The Gunman in Black is now self-published on Amazon.com

My short-story collection The Gunman in Black, 5 stories of crime, is now live. It took me two weeks to proofread, edit, copyright, and upload. I'm happy with the result. There are only one or two formatting mistakes and they are minor. Because the two weeks of editing was more work than I had imagined, I was unable to write a new short story a week. So, my goal of writing fifty stories this year might not be do-able, unless I hit a strong writing streak. But, I'll be happy if I can finish forty or so stories. I have some ideas, and now I can get back to writing.

The cover image fonts had to be reset over and over again, because the words on the cover were not readable as a thumbnail. The present cover seems to be the best.

A new cover can be added at any time, but I'm happy with this one for now.

The biggest challenge was in converting the .docx to Web Page, filtered. It's necessary to make this change in order to insert hyperlinks to allow a reader to go from the index directly to the story she wants to read without scrolling through each page to get there. Actually, switching to Web Page was relatively easy. What confounded me was going back in new files to .docx. I spent hours trying to figure that one out. I finally joined Microsoft Community, explained my problem, and within a few minutes someone gave me the answer. I was so relieved, you can't imagine. There is so much help out there if you just look and ask.

If you get a chance to read the stories, I hope you enjoy them. And, please send me a comment via e-mail, or on this blog, or a review on Amazon.com about the stories. I'd like to know what you think.

Writing Short Stories (2)

My plan this year to write about fifty short stories and publish them in a series of collections of about 12-15,000 words each is coming along. I've just finished writing the fifth story for the first collection, which will be about 13,000 words altogether. I now have to revise and polish these stories, design a book cover, and publish them on Amazon. I'd like to get it done within one to two weeks. I also hope to write one or two new stories for the next collection while I'm finishing this first collection. It'll be a challenge. But I'm up for it.

I haven't felt this much excitement or optimism about writing in a very long time. I've basically accomplished my goal thus far. I'm eager to see how it all plays out. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever work on a novel again. This is just so much more pleasant. The requirements for a short story are much different than those for a novel, much looser. I guess the question is, do I have fifty stories in me. A couple of months ago, I wasn't sure I had even one story within me. So putting out five in about five weeks has surprised me, pleasantly. 

Write what I like, or write what readers like?

As a writer, you have to decide if you write what you like and hope readers will like it, too, particularly today's readers, or do you write what you think today's readers like, and hope they  will also like it? Of course, if your mindset is "I like writing horror," or whatever, and many readers love horror, then you have the ideal situation, that is, you and the readers enjoy the same thing. Of course, I'm talking about writing for publication and financial survival. If you don't care about either, then the point is moot.

I've come to the conclusion that the majority of fiction readers today do not care much for nuances, subtle variation, or poetic language. What do they care about? They want extreme emotion: extreme hatred, extreme love, extreme sex, extreme friendship and the extreme straining of that friendship (maybe it's always been that way, now that I think about it [Sophocles, Homer, Shakespeare, Hugo, Camus, and on and on and on]). The more extreme the better. Of course, it has to work as a story and, preferably, a fast-moving story.

Perhaps it's the result of the television and motion picture industries that we've come to the point we're at now. Slow moving, "normal," has become boring. Abnormal has become appealing. We want our characters to be bigger than life, and their struggles titanic (and violent). We want our characters to be beautiful, but flawed, but beautiful just the same. We want our stories to enthrall.

This is a pretty tall order. But it is doable. We writers have to realize the reality of today's literary marketplace and go for it. Otherwise, our chances of being published and reaping financial success are limited at best.

I'm attempting something that is, for me, new. I'm venturing into crime fiction. I've completed three short stories that I will self-publish as part of a collection when I've written enough to complete a decent-sized collection, say a total of twelve- to fifteen-thousand words. Right now, I've written almost eight-thousand words with the three stories I've completed. I've written a story a week for the past three weeks, and am planning a forth one now. I'd like to write a story a week to reach the five or six or thereabouts stories, revise (proofread primarily), and self-publish. Hopefully I can have a Beta reader or two. But I'm really not too concerned about that. I'm following what I perceive as the Jack London plan of action: just write it; don't worry about perfection. Not every story written by every great writer was a masterpiece. As long as the reader likes it, that's what matters.

My very first post revisited.

I just read my very first post, which I wrote over a year ago, in which I muse about living and writing and wonder if we writers are insane. (see it here if you wish, it's quite short) The question of insanity still seems relevant.

At the time of my first post I was still in the traditional publishing mode: write a book, query an agent, receive a zillion rejections, then give up. Or, miraculously get an agent, then get rejected by every publisher in the world. Or, miracle of miracles, get accepted by a reputable publisher, and, after a lifetime of struggling, actually see my book get published. Then, like 80% of all books published, it doesn't even earn back the royalties I was paid. All the while, working on my next project. It does seem a bit crazy to devote thousands of hours to such endeavors. But I was doing it and, to some degree, I still am.

Then I discovered self-publishing ebooks. I thought about it long and hard. Should I do it? What does it mean if I do it? Will I be the scourge of the publishing world? Will I lose all my friends? Will I be looked at as a failure? Is self-publishing a form of suicide? Well, a lot of people were doing it, and some were even making a living at it. Then I wondered what have I got to lose. I mean really, who cares how your book is published, as long as it's out there? Right? I don't know. All I know is that I saw no future whatsoever in the traditional model. So, I self-pubbed a book of short stories, just because. Just because I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to learn the ropes. And learn them I did. And now I've self-pubbed a novel. It seems like the publishing world has turned upside down between the time I published my first book and my second a year later.

I'm now part of a growing fraternity of self-publishers. I no longer feel so insane. In fact, I feel as if I've found sanity in an insane world. Of course, the insane don't know they're insane. That's the beauty of insanity. So, maybe I'm insane and just don't know it, which might be a form of sanity. Anyway, it's been a fantastic year and a marvelous journey. And it ain't over yet.

John Locke and publishing

Today, at the supermarket, I saw one of John Locke's self-published ebooks now in paperback. I looked inside and saw that he owns the copyright, it was published by his own publishing company, and a statement that he'd sold over 1.5 million ebooks. He has set up some kind of marketing and distribution deal with one of the bigger publishers to publish his ebooks as paper books, apparently without giving up his rights.

This shows the kind of evolution the publishing industry is going through. People who self-publish ebooks certainly have a future in paper books as well. And the business models are changing. John Locke's deal is one model, maybe the best. Who knows at this point? But I think it shows that self-publishing ebooks is a viable option for many of us.

Whether to finish what we've started or to start something new.

Last year I wrote a blog about this topic: http://richard-writingandliving.blogspot.com/2010/11/whether-to-finish-what-were-already.html. I discussed the value of polishing and finishing what we've started over going to something new before finishing what we've already started. So, here I sit, a year later, still working on the same novel. Is that patience, or what? And when you consider that I've actually been working on this novel in one form or another for over five years, well, that's a lot of patience.

Once again, I'm chomping at the bit to start something new. I so much want to do so. I so much want to move on to new characters, new ideas, new schemes, etc. But is it wise to do so? Is it better to keep working on this same novel, especially when I'm pretty close to finishing it? Tanya Reimer has read it and given me valuable feedback, which is what I'm now incorporating into the, hopefully, last draft. It is really, only months away from being finished if I can just keep working on it, not give up.

This novel is pretty long, though it'll be shortened a bit, thanks to Tanya's sharp eye. But in the future, I want my novels to be shorter. Say, about 80,000 words max. I want to be able to finish a novel within one year, maybe even six months. I'm sixty-five years old, not getting any younger. Am I running out of time? I hope not, but you never know.

I wrote another post: http://richard-writingandliving.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-it-when-youre-young-vs-making-it.html. I praised the value of making it when you're younger, which is difficult to do as a writer. It's lack of life experience (which is a debatable topic, to say the least, but it's the way I feel). Making it young as a writer is getting published (by the traditional method) maybe in you late twenties or early thirties. But, you can make it any time, really, in your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and, with the aid of collaborative authors (James Patterson, and many other older writers are doing it) you can write until your dying breath. But, the value of making it when you're younger is unsurpassed for a comfortable writing life. But, that's out of the question for me. I'm no longer young. I am "running out of time." That's one of the reasons I've decided to self-publish from this point on. The years it takes to go through literary agents, if you can find one, and then the agent to find a publisher, if she can find one, then for the publisher to actually produce a book...well, I don't want to go that route any longer. Yet, I want my writing to be well done, as well as I can make it. So it's back to patience. Patience is priceless. I can only hope I don't run out of time.

Publish Your Book for Free on Amazon.com (4)

My book Battles and other stories has been available on Kindle and Smashwords for about three months now. I've sold 6 copies altogether. I've done very little promotion. Primarily, I've set up pages on Facebook and mentioned the book on my home page on Facebook once, I think, and I've mentioned it a few times on my blog. Oh, yes, I've mentioned it two or three times on AgentQueryConnect, in which I received some helpful feedback from RC Lewis, who downloaded the book to her devices and gave me tips. That's about it. I'm very happy with the results in the sense that I got my book out there, and I've learned quite a bit in preparation for self-publishing my novel later this year. I have a clear understanding of my weaknesses in self-publishing, although I don't have a clear understanding of how to fix the problems. I have much to learn. But I feel that it's do-able. I've had some good feedback on the stories themselves, primarily from Tanya Reimer. I was a guest recently on her blog, in which she interviewed me and said very nice things about the book. I feel that I'm now a published writer, though I'm not kidding myself that I've achieved anything great or spectacular. In fact, I've accomplished very little. I'm virtually an unknown, and that's as it should be at this point. I've now got to up my game, so to speak. When I publish the novel, I want to be much farther along in the self-publishing process.

Publish your book for free on Amazon.com (3)

My book of short stories is now available on Amazon.com as an ebook. It's titled Battles and other stories. The author's name is listed as Richard Hughes. This is not what I meant it to be. I wanted it to be R Patrick Hughes, so I obviously did something wrong. I'll leave it the way it is for now. I priced it at $2.99. I'm now trying to figure out how to link it to my blog. And there is much more to learn. I may eventually make it a POD book as well. But it's kind of short, at about eighty-five pages. I plan on adding to it as time goes on. If any of you read the book, please give me your feed-back, even if you don't like it. That's one of the ways for me to learn and improve.

Publish Your Book for Free on Amazon.com (2)

Well, I finally decided to do it. I've published a collection of short stories "Battles and other stories" on Amazon.com. I'm using the pen name R Patrick Hughes. It should be available by tomorrow. I thought about those stories that were just sitting in a drawer gathering dust, stories that will probably never be published in magazines or in any other way. They've all been read by my writing group, and I feel they'll never undergo any more revisions. They're history. So why not publish them?

Deciding to publish them was the first decision. The second decision was how much to charge. I could give them away for free, but I see no reason to do that at this time. Maybe in the future. I thought about charging 99 cents, but that seems cheap to me, as if I don't value my own work. I decided on $2.99, which may be too high, but I feel that my hard work is worth something.

I don't plan on making a lot of money on the book. For the most part, short story collections don't sell. I'm an unknown. And I've got to figure out how to make it known to the world that the book is available.

I feel good about it, but I'm realistic. Self-publishing is not the same as publishing through the writer-agent-publisher matrix. I'll continue to try the traditional method for my novels. But, if I feel that the traditional method is not going to work, I'll self-publish my novels as well.

For me, self-publishing my short stories is a learning experience, one I'm sharing on my blog. The first lesson learned was the mechanics of publishing it. The next learning experience is how to advertise it. I think for me, that will be more of a challenge than the first lesson.

Publish your book for free on Amazon.com (1)

I've recently learned that you can publish your book for free on Amazon.com. It can only be sold on their site to Kindle users, or through their Kindle softwear. You set the price and earn 75% royalty. (There are several other similar sites.) You set a low price, say $2.99 (to get the 75% royalty). You can even give it away.

Of course, there's a limited audience, but it's a place to begin testing your book's appeal. I'm considering it as an option for some of my books. I won't jump into it for the same reasons I'm not jumping into POD. I want my books to be as excellent as I can make them. But it seems worth a try. And you can't beat the cost. If I decide to do so, I'll report on it here. For right now, I'm staying the agent-to-publisher course.

Update:
I've decided to publish a book of short stories on Amazon.com. I'll probably put a price on it of $2.99. I don't expect to make a lot of money selling it; I'm doing it more for the experience and to put something out there that will probably never be published through the traditional method, at least, not any time soon. I can learn the ins and outs of epublishing.

Literary Agents

Don't you love getting rejections from literary agents? I've come to see them (the rejections) as a forgone conclusion. Agents are inundated with queries. I can imagine how difficult it is to read them and decide whether there's a best seller lurking between the lines, especially when they know that strong query letters are in some ways harder to write than novels. I feel sorry a bit for agents. They might be the most powerful brokers in the literary world, yet they are just guessing. I suppose, taking on an unpublished writer is like walking out on a limb; perhaps their reputations are at stake. They don't want to make a mistake.

Perhaps my query letters should begin "I know you don't want to read this letter, and you don't want to look at my manuscript. Please forgive me for wasting your time. Just stamp on it in big red letters REJECTED  and send it back." Or, maybe, I shouldn't send query letters at all.

I wonder how many outstanding novels were rejected because of poor query letters. How many times have agents taken a look at a manuscript because of a great query letter but the novel turned out to be poorly writen? I have struggled to write good query letters, but none has ever landed me a further look. I am not angry or bitter or even disgusted, just baffled about how to make the letters better. I've read many articles on how to write a query letter that will grab an agent's attention. I've yet to get it right. Or, maybe, my story line just isn't interesting enough. I can't make my historical novel sound like a mystery or adventure or vampire/romance. My books are what they are. I keep trying to make them sound great in a few sentences. Someday, I'll get it right. And, if my novel is not professionally written, it'll get rejected still. Some people do get it right, both ways--query and manuscript--and that gives me hope.

Self-publishing

I'm tempted to self-publish my novels. However, I know the chances of them being widely read are minimal at best. If they're not good enough to get published through the agent-editor method, then they probably aren't ready for publication for any number of reasons. They just might not even be interesting. (I've entered some of my novels in contests, and the reviewers said their opening chapters weren't interesting enough to make them want to read on.) They might have structural problems. My grammar and spelling are mostly correct. But it does seem that, as my writing groups read my novels, they almost always find little things that can be improved. They find redundancies, mixing up of characters' names, inaccuracies of historical facts, some grammar/spelling issues, metaphors that don't work, images that really don't convey what I'm trying to convey. The list goes on. If I self-publish, I'm putting it all out there for my embarrassment. Perfection is impossible, but excellence isn't, and excellence (a difficult quality to define, it's different things to different people ) should be one of the aims of a writer. I'm sure there have been less than excellently written books that have been published through traditional methods and even hit the best-seller list. To a certain extent, it's a matter of pride in your work. I don't want to be ridiculed even as I laugh all the way to the bank.

But self-publishing is tempting. A book is a physical object we can show our family and friends, perhaps even ourselves, that we've done something, that, at least, we tried. (This is not meant to imply that all self-published books are poorly written, or even that the majority of them are. It just means that you can put a poorly written book out there if you want to. It's your money. The writter and editor, if there is one, of a self-published book, should have the same commitment to excellence as those of traditionally published books.) For now, I'm passing on self-publishing. I view it as a last option. But I'm always open to change.