Failures of an Indie Author

This isn’t completely about that, this is about being proud of our failures so we can smile at our little successes. Why am I writing this is because I have so so much failures recently that I thought of myself as less, and we all have those days, when that darkness creeps in and take all the things with colors. We always put a middle finger up to those days, forget about them like a bad break-up.

But those people we are seeing, those who already succeeded, failures are just dusts to them, they just swipe them away. That doesn’t mean that they do not care about their work, it only means they take it as a lesson and nothing more. It isn’t personal it’s just lesson; a noun you could improve on once you used it over and over again.

So let me tell you about my failures of a generic indie author that only makes coffee money out of his writing:

• I earned 2.88 dollars this month in all channels my book is available. Do you know why? Because I don’t advertise. I trust that people will see me, I trust the word of mouth. The lesson here is for me (or to any indie author) to start that spark before the fire, to advertise, to put that book in front of the eyes of people who care. The other lesson (which is effective in the long run) is write fast. Don’t think about it, just write fast.
• I have two harsh, and I mean harsh reviews. The first one was justified because I’ve accidentally put out an unpolished work. The other one is just mean, you know those people who get high on shitting on someone, that kind of person.
• I have no sales in Amazon in months! Seriously, they are all free downloads, and oddly, I’m happy with it. They’ve found my book even though I’m not advertising. But see, free download has the possibility to be not read, it think, I have no experience in this so I’m just assuming with my crystal ball.
• No one is reading my blog about writing (this blog). I can go with that, it’s like a not-so-serious diary, it’s like my special thing. And also I have no followers. I dig that too. Same reason.

That’s it? Seriously? Yes that’s it. And I think, us, indie authors with no sales think of this too much because life is very long, day after day we watch that flatline of no sales. And it hurts, it definitely do, because it’s long, we obsess over this damn thing of not being heard of what out babies (books) have to say.

I have success in writing, yes, but telling it here would make me look like an asshole. They balance my failures in being and indie in someway. But we are about our failures, and how to embrace them by just admitting them and just do some-fuck about it. Yes, “some-fuck” is my word. Mine!

To finish this nonsensical post off, here’s a quote from an inspiring man:

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

-          Henry ford

The Most Dangerous Thing...

Is not love (“love conquers all” don’t fit it) or anything physical because admit it, all physical things end. Nukes shall be detonated sometime, maybe a hundred thousand years from now, but ‘sometime’ is actually definite and just waiting round the corner. Let’s talk about those that couldn’t be grasped by our hands and only our minds.

“The most dangerous thing.” What is it then? Well this is only me and it would vary in every one of us. The most dangerous thing for me is hope. Yep, you read right.  

There are two mainstream media I know that has shown this. One is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series (It was said there that the most powerful thing in the whole universe is hope) and the second is Dark Knight Rises (It was when Bruce is in the “big hole” on the earth, and there’s this rope that one could always climb at but would utterly fail in every try—hope is a torture device in the movie.) Hope simply brings people up even in the times of gloom. It could give life back at the person or it could do the opposite. I’m not saying hope is a bad thing, I’m just saying that just like everything else it has two sides to it. And hope in the first place is inescapable; it would be there when we didn’t achieve what we wanted. It can make us stupid if we latch to it all the time, it would depress us 70% if means haven’t met with ends.

The concept that derives its meaning is really like a drug—face it, we couldn’t live without hope (hoping for a better tomorrow etc etc) and hope in safe amounts would lead to great effects, but if given in high dosage, now that’s the time danger will start. And when the thing one is hoping didn’t come, over and over again, rinse and repeat, then this would enter hopelessness, the chaotic withdrawal from anything pleasant. It would be the time where the darks and the shades would creep in and you just don’t care. The world will be all rain and no shine.

Of course, I think there’s a stratagem to beat this withdrawal of hope, it wouldn’t be and inspirational kind but more of direct and conquer type.

If one is hoping for something, stop. Instead of hoping, one should do and only do. Keep hope as only a guide and then forget about it and just keep accomplishing what you appoint yourself to achieve. Hoping on something could only lead us to procrastination and feeling sorry for ourselves, that is if what we’re hoping didn’t come.

That is what I’ll be doing. As a writer I won’t hope much, I’ll just do. Doing proves more in results, and it wouldn’t betray you because you wouldn’t be found wanting by your own self.         

It's Free!... Again: The Details of What Happened and Won't Happen Again

Let me tell you what happened in detail.

There is a mystery here, and everybody loves a bit of mystery, but me, not that much. This is a tale of why the free promotion (my free promotion) messed up in a quite spectacular manner. This is the mystery of minor glitches that would send you in a major, cataclysmic event. (Yes, I’m over exaggerating, but admit it, there’s wisdom on what I just typed/said.)  

Act 1: months ago I gave my book (the Divine Wheel) to the world for free in a limited time (five days). I was fine with it, because this is a move to be seen ahead. This is basic knowledge, all the unknown artists did this first, so you should know the free promotion is an act of would be well or wouldn’t be well played gamble. I’ll be honest here, and sincerity is my play today. If you’re not a writer or this isn’t that of a big thing but if you’re like me, this is a big thing. I waited for the downloads, there were few but its rising and I even reached the top twenty. This is an ordinary happening in the KDP/Amazon world so it’s not that much bigger of a deal—but the only good thing about it was the exposure.

Act 2: I changed the name to “The Last Disceptarix.” I’m taking a risk here because the few who downloaded it would be confused and the new title had a new unknown word to it. But the Divine Wheel wasn’t really speaking to me as I said in my earlier posts. So I took the risk. I changed things needed to be changed in the book such as the opening page, leading us to a new file upload.  

Act 3: (1) After months, I reached the end of KDP program and in my renewal I was given another option for a five days free promotion, and so what I did was, or more correctly, repeated, was the Act 1. (2)The revelation. I downloaded my ebook and found out that the file, the original file, where the title is still “The Divine Wheel” hasn’t changed at all—it had been never updated. I immediately unpublished it and then I publish and resurrected it through its new form, the right from, the updated form…   

And so what is the moral of the story? For a writer like me, I suggest send yourself a sample form of your book every now and them just to check if it’s been updated in the first place. Now, I’m at all over again, I did a countdown on twitter but in the end it didn’t meet with its end.    

So I’m here, again, now the glitches have been neutralized and the book is free once more. Here’s the new link, enjoy: Trinity Nexus book 1, The Last Disceptarix

Our Lovely Agents and Publishers of Literary Dreams

I was almost taken by Random House, and it was a bright moment for me, but like I said “almost.”

There are things why a self published author chose to be what they are. Mine is many things. One could argue (meaning no one will argue because no one cares, yet) that I was tired on sending out query letters that the literary agents would only reject by the use of very informal email sent by a robot. But I won’t just explain my side here, I’m going to put my empathy helmet and direct it to the literary agents and all who comes after them. First of all what do literary agents do? They find a good book, a well written book, a book with an outstanding voice. Now if the literary agent is based on New York or just flat out famous in the world of publishing, the submission of letters to them per day are always by a digital-ton. Everybody uses email in this generation, it’s easy and direct. Now do agents have the time to read these? Here is where their assistants come in. They would sort out the bad and the good, and they are demanded to do this in a short time.

What if my story did make it the shortlist? What then? Would it be taken by this famous agent? The answer is less likely. Agents (some agents… okay most agents in my opinion) follow the trends; it’s like the recent financial crisis of Europe, the investors went to Asia and now when the market is already stabilizing in Europe that same investors are returning to where they started. Let’s be honest, people love money and only a few do it because they heart told them to do it. Agents are like that, few of them believe in a book entirely, the more experienced agents follow the trends because if you think like them you would know. I bet you that there is a time where they believe in something, in a book and an author; they spent their time finding a good editor, after that they would send the final manuscript to the big publishers, none would accept, but in the end the finished manuscript found its way home to a sincere publisher that would love to print it. And then the publisher gave up gazillions of money in advertising for months, but when the book hit the shelves, only a few bought it and never really reached its value—and what values is that you ask? It’s the worth of it to agent, the editor, the money spent by the publisher, and most of all, the author.

The author would take the entire dump with all of its nasty bits because he wrote a book, a book where he gave his time and sweat and blood and all the bodily fluids he could muster. He will be depressed in years, but he will write, yes he will unless that author is not really a writer, maybe he’s just wearing a mask and thought that when one writes a book, the world would brand him as genius—we don’t know.

Seriously I love the agents, I love to have one, but I also know that they’re humans, they need money to eat and to live and we have to admit that they won’t have one if they just take every poorly-everything book all the time. They are forced to become coldhearted, they are forced to close the blinds when a pauper knocking on their window because this, everything of this doesn’t run in dreams but money where business triumphs above all. I know that every literary agent is a good, kind person and I love to meet them, but not as a writer.      

This, the trends where the money revolves are the reason why there a sudden boom of dystopian books and everything paranormal, and everything has a romance in them. All who is the first is the lucky ones, those who were born earlier where finding a good agent and a publishing house was easy. What I’m saying is the pre-internet era where everything is done by hand. There are fewer writers back then; today we are by millions if not billions. Ninety percent of us will give up and go on with our lives, but the ten percent, well, those are the writers who are willing to wait. They will find time in every pieces of the day to type that goddamn words, to tell a story no one really cares about. I have no idea if they will succeed but I have an idea that they will have fun if only they take their mind away from publication.

The thing is, writers should hone their craft and be isolated and shout SCREW YOU to all their publication dreams. If they have been found fit in all the elements of writing, then they should not take the publication cut-throat industry seriously. One should always keep writing seriously even if only one reader loves the book.   

Universal Shenanigan #1

Hey, it’s me again. Somewhen you will find this, but until that moment, I just have to keep rambling about the other shenanigans/lessons the universe taught me with wrath. What I would talk about now is about being a writer, a novel writer. Let’s start with a story shall we? Well, you can’t actually speak when I’m typing this post so I’ll just fire up.

This is my story of how I became a writer.

You know being a writer isn’t an instant thing. You could take courses but it’s all up to you if you would pursue it. The stretch of my metamorphosis in being a writer is about four years. Before that my mind is in anime, I called my anime back then ‘Immortals’ (I won’t tell its story because it’s cool, and I reckon I’ll use it someday). But then came the difficulties of being a writer for that anime, because I have no connections whatsoever that can help me to go to the anime capital of the world, Japan. And I have a difficulty speaking Japanese. Anyway, so when I’m 16, after finishing my first trilogy series, I found another template for my imaginations.

I immediately wrote the 2-hour-planned-story of mine in blazing speed, but in essence it’s the crapiest crap in the land of Crap Land. I wrote a high fantasy back then with people born with silver ring that reacts to their feelings (It’s just a very fancy emotion ring). I boasted back then to my college classmates: “Hey, look, I wrote three chapters!” but no one wanted to look, just a few but those few had untrained constructive criticism that actually sounds like destructive criticism. I thought: I should give up before this writing thing get worse. But no, I continued with a strong heart that this would shine someday.

Then came the time I finished the book, I was 18. I sent it to an A-list agent from New York, that’s how much my head was big back then. I snail mailed him (because he was old school, but not that old), with my first chapters and a query letter. And guess what, a rejection letter came to me three weeks after, a plain three sentenced letter that the agent’s assistant copied paste and print. I was devastated back then and I quitted writing.

After a year of stressful college life, I took a look at my book, my paragraphs, grammar (especially grammar) and I was mortified I let my classmates read it. They definitely thought of me as stupid because I have no structure in writing. If you actually read my first drafts, you would be confused because the tenses were shifting from past to present. I wanted to piss on it, drench it in gasoline and watch it burn till the sun shines on my face while I’m eating a tasty sandwich. But regretfully I didn’t. It’s still I’m my cabinet, intact with all its shitty glory.    

But I didn’t give up. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t. Now I’m 21, I’m still doing it. I know I’m young but I want wisdom more than anything, because that should every writer pursue so one won’t become biased, egotistic and selfish. Yea, writing thought me that—who knows sitting in front of a blank page can teach you something.

I eventually posted my book in Booksie, and there I learned to treasure criticism. There’s even came a point that I only want destructive criticism because they were honest, but that business is too hurtful, so I’m sticking with plain criticism. I also read more books after I graduated that helped a lot in vocabs and the voice of the narrator. But I cannot say I’m a great writer than before, maybe I get the tenses right and I found my voice now, but that doesn’t mean I can evoke emotions potently by just my simple words. The reader will decide if a writer is a great writer. But know this, every great writer have a shitty work before they got their words right. The only trick to achieve what they achieved is by not giving up. It’s one of the greatest cliché but it’s true, and it’s hard. Because by not giving up you should get ready for the worst of the worst; you should be ready that no one or just a few would support what you want; you should be ready for isolation and thinking deeply into your mind; you should be ready to walk, to listen to the people around you; you should learn how to be silent; you should learn how to take harsh words—you must learn humility and acceptance.

That is a true writer, the one that doesn’t give up even the world haven’t his/her words. No more, no less.