A Look Back on 2017 / A Look Forward to 2018

Hard to believe it's been two years (and six books) since I started publishing. Thought I'd take a moment to look back on the journey, some of the highlights and what's in store for the future.

Eyes Wide Open

I had no idea what this publishing path would be like - I went in blind with nothing more than an interest in telling a story. It turned out to be way harder than I could have imagined. You'd think writing a book wouldn't be that difficult, but it is. It's not so much the book that readers see that's hard to produce, it's the ideas and writing that get left on the cutting room floor.

But beyond the actual stories, learning Photoshop to do my own covers, understanding how to market my books, learning how to create print versions, and a dozen other things really opened my eyes to how much effort is required to get a book to market.

Along the way I’ve had my moments where I questioned my sanity to put myself through the process. But I’ve also had moments of genuine satisfaction with what I’ve produced. And in the world of publishing, where readers will let you know when they don’t like something, moments of satisfaction are what success looks like, I think.

Big Events in 2017

This past year had a number of milestone:

1) Released Into The Strange and A Manufactured Mind

After The Fall of Man trilogy and Obey I was getting good enough feedback from readers that I pushed on with my publishing endeavors. These two books (ITS and AMM) were both my longest in terms of pages/word count and most challenging in terms of number of characters. While they haven’t had much uptake in the market, they pushed me as a writer and I think prepared me to take on future books with increasingly complex plots.

I probably should be writing books in the 250-page range. It seems to be what most authors are doing. The old saying “publish or perish” seems to rule self-publishing these days and obviously it’s easier and faster to publish shorter stories. But I just can’t bring myself to strip down my stories simply to facilitate a faster release schedule. It's not fair to the story or to the reader. 

2) Went Wide

In January I left Kindle Unlimited (KU) and went wide. My books moved from just being available on Amazon to being on iTunes, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. It was a risky move, but I’m really happy I did it. Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, while great for readers (I’m assuming), is brutal on the authors. It’s a five-hour conversation, but suffice to say most authors are making well under $2 a book in KU and spending more than that in marketing to get any visibility.

Ultimately, my only goal as an author is to be available to readers, so going wide made sense. And it’s been great to pick up readers from all over the world. The UK folks really seem to get what I was doing with The Fall of Man, and some of their feedback has been great to hear. Also, the Kobo readers have been really kind to me. Crazy that Days of Judgment has more ratings on Kobo than Amazon (well, only one more, but that’s still more). Given Amazon is easily ten-fold larger than Kobo, it says a lot about Kobo readers (or the Kobo store) that they support authors with reviews and ratings. Personally I think Amazon has to do something about it's rating system, it's generally a mess (not just for books, but in terms of the trust-worthiness of ratings across the whole store; but that's another conversation). 

I don’t see myself ever returning to Kindle Unlimited unless Amazon were to make the program non-exclusive. I think a lot of KU subscribers would be shocked if they knew the numbers behind what authors get paid in the program. But a lot of authors stay in KU anyway because there are a lot of voracious readers in there.

Regardless, if I hadn’t gone wide I’m not sure point #3 would have happened…

3) Got my first Bookbub

In terms of promotion, Bookbub is the holy grail for self-publishers. A promotion with them will reach a lot of people. I was lucky to get an international Bookbub in July and a US Bookbub in August.

The result was thousands of readers took a chance and read Days of Judgment. And from those readers some really nice folks contacted me letting me know their thoughts. Fan feedback always makes my day (even though I often take a while to reply).

In mid-2017 I was really on the verge of stepping back from publishing. The Herculean task of getting people to even know your book exists can be very demoralizing. In addition, the process of writing four books by that time had taken a toll on me. I won’t say burnout, but something close to it.

I don’t know what decision I would have ultimately made, but right around that time I got a Bookbub and it really put some wind under my sails. The struggle is still there, but some real progress has been made, enough to justify a few more books at least.

4) Came close to making a living

In my first year of publishing I used to joke that in any given month I’d made enough for a quarter tank of gas. But in the last half of 2017 I actually had a couple months where I could cover my monthly bills.  Year-over-year I saw my annual revenues from publishing jump 10-fold. I mean, they are still well below the poverty line in most developed countries, but regardless, it’s nice to see the increase.

I sometimes think I’m nuts to have gone from making six figures a year to four figures voluntarily. I mean, who does that right? But for those of you who are writers you know who does it. And for anyone who has read my books, it isn't hard to guess how I feel about "Corporate Earth" at this point. 

5) Burnout

One of the big things I learned in 2017 is you can’t fight burnout. And burnout is a tricky thing for a writer. Honestly, you never “really” get burned out, or at least I don’t. What does happen though is writing becomes a chore. The ideas aren’t as on point as they should be, it gets harder to find the words you really want to use, and it takes longer to get in the zone and have a productive writing session.

I’d say after The Fall of Man trilogy I was close to burnout. Luckily, I’ve worked in that state many times in my life, so I handle it well. But with Obey, A Manufactured Mind, and Into The Strange… there are facets of each of those books that I know, and knew, could be better but just didn’t have the gas in the tank to deliver at that level. Which doesn’t mean they are bad books. Some have told me they think Into The Strange is my best work. Others have said Obey is their favorite. It’s not really so much what the reader sees, but rather, what I know my capacity is and whether I’ve performed at my best.

The thing with self-publishing is that the market is a bloody mess right now. The insanity going on out there leaves your head spinning. There are authors writing a book a month in attempts to curry favor with Amazon’s algorithms to generate visibility and thereby generate sales and readers. Call me crazy, but I think it’s nuts trying to produce a book a month.

I think that was a big part of my burnout, was understanding how this industry worked. There’s so much convoluted aspects to it that until you figure them out it just drains you trying to understand how things work and what you should be doing. I lost a lot of time over the past year figuring things out.

The good news, though, is that I’m now at a place where I’m mentally rested, I know what I want to do, and I know what to ignore in terms of the silliness going on in the industry. In short, I’ve found my center in all this and now feel grounded and ready to move forward.

6) Reader Feedback

Probably the best thing about having more readers has been the reader feedback. It really is a kick when someone emails me to let me know they enjoyed one of my books. I often don’t reply for a bit because there are only so many hours in the day, but I do see them.

So probably my highlight of 2017 – above the sales, the bookbub, the new books – has been the nice emails readers have sent. It’s nice to know that the books I’ve produced have added positively to some people’s lives.

What does 2018 Hold

So I just got through a big move that chewed up a ton of my time toward the end of 2017. Lost a good two months and things have only now started to settle down. I’ve started writing the sequel to Obey. I know some readers found the ending to Obey pretty brutal, but trust me, stick with me on this series. I really think you’re going to like where it goes. And you guys hopefully know that I don’t lie. If I’m iffy about a storyline, I’ll say so. But I think where the Obey story goes is really interesting.

My hope this year is to turn Obey into a trilogy and wrap that up by middle of the year (if not earlier). After that I’m hoping to either expand on Into The Strange or A Manufactured Mind or alternatively start something new before getting back to those storylines.

At some point I can see myself branching outside of the scifi genre for a book or two and see how that goes. I tend to write in scifi because it’s really the only category that let’s me blend metaphysics within the realm of possibility. I don’t ever see myself writing fantasy, though, it’s just too far-fetched for my style of storytelling. Anyway, I haven’t thought it through yet so I’ll stop rambling on this item.

Some of the other things I want to make progress on this year:

 Beta Readers. A number of you have offered to beta read my future books. I haven’t worked this into my publishing process to date because it takes so long to get a book to market as it is. But, moving forward, how can I say no? It’s fantastic to have people that are so kind as to offer to beta read and help pick up on any errors that sneak through. This hopefully will lead to a better product (ie. reading experience) for everyone else. So I’m definitely going to be doing this.

 Update folks more regularly. I’ve been horrible at updates whether on this blog or on Facebook or Twitter (I don’t think I’ve used Twitter in months now). I can’t promise an avalanche of activity or anything. But I’ll try to let folks know what’s going on with new books in the works and whatever is going through my head (if anyone cares about that [insert chuckle]).

More promotions. I’ve basically done no promotion now for two months and its showing. Sales are down. But in the new year I’ll get back on that horse. There’s a real risk that without promotion and a quick release schedule that readers simply forget about you. But I can only control what I can control… I’m not going to put out crap just to stay top of mind.

I have to say, it's quite obvious (to me) that many readers are suggesting my work to their friends. I can't even begin to say how appreciative I am of that. Word of mouth is ultimately the best way of reaching new readers. Without it, I honestly don't think any author can really succeed without massive amounts of money spent on  marketing. 

Finally, thanks to all of you!

I know everyone out there has their own life struggles and things they are working on and I hope 2018 brings you what you want and/or need on that front (or at least the strength to get through it all). The world’s getting a bit screwy lately (although “lately” is an understatement), so hopefully folks hold tight if things get even screwier (which I suspect they will). We got a lot of bozos running the world right now, but the good thing is that most people agree they are bozos… the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging there is a problem, and I think more people than ever are doing just that.

So finally, thanks for your support and your kind words over the past year. Honestly, they are one of the primary reasons I’ll still be writing through 2018.  I don't think anyone can really do this without support, whether it be from fellow authors or readers... it's just too difficult a journey without that encouragement. If not for you guys this plane would have been grounded earlier this year.

Well, enough clickity-clacking on this blog, time to get back to writing. Emma Decker (for those of you who have read Obey) is really asking for trouble now... this guy simply cannot change.