TWIC: book publishing, podcast publishing, success and bikes

Bikes first because they have the least to do with theme of this blog. Add more bike lanes instead of parking. In the country I live in, that would be 'add more bike lanes to be misused for parking'.

70 percent of US mayors support making roads more accessible to cyclists, even at the expense of driving lanes and parking, according to the 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors. The 89 mayors in favor represent a bipartisan majority of mayors, hailing from cities of all sizes, that recognizes the benefit of bike accessibility projects to a city’s traffic flow and budget.

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A few months ago, my son told me he wanted to be a 'bj'.  Uncertain where the conversation would go, I asked him what he meant.  Broadcast Jockey.

Independent broadcasters called Broadcasting Jockeys (BJs) deliver live broadcasts to viewers, who can add them to their list of favorite channels using an Afreeca Player tool. Some channels have tens of thousands of viewers at any given time. Paid services such as quick views or channel relays allow BJs additional sources of revenue.

He now records and broadcasts playthroughs of Minecraft.

In doing so, he has introduced me to various recording apps and programs.  I already have audacity and used Screenr (which is now obsolete.) but together we learned about OBS (open broadcaster software) and screencastify.  The latter has a fee but apparently is easier than OBS.  For any podcast friends out there, I just learned of Zencastr, a program or app that assists in 'double enders' - recording audio from mics on different computers, for example on Skype.

Record & Stream
The host starts the recording and each party's audio is automatically streamed to the host's dropbox account in separate high quality file

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I found a list of 'things successful people do'. I normally find them to mistake correlation with causation and feel I am reading something like, "Successful people drive German cars. You should drive a German car." Still, this list, especially #1, is exactly right in pointing out habits I need to change.

1. Productive, successful people don’t get sucked into social media.
Being on social media—checking notifications Facebook, scrolling through pictures on Instagram, reading quick updates on Twitter, whatever—it’s part of everyday life. But if you don’t control how much time you spend on it, the hours will fly by and you won’t have accomplished anything on your to-do list.
So either put a time limit on it—set an alarm for when you need to minimize it, close the app, do something else—or only get on after completing necessary work projects. Use social media as a reward.

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Speaking of success, how do you measure it?  Amazon tells us only 40 self-published authors are successful.  Here is the measurement:

“Making money” here means selling more than one million e-book copies in the last five years.

It's hard to be a success in self-publishing. This author sold 20,000 copies of her book in one week but (claims she) was snubbed by the New York Times bestselling list.

Part of being a success means being noticed.  How can you be noticed when you are one of a million on Amazon?  Maybe build your own platform as these science fictions authors did.

These are authors who seem to have had a lot of success on Amazon, so it’s interesting to see them trying to create their own channel for connecting with readers and selling books (via “price promotions,” etc.) to them

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Coursera has a 5 part creative writing program going on right now. Part one is 'plot'.
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Troy Blackford talks about writing and his NaNoWriMo experience:

Turns out, there was a story up there. And man, did it end being crazier than I could have predicted when I started. Once again, my writing skills weren't nearly up to the task of telling it, but that's the whole reason you have to keep writing: to get better. I didn't outline a damn thing--not at the beginning. I like to use outlines once I get a story well under way, to help me stay on track, and don't do any really intense outlining until the very end of a story so I can tie everything together and deliver a satisfying ending. I like the creative freedom of starting with a blank slate. And, as I dug in on this marathon writing experiment, I had only one guiding idea.
In the first incarnation of Under the Wall, I had explored the idea of a loving cat with telekinetic powers, abilities which prove to be the only thing that enables the tiny but valiant feline to save his family from an evil madman.

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 Uncanny Magazine is open to short story submissions.

Why do I participate in Nanowrimo and what do I want from it?

The great success of Nanowrimo, I think, is in how it turns a solitary activity into a social one.  Ironically, as a Municipal Liaison, part of my job in the chatrooms is to briefly talk to other writers and send them away to write more.

I like how it has finally motivated me to write almost as much I want to.  I have 'completed' two novels in Nanowrimo.  The quotes are there because completion means 50,000+ words and my stories, the first one in particular, approach great battles that will decide the fate of many and... the contest was over.  I wonder how they end.

I haven't truly finished a first draft yet but the writing, the solving of problems for my characters, has been fun.

The research is interesting, too.  As a wood carver, when I decided to carve a blue heron, I sketched out spindly legs, a lump of a body, and an 's' shaped pipe - swollen at one end- for the head.  As soon as my knife hit the wood, I realized I didn't know what shape to make.  After looking at many heron pictures, showing the neck from several angles and how the feet attached to the legs and most importantly the difference in body between an ostrich and a heron, I was able to complete the carving.  My knowledge of the subject was more superficial than I had imagined.  With my writing, I have deliberately kept my stories more fantastical so precise descriptions of time periods, clothing and such could be faked or excused.  I have looked at a lot of maps to see if people really can walk from one point to another in an hour - strangely, this is what bothers me when it is incorrect.

It is weird how much of my elementary school grammar and punctuation rules I have forgotten and relearned for Nanowrimo.  Does the terminal punctuation mark belong inside the quotes or outside?  Depending on your nationality, yes it does.  For the US.

This year, I am writing a sequel to my 'Himalayan Steampunk' story and in doing so, I will need to set parameters for how the earlier book must finish.  I'm hoping this will encourage me to actually do.  And, this time, I will write an ending to my story; time to put in the calendar for Nov 20~25.

What do I want as an aspiring artist?  In my dreams, and I am aware of how far from reality they are - ah, somewhat aware - I imagine ten thousand to hundreds of thousands buying my book, or each book.  I'm working out how to move back to Canada and what I can do to support my family there and writing is something I - potentially - am good at.

NPR reminds me of the reality in What counts as book success might surprise you.  As an aside, this is a very link-baity title for NPR.  And I wasn't surprised.

Even so, he [Washington Post literary critic Ron Charles] was dismayed when he saw a story about the sales figures for the novels long-listed for the Man Booker. The list included The Green Road by Irish author Anne Enright, who's won the award before. 

"When I saw that Anne Enright — [who] I think of as giant in literary fiction, beloved around the world — could only sell 9,000 copies in the U.K. I was shocked, that's really low," he says.

Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma's debut novel, The Fishermen, sold just under 3,000 copies, which Charles says is not too bad. 

"For an unknown writer?" he says. "Twenty-eight years old, no presence on social media. We're not talking Mindy Kaling, here. He's not sending his tweets to millions every day. Three thousand's not bad." 

So what is a good sales figure for any book? 

"A sensational sale would be about 25,000 copies," says literary agent Jane Dystel. "Even 15,000 would be a strong enough sale to get the publisher's attention for the author for a second book." 

But if that second book doesn't sell, says Dystel, odds are you won't get another chance. And that brings us to the Authors Guild survey. Just over 1,400 full- and part-time writers took part in the survey, the Guild's first since 2009. There has been a 30 percent decline in author income since then and more than half of the respondents earned less than $11,670 (the 2014 federal poverty level) from their writing related income.

There is more to the article and I have excerpted enough.  Go read it, but maybe have a shot of booze ready to ease the pain.