Behind the Curtains of An Indie Author

If you came here from Reddit or any of my writer forums, welcome to the show.

If you came here from Facebook, welcome back.


In the interest of anyone thinking of self-publishing or already are a self-published writer I have decided to write about a subject all of us dread to think about but must be acknowledged.

Sales.

On the forums I lurk and participate in, it feels like talk about Sales goes one of two ways; either someone is humble-bragging about what they've done or, and this is far more common, someone is panicking about not having enough sales.

Now, to be honest, the self-published books I've read tend to be either a) pretty bad or b) close to pretty good.

For me, most are too 'wordy'. If I had to take a guess, I'd say many of these fellow Indie writers are in their twenties, as I was as well at one time. That's okay. But I'm a talk and plot guy, not a preach and describe the scenery guy.

Back in my twenties, we didn't have the ability to push out whatever we chose without having to go through the hoops or getting a professional opinion. If you wanted to be published, you had to rely on someone else's opinion, a gatekeeper so to speak. You had to submit it and wait weeks, months for a letter.

I once received a form rejection letter from a publisher that I had no recollection of contacting, much less whatever it was I submitted.

It felt like a preemptive rejection and quite rude, to be honest...

For those who may fall into the b) category listed above, I usually want to say 'hey, let me help you trim this a little'. But then it is probably too late and perhaps a little rude. After all, they have already published and moved on to checking their sales stats, Kindle listing, book 3 of their fantasy epic trilogy, etc, wondering when the gold will start rolling in.

So with that said, I'm peeling back the curtain on my book sales to explain why you don't see a Tesla in my driveway. Maybe it will help some of you indie authors feel better about yourself or at least not as alone and worthless, as I sometimes feel.

Click that little 'read more' link below to continue.

My Personal Curse of Pestilence

Part 1 of Many

Artistic Therapy.

Pestilence; The Spaghetti Incident Edition

One of the few remaining transitional stills
I photoshopped for the movie.

I made a new friend recently. I told him I once made a movie. He wanted to see it so I gave him the DVD to watch. He called later to say there was no DVD in the cover. I laughed and said something to the extent of 'oh, that sucks'. I haven't bothered to look for the actual movie yet and that was three months ago. Just another big chunk of my life gone with no souvenir to show for it. Even all my publicity work for is stuck in one of my old hard-drives from some old computer tower, waiting for me to see if I can mine it out.


Everybody has their skeletons in their closet. My biggest on, in terms of my artistic aspirations, was a movie with the working title of Pestilence. This is that story.

I've lost track of many of the people involved over the years; some became Facebook friends for this story pre-dates Facebook. For their own privacy, if they read this, they can feel comfort in knowing I have not used their real names. Except for Trey, cuz Trey was a jerk.

Now, I've always fought a personal philosophical battle of 'going with the flow' or 'fighting to make it happen'. Many of my jobs came because of personal connections, not necessarily because I was the one best suited for the job. I've often taken a passive role in my life and sometimes I am surprised I am still alive. In truth, I wouldn't be if it weren't for many of the friends I've made along my way that have encouraged me, made me laugh, and made me believe in being able to attempt my dreams. Not that it was always the best thing for me but often, we choose who we want to hear.

I pitched a movie idea to John Henson (of Muppets fame) because a fellow PA said I was 100% guaranteed to not have it happen if I didn't at least try. I met him half-way, mailed him my pitch instead of telling him in person. I'm still here...

So this is a story about 'Going with The Flow' vs. 'Making It Happen'.

Sneak Peak; Karmageddon Chicken-style

Karmajuana In The Chicken Coop

ABB +93 (93 days After The Big Bangs)

“Let me ask you this. What’s your passion? Because I don’t feel you are passionate about this job.”

Curt Camfield cursed under his breath. The chicken gizzards, guts or whatever you called the inside of a chicken was piling up in the pail beside him. Three months ago, before the bombs hit, he had been a simple financial officer, living a comfortable life in a mid-level bank in a mid-level town in mid-level mediocrity. 

Chester Cloverfield, the semi-geriatric man currently standing across from him on the slaughtering table was waiting for his answer. In one hand he held the carcass of another headless, featherless chicken, the other a butcher knife. He held it more for effect than for efficiency as all he did was bring the headless chickens to Curt from the killing room.

Chester reminded Curt of his former district manager, who asked him the same question four months earlier, one month before the shit really hit the fan, six days before the financial markets collapsed and all the money in all the vaults was efficiently taken away by armed, mindless men in armored semi-sentient cars.

His former manager ordered Curt to calmly reassure those who cared too much about their money that their deposit was insured by the federal government, even if it wasn’t there. That was the last he ever heard from the district manager.

As Curt dutifully repeated those words to clients he never met, he had felt a gnawing unease in that part of the brain he assumed was his intuition. Soon someone in the growing mob would stop being vocal and start being physical. Especially when one of them voiced the suspicion Curt shared; there was no more federalized Bank of Canada, much less a working government able to guarantee their deposits. His promise was worth no more than the paper it wasn’t written on.

At that life-evaluating moment, as he looked over many of his employer’s most valued and valuable clients, he reconsidered that same question. What was his passion? Was he truly that passionate about this job he was willing to risk his life over someone else’s money? Wasn’t that his superior’s job, the guy who disappeared three days earlier, with a simple ‘Gone fishing’ email, leaving Curt the one with the most seniority in the branch? Was he passionate enough about this job he was willing to defend the honor and empty words and coffers of his employer?

Hell, no.

So he led the justified nervous mob into the back and pointed to the vault’s open door. They surged in, victims of cinematic shortcuts, envisioning shelves stacked with dollar bills. He relied that they would be so anxious to get their life savings they'd forget they needed Curt for more than directions to the vault. As the last pushed their way in and the first realized they had no combinations to the vault’s many empty safes, Curt was out the door faster than the stock market crash. He ran to his car, thankful that in the banking industry one only made clients, not friends. None of his clients knew where he lived. Still he raced home, told his wife and kids to get their shit in the RV and headed north as quickly as possible.

They drove two days before the back roads and gas ran out. The caravan they inadvertently joined on the highway led them here to Bluenose City, one of the many small city-enclaves survivors had established. It was here, Curt and his family found themselves new-age pioneers, living a simple, non-currency based life. Now it was all about survival and showing your worth to the whole, not to the stock market.

But still it was the same crap. 

Chester Cloverfield was an original resident of Bluenose City, third generation. His grandparents settled here back when it was too far away from anything to be even marked for prosperity on a map. It was simply a small hamlet carved into the mountain which bore its name. The City moniker came after the bombs as the refugees arrived and felt safe enough to stop moving on. 

Chester thought he liked the isolation and solidarity of raising chickens. It took until the refugee influx to realize he enjoyed being a head rooster even more. As the community grew, he tapped into a buried urge to be a respected leader of the masses and it certainly helped his political aspirations that he owned the biggest chicken coop in the area.

He once confided to his flock weeks ago that he always dreamed of a moment such as this since he inherited the chicken farm. There was a decades-long stigma to the family farm due to the infamous, yet rarely discussed, Great Easter Chicken Massacre of ’08. But Chester felt he could break the Cloverfield Egg Farm curse with hard work, dedication to the people and by not dabbling in God’s creations, whispered to be the reason behind the massacre.   

Indie Author Tips #5 -Rehash Old Material - Zombies!

Indie Author Tips #5 -Rehash Old Material - Zombies!

{click on the title}

Indie Author Tips #4 Behind the Typing

Indie Author Tips #4 Behind the Typing

Matt The Drug Dealer...alright, alright, alright.

Every once in awhile I read on my writer forums someone who is interested in reading a W.I.P (work in progress). Specifically they are interested in seeing how a book 'changes' between drafts. 

As I grow as a writer, I can see two problems with this request. First, I don't really want someone to read something I'm not proud of, nor have finished. Second, a lot of changes in editing are typos, some grammar mistakes, maybe a name change or two. Nothing you'd really notice unless you laid each page side by side. 

It's not like you are going to care I broke a long paragraph into two so as to make it easier to read, or that I added 'so as' between that two and to just so you aren't reading tu-tu in the middle of a sentence. 

However, sometimes there are big changes I make. The reasons vary but mostly it is because I feel the first draft doesn't read well. Perhaps it is slightly boring or there is too much exposition going on. Of course, I don't feel it at the time I'm writing - when it's going well, I'm just trying to keep my fingers at the same speed as my brain. 

So that said, I'm going to show a large change I did for a forthcoming novel from 1st to 2nd draft .

Context; this is a stand-alone chapter about Matt The Drug Dealer, who has found his sales plummeting since Karmajuana (you've read Enter a Fistful, yes?) has been legalized. He is one of a very few people that are not directly affected by Karmajuana's brainwashing abilities. Ironically, a lot of his chronics aren't either; turns out 1% of the population isn't affected by Karma.  

This is the first draft; (1400 words)

T-5 Matt the Drug Dealer

It was just past two pm when Matt heard the doorbell. He believed he jumped from his third-hand couch to his particle board door in record time. However, he didn’t exactly jump nor was it in record time as he was quite stoned. What he really did was slide off the couch like a half-full water balloon onto the floor and waited for his legs to catch up to the rest of his body.

It was only with supreme effort he was able to stand and focus on where the door was this time. The doorbell rarely rang anymore. As a businessman, the doorbell was a big part of his life in being a reputable and reliable pot dealer.

He peaked out the window before opening; another middle-aged man, not one of his regulars. Matt cursed. This guy would have the same request as all the other noobs who came ringing his doorbell like he was a goddamn McDonald’s; Karmajuana.

Matt had plenty of Karma. However, just because he didn’t like it, didn’t mean he wouldn’t sell it. He sold coke and hash and on occasion meth but he didn’t care for that clientele. The problem for him was he also had a lot of other shit that wasn’t moving and if it wasn’t moving, he wasn’t making money.

This new Karma shit was flooding the market and Matt was pretty experienced in the varieties of marijuana out there, knew his homegrown from his factory grown. This stuff was going gangbusters. People wanted it and people were getting it. He had made sure to try it himself, especially when it was becoming all the rage but he couldn’t see what the big demand was. It was a good buzz, nothing more. He had way more powerful shit sitting in his stash box than Karma but nobody cared. It was all they wanted. Karma, karma, karma. 

And he wasn’t the only one to notice. A couple of his chronics also mentioned their curiosity over what the big attraction was.

At first it was pretty exciting when Karma came out. After all, Matt was still a businessman who liked to listen to cold, hard cash. And everyone was buying. And by everyone, it was everyone.

Then it started getting weird. First, the neighbours came over and asked if he carried any of this Karmajuana they heard about. Then it was the moms. Trophy moms pushing strollers came right up to his door, looking straight out of a school board meeting, asking if he could set them up. Lastly, it was the cops. Cops actually coming to his door, ringing his goddamn doorbell and having the unusual audacity to ASK if he could score them some Karma. AND they did it politely. Fearing a set-up, he played ignorant. Then they just…left. No good cop, bad cop. No search warrants, no mind games. They just left.

His fellow dealers he was on speaking terms with had similar stories of being harassed by the Man in all shapes and forms, but not aggressively, not the ‘get-out-of-my-neighbourhood’ type way, just asking if they had any of this Karmajuana going around. Then everyone stopped asking because frankly, everyone was giving. It was a Karmajuana Christmas out there, every day. The very same cops who asked to get hooked up came by the next day and gave him a pack of nicely rolled Karma cigarettes then left. It was the strangest conversation ever and speaking as someone who has had plenty of odd conversations under the influence, that was saying something. 

The doorbell rang again but because he had muscle memory and still knew where the door was, it didn’t take him so long to get there from the couch. He checked the peephole, sighed happily and opened the door.

“What’s up, James?” Matt asked.

“Nothing, man. Just chilling. What’s up with you?” said James. Matt easily could smell the Karma on him.

“Want to come in?”

“Uh, yeah.” And while that was James’ opinion on the matter, he didn’t move. Matt looked up the street, noticed for the first time it was a pretty decent day outside and decided to sit down on the front steps. James sat down beside him. They both sat there doing nothing. James pulled out a Karma, lit it and handed it to Matt. They smoked in silence until there was nothing left.

“Hey James?” asked Matt.

“Yeah?”

“Have you noticed that things are, like, different lately?”

“Sorta. I was just at the 7/11. There’s nobody there.”

“You mean it’s closed?” asked Mike. The store was open 24/7 - he sent and received a lot of business to the convenience store for customers in search of munchies at 1am or drugs at 12am. He never knew it to be closed. 

“No. Like abandoned. It was still open but nobody was in there.”

“Someone must have been there. Maybe they were just in the shitter.”

“Well, there was this guy, Abed or Ammad or whatever. He said he worked there but he was smoking weed outside. Told me to go in and help myself to anything.”

Matt frowned. He knew Amed. He was a good guy but never smoked the bud. Never. He was the only clerk there whom Matt knew who would also ban shoplifters, as if he had a share in the profits the store made. If it was one of Matt’s customers, Amed would tell him so Matt would relay the message. Often Matt covered the losses with his own money or if Matt knew the thief, would personally bring them back to apologize to Amed and make them promise not to do it again. Matt respected Amed’s minimum wage honesty and business ethics, much like Amed respected his. He couldn’t match the vision of the Amed he knew with the Karma-smoking, apathetic Amed James described.

“And it’s not just him, there are a lot of open smokers out there now. Have you heard of these Karmafarians?”

“Karmafarians?” asked Matt, who was proud to never be up on current events, as was evident by his PS2 game system. “Never heard of them.”

“Yeah, it’s like, some type of cult or gang or something. They give away Karmajuana, for free.”

“Free? That doesn’t make any sense. Where’s the profit in that?”

“And everyone is just…chilling. Downtown is so quiet. Not quiet in people, lots of people, but more quiet in like no traffic. No cars. There’s just people sitting everywhere, chilling.”

James said chilling way more than was necessary. If Matt was in a pissy mood he called him on it. However, today was not one of those days.

“Weird,” Matt thought for a moment before admitting his experiences with the cops, “you know there is something really strange about that shit.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s good, but it’s not like put-you-in-a-wheelchair and orgasm type good. It just makes everyone massively chill.”

“That’s what I thought too,” exclaimed Matt, happy to finally have someone on the same wavelength, “I don’t get it.”

“I heard that some of the chronics down at the skate shop also don’t get the big deal. Some say it’s the reason why marijuana was legalized. Somebody got it onto Parliament Hill and got everyone high, even the Prime Minister.”

“Fuck. Could you imagine? Getting high with the PM? What if everyone just stops doing shit and it’s up to the chronics to get shit done?”

“That would be awful,” said James, passing his Karma over to Matt.

“Yeah. I don’t even know where we would start. I guess we could get these Karmafarians to stop giving away free weed. My business is dying here.”

“Isn’t that more a job for the cops? Or for you know… your guys?”

Matt knew James was referring to his suppliers, rumoured to be part of the toughest motorcycle gang in North America.

“I haven’t heard from them in weeks. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“I don’t want to become a Narc. I mean, if it is a choice between free Karma and snitching, I’m on their side. I mean, free weed? Why not, right?”

“Well, in theory. Maybe we should ask around, see if the other guys feel the same about these Karmafarians, find out who they are.”  

But instead Matt and James sat on the front porch and watched the clouds and people go by. They began to notice the neighbours, many of them doing the same thing; just sitting on their front porches, chilling. The smell of Karma was heavy in the air.

 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<><>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So I wrote that more than a year ago. Didn't think about it too much as it was simply only one character idea of many. Then I started getting serious of doing an Enter a Fistful sequel and I found I had all these short stories but no order to them. I had recurring characters, new characters, time-travelling characters (from a Nanowrimo challenge), political manifestos, hockey pool commentaries, a Dr. Strangelove tribute, etc. Basically I created a 'Frankenstein's Monster' of a story. It was overwhelming. 

I created some order in the chaos; a count-down of sorts. I separated characters into before/after/during on a timeline. I separated finished and unfinished chapters, did summaries of about 50+ individual short stories.

I chose Matt's story because if/when weed becomes legalized, it will affect people like Matt, who rely on the underground economy. He is Day #5 before all shit breaks loose. The goal of this was to show how quickly Karmajuana had spread across society. 

Now, onto the 2nd draft. 

The hard part is admitting when you don't like something you've done. I liked parts of Matt's story, didn't care for others. Some of it was a rehash of themes I'd already done. There's a lot of exposition there. What happened with the original guy who rang the doorbell? There's that paragraph on Abed and why Matt respected him. Is that needed? How is this advancing the storyline? So one night in bed I decided to change it. It then became this;