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What it actually takes to write a book, finish it, and put it out into the world. Practical, honest, and based on real experience.

Second Citizen First Draft

I recently completed the first draft of my contemporary fiction novel, Second Citizen. This is a story I’ve been wanting to write for several years. It is a departure from my normal fantasy genre and was an interesting experience for a few reasons.

Because this book takes place in modern times and is based on real places (all in Oregon, my home state), I was able to use existing place names and locales. In fantasy, you have to create your world before you can populate it. That can be a challenge, especially when it comes to naming people and places. Although the characters in Second Citizen are fictitious, their names are common so I had a wealth of existing source material to choose from.

The downside to writing contemporary fiction is that I can’t violate the laws of physics or reality. In fantasy, I can have my characters do anything I want, as long as they do so within the laws of plausibility. It doesn’t have to be real but it has to make sense. In Second Citizen, however, my characters must engage in realistic activities.

Although I don’t want to spoil anything, one aspect of my book that sets it apart is I include various news reports scattered throughout the story. All reference real news agencies. Although the events in those news stories are fictitious, they closely follow real or realistic events that are happening every day. Since they involve gun violence, it was emotional at times to write — one news story I wrote had a real-life event very similar to it occur just days afterward. Life imitated fiction.

For now, I am going to ignore my manuscript for a month or so before I read it cover to cover. I want to get a relatively fresh perspective on it and then judge what needs work or revision. I’m not in a hurry to get this story published, nor do I have an editor lined up, so it may be a while before this book sees the store shelves — if at all.

Stay tuned.

The Lottery Winner, the Ghost Rider, and the Author

The Lottery Winner

Did I win the lottery? I can name a few people that would be very keen to know if I did. I used to play but recently stopped. Would you stop buying Powerball tickets after you won? I would. Stop, that is.

I would stop for other reasons, too. Being a curious person, I wanted to find out how many drawings it would realistically take before the jackpot was in hand. They tell you the odds but that’s not very meaningful to me, or to most people.

Tell someone there are a trillion stars in the sky and they’ll believe you, but tell them the paint is wet and they’ll still touch it to make sure.

Being a software developer (programmer) by trade, I decided to write a simulation program to find out how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop Jackpot.

I looked up the rules for payouts on the Powerball lottery game and wrote a web-based program in PHP to simulate drawings. The simulation is simple. You specify how many drawings you want to simulate, it assumes you spend $2 per ticket, and it conducts random drawings, tallying the number (and dollar amount) of wins along the way.

My simulation presents not only how many times you’ve won, but also how much money you won minus how much money you’ve spent.

What did I find out? After running a few hundred million simulated drawings, you will have a winning ticket roughly 0.04% of the time, your winnings will be roughly 12% of what you spent (that’s an 88% loss), and your average win per ticket will likely be around $6.08.

Try my simulator here to see for yourself.

They say the lottery is a tax on those who are bad at math. They’re right.

The Ghost Rider

On January 10th, 2020, it was announced that Neil Peart passed away a few days before (Jan 7) of brain cancer. This crushed me more than I expected.

I have always looked up to Neil more for his qualities as a person than for his amazing ability as a drummer (for the band Rush, for those who have no idea who he is). He was an author and a long-distance motorcycle rider as well as a drummer.

It was my dream to run into Neil in some small diner in a tiny rural town while on a motorcycle trip. Based on his writings, I can confirm that he and I have ridden many of the same roads and even stayed in some of the same motels. We just never did it at the same time.

Neil was famous for being shy in the spotlight. He was more than happy to talk to strangers when he was out and about “just being a guy,” however. I had thought that if I ever did run into him, after chatting about our bikes or destinations or the weather, I’d sign my autograph on a paper napkin and hand it to him with a wink, then say, “I’m glad you got to meet me.” I don’t know if he’d find the humor in it, but considering the fact that he was a genius (estimated IQ 155+), he’d probably get the joke.

Neil, you will be missed for decades.

Oh, and by the way, his last name is pronounced ‘peert’, not ‘pert’.

The Author

This is a quick update on my current project, a contemporary fiction novel titled Second Citizen. I’ve been working on primary composition for several weeks now and I’m currently on chapter 10, roughly 37,000 words. I’m ahead of my usual schedule, as I typically don’t start writing until the first week of January.

I still haven’t found an editor, but I haven’t been looking, either. I’ll worry about that when the manuscript is finished.

Meanwhile, I’m very happy with how the story is coming along. I outline quite thoroughly before primary composition, so I always have a clear idea of where the plot is going to go and what will happen.

Considering this is my first contemporary fiction piece (I have previously only written fantasy), it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Advertising on Amazon

As I’ve written about many times before, I’m a lot better at writing books than I am at selling them. Those are entirely different disciplines, and it’s just not in my nature to sell.

Recently I decided to experiment with advertising my books on Amazon. It uses a cost-per-click model similar to what Google and Bing use. It’s a pay-as-you-go model.

You set up an ad and define a budget you’re willing to spend per day. Amazon displays your ad based on the various keywords you define and also bid amounts you specify. For any given page view, Amazon decides appropriateness based on your keywords. If you meet those criteria, it conducts a sort of auction between you and other advertisers. The amount each advertiser bids for their keywords determines the chances their ad will be seen. Bid more and your ad gets displayed more often.

The trick seems to be finding the optimal combination of keywords so that when your ad is displayed, it has the highest chance of getting the visitor to click on it. Once they click on it, the chance of them making a purchase is decided by several other factors that are downstream from the Amazon advertising engine.

My intention was to advertise the first book in The Taesian Chronicles, Ohlen’s Arrow. My theory was that those who buy the book would want to read the next book in the series (Ohlen’s Bane), and so on. Those books are not advertised, and subsequent sales would be considered organic.

Although I am still experimenting and learning how to optimize my Amazon advertising results, I have been very pleased to see organic purchases occurring. I can track when people buy Ohlen’s Arrow, and then see purchases of Ohlen’s Bane 4-7 days afterward. Then, about 4-7 days after that, I see a correlated increase in purchases of book three, Paragon’s Call.

I am paying for people to click on my Ohlen’s Arrow ads, but once they have purchased additional books on their own, that effectively lowers my per-purchase costs of Ohlen’s Arrow.

So far I’m paying more for advertising than I am earning through sales, but the cost-of-acquisition is dropping and my revenues are increasing. I hope that soon two things will happen: I will find the optimum combination of keywords and bid amounts for my ads, and organic sales will increase to bring down my overall advertising costs below my revenues.

One of the things I’ve heard consistently from readers is that my books are hard to put down once they start reading them. Getting them to start is the hard part for someone like me who doesn’t have a selling bone in their body.

Writing a book is easy. Selling a book is hard.

Writing is easy. Selling is hard. — Writing a book is easy. Selling a book is hard.

I’ve met people that could sell sand to someone dying of thirst. They thrive on the engagement and hunt of getting other people to buy what they’re selling. I’m not like that. The idea of selling raises my anxiety and discomfort level and it is something I unconsciously and consciously avoid.

On the other hand, one of the most common reactions I hear from people who found out I’ve written a novel (four novels, actually, with a fifth in the works) is, “Wow, that’s amazing. I could never do that.”

There are a lot of things more difficult than writing a book — getting a college degree, moving across country to live in a new state, getting married, getting divorced, coming out of the closet, etc. Although difficult, these things seldom get the same reaction. “I could never do that.”

Writing books is easy. Selling books is hard. I repeatedly struggle with the “Author as Brand” role I must play as a self-published author. The constant presence on social media, blogging, self-promotion through speaking engagements, pursuit of book signings, etc. is an ongoing and tiring activity. It drains me and feels Sisyphean in scale and scope.

Many also are under the impression that if you get a traditional publishing deal, the publishing company does all the marketing for you. All you have to do is cash your advance and royalty checks and show up to book signings and guest appearances on The Today Show. The sad truth is, even traditionally published authors have to maintain their own author brand and handle the bulk of their marketing effort.

If you are one of those rare few who feel like you have the motivation and energy to write a book, be warned that writing a book is easy compared to selling a book.

My advice is to partner with someone who likes to sell, someone who lives to market. Someone who does it in their spare time simply because it’s fun. Link up with someone who can sell snow to a Minnesotan and has done so repeatedly in the past. Find someone who believes in your vision and talent and writing prowess and becomes your champion.

There are probably more 7’+ centers in the NBA than there are people who are equally and adequately skilled at writing and marketing. They are entirely different disciplines and it’s best to find out which you’re good at and focus on that, delegating the other to someone else.

Writing a book is easy. Selling a book is hard.

A Book About Guns?

Writing

If you read my previous blog post, you’ll know that I was planning to begin work on my fifth Taesia novel. I won’t go into detail about why, but I have decided instead to work on a different book project I’ve been thinking about for several years but have been putting off.

I intend to return to the world of Taesia after this project is completed.

This new book will be called Second Citizen and it is a work of contemporary fiction, taking place in the real world. The story focuses on a young television reporter dispatched from the big city to investigate a shooting in a small rural town in ranch country.

This is a story of culture clashes and the different, highly polarized views about gun ownership in America. Underneath it all, however, it is a story about the common values we all share as human beings.

I have been burning to write this story for quite a while now and the compulsion to complete it has become great enough that my next Taesia story can take a temporary back seat until Second Citizen is completed.

This is a genre departure for me, but I’m far from famous enough for it to be a problem. Could you imagine if Stephen King wrote a romance novel? Scandal! He’d have to write it three pen-names deep. I’m not burdened by that kind of career inertia, thankfully.

Second Citizen is a story that needs to be told, and I am compelled to tell it.

I hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned.

And So It Begins… Part 5

I have begun work on my fifth novel.

That is a phrase I never anticipated uttering until recently. I’ve always wanted to be an author, even when I was a kid. But it had been a sort of lofty dream without real expectations, kind of like hoping to win the lottery or being able to fly like Superman.

That dream came true, though. And it wasn’t that difficult, either. How?

“Putting a man on the moon wasn’t a miracle, we just decided to go.”
Tom Hanks

Me writing a novel — or five — wasn’t a miracle, either. I just decided to do it.

This fifth book continues my Taesia series. As a reminder, my vision is to write nine books, all connected, in the form of three trilogies. The first trilogy, The Taesian Chronicles, is completed. This new book will be the second book in the second trilogy (“The Pillars of Taesia”).

Confused?

Don’t. Just read the books in order and you’ll be fine.

My goal is to get this book completed and available for sale by summer of 2020. Stay tuned.

Imposter Syndrome and the Drive to be Epic

I’m not sure if it’s a ‘thing’, along the lines of Imposter Syndrome and its ilk, but the drive to do something epic, and to be epic, can get in the way of doing anything at all.

They say the hardest part of a journey is taking the first step. For the most part I don’t have that problem; I can start a book easily enough. Where my challenge comes is when finalizing the plot.

I follow a methodical and phased approach to writing novels. I begin with brainstorming, typically with a pint of beer in my hand (“Beer for creativity, coffee for productivity”). I jot down notes in a composition book in a sort of controlled stream of consciousness. If an idea pops into my head, I write it down after a brief second of “Will this work?” review.

As these ideas flow, they start to form a theme or continuum. They also form into groups. I modify them slightly. I’ll write down an idea, then add, “What if the character did X instead of Y?” Yes, I’ll actually write down those kind of questions.

Like I said, it’s a controlled stream of consciousness.

The brainstorming part is easy, and one of the most enjoyable phases of my writing projects.

My challenge comes when I go back and review my brainstorming notes and start to refine that into a plot event list. This is when I start to second-guess myself and doubt creeps in.

Is it epic enough?

I want my stories to ‘wow’ my readers, not just give them a way to kill time. I also want to write stories that I would want to read. They all do that, I make sure of it. The problem I face is that once I’ve figured out the plot, I know how the story ends. It has lost its sense of surprise and wonder, and as soon as that happens, the story can lose its appeal.

At least to me, anyway.

A part of my emotional hardwiring is to never be satisfied with my creations. There is always room for improvement and refinement. This is something I’ve learned about myself as Director of Product Development at eRep.com, a provider of the Core Values Index psychometric assessment. My CVI profile is Innovator/Banker, and Innovators are notorious refiners. One of our biggest flaws is to keep working on something until it’s perfect, which it never is.

Good enough today is better than perfect tomorrow. And perfection is never achieved. There are people who aren’t impressed by J.R.R. Tolkien or Led Zeppelin or Steven Spielberg. And I’m none of those, but apparently I’d like to be based on what I’m describing here.

I am proud of the books I’ve written. Each is more solid and enjoyable than the last. Perhaps I should do my best and stop worrying about being epic. That is a subjective measure and is purely in the eye of the beholder (or eyes, if you’re a D&D fan).

Estate Planning as a Self-published Author

Writing

I updated my Will a while back and as I was deciding what to do with my assets, I realized that I had no idea how to handle the passing down of my growing library of novels.

This raised many questions. Who should get the rights to my written works? How do I transfer those rights? Can I separate them, or do my entire works have to go to one person?

Back when Peter Jackson released The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I recall reading articles about the hoops his production team went through to get permission and the blessing of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate/family to turn the beloved fantasy novels into a major motion picture. At the time, I wondered how the rights to the novels got transferred to Tolkien’s family, and how it was split among them.

Now that I’m an author, I wonder the same thing about my own, much smaller and far more humble works.

There is the issue of who would own the copyright and how would it be transferred upon my death. There is also the issue of who gets the royalties, and can the royalties go to someone other than the new copyright holder?

With my limited experience in small business, I’m aware that one of the reasons people incorporate their companies is to make it easier to transfer ownership. Can books be treated the same way? Is it feasible or advisable for an author to create their own incorporated publishing company with themselves as the sole or majority shareholder, and transfer all the copyrights and royalties to that corporation?

Instead of the individual author owning the books, their corporation would own them and the author would own the corporation (own its shares). Then, the author would set up their Will in a way that transfers their shares to their heirs however they see fit. Transferring shares upon death is a common practice, so it’s a wheel that’s already been invented.

But setting up a corporation and all the hassle of getting it started and the regulatory requirements and tax implications seems like a lot of work and expense. Is there an easier way?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Can watching Game of Thrones influence your writing?

I’m a little late to the game, but I’m just about to finish watching season 8 of Game of Thrones. After I finished watching episode 4, I wondered if the consumption of a popular fantasy franchise like Game of Thrones would influence my own writing?

Soon I will begin the brainstorming phase of my fifth novel in my Taesian Chronicles series. I typically spend a month, maybe two, writing down creative ideas for plot and characters, then I spend another month refining that into a plot event list (outline). Primary composition usually starts about 4-5 months after the initial ideas start percolating in my brain.

Once I begin writing, I avoid watching TV shows or movies in the fantasy genre, and I read only non-fiction until the book is completed. This is to ensure my creativity is not tainted or unduly influenced by the creative work of others.

Imagine trying to think of one song while listening to another.

Obviously, my creative ideas are influenced in a general sense by the TV, books, and movies I’ve consumed in my life. This is unavoidable. Sometimes I add elements to my stories that are deliberate homages to beloved books or characters from my past. Other times, I knowingly take inspiration from other author’s or filmmaker’s works. My first book, Ohlen’s Arrow, has a particular pace that I felt inspired to honor from Gayle Rivers’ The Five Fingers.

If you are a writer, have you found yourself being influenced by popular media like Game of Thrones? What do you do to fight off unwanted influence by the creativity of others? Or do you knowingly embrace — and perhaps extend — it?

New book: A Riddle of Scars

I am very happy to announce the availability of my fourth novel, A Riddle of Scars. It is sold exclusively through Amazon in paperback, and coming soon, Kindle format. This is book one of a new trilogy, The Pillars of Taesia. I hope to write books two and three in the next two years, respectively.

Work began on this story almost three years ago, but I didn’t actually start writing it until January of this year (2019). Prior to composition, I came up with the story idea over a period of about a month, jotting notes into my paper notebook as I went. After another few months went by, I play-tested several key elements of the plot with my D&D group.

This is the first book I’ve written where I tested out the plot through role-playing. Some things worked better for the RPG format, while others work better in prose form. I synthesized that experience and adjusted the book’s plot accordingly.

It took me about a month to generate my plot event list. This is my version of outlining my plot. I write a single sentence or two to describe each scene and then arrange them in the order they will appear in the book. This gives me a chance to eliminate plot holes and make sure foreshadowing occurs where needed. I also spend some time profiling my characters. I make detailed notes about their physical and emotional characteristics as well as their emotional development, trials, and troubles that will occur throughout the book.

For this project I worked with my editor, Alison, and cover designer Steven Novak. These two brilliant folks have been with me since Ohlen’s Bane, my second novel. Novak actually helped me revamp the cover to my first book, Ohlen’s Arrow, so technically speaking he’s been with me almost since the beginning of my writing career.

Alison played a key role on this project, not only by providing proofreading and editing services par excellence, but also by helping me flesh out the characters and giving them even more life than I had hoped. When I was close to beginning work on the project, I decided that if she wasn’t on board, I wouldn’t write the book at all.

A Riddle of Scars is available here .

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Announcing The Quiet Hand

How to Write a Fantasy Novel (Efficiently)

I wrote a book. Now what?

Writing

Second Citizen First Draft

The Lottery Winner, the Ghost Rider, and the Author

The Lottery Winner

The Ghost Rider

The Author

Advertising on Amazon

Writing a book is easy. Selling a book is hard.

A Book About Guns?

And So It Begins… Part 5

Imposter Syndrome and the Drive to be Epic

Estate Planning as a Self-published Author

Can watching Game of Thrones influence your writing?

New book: A Riddle of Scars