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Las Vegas

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Last week I went to 20booksto50k in Las Vegas. My first-ever writing conference. It was fun. I learned a lot.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas isn’t messing around. I saw several folks forcefully handed masks when walking into casinos. I did see a fair number skate by or do the ol’ mask under the nose thing (Talk about next-level asshole), but overall Vegas isn’t taking chances.

I can’t blame them, I’m sure 2020 was devastating. Even now we saw lots, I mean LOTS of empty retail spots and almost as many “we’re short-staffed, sorry.” signs.

That said, Vegas is already back to bro clouds and woo girls. Nights are crowded and loud, days are chill outside those doing walks and crawls of shame. Each morning walk to the nearest Starbucks, we saw the vomit and spilled drinks of the night before being hosed off as the city reset.

Neon

Nicole went with me as a little mini-vacation since we haven’t done much leisure-ing in 2021. We hit up the neon museum, which is 100% worth it. It’s just outside the strip central, a short Lyft ride away. Go at night, seriously. It was a blast. So much amazing and interesting Vegas history.

20booksto50k

The reason for the trip. So the gist is that when the (facebook) group started it was around the idea that if you wrote 20 books, and each made like $7/day/365, you’d make $50k/year. While the group is strictly the business of writing the conference tackles both business and craft.

Craft

I have to say the craft talks were actually the weakest. I suspect some of that is simply the pool of talent the organizer uses. While the presenting authors are indeed quite successful, many found success early on Amazon and have successfully ridden that wave (Almost exclusively via Kindle Unlimited). That’s not a knock at all, but also I don’t think some of them have as firm a grasp on their genre’s as they might think, based on their talks.

Again, not a knock on anyone’s skills or anything, just an oversight I think in the organizing. There are a lot of folks who’ve started more recently, that could have probably presented more interesting and timely information. One talk about writing a long series was really just a “My writing journey story” Which was ok, but not what was advertised and as Space Rogues 10 is almost finished, continuing a long series was front of mind for me.

My name tag from the panel I sat on
My brush with fame (Another post)

Craft is tricky, which is why the group doesn’t deal with it. One session, in particular, was about writing space opera, a topic near and dear as that’s what I write.

The panelists, to a person, were writers of military Scifi, and a lone Hard Scifi author, all of whom simply drop their stuff in space opera because as a category on amazon it helps their sales.

The entire panel was each of these authors, explaining how they justified their stuff being space opera. I’ll grant that ‘space opera’ as a category is pretty nebulous, but military scifi isn’t space opera. The fact that two of my characters are ex-military, doesn’t make my stuff military scifi.

Such a missed opportunity. There weren’t many like this, but there were a non-zero number and each one just reinforced my decisions (Decisions and reasons why, below).

Business

The business talks were far less hit or miss. I took many, many pages of notes around how to improve my newsletters (Something I plan to work on for the conferences as well), direct sales, in-person sales, and more. This week I’ll be trying to sort all my notes into actionable to-do list stuff.

There were a few business ones that were nearly “Be in KU, end of session” but by and large the business talks were by authors who take this business seriously.

Cool Kids Club

20books is very much a cool kids club. This isn’t wholly bad, but definitely leads to blind spots. Several sessions were essentially the speaker or panelists talking about themselves or filling time with barely formed ideas and as I said above, “Be in KU” type things that showed a lack of any truly deep understanding.

The reason I say it’s not wholly bad is that it the conference is Craig’s and he can do what he likes. It’s centered around the community that has formed around the group, and that’s the garden from which he picks talent.

As someone involved in community, it bummed me out. There was very much a cool kids and everyone else vibe. The everyone else’s spent the week scrabbling for attention and fawning over the ‘celebrities’. Something that always rubs me the wrong way.

Decisions

So, will I go back? No. Craig goes to great lengths to make sure the conference is accessible. Sessions are live-streamed on Facebook and made available on youtube later. While the sessions can be hit or miss, I’m not looking for ‘my tribe’ or new friends really (new friends are great but I have lots of ‘online only friends’ already).

I’m in this to make a living and learn from those doing better than me, and that can be accomplished with the livestreams/recordings. I’ll post about my opportunity to be on a panel and why that might be the only reason I’d entertain going back to Vegas, in the next post.

MileHiCon

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My first in-person event of 2021 is finally in the books!

MileHiCon 53 was two weeks ago. I had a spot in author alley and was on a panel and did a reading.

It was awesome to be back with people.

Tables.

I look at tables as advertising, as such, making back my investment, while nice, and certainly a goal, isn’t the main goal.

I sold some books, that was nice. I handed out and likely moves some when not there, my ‘take-one’ cards. They lead to a page here on the site (that needs to be updated) where folks can find out more about my writing. Likewise, though less direct, stickers flew off the table. I look at all that as potential value.

I was next to an awesome gal, Tricia, and next to her, Kendra, who I’d met at a Bookbar event in… 2019 I think.

Where our tables were, we had a front-row seat to tea dueling which is both weird and entertaining as hell, win!

All in all, I hope to have a table at MileHiCon 54. It’s a fun event, with some awesome content, and attendees.

My First Reading.

Technically my second, but the first was for an online con early in the pandemic and I think it was just me and the host. I digress. This was… interesting. I’ve noticed with MilHiCon panels and such (at least the ones I’m on) the moderators don’t seem to actually pay attention beyond where they need to be and when. So for the reading, none of us heard from the moderator beforehand. We had no idea what we were doing other than the title of the reading “Galaxy Spanning SF” Ok, check I write that. Two out of four of us, didn’t even write SF. The moderator, not knowing he was the moderator, just said, let’s read a piece then have a chat.

Overall it was fun, but I don’t do well without structure on things I’m participating in. I’m not fast on my feet in these settings and so ready my part and then the more forceful, like to be heard, voices carried the rest of the event. I did get a few places to chime in and answer the odd question, but yeah, a little prep would have been nice.

Panels.

This was my second MileHiCon panel and the second on self-publishing. This one had the title of “Ebook or Paper, which to choose when self-publishing”

The panelsts all agreed, “Both” and then we left. Well we didn’t leave, but then the panel turned into an interactive Q&A on self-publishing. It was ok. Again the moderator did zero prepwork, and in those cases, the people who like to talk, took the stage. I got a few bits in here and there, but really just sat there nodding.

I don’t really know why these panels happen. I don’t get the impression that MHC attracts a ton of new or aspiring writers. Considering our panel was the second to last of the event, and had 10 people in it, that seems supported. in 2019 the panel I was on, was at 7pm on Saturday, again about 10 attendees.

Take Aways.

I enjoyed MHC. As I said, I plan to apply to be back. I’ll probably skip doing panels. I don’t know that they do much for me other than cause stress I don’t need. Maybe I’ll think up a topic and offer it as moderator since I know what I like in a moderator. We’ll see, that’s a lot of work.

I didn’t plan far enough ahead but by next year I’ll have updated merch that reflects more than just Space Rogues.

A World Without Facebook

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Like everyone, the day Facebook went down, was a bit more productive day than usual. It cracked the door a bit to ‘what would it be like to be free of Facebook?’

It’s actually a question I ask myself a lot. I have many friends and acquaintances who have reduced their usage or closed their accounts. I don’t blame them in the slightest. I envy them.

For me, a writer, it’s tricky.

Sure, I can update my friends and family about my life in other ways; posting more often here, Twitter (different shit show), Instagram (still a FB shitshow but… less?), etc.

However, the bulk of my usage is writing groups. Not craft so much, but business. Some are places we share things that work, don’t work etc. Some are where I can sign up for NL builders, etc. All in all, a dozen or two groups that deliver varying amounts of professional use to me throughout the week.

If I could find an alternative to those groups. I’d be gone from Facebook in the blink of an eye.

I can’t, but you can. It’s worth thinking about.

On Flying too Close to the Sun

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It was bound to happen, really. I got ahead of myself.

I got in the habit of picking a date at semi-random to include in the backmatter for a book, as the release date for the next book. Then I’d set up the pre-orders everywhere so that when book X when live, there was a link in the back for book X+1 so readers could place their pre-order right there, easy peasy.

It worked so I kept doing it.

Well, it worked until it didn’t. This is the story of when it didn’t.

‘Big Ship, Lots of Trouble‘ was given a release date of August 26, 2021. I picked that date…. Sometime early 2021 or maybe late 2020, I can’t recall.

I set about writing the book. It wasn’t as fast a process as in the past.

This release ran into a few things that caused problems. Things I could have accounted for had I been more on the ball.

  1. I took longer than planned to get a first draft done, and longer still to get revisions completed. No real reason other than dragging my feet.
  2. Because I took so long to get the revised draft ready for my editor, she couldn’t get the manuscript back to me until august 20th. 6 days before release. That in and of itself wouldn’t be an issue. I’ve worked with tight timelines and can hunker down and review all edits in a matter of a few days. Except I also…
  3. Picked a stupid date. 8/26 is the day after my biggest conference of the year. This year it was hybrid so I was juggling in-person things and online things. It was a rush right up until it started, to get butts in virtual and real seats. Had #1 not delayed #2, I could have put the book to bed before the conference started and been fine. EXCEPT, I didn’t squared. There was simply no way to get the manuscript and review changes while starting the all day in-person work of the conference.

So, I punted. Thankfully Amazon eased their pre-order push penalties during the pandemic.

Sadly, that wasn’t the worst part. This being the first time I’ve had to push a pre-order, I screwed it up. I made a list of every place I needed to update. I thought I’d checked them all off (I had, but still screwed it up). It turned out that I messed up Google and Kobo. Somehow I had them checked off, but didn’t save or something. They both released the book on 8/26. Both Google and Kobo require a file for pre-orders, which means authors use a placeholder. Something that basically says, “You got this by accident, please let the store know so we can fix it.” Had it been a store with asset-less pre-order I’d have been nagged about adding a file and likely caught my mistake. Since technically Kobo and Google had a file, they released it. Annoying, but really not their fault.

Amazon has a pretty robust (surprisingly) setup for this where I could beg them to push an update, which includes the file and an email saying that the reader got the new file.

Google and Kobo, not so much. I finally got replies from both that users would get new files, but no idea if they’re notified, etc. Kobo took about two weeks, slowly going back and forth over email, with a bit of prodding on my end. I actually didn’t know google had released until I got a support email. From that point on they were quite fast in making things right.

In the meantime, the first review on Kobo was from a nice person, mad about the placeholder, who left 1 star. Something tells me they won’t update their review… :(

Lesson learned. The final file for ‘Big Ship, Lots of Trouble‘ does not have a link to a pre-order. I’ll update the file when I have a pre-order for subsequent buyers, but right now, no.

I suppose it was inevitable. Screw ups happen, and juggling Rogue Publishing and 360|Conferences sometimes overlaps in annoying ways.

To my readers, I promise I’ll do better and apologize for the hiccups.

WIP Thursday (Bet you thought I forgot)

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I sorta did, if I’m being honest!

I was hustling to get ‘Side Hustle Tango’ out the door because I cut the timing really close with my editor, oops!

Plus I was finishing ‘Big Ship, Lots of Trouble‘ and have started ‘Ghosts of the Past’ Plus my conference company is ramping up as conference season comes upon us.

‘Ghosts of the Past’ is proving to be quite fun. I’m really enjoying digging into Jax and Naomi’s lives.

The door that lead to the hallway beyond slid open and Rudy rolled in. The navigation droid has a steaming cup in one hand, the other folded against the cylindrical torso. He offered Jax the cup, “Here.”
“Thanks.” He took the cup. The interior door slip open and the tall British guy rushed out. He hurried through the waiting room, a single sob escaping his lips before he was out the hatch and into the hallway beyond.
“That might be a new record.” Jax said as the outer door slid closed.
Rudy’s optic sensor followed the man then turned to Jax, “She’s still making them cry?”

This book opens shortly after ‘Side Hustle Tango‘

How To Resist Amazon and Why

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How To Resist Amazon and Why

I’ll start with this, I still spend a fair bit of money at Amazon. I get a monthly Subscribe & Save box, I still pay for Prime, etc. This isn’t “STOP USING AMAZON RIGHT THIS MINUTE! THROW YOUR KINDLE IN THE TRASH!” It’s not that. Don’t throw your Kindle in the trash… at least until you order a Kobo reader, LOL.

This is more about educating ourselves.

That said, I don’t read books on a Kindle. I look for things on other sites first before ordering from Amazon now. I most definitely don’t use any other Amazon tech; Ring, Eero, Alexa, etc.

I got the paperback for free from my local indie bookstore, Book Bar. I bought the ebook so I could more conveniently read it and support the author, and the indie publisher.

I encourage everyone to read this. As a consumer, I like to be informed and since our only real recourse is to vote with our wallets, being informed is a must. It’s a shame that I’m of the age that I remember Amazon displacing fatbrain.com for all my computer book needs. I remember my first (and many subsequent) Kindles. I remember becoming an author and understanding how Kindle Unlimited works and being disgusted.

No tech company is perfect, but some at least try to not be evil. More and more I find that Amazon is not only trying to not be evil, they lie and mislead so we don’t know they’re doing it.

Go get this, read it, get to know the company you give money to. Maybe you’ll be ok with what you read, that’s fine. I just think we all need to know a lot more about Amazon.

Because I have a paperback I don’t need, the first person to comment with a way to reach you, will get it. I’ll mail it wherever you desire (within reason)

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