Being a Better Writer: When Readers like It ... but It's Bad · 9:21pm Feb 20th, 2018
This is an interesting one, and one that I'll freely admit I never would have thought of on my own—at least not in such context. Which means that, yes, today's post is another reader-requested topic (which reminds me, we're getting closer to needing more of these, so start thinking of questions you'd like me to address).
But first, some quick news. Those of you who read my LTUE recap might remember the uncertainty around the Barnes & Noble upset? Well, it's still going. Though it didn't seem to make the news most places, hundreds of former B&N employees have now spoken up an confirm that yes, almost most if-not-all full-time employees of the last remaining physical book retailer have been let go. At least a thousand people from one department alone confirmed as gone. B&N has since seen that yes, it has "saved" the 40 million it won't be paying those employees ... but it's stock has also tanked (dropping by around 60% in a single day last I heard) and seen a massive bailing of investors and stock offloads.
So head to your nearest B&N store and pick out the furniture you'd like to take home, because they'll be selling it soon!
Second, Alpha Editing on Shadow of an Empire continues to progress. The good news is that we're not seeing any major changes, just tiny alpha tweaks. The bad news? Well, you can't read it yet, I suppose. But soon! Still looking at a spring release!
Right, that's the news! Onward to bad writing!
So, you've just put the finishing touches on your latest story. Maybe it's a fanfic, maybe it's something original you put together after a workshop or on the train ride to work. What matters is that it's yours. You wrote it, and you're proud of it.
Well ... almost. Or crud, maybe you are in the moment. Point is, you're excited and enthused, and with a few clicks you throw your story out there into the wild. It hits the net ... and your readers love it. You go about your day, and come home to a barrage of comments, attention, and fanfare. Great!
Except there's just one problem. The comments aren't what you expected, and as you look over your own story you realize that in the excitement of getting this idea down on paper it kind of slid past you how bland the rest of the story really is outside of that concept. You start noticing all the errors that you should have fixed before posting, all the flaws, but at the same time ...
All these readers love it. Is it really so bad?
A little sad to hear that Barnes & Noble is going under, but I've read e-books nearly exclusively since graduating high school, so I don't see it directly affecting me much.
Didn't realize some people actively sought out bad writing, but it makes enough sense. I'm glad there are markets to cater to both sides.
Maybe one of these days I'll get around to properly fixing Tastes Like Heresy. Probably not in the near future, though.
..w-what? My Barnes & Noble that's just ten minutes away? The only decent bookstore I have left? Possibly going away?
...
...
4801630
I'm actually kind of glad about B&N dying. In fact, I joked the other day about doing the Handsome Jack thing and buying all the stock for pennies on the hundred shares when they finally collapsed just to consolidate it into one share I could keep on my desk (mostly because it's such a strange method of "revenge" I find it hilarious). But as I found out at LTUE, B&N held some serious sway over the book industry, to the point that they would dictate things to publishers (make this change or we won't stock your book) and were apparently very anti-indy and spread that sentiment everywhere they could to keep their power grip.
Honestly, B&N going under is probably better in the long run for me and a lot of indie authors bumping up against that sphere of influence.
4801634
Unless they go independent, yeah. They're gone, going down like Circuit City.
4801636
Honest question: is Amazon any better? Because while there's something to be said for the ability to directly sell to your readers, there's a big chunk of the market that they're doing their darndest to wall off inside e.g. the Kindle store and their own POD stuff.
4801674
Absolutely they're better. They're not setting down demands like "Give this book a different cover or we won't sell it" (unless it violates pornographic or gore standards). Amazon's approach is "Everyone can sell. You can set your own price. You can do what you want. We just provide an easy location." They offer an incentive to be exclusive, sure, with that 70% royalty, but seeing as other indie sellers could up their royalty to 70% to compensate (instead of leaving it at 30% or so), that's easy enough to compete with if any of the other indie sellers wanted to. Amazon isn't locking anyone into anti-compete contracts or enforcing anything, and they're certainly not telling people to get out of their store, or telling their customers what they can and can't buy. They're very open, where B&N was very cloistered and restrictive, limiting stores based on what corporate said would sell rather than what the local managers wanted, which is why you would have B&N stores in places like Alabama mystifying corporate with their inability to sell Hillary's newest biography which pitched perfectly well in their New York offices.
A lot of that wall stuff Amazon also leaves up to the author. People complain about ebook DRM ... but the fact is that's a checkbox on the author/pulbisher's side of things. Publishers are more than happy to throw Amazon under the bus for it, but I've never been shy about leaving the DRM off and telling my readers to feel free to go ahead and convert it to whatever format works once they've bought it. Back it up, whatever, just don't start selling/distributing it to other people (because that's piracy and content theft). And since Amazon has worked pretty hard at making sure there's always a way for someone to get an e-reader (right down to letting you read stuff in a phone or web-browser), that's pretty open. The only platform they have issues with is Apple/Mac ... and that's because Apple blocked Amazon from a lot of their OS capabilities after being found guilty of that whole price-fixing scheme. So that's on Apple, not Amazon.
Would I throw my books on another service if one was as forward as Amazon? Like Steam. Or Baen? Sure. No issues, as long as my royalty evened out to a net gain. And I have full control there.
4801636
Huh. Did not know they were that influential. Or that they threw their weight around like that.
4801692
Niether did I—At least, not in such fashion, until at this latest LTUE where I spoke with a few editors and heard some authors complain about it. I get the feeling that outside of the editors of the big five, they're not going to be sorely missed ... though there WILL be a panic period as indie bookstores get a nice boom.
4801681
Thank you for the perspective!
I have a sinking suspicion that Amazon's going to get a lot more abusive as their competition dwindles; it's just the way of things. (Remember Google and "don't be evil"?) But it's good to hear that right now they're working out well.
4801779
Honestly, given some of the other things Viking's said about Amazon and my own personal experience with them, I think they are deliberately abusing their power and image to suppress the indy market. After all, what other reason could they have for withholding the tools and technologies they use to effectively market things on the rest of their website? Not cross-linking or effectively promoting independent fiction with the tools they use elsewhere on their site is definitely not improving their sales numbers after all, so there has to be a reason they are throwing away money and I personally think it's because they don't want to let the indy market actually be successful in spite of the fact that they are providing a platform for it. After all, the best trap is the one the victims don't realize is a trap at all.
As it turns out I may have this problem with my writing so far ._ . I'm not sure but it might be there given the fact I've gone back and fixed several things I missed in my last story.
Well, this will be interesting to see what happens to the bookstore near my place. First it was Borders, then B & N. Wonder what it'll turn into next. Also competing against Books A Million near the mall. Is it just that particular company, or all book stores in general?
As for the other topic: Some stories are enjoyably bad, yes. Usually call them "crack fics", where something insanely silly happens, like Terry Crews as Old Spice Guy in Equestria. Others, that are really popular and people gush about, I do not really like, like the glurge that is My Little Dashie. Blegh. And yet there are some story types that I almost always give a shot before giving up.
On the site, a bunch of fics of what I call "proto-Isekai", since I'm pretty sure the main bulk of the stories were created before it became popularized in Japan. And yet I haven't really found one that I really like and is still actively updating (Handy if you are reading this get your arse back into updating so I can strikethrough this!). For the most part they fall into the same pitfalls that make me turn away from the Isekai stories, where the main character easily starts power-tripping, which gets old really quickly. Most popular story in this genre here is probably Diaries of a Madman, where the main character I think has more or less gone around and screwed the entire canon cast. Dunno why the hell it's popular.
4802156
Handyman did update Bad Mondays about a month and a half ago, so that's definitely still actively updating by his standards. Sure he's on the slower end of the spectrum, but that's hardly news after he put out all of four chapters in 2017 and there are definitely slower authors on this site. He has also logged in today, so there's really no reason for you to complain or call that fic dead at this point.
4802297
Not complaining. If I recall correctly hes fine with us jokingly prodding him with a pitchfork to hurry up, 'slong as it's not malicious. Sides, had to mention him as the exception to tons of actual dead fics, like the Mass Effect Pony one by L2L.
4803040
Fair enough.