Writers in the Storm

Laura Drake

I read a recent article from Electric Lit. As a professional writer, or aspiring to publication, you need to read it. It's HERE. Go ahead, we'll wait.

The facts the article was based on came from the Authors Guild 2018 Survey (you can read that HERE) which said that, "American authors ... incomes falling to historic lows to a median of $6,080 in 2017, down 42 percent from 2009." (Based on a survey of over 5k authors)

Wait! Before you run off to flush the flash key of your work, start a bonfire in the back yard, or give up, let's discuss this.

I have also noticed a trend (which was verified by an agent I spoke with), that NY publishers are abandoning the romance market (excepting the top sellers) to the indies. And I imagine this isn't unique to romance. Publishers can't compete with the indies' ability to price cut. This is not new news--the trend has been advancing for years; it started with midlist authors, and is moving UP the food chain--meaning what was considered a good print run has declined steadily, and the number of copies you need to sell to be offered a new contract is increasing.

New York (the Big 5, or 3, or whatever they're down to) is still buying debut authors, but only in hopes of discovering a winner. If your first book or two aren't blockbusters, you're most likely not invited back to the party.

I don't blame the publishers. They're in this for the same reason you and I are--to make a profit. That's just reality.

But for me, the more disturbing part in the article is the entitlement issue it raised. I have seen this as well. I began a Facebook group for readers 3 1/2 years ago and it's grown to over 11k members. There was a discussion begun there a week ago, about where to go to get free books...the poster basically bragging that they almost never paid for books anymore. They weren't talking about pirate sites, either. We founder/moderators jumped into the discussion, explaining the relationship between paying for product, and the continuing availability of it. Many readers were shocked to hear how little authors make on their books. They thought (when they thought) that the fat cat publishers wouldn't notice to loss of a book sale here and there. I hope we enlightened a few readers.

It began innocently (yikes, an adverb!) enough, as a marketing strategy. A way to get more readers by making the first of a series free, or almost free. The plan is to get the reader hooked and they'd go buy the rest of the author's series, then backlist. For the author, it was taking a gamble on their own talent. And it worked brilliantly (Ugh, another). For that author. Not so much the market.

Then, giveaways. Also a great marketing tool, with the same philosophy as above. But soon there were readers roving like packs of coyotes, skipping from group to group, only there for the free books. Many of them resold the books on Amazon below the publishers cost, which was a double hit for authors--they gave away the first, then a reader who might have paid, bought the discounted 'used' book, and the author got zero money on that, either.

Then came Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. A subscription service where a reader pays a monthly fee and can read an almost unlimited number of books. The majority subscription fees are put in a 'pool', and participating authors share in it. I was a CFO in my career; this never made sense to me as being in the author's best interest. And it's had the unforeseen consequence of cheapening the worth of the product in the reader's mind.

I'm not bemoaning the 'commoditizing' of books. We write as art, but if you've sold to a publisher, or offered your book for sale in the market, you know your book becomes a 'widget'--a commodity the minute it goes up for sale.

However we innocently we got here (3 adverbs in one post. I must really be upset), we're not going back. A market trend like this doesn't reverse (with the exception of innovation, and then, the majority of the price increase goes to the innovator).

Bottom line is black and white in the Authors Guild survey; excepting the few at the top, writers can't make a living writing fiction anymore.

So why am I being Debbie Downer, dumping salt in your morning coffee?

Because writers are angsty insecure people. I know many (and I count myself in the tribe) who were whispering to each other. I've heard it at conferences and group meetings: 'Are your sales down?' 'How was your last advance?' 'Did you sell through?' And that's after we chewed fingernails for months, trying to get up the guts to ask. See, it's bad form to ask about money if you're an artist. It's like asking a coworker how much they make. Also, payment is more than a living; it's a way of keeping score. And you want to know where you fit in the hierarchy, as much as you don't want to know. AND you sure don't want the person you're asking to know!

Facts is facts, and now they're out. In a weird, twisted way (hey, we're authors, right? We're used to that), it's a relief. I hear the whispers in the wind. It's not just me.

I wrote this post for a reason, not just to pee in your corn flakes. What can we do about all this? Two things:

1. Don't quit your day job. The odds of you making a living wage, writing, though possible, is not likely.
2. Know why you're doing this: There are a lot more reasons to write than to make a living. Is your reason enough to keep you going? Mine is.

If you came looking for answers, I don't have any. But let's discuss it.

Have you noticed this trend? How are you dealing with the reality? Have you thought about quitting writing? What keeps you going?

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Laura is teaching her, 'First Five Pages' class online at Savvy Authors, beginning April 29 through May 12. Come polish those pages to a high shine, and learn advanced craft tips at the same time! Click HERE for more info!

by Tasha Seegmiller

About two years ago, my husband got the idea to start a cotton candy business. We bought a machine, played around with flavors and techniques and materials and during the local Fourth of July parade 2017, we opened for business. 

Not quite two years later, and we are merging that in with a soda shack (think Starbucks for sodas and shaved ice — they’re all the rage in Utah). And we are launching a grand opening on Saturday.

There are a lot of things that we have learned over the last two years, most of which tie nicely in with writing (really, you knew this was coming). 

1.     Get a solid idea of what you’d like to do.

To go from “I think we could sell cool cotton candy” to business implementation is a bit of a bizarre journey, but probably not any more than coming up with an idea, and making up people, and seeing what is out there, and what we can do differently. When we were starting, we (aka my husband) spent A LOT of time looking at what other cotton candy makers were doing. We talked about what we liked, what we didn’t like, how we would make our product unique. 

There are a lot of writers who think they don’t want to read what they want to write because they might be influenced by it. During drafting, fair enough. There are certain authors I can’t read when I’m in certain parts of my stories, whether that is because the genre is similar or because I’m writing several emotional scenes and I’m hoping to channel a unique, authentic voice. But I also know the only way that a writer can get better is by reading what they want to emulate in their writing. If you write historical fiction, you’d better be reading them, both those that deal with the time period you are playing with and others from times neighboring your desired era. If you dabble in magic, break out the notebooks and jot down how your writing heroes craft theirs. Study, study, study, and then decide what you’d like to emulate and what you’d like to do differently. 

2.    Get feedback.

As you might imagine, we had a lot of people who were interested in giving us feedback on our products.

We’d set up our machines in our front yard and send some texts out to friends, adults and children alike, to see what they thought of certain flavors, jot down the ones people wanted more of, make notes of those that people tossed away. While my husband and I have diverse palates (he likes the really sweet, me not so much), we needed a broader sense of who thought what. We especially leaned into the feedback from people who said they didn’t like cotton candy. 

There are all kinds of theories out there about who should critique what when. I say follow your gut. If you can take a critique when you are drafting, and keep going, do that. If the thought of someone reading your new pages before you’ve had a chance to make them as shiny as possible makes you reach for a brown paper bag, don’t. But realize two things: 

1. You will never get your work as good as you’d like it without someone else giving insight. 
2. There is a very real danger of looping through a story so many times that it becomes a vortex for your drive and creativity. 

It’s the scariest thing, to take something you’ve thought about, worked on, got to a point where you feel good about it. But writers are courageous, and I know you will benefit greatly if you will just let others read and listen to what they are saying. 

3.    Your product will improve the more you make it. 

When we look at some of our first products, we can see things, now, that we would have done differently. We struggled to regulate the temperature of the machines (it needs to be around 400-425 degrees), we weren’t sure the best product to spin them onto, some flavors sounded like a good idea and they just weren’t (looking at you, black licorice). 

It is not fair to the writer you are now to look back at when you were beginning, published or not, and berate yourself for the product that it wasn’t. You can’t go back in time. You shouldn’t want to go back in time. Instead, you need to look at what you wrote, what you knew at the time that you wrote it and congratulate yourself for everything you were able to do with what you knew. And then keep learning. Keep practicing. Keep getting better. 

4.    Stretch and grow. 

During the beginning phases of business building, when we were deciding on a name, we realized that we didn’t want to be committed to just cotton candy forever. My husband has been brainstorming business ideas since we got married almost 20 years ago. We didn’t want a business name that would lock him into just that. And since launching, our little cotton candy business has tried edible helium balloons (super fun and yummy, super inconsistent) and toyed with the idea of custom gummies. We often return to conversations surrounding waffles, and as I’m writing this post, my husband is seeing if he can make shaped, tricolored marshmallows in my kitchen. It costs a bit of time, a small bit of money, and then we know if a thing works, if it could work, or if that idea isn’t sustainable.

Just because you started writing in one era or genre doesn’t mean you have to lock into that forever. It’s one of the reasons all the business professionals suggest authors build a brand around themselves and not a particular book. If you look at your favorite writers, I bet most of them have dabbled in different things, even if they have a particular genre that is their bread and butter (Brandon Sanderson comes to mind – his Alcatraz series is very different from his epic fantasies).

And that’s okay. 

Writing the same genre over and over can feel clichéd, the tropes that were once fun might even start feeling like barriers boxing in your creativity. So dabble. I have a folder called My Sandbox, where I just play with ideas, not that are necessarily the serious work that I’m doing, but a place where story ideas can hang out, a place where I can test my prowess on a different kind of thing. 

This is how we grow. 

And sometimes, when we allow ourselves to grow, a fun little idea can manifest into something that brings us a bit of joy. 

What practices have you put in place to help your writing grow?

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is the current president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and studying in the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific U. The former high school English teacher now assists in managing the award-winning project-based learning program (EDGE) at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

Shame is one of the most powerful and underused emotions in a fiction-writer’s toolbox. Shame is pervasive and common, it’s ugly and hard to capture well. Readers cheer for characters who are relate-able. They cheer for characters who stand up to bullies, who stay and fight when they don’t have to. They relate to characters who have flaws! 

And shame is one emotion everyone studiously avoids, denies, and conceals. It’s isolating, defining, and has some awful negative consequences like rage, anxiety, depression, emptiness, isolation, etc. 

Shame insists we hide, conceal, and disguise what we perceive to be our greatest inadequacies. We refuse to acknowledge shame. Shame is that dark shadow that haunts your every step whether you admit it’s there or not. Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man character struggles with shame (cue memory of father’s murder). He can’t ever be good enough, and everything bad that happens is deserved because he’s a terrible person.

Shame is a hard emotion to capture authentically, but the key is to drill down into the primary emotions causing the shame and showing those emotions through internal dialogue and showing the consequences of shame that are observable. So a character fails at something and is reminded of his Dad yelling at him that he’ll never amount to anything (internal dialogue, backstory, etc.). 

He doesn’t know how to handle the shame, so he off-loads the uncomfortable feelings and explodes in anger at his colleague or spouse over something trivial. The anger is what’s observable, but the character won’t label the shame in his internal dialogue. It’s clear the anger isn’t really about what the other person has done or not done, and the anger is an over-reaction. 

Maybe the colleague stands up to him and calls him out on his anger. Maybe he gets written up for his anger at work. Maybe his wife breaks down in tears. The consequences of shame should be tangible for the character. This is how you SHOW shame.

What Kind Of Characters Could You Use Shame With?

So basically, ANY character you write could deal with shame and the only way readers will be able to know they’re struggling with shame is through internal dialogue and observable off-loading/numbing/consequences of shame because in real life we’re all experts at hiding our shame from everyone—especially ourselves.

Brene Brown’s Guide To Creating An Emotional Arc Using Shame

Brene Brown in her book Rising Strongdescribed shame as living with a rock on your chest. Shame feels like a crushing, inescapable weight on our chests, cutting off our air, knotting our guts, stealing our words, making us flushed. (Read The Emotion Thesaurus entry on Shame here.)

Whether your character starts off feeling shameful about something (past or present) and works to shake that off, or shame is something that they take on in the course of the story, the key to a shame emotion arc is what Brene Brown calls The Reckoning, The Rumble, and the Revolution. It looks a lot like the 3-act structure *smile*

In Rising Strong, Brown gives this example: “…Your face turns red and heat radiates from your chest when you learn that your boss gave the lead for a new project to your colleague.”

Here are two scenarios Brene poses to this emotional problem:

“My boss is an a—hole. Todd’s such a brownnoser. Who cares? This job sucks and this company is a joke.” This is the shame-train reaction—the knee-jerk, off-loading, emotional avoidance caused by shame. As long as your character stays here and never questions WHY they feel this angry, then your character is letting emotions they refuse to admit they feel to drive the shame-train.

 “I’m so pissed about her giving the lead to Todd. I need to figure this out before I lose it with everyone on our team…” This curiosity begins the process below. There’s an inciting incident that causes the character to take a proactive step to get off the shame-train.

The Reckoning: At some point in the story, your character decides to jump off the shame-train and gets curious. Why do I feel like this? Why am I reacting like this? Why do I think of x or y when this happens? Hopefully your character has a friend or ally with them. The Reckoning is about identifying and/or labelling the emotion or thinking that’s got them convinced they’re a bad person (put them on the floor of the arena). 

The Reckoning is heart-breaking work because it’s one step forward and two steps back over and over. Their best thinking is what put that boulder on their chest (either as a reaction to something they did or is a survival mechanism to something done to them) to begin with and they’ve managed the rock by ignoring it was there altogether. Now that they acknowledge it’s there, life is going to get harder as they reckon with hard emotions they’ve trained themselves to numb or off-load onto others. 

This kicks off The Rumble.

The Rumble:The Rumble is the shame-showdown. Now that your character acknowledges the thinking and emotions that have put them on the floor of the arena, now they’re going to THINK their way out from under the shame-boulder. But they’re acutely aware of those in the stands staring at them, at their repeated failure, their unworthiness. 

Now the character moves on to The Revolution.

The Revolution:Once the character has gotten the rock of shame off their chest, once they’ve rumbled with the emotions that put it there, now comes the revolution. They now must rebuild their self-esteem. This provides incredible character arc if you look for it. How does one let go of perfectionism? How does one learn to forgive themselves? What do they ask themselves as they stumble in The Rumble? That’s narrative gold, right there.

Questions To Ask Your Characters About Shame

What emotions does your character refuse to acknowledge they’re struggling with? Does the tomboy refuse to acknowledge the girly side that’s vulnerable? Does the warrior refuse to cry? WHY?  

When something negative happens, we create the stories in our heads we expect to hear. We filter everything that’s said and done through how we believe we’re perceived even if there’s no evidence for that conclusion. How can a self-fulfilling prophecy of shame play into your story? 

What thought does your character avoid having confirmed in any conflict or hurtful event? 

What is your character’s go-to emotional substitution? Do they lash out in anger? Do they self-flagellate with destructive internal messages? 

Can you think of a character from TV, movies, or fiction who struggles with shame? What are the consequences of their shame?

About Lisa:

Lisa Hall-Wilson was a national award-winning freelance journalist and author who loves mentoring writers. Fascinated by history, fantasy, romance, and faith, Lisa blends those passions into historical and historical-fantasy novels.

Find Lisa’s blog, Beyond Basics for intermediate writers,  at www.lisahallwilson.com.

Last week , Sharla Rae lost her final battle with cancer. Sharla was a founding member of Writers in the Storm. On Wednesday, May 1, we'll remember Sharla with pictures and words.