All hands are off the wind, today
It flies free off the crest of an ocean wave
It must have watched with envy
The inland breezes
Hankering to taste the calm, green places
On swift feet it visits us now
It bandies leaves
Pushes the trees
Their drooping posture momentarily corrected
They let fly oranges in protest
Scorning these tokens
The shift mistral hurls past our shed
Disappearing at last over the dunes
L. R. Styles is an author with Belator Books
( Word Count 48,731 #NaNoWriMo )
An indie writer is a strange creature, even by the standards of today’s market with the ingrained expectation of ‘multitasking’ members.
Ten years ago, when my husband and I began to devote the majority of our free time to writing novels I did not think I would need to learn marketing, social media, make connections, maintain an online presence or delve into writing genres that I otherwise would have even looked at in a bookstore. But, I have been swayed to think otherwise and–more importantly–to do all of the above.
Marketing on the cheap is a hard sell, but to the average indie writer/publisher it is often the only option until they get more sales with which to pay for better services. It is a huge amount of work, and getting data with which to formulate your marketing strategies takes up even more time and effort. Books sales statistics are hideously expensive but a here and there kind organizations reveal little hints of said information to sort through and glean from. These gems among the rough swayed us to keep looking, gathering and polishing until the beauty of applicable data revealed itself.
To traditional business folk, this sounds all backwards.”They told me to get a business loan”might be found written on the tombstone of many a failed entrepreneur. Perhaps that worked for some businesses, maybe most, but not everyone is in a position–nor harbors the inclination–to shoulder a large amount of debt before their product has been proven profitable.We were swayed to launch our books ourselves, without a loan and without expensive PR services, paying for prepossession editing out of the profits.
A flooded eBook market has its benefits, such as a glut of data. To us, the trends are little more defined as more indie writers enter the market, showing up as trampled digital pathways pointing to what consumers really want. Studying our slowly-garnered free stats, we noticed the alarming dive of literary fiction, the pop-trends of supernatural-type fiction and the rather stagnant line historical fiction wound itself into over the recent years. Epic Fantasy showed promise however, so we were swayed to drop our other novel projects and dust off my husband’s EF series. We sank our time and effort into making those books as good as we were able.
The results surprised us… greatly. After launching in the last week of this February, we’ve made more in royalties int he months since than we thought possible–a little over $14K–utilizing free self-marketing, social media, blog posts and non-obtrusive (no spam) ads.
We’ve been swayed to branch out into other genres as well, to help our brand gain more recognition. Romance Fiction has captured our attention as the rising genre; we’ve released just such a novel for that vast audience in the same month as our 18th wedding anniversary. This winter we’re planning to release the third book in our Epic Fantasy series and have a sci-fi time-travel novel ‘in the works’ for release next year.
In this crowded market, struggling indie writers need to sway themselves to become super business folks: capable of altering their business model in a single season, able to recognize and adapt to the ever-shifting book market, write both relevant and opinion-laden blogs on the industry, search out more free corners of the Web to post unobtrusive ads and, finally, entice (not drive) new customers towards their desired platform profile.
L. R. Styles is an author with Belator Books
Driving—to me—is a novelty, bordering on an altered state of being. One is in a metal and plastic ‘bubble’ of sorts, traveling along a road at a high rate of speed, always at either the verge of immanent death or arrival at one’s destination. Looking at all the people within the other cars as they pass—or are passed—makes for an interesting ride, every time. At least, for a writer it does.
The many diverse faces and colors never fail to amaze me, not to mention the expressions, hairstyles, actions and correlations between these things and the type of car or its present state at the time of passing.
I sit—with my notebook balanced on my knee—my latest chapter sprawled on the lined page in my own messy handwriting. As a car passes I glance at it through my window. The driver is singing to a song, nodding her head as her hair bobs up and down; beside her a pre-teen obliviously plays a game on their phone with ears budded. They drive on to wherever it is they are going. In the pages of my new chapter a preoccupied woman suddenly appears—along with her sullen child—busily walking past the main characters.
Next up in my view is a shiny SUV, harboring just one person—though it is capable of hauling five or six, complete with a polished wax job. My mouth falls open upon beholding the driver, for the young woman therein is putting on her makeup… while driving on the freeway. Cue one oblivious female character entering my pages, narrowly escaping the consequences of her own foolishness. Happily—and fortunately—no one, fictional or otherwise, is maimed this time.
A trucker powers by in the massive 18-wheeler. Through the high window I see him eagerly drinking from the enormous coffee mug in his hand. To me his face and posture rather resembles a medieval Viking, replete with untrimmed beard, sitting in a mead hall and ceaselessly downing golden liquid from a polished tankard.
*writing*
While the main characters—in each of our novels—are dearly conceived in my husband’s thoughts as well as mine, the lesser folk and faces that make but a brief performance on our literary stage are most often inspired by the strangers we see around us.
Said inspiration is in the quick nod of a head; the movement of the eyes; teeth flashing in conversation; long looks of boredom; the small smiles and bashful tilt of tiny chins; angry hand gestures and the sharp intake of breath… these are all important to the storyteller and can be captured in the few seconds it takes for a car to pass by my window.
L. R. Styles is an author with Belator Books
{L. R. Styles} 