Bantu language via Haitian Creole, and refers to a corpse animated by witchcraft. In most modern depictions the witchcraft element plays a secondary role, or is often not mentioned at all, and this could be because what modern readers are more interested in is the chaos caused by zombies and the gore when they are killed, rather than what caused them in the first place.
The popularity of zombie books at the moment is linked, in my view, to a sense of deconstruction in the real world in the post-GFC era. Corrupt banking practices have been exposed on both sides of the Atlantic, and it has become obvious to most people that the levels of sovereign debt in many countries can simply never be repaid. Unemployment is up thanks to off-shoring and technology is also playing a part in making more people jobless, especially in what is left of the manufacturing sector. This has caused people to question the system like never before, and it is no coincidence that having squeezed wizards and vampires until their pips squeaked, people are turning to apocalypse fiction like Hunger Games, and also zombie books and other dystopia as a way of trying to understand what is happening all around them.
As I say above, zombies predate all of this in one form or another. In modern times they stretch from Romero to the killers in Stephen King's Cell (2006), which also incorporated modern technology as well in the form of the cell phone delivery method. Other modern fears that are able to mix well with this sub-genre are those of out of control viruses. These can be made all the more sinister if we make them man-made, synthetic viruses created on purpose for some nefarious reason, which is the case in my story, Razed. The existence of collusion, conspiracy, etc., at the heart of government is becoming almost de rigueur in modern dystopia these days (not to mention just about every thriller), and perhaps I will write a little about why I think that is another day, but again it is linked to our real history and our understanding of the function and activities of government.
In the meantime... we have zombies running wild in the streets. Society has broken down; there is no one around to help you and you are on your own.... HELP.... so what is the appeal of "end of the world" books?
I can't help noticing that with the eminent exception of Matheson's I Am Legend (1954), the end of the world story is a peculiar British fantasy, made most famous by Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids way back in 1951, and of course later in Terry Nation's Survivors in the mid-1970s. Perhaps these stories are a reaction to the overcrowding of England, and the fantasy being that a new, cleaner world is reborn from the ashes of a burnt-out post-industrial state; where a lack of resources becomes an abundance of resources after a period of trial by fire and water, or more usually, infection; where unaffordable property becomes freely available property, and a new freedom is found. Perhaps the fantasy is about stepping away from the grime and failure of the post-industrial, and re-embracing a kind of agrarian wonderland, after all, these fantasies usually contain the same basic elements: 99% of people wiped out, then the few survivors must battle through a series of threats before finally enjoying a newer, cleaner life on a self-sustainable farm somewhere.
As for zombies, they are, of course, an allegory for a dumbed-down public, one that we imagine exists everywhere but in our own homes, one populated by people who don't understand what "they" are doing to "us". Of interest to me, and I have alluded to it already here, is that for us to be truly frightened by something we must in our hearts believe in its possibility, if not its likelihood, and it for this reason that in our somewhat cynical digital age we have created zombies from technology (usually in the form of an escaped virus, or in King's case, a "pulse" sent from cell phones), whereas originally they were created by witchcraft. But in a world where few believe in the latter, we must turn to the former if we are to frighten ourselves.
Anyway, there it is.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Amazon Changes
There is a debate raging at the moment, among indie writers at least, about the extent to which changes made by Amazon have affected sales. I never lived under the old regime because I published my first book on Amazon after the changes were made, and I'm also not entirely sure what these changes are or what impact they have had.
A major point of debate is the issue of KDP Select and the function that allows a writer to offer their work for free for up to five days in (I think) a 90 day period. If you use this facility your work can be downloaded for free and it enters a list of bestselling books (in the free category), the idea being that if you hit the Top 100, people who browse that list will see your work and you will be exposed to a greater number of readers. Some writers claim giving away their work for free has no effect at all on their sales, while others say they get a real lift from it.
My experience is that my sales go up after a free day, but not a huge amount. I feel the facility might work better if you have many different titles on your page, then when a reader is brought to the page by the free title they can see your other titles. Those arguing against Select focus on the exclusive nature of the deal, which is to say if you sign up to Select (in order to put your books up for free) you cannot sell your work at any other location on the internet, such as Barnes & Noble or Smashwords, etc.
One thing many indie writers seem to be sure of is that their sales are down considerably since around the third quarter 2012, and there is much speculation about what is behind this, including some of the stuff I've written about in this post. I have nothing to compare it to, as I have said, but my sales this year are in the hundreds and as someone new to Amazon I'm perfectly happy with this for the time being. I'm going to be publishing the second part of my apocalypse trilogy in the next week or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.
I understand the argument that having a facility where thousands of writers can offer their work for free, or even for 99c is driving down writers' wages, but considering that the odds of people getting published by a traditional house was in lottery-winner territory, the deal offered by Amazon offers most of these writers a much better chance of distributing their work than they had in the past. No one seems sure about why sales are down, but it could be that the market place is becoming saturated with indie writers all trying to sell their work - like with any market, the laws of supply and demand apply. Over the last couple of years, there have been a few very public success stories of indie writers selling a lot of books on Amazon Kindle and making a lot of money, and this will have massively increased the number of authors selling their work on Amazon. It could be that this in conjunction with the Amazon changes has meant there is a new paradigm now and the higher sales of the past are over.
A major point of debate is the issue of KDP Select and the function that allows a writer to offer their work for free for up to five days in (I think) a 90 day period. If you use this facility your work can be downloaded for free and it enters a list of bestselling books (in the free category), the idea being that if you hit the Top 100, people who browse that list will see your work and you will be exposed to a greater number of readers. Some writers claim giving away their work for free has no effect at all on their sales, while others say they get a real lift from it.
My experience is that my sales go up after a free day, but not a huge amount. I feel the facility might work better if you have many different titles on your page, then when a reader is brought to the page by the free title they can see your other titles. Those arguing against Select focus on the exclusive nature of the deal, which is to say if you sign up to Select (in order to put your books up for free) you cannot sell your work at any other location on the internet, such as Barnes & Noble or Smashwords, etc.
One thing many indie writers seem to be sure of is that their sales are down considerably since around the third quarter 2012, and there is much speculation about what is behind this, including some of the stuff I've written about in this post. I have nothing to compare it to, as I have said, but my sales this year are in the hundreds and as someone new to Amazon I'm perfectly happy with this for the time being. I'm going to be publishing the second part of my apocalypse trilogy in the next week or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.
I understand the argument that having a facility where thousands of writers can offer their work for free, or even for 99c is driving down writers' wages, but considering that the odds of people getting published by a traditional house was in lottery-winner territory, the deal offered by Amazon offers most of these writers a much better chance of distributing their work than they had in the past. No one seems sure about why sales are down, but it could be that the market place is becoming saturated with indie writers all trying to sell their work - like with any market, the laws of supply and demand apply. Over the last couple of years, there have been a few very public success stories of indie writers selling a lot of books on Amazon Kindle and making a lot of money, and this will have massively increased the number of authors selling their work on Amazon. It could be that this in conjunction with the Amazon changes has meant there is a new paradigm now and the higher sales of the past are over.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Starting Out
I'm starting this blog with a view to encouraging debate among people who want to self-publish or perhaps are already self-publishing on the internet. In my case I am a total newbie - no previous publications with publishing houses, no agent, no contacts in the industry - nothing. For these reasons my experiences on the path to successful, or unsuccessful self-publication are probably going to be much more similar to the majority of writers out there compared to those writers who are coming to KDP with established careers in publishing houses.
I published it in January 2013 and I'm very pleased with the results. So far it has sold a lot more copies than I expected considering I am not really promoting it. I have no Facebook page, although I did recently start a Twitter account but I'm not sure of the efficacy of that. The only thing I did in terms of pro-active promotion was make use of the "freebie" facility on Kindle Select. I made it free for two days and it pushed the book to #31 in the free Kindle list for its category, which was either horror or science fiction, I can't remember now. I did notice a rise in sales after this, and they grew more recently until it hit the paid bestseller list in the Occult section and reached #37. It might have gone higher but I wasn't watching it all the time. I was very pleased with this performance, though I have noticed an immediate stop in sales starting Monday 18 Feb, so I am keeping an eye on that. Perhaps I'll write more about that later.
So, first blog post done. I hope others out there who are interested will share their experiences on this blog, whether they are writers or readers.
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