More Thoughts on the Industry

 I like to pretend I'm above gossip. I'm not. I really do like gossip. I'm not overly fond of participating in it, but I do love to hear it. And if you say you don't then you should probably check yourself. Do you lean in slightly when there's "talk" going around... of course you do. We all do. Believing falsehoods and spreading falsehoods is bad. Listening is just human nature. Don't tell me it isn't. It is. And if you think it's not, then why are you here reading this?

Marinate in that for a bit.

I've been and active and passive participant in this industry since Y2K. Before 2000 I didn't have a computer, didn't know what RWA was. Was trying to figure out how to get a book published by borrowing industry books from the library. I was not an active part of shit back then. Since 2K when I joined RWA and the local chapter of RWA I've considered myself actively working in this industry. It would be 2004 before I sold my first book, which would be published eleven months later. I found out I was pregnant with Aubrey in October of 2005 and spent the next four years maintaining a membership, but not actively writing because... baby... and three teens. I didn't have time, energy, or desire to write about other people having sex and falling in love when I was actively trying to raise a family almost entirely alone. I had no help. I had a husband who... well, let's just not discuss that... I went to one of those "training" schools for ten months hoping to get a job in a medical office, just ended up owing a ton of money in student loans that I'm currently still on the hook for. So yeah, those four years were passive. I tried to keep up. I really did. 

The last time I saw my father we discussed the writing, until that point I thought he didn't give a shit. I'm still not sure he did. But I think he was the only person in my family who did notice that it was something important to me. We talked about why I wasn't writing. And back then it was all smut. Like now. Ellora's Cave dominated the ebook markets. This was before Kindle took off and Amazon took over. So, we talked about why I wouldn't write smut and if I could and I said yes. And he said if it makes money and you don't mind, why do you care what other people think?

So, I did. I wrote Sunny with a Chance, also for EC. 

Daddy died the following July.

And I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.

And I published everything I wrote after he died.

This was 2010.

And it's been nothing but drama for the last 14 and a half years.

Constant industry drama. Constant publishers ripping off every one. Constant authors behaving badly. RWA doesn't even exist in the same form it was in in 2010. And there's still drama. 

My take is this, and I will not be convinced otherwise.

Publishing is a shit-show. All levels of it. It's all a shit-show. If you wade into this shit, you damn well better have some waist high waders like you see in the fishing movies, because you're going to need 'em.

What's going on now? You're wondering.

Y'all it's so much it's hard to even keep up with.

An editor for a big 5 tweeted that they'd just rejected a book that was a combo of this and this (I don't remember either this) because it sucked (I'm paraphrasing... but just a tad) now would somebody write them a combo of that and that.

I believe they got fired posthaste.

And now the plagiarism thing with an author claiming an agent datamined her books over the course of three years and fed the entire concept, and actual passages of her books to another author who took the books to the NYT bestseller lists.

Y'ALL!

YYYYY'''''AAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

I watched the first one happen in real time. I know it was real. I saw the tweet, I saw the blowback. The tweet disappeared, the follow-up was they were gone, from twitter (I will deadname that site until I die) from their agency, from everywhere.

Do I believe the second?

If the one hadn't just happened in real time, I would say no, that it's just a case of sour grapes and that if it's not word for word it's not plagiarism... but, from the indepth takes I've seen on it, combined with knowing that the one thing the publishing industry swears never happens, just happened live for the world to see... I'm kinda inclinded to give it some benefit of truth.

And it's not like the publisher who the agent/editor was associated with hasn't already been in hot water for deceptive practices.

No I am not naming names.

But the point is, I had a publisher who behaved the same way. I found bits of The 51st Thursday used in a book by a popular author while I was still with the same publisher. I confronted them. Pulled all of the passages, the descriptions, the name of the character they took, and the description of the clothing and why they were at the bar that night down to the letter, but nothing came of it. They played it off. Nothing definitive. The plagiarized passages were changed to not be word for word, but... I had no recourse and I won't give that author the time of day. 

Do people steal your work? Yes. Your work is stolen. Your work can be plagiarized, and if you are lucky you'll have someone in your corner who has your back. I've never had that. Do I know plagiarizers? Absolutely. I was once, I won't say friends, but unfortunately I was in their circle for a while, who stole whole books and renamed and re-gendered characters. She was dealt with. Will it happen to you? Hopefully not. Hopefully with the new shit going on, the publishing industry will get it's shit together, but it's been 24 years since I stepped into this muck, so I've been around long enough, watching from the sidelines, to say it'll get better for a while, then they'll go back to doing exactly what they do. And now with all the AI written books out there... it's a fucking free-for-all.

Do what you have to do to protect yourself. Trust nobody. And if they pull out the "we're family" line... RUN!

Or do what I did... just get the hell out of it.

Join me tomorrow for more this shit sucks, why am I still here... content.

Peace,

Mercy

My Thoughts on the "Industry"

 By "Industry" I mean the writing, publishing, book industry at large.

And by my thoughts, as if I hadn't already made those clear over the year, exactly what I think of said industry as a whole.

Okay, so, let's preface this by saying I've never been Trad Pubbed. Traditional Publishing as in got an agent, got a contract with a big New York publisher, got an advance, had all the stuff that goes with that. That Trad Pubbed.

I tried in the early aughts. I sent out queries upon queries to agents and the publishers who accepted non agented query submissions. I had requests for whole manuscripts from Silhouette (not that they count as trad but in romance they sort of do) and from Pocket. I had two revise and resub requests from Silhouette who ultimately rejected both books. And the Pocket book came so damn close. The editor loved the story but, "unfortunately" we are moving away from American set historical romance and can not offer contract, but if you have something set in Scotland or the Regency era, please send and I'll be happy to read.........

Sighs.

I coulda been Bridgerton.

Except, I hate Regency romance and I know one thing about writing Scottish romance, and that is that I am not Scottish, and I don't know enough about Scotland to ever dare set a book in historical Scotland. And that was the end of my attempts to land a Trad contract.

I then set my sights on the up and coming ebook publishers. and regrettably sold my first two books to Ellora's Cave.I believe in the end, they took more money from me than they paid me. And then went on to publish with 4 more small press ebook first publishers. And every single one except Liquid Silver proceeded to either rob me blind or fuck me over in various ways.

I'd love a trad book contract. That was my dream in my 20's and 30's. My dream in my 40's was to stop being fucked over by publishers. My dream in my 50's... I don't have one. My dream was a nightmare and every time I feel like I am ready to venture back into the fray, I have a panic attack and I freak out and set everything aside and just... no, I can't do it. I can't. I won't. But... there's always something back there in the cobweb infested part of my brain where the young me goes... you know if you give it one more shot..............................................................

So, what about this topic and why this topic, again?

Try as I might, I can't get completely off BookTok and the other day I saw a TikTok from some random woman who filmed her reaction to getting "The Call" from her Trad Publisher of choice.

He says, I Loved The Book, and her face lights up. He goes on to say... but they can't offer contract. When you get to 100,000 followers please let us know and we will be glad to offer contract then.

Now... okay... there's a part of me that thinks this was staged. I mean who knows in advance to set up the camera for "the call"... and are there trad pubs who call to say they aren't offering contract? I'm asking because I don't know. It's not been my experience, and this decade is not like two decades ago when I was getting started.

But if this was real, and this is the state of trad publishing right now then this is what I have to say on that....

If they are waiting for you to establish a six digit following as an unpublished author you will never get a contract. Seriously, most authors would kill to hit ten thousand followers. Who the hell can manage one  hundred thousand? How many trad published authors have one hundred thousand followers?

But... after the shock of that wore off and I've thought about it for a couple of days, this is my advice to that person, and any person who wants to be a published author... if you have ten thousand followers you've already hit a milestone I never could and I have sold double that number of copies on several books. If you have ten thousand followers and you're waiting for your "call"... I will simply say, based on experience, just stop waiting, it will not be what you expect, and if they're already depending on you having a dedicated following, you've already lost most of the perks of being a trad published author... meaning you're already doing all of the marketing for them, and they won't give you anything more in that department. You will likely get some paltry advance, you will not have much input on cover or editorial direction, and you'll have to wait years for your book to come out.

If you've managed to reach ten thousand followers who would buy your book now... SELF PUBLISH the damn thing. 

Seriously!

If you can't afford to, maybe crowd fund, and give the donors free copies, whatever it takes. If you have ten thousand followers and you list your first book at 2.99 you will make 2.24 for every book sold and if every one of your ten thousand followers buy your book the first week you will hit the number one spot on Amazon and earn twenty thousand plus dollars. In one week.

If you wait for trad publishing, you will be left behind. Strike while the iron is hot as the saying goes. And if you have ten thousand followers... you've already won the publishing lottery. 

Good luck and happy trails, may your career be long and prosperous without ever having to deal with the bullshit of publishers fucking you over and stealing your money... or your work.

Peace,

Mercy

Curious

 Curious is a funny word, don't you think?

English is a funny language. There are rules. But none of them really apply since it steals words from other languages and makes them it's bitch... fuck the rules.

No this isn't a post on grammar. I absolutely do not believe grammar is a static thing and therefore do with it as I please. I am southern. I write like we speak. So no, this is not a post on grammar. I will never write one of those. Don't like my grammar don't read my shit... that simple.

And it's not an Alice in Wonderland post either. Though, if we're being honest, that might be my favorite classic story, mostly for the art, because the story is a fucking drug hallucination. But damn, I love that art. Not the Disney mess. But I'll grab me a Disney Alice mug if I find one I like under the right circumstances.

No, I'm actually talking about this blog. This one you're reading this on. The one I abandoned for a paid website. The one I didn't want to come back to.

This blog... this one RIGHT HERE!

It's curious that since I've been back, and started putting effort into this blog, that the visits and page views are way up. Daily up. More than I ever saw on the website. 

Why is that?

I had this blog set to private for two or more years. I kept that website for four years and barely ever had visits. Very few people read my blog posts. I'd have maybe, on a good week, about a hundred visits, in the whole week. But here, a couple hundred a day. Posts are getting more views too. 

I have the old link attached to the book files published everywhere. I haven't started changing those yet because I don't have Word, or any other formatting software, at the moment.

So... what is it?

Where are all the views coming from, and why weren't they tracking over there?

Very curious.

Indeed.

Said the spider to the fly.

Wrong story.

Stay with your themes, please.

Ah, yes, the Alice theme...

We're all Mad Here!

Not that one... for the love of...

Curiouser and Curiouser!!!!

But the other one does kind of apply too.

Do you ever have days in which you want to sit around a table drinking "tea" and babbling about teapots and ravens and screaming off with her head randomly?

No? Just me then? But I don't really like tea. At least not hot tea. And whispers I really don't like iced tea either. Unless it's cut with strawberry lemonade, that is.

Peace,

Mercy

Image obtained from Pixabay

Happy Sunday

And it's back to hot again.

Took the pets out for their morning lark in the backyard. Whoof. That's no for me. 
 So the teen's birthday was yesterday. Okay, the official date of their birth is June 22nd. But they were born at 11:45 pm on June 22nd. So technically they were 18 for a whole 15 minutes of their birthday. If only they'd held out for another 16 minutes they could have had the whole day... but my last baby is officially not a baby anymore. My third baby will be 29 in 4 days. My oldest 2 are 30 and 33.
I'm old.
Just really really old.
People my age should not be writing books about people younger than their kids. 
There, I said it. SIGHS!
Pitch forks are on sale at the Tractor Supply, I hear.
God, I don't mean like we shouldn't write books about young people. I mean, I saw a post on social media the other day about writing Gen Z and Alpha slang... and that's a no. If we're to the point of having blog posts about young people's slang then we are too old to be writing that slang. And honestly, I'm mostly meaning, writing sex books about people younger than the people I gave birth to. It's... weird.
SIGHS!!!!!
I'll shut up now and just leave it at, I don't want to write books with sexual situations involving people younger than my children...
Sheesh.
And get off my lawn!
So what else is there for me to discuss today? I've done the weather report. Disclosed my elderly status. Uh... the pets... got them covered. Hmm.
Ah... books. My books, not there's much to talk about. I'm still slowly putting books up on D2D to publish to Smashwords and a few smaller vendors that I can't get to on my own. I think I have 9 left to list, a couple because the formatting is not passing their standards that I'll get to later. The rest are because I'm slow and just not in an all-fired hurry to list books nobody gives a shit about. 
And that brings me to the next thing on my mind... River's Edge.
River's Edge was the very short story I wrote Halloween night 2022 and the last thing I finished writing. It was also the last book I uploaded to D2D yesterday. Which is why it's on my mind today. While I upload I cut and past the blurbs from the Amazon listing, instead of searching through the files to see if I still have the original blurb hiding amongst the dozens of files (I really should clean up my documents and get back-ups made since the dog ate the jump file that was my back-up) it's just easier... anyway... I noticed RE had a new review. Well, new if you consider last November new. I don't check reviews. I just don't need or want to know anymore. It's love or hate, never much in between. So I just don't. But I did and I have to ask...
If you read it, and got to the epilogue, and read the first paragraph and decided to quit because it was the opening paragraph repeated... uh, well, did you think I'd made a mistake or something and that was the end of the story? Or did you power through the repeat to the end and the twist?
Because if you stopped, I guess that explains the lack of interest.
So to spoil, it's a timeloop ghost story. The epilogue started again because it's where that character starts his loop each year... 
But well, I guess I didn't write the story I thought I did. 
Anyway... hoping you have a great day.
Will talk later.
I should go make a page for RE and 2PC shouldn't I?

PEACE,
Mercy

 

So... This is Interesting

 Lots of huh moments this week. It's not hot anymore. I mean, seriously, that was unexpected. Of course, the tropical activity that killed the heat wasn't expected either. Look out the window at a wall of water (rain, not coastal) and go huh, where did that come from.

Don't get me wrong, I'm seriously happy that the oppressive heat was broken, but I needed a wee bit of a heads up about the tropical storm bands that aren't actually storm bands... I don't know... It was weird. Like last year when the only hurricane to come near the central gulf coast, formed in the central gulf and went south to Cuba... again WEIRD!

But again, it's nice outside today. This morning was almost nippy. It didn't last, but it was nice.

I always start with the weather. I'm sorry. It weathers here... ALOT!

Now on to other topics.

I've been working to get more books listed on D2D. We've had this conversation before. I'm trying to go as wide as possible because, honestly, I can't make less than three hundred bucks a month with 32 books enrolled in KU. I just can't. I mean, I have only just passed the one hundred dollar mark on the Zon but, well, I'm making sales on other sites. Not many. Not a hundred bucks. But something. It's a start. I'm hoping that the Kobo plus for a full month for all books will be decent. We'll know in a week or so. I made 39 bucks last month in KP, but that was only a partial month for all books. And yes, I know it takes time to build sales in wide release. And it does. More than a month. So we'll see. I still can't justify going all in in KU again, ever. I have a handful of books that do really well in KU, and I have books that do nothing in KU but have always done well on Kobo. For some reason the Adventure INK series is my biggest Kobo selling series. Match Day has sold more on Kobo than any other book I have. And that includes the football books. I don't understand it. Okay, I do. Most of my sales on Kobo come from Canada and other non-US countries. Countries that don't have American Football and most likely could not care less about American Football stories. So... fine, I get that. But, the Adventure INK series has been all but ignored every where else, and I don't understand that at all. 

I mean, the straight romance books have always done better on Barnes & Noble. I can't give those away, literally, on any other site, not even in KU. I've got 13 years of data. And that's how it's been. Nothing new has sold on any site. Not even the football books. And that is the main reason I've stopped writing. Every new book since Out of the Blues has done progressively worse than the one before, until the last book didn't even make 200 paid sales. 

It's not just me. I know this. But it does feel personal. I know the markets have changed. I know what is selling. I don't write what is selling. I don't write fast. I will not even attempt to publish a book a month. Kudos to those who do write their own book from scratch every month, you have my respect. It's not something I can do... and that's all I'm going to say on the subject. I mean, if you go back to when I first published as Mercy, not to 2005 with Ellora's Cave, but to 2011 when I first hit the charts with several books, you'll see that none of the authors I started out with are still around. Okay, a few. One or two went on to bigger things. Some are still writing and publishing but they never hit the charts that I'm aware of. But mostly, we're all gone. And I don't just mean the MM books. The straight rom authors who were coming up with me are gone too. So, yeah, it's not just me, but it is personal. 

But that's water under the bridge... that's washed away in the storm.

SIGHS!

I digress. 

Again.

I'm so tired of talking about it. I do not want what I had pre- Out of the Blues. I am not equipped to handle that kind of success. But I sure as hell don't know what I did to lose it all... again... I digress.

Once upon a time I had a Patreon. I did not like the Patreon. I can't explain that, best I can say is, it bothered me to ask people to subscribe when I was not able to put out content. So... that's why, in a nutshell, that I don't have Patreon... that, and well, other things.

I finally found a couple of groups on the book of faces that aren't promo groups, because that was just promoting to other authors trying to promote... I need an author support group, because damn if I know what's going on in the publishing world now. 

And it came to my attention that there is a place called Ream Stories, that is part Patreon, and part Kindle Vella. And the best part is, they seem to be, uh, well, they say they won't censor romance authors, like the other site is known to do.

I've started looking into creating an account there. Let's call it research. I'm interested, but I can't afford to pay for offsite services like I needed at Patreon. Bookfunnel is not free to use. I need a new newsletter, but again, I can't afford to pay for a newsletter that reaches more than a few people. I am flat broke. And just like when I first self published, I am starting from scratch with no operating capital. 

But if I'm going to start this again... that's where I'm going to start. If I can. If I decide it's a decent place to start. Just if... 

And that's what is interesting today.

If, or when, I do this, I hope you'll join me. When I do this, I'll post the links and try to sing it from the rooftops.

Until then,

Peace,

Mercy

Chasing my Tail

 Ugh.... why does it always seem like I'm behind? Because I'm always behind. If I had just me to worry about it would... probably be the same... but... it might be mid-June and school is out, but we've just hit the hurry up and get stuff done for college stage.

Aubrey is behind on their shots. My fault, with help from the pandemic. We put off a set in 2019 because we could. We'd planned that set for summer 2020. Well, that didn't help any. The doctor's office closed. Like completely closed. They were only taking emergency appointments but otherwise there was never anyone there. I decided it wouldn't matter much if we waited another year. We had most of it done. Just the final two sets and maybe a booster series to go. 

Well, four years later and we're missing three required shots and they have to have them by orientation. Now we're trying to find a place to get them caught up and there are no appointments to be had. BANGS HEAD!

Orientation is the end of July. Like... okay... we just got out... but okay. Classes start in late August, so they still have two full months left. We're good. School supplies are going up in stores now. SIGHS!

It's still not even the summer solstice, and I'm already wishing it was fall.

There's more, but, well, that's not for public consumption. There's always more happening behind the scenes that I will never speak of. As it should be. Unless I'm in a very weak moment, I don't talk about the private stuff.

Anyway... I just had the biggest flash of deja vu. Like I've typed this all before. On this blog. Weird.

What's up with me? Beyond the normal crap... not much. I started making jewelry again. As if I have a place to list them when I'm done. I'm trying to get a lot up on Ebay so I can pay my bills. And I'm slowly getting books listed on Draft 2 Digital to get to places I can't reach, and Smashwords. Same with Barnes & Noble. I mean, I pulled everything off Barnes & Noble late last year after I finally reached the pay threshold after more than a year. I still see no real reason to be there, but, well, may as well, if I'm putting everything as wide as possible then yeah, may as well, but you'll notice I'm not busting my ass to get it done there.

Speaking of D2D, the 11 titles I had in the pending phase from May 22 and 23 finally published last week. Still no idea why it took so long. I know they're doing a migration from Smashwords to direct from them. I guess that's why. Which makes me wonder if they're shutting the Smashwords uploader down completely, and how that will work for the taboo books that only SW allows. If you weren't aware, D2D acquired Smashwords a few years ago. They made it clear that D2D would not allow the taboo or extreme erotic books on their site but would not disallow them on Smashwords. I'm just, well, I don't have the twin book on Smashwords anyway due to formatting issues.

Speaking of formatting issues. After years, Beyond Complicated has also been flagged for formatting issues on D2D. I've had no problems with it on any other site. And that's what they said the issue was, that it's failing the formatting check. 

So, I need to do a refresh of it anyway, kinda tired of looking at that cover. I can't afford a new cover and I can't afford to renew my Word subscription, so this could take some time, but I'm going to refresh it, with new cover and blah blah blah... you've heard it before. Does it matter? Really? It's the only book that currently sells anything on Amazon. It never sells on Kobo or Apple. What does it really matter???

I don't know. I really don't. I'm struggling with all of this so so much. 

Write new books... they say... I wrote new books... crickets. Just complete crickets.

I should write monster porn under a new name. Would that work?

Just pondering... tentacle knotting... hmmmm... I mean, I could... I just don't know if I want to. I'd seriously need a new pen name to go with... Something like Agatha Thornebush... hell if I am creative enough to figure out monster porn.

So anyway, that's me, all caught up.

Hoping you're having a decent Tuesday.

Peace,

Mercy