LNH/REVIEW: Kid Review's Roundup - September 2014

[Tom Russell]

On Monday, October 20, 2014 12:04:50 PM UTC-4, Andrew Perron wrote:
> On 10/19/2014 5:49 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> 
> > On Sunday, October 19, 2014 4:59:02 PM UTC-4, Andrew Perron wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> >> The thing is, I'm not sure that's actually true. I'm looking at the webcomics
> 
> >> model, where freeness encourages an audience that's then willing to subsidize,
> 
> >> through collections like these or other outlets.
> 
> >
> 
> >But that model only really works I think for things that *can* go viral
> 
>  > enough to build an online audience. With very few exceptions-- most of them
> 
>  > being more on the erotica side of the equation-- prose fiction really can't
> 
>  > do it.
> 
> 
> 
> But isn't that what RACC is? <3 Or was, back in the day. Anyway, my point is 
> 
> that such things exist, even in prose - and, anyway, that's the model I'm 
> 
> following. We shall see if it succeeds or not! <3

Oh, I completely agree that an audience exists, here on RACC-- what I was talking about was that the things that make the model favored by webcomics and humor blogs "work" don't usually apply to prose fiction. If I write 3,000 or 10,000 words, sure, it can have an audience online, and one that I'm immensely grateful for. But it is manifestly not the same audience that a webcomic, a humor blog, or a youtube series has. Three panels or three minutes of your time isn't a lot to ask of someone, and so you're more likely to "hook" a potential audience member with those sorts of formats, who is in turn more likely to recommend it to his or her friends, and since, again, it's only three minutes or three panels or whatever, chances are they're more likely to take a look at it.

Whereas if you say, here's this 25,000 word story I wrote with forty footnotes-- well, like I said, it has a different audience. :-)

And frankly, though I have tried in the past, I'm pretty much incapable of operating in those formats, and also frankly not super-interested. 

And also also-- from what I've seen those sort of "compilation" books only really work when you've already built up a large fanbase. They don't really work on a large scale to build up the fanbase/expand it.

Again, I'm not saying that it can't work-- and I certainly hope it does for you, sir!-- just that I'm not the sort of person who can make that work.

And, to be clear and answer some of Scott's commentary-- I'm not under the impression that I'll be making any serious money off of this... I'm just trying to maximize the possibility that I might be able to do so. If a market exists for novels about women having sex with dinosaurs, I reason that there might-- *might*-- exist a market, perhaps a smaller one, for novels about women having sex with each other while fighting dinosaurs. ;-)

Regarding: e-book vs. deadtree, the advantage to deadtree publication, as I see it, is that the physical version is eligible for expanded distribution methods: book stores, libraries, etc.

But really, what this comes down to is my personal preferences, and to a degree my personal flaws. Little bit of a tangent here... 

Like, okay: I enjoy writing. And this year, at least, I seem to be writing a lot (Rabbit Breeder's Cup, here I come!). And I think most of it is pretty good-- at least, it entertains me and seems to entertain some of the folks here enough that they've said some very kind words about it.

But I don't write all that much, really-- I'll go long stretches without writing anything. Part of it is that I have a full-time job, and also a hobby-job that actually does make me a little bit of money (board games), and so that's naturally where my focus is.

But a bigger part of it is something I've talked about before-- that I write one sentence at a time, one word at a time, and that I can't write one word until I've written the one before it. I will spend sometimes days, weeks, and months waiting and searching for just the right word.

And frankly, that is a terrible habit for a writer to get himself into, and one I'd like to get out of. I was the same way with the board games at first, and then I designed a couple of games on commission-- doing something in exchange for money, instead of as whimsy takes you, does a marvelous job of getting you out of that habit. It made me less lazy, more disciplined and focused.

I'd like to be more disciplined, as both a writer and a person, and I'd like to see if writing primarily for a paying audience-- even a small one, one that doesn't pay well-- will help break me of some of these habits. I say "primarily" because in my experience, writing for RACC first with a mind towards compilation later doesn't necessarily seem to get me over this particular hurdle (cf. the second "volume" of Jolt City [#12-23] that I've been working on since 2008).

==Tom