We’re Not Responsible for….

This post has schizophrenia. Part of me wants to tell you that there are things beyond your ability to control. That not only are you not perfect, but you’re not expected to be. Stop beating yourself.

And the other part just wants to inform people in general of the things they can be mad at an author for. And the things they can’t. Which are different for indie and trad, but– both sides are held responsible for a world of crazy that’s not their fault.

That part also wants to ask you to stop being weird at me. I have enough of my own weirdness, and you can stop me cold for the rest of the day with a weird request, because I try to figure it out, instead of writing my own weird. I don’t mind weird. I thrive on weird. But don’t send me weird that makes no sense.

Um…. So, on things you’re not responsible for: You’re never going to write the perfect novel, with a thousand elephants. For one, it is impossible to contain that in a book. Unless it’s a very big book, and even so, the elephants tend to escape. Second, it will always be bigger in your brain. Hence why you want to write another completely different book instead of finishing the current one.

The other thing you’re not going to be the perfect writer. You’re not going to put out novels like clockwork. It’s good to challenge yourself, but you’re flesh and blood, and sometimes life intervenes. And life is a stone cold biatch.

So, forgive yourself; do the best you can. You’re required to do the work. You’re not required to do it perfectly. And if you haven’t figured out the advertising thing…. you’re just like the rest of us. Keep plugging.

Now, on things people think writers can do, or are responsible for, or which are super important (clue, they aren’t.)

THE TRADITIONAL WRITER EDITION

Traditional writers are not responsible for:

Their covers.

Their editing up to and including copy editing. (Two of my books I never even got page proofs for. The others, errors somehow were introduced after, most minor, though one of the Shakespeare books had a complete spurious and uneeded paragraph in what someone thought was Shakespearean English. And might have been, if Shakespearean England had a ghetto full of native Elbonian speakers, who only knew half a dozen words of English. No, I don’t know who was responsible for that, but I’d like a little chat if I find out. The insanity was uniform across all four houses I wrote for.)

The timing of their release. No, really, they have no say on that.

Whether they come out in hard or soft cover.

What price they’re sold at.

Whether there’s a copy at your very personal local bookstore.

A series stopping. (I mean, sometimes the writer doesn’t feel that series anymore, but most of the time it is a house decision.)

Pretty much ANYTHING beyond the writing. And sometimes the writing, if it seems off, and not like the person, unless the person had a stroke or a life event, might be editorial demand. Things I had editors demand I write, though I mostly didn’t comply with them, because I didn’t know how or was morally repulsed by it: more sex. Explicit sex! Human sacrifice as a good thing. Random plot event with no rhyme or reason. Another character added because editor likes it/thinks it’s cute/should write her own frigging books. Ahem.

INDIE WRITERS

Indie writers are not responsible for:

Where Amazon lists their work. No, seriously. Sure you choose some categories and keywords, but then Amazon adds others by…. I don’t know. Best I can tell dissecting a weasel and reading the entrails. Sometimes we end up very weird places, and there’s really not much we can do.

Whether or not you like my book, or whether something offends you. I cannot put certain things like, say, no reason “Contains homosexual relationship” on the content, unless it’s ACTUALLY a romance or erotica, because otherwise it’s assumed to be that important and explicit, and people who would otherwise love it won’t read it. And heaven help me, when the big annoying series is done and starts going up, I will not mention “Hermaphrodite bio-engineered humans” anywhere, because again, it might very well get me in erotica, since that’s kind of a trigger word. You don’t like it, you can return it. That’s life. But I can’t communicate from my brain to yours everything the book contains.

Whether you read the entrails of a weasel to divine my politics. As I found out recently (on a blog post) a phrase I used for economics was interpreted by someone else to mean that I wanted to abolish police. Other people have done that with my writing, with funny results. Don’t try to psychoanalyze me. My characters aren’t me. Sometimes I don’t approve of them, or the whole world, but they’re needed for the story. (The people who tried to shame me for writing an historic monarchy, because I’m mostly libertarian, and deduced from this I was faking the libertarianism were particularly…. funny isn’t the word. Appalling, maybe?)

Being pirated. No, we are not responsible for your buying our book from another site, because “it was such a good price” then finding it had only three chapters. Look, there are pirates we can complain about, and get stuff removed. Most of them we can’t.

Your e-reader glitching. No, seriously, I am not responsible and can’t fix it from here.

Publishing your work. Are you actually and for real insane? If a writer publishes themselves, even if they have a sole-author press, it doesn’t mean they’re going to start publishing random people. Even if they LIKE the people very much. Much less if they don’t know them from Adam.

THINGS INDIE AUTHORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR.

Things indie authors are responsible for, but please cut us some slack:

Covers. Yeah, I now, but it takes time, and honestly most books need recovering every two years. This is hard when you have a large volume. And when you moved. And have… ah…. interesting life events. I’m getting to them, I SWEAR. Will take time. Most of us aim for “decent covers” but time, money and sometimes artistic perception intervene. And not understanding that a cover is a billboard for the book, not a representation of a scene in the book. So, yeah, we’re responsible for that, but remember there’s no indie central. We’re each at a different point in our “getting” of the field and what we need to sell. And some people, while excellent writers will suck at covers or…

Copy-editing. Yeah, we’re responsible for this. And if you can’t pay for it (If you can and need one ask me, mine is excellent) trade with another indie. However, be aware some typos will escape. They do in traditional too. It’s just that readers hold indies to a higher standard. I don’t know why.

Plotting and story line. Again, we’re not guilty if we disappoint you, but if we disappoint a majority, yep, we came up with that plot and story line all on our own.

STRANGE THINGS READERS DO OR OTHER WRITERS, OR…

Readers, please stop leaving reviews that say “this is very well written. I only found a typo.” That’s not “good writing.” It’s clean, but good writing means a story that grabs you and does the things stories are supposed to do, of their type. Stop giving 5 stars because “I only found a typo” to stories that make no sense/are not set where they think they’re set/are actively horrendous. (I mean that. this is not a subjective observation.) This is not school. Turning in a clean copybook is not the objective.

Writers and readers and….

Stop asking me to publish someone. Whatever I am, I’m not a commercial publisher. Particularly if what they wrote is a short story, which by itself doesn’t do very well in indie. But at any rate, I’m not going to read it, much less publish it, out of the blue.

Stop sending me links to some weird site where the book is not for sale and ask me to promote it. No seriously. Particularly if I can’t find the book for sale elsewhere.

Stop sending me yelling emails about that erotica with the gods novel you think I wrote under a pen name. I don’t know why you think that. I didn’t do it. And what you just did is the equivalent of approaching a stranger on the street and licking their arm.

Stop sending me your story and asking me to promote it when it’s not published.

Stop sending me five covers from stock sites and asking me which fits your novel, when we never talked to each other before and I don’t know who you are. I might, if I’m in the mood, do that for friends or friendly acquaintances, but I have a house, family, cats, a garden, and about 40 novels waiting to be written. I’m not your mommy. Go look at covers and make your own evaluation. Or get another friend who is better at it, and ask them. I haven’t even read your novel. And no, this isn’t a suggestion to send it to me.

Stop trying to get me to recommend you at Baen. Yeah, I still have contacts there, but my novels are not published there, and even if they were, I can’t get you out of the slush pile. Someone like Larry might be able to, but I never had that pull. (And don’t go bothering Larry. Unless you’re already his friend, that isn’t going to happen.)

Stop claiming you met me at con x and I called you a bad name. First, I’m almost pathologically unable to be rude to people in person. At worst, I’ll ignore you and give you the cut direct, and you have to have p*ssed me off deliberately for that. (It has happened. Like if you threaten me, stalk me, or try to browbeat me.) I go to very few cons and I’m an introvert. I don’t remember most people enough to hate them/call them names. Yeah, it’s entirely possible you misunderstood my accent. It’s also possible you dreamed it. It just never happened.

I do a promo post on my blog on Sundays. The email to send that to is in the header of the post. Yes, you should use it, because otherwise I’m likely to forget it in the shuffle of my other email where I get…. editor notes and rewrite requests (I still do shorts and comics) and such. If you want to be included, send me an amazon link. No, don’t send me the novel/story. I probably won’t read it. At least not this year because…. argh, life.

If you need a recommendation for editor/copyeditor/cover artist, email me. I have names.

If you have paid (some of you have) for mentoring, I’ll get to it this month.

And don’t try to sell me bitcoin.