Conversely, a genuine bucket list item I’d long had was to see something I’d directed up on the silver screen. The actual process of achieving that, however–the minutiae involved–led to far more interesting happenings than just the egoism of the event itself. It was a tightly-scripted film about a film about a film, and yet the making of THAT film (the furthest camera removed, so to speak) provided more laughs than anything I could’ve conjured willfully, while adding yet another layer of ironic meta to the proceedings.

Keep up the good work!

For sure, MOCKINGBIRD is a great read. NAKED LUNCH is a difficult read, or it was for me, but it’s so cool. Definitely move it up. If you’ve read HOL you can handle it. But the book you should read FIRST, the book you should read NOW is Stephen’s collection. Holy crap is that a good book. The first story, “Father, Son and Holy Rabbit” is one of my favorites of his, and maybe, favorites of anyone, ever. It’s that good. Good list.

Did you already do the episode where Lisa goes to college and hangs out with…I believe it’s Pynchon…fuck…is it Pynchon? anyway, it’s good shit.

Write the book I mean. Hard to say if you are jaded. I may be too but then I may also be an elitist. I remember freaking out when I saw a Google+ ad that briefly featured a circle labeled “the mad ones” a Kerouac reference. I think for me the shocking thing is not that they occur but maybe how quickly. A favorite show of mine is Futurama which is always packed with references but often they are extremely fleeting.

cheers.

Best of luck with your book. And best of luck with getting permission for the lyrics.

One additional word of caution about WordPress.com — their terms of service do not allow you to sell anything from your site, so there’s always the possibility that your site could be deleted.

I am also a Typepad user and they do allow Javascript, such as that in my mailing list sign-up form. I consider Typepad to be one step below WordPress.org. It’s hosted by them and comes with tech support, but it gives you a lot of flexibility. The main disadvantage of Typepad is that you can’t use the cool widgets and themes that are designed for WordPress.org.

(FB traffic reporting is insanely inaccurate. The entire platform is buggy. This is one reason FB isn’t transparent about changes, and doesn’t roll them out to all users at the same time.)

1. CTR does matter, since the higher the CTR the lower the CPC (the better the ad the less you pay.) Efficiently nailing your target market without excess pays off.

2. I’m not sure any PPC ad system — including Google Ads (and I’d love to see a similar report on that) — will yield straight revenue ROI for a book. The unit cost is too low. HOWEVER, I think Facebook ads are amazing for audience development, if used with FB’s “Like” functionality.

Basically, if you make your book an FB page or a “node” — an FB object with no FB page — you can accumulate Fans at well less than $1.00 per fan. In this case you might have generated 100 fans, which is almost as good — if not quite — as 100 email subscribers. (You might even handicap FB fans as .25 of email subscribers.)

These are then followers who you might a) convert in the future and b) whose every engagement becomes a free ad for your book, i.e. a new prospect in the funnel for free.

The trick would be putting a lifetime value on a FB fan.

In my experience, it was this lack of audience development — or accumulation — that made AdWords appear unworkable for books, but I’d love to be proven wrong about that.

@Jennifer – Typepad is actually very forward thinking in that they’ve apparently integrated Google Analytics capabilities into the software. Here is a blog post that gives a bit more info: http://help.typepad.com/google_analytics.html

I’m really happy to help. Us writers get so caught up in the creation aspect (as we should) that it’s easy forget to try and understand the effect of our creation. We can see it in the positive response from readers, but sometimes seeing the numbers behind those positive responses is encouraging.

More blog posts like this to come. Stay tuned.

I’m on Typepad so will I still benefit from your Google analytics articles even though you teach about WordPress? Thanks!

Jennifer

I suppose my main point was not so much that the talent pool would be diluted, but the audience for work from talented writers may become smaller. I know that if I were not a reader, and I picked up a terribly written book, I may then be turned off of reading anything else. And as untalented writers continue to write, and continue to publish and promote their own work (even just to friends and family) my fear is that they are doing a disservice to those who would like to grow the reading pool. Maybe that’s too close-minded, and the Cream to the Top analogy will still correct things.

And to your point: “You spoke even of motivation in this podcast–if someone is a real writer, you know, they know they are good and they see an ocean of just mediocrity and know they could get swallowed in it, shouldn’t the lesson be “motivate from this, don’t be caught in that slurry” use the, so to speak, lowering standards of a lot of people to raise your own–it’s not enough to be “okay” or be “pretty good”–it’s now necessity to be unique, to be distinct, to be better and more defined” yes, this is true, except that the central problem is that some writers may have a false sense of genius, of producing that unique, distinct, better defined work.

Am I being too narrow-minded? Yeah, probably.

Nice podcast (though you better not’ve been talking about me with that “writers who put out a novella every few months of dubious quality etc etc” because if you were I’ll go Daniel Plainview on you, man, “One day, I’m going to come into you home while you’re asleep and I’m going to cut your throat”)

Anyway–have an honest point, though not even bugging you this time:

Now, you and I do have, I’d say, “opposite side of the coin” philosophies on a lot of things, but I think are very much like each other. In this podcast, you bring up the idea that “too many writers would dilute the talent pool” or words to that effect, that if everyone is writing and publishing there may be detrimental effects on writers who do have “the talent” and, so to speak, are deserving of attention.

But elsewhere, especially implicitly, and even in this podcast a bit, you have seemed to subscribe to the idea that with writing and pubbing its kind of “the best rise to the top” sort of thing–if someone is successful (largely) there is a reason having to do with talent, not just filling a particular market niche (we’re not talking about the LCD, here, but proper writing).

So, don’t you think that this sudden influx of “everyone is a writer and there are only so many readers” would actually be a fundamentally positive thing in terms of truly good stuff rising and being noticed–I mean, if there is a mess of shit in your backyard but there’s a beautiful bauble floating in it, despite the shit you’re going to notice that beautiful thing–I’d say there’s even more draw to it than if your backyard was just your backyard, because in that case you’d simply be comfortable, content to look at what you’ve always looked at and find pleasing in a general way, and a rarity, a beauty, might just be overlooked because, in general, you have a decent lawn.

Haha, take that metaphor.

If it’s a “talent rises to the top” scenario (if one cares about the top and I do think–not in a bad way–you do and in a kind of traditional way) the more things to temper the talent, the better.

You spoke even of motivation in this podcast–if someone is a real writer, you know, they know they are good and they see an ocean of just mediocrity and know they could get swallowed in it, shouldn’t the lesson be “motivate from this, don’t be caught in that slurry” use the, so to speak, lowering standards of a lot of people to raise your own–it’s not enough to be “okay” or be “pretty good”–it’s now necessity to be unique, to be distinct, to be better and more defined.

blah blah blah.

I kind of–side point–bring this up because you feel this way about NaNoWriMo (did I get that right? too lazy to check) while I (not violently) share a lot of the same thoughts but aim them at workshopping, and peer groups, at collectives, at intensives with this or that author, at “advanced classes” and advice-sharing-personal-experience groups etc. etc. Do you see an overlap?

EDIT: Wow, this book sounds amazing. It’s been wishlisted. Fingers crossed Santa is good to me this year. The book sounds a bit like Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea. Are you familiar? It’s a damn good book, with just the right amount of clever to be fun.

again…becoming computerless.

sigh

Too, I think a lot of the references I call out are unexpected, at least in terms of general assumptions of what cartoons are/should be. A lot of people still think cartoons are only for children (and therefore, literary references would not be acknowledged). Yes, it is the learned who keep shows like Futurama and Family Guy on the air, but I still maintain that many book references go over the heads of most cartoon watchers.

I think the bigger bug would be to argue my loose use of the word “literary” (rather than “unexpected”). Most of the references (Stephen King, that Hunt for Red October book) are culled from popular conscious. I rarely catch a cartoon referencing something more intellectually stimulating (though it is done). Yes, people read quite a bit. But they read what most would probably not call “literary” fiction, I would argue.

Yet, I couldn’t simply call the series “Great Unexpected Book” references. What would be a valid substitute for “literary” in this case?

Hhaha, but I’m not trying to contradict or argue with anything, so let me end before I nerd on into a rant–but don’t you think the presence of literary reference in such generally popular (albeit the upper crust of the generally popular) programs speaks more to the fact that literary references, in general, are not unexpected at all–i think you come off as a little bit jaded, using that word, you dig? i mean, people DO read and, contrary to what your title to the series suggests, audiences of programs you cull these references from are a fairly learned lot–it wasn’t the dolts who demanded Futurerama come back, you know? it isn’t the lowest common denominator that kept Family Guy off the scrap heap so many times.

THERE, you have been officially bugged. Bwahaha. If you reply, give me a day or two to get back, I will be computerless for a few days, just wanted to stick my nose in your harmless business one more time before blacking out.

I say this as one of those people who hate kid protagonists and who’re almost as tired of racism in the south of the US as I am of the second world war (And believe me when I say: I’m tired of the second world war).

Go on! Give it a whirl.

And now I do all my writing on the couch on my laptop next to the (rarely used) fireplace. It’s SoCal, after all.

So I don’t know. I’m not sold on the idea of a writing space.

Then again, I don’t do anything most writers do.

I can picture a chart similar to the above accounting for the inspiration behind Chartered Pieces.

If your point is about the quality and/or reputation of the publisher, the I definitely agree; Vintage would be less an opinion for most authors.

Sixteen Caleb J Ross books…I wouldn’t wish that misery on the world of literature. So far, just three lined up for publication. Of course, there’s always a few more mid-work.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all authors should dedicate hours each day to communicating with readers via social networks, but it does mean that the occasional tweet or facebook status once or twice a week is becoming increasingly necessary and expected.

‘Good reasons’ could include debilitating disease, family issues, or even a manicured perception of the ‘outcast’ author, whose allure relies on being socially removed.

I guess the point of the post is that authors no longer need to justify being a part of social media; they instead need to justify not being a part of it.

What do you mean exactly by the last passage of this post? I’m not asking antagonistically, I just really don’t follow the thought-line (it could just be I’m empahsizing the wrong words or summit, you know? I do that a lot). I guess specifically I don’t exactly understand ‘good reason’–what would be a good reason, what would be a bad reason (I’m a twit about this subject but I have a lay fascination with it) and ‘gesture of inclusion’…inclusion in what and/or on whose part? You mean after the fact–if readers are chatting and you don’t seek the chat out to particpate…or something else? If you have a sec, as I think the post is cool, as your posts usually are.

…actually that’s just an excerpt from my new two volume novel: “Maybe Having To Find Where Caleb J. Ross Lives Because I’ll have To Put A Bomb In His House, a reverie”. Available late 2013 from Gonna Get That Bastard Caleb Books an imprint of Brown Paper Publishing.

Congrats on the third upcoming release, by the way. Look at you, you’re gonna have to stop being humble, soon.

I used to be a copywriter. “Paid to write.” But that had an assignable value because clients made money off the products/services I exalted, and my company made money on the markup of my services. Point being, the “ideas” present in nonfiction are easier to put a price tag on than the entertaining or philosophical ones of fiction (though nonfic can be philosophical, too).

I said in that podcast Caleb linked that I make more money in one day at my career job than I have for all the profits of my self-published book that took me four years to write (intermittently), two years to seek publication, and one year to promote. And I don’t care. I want people to read it, above all else. That’s my gauge of success: people reading it and then talking about or advocating it to others. Like Pablo said, someone purchasing it in support is one step, which I appreciate (though I’ve given away nearly as many as I’ve sold), but I don’t really care to engage them until they’ve actually read it. And I do feel insulted when even my “friends” can’t be bothered to take two evenings out of their lives to do so, given my above investment, and what I consider to be sacrifice. Opportunity cost.

I have a lot of other pursuits and hobbies in my life that are far more immediately rewarding than writing. I sought professional publication for two reasons: some external validation I’d been missing, and wider distribution. Not money, though if that did come, it would be yet another level of validation to be able to, as Caleb said, make that my career instead of my hobby. But I’ve learned what I always suspected: that I have neither the temperament nor the prolificacy to write novels for a living. Few do.

Your question back with regard to mine is something much worth exploring so my apologies for giving it just a brief consideration here before moving onto something you touched on that is one my favorite little subjects, it obviously is not all covered by this little bit of response I am starting out with, below:

Why can’t a book be worth money?

No reason. Totally no reason.

To my philosophical slant—which does not call for all literature to be given out gratis, though oftentimes it strikes people that way (not you, I don’t think)—the pricing of a book, especially when it becomes something in the author’s hands directly or in the hands of a small press handling in an intimate way the works of indie writers, is something steeped in principle consideration. I come at this question through the method of book production I use so some of this thinking might not apply to people who utilize different methods—Cover Price is used as a gauge to make sure everyone gets a bit, you know? A book is $14 in general so that when sales to booksellers are taken into account everyone can squeak a profit—publisher, author, wholesaler, bookshop. If a book goes out to a store via Ingram or what have you at 55% of cover price the bookstore can get their bit, you get your bit, publisher etc. If you priced it at five bucks and tried to go through booksellers via Ingram (or any other way) you’d likely come up short on your end (with cost of production shipping, etc.) So the situation for a lot of indie sellers who don’t depend on booksellers or Ingram or any of it is one of principle—if the book itself doesn’t need to be priced at $14 to cover all bases, why price it as such? Certainly because one can—absolutely—the buyer/reader is used to buying from booksellers—electronic or brick and mortar—and so the pricing structure has taken a kind of root and if I can make a book for 3 and sell it for 14 that’s better than making it for 3 and selling it for $6.50. The question is one of what is the transaction artistically, what is the desire of the artist.

Which nicely segues me to my little obsession: Do people find less value in a free book?

I understand every side of this and have been involved in myriad situation I will not go into on the matter—what remains for me is a deep suspicion of this reasoning—I’ve never seen it, face-to-face, never seen someone say ‘Well this book I got free is pointless because it was being offered for free’ and in thinking about the fact that most publishers (large and small) chug out ARCs (free) and such things and then the age old library argument (not quite the same thing, but still germane to this discussion) it becomes more wobbly.

But above all of that is a counter example which I have seen and have seen often, a mentality I call the ‘Well, I paid, so I don’t have to read it’ mentality—this exists in a bookstore browser who really probably doesn’t feel compelled to read a book because they paid for it (it just doesn’t happen that way and nobody looks at all the unread books on their shelf and laments the 10 dollars here and the 13 dollars there…it’s not the mentality of a bookstore reader) and it exists even in the indie writer who shows ‘support’ for a college by purchasing a copy, maybe never to read it.

On that point, writer-to-writer books are often handed around free—to get peer critique, to get reviews, to get “blurbs” and all and I’ve never found this free exchange something that carries derision or a sense of ‘this is something I’m not going to take a look at because the writer gave it to me for free’. There is—this is about indie circles, in my experience—a pervasiveness of the “show support, buy my book” versus “show support, read my book” (there is the combo “show support, but and read my book” of course). And here I become a bit more personally specific about my philosophy:

As a writer and publisher, I think it needs to be admitted that active readership is just that: Active, it is something that the author is asking the reader to DO. If one just wants to know their book was causally browsed through, read and not considered, looked at by anonymous Jack and then who knows, then all is well and good. But if one earnestly seeks concerted, intelligent, time consuming interface with the work on the part of a reader the exchange is now two sided—now the author wants something and the reader is giving it. I’ve written essays and thoughtful, considered response on literature—it isn’t the same as thumbs up thumbs down, you know? It isn’t the same as asking someone to off hand assign a Star Value.

Authors need to respect the readers as intelligences and admit there is some direct touch they want from this—money is not the object and, honestly, if someone gives me five bucks for my book, that pays for my book and profits me a buck and then they go ahead and invest time and effort to give me something else I want—well…now I have taken form them without giving back.

Giving-it-away-for-free is not the same as putting it on a table with a Take One sign (or it isn’t always). It’s an investment in artistic interchange, in art-to-intellect interaction. Take the amount of hours it takes to promote a work– to slog it around, to post here and there and there, to get some purchases– and then think ‘Well, what if I worked an extra work shift equal to that amount of hours and used that money to buy copies of books that I will give to interested parties’—there is little to no equivalent difference, just a philosophical one.

So yes, an apathetic “Read it if you want or whatever” method of giving out a book for free is ludicrous, I think it is odd, don’t understand it. But, thinking that because someone laid down some money they will think of the book with more gravity than if they’d borrowed it from a friend or gotten it as a gift or found it on a bus and (this is important) started reading it and found it interesting is not something I think is real, it’s a rhetoric that I just have never seen made manifest. No one—at least I have never met such a person, Lord knows they probably do exist—ever seriously says “I’m so glad I spent that $14 dollars! This book was so worth $14 I don’t feel swindled!” and no one (same earlier aside) reads an entire book, dislikes it and says “Bah that book was not worth $14! (or if they do it is not said with utmost gravity, just offhand irritation…or if it is said with honest aggravation, if they really feel slighted because they’re short a few bucks for taking a chance on a book purchase, is this the sort of mind whose response you’re looking for?

The question “Why would authors get paid?” is an apt one, but perhaps a better one is “Why can’t a book be worth money?” Money is a near-universally accepted symbol of work (maybe that’s the real idealism of this piece, I know). Can’t I trade my writing for someone else’s work?

I didn’t come to this desire to get paid easily (toward the end of the recently released The Velvet Podcast 009, Brandon Tietz and I debate a bit about the idea of being offered a LOT of money for a book; I would be very, very suspicious of that). I think ultimately I’ve come to understand the importance of context. As in writing, where context is so very important, the marketplace of ideas is also governed by context. Instead of fighting it, I want leverage it. In the context of the American market, $$$ equates value, to some extent (whether fairly or not). Something free is often seen as worthless (physically, yes, but intellectually also). Even just $5 for a book suddenly makes people pay attention where if it were free, they’d pass it up like a door prize.

I’d love to give my stuff away for free, but I’m afraid people simply wouldn’t read it if that were the case. Not everyone gives away true capital L Literature for free like you do. If people could ever consistently expect fine quality from free products, then the social mindset may start to change. But until then, most free things just don’t get attention. And without attention, any writing is worthless, both physically and intellectually.

I will engage you on this (and if such other post about ‘vanity’ and ‘self-publishing’ come up I will engage you on that, too).

Let me ask you the question that is not as often asked, but that is as pertinent as the one implicitly asked here by you (‘Why don’t authors get paid?”)

Why would authors get paid?

In the sense of ‘Why would they get paid to the tune of making not only a living but a hearty living (let alone a kind of celebrity living?)

Other than ‘Because it is what the market will bear” which answers in itself why some writers get paid and others don’t (and why this never seems to so directly reflect a degree of ‘literary importance’ or talent) what is the answer?
‘Because some writers get paid, all writers should get paid?’

‘Because talentless writers get paid, it follows that talented ones should, as well–and should more?’

What is an author being paid for, and to what degree? Did someone ask you to write the novel that is fruit of your personal thought and aesthetic, to take whatever time and energy goes into it, to–in effect–pursue something you enjoy because you enjoy it?

What is it, personally, that makes you WANT to get paid for your writing, even in the sense of simply assigning a cover price?

A sense of deserving it for the hard work put in, as just stated? Maybe. But, gun to our head, let’s ask ‘How much Work—capital W–is really, really put into a novel?’ A good amount, but let’s find an equivalent. You write a novel or some work, say it takes you a year–at what sort of hours for what sort of wage…what you write in a day someone else writes in a month, after all? Is it harder, more wage worthy work to write a novel than to clerk a shoe store or to rent videos or to detail cars? Considering you are beholden to nobody, what should someone else pay you for it–even if they find that ‘Your work can be made to make money’ how much of that is ‘them’ (publishers/marketers whatever) and how much you (your particular piece of writing)? If not Twilight, then Character Pieces? You state in your piece “No, of course not.” But you also seem to think it makes sense as the night follows the day that ones write and one gets paid–or SHOULD get paid (or, even further, one SHOULD WANT to get paid)…provided there is something ‘of value’ ‘of importance’.

One of the reasons a ‘literary writer does not get paid’ is that, historically, literary fiction was something that was not pursued as a paying craft–however much many people like to align writing to the craft to plumbing or pottery or architecture and construction, it is none of those thing. I would sooner ask that my garbage man be given a raise than ask for an advance-against-royalties. Or I’d ask that educators, for example, find better compensation to educate those I think will benefit from my ideas.

And is this what we do, as readers and as writers? We seek out ideas? Beneficial idea? Which are these and where in literature are they to be found? The ideas might rise–to where and to what purpose? G.K. Chesterton would be worried about this elevation of books, I think. Do we, ourselves, trained to be egomaniacal, as you suggest, or no–become self-declared important idea men, or do we leave this distinction of importance up to the opinions of others…of how many others…not too many I hope (Paul Blart Mall Cop is more widely known than Pontypool, Moon, Besieged Fortress, Dogville, and Squid and the Whale put together)?

Are important ideas in literature really lost under a pile of bad ideas, unimportant ideas—people are looking for important work but because there is so much out, so much garbage that is worthless and means nothing there they cannot find them? If these unimportant ideas–however they are to be distinguished from important ideas–were swept aside then folks would find Aristotle and Walter Pater and Epictetus and Honor de Balzc saying ‘Hey, yeah man, thank you for getting rid of the dregs, nobody was able to find us here… now you can read some real shit, over here’.

Also–to this tune of important ideas and the questions of which are they–Personal Dignity is an important idea, but aren’t books just pumped out about that?…Individual Freedom and Identity, Clear Headedness over Warmongering, Charity over Greed–important ideas…that almost every book in the world (slight exaggeration of that stat) and certainly every ‘literary’ book in the world are about. Do we need one such book to rise to the top? Is Saramago, really, writing something different than Caleb or Pablo or Jake down the block or Margurite Duras or Roland Topor or x or Y or Z person I have never heard of and never will? And if I find it in ‘Billy G’s work even though the same thing could be found in Kafka with an earlier copyright (even if Billy was directly inspired and halfway cribbing from Kafka) should I be directed away from Billy and ‘back to the original?’ Can someone say it better? Can someone say Caleb better than Caleb or can someone say something that, honestly, reducing Caleb to moot? Is it a vacancy of worthwhile subject matter in literature that we witness, or do we witness, instead, an abundance of voices speaking about what is important? (I was resisting using as an Important topic ‘being human’ ‘ones personal experience’ ones perceptions of oneself’…because maybe that will fall under the vanity press conversation, but it seems I have broken down and inserted it here, parenthetically). If there is such an abundance, other than to the bottom line—is this a bad thing, is this, people writing and wanting their voices read and heard, honestly something to lament or to nickel and dime?

If we don’t want celebrity writers, perhaps we also need to remove even hallowed and deified literary celebrities, admit that they aren’t talking about what a million other writers are talking about and that our personal aesthetic taste–mixed with marketing availability mixed with historical weightiness leading to more exposure to Hemmingway than whatshisname–as a readership does not really extend as far as to say Tolstoy said it better than Dostoyevsky said it better than Scott Smith said it better than Easton Ellis said it better than that crazy bastard whose book I can’t stand.
Are you really of the school of thought that if monetary compensation becomes less available LESS people will write or ‘only important people will write’ and ‘only important people will write important things’ and that somehow if there were only five or six writers the important people will be easier to identify? Literature—literary craft—predates literary-craft-for-renown-compensation-paying-the-bills etc.

(Also—this is in direct response to a thing you say—what could it mean that some people have something to say pertinent to friends and family, but other people to the world stage? Jesus. It’s a play on the term ‘vanity’ I like to bring up—what is vain? To write and produce a volume and make it available to those who want it, if they want, and to suggest here and there that people can have it if they want it? Or to declare you have rendered an artwork that is pertinent to every stranger the world over and that this pertinence, this necessity of grandeur of intellectual idea is what makes it worth monetary compensation and adoration and posterity? The Polio vaccine was a Good Idea, you know? It would’ve been a little bit dickish to charge for it– and it fucking cured polio. Wouldn’t it be a bit more hardcore to have the ‘important ideas’ be the ones who don’t argue contract points and peddle and take postures that they are the important ones?)

It’s tough out there.

(Like the new look, Caleb.)

Hope to hear from you, Caleb, about that floor!

gary

Not to casue controversy–and apparently I don’t get an ARC? I see how it goes–but not number 6. My money goes to number one, hardcore–maybe tweak the lettering if such a thing is possible, even lay it sideways up like the bench in a single line of text with a slow fade to almost nothing starting with a thick S into a whisper of the last L–but the image and construction and etc. etc. is the best. Not number 6, even 5 is better than 6.

…I see how it is…I see how it is…

2 and 3 are my least favorite. 2 is just grating on the eyes, and the title is hard to read in 3. 4 is good but kinda generic.