I've been a professional writer for over a decade now, and I was an amateur writer for a good chunk of time before that. And over all the years I've been doing this, there has been a recurring refrain that I've heard over, and over, and over again... and it's people who tell you that you should write X, Y, or Z kind of story because, "That's what's really hot right now!"
This is terrible advice on two levels. The first is that a lot of writers can't shift outside their normal genre, style, length, etc. on a whim, and it's going to show through if they're creating something just to try to get on the bandwagon. Secondly, though, unless you're Chuck Tingle, you probably can't write anything fast enough to jump on top of a trend before it's gone.
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Seriously... Writing Takes Time!
At minimum, a novel is 50,000 words. These days, though, most novels aim for 75,000+, with genres like sci fi and fantasy regularly going to 100,000 words when the books go to print. Let's be generous, and say that you can write 1,000 words per day... that's not impossible. So if you write a short novel you're going to take 50 days of work, without interruptions... a little bit less than two months. Or if you're going longer, 75 days or 100 days of work... so, 2-3 months for a meatier title.
But that's just the first draft portion!
There's also the scripting that happens beforehand (I usually take a few weeks to lay out the timeline of a novel before I start), as well as revisions getting the book ready for market (which can take another month or two, at best). If you're self-publishing then you have to do the layout, cover art, etc. to make sure your book is ready for the public, and if you're skilled and experienced this can take at least a week to get perfectly right. If you run into technical difficulties, it can take a lot longer. So, under ideal circumstances, you're looking at 2-3 months if you have rapid turnaround... probably closer to 5-6 if you can keep up the pace of that word count... or a year or more for a longer book.
And if you're going with a traditional publisher? There's the submission process (which can take up to a year in some cases), and even once your book has been accepted you're looking at months to multiple years for it to hit the market.
Given the trends these days last for somewhere between 7 hours on the short end, and a couple of months on the long end, authors really do not have time to allow what's currently popular to lead them around by their keyboard.
I gave this same advice for tabletop RPG creators over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel a while back, but I felt it deserved repeating. Because too often we take our shots forgetting that our audience is a moving target... if we aim at where they were, then we aren't going to hit them. We need to be out in front, leading them so that we hit where they're going to be by the time our book intersects their path.
No one can predict the future, and no one knows what will and won't get popular. So all you can do is to write the best books you can, share them as widely as possible, and make sure you understand who your ideal readers are.
Lastly... don't listen to advice from people who don't have any experience doing what you're trying to do. Your mom's bestie might really enjoy her book club, and your former college roommate might really think you would be a great fit for the romantasy genre, but unless someone is a professional book reviewer, an editor, a fellow writer, etc., it's just a bunch of hot air. Don't try to capture it in a balloon, hoping it will fly you away to the promised land.
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Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
These days social media can seem like it's nothing but doom and gloom, scammers and grifters, AI slop and apocalyptic predictors. It's constant, and it can be overwhelming. However, while I see a lot of folks say they want to get off social media entirely, I would like to propose an alternative solution that I think would fix a lot of problems for folks who are sick of being overwhelmed by their pocket boxes.
In short, take control of your social media so that you are plugged-in for the things you want to be plugged into. Focus your attention on the things that serve your needs, and that you enjoy, instead of just letting everything overwhelm you all the time. Curate your feed, and start pulling the reins.
Trust me, it's better for you, but it's also better for the creators out there that you're trying to stay connected to.
There is a speed you can have between 0 and 60.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!
You Are In Control (And Creators Need You To Use That Control)
I've said this before, but I'm going to keep saying it because it's important. Creators of all stripes (artists, authors, filmmakers, and so on) need an active, engaged audience in order for us to keep making things, and to earn enough money at the end of the month to pay our bills. And for smaller creators who don't have the backing of massive corporations, or huge budgets to jet set to big cons, or buy up advertising space, social media is our lifeline to our audience. The deck is thoroughly stacked against us as it is, and we need your help to pull us up out of the muck and mire.
It's our job to make art, tell stories, and offer you things you enjoy... but we are down at the base of the wall, stuck in quicksand, reaching up to you. We cannot grab the wall and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We need you at the top of the wall to reach down to us, or offer us a rope, so that we have some way to get traction and move forward.
But a lot of folks out there mistake just clapping their hands and cheering with actually throwing out a lifeline... they aren't the same thing.
Let's see if I can make it clearer...
Let me belabor this metaphor a bit, because it is imperative that folks understand this setup.
So, you have your creators who are slowly being swallowed by quicksand at the base of a wall. They're scrabbling at the wall, trying to find a handhold to at least keep their heads above water, even if it isn't possible to haul themselves out of the quicksand entirely. At the top of the wall we have everyone in our potential audience. They're looking down at us. Some of the folks on top of that wall are cheering us on, trying to encourage us to keep going, and not to give up. They're sure we're going to make it! The problem is that for all that shouting, we literally cannot get out of this quicksand on our own.
Worse, there are some people on top of the wall with long poles that are actively trying to smack our hands, to poke us in the eye, and to shove us back down into the mire. Some of them just don't want us to get out. Some of them dislike us personally. Some of them just do it because they're in a bad mood, or they want to lash out. But unless there are people on top of that wall who put in the effort to lower a rope so we can grab on, we're going to drown sooner or later.
For the purposes of this metaphor, the stick-wielders are all the trolls that creatives have to deal with on a daily basis. They're the people who report our posts because they don't like them, the people who try to get YouTube to take down our videos, and the people who pirate our work. They're the people who, instead of trying to help, or just being neutral, put in their efforts to actively hinder us and make what we're doing even harder.
Authors who have advertising budgets and big corporations? They have a powered winch at the top of the wall to haul them up. Yes, they still have to write the book, draw the comic, make the video, etc., but they are being buoyed up by a force that is far stronger than the average trolls and naysayers can do anything to really hinder. A few slings and arrows might hit home, but the creators are going to climb enough that they aren't in any danger of falling back down into the quicksand as long as they have that financial backing.
The rest of us? Well, we need you all on the top of the wall to help pull us up. And the more of you we have helping, the less effort any of you need to put in individually.
But the key part of this is that you need to be purposeful and deliberate with your actions online. Just wanting us to succeed and sending good vibes isn't enough... we need actions to move the needle.
Moving With Purpose
A lot of folks use social media passively. They doomscroll, throw out a like when they see something that catches their eye, watch a video that looks interesting, but they skim along the surface. Put another way, if you were riding a horse you're in the saddle, and you're holding the reins, but you're mostly just letting the horse go wherever the hell it feels like going.
The more deliberate the actions you take, the more that horse is going to go where you want it to go.
Tweak the parameters, and you get far better stuff.
The algorithm pays attention to the things you interact with, and the rules you set. So if you don't want to see posts from certain individuals, you block them (I am telling you this now, leaving people, pages, etc., you don't want to see unblocked just invites them back into your feed... block them, and get yourself peace of mind). The more things you block off, the less clutter you'll see in your recommendations on Facebook, YouTube, etc. If you enjoy the content you find on a particular page, though, then join that group, follow the page, subscribe to that creator. Don't just tell yourself you'll remember, because you won't. More importantly, though, subscribing to something helps that group, that creator, that page get noticed by more people.
Taking action is the currency of social media, both positive and negative. If you see a video, a post, etc. that you like, sure, you can leave a like on it... but taking an extra step can have a much bigger impact. For example, if you leave a comment of at least 7 words, that boost the signal, making it more likely to be seen by more people. If you share from the original creator, that does far more to boost the post than if you just re-shared the original link on your own timeline, because shares are one of the metrics that the algorithm counts toward how much attention it should give a specific post.
Put another way, 25 people sharing a post about an author's new book from that author's page is weighed much more heavily than 25 people copying the link to the book, and making individual posts about it on their own pages.
And if you actually bought a book, or another piece of merch from a creator you like? Go the extra mile! Leave a rating and review on the platform you bought it from, because the products with the biggest numbers of ratings and reviews are the ones the algorithm pushes out, and advertises to other people.
Deliberate effort from an engaged audience is the fuel that makes an artist's career go forward.
With all of that said, if you need to take a break from social media, you should do that. However, take a moment to ask what it is you're taking a break from... because it's possible that just cleaning up the mess and replacing the things you don't like with things you do like will do wonders for how you engage with these information engines.
And if you have creators you want to succeed (again, whether it's me or someone else) we all need you to be active, engaged, and deliberate if you want to help us. The problem is that a lot of people think that cheering from the top of the wall is helping, while in reality you're just letting creators drown.
Toss us a line. Even if it's small, and you aren't strong enough to pull us up all by your lonesome, the more lines a creator has, the more people will notice, and the more people will throw out their own lines in order to help us keep breathing so we can keep creating.
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
The warrior entered the ancient chamber. The wind sang across the stones, and the light from his lantern danced across carvings from an age forgotten by history. Figures descended into the Earth carrying fire and steel, and never emerged again. Something cracked beneath his step, and he looked down. The brittle bones of an armored skeleton were spread across the floor. The dead warrior lay on their belly, one arm outstretched toward mouth of the chamber, and the sky beyond. The living warrior strode past, continuing deeper.
He found more bones. More broken armor and shattered weapons. All of them had their faces turned back toward the sun, their arms grasping for something they would never again feel.
If you've listened to any discourse about film, video games, or even art in general, then chances are you've heard of the concept of environmental storytelling. While it's more challenging to do in writing prose, that doesn't mean this concept can't be useful... especially if you're someone who has had a problem with showing rather than telling your audience what you want them to see.
When details can be important, but you want that importance to be subtle.
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When The Environment Adds To The Narrative
The idea behind environmental storytelling is that aspects of the environment that your reader (or viewer, or player) enters contribute to their understanding of what is going on without you explaining what it means directly.
As an example, take the introductory passage above. The presence of the warriors who came before is a bit of creep to add to the scene, yes, but all of the corpses appear to have been trying to escape from the end of the tunnel. Does that mean the monster down there allowed them to leave, but only once they were too wounded to be a threat? Is there a poisoned air in the cavern below that takes a while to kill those exposed to it? Or were these warriors meant to be human sacrifices, and those who tried to leave were killed by guards above?
We don't know... but just stating this detail as a fact puts it into the reader's mind. It shows them something about the environment, but without explaining the meaning (in the moment, at least). This primes the reader to be looking for an explanation, or to seek out something to make the earlier passage make sense. As such, they're going to be paying close attention as they look for further clues.
Everything is part of the environment... everything.
Another example is something that would make sense in the world of gaming... where the environment is something players have to actively interact with to understand the unfolding narrative.
Say that in the palace there is a small shrine near the Hall of Kings. A headless statue of a huge man sits with its hands out as if to hold a blade, but there is no sword there. A plaque simply reads, "In memory of the Lion Prince." Who is this? What does it mean? Well, we don't know, but again, that's added to the ongoing narrative as something that exists in this world. Then as the characters travel and explore the world further, they find an order of knights who all wear stylized helms in the shape of roaring lions. It is tradition for these knights to never remove their helms, or to let others gaze upon their faces. As the narrative goes on, a player may find that a particular sword has been handed down among the masters of this order... a sword of huge size that was purportedly wielded by their founder, who came from the West bearing many wounds. Those who see this sword may note that it is made of the same star steel carried by the royal family of the nation their quest began in to this very day. This implies, even if the narrative doesn't outright state it, that the Lion Prince left the land he was born to, traveled far to the East, and became the head of an order of warriors who adopted his heraldry, fighting style, and personal honor code.
Now, in a game, this could be left in the background as an Easter egg for players to discover if they wish to. But in a film, a novel, and so on, the mystery of the missing prince (and any possible legacy he may have left behind) should be part of the story you're trying to tell. It doesn't necessarily need to be the A plot of your book, but a strong B or C plot is probably a good idea.
A Light Touch Goes A Long Way
Environmental storytelling places a lot of trust in your audience. It expects them to be curious, to analyze what they read or see, and to dig down beneath the surface and connect dots. However, not everyone is going to pick up what you're laying down, which is why it's important to have a character to summarize important points once revelations happen, or events are set in motion.
A good way to think about environmental storytelling is to consider it in terms of a mystery. All the clues should be there in the text, and present for your reader to pick up on. Whether it's pry marks around a lock, or a spat of mud high on a wall where it shouldn't be, or a bruise on a body that hints at foul play or secret abuse, the clues to figure out what happened should be on the page for your readers to see as they follow along with the detective. And when the scene happens where everyone is brought into the drawing room, and the detective reveals the mystery, the audience can follow the clues (and understand the meaning) as they're laid out.
The difference is that with environmental storytelling in general, your reader might be the only one trying to deduce what's happening. Still, the clues need to be present, because that is how you get active readers to follow your breadcrumbs!
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
The one question everyone wants to know when it comes to being a creator is, "How do you make it?" There are panels dedicated to it at conventions, it's the question that comes up in every interview, and it's something people endlessly speculate on. What does an artist have to do in order to reach that level where they're famous or rich enough that they never have to work a day job again? Do they dedicate themselves body and soul to the craft? Do they make a deal with the devil? Is there some secret formula that lets you hack social media in order to reach your audience and become successful?
Well, I've been doing this professionally for more than 12 years now. I've talked to a lot of people, been to the panels, listened to the interviews, and there is a single thread that runs through every, single one of them. You have to be lucky.
That's it.
So roll the dice... or don't. But you can't win if you don't play.
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!
An Echoing Refrain
The first time I ran into this was when I was in my mid-20s working as a reporter for a small local paper and trying to break into fiction as a writer. I was given the opportunity to interview a local author of cozy mysteries and romances, and I jumped at the chance. At best, I figured that if I made a good impression maybe she could help me out. At worst, maybe she could give me a few pointers. And when I got to the question where I asked her how one got a publishing deal with a major company (she'd started off with Viking, if memory serves), she just shrugged and gave me an answer that boiled down to, "Right place, right time."
In short, yes, she'd written a romance manuscript. She'd worked really hard on it, done all the editing, cleaned it up nice, etc., but the major reason she got that first book in was it just so happened to be the kind of romance the company was looking for in that very moment. If she'd submitted it a few months earlier, or a few months later, they probably wouldn't have taken it.
She kept writing books, kept doing the work, kept trying to keep her place... but she had no idea why her books sold or didn't sell. No clue what would work. In short, she lucked out, and was doing her best to stay in the position that luck had gotten her by keeping her momentum as a writer going.
All right... well... that's an anomaly, right?
That was kind of a disappointing answer, but I did my best to take it in stride, and to ask other writers I met along the way how they managed to find success. A handful of writers who started later in life told me they just wrote while living off retirement, and they were able to finally write something that caught on with an audience. Others mentioned that their book's themes just happened to coincide with some trend that put a lot of attention on them. A few writers talked about how the success of someone else's book spilled over onto them, and they rode someone else's coattails.
And then I started looking around, watching trends, and comparing notes. There are a lot of big YouTubers out there right now (Markiplier is one that comes to mind) who got in early-ish on the platform, but who happened to catch on with over-the-top reactions, particularly to scary games and scary content. There are authors who became the subject of BookTok reviews, and it blew up their name and signal without their knowledge or understanding. Chuck Tingle was basically nominated as part of the Sad Puppies scandal, and while I won't say he didn't have a fan base before his name got dragged into that shit show, it definitely catapulted him into the faces of a lot of people who would never have seen his work otherwise, much less bought a copy of a book like Scary Stories to Tingle Your Butt: 7 Tales of Gay Terror.
That is a real book. Seriously, go check it out!
This point was driven home to me once again while listening to this interview with the monster creator Trevor Henderson. Now, you might not know him by name, but you're likely familiar with his most infamous creation Siren Head. A monster artist whose work speaks for itself, he is one of the more influential creators of Internet-based horror, and he currently creates so many scary things that it can seem hard to follow.
But when he made Siren Head he was working a retail job and just trying to squeeze money out of art. He was working hard (he mentions in the interview that he'd come home from shifts and force himself to draw even though he was exhausted), improving his craft, and making interesting things... but his fame came from an outside source. A video game designer came across Siren Head, and asked to use it in his game. Trevor agreed, as long as he was mentioned... and that game showed up on Markiplier's YouTube channel, to bring things full circle. This led to an explosion of popularity for the monster, and a big audience of people who were now aware of Trevor's work, as well as the designer who made the game. And that spring-boarded the two of them in a very big way. But it took 3 years between him finishing that creature's art, and it just exploding onto the scene like that.
Also, shoutout to The Wrong Station's YouTube channel. Go subscribe, and listen to them on Spotify or something. Their show is a LOT of fun!
Now, what I'm not saying is that any of the people I have mentioned, either obliquely or by name, didn't work hard. I'm not saying they don't have talent, or that they haven't refined their craft to create the best things they can. That is always the take away that people have when they reach this point, and it's because there's a very specific lie that so many people believe, and you believing this lie actively harms all of us.
Do you want to know what it is? It's the belief that talent and hard work are rewarded.
You can work as hard as possible, and you can make amazing art that deserves to be seen, and everyone who picks it up devours it, thoroughly enjoying every part of this thing you made... but if your signal doesn't grow via word of mouth, and no one lets a big enough audience find out about it, you won't sell copies, get views, or increase your subscriber count. And on the flip side, someone can write absolute drek, create the most low-effort music, or just crap out a few images, and if those things happen to strike a nerve with a current trend, if they become a subject of Internet conversation, or if you happen to be related to, dating, or already a minor celebrity for some other reason, you'll go gangbusters.
If you're a creator, get that lie out of your head right now, because it's going to convince you that if you just work harder, write more, etc., that eventually you have to succeed. Marketing and creating aren't the same thing, and you can't assume the quality of your work will grant you some kind of special dispensation that will spontaneously get you noticed by the public.
And if you're not a creator, you also need to get this lie out of your head because we're depending on you. You are literally the ones who decide whether we succeed or not.
You Have The Power, Here
I've said this before, and I sometimes feel like a broken record, but I'm going to keep saying this until people get it. Artists do not have any power to make ourselves succeed. Yes we can write books, make videos, draw things, and yes we can try to leverage social media to get attention, but we ultimately cannot force ourselves to be successful just by working harder.
The only thing that helps creators succeed is you. The audience. The people we are making things for.
If you don't cheer, we die.
I've used the gladiator metaphor since the beginning of this blog, and it's apt. Because gladiators who got famous were showered in money, they got endorsement deals, they have goddamn merch you could buy at their matches. But the fighters who didn't have that following? Who didn't get the cheers? They got nothing. Didn't matter how good the show they put on was if no one was paying to see it, no one was betting on them, and no one was paying attention.
Your cheers matter... but in this digital age we're living in, they can take a lot of different forms.
If you just want to turn the wheels and help the creators you love get numbers, and get noticed, do the following:
- Read/Watch/Listen to Their Content: The more reads an article gets, the more views a video or podcast episode gets, etc., the more likely the algorithm will push it out to other people. So consume the content (especially the free stuff), and share it on social media platforms to boost the signal.
- Subscribe and Follow: This dialed-in audience is a big factor in who sees us, hears about us, etc. If you have a million subscribers on YouTube, Facebook, etc., the algorithm treats your stuff very differently than if you just have 1,000. Fill the seats, make the arena look full, because it helps us!
- Leave Comments, Reviews, and Ratings: If you're watching a video, hit the Like button. If you're listening on Spotify, leave a 5 star review. If you bought a book, leave a rating and review. The more of this stuff we get, you guessed it, the more likely we are to be seen by others.
- Buy Our Merch: Whether you're buying books, TTRPG supplements, tee shirts, or just using the discount code we get from a sponsor, all of that puts money in our pockets... but more importantly, again, when the numbers go up, the algorithms, sponsors, etc., treat us better. If I get a top-selling book on Amazon, Drive Thru RPG, etc., those sites are going to tell everyone about it because they want more sales... and the numbers to become a bestseller are so, so much smaller than you think...
Again, I'm not saying you have a moral obligation to support all creators. I'm not saying you should spend more than you can afford just to boost someone's signal. I'm just explaining how the machinery works. If you want a creator to succeed (any creator), then pull the levers I just described. Pull as many of them as you can, as often as you can. If you can afford to buy books, buy them. If you can't, don't. But consume all the free stuff, check in on social media, hit the buttons, make the comments, follow all the followables, etc.
If you cheer, we rise. If you don't cheer, we die in obscurity. This isn't even a metaphor... it's literally how the industry works. Period.
And the only way any of us get famous is if our audience grows so big, and so loud, that the wider world finds out about us and what we do. So please... raise your voice, and be that noise.
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
