One-book wonders.

from Wikipedia

In the music business, to continue the theme of last week's post (and to attempt a clever segue), a term became popular in the '60s to describe bands that had just one good song in them. They were known as "one-hit wonders." If you've ever seen the movie "That Thing You Do!" with Tom Hanks, you'll get the significance of this term. Hanks played a music promoter in the wake of the British invasion in the 1960s. His job was to find garage bands with a marketable sound, and give them a record contract.

The Oneders -- whose name Hanks's character changed to the Wonders because nobody could figure out how to pronounce the original -- were signed on the strength of their song "That Thing You Do!" They toured the state fair circuit, playing to screaming fans, with Hanks's character orchestrating their every move.  But when it came time to record another song, the band fell apart -- and the promoter went on to find the next potential big thing.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch, perhaps inadvertently, tapped into this idea in a blog post this week. She was attempting to explain the difference she saw between writers who want to make a living at fiction writing, and those whose aim is mainly to tick "get published" off their bucket list. That's probably more flippant a description than those writers deserve, which is likely why Rusch had so much trouble coming up with a term for them.  "Hobbyist writer" doesn't cover it, any more than "amateur" would; after all, these writers do sometimes make money from their novels.  And many of them are perfectly adequate writers who pay attention to their craft. Sometimes they have ideas for two books, or even more than two books. But one thing delineates them from the career writer: they are focused on the goal of having their book accepted by a traditional publisher. They want to see their work on a bookstore shelf. They want to be able to hold their book in their own two hands and see their name on the cover. They want to be published. 

Rusch dubs these folks "one-book writers."

Sometimes, she says, a one-book writer believes it's impossible to make a living at writing. Sometimes it's that the writer has other interests he or she would rather pursue. In any case, she says, the vast majority of the writers she has met over the course of her career have met this definition.

By contrast, she says, career writers view the business of writing very differently:

The career writer is in this for the long haul. She has dozens if not hundreds of books in her. She wants to make a living—a good living—from writing those books. Her goals are twofold: to have books in print, yes, but more than that. This writer wants to spend her life telling stories and/or sharing information.
She’s not in it for accolades or wealth, although those are nice side benefits. She’s not in it to get tenure or to show her literary bona fides. She needs to make the rent and do so while pursuing a non-traditional career. That takes planning and foresight, and an ability to roll with the punches.
- See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2013/08/28/the-business-rusch-a-career-versus-publication/#sthash.Jfa6OXla.dpuf

The career writer is in this for the long haul. She has dozens if not hundreds of books in her. She wants to make a living -- a good living -- from writing those books. Her goals are twofold: to have books in print, yes, but more than that. This writer wants to spend her life telling stories and/or sharing information.

She's not in it for accolades or wealth, although those are nice side benefits. She's not in it to get tenure or to show her literary bona fides. She needs to make the rent and do so while pursuing a non-traditional career. That takes planning and foresight, and an ability to roll with the punches.

I realized, while reading this description, that I've been straddling the fence for quite a while. I've said here before that I'm on a seven-year plan, and that I hope to make enough money from my writing to retire before that seven years is up.  Now I realize that at some point in this journey, if I'm serious about making a living from my writing, I'm going to have to give up the day job. I'm not there financially -- yet. But it's time for me to start planning for that day.

Another observation Rusch makes is that most of the writing advice you find on the web is aimed at the one-book writer. It's either for people starting out in the writing business, or for people who are seeking that elusive contract. They want to tick "published author" off their bucket list. And they want to do it "legitimately," in the time-honored manner, with a "real" contract from a "real publisher."

These people, Rusch implies, will never be happy as indies.  Because they've been led to believe (often by other one-book writers!) that it's impossible to make a living as a writer, they don't expect to. So the idea of learning to publish and market their own work doesn't make any sense to them, even if they could make a living at it. The concept of living off their writing income seems crass or vulgar. If their work doesn't sell, it simply means the public doesn't understand them -- not that either: a) their work stinks, to put it bluntly, or b) they don't know how to find their readers and market their work to them, and they won't bother to learn.

I know it's possible to make a living from one's writing; I did it for 20 years. But I confess that I've been buying into the idea that one can't make a living from writing fiction unless you're extremely lucky, the way J.K. Rowling and Stephen King are lucky. But you know what? Maybe all it takes to make a living at writing fiction is to have a lot of books for sale, and to market the hell out of them.

So I'm spending this Labor Day weekend making a dent in the word count for Crosswind, the first "Land, Sea, Sky" book, and I'm going to be packaging some of my other work in different ways for the upcoming holidays. It's nearing the end of Year One of the Grand Seven-Year Plan, and I'm going to start putting stuff out there and seeing what sells.

***
These moments of bloggy determination are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The career writer is in this for the long haul. She has dozens if not hundreds of books in her. She wants to make a living—a good living—from writing those books. Her goals are twofold: to have books in print, yes, but more than that. This writer wants to spend her life telling stories and/or sharing information.
She’s not in it for accolades or wealth, although those are nice side benefits. She’s not in it to get tenure or to show her literary bona fides. She needs to make the rent and do so while pursuing a non-traditional career. That takes planning and foresight, and an ability to roll with the punches.
- See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2013/08/28/the-business-rusch-a-career-versus-publication/#sthash.Jfa6OXla.dpuf

The career writer is in this for the long haul. She has dozens if not hundreds of books in her. She wants to make a living—a good living—from writing those books. Her goals are twofold: to have books in print, yes, but more than that. This writer wants to spend her life telling stories and/or sharing information.
She’s not in it for accolades or wealth, although those are nice side benefits. She’s not in it to get tenure or to show her literary bona fides. She needs to make the rent and do so while pursuing a non-traditional career. That takes planning and foresight, and an ability to roll with the punches.
- See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2013/08/28/the-business-rusch-a-career-versus-publication/#sthash.Jfa6OXla.dpuf

Confession: I was a Monkees fan before the Monkees were cool.

Warning: I'm dating myself in this post.

I went to see the Monkees in concert this summer.  For me, it was an exercise in nostalgia.  See, I had not yet turned nine when "The Monkees" first debuted on NBC-TV in September 1966.  Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were actors hired to play a rock group trying to make it big but never quite succeeding -- on the show, at least.  In real life, of course, they were the new hotness, with a hit TV show on Monday nights and record albums that included songs written by the likes of Neil Diamond and Carole King.

But at first, the producers wouldn't let them play their own instruments -- even though Mike and Peter had both been professional musicians pre-Monkees.  By the time they were ready to produce their third album, "Headquarters," however, they won the battle to write their own material, play their own instruments, and generally take control of their own musical destiny.

But by then, the rock establishment had dismissed the Monkees as hacks. They were dubbed "the Prefab Four" because the TV show was developed specifically to cash in on the popularity of the Beatles and their first two movies.

So you have to understand that for a long time during my formative years, the Monkees simply were not cool.  Being a Monkees fan in the late '60s and early '70s -- particularly after the show went off the air in '68 and the group mostly fell apart -- was akin to being a fan of 'N Sync or One Direction today. It was considered to be a teenybopper thing, something you'd grow out of. So eventually I got rid of their albums -- even my mono copy of "Headquarters," the first record album I ever bought -- and consigned my appreciation for their work to my childish taste back then.

The guys in DC (stolen from monkeesconcerts.com)

Fast-forward to the spring of this year, when I happened to see that the Monkees (sans Davy, sadly) would be in town for a concert in July.  I figured, what the heck. I'm over 50 now, which allows me to be eccentric, instead of just weird; I'm allowed to revel in my second childhood, if I like.  I downloaded the LiveNation app so I could buy a ticket before they went on sale to the general public.  And then I forgot about it until about a week before the show.

I expected the Warner Theatre to be packed with gray-haired ladies, and there were many in the audience. But I was surprised to see a bunch of younger people in the crowd, too.  I'd forgotten about the show's MTV run, you see.  And then I mentioned in passing in a Facebook group or two that I'd seen the Monkees in concert, and I was surprised again, because the reaction I got was...respect. Turns out that their music has stood the test of time -- and not just the Carole King and Neil Diamond tunes, but the ones the guys wrote themselves, too.

Weeks after the concert, inexplicably, I got an earworm of the chorus of "The Door into Summer", so I looked up the lyrics online. Turns out the Monkees were doing protest songs! Look at the first verse:

With his fool's gold stacked up all around him
From a killing in the market on the war
The children left King Midas there, as they found him
In his counting house where nothing counts but more

If that's not about Vietnam (not to mention every US war since), I don't know what is. Take that, 'N Sync. Let's see how relevant you guys are in 45 years.

Here's the whole song live, in Long Beach, CA.  See if you think it's stood the test of time.

***
I almost forgot: the flash fiction page is up at lynnecantwell.com. And the first Land, Sea, Sky short story will be out at Amazon on Wednesday. Keep an eye peeled on Facebook and Twitter for the link.

***
These moments of bloggy nostalgia are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

hearth/myth is two!

~Magickal Graphics~

 

 Happy bloggiversary to me,

Happy bloggiversary to me!

Is it "bloggiversary" or "bloggoversary"? Hmm...pretty sure the Oxford Dictionary hasn't picked this one up yet.

Regardless, hearth/myth turned two on Friday.  The photo seems appropriate for a two-year-old, don't you think?

It is customary (as in: this is what I did last year) to take stock of where we are today, compared to where we were a year ago.  So: this week last year, I was about to unleash Fissured upon an unsuspecting public, and I hadn't even begun writing Tapped yet.

Today, of course, all five books of the Pipe Women Chronicles have been released, and I'm starting work on the next series in Naomi's universe -- Land, Sea, Sky. Here's a fun fact about the Pipe Woman Chronicles: During the free promotions I ran for the books this summer, Tapped blew all the others out of the water with 4,249 downloads worldwide. Next was Seized with 1,936 downloads; then Annealed (1,685), Fissured (1,453)  and Gravid (1,372).  If you assume the download numbers are based in large part on cover appeal, you can extrapolate that glowy wolves beat out flaming birds, and white buffalo are the least appealing.

 

I'm still on the staff at Indies Unlimited, and my work has been featured in a couple of their publications this year -- including the terrific First Chapters, which, if you haven't picked up a copy yet, you should.  I've also started doing LynneQuisitions, my interviews of big and biggish names in indie publishing, which is a lot of fun and lets me pretend to be a reporter again.

Alas, the Indie Exchange has morphed yet again, and I have lost track of it.  But I've been kicking up my involvement with BookGoodies. Look for more on that over the next few months.

In the awards department, Seized got a little attention from both Big Al's Books and Pals Reader's Choice Awards and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  And I picked up a couple of wins in the weekly flash fiction contests at Indies Unlimited.  I'm planning to devote a page at the new website to my flash fiction entries, so that they don't get lost in the shuffle.

 

And -- how could I forget? -- I started Rursday Reads in January.  I've had at least one author get excited to be a Rursday -- go figure!

For the coming year: Look for a Pipe Woman Chronicles omnibus e-book by Yule, as well as (fingers crossed!) the first book in the Land, Sea, Sky series. Past that, who knows? I guess we'll all find out together, won't we?

***

This bloggiversary moment is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The art of letting go.

The thing about being Pagan is that you're always aware that things are changing.  Nothing is ever static; nothing ever stays the same.  It's easy to see when you look at the Wheel of the Year, with its progression of the seasons, one following another.  Even when you're at the top, you know the wheel will turn and you'll soon be on the down side.  The weather is great at the summer solstice -- but the longest day of the year is bittersweet, because you know the following days will be progressively shorter. 

Of course, in the depths of winter, the turning Wheel is reassuring. When the weather is bitter cold and the days are shortest, you know that soon spring will come again.

We passed Lughnasa on the Wheel not long ago.  I've talked about it here before -- it's the Festival of the First Harvest.  The wheat crop is coming in, and so are pitted fruits -- peaches, plums, nectarines.  The early Anglo-Saxons would use the new wheat to bake bread to take to church for blessing, hence the alternate name for the day: Lammas, a corruption of hlaf-mass, or loaf-mass.

So it's a joyful time. But it can also be melancholy, if you let it be. The sun is setting a little earlier now, and it's apparent that summer is winding down. In our modern world, the biggest end-of-summer marker, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, is the beginning of the new school year. When I was a kid, our first day of school was always the day after Labor Day, which is always the first Monday in September -- but with school systems playing around with their calendars these days, a post-Labor Day start is practically unheard of now. Most schools begin in mid- to late August.  And I talked to someone this weekend whose kids went back to school on August 1st.

New beginnings are always exciting, and of course we look forward to them. But the start of something new almost always means that something old is ending at the same time. It's easy to forget about the old thing in our rush -- easy to forget to give the old thing its due.

I've spent the summer promoting the five Pipe Woman Chronicles books, with each book taking its turn at going free on Amazon.  The final promotion, for Annealed, ended yesterday (and by the way, thanks to the thousands of people who downloaded a copy!). And while these books aren't going anywhere, I'm turning my thoughts now to the new thing -- the next series in Naomi's universe.  It's bittersweet to say goodbye, for now, to the characters in the Pipe Woman Chronicles -- so one way I'm easing the pain, so to speak, is by fleshing out some new characters by imagining where they were when the Big Mediation in Annealed occurred, how they learned about it, and what it will mean for them. It's safe to say that in all three cases, their lives will be very different because of the mediation.

I'm planning to introduce each of these characters to you in a short story, one per month. I'm aiming to release the first one before the end of August, with the next two coming in successive months thereafter.  And with any luck, by the end of November I'll have the first full novel ready to go.

So I'm letting go of the Pipe Woman Chronicles, while looking forward to Land, Sea, Sky. I'll let you know more in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your summer.  Fall will be here before you know it.

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This moment of bloggy melancholy has been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.