This is not the tsunami you’re looking for.
It never fails. (Sarah here.) I find myself on some forum with traditionally, indie and hybrid authors, and someone brings out two old canards:
1- You’ll never get there by your wits alone. I.e. indie is all very well, if you want to sell a 100 copies of your precious little effort, but to make the big bucks you need traditional publishing.
2- Indie publishing is submerged in the proverbial tsunami of cr*p.
Do I need to tell you that not only neither of these are true, but that they’re almost the opposite.
Yes, you can do very well financially from indie. And I’m not talking the big name cases like Amanda Hocking, or Hugh Howey. No, everyday people who have been publishing indie for five years or so and do well enough to make six figures and are considering quitting their job. This might seem like nothing to you, if you think that every traditionally published author plays poker with Stephen King and has his own swimming pool filled with gold coins, like Uncle Scrooge, but “making a living from writing” has been impossible for most writers for the last forty or fifty years. Ten years ago the average income from writing of the members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America was five thousand dollars a year. And most people in the professional organization made less than that. (And it’s probably worse now.)
What about the tsunami of cr*p, then?
This rings true, especially to many writers, because, well… we’ve most of us had to read for contests, or even have downloaded ebooks that are appalling.
But is there a tsunami?
I can tell you that whatever it was, tsunami or gentle rain storm, it was much worse back when ebooks started. Either I’ve got better at picking books, or the really seriously bad ones have given up and gone home. And I think a lot of them have. The people putting up a book in hopes of being millionaires tomorrow get disappointed and stop writing.
There is another factor too. Almost every hopeless “die trying” case of wanting to write I’ve ever met doesn’t want to go indie. They want validation and “books on the shelves” and to do the morning talk shows and… In fact in the indie versus traditional battles they’re the loudest pro-traditional voices. Hope springs eternal, I guess, and it prevents their ever coming to grips with their shortcomings.
Mind you, there are plenty of awful books out there. I just returned one to Amazon, something I don’t remember doing with a free book, ever.
First, the main character had gender dysfunction issues he didn’t seem aware of. As in, I was in the head of a six foot something male and he was reacting/thinking/viewing people as though he were a small female. This is something that can/does happen when women write first person (or third person close in) males. Yes, it’s worse than men writing females, because then she just comes across “Strong” and “independent” because she’s not afraid to be out at night. But a tall, strong man doesn’t go all feely over “there’s a knot of people ahead. Oh, my, are they aggressive?” unless he’s wounded or otherwise incapacitated.
Second – I thought “maybe the character is a very swishy gay male. Whatever.” BUT it kept pulling me out. I kept seeing a petite female and then being told this was a male.
Third- the knot of people turned out to be a “disturbance”. There’s a man screaming at someone else in a square in Regency England. A guardsman shoots him, and then says “He was just a peasant” and there’s no consequences. France, before the revolution? Sure. England in the Regency? No. Yeah, it could happen in a riot, but if the guard weren’t lynched, he’d be tried. I thought “Oh, boy, someone read too much Marxist theory and knows no real history” but kept reading.
Fourth-The man goes in and has a pointless discussion with the alleged villain in which they explain all the social rules of Regency England and half of them are WRONG or at least the writer has no clue what she’s trying to explain having got the smell but not the taste of the thing.
Fifth- Our hero goes home. There’s a woman (ravishing, natch) waiting in his rooms and she makes sweet sweet love to him. Look, it’s not even the “why would she” it’s the SHE made love to him. I.e. he was utterly passive in a way I’d find hard to believe for most women, and I don’t think the most passive of men can be. The book got deleted.
Yes, yes, it was an indie book.
Now the kicker and the chaser. THE KICKER: it was an indie book republished by the author AFTER rights reverted from…. drumroll … Berkley Prime Crime. THE CHASER: It’s third for historical mystery and VERY high for historical romance.
This brings me to my final point: Look, we’re in unknown territory here. For longer than any of us has been alive, the publishing houses have been publishing not what sold (if they even knew what that was, through their arcane accounting system) but two things: the correct politics and something to impress their colleagues. So we got leftist litrachure.
We also got a whole bunch of things that editors decided was “good” and lost a lot of things they decided was “bad.” When indie started, despite the fact that most golden age sf/f was first-person, the publishers were well on their way to banning first person. Other things have been banned that were part of the story teller’s art forever: omniscient viewpoint, male action heroes, things that have nothing to do with quality but with the echo chamber of NYC publishing.
And what we’re finding with indie is that those often sell. Because we’ve been trained in a certain type of market/storytelling, they often strike us as bad, but the public likes them.
So, if you’re a writer, indie or not? Try things. Your first book probably won’t sell a lot, but keep writing. In indie, there’s a virtue in volume. I hear there’s a huge increase in all numbers after your fourth indie novel. Just get it out there. Write the best you can, and put it up. If this is what you want to do, strive to improve and don’t lose faith.
Go indie, young man, go indie.
Crawling Between Heaven And Earth
By Sarah A Hoyt
Only 99¢ through tomorrow.
A collection of short stories by Prometheus Award Winner Sarah A. Hoyt. The first edition of this collection was published by Dark Regions Press in paper, only. This updated edition contains two bonus short stories: High Stakes and Sweet Alice.
It also contains the stories: Elvis Died for Your Sins; Like Dreams Of Waking; Ariadne’s Skein;Thirst;Dear John;Trafalgar Square;The Green Bay Tree; Another George; Songs;Thy Vain Worlds;Crawling Between Heaven and Earth
Trophies of War
By Christopher Remy
Fighting in over 100 countries.
Economies shattered, empires dissolved.
More than 60 million dead.
The Second World War was the most destructive conflict in human history, but it was more than just a battle of ideologies and nations—it was a war on culture. As they marched across the continent, Hitler and the Nazis looted the art of occupied Europe for the glory of the Thousand Year Reich as well as their own personal collections. Many artworks are still missing today, while others are the subjects of modern treasure hunts as survivors seek to bring their property home.
In Trophies of War, David Lyon discovers a family mystery in his mother’s basement that takes him across a former war zone where the secrets of the 1940s—and those who would do anything to keep them hidden—are still alive today.
Portals of Infinity: Book One: Champion for Hire
By John Van Stry
William is just your typical engineer fresh out of college with a stressful job, a boring life, and not a lot of prospects of anything better in the future.
Until one weekend while hiking in the woods he stumbles across a portal to another time, or perhaps another place. The more he investigates this new world the more he realizes that it may just be able to offer him a lot more than the one he’s been living in.
However, there are forces at work beyond anything that Will has ever come across before and the local Goddess seems to have taken a liking to him. Will may soon find himself getting an offer he cannot afford to refuse.
Genesis (Idolatry Book 1)
By Quent Cordair
In the twilight of the Roman Empire, a sculptor struggles to keep an 800-year dream alive while honoring the love of his life and raising his adoptive son. Part I of the *Idolatry* series, an epic story in five parts.
Marie’s Tale
By Alma T.C. Boykin
Duchess Marie von Starland, wife of the great Aquila von Starland, mother of Princess Miranda Sobieski, tells her side of the story of the war against the Turkowi and the Siege of Vindobona.
The Warrior and the Holy Man
By Kyra Halland
The Path of Haveshi Yellowcrow: When ill fortune strikes Haveshi’s clan, the remedy is devastating for the young wife and mother. Guided by the Yellowcrow, god of the forsaken, she sets out on a path to regain what she lost.
The Path of Latan the Clerk: Latan, a lowly clerk in service to the magical Source Tiati, has discovered a historical document of great importance, and is summoned to present his findings to the high priest of the Empire. Accompanied by the warrior named Haveshi Yellowcrow, he embarks on the journey of a lifetime and finds unexpected danger and self-discovery.
A novella-length duology set in the world of Chosen of Azara.
Stories from Arisa – A Short Story Collection
By Davis Ashura
Arisa: a world of loss and hardship; of legend and wonder; the world of A Warrior’s Path. Return there now with Stories from Arisa, a short story collection featuring four wonderful new fables from that mythic place; each one a polished gem; together, an assemblage spanning the realms of hope, humor, tragedy, loss, and love.
Stories: Received Wisdom, The Prank, A Lesson Learned, The Missing Diamond
Also included are the prologue and chapter 1 of A Warrior’s Knowledge, Volume Two of The Castes and the OutCastes.
Bloody Eden
By T.L. Knighton
Ten years after a nuclear war forced Jason Calvin to fight his way across Georgia and through a brutal warlord, life has settled down a bit in a town called New Eden. As the town sheriff, Jason keeps the peace.
After saving a family from a horrible fate, that peace becomes threatened when a sadistic military man shows up, claiming the family are fugitives from his draconian justice system and they’re coming back whether anyone in New Eden likes it or not…and maybe some of New Eden’s own as well.
Unfortunately for him, Jason isn’t about to just let something like that go.
The Pericles Conspiracy
By Michael Kingswood
99¢ through the weekend.
Josephine Ishikawa’s last shift as Captain of the starliner Pericles changed the course of history, but no one knows about it. The powers that be took charge as soon as she got back to Earth, with only a select few permitted to learn about the beings she encountered during the run from Gliese, or the eggs they entrusted to her care.
Satisfied that the government would make good on her commitment to return the eggs home, Jo returned to her job of getting Pericles through a major maintenance overhaul and then back out to the stars. But when she learns that the authorities reneged and have begun experimenting on the eggs instead, she faces a difficult choice: keep the life and career she loves or embark on a quest to rescue the eggs and keep the promise she made to their dying parents, out in the depths of space. That quest could cost her more than she ever imagined as it plunges her into a shadow war against a planetary government that will stop at nothing to keep its secrets.
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