Hitting the Stratosphere Can Suck

During an interview on a late night talk show, Matt Damon told a story. His friend Brad Pitt told Matt he hated him because Matt could take his kids to a public school like any other parent in the U.S. Meanwhile, Brad had to deal with a ton of paparazzi following him and his kids everywhere, and he didn't have any real choice about putting his children into private schools.

I'm starting to see the same types of issues with author friends and acquaintances. Not that paparazzi follows writers around, but your problems change at a certain level of success.

Whereas some writers are making a living, and by living I mean they can pay for a roof over their heads, food on the table, and clothes on their kids backs, others can have their private yacht custom built a la Hugh Howey. This level of money starts a cascade of new problems.

First and foremost is raw professional jealousy from your friends. I've been accused of it, and I've seen it in attitudes aimed toward me. Those people generally don't remain friends for long.

It's a little sad to lose people from your life over something like this. I've been helped by a lot of people. There are some who expected me to kiss their ass forever. There are those who get furious if I exceeded their success. And there are those who have told me to pay it forward to new writers. I really try to emulate that last group.

Then there's family and other relationships, both people you currently hang out with and those you've lost contact with over the years. Funny how these people come crawling out of the woodwork when they hear of your good fortune, often with their hands outstretched for gifts. When you don't give them those gifts they think they deserve, they turn on you.

Or you're back to the same old jealousy issue. Nothing like your mother making snide comments about your spending.

So you start pruning the toxic relationships. The more successful you are, the more you have to prune, and the more isolated you can feel.

On the other hand, you find you need to censor yourself when you're the successful one. How can you talk about the pros and cons of a Boeing jet versus a Cessna jet when your buddy is trying to scrape together the cash to get the transmission replaced on her only car. Then you feel like a fake.

Deep down, I think that's the real fear for most writers. It's not the fear of failure. It's the fear of success.

Success changes everything. The struggle to achieve is easier to deal with than reaching that goal. Because once you reach that goal, you expect things to change.

And we humans hate change with a passion that cannot be matched.

It may sound like I'm blaming the victim, but I've watched a lot of writers sabotage themselves. Hell, I've done it to myself. Because I've already had success in other areas of my life, and I've seen what happens.

Success is lonely. We can't talk about it without setting people off. And next to change, we hate loneliness most of all.

The Secrets of My Success

Yesterday, Kris Rusch posted a pretty deep article about the change in how Americans consume entertainment. The change hasn't hit the producers of that entertainment yet.

By that, I mean you.

You know who you are. You scour the internet for tidbits of anything to make that one book a success. How do I know this? You're hitting this blog from Yahoo or Google under search criteria such as "indie writer income" or "how to make money writing erotica".

Want to know the secret?

There isn't one.

Right now, a lot of you are grumbling under your breath.

"She won't tell us."

"The bitch is hiding the truth."

"She's just trying to keep us out like all the other successful writers."

Okay, maybe I did lie. Why? To quote  Jack Nicholson's character from A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth."

So here's the truth. Two simple steps to being successful.

1) Write.

Write a lot. Publish what you write. Rinse. Repeat.

I hate to tell you, but you probably aren't going to make it with one book. There's going to be more blood moons this year than people who can repeat Margaret Mitchell's or Harper Lee's one-book wonder type of success.

"But writing is hard," you whine.

So what? Either you want to write or you don't. I can't make you. Your mommy can't make you. Only you can make you. It's up to you.

2) Be nice.

Call it the Golden Rule, the Threefold Law, Karma, or whatever the hell you want. Personally I prefer Wheaton's Law, aka "Don't be a dick."

Treat everyone with respect, even if they want something from you. Why? Because you don't know when or how it'll come back to you.

For example, Newbie asked Alter Ego for some self-publishing advice a little over a year ago. I gave her some pointers and blogs to check out.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. Newbie's doing pretty well for herself. She hired a personal assistant and mentioned AE as one of her inspirations. PA checks out AE's books and tells her friend, who happens to run a book review blog. Book Review Gal contacts AE and asks for a review copy of the book Newbie originally referred to PA. BRG loves book and gives a glowing review. Established Erotica Writer sees review, checks out book, then contacts AE about submitting a story for an erotic anthology bundle.

See? Karma.

It's pretty simple. Write. Be nice. You have to work pretty hard to fuck that up.

How Do You Define Success?

Lately, I've had people say things about me hitting  the New York Time Best Seller List. Or signing TV or movie deals. Or in the case of DH, making enough money we can pay cash for a little bungalow in Waimea, Kauai.

But these are other people's definitions of success. They are not necessarily mine. Why? I know how some of this stuff works and they don't.

1) Best Seller Lists

First of all, in cases like the NYT and USAToday, the books that make a bestseller list mean that they sold more copies relative to the millions of books available for sale in a given week.

What a lot of people don't realize is that most bestseller lists are manipulated. For example, the NYT separated adult and kids' books when the Harry Potter dominated the charts ten years ago. They separated hard covers/mass market paperbacks/e-books decades ago for the same reason.

During the erotica boom in 2012, Barnes & Noble weighted their best seller list so erotica books didn't show on their Top 125 unless they were published by a trad publisher.

Also, a bestseller can be bought--if you have six figures to spend and you know which stores the list makers pull their numbers from.

So if there's so much manipulation, is my book making the bestseller truly a success?

2) Movie/TV Deals

The odds of a book being turned into a movie or TV are astronomical. I know several writers who have sold options on their books. (A option is an exclusive license to purchase the right to make a movie and/or TV show based on your story.) Not one of the book authors I personally know has had a movie or TV show filmed yet.

Even bestselling authors don't always have their stories turned into film right away. Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire traveled around Hollywood for two decades before the film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt was finally made. At one point in that eighteen-year journey, Cher was considered for the role of Lestat.

So the odds of one of my books being adapted is next to nil at this point.

3) Money

I'm not going to deny that having extra spending money is very, very nice. I've had it; I haven't had it. But I have learned it's not the end-all, be-all. Yes, the bungalow in Waimea is our dream. If it happens, great. But I've not going to drive myself insane or work myself to death to achieve it.


Each person needs to define what success is to them. Maybe one of these three things defines success to you. If so, more power to you. I hope you find what your looking for. Just don't let other people decide what your success should be. Trust me; it's a sure way to make yourself miserable.

What Does Success Mean

There were a couple of events last week that made me think.

(This is where DH says, "AAAGGGHHH!)

The first one was having lunch with a former critique group. Four different writing career paths and life events mean we don't critique together anymore, but we still try to get together once in a while.

And by different paths, I mean incredibly different paths. Christie still writes for two of the Big 5 and 1/2, but she's self-published her backlist from the now-defuntct Dorchester and Triskelion. She's also hit the NYT Bestseller List. Teri started with Ellora's Cave, dabbled in indie publishing, and is now focusing on finding a trad publisher for her young adult series. Life has hit Jody the hardest, which is why she focuses on the magazines that still accept short stories. Then there's me, who went 100% indie after nearly two decades of rejections.

Christie related her adventures during her first publisher-sponsored book tour, so of course the conversation turned to book promotion. Needless to say, she's shocked at how little promotion I've done, yet I'm still make a few hundred bucks a month.

Quite honestly, I can't do the amount of travel Christie does for promotion. For one thing, I have a preteen child while her kids are adults with their own homes and significant others. Then there's my health issues. My immune system is so compromised I'm lucky to get through the grocery store without catching someone's disease. Believe me, I wish I were joking. A mild cold swept through GK's soccer team, and I spent a whole day on the family room couch because it was closest to the downstairs bathroom.

The other thing that happened last week was Charlaine Harris's last Sookie Stackhouse novel was released. Despite my best efforts NOT to hit spoiler sites, the fan backlash over the ending was a major topic of conversation on several writer business blogs I follow.

I realize I really don't want Charlaine's level of success. I already have DH pissed at me over something I'm going to do in Book 8 of the Bloodlines series, I can't imagine having thousands of fans sending me hate mail and death threats.

No, I definitely don't want the kind of success Christie and Charlaine have. I would never survive it.

Deep down, I want readers, not fans. I want to give people entertainment in their lives, but not to the point they go Kathy Bates on me. Most of all I want to bring them a little joy. That's my definition of success right now.

But I am a woman, and I reserve the right to change my mind down the road.

My Soapbox Advice

Two weeks ago, a fellow indie author wondered if there was a secret to self-pubbing sales. Here's the e-mail reply I sent her. Names have been removed to protect the guilty, and I fixed my typos. Uh, most of them.

This is just my $0.02 from self-publishing for the last year, so take it with a grain of salt, a shot of tequila and a lime.

1) Don't ever compare yourself to another writer! Otherwise, I would have slit your throat, run your body through my Cuisenart and buried the pieces in Friend X's compost pile months ago.

2) Genre does matter. All those genres that agents and editors are saying are dead, like romcom, vampires and thrillers? Those are the ones kicking ass on Kindle right now.

3) Sometimes, the social media circus doesn't mean jack. The books I write under my name and plug the hell out of? They're doing 'Meh' sales. My alter-ego who's done zero promo work for her genre? She's kicking ass on both the Amazon and B&N charts.

4) Put more books up. Hubby did a rough calculation back in 2010. A writer needs an average of ten books to hit the tipping point of self-sustaining sales. Some do it with one book; some do it with the twentieth. I didn't see much of a change in sales until my seventh book went on sale. I noticed Friend Y stated kicking butt around her fifth.

5) Did I mention write more books? Try a different genre. Take a chance on something different. If you're worried, publish under a pseudonym. Don't stick all your eggs in one basket.

In other words, don't sweat the little stuff and keep writing.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Got to write the black moment scene, and I'm procrastinating.

Now mind you, my friend thought her sales sucked  when in fact, she's doing quite well. Success is a relative term in this business. Only you can define what it means for you.

Trust In Yourself

Currently reading - Flesh Circus by Lilith Saintcrow

Back in my college days, I taught archery at a summer camp. During a church camp, the minister asked to accompany me and the children. It's always nice to have an extra adult with a group of rowdy 9-11 year-olds, so I said, "No problem."

On the walk to the archery range, the minister made some remarks to the boys of group. Something to the effect of they need to listen to the instructor but then he'd teach them how to really shoot.

Yeah, I was miffed, but I showed the kids how to set up the targets, how to string the bows, and how safety was paramount to everything else. I selected and nocked an arrow, raised the bow, and drew the string back to my ear.

The arrow buried itself dead center of the target. A collective gasp, then excited shouting rose behind me. I looked skyward and whispered, "Thanks," before helping the kids get started. And the minister never moved from the bench in the lean-to behind the safety line.

Quite frankly, I've never hit a bull's eye without warming up, so part of that day was luck and part of it was confidence in the face of adversity.

It's no different with writing. Part of your success is the willingness to learn, to practice, to go on no matter what anyone says about your skill or ability. Part of that same success is having the right product at the right time--in other words, luck.

If you want to be a writer, put in your time at the keyboard. And a little good fortune never hurts either.