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This episode began with a big love-fest for Sean and Dave’s new official Amazon Serial, Z2134. “Z” has been rising through the Amazon ranks all week and was knocking on the door of the top 100 paid list when we were recording, standing at #107. Now, in case you have your head up a large animal’s butt and don’t know these things, being in the top 100 is a big deal. That’s where the serious sales and serious momentum start.
(And of course, #107 isn’t much worse. If Z were a self-published book, Sean and Dave would really be raking in the dough. They may still be, but they don’t know their numbers yet, and Amazon gets a bigger slice.)
The part where I praise Sean and Dave for being inspirational (yes, even Dave)
Here’s why this matters to all of us.
The high ranking of Z is pulling up sales of all of their other titles, including Yesterday’s Gone Season One, which already ranks and sells very well. So I (Johnny) spent a while drooling over and praising their example yet again: Sean and Dave are just two guys who didn’t get any kind of amazing break, who didn’t get their book pushed by Oprah, and who didn’t have a freak viral spread of their book. They are where they are purely because of their workmanlike ethic, just working their assess off to produce tons of new content.
How to write when you can’t build momentum
We took a voicemail from Scott, intended mainly for me, about getting stuck in trying to finish your book (because I’m the slow one, get it? Ha ha!). Scott has a book that he’s been working on forever… he works for a while, gets derailed, then has to remember where he was when he starts again weeks or months later, then gets derailed after catching up but not actually writing anything new. He asked for tips on keeping momentum.
We had a few, mainly:
1. Outline as you go. Scott said that he spent a ton of time re-reading his stuff to remember the story, and ended up re-writing it in the process… and as a result, never made any forward progress. Dave suggested noting bullet points as you write in a separate document, so that you’ll always have a quick-reference as to your story’s plot.
2. When possible, IF possible, write through your times of stress. Not always do-able, but sometimes writing is about pushing through difficulty and, as we keep saying, just doing the work. I said that sometimes, we look for excuses not to write, and writers tend to seize such excuses readily. I strongly suggested reading Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Every writer should read it and learn to overcome “The Resistance.”
3. Write something else. Dave said that if you can’t push on and if you’re not dying to write what happens next, there’s a chance you’re writing the wrong thing. Writing should be exciting and/or compelling to you, and you should want to know what happens next.
Sean reads questions from Paul (ideal for Anglophiles)
Because we’ve been on a “UK kick” recently with our callers, Sean read a few questions from Paul Wolfe. Remember Paul? He sent us questions. What an asshole to write instead of call, right?
Paul asked about publishing for US audiences from the UK… specifically, should he use US spellings of words in the title? We voted yes in most cases, because we Americans can’t see past things like that a lot of times. So unless your story is set in the UK and is very UK centric, it’s probably better to call your mystery entitled The Colour of Yoghurt to The Color of Yogurt.
Paul also asked about KDP Select and borrowing. When you enroll in KDP Select, Amazon Prime members can borrow one book a month for free, and that would then include yours. We said that we didn’t really care about borrowing one way or another. The borrowing simply comes with the ability to run free promos, which is the real reason we want to be in KDP Select.
The where I wrote another book last week
In an attempt to keep up with the aforementioned crazy production of my co-hosts, I got inspired and worked my workmanlike ass off to write the first draft of Fat Vampire 2 last week. It’s a 40,000-word draft that continues the story of Reginald et. al. from my book Fat Vampire, which I published two weeks ago.
I hope to have Fat Vampire 2 published by Halloween, and to publish Fat Vampire 3 before Christmas. Then I can start taking some of the advice we all give, because I will finally have enough related books online to promote.
World-building for writers
Getting to our main topic, we spent the rest of the time talking about “building the world of your story.” For most stories — but especially for anything that is in any way speculative, like sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and so on — there is a “world” in which your story takes place. How well you build that world will determine how engaged readers become, how much they believe the story, and how easy it will be for you to write any sequels if you so desire. (And then, how eager your readers are to read those sequels.)
I think that one of the best ways to know that you’ve built a good world is if you and your readers want to know more about the world of your story as if it were a real place and thing. For instance: you read the first Harry Potter book and want to know the history of quidditch. Now, that’s a made up game in a made up fantasy world, but I know I wanted to know more as if it were real. That’s good world building.
This also gave Sean and I an excuse to talk about our upcoming project called Unicorn Western, which will require a bit of world-building. (In part, the presence of unicorns is going to allow us to write a western without worrying too much about getting “the real old west” perfect. If we screw up the caliber of a weapon, so what? There’s fucking unicorns in the story, so clearly it’s not set in the real old west!)
There’s a ton to this topic, but we discuss how much to tell, whether to frontload descriptions of your world or to parcel them out over time, when to be specific versus when to write loose (not giving a ton of detail so that you can fill it in later, and have room to maneuver), and so on. Good stuff.
To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #26 – World-Building for Writers
Ha ha – I loved this episode.
A western with unicorns. Can’t wait to read that motherfucker.
And what’s with the glasses this week Dave? Are you trying for the rugged, Steven King winter look?
I’ve got a shit load more questions for you guys….are you seriously telling me I have to look up a number and dial a different country to give you all a chance to display your fabulous knowledge base? When I can just write an email to Sean in half the time? That answer machine will become a gatekeeper!
And btw – Sean and Dave are seriously inspiring other writers too. I’ll be indie pubbing my first 30K novella on the 4th December. I met up with Joanna (Penn) last week and she’s got two or three novellas lined up to publish on top of her books plus a shed load of ideas.
And please please please can we have more details about the use of unicorns in a western.
Paul (the asshole)
I seriously have no idea how Sean and I are going to do Unicorn Western. I just know it’s going to be fun as hell to find out.
And yeah, go ahead and send in your questions. We’ll just miss your accent!
I will buy this book – it just sounds funny, I am picturing Clint Eastwood chewing on a piece of wheat – shooting some dude on a my-little-fucking-pony. Hilarious. Dave has missed the boat on this one.
[Brits ruling the comments too!]
Hi guys –
* Lending is not just for KDP Select – there’s a checkbox at the bottom of the publishing page where you can opt in for lending, even if not in Select. I get KOLL income even though I’m not in Select – so there must be some difference (but I can’t be bothered reading all the small print!)
* On great books for authors – have you guys read “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott – it’s up there for me with King & Pressfield.
* Johnny, FV2 – you rock! Z-boys, you rock too
We should do something like try to get as many SPP authors into the Top 100 as possible – that would be cool!
* I use US spellings for all my books, despite being mostly set in Europe – because I aim for the US market and make 70%+ sales there. I also blog with US spelling as most of my traffic is US. I run my business in USD & I have a USD account in the UK for my Amazon checks. It just makes sense cos we make more money from you guys
Thanks, Joanna
I still maintain that we in the US tend to be ethnocentric enough that UK spellings would make a serious difference. Sure, a lot of people wouldn’t care, but a lot of Americans would think “that’s a British book” and would view it differently. I’m a little annoyed that we seem to think the rest of the world should conform to us, but it is what it is.
Johnny
I think you’re right.
I wrote a book on practice (deliberate practice actually) for bass guitar. And I pre-sold it to my audience and then sent out the PDF component a month before it went live on my website.
One guy wrote to me complaining about all the typos. Now I’d read it, re-read it, spell checked it, re spell checked it, etc etc etc. And I asked him to list some of the typos out.
And you’ve guessed it – all the ‘typos’ were English spellings. I wrote back to the guy and said something like: You do realise (sp?) that I’m English, right. And that these are English spellings.
He just couldn’t get his head around it…insisted they were wrong.
And though I didn’t get a massive blow back from others, I did re-edit the book and put in a disclaimer that I used English spellings.
But for my upcoming novella (Publishing date: 4th december) I intend to use american spell checker (Joanna gave me a good tip for that! Thanks Jo
) – bottom line is that the American market is what, 5 times bigger than the UK market. So I think it’s a must if you’re serious about putting your work in front of the US market (and why the fuck would you NOT be serious about that?).
Next decision is whether to search through for words like ‘lift’ and ‘boot’ and replace them with ‘elevator’ and ‘trunk.’
But you’re right: it is what it is.
Hey Paul,
Personally, I like seeing the UK spellings, but that is a good point on words which are just used differently. U.S. readers not familiar with UK terms would be thrown off by some words, and anything which slows a reader down when the goal is to keep them moving on the page isn’t a good thing. So I retract my earlier statement.
Loving the Stephen King look, Dave! (Congrats on Z as well…rocking the charts! When do we get YOUR dance?)
After reading this thread I decided to switch to American English. Bad idea. Why? Because it slows me down. It means I have to edit everything as I write it. I have to stop after every sentence of dialogue and ask myself what an American would make of it. Clearly the only answer to this problem is to leave the whole question of converting to American until after the first draft is finished, otherwise it never will be.
SIMON: I think that’s the right way to do it for sure. Your story has to come out the right way in your mind. I also wouldn’t worry about saying things like an American in dialogue. I’d SPELL in US English (program vs. programme), but I’d still use English words in dialogue if the character is English (lift vs. elevator). You’re probably already doing that, but I figured I’d mention it.
Then, AFTER the draft is done, you can do a search & replace to quickly switch the common different spellings everywhere and, on re-reading, manually change the colloquialisms like “lift” wherever they appear outside of dialogue.
I said if we hit Top 10, I’ll do “Sexy and you know it”
Which is about as an ironic song for me as is possible.
Meant “Sexy and I know it”
Being from New Zealand originally, now living in Australia and spending a fair amount of time in England – I don’t spell the “US way” nor do I really understand why you guys spell the way you do.
The language as I see it is English, and in most cases I will always do as the mother land does.
That being said – I do understand the US being the main market, and from the few American friends I have – are a very proud people who do believe themselves the centre of the universe (I mean than with nothing but kindness). Colour is Color because America did it second – that is just the world we live in.
I think if you want to publish a book for the US – do as the Americans do.
“Colour is Color because America did it second – that is just the world we live in.”
That is SO my favorite sentence of the day.
Favourite *cough*
Actually, I think Sean was right about KOLL. I think all the books go into lending if you check the box on publishing, but you get paid for it with Select. I only have one book in it at the moment, and had forgotten about it
PS – I just got a book through the post today (yep, a real book, with pictures and stuff) and it’s a piece of synchronicity because the book resonates with the theme of world building in stories.
The book is called FIREFLY: A CELEBRATION and is about the creation of Joss Whedon’s series Firefly. IT has all the scripts and just a shit load of very interesting and highly relevant (not to say entertaining and engaging information).
Highly recommended.
Sounds cool. Firefly is one of those shows I’ve yet to see, but I know a ton of people have lots of love for. I’d love a book like that on HBO’s Carnivale!
Dave, I got to Firefly ass backwards. I saw Serenity first at the movies…and freaking loved it. THEN I found out that it came from a TV series…the series is also great and leads to the Movie. (Though the show was cancelled half way through – shame on you Fox! – and there are some ‘story holes’ that would have been filled by other episodes).
The book is a serious piece of work – lots of sidenotes, costume details plus all the scripts. The scripts on their own are worth the price of admission – I read two last night…couldn’t tear my eyes from the pages!
You should definitely check out the show.
Paul
Hey Guys, another great topic and another great show. I just wrote a post about writing podcasts and SPP was one of the ones featured. I’m pretty active on the NaNoWriMo forums and will be pimping your podcast there. Hope it gives you guys a bump in listeners.
Here’s the post:
http://www.1000words-a-day.com/2012/10/19/writing-podcasts/
Thanks for the mention, and the pimping! Just promise not to smack us as you repeatedly yell, “Where’s my money, Bitch?”
Ah man, where’s the fun in that!
I just wanted to say congratulations to Sean and Dave.
I just checked out of interest to see how Z was going up the charts after listening today. I see it was at 85! and number 1 in Horror – beating Mr King himself.
That is just a ridiculously amazing effort guys. You should be very proud – and yay Amazon for getting behind you like this. This just proved self publishing is amazing once again.
Cheers
Carl
Thanks, Carl! And thanks for the review!
In all fairness, King’s book has been on the chart for months! I’m pretty sure if he released something tomorrow, it would kick our asses up and down Amazon’s charts
But still, it’s cool to be in such company! I remember when we were Number 1 Free horror, and were NEXT TO King, who was number one paid horror, and how happy we were then, just to be rubbing book covers (wow, that sounds wrong… deliciously wrong) with him!
We’ve been watching Z 2134 flirt with the Top 100, and it kept teasing us, coming closer, then falling back. Yesterday, we reached it, then fell off overnight. And then this morning, we were back!
Sean did a little dance video, ala Hugh Howey, in celebration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5djJxk9Mq18
Thank you.
No problems. I can’t wait to read the rest of Z.
P.s. I just watched that ‘dance’ video at 12;56am, on a Saturday morning in Australia. It was very disturbing – more so than Boricio doing his thing. I was up writing – being you are all motivating and shit – and then you do this to me?
Please do not let Sean ever do that again, I think he may have broken the internet.
Wait until I unleash “Sexy and I know it” if we hit Top 10!
And who doesn’t wanna see that?
Okay S and J you need to get your Zane Gray hats on. Can you imagine poor old Zane’s cowboys riding into the sunset on a unicorn? The series “Firefly” is a fun take on the western genre.
About world building: readers still need touchstones, familiar aspects in the story, otherwise the dream can too easily dissipate. However disregarding details, going back to the western genre, can be deadly for some readers as well. For example, love the Harry Potter stories, but my reading would be interrupted by horrible misuse of existing mythologies. Why, because I enjoy mythology and want that knowledge to be respected in the fiction I read, or at least, as Johnny mentioned, to be given a reasonable explanation for the re-imagining.
Spent some time in London during my college days. Fell in love with English spellings, and hey, who can’t love a national cuisine which creates nursery room names for their dishes. I prefer to read British authors with their spelling and phraseology intact, and the same for American authors. Spelling changes are not that big a deal, but terminology, speech preferences, even story cadence can create a different experience when altered. There is a saying, the only thing that separates Americans and Brits is their language.
Going western once more, can you imagine John Wayne reading Chaucer out load?
However I do believe the endgame for any story is the reading experience and so the reader should be helped, or at least cajoled, to stay with the story.
Congratulations to D and S for the successful launch of Z. And J eight days for a rough…you’re setting a high standard, but at least with the podcasts you are towing us along with you. Thanks for that.
Slainte Catherine
GREAT point about the touchstones. So true. You can pretty much throw everything into the mix as long as you give the reader something to grab, and easily hold.
Watching FireFly before we map this out is an awesome idea!
One of my favorite podcasts so far !
Yeah, I was waiting a long time for this episode – as I think that world building is one of the most interesting concepts of storytelling.
Luv your approaches, and the tip about creating your own fiction world because it frees you of being realistically accurate is a brilliant idea.
(now got to find a reasonable way to slip in a unicorn into my story.)
And BTW -
Cranking out 40,000 thousand words in a week is a kick-ass accomplishment, Johnny, just as getting your series into the top 100, Sean and David.
Your lip synching was slightly out of sync, Sean, but it’s all forgiven because it was during the bestseller rush.
I hope the success and crazy work load doesn’t diminish your weekly podcast output
Nah, we’re thinking of adding a third podcast!
Thanks for the congrats, and the review!
Lip synching was out of sync because I used crap Photo Booth to do the video, but I was cool with it because it almost added to the funny. Or at least that’s the lie I told myself so I wouldn’t have to try again.
I’m pretty sure you’re kidding, but everyone knows that the secret to happiness is more podcasts.
Interesting stuff as usual. Sean, the term you were looking for when talking about Final Fantasy is the Uncanny Valley. It’s the notion that as representations of humans (in robotics, animation, whatever) get more and more realistic, the tiny differences we can detect become far more disturbing and distracting.
You guys touched a little on this, but world-building in science fiction is pretty substantially different than in other genres. An excellent book that shows the process of world-building (in science fiction, though it’s great for any genre writer) is Medea: Harlan’s World by Harlan Ellison. He basically assembled a panel of some of the best science fiction writers of the 1970s and had them collaboratively create a planet. The first half of the book transcribes their discussions on everything from geology to alien culture. Then each one wrote a story set on that planet, which makes up the second half of the book. Great stuff.
Yeah, I was really annoyed by the animation in The Polar Express for that reason. I felt like, “Dude, just use actors!” It was so distracting.
Re: your second point, a really good example of what I think you’re getting at are the appendices in Dune. He’s got a whole section on the fucking ecology there, of all things. Fascinating.
The key points illustrated by Dune and Medea being:
1) All that stuff should NOT be shoved into the story. If anything, include it as separate material. (It’s still fascinating and valuable for anyone looking to create their own world.)
2) BUT… that doesn’t excuse you, the author, from doing the work. You SHOULD know as much of that stuff as possible, even if it never makes it into the story. One of the main reasons is that it will inspire and inform what you’re writing. The whole point of Medea was that the writers used the key characteristics of their new world to create story ideas. They came up with stories that could be set ONLY on that world.
Thanks so much, Alan! That book sounds awesome. It’s added to my already ridiculously long list of stuff I really want to read, but I will get to it someday!
Here’s a link to the original Uncanny Valley paper:
http://m.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/the-uncanny-valley
Awesome, added that to read tomorrow. Thanks!
I want to weigh in on the Deckard/replicant debate: If Ridley Scott intended Deckard to be a replicant, he failed. And since Blade Runner is a completed work, I think it has to stand alone, regardless of what Ridley intended. I don’t think he gets to alter that world after the fact (unless he wants to pull a Lucas and release yet another version). I mean, what if he woke up tomorrow and announced that Deckard was, in fact, a unicorn?
I’ve seen Blade Runner many times, and it has never entered my mind that Deckard is a replicant, even after I was aware of the debate.
I agree… it never made sense to me.