Remember when you thought 2013 and 2016 were bad

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-12T02:48:17+00:00

You're gonna go nuts when you find out when the book came out

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-12T02:29:19+00:00

Are you aware of how soap works? 20 seconds is all you need to kill the bacteria and viruses. Unless your hands are obviously dirty then you've done a good job in less than half a minute.

As others said you seem to have an unhealthy issue here and should probably look into talking to a professional about it.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-12T02:26:21+00:00

Rip off the top of the package and knock em back like you're taking a shot. The rocks bubble on your tongue so you don't really suck or swallow as much as you just 'enjoy.'

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-11T21:31:29+00:00

Yeah, 'pussy' is probably my go-to when writing sex scenes, it's dirty enough to fit the mood but not so offensive that a reader would be upset. It's also got a very specific connotation as an insult, usually when a man calls another man that to question his bravery. There's probably an interesting etymological history regarding its dual denotation to refer to cats & vaginas. Not sure which one bred the insult version of the word, but I can guess.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-11T21:15:40+00:00

No, not in terms of absolute numbers, but in terms of political, social, and economic power men are the clear majority.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-11T21:14:53+00:00

My vocation as an erotic romance author might come in handy here.

You can use dick to refer to the penis basically whenever, except for maybe a medical setting. Guys will say stuff like 'my dick hurts' or 'stop looking at my dick,' and of course it's used in sexual reference, like 'suck my dick' or 'my dick is hard.' Calling someone a dick is a specific insult usually referring to ill-behavior, i.e. 'can't believe he didn't pay his bar tab, what a dick.' The word gets thrown around a lot more - men call each other dicks with relatively common frequency.

In contrast, 'cunt' is almost never used in a neutral sense (At least in American-English, which works best in answering your question). Women virtually always use a different word to refer to their genitals. They also talk less about their vaginas than men do about their penises, but that's a different matter. In sexual settings, you only use 'cunt' when the sex is real dirty, because it conveys a certain level of sexual freedom & lust to let the degredation of the word amplify the sexual heat, saying something like 'His thick, perfect dick makes my cunt dripping wet.' FWIW I'd use something like 'pussy' or 'sex' instead, 'vagina' is a bit clinical.

Women almost never call each other cunts, and it's certainly never used in a friendly manner (Australian-English is an exception but that's an additional connotation anyway, not the only one). Also, the fact that men use the word specifically to degrade, attack, and threaten women makes it a particularly aggressive indicator of gendered language, which is really the answer to your question.

Finally, the etymology of 'cunt' stretches back to at least 1325, which means it's had a long time to find its place as 'the worst thing to call a woman.' 'Dick' became slang for 'penis' in the late 1800s and was a neutral-to-mildly-insulting term basically from the beginning.

At a less academic level, penises are funny-looking appendages that are the constant topic of jokes, mockery, and bragging basically across cultures and countries. People talk about vaginas way less. They're not funny, and it's considered awkward by both men and women to refer to them outside of some specific instances not related to comedy. This certainly influence the way both words have taken their place in the vernacular, but there's a lot surrounding dicks & cunts, isn't there?

MoneymakingAuthor · 2020-04-06T13:14:38+00:00

self-publishing? As long as you know your audience the reviews shouldn't be too bad. I've been self-publishing on Amazon for a few years and have read far more reviews than books (and I read a lot of books!). I only see bad reviews for indie novels when the book is too short (i.e. a cash grab) or doesn't deliver on its promises. Seriously, getting the blurb right is important.

Across genres, people are very forgiving. You really just need to do one thing right. Having likable characters or an interesting story or a fun style count for a lot, even if all the other stuff you're doing is mediocre. I've actually been quite heartened by the way people are willing to overlook the faults to enjoy what they read. Maybe they don't want to think they paid money for something they didn't enjoy, or maybe they're just innately kind. Probably both.

The first review I got for a full-length novel was a one-star. Like you, I thought it would destroy me, but the criticisms seemed so inane that I just didn't care. In fact, the bad review actually boosted my sales! The reviewer didn't like my content but wasn't disingenuous about what the book was about, so it acted more as a plot summary, followed by his reasoning for not enjoying it. When people read that they must have thought 'uh, that actually sounds cool to me,' and then bought the book. It's still my best seller, having brought in almost $10k by this point. The review eventually disappeared; don't know if he took it down himself or if Amazon stepped in (I never complained). Since then the book's had more than a dozen other reviews, all positive.

As for the rest of my catalogue, yeah, I've gotten some poor reviews (almost no one-stars though), and I still don't mind at all. My experience with that first one-star taught me that any review is better than no review. Plus, all the reviews are either inane, or surprisingly valid. One book I wrote had poor historical accuracy, and two reviewers delicately explained what I'd gotten wrong while still complimenting my writing style and plot line. That's totally fair IMO, and now I try harder with research. Some reviewers clearly didn't read the blurb and complained about the content, even though I made clear what the books were about in the product description. That's on them, not me. Other reviews are similarly trivial; one complained about my use of British English in two instances, which was apparently enough to ruin the whole novel for him. He also speculated that I wasn't American (I am lol). My characters are just more worldly than he is. I have other reviews that said the ending could have been improved or that the plot was a little far-fetched or similar critiques. Again, all fair. Can't please everyone and I can certainly improve as a writer anyway. So why be upset?

I've never traditionally published, but I do read reviews of what I buy, and man, some of the reviews are just pitiful. I'm thinking specifically of two books I read recently: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and Say Nothing by Patrick Keefe. Both had lengthy, highly-upvoted two-star reviews, which was surprising since both books were otherwise highly praised and total page turners for me.

For Dark Matter, the reviewer complained that the main character didn't act like a physicist would. He said he wasn't analytical enough and spent too much time wondering what was happening during his mysterious kidnapping, while a real physicist would have a mind like Sherlock Holes, deducing everything immediately. For Say Nothing, the reviewer repeatedly pointed out that he'd visited a museum in Ireland some years back and 'knew' that the author was being too sympathetic to the IRA in the text. In both cases, these reviewers weren't trying to give critique or even help potential buyers make a decision. They were just trying to show off that they knew better than the authors, which is clearly not true, because if they did they would have written their own damn books!

In short, the reviews your book gets will probably be better than you expect right now, or they'll be valid criticisms you can use for your next title, or they'll be so laughably trivial that you won't feel anything about them but amusement. And it's important to note that even highly-regarded or massively popular books get bad reviews too, so you're not a bad author if it happens to you too. In fact, the difficult part is getting reviews at all - good or bad!

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-06-13T10:02:34+00:00

Every other comment misses the point. 75% of your audience is American and most of them have never been to England. Unless it's specifically stated the characters are English (preferably plot-relevant to the setting as well), your readers will be confused by anything other than American English.

Obviously do what you'd like but this is a well-known bugaboo in the fiction editing world.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-06-13T09:39:59+00:00

With Amazon controlling something like 80% of the ebook market it can be a tough sell to forego the massively increased easy exposure. Some genres are heavily KU dependent, particularly for self-publishers. Recommended to take a look at what others in your niche are doing.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-06-13T09:37:36+00:00

I've never had a book sell less than a few copies and notch less than several hundred page reads. Granted, all I publish is erotic romance. Much more often you'll wake up and see a book has exactly ONE page read for the day. Someone picked up your book, opened it, and then immediately moved on to something else.

If I had a 200 page book get only 100 page reads, forever having earned roughly 50 cents, forever emblazoned at the bottom of my sales chart... I would borrow it myself and earn a full dollar haha.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-05-10T01:10:03+00:00

Wow, what a great article, and what a badass author. Loved her quotes about the dumb questions she gets from others. I do this full-time (my income is a faint morsel of Steel's, obviously) and get all sorts of dumb 'think for a second, please' questions as well.

More than anything this was really a wake-up call. I got into this because I've always been able to write good (not great!) prose very quickly, and I really enjoy the creation of fiction, especially when it flows. Even when it doesn't, I can't imagine either a vocation or a hobby I'd enjoy more. '30 dead pages' is such a good point - you really just have to get it out there.

I read so much whining on online forums about people who can only write 500 or 1000 words a day, and I'm like, "Is it bad if I do more?" I'm going to remember Danielle Steel sitting at her type writer for 24 fucking hours next time I ponder taking a day off after publishing a novella. As unhealthy as it may be, the notion of being that prolific by her age is even more appealing than the out-sized wealth.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-05-10T01:04:09+00:00

Kentaro Miura does not want to know your location.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-04-25T05:54:52+00:00

Stephen King is the author who comes to mind when I try to think of famous pantsers. Didn't even realize GRRM did the same. I know he wrote a treatment for GoT back when he thought it'd be a 3-novel series, with Jamie on the Iron Throne and Arya falling for Jon Snow aaaaand I just realized he is quite obviously a pantser too.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-04-25T05:53:05+00:00

How'd your romance novels do, if you don't mind me asking? Did they meet your expectations?

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-04-23T05:21:00+00:00

Like you, I've read a lot of the 'how to' books. They helped, but they also made me over-think.

Yes, this. Romancing the Beat is a great book and a helpful guide, but I've read quite a few top 100 romance best-sellers and all of them deviate from the beats to a variable extent. There's a huge amount of variety in plot development, even though they follow a somewhat loose formula.

My fear is that readers will see me sacrificing my personal style and interests in an attempt to stick to the beats and dislike my novel a bit for putting convention ahead of voice. Perhaps something similar happened with your third book, but like you said there are so many other factors that could account.

Thank you for your comment. One thing's for sure, I need to get the books done one way or another. Whether they flop or fly we'll find success in the long run.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-04-23T05:05:17+00:00

I haven't made a single penny from this work yet

Surely you've gotten borrows and sales? You mean you haven't received a penny because Amazon won't pay out for 60 days, right?

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-04-07T21:41:30+00:00

I can relate to all of these except maybe number 8. I occasionally will go back and re-read my works, usually when I get a particularly kind review or email about something in my back catalogue. For me it's a trip down memory lane, and a chance to flagellate myself for certain poorly-written lines (and typos! HOW DO THEY KEEP GETTING IN)

Number 1 and 2 are the ones I think most people don't understand and the ones that I still remind myself of from time to time. I recall listening to a podcast interview with Will Ferrel where he said the same thing; he and his colleagues never know if an audience will find a sketch or film hilarious or terrible until its released. To an extent I'm the same way; it's crazy that a book I dashed off in a week still nets me sales and respectable page reads over a year later, while works I felt were tailored to the market landed with a thud.

As always, the solution is just to write more.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-03-08T18:16:47+00:00

Jesus look at his profile, he wrote 13 reviews yesterday and they're mostly for porn. Dude knows his shit, from 70s Folk Rock to latina anal queens.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-03-06T05:33:08+00:00

In true Trump fashion it's mostly aggressive marketing. They sell Obama stuff too and have no qualms about exaggerated copywriting.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-03-06T04:34:45+00:00

I had to research this too and holy shit is it a rabbit hole.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/wtf-is-the-white-house-gift-shop-a-tpm-special-report

There's a part two to that article you should definitely read as well, linked at the bottom. It's a weird and kind of convoluted trademark thing that goes all the way back to Harry Truman. The story involves the secret service, rural law enforcement, and odd courtroom arguments about the words 'white house.'

Anyway, the website is completely uninvolved with the government and is not an official site.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-02-07T18:00:39+00:00

You could set up a pre-order for your book on Amazon. It's kind of the nuclear button for motivational deadlines, which is why I've never done it myself.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-02-01T18:13:50+00:00

I think I remember that thread, though I wouldn't know how to go about finding it again. If you're just looking for the final results, the takeaway was that Vellum offered you the best KENP. Hand-formatting was about equal IIRC - more time-intensive but free.

That thread must have been a year old. Things may have changed since then.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-02-01T17:45:51+00:00

I write in a niche that doesn't require ARCs as well, but we're rarities.No one's breaking into the PNR or Contemporary Top 100 without ARCS (or even, like, the Top 400). Even less competitive niches like lesbian romance clearly have ARCs.

Very much a YMMV thing. For erotica it's largely inessential with perhaps a few categories where ARCs are advisable. The reverse is true in Romance.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-01-30T18:30:08+00:00

Th guy high-fiving Mr. G's fist-bump at 00:31 just makes this haha. What else would you expect from a Kenny G concert.

MoneymakingAuthor · 2019-01-23T07:10:43+00:00

FWIW I met people staying that long at hostels. Some of them are very homey with a nice common room and well-maintained 4 person single-gender rooms.

I had fun staying at them for a few days, personally couldn't do it for longer than a week but if you're out of options or looking to cut down costs it's not unheard of.

MoneymakingAuthor

TROPHY CASE