Books, Burnout, and The Power of Encouraging Words

While 2024 has already been a slog, that trend didn't start with the new year. I've honestly been going 10+ hours a day since Fall 2023 trying to stay on top of my deadlines, and to get fresh stuff out there for all my current and future readers to check out, and it has been a huge strain on me as a creator. That's the nature of the game, but those hours take a toll on you, and you have to start making decisions about where your time and attention are going to be spent when you're looking at your bills.

That's the reason I haven't started a new novel yet. I love writing them, but most folks who know me and my work know me as a TTRPG writer, or maybe a short story/audio creator. With funds as tight as they are it's hard to justify pouring another year of work into a book that only folks who see me at conventions will read... but it doesn't take much to get that fire lit one more time.

All I need, apparently, is seeing someone excited about one of my silly cat mysteries, and my brain is off to the races!

A little encouragement goes a LONG way...

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!

The Hard Boiled Cat, and A Steampunk Expo

For those who didn't see my updates (as the algorithm is a fickle thing), I spent the past weekend at the Chicago Steampunk Expo. It was my first time at this particular event, and it was a lot of work to figure out the new hotel space, come up with fresh booth set up, and to deal with all the bumps in the road that come with figuring out an event you've never worked before. However, I got it done, and I even managed to sell a couple of books while I was there.

I'd expected to sell copies of my new TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, but by the end of the event, I'd only managed to move a single copy... however, I sold all the copies I'd brought of my Hard Boiled Cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats. That's not saying much, as I only had a few copies of each, but something happened that I wanted to recount.

Also, get your copy if you haven't yet!

During setup I and Alice Liddell had a lovely boothmate, J.L. Barnes (whom you should definitely check out) who makes lovely artwork of adorable animals having small adventures. And once the two of us got our booths set up and introduced ourselves, she picked up my book, looked it over, and then handed me cash for it. The dealer's hall hadn't even opened to the public yet, and I'd already moved a copy of Leo's debut novel.

And she wasn't the only one. Practically everyone who came to the booth that expressed an interest in books took one look at Leo's novels before they asked for a pitch. Almost everyone who heard the pitch grabbed copies, and I didn't have any more by early afternoon of day two. And for folks who don't vend at cons, that's pretty unusual... most folks who buy books wait till the last day before swooping in and making their final selections, particularly for indie authors.

It wasn't just the sales, though those were very nice. It was the interactions I had with those readers. It was the looks on people's faces when they heard there was a gangland noir series about a Maine Coon heavy who gets mixed up with the raccoon Mafia, who has to make deals with New York subway rats, and who has to protect a kitten whose mama goes missing while teaching him how to be a proper cat.

Real talk, readers, I'd been burnt out as a novelist. With our loss of first Eric Flint, and then his publishing company, and my books spending a year in limbo before they got back onto the market having lost all of their momentum, I was exhausted. A novel generally takes a year of time for me to get down, and with everything arrayed as an uphill battle, I was prepared to just keep writing blogs, TTRPGs, short stories, and audio dramas for the foreseeable future, reserving more novels for a time when either my books grew a large enough audience to justify that kind of work, or I could afford to get back to such a large project.

I didn't realize how burnt out I was until complete strangers told me they thought my book was really fun and creative, then handed me money for it... because apparently that's all it took to light my pilot again!

Chapter One: A Mouse, and My Cheese Burger

Now, I'm not going to immediately break ground on a new novel tonight. I've got too many balls in the air, and too many projects with deadlines to take up yet more space I don't have. However, I wanted to remind folks that if you're tired, and everything feels like a pointless slog, then you're probably way more burnt out than you think. So if you're down on your work, and you feel like you're just shouting into the void, talk to someone who isn't familiar with your stories. Someone who isn't part of your regular audience, and who hasn't heard your pitch before.

You'll likely find their reaction is far more excited, and that can be the fuel you need to get back to the grindstone!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Cut Unnecessary Words, and Tighten Up Your Writing

The words on the page are like the ingredients in a stew; it's all about the balance they create for the overall flavor. While readers might overlook an occasional crunchy bit of dialogue here, or a congealed lump of exposition there, if you end up using a lot of filler then it's going to make it really obvious how much extra stock is in your book when it comes time to finally dig in.

There's a lot of culprits when it comes to any piece of work, whether it's a short story, a novel, or even an audio drama. And while they might be all right individually, much like adverbs, they can sneak up on you, and bloat your word count.

Don't apologize... just cut!

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! To be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, make sure you check out my Vocal archive for several hundred other articles about geek ephemera, weird history, writing, and more!

The Usual Suspects

During my school days my parents divvied up their responsibilities. My father was primarily my math and science tutor, while my mother checked my English homework. One night it was just my father and I at the dinner table while he went over my letters for the night. He pointed out at least half a dozen times I'd used the word that, and told me to remove them because they wasted space, and added nothing to what I was saying.

At the time I was annoyed at the criticism, mostly because I was a middle schooler, and it was already too late in the evening for me to do anything even if my homework was done. With that said, in the years since then, I've recognized the wisdom in this criticism. This word is one of several on my list of filler words I try to eliminate, but as with the italicized example a sentence ago, remember you aren't trying to eliminate the use of entire words; just learning to recognize when they aren't necessary.

Okay? Okay.

So, who's on the Most Wanted list?

We've already mentioned how that tends to creep into our works, but what other culprits do we have to deal with? Well...

- However- This is one I'm particularly bad about. It takes up a lot of space, and it's a favorite for folks who tend to rely on sentence splices when their thoughts are going a mile a minute.

- Though- However's partner in crime, though is a word that's often used to avoid the need to end one sentence, and begin another one.

- Very- For those who remember Dead Poets Society, this is a word we know to side eye. Getting out of the habit of relying on this word by replacing the need for it (very tired becomes exhausted, very pretty becomes stunning, and so on) is the best way to clear it off the page.

- Actually- This one is perfectly fine in dialogue, but most of the time you can kick it from your sentence if it's outside of quotation marks. It shares this distinction with its more polite cousin quite.

- Really- This word can serve a lot of functions, but your story is often better for cutting it out as many times as you can. As with many of the others, this one can lend authenticity to dialogue, but should be spare outside the words and thoughts of your characters.

That's 7 words on the hit list. It doesn't seem like much, does it? Go through something you've written, though, and start eliminating them. Then compare the word count of the manuscript before and after. If you had a short story, you probably managed to cut out two dozen words or more. If you're looking at a novel? You might have just chopped out several thousand words by the time you got rid of every instance you didn't need.

Support The Literary Mercenary

For folks who just want to do their part to help keep me making more content, please subscribe/follow me in these locations:

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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, consider checking out my show Tabletop Mercenary if you've ever thought about becoming a TTRPG creator, but you want a glimpse behind the curtain before you just jump into the deep end.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

If You Want To Improve Your Network, Offer People Genuine Help

Last week I experienced an incident that I wanted to share with folks out there. This is far from the first of its kind, but because it's fresh in my mind I thought I'd use it as the Ur example of a certain kind of behavior that damages you, your image, and your attempts to network. And then, once I've laid out the mistakes, I wanted to talk about how this could have worked better.

Names will be omitted. Because while I found this annoying, I don't want this to be read as a callout, but rather than as an object lesson.

I see you need some help. Have you read my book about successful marketing?

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!

I Was Minding My Own Business on Twitter...

As with most other creators out there, I'm active on as many social media platforms as I can manage. And though Twitter is by far the one I use the least at present (and it's experienced some, shall we say, trying times of late), I still try to get on there a couple times a week. I'm also not a stranger to unprompted messages, but like most authors, a majority of what I receive on that site is just slop and spam. The English is riddled with grammatical errors, the sender clearly hasn't read my book despite trying to praise it, and at the end there's a post laying out their fee to help me with promotion.

Those are easy enough to recognize, report as spam, and delete.

But sometimes I get a different type of message. These messages come from someone who has at least read some of my posts, figured out what my book is about, and they seem to come from a place where the sender does want to help. The problem is that their idea of helping is to offer me a copy of their marketing guide for selling more books, to ask if I'd like to write a guest spot on their blog, or something else that basically asks me to do some free labor on their part that might, possibly, potentially, if the stars align properly, maybe help me get more eyes on my books. Eventually.

I swear this will TOTALLY work... trust me!

This is its own, special kind of frustrating, particularly because I'm sure the other party thinks they're genuinely trying to help. So if you are someone out there who has been on the other end of this equation, I need you to understand in all seriousness that you are not helping. You are, in fact, making things worse.

What Help Looks Like

I want to clarify for everyone out there that, yes, offering help is a great way to expand your network. People like people who offer them a hand up, or who try to make their workload a little bit lighter. However, it's important to ask if what you're doing is actually helping that person, or just taking up bandwidth they probably don't have to spare... because if that's the case, you have likely burned a bridge before it was even built.

Huh... I wonder why it keeps falling down?

The questions you need to ask yourself go as follows:

Are You Offering A Specific Solution?

Generalities like, "You should try marketing on Blue Sky!" are not helpful. However, saying, "When you make a promotional post on FB, add a picture rather than just a link, because the site will suppress it if there's just a link preview," is an extremely helpful, specific solution to a problem. So is, "Hey, this subreddit/FB group/forum I post on loves welcoming writers. We have a three-posts-a-week promotion policy, so come over there and tag me in, and I'll help you boost your signal!"

The more specific the advice you're giving, and the more actionable it is, the more useful it will be.

Are You Asking This Person To Do One More Thing?

There is a simple truth among writers in general, and among authors in particular... most of us already have a full plate of stuff. I have 3 different social media sites I do promotion on every single day, with a 4th added into the mix every now and again. I run two different blogs, regularly turn out TTRPG supplements, make at least 1 fresh video a week, and a slew of other nonsense... I do not have the ability to add one more plate to spin among all this other nonsense I'm currently doing.

It is not helpful to tell a person who is already operating at their maximum capacity that they should try doing something else, or by giving them a homework assignment (suggesting they build a whole new platform utterly unrelated to their work, ghost blog for someone else, etc.). This is when stepping in and offering to do actual labor on their behalf is giving genuine help. Offering to share around a link to someone's book, blog, or channel, for example, is helpful. Even inviting someone onto a podcast, or to be interviewed as a guest on a YouTube channel, is helpful because you are offering them the use of your platform. Even if that platform isn't very big, this is an actionable, helpful gesture you can make.

Did They Ask For This Help?

Most creators are not shy about asking explicitly for what we need from people. Watch any YouTube video, and you'll see the host tell you to like, share, subscribe, and hit that bell. They aren't doing that for their health; it's because those actions are what tell the algorithm this channel is gaining traction, and it should be promoted to more people with similar interests. It's why authors ask you to please share their posts about new book debuts and sales, and why we all but beg people to review our stuff when they read it.

Before you reach out with an offer of help, ask if your help is on the list of things they asked for. Because even if you aren't making more work for them, and even if your solution is specific, there's a good chance they're asking for X, Y, and Z for a reason. So even if you can offer to do more, consider also doing these basic things as a sign of good faith. Authors are far more likely to listen to someone who followed their page, engaged with their posts, and shared some things to help boost their signal before trying to contact them than they are to respond positively to a random message in their inbox. Especially if that message isn't offering to help them shoulder their workload, or is demanding a fee we likely can't afford.

We Would Like Help... We Really Would...

Creators cannot, at the end of the day, make themselves successful. Every person out there who makes a living as a creator, whether they write novels, blogs, TTRPGs, make YouTube videos, or one of a thousand other things, is only successful because of the support of their backers. And for those of us who don't have big publishers, record labels, etc. helping boost our signal, we depend on people in our audience, as well as fellow creators, to help lift us up.

So, at the end of the day, you are never to big to accept a helping hand... but before you reach out, make sure what you're doing is actually going to be a real, material help, rather than unasked for advice, or a homework assignment from a stranger on the Internet. Because, and I feel I can speak for all creators on this, we are really tired of those things.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Is Audio Fiction Breathing New Life Into Short Stories?

I've said this several times over the years on this blog, but selling short stories is a Herculean task. Whether it's doing digital marketing for titles I've been involved with, or hand-selling books at a convention, it is hard as hell to find people who are willing to check out these books. One of the only successes I've had in this regard is From A Cat's View: An Anthology of Stories Told By Cats, but it's sort of the exception that proves the rule (since everyone loves cats).

However, while my personal experience is that fewer and fewer people are interested in sitting down and reading short fiction, it seems like more and more people are actively seeking short audio stories... which is an interesting opportunity for folks who enjoy creating short stories, but who may be telling them in the wrong format to get the numbers they need.

Because who doesn't want to hear a good story?

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!

Listeners Instead of Readers?

Several years ago I put out a short story collection titled The Rejects, which was a gathering of all the short stories I'd written that I felt were quality pieces of work, but which had never gotten picked up by an anthology open call. While I've personally sold several dozen copies by hand, and moved a fair number digitally, the book has only managed to garner 7 reviews (positive reviews, but only 7 of them). It's got a handful of fans who've told me they've enjoyed it, but it hasn't made that much of a splash.

Now consider the audio version of Dead Man's Bluff, one of the stories found in the collection that I've dramatized.

For those who haven't checked it out, this weird Western short story tells the tale of the itinerant gambler James Garnett, and him playing a hand of cards with a ghost from his past. The audio has garnered about 1,500 unique views, and I can say for a fact that is far more than the number of people who have even heard of the book it came from.

And that's not the only time this has happened.

Consider the above story, Suffer The Children. A dark, modern fantasy tale of an Old Testament bruiser in the City of Angel, Malachi is on a quest to save a child from the fires of Moloch, and to send a message to the brazen bull's followers that there are rules even in a place as corrupt as Los Angeles. While not quite as popular as the weird Western, it's garnered about 1,200 unique views, which is (once again) far more than the number of eyeballs that have even seen the book the stories come from, much less read any of the words out of it.

Now, it should be mentioned that the audio versions of these stories are free to listen to, while the book itself costs money to buy. However, even with all the giveaways I've done for the collection, I've never had that many people take me up on getting a free copy of the stories. I've shared the links to both in the same venues, and I've put the same marketing behind both of them, and overall people seem far more willing to check out the audio than they are the text version of my short stories.

Why People Listen Instead of Read

Reading a book, whether it's short stories or novels, is an activity that requires one to put their full attention into things. Whether you're sitting on a couch, on your lunch break, or tucked into a spot on a train or a bus, reading a book is something you actively do, and it takes your eyes and hands to do it. However, most people who listen to audio books do so while they're actively working on something else. Whether it's walking on the treadmill, going for a jog, cleaning up around the house, painting miniatures, doing data entry at work, driving somewhere... situations where someone cannot actually use their hands to hold a book, or their eyes to scroll the page.

While some listeners will still prefer novels for these scenarios, there seem to be quite a lot of listeners out there who are looking for something bite-sized to get them through a particular activity. Sometimes listeners just want tales of a particular genre, sometimes they want a series they can pick up at any point and enjoy (such as the various SCP podcasts and freak-of-the-week horror casts where one can come in on nearly any episode), and sometimes they want a full narrative series that plays out in multiple seasons following the same characters through their adventures.  However, whatever format of story folks seem to prefer, and whatever genre it is they like, short fiction seems to be far more enjoyed by the listening crowd than the reading one.

Does that mean you can't still still short stories in their traditional print format? No, of course not. However, consider the fact that the original short story of mine The Final Lamentation got a few hundred reads, while the audio drama of the story is at 169K views at time of writing.

Something to think about.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

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!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!