Investing In a Book is Not the Same as Buying One

A lot of authors are kickstarting (or, I can only assume, Indiegogo-ing) novels these days, essentially doing what established writers have been telling wannabe's not to do for years: attempting to sell the idea of a novel before having the novel itself.

Obviously, this was advice mostly given to those who had written very little in their lives and thought that a great novel idea was somehow a ticket to stardom - as if they actual work of writing the novel were trivial rather than the actually valuable part of the whole package. Same went for making videogames, in case you were wondering. I see that same trends and same advice repeated ad infinitum in both spheres to the hopeful masses.

I have to admit that this irked me at first with novels where it did not with games. I have proudly backed several games on Kickstarter and intend to continue doing so, as creating a videogame often requires investments beyond the bounds of a single creator laboring away lonely in their basement. Multiple team members, proprietary technology, art and sound resources, etc etc.

But novels? Generally the only thing standing in the way of their completion is the author finding the time to write them - a problem which would seem to be nonexistant for authors who have already "gone professional" and assumedly spend a fair deal of their time writing. Thus I scoffed, at first, at the idea of professional authors kickstarting novels they hadn't written yet. Most of the ones I looked at didn't even have so much as an opening chapter - just some concept art and, indeed, a fairly bare "concept" of the plot.

Of course, being the "live and let not-give-a-fuck" sort of fellow that I am, my reaction to all this wasn't of the they shouldn't be doing this variety. It was more of the would I ever do this? sort, with a decisive lean towards no.

Having thought about it some more, I can't be so sure. I generally see Kickstarter used for novels by fairly niche authors, who have a small but devoted following. These authors aren't getting filthy rich on their books. They make a modest but livable income. They have a proven track record of providing quality products (this is the most important thing in crowdfunding, for me!). Only an utter idiot would throw that reputation away in a scheme to get quick 10 or 20 grand (or whatever the number) up front.

I haven't heard of any audiences being burned on kickstarting a novel, whereas I have heard sob stories from nearly every other sector. Furthermore, it does open up some rather exciting options - offering cool things like big, silk-screened maps to backers without worrying if it'll earn out the investment you made up front.

Of course, when I think of doing such things myself, I remember that I can kickstart extras-packages like that without kickstarting the novel itself. Somehow it seems more honest to do it that way. After all, I don't really intend to write anything I don't think there isn't paying audience for - nor do I intend to write anything just because there is a paying audience. That is to say, I won't write anything I wouldn't enjoy writing (what is the point of pursuing professional authorhood, after all, but to truly enjoy what we do for a living?).

Obviously, I'm a long ways from actually needing to make any decisions on the subject. My thinking, though, is constantly evolving, leading me to repeat something I've been saying a lot:

I'm so excited to be in the game now, while everything is changing.

Critics Burn Inferno. Nobody Cares.

Over the past year I've been thinking a great deal about the differences between the two, and lately it seems that the rest of the reading world has been paying it some mind as well. The release of Dan Brown's new book Inferno was followed by its predictable trashing by the literary critics, which in turn was followed by the equally predictable sound of millions of readers not giving a fuck what literary critics think.

I have not read any of Brown's books, so I can't give a personal opinion over how good or bad his prose is. However, whatever the quality of his writing, I can say without a doubt that it is "good enough."

Same goes for Stephenie Meyer of Twilight fame, or EL James (50 Shades of Grey), or - to go back a ways - Christopher Paolini (Eragon).

Writing is the medium. The story is the message. So long as your message is compelling, and your writing is good enough to get it across, you'll do fine. (Sometimes much more than fine, as the above authors can attest). The message is more important than the medium. The story is more important than the prose. The toy is more important than the packaging.

A Map of The Wandering Tale

Or rather, of the area covered by/mentioned in the stories so far: The continent of Eretar.

It isn't quite done yet, but it is pretty representative of where I want to go with it. Click to enlarge - the image itself is quite large and you can zoom in a bit (even though the only detail that will be clearer is the red-dotted locations, which are specific locations from the Tales themselves).

Most of the skills, tricks, and techniques used to make this map were learned by perusing the resources available at The Cartographer's Guild, a fantastic place for any map enthusiast. I'm not enough of an artist to do my own cover art, but I think I can develop the cartographic skills necessary to make my own maps.

Still plenty I have left to learn - like how to make attractive and unobtrusive political borders and labeling. The borders I've tried so far ended up looking terrible, and I'm not quite happy with how the labels look either. I'll have it all fixed up for the first Wandering Tale collection.

Pseudonymception

As I crawl towards the halfway mark on the first draft of Clanless, I've begun to spare a bit of thought for thinks like cover art - and marketing. It seems the prevailing wisdom is to make sure your name is associated with one genre and one genre only - in which case I'd want to publish Clanless, and any future works of science fiction, under a different name than Tristan Gregory. Which is itself a pen name.

No doubt keeping things simple for my readers is worth making them confusing for me.

I'm still not sure I'll follow the prevailing wisdom in this case, though. Most of my very favorite authors have published work in several genres, and I like to think that readers are pretty smart. Certainly they can clue to the face that certain books  are unrelated to each other unless specified... right? I can always start including a "other books by" section in my front matter which breaks my titles down by fantasy and science fiction, I suppose...

Still, all the talk about "building brands" is fairly influential. I don't have a lot of marketing clout to leverage, and so any trick I can use to keep  my efforts focused on my most likely readers is a good thing. Then again, I kinda hope that even readers who find me through my fantasy novels might want to try out my science fiction. Personally I've always seen it as one and the same, as summarized by The Third Law and it's corollary.

I suppose it's comforting to know that I can always change my mind and switch the name on the cover. Unless of course I get successful enough that people would notice that kind of thing. In which case... mission freaking accomplished.

Making Some Marketing Noise

While I'm still far more concerned with writing new books rather than promoting older ones, I'm going to be rattling a few cages this summer in hopes of stirring up a few more reviews for both Twixt Heaven and Hell and The Wandering Tale novellas.

To that end, I'm giving away a few copies of Twixt to folks who think they might be interested in reviewing it. You can get more details in this post I made on reddit, but the long and short of it is: If you want a free eBook of Twixt, email me at tristan.gregory.author@gmail.com and tell me what format you'd like it in.

Offer is open for a week or so, or until I've given out twenty or so copies. Response so far has been decent, so I'm not sure which will come first!

Edit: I'll also mention that I've pulled Twixt from publication on Smashwords and downstream channels for awhile in preparation for trying out the KDP Select program. Despite my dislike of the exclusivity thing, I'm gonna be doing a lot of experimenting this summer and this is one experiment that was too obvious not to try. 

Some Love from the Library

It's been a quiet April as I finished up the semester's classes and started to switch gears for the summer. I'm looking forward to being able to devote a good deal more of my time to writing in the coming months.

I've recently finalized a contract with the Ann Arbor District Library to make my books available in their electronic catalogue (basically eBook downloads for library members). I found the deal very encouraging, as the library represents some of that "outside approval" that self-publishers so acutely lack in the beginning. Here's hoping that some portion of the AADL's 60k+ membership are approving as well.

I intend to use this as a springboard in order to contact other libraries in Michigan and see if any are interested in a similar arrangement. Once I have my books in actual print (which is rather high on my summer to-do list) I aim to supply at least the AADL with a couple copies (should they be interested). Always nice to have some presence on the physical shelf-space as well.

Build Your Own Adventure

The kind of game I love best is the one that lets me tell my own story - or one that helps me build a new one.

Most games tell a story, of course. However, it is pre-written, with the player simply going through the motions of the narrative. If the game designers have done their job, "going through the motions" is a lot of fun - take Half-Life, for instance.

Then there are those games which give the player some control over the minutia or even the outcome of the story. Deux Ex is a favorite, though the "multiple endings" part was pretty weak. However, through your actions you could definitely affect various game events.

I have yet to play a great game where the player can have truly dramatic impact on the story itself; Understandably, as this kind of feature would be a massive undertaking as the chaos effect takes over - each choice begets more choices (branches within branches within branches). Still, it would be fun to see it pulled off.

More and more, though, I find that my favorite games are all ones which have no built-in narrative at all, but they serve very well for letting me create my own. Recently (well, in the last few months) I've been playing the hell out of a game called Crusader Kings II. This is a grand strategy game partially in the vein of Europa Universalis (same studio, I think) - however, the "personal politics" portion of the game has been expanded dramatically, and it is beautiful. You can start as Holy Roman Emperor or as a lowly count, and from there you try to expand your lands, accrue titles, keep your vassals in line, and avoid conquest by rival powers. Arrange political marriages, grow the prestige of your family dynasty, install friendly claimants upon various thrones, etc etc.

My first game saw me take the reigns of Hungary in the year 1066. I conquered parts of Croatia, then was stomped into the dust by the Ottomans. However, my character was not relieved of my ducal titles, so I still ruled a duchy within the Ottoman Empire. I navigated the politics of this foreign conqueror successfully enough, and the senior branch of the Árpád dynasty adopted Egyptian culture. Later on I sabotaged the internal politics of the Empire (yes, you can do that) enough so that I and a number of other territories declared our independence. I went on to reconquer Hungary's old territory and reclaim the crown, and then some. By the time the game ended in 1450, Hungary was one of the preeminent kingdoms in the world, controlling both her traditional lands as well as most of Croatia, Serbia, and parts of the Balkans - including, in the closing years, claiming Constantinople in a Crusade and creating the Latin Empire.

Phew. Now that was a helluva story (no doubt more fun played than retold in brief, but you get the point).

And that's only one game. Plenty of others exist and give totally different experiences and types of stories to cook up. Mount and Blade and Dwarf Fortress are another couple of favorites. Dwarf Fortress, especially, is famous for delivering some of the most hilarious and twisted stories gaming has to offer.