The Herds of Readers

There are tens of millions of readers of literature in the English language, even if, as an author, you would be forgiven for being completely unaware of this fact when looking at your sales. The reason, well, one of the reasons, why you can be forgiven for being unaware of just how many potential readers there are out there, is because readers are divided into, markets. Or as I prefer to view them; into herds. Herds that roam their own regions of the sprawling book savanna, consuming only the books whose flavor pleases them, leaving those other, the unpleasant tasting books, the "weeds", untouched.

Here, I'm going to talk about the herds of readers of fiction, ignoring all the varieties of non-fiction, from histories to self-help to plumbing and beyond.

Fiction readers can be first divided into two large herds; readers of traditionally published books, and readers of indie published ebooks. This is a very important, and I believe, often overlooked, distinction, for while there is some overlapping of herds and the books they consume, the two herds are significantly different.

The herd of traditionally published readers are mostly composed of what I like to think of as "book people", which is to say, people who appreciate both the story and the paper machine that delivers that story: books. Book people like books, as books, perhaps as much as the story the books deliver. In some cases, it seems more so, given how popular very expensive special edition books are these days, and how many different editions of a single story some people own. There are even people who collect books! This herd likes to talk about books on social media, write long reviews of books on Goodreads, attend conferences, book signings, and even shop in actual bookstores. Some have their own YouTube channels devoted to books for people like them.

The other large herd are "the readers". These readers don't give a hoot about books as books. They want the stories that books deliver. They borrow books from the library in paper and ebooks. Sometimes they buy cheap, second hand books, if necessary. They buy, though more often borrow stories in intangible electronic files from on-line retailers to just read stories. And they usually read a lot of stories. Most commonly romances, along with thrillers, fantasy, SF, litRPG, and erotica. To them, books are just the medium, the story is what they want. They are the 21st century readers of pulp fiction. In general, they are less likely to write reviews, watch YouTube videos on books, but they may be as active in social media as book people.

There is also a growing herd of people who dispense with both paper, and the written word. They want to be simply told stories. Audiobook readers is the fastest growing herd on the vast savanna of books. Like the ebook readers, they don't need physical medium, and then go one step further; they don't need written words either, just someone reading the words to them.

These large herds are further divided by the types of books they read. Very often what they read is rather limited. Like fussy eaters, they read only a narrow range of books, one or two genre, or subdivisions within a single genre. This is especially the case with the ebook herd. While they are often avid readers, they're diet of books is often limited to what they know and like. Both herds travel as herds with a similar taste in stories. Book people can be, though not always, more omnivores when it comes to stories, so there are more smaller herds, stragglers, on their range of the savanna. 

While all this seems pretty basic, authors who aspire to sell books in any numbers above two digits, need to understand that they are going to have to create books for a specific herd. Usually, a very specific herd, by knowing its very specific literary diet. And realize that the large herds have more than enough to eat, while smaller, but hungry herds may be (relatively) starved for books. There are even, a few free roaming readers that will consume anything, and often look for something different, but these readers are mostly found on the range of the savanna roamed by the traditional published book herds. To write books that have the potential to sell, a writer has to write a book that meets the specific dietary requirements of their target herd, be it the slush-pile readers of agents and editors, or the avid readers of reverse harem stories. 

Still, you can, of course, write the stories you want and tell them in your way. Which is what I do. But you shouldn't expect to sell more than a few dozen copies, unless you're very lucky because the stories you want to write happen to match the reading diet of one of the large herds. Or, as in my case, blindly stumble into a herd that you hadn't really known existed. 

In my case, my herd is the readers of free books. Obviously not as lucrative herd, nor is it the largest. Still, it has proven to be a herd large and broad enough to allow me to write a variety of stories in the style I want and without having to tailor the stories to fit one of the more specific herds. Plus, it is one of the more "starved" herds grazing on a much smaller range, and with less books to choose from my books stand out more, and they are more willing to give them a try, as they are also voracious readers.

I firmly believe that if, eleven years ago, I had not stumbled into this herd I would have sold over the last eleven years, maybe a couple of hundred books and probably less, as I don't think, and didn't think then, my books would be eager fare for the large science fiction consuming herd. Discouragement would've taken its toll, and I would've never written twenty some books. 

You need to find your herd, and then they need to find you to sell more than a few dozen books. That last part is the hardest part. Luckily for me, the free books are not too numerous and the herd is composed of avid readers, so that I've been able to rely on them finding my books, instead of me searching for them.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 182)

 

Another KU pick this week. This time a Regency romance from a contemporary self-published author.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below

Guinea-Gold Hair by Florrie Boleyn (Jane Page Walton)  C+

This was a nice, pleasant book. All the characters were nice and pleasant. The story was nice and pleasant, not challenging at all. It moved along at a pleasant pace. I had no issues with the quality of writing. It was hardly spicy at all. And I dare say that if I was in the target audience, I would've likely rated it higher.

The story concerns Jenny, the seventeen daughter of a miller whose financial position is perilous due to the economic conditions of the time. Jenny is offered a chance to work in the big house of a local gentry as a nursery maid by the steward at that house who is her late mother's brother. She takes it. Jenny is a hard worker, whose job includes not only looking after the children, but washing the dirty cloths of the baby of the family. When she gets a chance to do up the hair of the bright sixteen year old young lady of the family, Marianne, hey become friends, despite their different statuses in life.  Then, for various reasons, Jenny becomes her maid when the family goes up to London for the season, where Marianne is expected to land a suitable husband. The bulk of the story takes place in London as Jenny gets involved in Marianne's prospects for marriage.

Boleyn has written four books in this series, and clearly has done her research, though the story presents the life and times of the period at a pretty basic level, so says I, an old hand at reading the Regency romances of the writer who is considered the originator of the genre, Georgette Heyer. The difference in the details of the period and the characters and their depths is quite noticeable. I don't know if this reflects the extent of the author's research, or if it represents  the level of accessibility to the intricacies of the period that she expects her readers desire. I have to wonder if she has ever read a Heyer Regency romance.

For me, it read to read like a middle grade book version of a Heyer Regency romance. It lacks the fine details of that time and social order, the language of the time, the depth of characters, as well as the clever and witty writing of Heyer, which are all the things that I read Heyer for, rather than the romance, which is the focus of this story. But, as I said, this may be a feature rather that a flaw, since I am not familiar with the expectations of contemporary Regency romance readers, and thus, this is not a criticism of the book, simply an observation.

As I implied at the start, this is a nice, harmless story where even the villains have a heart of gold. I like pleasant stories, I like peasant characters, I liked this book. But is is not quite my cup of tea. I am not its target audience, and that is reflected in my slightly above average grade. If it sounds like your cup of tea, you will probably grade it higher.

The author has written three other books in this Walcott Manor series, and a series of Victorian mysteries as well.

Two New Covers

The Poison-Pill Will and The Pawns' Game are currently out to my beta readers, so I thought I better get on the stick and create a cover for the stories. Since my simple black & white cover didn't seem to hinder the sales of The Isle House Ghost, I decided to go with that style for this one as well, plus convert The Founders' Tribunal cover to the same style, once this story is released. That, however will not be until some time in June or early July. These two stories however will be available in paperback form sometime in May, when I release an anthology of all the Red Hu/Wine novellas and short stories under the title of The Red Wine Dossiers. I still have to paint that cover, though right now, I am planning on using a version of this scene done in paint using colors that will match The Darval-Mers Dossier cover so the two books will share a common look.

I like the way this cover turned out. I could've placed the figures lower so that the title box would not cover up part of the umbrella, or just made the figures a little smaller, but I actually like it better this way. It ties everything together. And I could've moved the image over to the right just slightly so both umbrella tips were equally away from the bordered. But I didn't. Blame that on laziness. And well, who wants perfect symmetry, anyway? 

Below will probably be the new Founders' Tribunal cover. It's rather stiff, but figure drawing, and dog drawing, are another one of those many things that ain't in my wheelhouse. I should've pulled out my How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way book, but once again, I was too lazy. I don't think my readers are all that concerned about covers. 

Below is the complete set of novellas. I don't think I'm going to change the ebook cover of The Darval-Mers Dossier to this style, as not only is it novel, but it has a print edition as well.

Next on my agenda is painting that cover for the paperback version. Stay tuned for that in the coming weeks. 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 181)

 

My what's on Kindle Unlimited quest continues. This week we have a book by a French author, that is set not in France, but in England, Canada, and America in 2016 and 1980. What could go wrong?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Last of the Stanfields by Marc Levy DNF 28%

You might well like this book. It is by a French author, and is written in a lively fashion. It is, however, one of them modern books. I don't like most modern books. 

The basic plot is that in 2016 our first person narrator, Eleanor-Rigby Donovan, living in London, receives an anonymous letter stating that her late mother was both a very good, and a very evil person, and it might pay to discover her past. About 25% of the way through, we have another first person narrator in the character of George-Harrison Collins, living in Canada who receives a similar letter. His mother is in memory care and this father left before he was born. However, interspersed with this time line, we have a story set in Baltimore Maryland in 1980 about two women who set up a newspaper to speak truth to power. Obviously, at least one of these two women is Eleanor-Rigby's mother - there is a mystery involving her and her father - and given the name of George-Harrison, whose father left before he was born, we have a connection there as well. The mystery then is just finding out what happened in 1980, which could be told as a straight story without the "mystery" the letters create. 

I had the best intentions of giving this book a chance, and I think I did. But, alas, I can not get interested in any story if I don't have a character in the story to travel through it. This jumping around in time, and narrators just derails any interest in the story for me. I need to be on the ground with the characters, not above looking down on them. And even in the "present" time period told by the first person narrators, the narration shifts to third person for the scenes when the narrator isn't present, which is at least an interesting way of working around the limits of a first person narrator. However for me, the inability to get interested in the 1980 story, and the rather sentimental 2016 story, was too much for me. But, for the right reader, this might be an enjoyable story.

A Special Guest Contributor on the Uniqueness of Writers

I came across this introduction by James Payn. I have slightly edited it. I found it quite timely.

A Vanity Fair Caricature 1888

"In these days, when every man and woman becomes an author upon the least provocation, it is not necessary to make an apology for appearing in print...  Neither sex nor age seems to exempt from the universal passion of authorship. My niece, Jessie (ætat. sixteen), writes heart-rending narratives for the "Liliputian Magazine;" her brother, whom I have always looked upon as a violent, healthy hobbledehoy whose highest virtue was Endurance, and whose darkest experience was Skittles, produces the most thrilling romances for the "Home Companion." Even my housekeeper makes no secret of forwarding her most admired recipes to the "Family Intelligencer;" while my stable-boy, it is well known, is a prominent poetical contributor to the "Turf Times," having also the gift of prophecy with reference to the winner of all the racing events of any importance. And yet, I believe, my household is not more addicted to publication than those of my neighbours.

What becomes of authors by profession in such a state of things literary as this, I shudder to think; I feel it almost a sin to add one more to the long list of competitors with whom they have to struggle; but still, if I do not now set down the story which I have in my mind, I am certain that, sooner or later, my nephew will do so for me, and very likely spoil it in the telling. He writes in a snappy, jerky, pyrotechnic way, which they tell me is now popular, but which is not suited to my old-fashioned taste; and although he dare not make, at present, what he calls "copy" of the stories with which I am perhaps too much accustomed to regale his ears, he keeps a note-book, and a new terror is added to Death from that circumstance. When I am gone, he will publish my best things, under some such title as "After-dinner Tales," I feel certain; and they will appear at the railway book-stalls in a yellow cover bordered with red, or with even a frontispiece displaying a counterfeit and libellous presentment of his departed relative in the very act of narration."

I've lifted the piece from the "Prefactory" of James Payn's novel, Lost Sir Massingbert: A Romance of Real Life, published in England in 1864. James Payn was a  prolific novelist and editor. I came across him and this novel via one of my booktube fellows who is conducting a read along of bestselling authors of the Victorian period who are now forgotten. Payn and this novel is the April selection, which I felt like giving a try, as he sounded like something of a character. As for the novel itself, I'll be reviewing it in a month or two, so stay tuned.

Besides finding this introduction to his most famous novel amusing, it think it serves to illustrate an important, and often overlooked point; creativity is a very common human trait. So common in fact that it is not a commercially viable trait for most people in most areas of creative endeavors. And, in what is recognized as "The Arts", only the good-and-very-lucky few may be able to produce commercially viable products, usually only for a time, as careers in the arts usually fall well short of a "career". The arts are ruled by both fashion and scarcity, neither of which are conductive to long careers.

Still, modern society and technology has allowed far more people the opportunity to practice, perform, and display their artistic abilities than ever before. It has created many more opportunities to turn those talents into some sort of income, though rarely at a professional level income. And as I mentioned, rarely a lifelong professional income. 

Being essentially an amateur, or a part time performer of one sort or another, is not only in the arts, the norm, but realistically, about the most anyone can expect to be, at least from my observations and in my opinion. I also think it's enough. The beauty of being an amateur is that it is impervious to market conditions, since it is all about the personal pursuit of beauty, meaning, art, and not fame and wealth, neither of which has proven to bring happiness.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 180)

 

What can I say? It was available on Kindle Unlimited, I hadn't read it, and after such a rather rocky start...

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer  B

The premise of this story, set immediately after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart pretender to the English throne in 1746, is that because a lifelong con man, and his two children chose the wrong side in that civil war, they are now in danger of having their heads on spikes on London Bridge. Their resourceful father, whose moto is "I contrive" pretty much sums up his approach to life. He contrives. And his two children are often involved in many a wild scheme of his invention, the result of which, they are both very adept at intrigue and playing roles. In this case, they cross dress. Robin, the boy plays Prudence and Prudence plays "Peter" her brother.

The story opens, confusingly, (which seems to be a characteristic of a Heyer story) with the brother/sister pair saving a young heiress from a ruthless toff in need of a fortune as she is being dragged off to Gretna Green to be married against her will, after changing her mind. This, in turn, drags them into London Society, with Prudence play a young man and having to do all the things a young man about London did at the time, gambling in clubs, fighting duels, etc. Luckily her father once ran a gambling house, so she hold her own an any game. In saving the heiress, they meet a noble man, who befriends the pair, and takes the fresh "young man" into his care... and, who begins to suspect...

This is another of her light hearted stories, not strictly a comedy, but not one to take too seriously either. It was written in 1928. Stories written prior to 1940 were often set before the French Revolution, as this one is. After 1940, she began writing Regency Romances exclusively, and I think for the most part, those later stories were her best stories. While this is a good story, it's not peak Heyer for my taste, i.e. comedy.

Well, it's back to exploring KU once again with a contemporary story next week. Stay tuned.

A Bird in the Bush

I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to pull back a corner of the curtain on what I am thinking of writing next. The key word is "thinking". There's not a word on a page, and won't be for months, if ever. I don't know if I can make a story out of this idea.

I'd been planning on finishing my boring novel before starting an entirely new story, and indeed, I spent three weeks in March revising what I'd written last year; giving a character more character, rearranging some incidents, and generally sprucing up all 35K words of it. But standing in the shower a week ago, I realized I was too bored with it to continue. I hadn't settled on an ending. All I could see was that it would drone on and then fizzle out. So much for embracing boredom. So I called it a day on that and instead I'm working on the second draft of the Poison-Pill Will and The Pawns' Game instead and thinking about what's next.

The idea I'm exploring began as a fantasy novel, since fantasies outsell science fiction like ten to one. But since I can't bring myself to write pure magic and dragons, it has to be one of my pseudo-fantasies, i.e. a fantasy because the narrator is unfamiliar with the technology of the lost advanced civilization that proceeded his present age. This still counts as a type of fantasy. 

I had began exploring this story idea as I finished up the Poison-Pill Will, but decided to get back to my boring novel first. Thus I had the world - a moon, actually - already sketched out in my mind. It's base loosely on India under the British Rah, and the Grand Trunk Road (pictured above) that crossed it. I'd have an "empire" of consisting of many small, technologically backward, and deliberately isolated diverse states under the nominal rule of one central authority. All of these states are linked by a great road, and its offshoots. The narrator of the story would be a widely traveled young courier of the central authority.

In the foot hills above the central authorities' capital city stands a vast iron gate set into the stone of the mountain, which is understood to be the gateway to the largely mythical, and often considered supernatural world that this world is ruled from. It is know by the people running the empire that this is a real gateway to a greater empire, and there is a regulated amount of trade between their little empire, and this greater empire beyond the iron gate.

Now, our narrator would know that there is a real vast empire beyond the iron gate because he is part of the central administration, and his grandmother, the governor-general of this empire, actually arrived from beyond the iron gate. However, the true extent of what lays beyond it, is kept a secret, in part because of the treaty between the various throw-back, dissenting societies and the greater entity, the Unity, (if you know, you know) that created the rules for this "empire" 30,000 years ago. The dissenting societies wanted to keep themselves isolated from the Unity, and the Unity wanted to use that isolation to study the evolution of a great number and variety of human societies. And thus everyone is content to let what lays beyond the iron gates remain a myth. 

Just because it seems like most fantasy stories involve wars, I am going to have my empire at peace for all 30,000 years. That's the way I roll. This means that my story will have to be another small, relatively low stakes one, i.e. the type I write.

My current story idea is that a very limited number of the best art that is created within these very unique and deliberately isolated societies is purchased by the Unity, which then it is sold beyond the iron gate, at vastly inflated prices to wealthy collectors throughout the Unity of the Nine Star Nebula. Only three or four pieces a year are purchased, and elaborately authenticated so that copies can be easily identified, making the art very scarce, and hence very valuable to collectors with the wealth to afford them. However, at a recent art auction of a wealthy family that faced an reverse of fortune, it was found that a dozen of the pieces of this type of art were both authentic and (nearly) properly authenticated, but they  were not sold through the proper authority, i.e. that they had not only been somehow smuggled out, but they also had apparently been supplied with proper authentication as well, making them all but indistinguishable to anyone without the access to the complete list of items stretching back all those 30,000 years. And this smuggling appears to have been going on for thousands of years. 

In response, the Unity sends a team to this moon to track down just how this is being done from ground zero; where the art is being created. The Unity team would consist of a Patrol officer, someone like Vaun Di Ai of the Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventure series, though a new character. The other would be an old spacer/enlisted man to act as her aide. Our narrator would then guide then to several of the throw-back societies of this moon to track down the smuggling ring. Adventures would ensue... Move along folks, there's no story here yet, just as premise.

But then I got an idea. What if I made the enlisted man Rafe d'Mere, the narrator of those Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventure stories? I could set this story a few years after he left the Alantzia System, with him having been roped back into the Patrol. 

And yet again, what if I made him the narrator as well? 

There are three pluses. The first being that I could then describe the world through his eyes, as someone new to it. This would make world building a lot less telling and more experiencing. Secondly, I like the character and could have fun with him. Third, I could toss in a few opening chapters about how Rafe gets snagged back into the Patrol by his admiral parents as he transits his home system. And I could use those chapters to set up the details of the smuggling activity by having Rafe investigate the trail of the smuggled artifacts from the moon, and then use his special info-system skills to get assigned investigation on the moon. In short I could set up the premise with action rather than all telling.

Alas, there are minuses as well. First, having him as the narrator would make this a science fiction book rather than a fantasy, since we'd be seeing it coming from my sf universe. And secondly, it would make this novel past of my Nine Star Nebula Adventure/Mystery series. I have said on several occasions that writing sequels is for chumps, and here I am again, writing yet another sequel, the fifth, in fact, rather than a new standalone novel, which is what I really wanted to do.

Of course, it may not matter. This is still all in my head, my dreaming up a story phase, and it is far from certain I'll come up with enough of a story to make it into one. I don't have enough yet. And if I do develop enough of a story to write, I won't be writing it for months. My plan has been to write a novel a year. I've been working ahead. I think I'm caught up to 2029, so I have no deadline to meet, and I'm going to write it as a novel, not like the novellas I've been doing recently, so it's likely going to take a while if, or when, I start. 2027 at the earliest.

We'll just have to see. What I can say is, don't hold your breath for that boring novel.