but habitual readers will learn something, even if it’s a masterclass in what not to do.

I don’t know when or where formalized trigger warnings started in earnest (not the rare “The following film contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”), but I first saw them on the e-publishing sites in the mid-aughts.

Some took themselves very seriously and come from a place of concern (but this is not on the Kindle buy page):

This series deals with parental loss and terminal diagnosis of a loved one. I’ve been through it myself, so I hope it is dealt with appropriately – with real sensitivity and empathy.

Some could marginally be classified as spoilers:

This is a dark romantic suspense and psychological thriller of 80,000 words, featuring a main character with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Trigger warnings for abuse, self-harm, CSA, pregnancy-related issues.

Some were cheeky extensions on the blurb:

CAUTION: This title contains the jarring and bizarre juxtaposition of explicit sex and overt religion. As an added bonus, there’s quite a bit of libertarian/objectivist philosophy, politics, money, and cursing—the really bad kind. I also threw in a smattering of violence, nude art, the criminal use of mint chocolate chip ice cream, rampant armchair psychoanalysis, a slew of shoulda-coulda-wouldas, and a cat named Dog.

There are arguments for and against, of course, and I am firmly on Team No in terms of warning about problematic or disturbing content.

For one, if they serve as spoilers, there is no point to reading the book if you know what happens before you can click BUY. Whether you turn to the back of the book before you start reading is your problem, not the problem of a potential reader who resents being spoiled without warning.

For two, and this is my biggest WTF objection, don’t read what is clearly marked and shelved HORROR and then complain about what you get.

Somehow trigger warnings spread to academia and classic literature, including Shakespeare, riding on the coattails of safe spaces.

Students in America have been asking for “trigger warnings” to be included on works of literature which deal with topics such as rape or war.

That’s not new. Book banning is a trigger warning on steroids.

I’m not going to go into how people should handle their trauma because that’s not my business. I don’t care about your trauma and you don’t care about mine. That’s as it should be.

I’m also not going to tell you to suck it up. I’m going to tell you how not to suck it up and why you should suck it up.

AVOID IT

SUCK IT UP

If you’ve done the above and you choose to read Book Title anyway, that’s on you.

HOWEVER.

“Trigger warnings” (and I use that phrase loosely) do serve another purpose: Marketing.

That thing you don’t want to read? Somebody else is actively looking for it, so it behooves an author to take that into account and arrange their words accordingly.

This

is not a trigger warning or spoiler. It’s a product description. The readers who pick up this book already know what it is and they are actively looking for it. They want precision as to their taste in tropes.

THE FLIP SIDE.

Calling it “clean” romance instead of “sweet” is damaging and kind of derogatory

It always really grinds my gears when people call it clean romance when it is closed door, fade to black, no mention of sex at all, etc. It implies that sex is inherently dirty or wrong in some way. Calling it sweet on the other hand doesn’t have the same connotations, just that the book isn’t steamy or spicy. It’s also putting down those who might like a different kind of romance.

Emphasis mine.

That’s a you problem.

I don’t love the word “clean”, either, but it has one thing going for it: It’s a very efficient term. [ … ] “Closed door” and “fade to black” only apply to certain books, since some books have no reference to sex at all. I guess “no steam” would work, but I feel like “steam” is slowly becoming less popular than “spicy”, so I’m not sure if it will hold up long term. TLDR I’m okay with “clean” because everyone knows what it means.

Emphasis mine.

THE SOLUTION.

If you’re an author who doesn’t like trigger warnings, but still need to be precise for readers who are looking for exactly what you’re selling, the solution is very simple:

It’s efficient.

Just … don’t be this guy:

Pertinent points:

• FB uses the data its users provide and have been providing for 10 years to advertise to you. But there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, so they get what they deserve—ads.
• On the other hand, users have been providing free labor to collect the data for other purposes. FB users perform very valuable work for free.
• FB’s raison d’être was to allow users to “Connect with Your Friends • Discover and Learn • Express Yourself • Control What You Share • Stay Connected with Your Friends on Mobile Devices” except … now you can’t. Because it won’t let you.
• The users who built the database, collected the followers, followed the brands, participated in the community, are being stabbed in the back. It happened overnight. One day you reached all the people who opted in to see your page. The next day, you didn’t.
• Unless you pay to boost your posts. Except … you don’t know if FB is lying to you or not because there is no third-party verification of stats. Except … it’s the work the FB users did. FB users are expected not only to build the database, but to PAY to use it.

My personal experience is the same, but what keeps my rage fueled are the DAILY emails from FB reminding me to post on my page. Really?

I am not posting on my page anymore and this is why: Nobody sees it. Not even the people who requested to. Yet FB wants me to continue to support my brand on FB by nagging me to do it.

No.

For a moment, Facebook was the only good game in town, which was why many of us were stuck here. However, once the users (not the page owners who are being throttled) realize they’re not getting the information they want, they’ll leave.

The sooner the better.

Then the midlist authors come along and digitize their backlists, and everybody’s happy because they already have a brand and they’re simply supplying a product that people want. Yay.

And then there are the midlist and higher-up authors who self-publish new stuff. That’s kind of an interesting experiment. I like watching it all play out even though, well, their brand trumps my brand and I have to work harder at establishing my brand.

Thus, it should make me happy when a very well-established author self-publishes something new and it’s crap. But it doesn’t make me happy. It makes me sad.

See, one big slip, and the reader suddenly suspects that you’re not a very good writer and that your editors made you who you are, and … you’re going to throw away years of investment in your brand and your work product  just because you want to cash in on a 99c romance novella heatwave or make money off your under-the-bed manuscripts?

You insult your readers. You insult your former editors. You make a mockery of your previous publishers. And you embarrass the hell out of yourself. Do you really not know how bad you look, or do you not care?

If your intent is to destroy the brand you worked for all these years because you just have to put up that novella right now because can’t wait because you’ll miss the self-publishing train if you don’t, then you are succeeding.

And you deserve it.

P.S. If you insist on going without an editor, learn how to fucking write. If you can’t do it after all these years and titles, you’re a fraud.

So what.

Here’s the thing: NetGalley charges what is, to me, a micropress, an astronomical amount of money to give away books. That’s right: I would be paying to give my product to people in exchange for … very little in the way of a quantifiable return.

NetGalley is not in business to lose money. It’s in business to make money by providing a publishers’ colony. However publishers decide to define their ROI (return on investment) is how NetGalley’s going to be bringing in the money.

Follow the money.

When all other explanations fail, just follow the money.

 
Knox Hilliard’s uncle killed his father to marry his mother and gain control of the family’s Fortune 100 company. Knox is set to inherit it on his 40th birthday, provided he has a wife and an heir.

Then, after his bride is murdered on their wedding day, Knox refuses to fulfill the proviso at all. When a brilliant law student catches his attention, he knows he must wait until after his 40th birthday to pursue her—but he may not be able to resist her that long.

Sebastian Taight, eccentric financier, steps between Knox and his uncle by initiating a hostile takeover. When Sebastian is appointed trustee of a company in receivership, he falls hard for its beautiful CEO. She has secrets that involve his uncle, but his secret could destroy any chance he has with her.

Giselle Cox exposed the affair that set her uncle’s plot in motion—twenty years ago. He’s burned Giselle’s bookstore and had her shot because it is she who holds his life in her hands. Then she runs into a much bigger problem: A man who takes her breath away, who can match and dominate her, whose soul is as scarred as his body.

Knox, Sebastian, and Giselle: Three cousins at war with an uncle who will stop at nothing to keep Knox’s inheritance. Never do they expect to find allies—and love—on the battlefield.

I feel SOOO much better now.

You can buy it at the Kindle store, All Romance eBooks, and (preferably) B10 Mediaworx. Crossing fingers now that’ll give everybody some idea what the book is really about.

In case anybody cares, these are my current random thoughts, none of which rate the time to explore in a full-on blog post (plus, I’ve said it all before):

1) Writers: You’re screwed unless you put out your own stuff and you can market it. The old days are gone. “Getting” published is fine if that’s what you need to validate your soul. If you want better odds on getting to readers and making a little money, do it yourself. But dammit, do it right!

2) Writers: Remember that the people who made money in the gold rush didn’t make it panning for gold, chasing a vein that didn’t exist. The people selling the shovels made all the money. Learn a new skill and sell some shovels. You aren’t going to make a livable income writing for da man. Just don’t make any plans to leave your day job.

3) Book designers: Stop trying to format ebooks on a print paradigm. Ebooks are not print books. They don’t serve the same function. It’s like trying to apply a print paradigm to audiobooks. Stop it. Learn how to format serviceable, good-looking ebooks and forget about Teh Fancy.

4) Editors: Go freelance. Market your name. Make the authors who hire you put your name in the book so you can establish your brand. The curation of books in the future will depend on the editor, not the author, not the publishing house.

5) Indexers: You have a bright and shiny new field to explore. Learn how to index digitally. It’s called anchor tags.

6) Publishers: Get your metadata in gear. Seriously.

7) Publishers: The first publisher to chapter-and-verse its digital textbooks/reference/nonfiction will win the prize. What do I mean? I’ll tell you. Pick up a Bible. Any Bible, any translation, any size, any publisher. Go to John 3:16. That’s what I mean. Develop a system. Patent/trademark it then license it. Make it the standard of any good digital nonfiction book, the way good indexing is. Indexers, see #5.

That is all. I have a mountain of work to get done before I leave for NY next week.

1. Y’all know who Doc McGhee is, right? He was Mötley Crüe’s manager way back in the day and pretty much made them rich and famous.
2. In early November, Amazon “suck[ed] up to literary agents” in a bid to kill its monsterly image. Really? They need literary agents to kill its monsterly image? Who’d’a thunk it?
3. Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette all announced they would be holding off releasing ebooks of new (hardcover) titles by six months. The brilliance never ends.
4. Stephen Covey just told Simon & Schuster to fuck off.  Well. I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly what he said.
5. There is one thing an unknown or midlist self-published author can’t get that s/he needs most.
6. There is only one thing a bestselling name-brand author has but doesn’t need at all.

I’m not going to explain any of this stuff. The graphic should make it, well, graphically obvious. Take the above seemingly unrelated items, throw it in with this, and see what you come up with. Assume the writer has not himself arranged for the actual production of his manuscript into print and electronic:

Pop quiz: What word is nowhere to be found in the above flowchart?

I think there’s one agent out there who already knows all this and is slowly, steadily—over weeks, months, years—training his blog readers to start thinking this way.

The difference between how agents work now and how this could work is that a writer would interview agents and hire one (as s/he would an attorney or CPA), as opposed to becoming a supplicant for the agent’s approbation/validation. Agents who now work as if they’re doing writers a favor may not deal with this system well.

On the other hand, even though this is my own plan, I can see that it could land us right back where we are now if writers won’t let go of the thought that they’re powerless and/or only incidental to the book creation process.

Writers, listen up: You’re the creator. There’s power in being the originator of content. Use that power and take control of your own destiny. It’s your work. Take responsibility for its dissemination.

Accept that you will not be able to quit your day job.

Regardless how much weeping and wailing and gnashing of the teeth goes on around the web about monetizing art, if you’re a writer not already pulling income that allows writing to be your day job, just deal with the fact that you probably aren’t going to.

In my mind, making peace with the fact that you have to keep your day job is a lot easier than spending all your creative energy to resent it. Ask me how I know.

Today, right now, as I look over the fiction writer landscape on the web, I see lots of writers I can slot into roughly five categories:

1. The unpublished authors seeking publication via the normal route (query/reject/revise/repeat). They’re hustling to get an agent’s attention, and possibly spending money on ink/toner, paper, envelopes, and postage to do so. They aren’t earning any money.
2. The midlist authors having to prove their numbers in order to get their next book contract, which means they have to hustle and market and fight to make sure people know their books exist (especially if they aren’t in Wal-Mart or Target). They probably aren’t earning enough to write full time.
3. The self-published authors having to fight just to let people know they and their work exists. They probably aren’t earning enough to pay the cost of producing their book(s), much less earn a living.
4. The career category authors (Harlequin/Silhouette) and e-published romance authors (Samhain, LooseId, Ellora’s Cave), a good portion of whom can earn a fairly decent living cranking out the books, but there’s a catch: Putting out enough books to make that kind of living has to be grueling. At least, it would be for me. YMMV. The advantage to e-publishing over career category publishing, though, is that your titles never go out of print and you have A) time to build a backlist and B) your backlist is forever available to any late-night shoppers with a credit card.
5. The A- and B-list authors who have pressures of their own, I’m sure, to which I am not privy. This includes anyone who may (if they choose to) write only one book per year or fewer and earn a comfortable living doing so.

Now, I’m obviously #3, except that I’m doing okay: Not enough to quit doing my day job, but enough to bear out the investment of time and money. (See my Six-Year Plan.) However, my goal is the same as the e-published authors: Build the backlist and invest in the future.

I hate my day job. I really do. Yeah, it’s my own business but I hate the work, mostly because I’ve been doing it or something similar for years. It’s easier now that I have a couple of decent clients, but the work remains. I fight an uphill battle every day to Just Do It, but do it I must. Some days I’m more successful than others.

But the explosion of free versus paid writing that has kind of ballooned lately with Chris Anderson’s book Free, and Malcolm Gladwell’s review of that book in the New Yorker only reinforces the necessity of resigning myself to the fact that I must have a day job.

For now.

The fact of the matter is that I have better odds of doing so than unpublished authors who hold out hope that they’ll hit the lottery.

I also believe that I have better odds than those authors who have to prove every book via sales, even if all the stars are aligned against them (bad cover art, little marketing support, not being in Wal-Mart or Target); perhaps that myopic of me, but I’m hustling for 100% profit, while they’re hustling for 10% royalties and they’re locked into questionable digital contracts (amongst other things).

As for career category writing, I couldn’t do it (as stated above), especially within the restrictions of category. I know, because I tried, and missed the bullseye by half a hair every single time.

I also couldn’t do e-publishing because there isn’t one that would contract what I write, and I know that; I’d rather not waste their time or mine. Also, see above for the grind in order to make money.

Basically, what I have on my side is control and time. I’m going to write no matter what, and I’m going to write what the stories I have to tell. I’d rather put it out there for the opportunity to earn a little money than let it languish in the inboxes of agents who are also feeling the pinch.

Yeah, I think I’m in a really good position. I just can’t quit my day job.

Yet.

I’m slowly coming to terms with that.

in the bottom right-hand corner of a TV commercial with no other identifying branding and no voice-over identifying the company.

He knew what it was immediately. Pointed at it, blurted it out. Dude didn’t know what it was until the company identified itself.

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from me.”

Mojo Branding Lesson #1.

Sigh.

Okay, so you know how you go to the store and while you’re waiting in line to cash out, there’s gobs and gobs of utterly useless crap and empty calories surrounding you? They scream at you: Buy me! Buy me! You need me! You cannot live without me one more second!

I’m mostly inured to that now. I’m too busy trying to figure out how Nostradamus gets so much press and I don’t.

However, today I had reason to go to Office Depot. Now, you must understand. Office Depot is like a crack house for me. I go in, I don’t come out for days, high on the scent of new paper, new pens, new plastic floor pads (the ones that go under your chair). Ah, the smell of bubble wrap in the morning.

But today I only needed to return something and went straight to the counter. On my way out, however, in that space reserved for mindless crap wanting you to buy it, I saw a good ten linear feet (3 feet high) of trial-sized toiletries. You know, like at Wal-Mart. Only better. More thoroughly thought out.

I looked. Looked again (and crap, didn’t take a pic; I’ll go back). Studied what they had. Nothing useless and several brands of each type of toiletry (Crest and Colgate, for example).

You may think this is no big deal, but it IS. This is value-added at the finest. It’s not Sony “fashion earbuds” (although those were way cute); it’s not some weird executive toy I couldn’t figure out how to work; it’s not the ubiquitous calendar. It’s also not the candy/pop/bottled water section.

No, it’s TOILETRIES. People need those. People who shop at office supply stores need those because, you know, I bet lots of business travelers end up at an office supply store. And they might have had to stop at Wal-Mart or Target later to get one of those toiletry items, but they don’t have to now because Office Depot had it. HALLELUJAH! I’ll tell you, the trip from my Office Depot to my Wal-Mart (across a highway from each other) would take half an hour because of traffic, parking, and walking. That’s money saved, people. And just think if a business traveler already knows those things are there! When he’s in a strange city, he knows he can go to the nearest Office Depot and get his packing tape AND his toothpaste.

And BRANDING! I will forever now associate the Office Depot BRAND with stocking things business travelers NEED. It’s not a high-cost item. Doesn’t take up much floor space. Dollar for dollar, I’ll bet that’s got a high ROI.

Okay, so what does this have to do with e-books?

Value added.

Things you can’t get in the print version.

If you were inclined to buy my book, but you knew the e-book version had about 10 extra scenes or character vignettes or lists of resources I used or a list of the songs I listened to while I was writing it (things that are not in the print version), would you be more inclined to check it out?¹

I would. Give me a favorite author in e-book (one I’m inclined to buy in hardback anyway), tell me it’s got extra stuff on it, don’t slap any stupid DRM on it, and I’ll buy the e-book for the extra stuff and the hardback for the art.

Value added.

Value added.

Value added.