A Short Blog Post about Description

It’s my birthday weekend, so this week’s blog post is a short one. Besides, I’m sure your time at the weekend, or whatever time of the day or week you’re reading this, feels equally important to you as the time I’m going to spend celebrating that I’ve made it to the age of thirty-two does to me.

And that’s kinda the point of this week’s blog post, that of being concise in your writing and not wasting readers’ time.

Time, often referred to as being precious.

In my opinion, novels are too long. If you’ve read any of my Jake Hancock comedic mysteries, you might have noticed that they don’t take more than three hours to read. It isn’t because I’m lazy and unable to churn out a hundred-thousand-plus-word story. It’s because I don’t write a lot of description.

If someone came up to me in the street and said they have a story they want me to read, and that it takes between five and six hours to get through, I’d tell that lunatic to double the dosage of whatever medicine he’s been prescribed. My time’s too precious. I wouldn’t sit through a five-hour movie, so why do novelists expect readers to spend five hours reading their book?

Something funny.

I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t I read novellas or short stories? Because I don’t think the lengths of those formats are long enough for most writers to tell a fulfilling story in, unless the writer cuts out all the unnecessary description.

I care about reading three things in novels: 1) What characters say, 2) what they do, and 3) what they’re thinking, as long as what they’re thinking, doing, or saying is entertaining and/or moves the story along.

If they’re saying stuff to another character in a busy city street, and you want to set the scene, then write “a busy city street.” Believe it or not, most people have experienced a busy city street. They can imagine it for themselves. Don’t tell them that there’s a building that’s twenty-two stories high, and what the building’s constructed out of, or what models of cars are whizzing past the character.

More or less a busy city street.

Is it important that the buildings they imagine upon reading “busy city street” are only twenty-one stories high, or God forbid, only twenty stories high? Absolutely not. And crazily enough, when I read “busy city street” I imagined there were cars on the road. I’m good like that.

The same can be said for most descriptions in novels in most genres, with a few exceptions. Science fiction and fantasy, where worlds are constructed that we don’t live in already, can have at their descriptions, filling pages with it. Same goes for erotica, where reading descriptions of places and, err, characters is part and parcel of the experience.

For other fiction genres, keep the camera focused on what really matters: what the characters do, say, and think. And give readers back the time they were going to waste.

I wonder what that section of fence or whatever behind them looks like

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Five Tips for Newbie Indie Authors

This week, I started writing the eighth book I’ll publish—the seventh book in my Jake Hancock series. It might be immature by about twenty or so books, but I’m beginning to think of myself as a bit of a veteran indie author. I’ve at least made it past the three book mark, which I read is the mean number of books published by indie authors.

And as a seasoned indie author who needs topics to blog about, I feel like I should pass on the wisdom I’ve gained over the two years I’ve been doing this shit. Here are five tips to maximize productivity and creativity:

1. Broccoli is your friend

Burgers and pizzas are great and everything, but I find that if I eat broccoli the night before the next morning’s thousand words fly onto the page, and not only that, I find that the quality increases to the point where, upon finishing the writing session, I don’t feel inclined to walk out onto my balcony to find out what it feels like to hurtle face first onto the asphalt below at roughly twenty-five percent of my terminal velocity.

You probably think I’m busting your balls, but I’ve accumulated enough anecdotal evidence to think there’s definitely something to it. Now that I think about it, I don’t eat broccoli on Friday evenings—because, well, it’s Friday—which is probably the reason why the two opening paragraphs in this blog post don’t quite gel, unless I fixed them in post, in which case you can forget you read these words.

Broccoli and a bicycle

2. Alcohol isn’t your friend

Sure, when you find out the book you thought was the best in the series turns out to be consistently the one readers tell you is the weakest, or when you check your sales for the month to see you won’t be able to buy that weapon-sharpened katana sword you’ve been longing to mount on your bedroom wall, it’s easy to turn to the bottle. Don’t.

Writer’s of legendary status, such as Ernest Hemmingway, may have gotten away with it, but I’d bet there are at least twenty low-functioning alcoholics to every lucky bastard who’s high-functioning while and after being shitfaced. Where do I fit in on the spectrum of alcoholism functionality? When hungover once, I queued on the wrong side of a cash register at a book store, meaning I was queuing behind the cashier. Yep, that wasn’t my finest moment, and clearly hammering the bottle the night before leaves me in no fit state to write comedy.

This.

3. Have no fear

You never fail at writing unless you don’t write. It’s easy to sit there all morning before work, poking away at your iPad, thinking you’re doing “research,” but that’s just fear fucking with you. If after I’d eaten breakfast every morning I went right to my office, sloshing green tea on my work clothes as I did, instead of doing the aforementioned activity, I really would be a veteran indie author. But then again, there’d only be four tips written for this blog post, which is a shitty number. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Fear fucking with him.

4. Moderate, break up, and stagger the ultimate goal of writing books

Your ultimate goal should be to sell enough books each year so you can tell your boss to go fuck himself, preferably in a resignation letter written in crayon. But that won’t happen right away, and it may never happen. To stay motivated, moderate that goal into smaller goals, and make them achievable within a short time frame, such as getting x number of five-star reviews, and make them specific and measurable. Listen to me, I sound just like Tony Robbins or some shit. But it’s important if you’re to avoid spiraling into a deep depression from which you’ll never escape (see point two).

This athlete hasn’t decided to stack all the hurdles on top of each other and jump over them all at once. That would be stupid and dangerous.

5. Have fucking fun

If you write for yourself, making yourself laugh as you spend that hour and a half in front of your computer every morning, it’ll be something you look forward to, not something that’s a chore. And if you can make yourself laugh, chances are there are a shitload of readers who’ll laugh too. That is, unless you’re some kind of psychopath with a sick sense of humor, in which case this probably isn’t the gig for you.

Bears frolicking. Fun.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this blog post, don’t forget to feel mildly obligated to share it with your friends on social media. Those of you who already do—I’m looking at you, Alison—thanks a lot. You can also get notified via email every time there’s a new blog post by filling in the form at the top-right corner of the web page.

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My books, which I had a ball writing, even the times I was hungover, can be checked out here.

Head on over to my Facebook page and say hi and don’t forget to like it. I’m starting to do Facebook live videos soon, where I’ll attempt to keep fans of Jake Hancock updated on my work in progress and attempt to make them laugh with topical humor. I feel like I might crash and burn, at least for the second aim, but that might make them more entertaining.

Five Things I Should Be Doing as an indie Author that Scare the Shit out of Me

A year and a half ago, I published my first book, the first in a now-six-strong series of comedic mysteries, and nothing happened. No one bought it. My funny-as-balls book didn’t fly up the Amazon rankings. And I wasn’t able to write my resignation letter with Mickey Mouse-shaped crayons and tell my boss to go fuck himself in the three primary colors.

“That’s good, buddy. But try to write some words on your next attempt, and try to put in ‘ass hat’ a few times.”

Fast forward a year and a half, I now realize I’m not a beautiful snowflake whose books will go viral with little-to-no effort. I’ve got to earn that shit, and I’ve figured out a few ways to promote my work that are effective, resulting in my earning a coveted orange Amazon bestseller tag for one of my books (albeit briefly), and having amassed a modest readership.

I’m also about to write the end for the first installment in a new series, before starting work on the seventh installment in my Jake Hancock series. But I’m still an indie author minnow, who shits my big boy pants while bigger fish go swimming past me. My earnings as an author would struggle to pay for my bus fares to work, let alone my apartment in Oslo.

The view from some other more successful asshole’s apartment.

Clearly, I need to up my promotional game. But I’ve been dragging my feet. Why? That photo of me in the profile section, that’s not a photo of a handsome, mustachioed, will-die-trying indie author warrior, but a photo of a mustachioed, handsome, timid little mouse who’s identified other ways he can get out there, but who’s been content to sit around in his pajamas on an evening, watching Netflix, only moving to grab his next handful of generic cheese-flavored puffed corn snack.

Those days are behind me, and my sustained, day-by-day effort to gain the readership that will allow me to do this shit full-time have just begun. I’ve just got to muster up the balls to:

1. Giveaway the other books in my series for free

The little success I’ve had has come from giving away the first book in my Jake Hancock series for free, using that promotional bonus I get from having my books enrolled in KDP Select. I set the date on my Kindle dashboard, pay for advertising, and then get thousands of downloads, resulting in my gaining a few handfuls of hardcore fans.

I could’ve done this for other installments, but I’ve been hesitant. Why? I don’t feel they standalone as strongly as the first book, so aren’t the ideal introduction into the series, which could result in them attracting more than their fair share of negative reviews.

I wanted the rest of the series, barring the first book, to have at least a 4.1 average star rating, and was using the first book as a filter, to reduce the number of people who haven’t read the first book from reviewing the subsequent books. It’s time to think long-term and sacrifice the star ratings of those books, so I can gain a couple handfuls of hardcore new fans five times every three months, instead of once every three months.

The first one’s free

2. Use my Facebook page more often

I don’t write posts on my page as often as I should out of laziness. But other features, such as the ‘Go Live’ feature, haven’t been used out of fear. It’s time to suck it up and start broadcasting my stupid face live to my Facebook fans as my mouth moves from the silly words coming out of it… Live! Shit, I’m shaking in my boots already, but those Mickey Mouse-shaped crayons I’ve found on eBay won’t pay for themselves.

“What up, mothafuckers.”

3. Start producing a weekly podcast

I like the sound of my voice enough to endlessly riff comedic about the dumb shit I’ve observed during the day to my girlfriend, so why not note down all that stuff, put a microphone attached to a digital recorder in front of my face on a Saturday morning, and produce a podcast, at the end of which I’ll plug the shit out of my books? I can’t think of a reason not to… apart from what about if no one listens? And will I be able to stand the sound of my voice while editing? And what about if my girlfriend just laughs out of sympathy, not because I’m funny? Fuck it, that’s the thinking of the old me.

4. Write more books

I started writing in December 2014, and have written seven novels in that time. While that might sound prolific, you’d think twice after reading one of them. That isn’t to say they’re bad. They’re just light reads, with shitloads of jokes and dialog, and very little beautiful prose and epic descriptions. None, in fact. If I could say fuck you to my fear of writing every morning and mean it, I could crap out five or six novels a year. And surely new books are my strongest promotional tool… as long as they don’t suck, and as long as I don’t ‘lose it.’

Nailing it…

5. Write blog posts more often

There’s around a six-month gap between the publishing of this post and the publishing of the previous one, and it isn’t because I’ve been using the time I spent blogging to volunteer as a steel-roof-hut builder for the indigenous people of Zambia. It’s because I’m scared that I suck. That this post sucks. And the one I’ll write next week will suck. But what’s the worst that can happen from you, my potential customer, not liking the shit I write? You’ll move on and like some other author’s shit, which is what would’ve happened anyway.

Meet Joan, she’s a paranormal romance author.

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My Revolutionary Writing Process You Should Definitely Know About

A couple years ago I had a subscription to a writing magazine. The name evades me… wait, let me find out by pulling out my desk drawer, where my twelve issues, if it were possible within the confides of a drawer, are collecting dust. Oh yeah, the name of the publication is The Writing Magazine. (No idea why I didn’t remember that.) Anyway, they have this section that’s basically a spotlight on an author, which includes he or she talking about his or her writing day. That section, along with all the other mundane articles contained within its pages, is the reason why I cancelled my subscription. I like writing, sure, and I bore my girlfriend to death about the novel I’m currently writing, but I don’t want to read or hear about anyone else’s process.

A magazine about writing called The Writing Magazine…? the fuck out of here.

I’m a comedy guy, so I inject humor into most if not all of my writing. I’ll never be a big enough player in the publishing world to be featured in The Writing Magazine and get the chance to bore people with how my writing days tend to pan out, but if I did, I’d probably spice it up a little: add in a bit of hyperbole, stretch the truth at times, and add in outright lies to play on clichés  and make it somewhat interesting. What I would write is this:

Dan Taylor’s writing day:

I wake up at around 5:17 AM. That’s not entirely true. At 5:17 I’ve pressed the snooze button on my alarm clock three times, so technically I’ve woken up four times at 5:17. First thing I do, even before yawning or putting my scrotum back into a place that seems anatomically correct, is to reach over to the ice dispenser I had installed bedside and fill a tumbler with three…dammit! No, four ice cubes. Most people keep water by the side of their bed, or sex toys, I have a bottle of store-brand whisky. I think it might be scotch, though I’ve never read the label properly.

Not store-brand whisky.

Dragging my feet as I go, I walk to my balcony, open up the patio door, and go and sit on the deck chair I have lying there. Hanging on the corner of it is a Hawaiian shirt, and lying on it is a pair of vintage Ray Bans. I put those on, sit down, and take out from underneath my deck chair the pack of cigarettes that are protected from light showers and nicotine-addicted seagulls. One cigarette isn’t enough for me, so I smoke two at a time, three sets of two consecutively, as I stare at the apartment building opposite mine. I wonder about what to write as I sip whisky and hope that one of my attractive female neighbors across the street flashes me as she opens up her bedroom window curtains.

Close enough.

About 6:30 I make it to the computer. I’m drunk and haven’t come up with anything decent to write this session. Worse still, I can’t even string together a chain of coherent thoughts or even remember what part of the story I wrote up to the previous day. I sit and stare at my laptop screen for five minutes, probably while smoking another cigarette, and while thinking that the screen looked darker than it did yesterday. Then I remember I still have my Ray Bans on my face. Ten minutes in and without a single word written, I decide I need my muse. I keep her locked up in my walk-in wardrobe, where she enjoys the luxury of my old mattress, a blanket she uses in all seasons, and meals of Cheerios served to her in a dog bowl. She likes to sleep late, but I pull the leash around her neck to wake her. When I ask her to inspire me, she doesn’t have a clue what I’m saying as I’ve driven her insane. After she’s spat on me and threatened to defecate on me, I give up pestering her and decide I’m on my own.

This muse looks suspiciously like a young Chevy Chase in a wig.

As a consequence of having  a shit muse—or maybe I just use her as an excuse; I’m a little hazy on that—I pour myself yet another glass of whisky. The bottle’s empty at this point, so I throw it in the trash, where there are masses of rejection letters. I go back to my computer and start writing. It’s slow going at first, as I can barely see what I’m writing and have piss-poor fine motor functions due to my inebriation, but as soon as I sober up, the words flow onto the screen. I aim to write a thousand words a day, but every time I get to about the nine-hundred mark, I get writer’s block, or get lazy. That, too, I’m a little hazy about.

“Writer’s block exists. I’ve seen it, had it, and worn the fucking T-shirt upon which nothing is printed.”

I generally come away from the office feeling like I should give up writing for a while, maybe even stop completely, until I glance at my bookshelf and see my copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and remember all the decent reviews and ratings it has on Goodreads.

This reminder, along with a power nap and a meal consisting of instant noodles, motivates me for the next writing day. The rest of the day is taken up by doing chores—one of which is to place a new bottle of whisky by my bed—and watching Netflix movies, from which I hope to steal ideas. Intermittently, I spam my books and blog posts on Twitter.

Kiwi fruit and noodles. A terrible food combination.

So there you have it, my imaginary process. If I made you laugh, do me a solid and press one of the share buttons below. If I made you cry, from any other reason than laughter, then well, I don’t quite know what to make of that.

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My books, which weren’t written using the above process, at least not on weekdays, can be checked out here.

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Five Classics with Worse Ratings than Fifty Shades of Grey

Ever since the first in my comedy mystery series was published on Goodreads, it’s had an underwhelming rating. At one point, when I had fewer than twenty ratings, it was hovering around the 3.0-average mark. I’m quite pragmatic about it, and as long as I get my regular seven and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep, I don’t get worked up and pace around my apartment, chuntering to myself about what I’d like to do with a blowtorch and pair of pliers to the people who rated my book a one-star read. (Only joking, I’m more of a Bamboo torture kinda guy.)

Well I’m not eating that now.

Now that I’m getting close to eighty ratings, Hollywood Detective is on a relatively respectable 3.41 average. This may seem low—and it definitely is, at least according to your narcissistic writer—but books tend to have a lower rating on Goodreads than they do on Amazon, where my book has a 4.1 average. Not only that, the Goodreads community, in their widespread madness, have dropped the ball in rating a number of objectively brilliant books with a low average score—or objectively poor books with head-scratching high ratings. My book isn’t objectively brilliant—the prose is basic, the plot has an internal logic most readers would have a hard time swallowing, but the comedy is decent—but that doesn’t stop me from looking up books I love, cynically hoping that I discover they have a similarly low and perceived unjust average rating. Conversely, I also find happiness, paradoxically, in discovering that books I consider objectively bad and loathsome have high average ratings. I suppose the rationale is, if the Goodreads bookworms liked this piece of shit, then I totally get why they were indifferent about or hated my book. It’s a broken rationale, of course, as the same group of Goodreads bookworms that rated Book A highly is unlikely to be the exact same group of readers that rated my book unfavorably. There may be some overlap—pretty unlikely, given that I have a mere seventy-four ratings—but not enough to justify the feeling of wellbeing I get when I browse Book A to find it has a spit-out-your-beer-onto-your-iPad high score.

Jesus, I’ve just seen myself in the mirror. I am NOT to scale.

You can’t blog about ratings on Goodreads without mentioning Fifty Shades of Grey, as Goodreads, at least initially, was the reason behind that book’s popularity. And some of you may have thought Book A was indeed Fifty Shades. You were right. Before the fun begins, I’d like to say that I get subjectivity, and that different demographics of readers exist. And by writing that the high average rating Fifty (I can’t even be fucked writing shades anymore) has received is a head-scratching one, I wasn’t dicking on readers who like erotic romance fluff. If I had five cats at home and a hankering for rosé wine every Friday evening, hell, that’s probably the type of book I’d read. The head-scratching part comes from it being objectively badly written. I’ve only read the first three chapters, but if it carried on being so dully and repetitively written throughout its bloated length, there’s no way the good readers at Goodreads can justifiably have given it a 3.68-average rating. Surely more than half of those readers must have at some point stopped, mid page turn, and thought, Holy shit, I like the fucking and everything, but this author doesn’t have a fucking clue what she’s doing.

I liked what you did there… Good readers at Goodreads. Nice.

According to the Goodreads community, and while ignoring the aforementioned broken rationale and the fact that the following statistical analysis is flawed, my book is currently 0.27 stars shittier than Fifty. In my mind, and probably in my readers’ minds—or at least I hope—this is an unjust discrepancy. But I’m not ready to put the barrel of a loaded pistol into my mouth and blow my fucking brains out just yet, as I’m in good company.

I present to you, five objectively brilliant books that have a similar or lower score than Fifty:

1. ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemmingway

Ever read the widely regarded masterpiece about the old fisherman who goes out to sea and very nearly catches the biggest fish he’s ever come across? Yep, believe it or not, but that book is only 0.01 star better than Fifty.

Come again?

2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Did you think this masterpiece is a vastly superior work to Fifty? You were wrong. It’s only 0.05 stars better.

What the fuck?

3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Surely the trustworthy avid readers online at Goodreads have got this one right? Nope. It’s 0.06 stars shittier than Fifty.

The fuck out of here.

4. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

You think I’m fucking with you, right? Nope. It’s 0.21 stars shittier than Fifty, and only 0.06 stars better than “the most disgusting, sexist, chewed up and regurgitated, completely predictable, boring, male fantasy crap of all time. Ugh.” – Amazon Reviewer

Now this shit’s getting silly

5. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

I saved the best until last, or should I say the shittiest. Yep, according to the Goodreads community, Herman Melville, in his futile efforts, lost by a score of 0.24 stars to E L James’s masterwork.

No. I refuse to believe it.

So there you have it. If I made you laugh or made you feel better about your book’s so-so score on Goodreads, please press one of the share buttons below to help me widen this blog’s readership.

In next week’s blog post I’ll discuss five things you can do with the pages of your Fifty copy instead of reading them. Spoiler alert: one of them involves your ass and the digested remains of yesterday’s breakfast.

Download my totally original short story about an old man who very nearly catches the biggest cockerel he’s ever seen!

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Book Review Writing 101

As an indie author, one of my most time consuming activities when trying to avoid writing is reading reviews for books I’ll never read. This might seem like a futile activity, but I like to think it gives me an idea of what readers are looking for, it allows me to avoid common pitfalls of writing a specific genre, or, failing those, it at least entertains me for a couple minutes. The latter is provided by what the internet seems to be best at doing: exposing me to the nuts out there and the stuff they want everyone to read.

In short, in the place of the three extra books I could’ve written during the time I procrastinate is up-until-now useless knowledge about what makes a reasonable book review.

Instead of writing three extra books, this cat attempted to master winking. Nailed it!

Book review writing is difficult. I had a brief stint being active on Goodreads, and I wrote a few reviews. They’re shit. And not horseshit, which is almost pleasant when encountered on some country road, but the type of shit you might encounter in some inner-city back alley, which you can’t, to a reasonable degree of scientific accuracy, tell whether it came from man or dog. I totally understand that without the shit reviews out there, customers wouldn’t be able to make pseudo-informed choices about the books they buy. If only qualified people wrote book reviews, I wouldn’t have any, and I wouldn’t even sell the meager number of books I do. But what I don’t understand are reviews that fail on some basic level. Not able to articulate why the story about that wizard gave you a semi but you stated it anyway? That’s cool with me. But what I can’t forgive is writing a review that doesn’t meet the four requirements below. Book Review Writing 101 – shoot for horseshit, not human or dog shit.

Sweet shit.

When writing a book review, you should ensure:

1. Your star rating is justified by your review

Along with writing the shit you write, you’ll be required to give the book a star rating. It’s important to make sure that if you, say, give it a three-star rating, you make sure you articulate to a reasonable degree of clarity why you knocked two stars off. I received the below review on Smashwords. It’s my first and only one on there. I appreciate her taking the time to write it. It’s a favorable review, but I can’t help but wonder why it wasn’t at least four stars.

Smashwords, you are the website that distributes this book.

Till the day I die, I’ll always wonder why baseball team A never won the Wold Series, how political party C made such a mess of country B, and why, despite my book being very entertaining, I didn’t inspire this reader to press that sweet five-star button.

2. You finish the book before writing a review

A book isn’t like a plate of food. You can’t take one bite and decide you don’t like it, unless that one bite was riddled with objective errors, like the chef used piss to thin out his sauce instead of water. Confused metaphor aside, if you don’t finish a book you’ve failed to attain the primary qualification for reviewing said book: you didn’t read the frickin’ thing.

Send it back. Terrible character development.

When I go to my dentist, she doesn’t lean over, exposing her cleavage a little, and take one look at a molar and give me a clean bill of dental health. She looks at all of my teeth and then decides, based on the cleanliness of each individual tooth, that I do a bang-up job of brushing my teeth. I’m also a pretty decent flosser, but that is neither relevant nor contributes to the metaphor.

I couldn’t decide which caption to go with, so I’ll put both: 1) “Yep, that was definitely a nipple” and 2) “How many fingers am I holding up?”

3. You don’t assume everyone has the same reading tastes as you

It may sound simple, but people like different stuff. While I’m not a fan of hotdogs, I quite like burgers. Some people watch football on a Saturday afternoon; I prefer to watch movies. The below review can be read in two ways. He could either be defining my target demographic somewhat or he could be saying that, because it features the subject matters stated below, the book is objectively bad. The fact that he gave it two stars seems to suggest the latter. I don’t like posing for pictures with a dog that looks suspiciously like me, but it’s not to say it’s an objectively bad pastime.

If this book for you?

4. You know what type of book you’re reviewing

When reviewing a book, it’s important to know what category or subcategory the book falls into. You’d come across as a bit of a doofus if you wrote a review for Sharknado 3: The Third One based on its merits as a serious natural disaster movie. Equally, you’d come across as a doofus, at least in this humble author’s opinion, if you wrote a review of a comic mystery book (aka, bumbling detective) and you reviewed it based on its merits as an example of “noir detective fiction,” which is incidentally a non-existent, paradoxical subcategory, as I pointed out in a previous blog post.

Define finally…

 

That’s all I’ve got, which is to say it’s Saturday afternoon and I’m going to watch a movie while eating a burger. If you’re on the way to a football game and have a hankering for a hotdog, go fuck yourself. What you like is obviously shittier than what I like.

User of words

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What To Blog About As An Author (spoiler alert, not grammar)

Blogging is important for indie authors. It helps keep writing skills sharp in between writing books, gives readers something to read in between reading your books, and it’s cheaper than a shrink. Three weeks ago, I promised myself I’d keep up an at-least-one-post-a-week schedule, and so far I’m on par. In order to achieve this amazing feat of writing a blog post on three consecutive Saturdays, I’ve had to be really methodical in my approach. Behold, my three-week-worn blogging routine: start thinking about blogging topics as I stare into space at work on a Monday morning, continue this throughout the working week, get to Friday and start panicking about having not come up with one workable idea, google for topics on a Saturday morning, and then hit the computer like I am now, about two hours behind schedule, blogging about a topic I’ve come up with at the last minute. This week’s off-the-cuff topic? Advice on what authors can blog about.

Yeah, laugh it up, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Forget the irony and keep on reading. This blog post might get useful yet. Failing that, it’ll at least be mildly entertaining. Like the picture-caption combo below I’ll select and write respectively just before publishing these words.

Yep, she’s a dude.

I like reading author blogs. In fact, there are some authors who write books I don’t enjoy but whose blogs I tune in for every week. (I’m looking at you, Awesome Blogger A.) I’m always on the lookout—and by that I mean I occasionally read the odd blog post that was plugged on Twitter—for a new voice I can entertain myself with while reading blogs at the weekend. To get there, I have to read the first shitty paragraph of around twenty blog posts to strike gold. More often than not—and again by that I mean as often as it takes to validate this point I’m making—I come across a blog post that offers dubious advice to indie authors either about the writing craft or how to promote books, or—holy shit what was the author thinking—a blog post about grammar. What’s wrong with the sharing of dubious advice? Absolutely nothing. The advice you’re about to read is beyond dubious, and the photo below that Future Me will screen capture from an Indie Author Group thread I contributed to is testament to my dedication to offering at best dubious advice, as was pointed out condescendingly by a deceptively smiling fellow indie author.

I went on to defend my problematic example, but only after I’d spent two hours cooking up a response.

So you’re cool with reading dubious advice, question-and-answer-format Dan, but why do blog posts about grammar take a shit in your morning cup of joe? I’m glad I asked. Every indie author’s target demographic blog-wise should be other indie authors. The cliché goes that you should write about what you know. Hopefully, that should include writing and marketing books. But that cliché should come with a caveat: write about what you know, as long as it’s not make-the-reader-want-to-blow-his-fucking-brains-out boring. Indie authors writing about grammar for other authors to read is like Monica Lewinsky hosting a seminar for hookers on blowjob technique: for the scantily clad audience, it’s tedious. So grammar is off the table, but what is on there? Let’s find out together, then hopefully next week I won’t have to write a blog entitled What to Blog about as an Author Part Deux.

I employed this expert bubble blower to help me blow the dust off that 90s’ reference.

1. Tell a funny or amusing anecdote

Something funny happened to you this week? Tell that story. Not all blog posts have to be useful or informative. This week I got out of my seat on the subway to offer it to a pregnant lady. Like an idiot, I made conversation about how many weeks along she was, and received the reply zero. If I could get a thousand words out of that shit, you’d be reading about that for sure. You could make it a metaphor for some part of self-publishing to make it informative, too.

And how many weeks are you along, sweetie?

2. Report on self-publishing news

Last year, I was doing my last-minute google for a topic to blog about and came across an article about Amazon suing fake review writers offering their services on Fiver.com. It goes without saying that I put offering dubious advice to fellow indie authors aside for that Saturday and regurgitated that article, but with my twisted comedic slant on it. It’s now become part of my routine for blog-writing preparation to google “Self-publishing news” when searching for topics last minute. That’s the only blog-post-worthy article I’ve come across so far, but give me a break and pretend this advice point is valid nonetheless.

I concur. Great advice.

3. Blog about other authors

In love with an author? Thinking about maybe dressing up as him/her and driving your girlfriend and kid off a cliff when he/she doesn’t reply to your creepy letters? Blog about them. Write a case study about their success. Maybe write a satirical mock interview with them, but while making it obvious you’re not quoting that person. (Shit, that last one’s a pretty decent idea.) Not only will you have added one more notch to your blog writing tally, but you might, if you get a decent number of your blog followers buying your books, manage to forge an Amazon cross-selling link with that author, boosting sales. If not, it was fun to dye your hair bleach blonde and pretend like that person was your special friend for a little while.

Close, but no cigar.

4. Offer dubious advice to other indie authors about writing or promoting books

This one goes without saying. Just make sure it’s amusing or funny. Even an idiot like me can write humorous similes. Dress it up with those. For example, I’ve blogged about writing cliffhangers the right way, How to Not Shoot Yourself in the Face after Receiving a Bad Review, and defining and writing for your target demographic. All those blog posts include examples of my brain-dead brand of humor, and all the advice offered probably shouldn’t be heeded.

“I’m available for children’s birthday parties and bar mitzvahs.”

5. Give advice on blogging

Promised yourself you’ll keep up a once-a-week blogging schedule and struggling to keep it going? Enjoy irony? Give advice on what authors should blog about. It worked for me this week.

“Define worked.”

6. Write about something topical

Remember when everybody was watching How to Make a Murderer? There was a huge debate raging online about whether he was guilty or not. In the hope that I could write a viral blog post, I was all over that like pastrami on rye. Writing viral blog posts is like surfing: you see that swell developing and you jump up on your board at the opportune time and hope you don’t fall off and fuck up your dental work on a rock. (I have no idea what the dental-work part of that metaphor represents.) My blog post didn’t go viral, but I was saved from offering questionable advice for one week.

I’ve just reached the thousand-word mark, and six suggestions for blog post topics seems like as a good a number as any. With those dubious chicken nuggets of wisdom both written and read, I’ll say goodbye for this week.

Nope, no wisdom in this one, either.

If the blog post made you laugh out loud at least three times, apologize to that asshole you’re sitting next to on the bus who’s looking at you like laughing in public is what crazy people do. But most importantly—who am I kidding, I don’t care about that asshole—press one of the share buttons below to help grow the readership of this blog.

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My permanently free first-in-the-series comedic mystery novel, which also features hookers and an arrogant asshole offering dubious advice, can be checked out here.

Head on over to my Facebook page and say hi and like it. I have fuck-all likes and would like to start using it more often. Not the best motivation for you, admittedly.

Who Are You Writing for and Why Does it Matter?

I mentioned in an earlier blog post the importance of writing for a specific target demographic. In the absence of any other blog topic, and in order to keep up my once-a-week-schedule I promised to myself I’d keep in last week’s blog post, I’ll expand on what I meant and why it’s important. When browsing Twitter, I often see book plugs akin to “If you like historical romance, you’ll love Book A,” or, “Science fiction nut? Check out Book B.” That’s like McDonald’s assuming that anyone who likes food will automatically love their shitty burgers. The people who write book plugs like the examples above haven’t thought hard enough about whom they’re writing for. And it will probably mean, barring some stroke of luck, that they’ll never effectively market their books. They’ll never get their books in front of the thousands of readers they couldn’t be bothered specifically targeting who will buy everything they write and make them financially independent. In short, they’ll never be able to tell their boss go fuck himself, they’re done making McShittys for peanuts…Peanuts, McShitty? I feel a joke touching cloth.

Require sustenance? Come in and try a McShitty. *Warning: some mornings it may contain peanuts*

If a writer wants to build up a devoted readership, it’s not enough to assume that anyone who reads the genre or even the super-specific subgenre they write will automatically become a fan. Because guess what, there are a shit-ton of other writers offering the same literature packaged the same way, and without having set they’re stall out differently from the rest of the authors of that genre, their books will try to impress all the readers of that genre and end up impressing none. They need to define a subset of a particular genre reader in their mind and tailor their writing to blow the socks of those people, and figuratively tell everyone who’s part of a different subset of readers who likes science fiction or military thrillers or whatever to go fuck themselves.

In writing mysteries with edgy humor, I figuratively told this outdoorsy type who likes cozy mysteries about baking and dogs to go fuck herself.

So how do I go about defining my target demographic and writing specifically for them? I hear you ask. It’s simple, think about the experience you want to give them. You’re not going to be like a hooker who wants to be a Jill of all trades, master of none. You’ve got a niche customer base who you’ll specifically dress up for and cater to when between the sheets of some bed in some Motel 6. A target demographic shouldn’t be defined by age range or interests or if they color their hair at home or at the salon, or as mentioned above that they happen to read a specific genre, but what experience they’re looking for as a reader.

M is for what suspiciously looks like a gorilla.

A couple years ago, I tried to write appeal-to-everyone literary fiction that I thought I could sell shit-tons of. I didn’t have a clue whom I was writing for, just that I liked writing. Writing those books was laborious, and editing them was like smashing myself in the forehead repeatedly with a sledgehammer. They were shit. And the reason they were shit, apart from the fact that back then I was an even shittier writer than I am now, was that my heart wasn’t in it. Around the same time, I decided I’d like to get well read. I picked up a Charles Dickens book that had been collecting dust on my bookshelf and started reading. I hated it. I hated all the description, I hated that it made me feel stupid, and I hated how slow it moved. With this experience in mind, I set out to find out what shit I actually like to read, and found an author who wrote exactly that.

For the life of me I can’t get that asshole to like my books.

I won’t mention who it is, because I’m not into plugging other self-published authors on my blog, and because it’s irrelevant. Anyway, the point of the above longwinded story wasn’t to Dickens on Charles, but to lead onto whom I write for, my target demographic. Figuring I’d never sell enough books to satisfy my ambition, I started writing to entertain myself. My target demographic is me. And this is the type of reader I am and what experience I want:

The only times I read are during my commute to and from work. It’s either super early or I’ve just spent a day at work, so my concentration isn’t the best. This means I need books that aren’t super complex or are bogged down with rarely written words and that look light on the page. The place I live, Oslo, is quite scenic, and in order to stop me from gawping at the various views I go past on my journey to or from work, I need books that strive to be constantly entertaining. I don’t give a fuck if there’s any social realism or topical themes—if I want to be educated or enlightened about something, I’ll read a newspaper or pick up a non-fiction book—and I equally don’t give a fuck about how clever the writer is. I especially don’t want to read some flowery description of a room or a person. If I want something nice to look at, I don’t want to imagine it based on some author’s words. I’ll look at it on my television screen or at an art gallery. In the place of visual imagery and topical-theme-laden narratives, I want banter between characters, lots of dialogue and action, and a plot that moves faster than a hobo who’s just found a winning lottery ticket. I’m willing to suspend disbelief and read about characters that I don’t necessarily relate to or think realistic, as long as those characters are working their asses off to entertain me. When I finish a book, I don’t want to feel like I’ve just sat through a mildly interesting 5-hour lecture, but like I’ve just been to the circus while high on LSD. I want fiction books to do what they’re supposed to do: entertain me, regardless of whether they’re considered good literature or not.

Unless it’s a bad trip…a really bad trip.

So that’s the type of reader I am. And that’s whom I write for. I write books to make myself laugh, and I’m not a unique like a snowflake, so other readers laugh too. Ones who share my sense of humor. And I market my books to appeal to other readers like me—while producing my blurbs, my book covers, and this blog. Next time you sit down to write, think about who it is you’re writing for and what type of experience they’re looking for. Don’t make a McShitty and think that everyone who likes food will lap it up, because they won’t.

As always, if you laughed out loud at least three times, press one of the share buttons below. It’s kind of a deal I have going on with the readers of this blog.

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Does the above the description of what type of reader I am sound like you? If so, you might like my fiction books.

Like what you read here? Head on over to my Facebook page and say hi and like it.

Five Reasons to Keep an Author Blog

I started writing this blog for one reason: to sell my fiction books. I may just suck at blogging, or I might not have been doing it for long enough, or it might be because I write wonky lists like this too often, but this blog does not sell any books. It doesn’t even get a significant number of downloads for my perma-free book. I’ve thought of quitting and putting the time I take to write, edit, and publish this blog back into my fiction writing, but I kinda like doing it. From now on I’m going to write one a week. Even if the end result is shitty, like I fear this one might be. But because I have an iPad and an ass and way too much time on a Saturday morning, I’m going to need greater motivation than the half-assed promise I just made to myself to keep up an intense once-a-week schedule. I’m going to need to go full-ass. Fuck that, I’m going to need to go five asses. Just in case that wasn’t clear, which I’d totally understand, I’m going to need five reasons to keep my author blog updates more regular than my beard-trimming schedule.

Seven, but who’s counting?

Here goes:

1. To keep my writing sharp

It doesn’t take me long to write the first draft of a novel. About six weeks, assuming I don’t get ill or go on vacation. This year I figure I’ll write four. So this year, I’ll spend only twenty weeks actually writing—if I don’t keep this blog going—and the rest of the time making book covers, writing blurbs, editing, formatting, and publishing the finished products on Amazon and Smashwords. That’s a tiny amount of time doing what I love and a shit-ton of time doing stuff that makes me want to blow my fucking brains out. Not only is that a little depressing, but during those weeks when I’m not writing comedy or the stupid exciting stuff that goes in between it all, I’m going to get seriously rusty. Just take a second to think about the drivel you’ve just read. It’s definitely a product of my being rustier than…well, something that’s typically rusty, and definitely not a product of my having always sucked. So there’s the first reason, keeping those comedy writing muscles strong and ready for action for when I write shit I expect people to actually pay for.

Old motor vehicles are typically rusty. And lazy writers.

2) Something to do instead of drinking

One of my hobbies, up until fairly recently…scrap that, pretty much my only hobby up until fairly recently was getting drunk and watching shitty horror movies. I’m now into my thirties and want to be able to look back on this period as a time when I went hell for leather and tried to achieve everything I wanted to achieve with my life. Failing the achievement bit, I want to be able to look back and think that I was at least a reasonably functioning member of society, with friends, and healthy hobbies, and Saturday mornings that weren’t spent scrolling through my Facebook feed as I built up the motivation to reach out my hand and put the glass of water I poured for myself ten minutes ago to my dry lips. One of the distractions that I’m going to use keep myself from relapsing back into that wonderful time of potato chips, craft beers, and movies that were so bad they were good is this blog. Sure, writing it will pale in comparison to that feeling of cracking open that first beer, knowing there are eight more in the refrigerator, but it’ll keep me out of trouble. If you don’t have a drinking problem and want to make this point applicable to you, swap something you do instead of drinking that’s damaging  such as eating processed foods or whatever.

“Uh, honey, where do you want me to put the cheese?”

3) It’s cheaper than a therapist

I try to keep this thing useful or entertaining for the small readership it has, which comprises mostly of fellow indie authors. When I don’t have dubious advice to offer them, I at least try to make the blog posts funny. But sometimes it’s good to just let loose and go full narcissist and write about shit that pisses me off, to expunge it from my mind, such as when I critiqued some of the really bad reviews I’ve received  for my comedy mystery book. I don’t know whether that’s an accurate description of what people do when they go to see a shrink—now that I’ve thought about it, it definitely isn’t—but I figure I’ll use this blog to give my girlfriend a rest from my tirades and expose you guys to them instead. You’re welcome, there’s no need to say thanks. You guys are now my shrink, which means you’ll listen and probably not say anything afterwards or interact with me in any way. You’ll probably just nod, feeling a little sorry for me. Now that sounds like an accurate description of what a shrink does. And better still, you won’t want me to pay out my ass for it afterwards.

“I’d do this shit for free…”

4) One day a shit-ton of people might read these words

I don’t fully understand it, nor am I willing to spend a significant time researching the subject, but the more you blog, the more chance you have of your blog turning up in search engine results. Sure, if you’ve got a decent number of followers on a social media platform, you can get fairly decent traffic to your blog by spamming. But it’ll never be enough to significantly impact on book sales. You have to turn up on the first couple pages of search engine results for that, which means producing a shitload of content. In a couple years’ time, assuming I’ve kept my promise of not drinking and writing these things every week, this blog could be like a gigantic cyberspace glacier, slowly moving week after week, picking up shitloads of debris and dirt as it goes. You’ve probably just worked out, if you’re a follower of this blog or have read my books, that in that metaphor you were dirt or debris, which isn’t how I imagined thanking you for reading. How’s that shrink gig working out for you? My apologies.

“Go straight on, take a right, keep going, then another right and it’s there. You can’t miss it.”

5) One day I’ll have a record of how I made it

I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but four is a shit number when it comes to offering reasons to do something in a blog format. If the meager sales I get turn around in the future and make me financially independent, I’ll be able to look back on this blog as a historical record of how I got there. It’ll be like when my grandparents tell stories of hardship during World War Two, only way less significant and way whinier. Now if that isn’t a decent reason to keep an author blog, then I don’t know what is.

“Sure, the Nazis were shitty and everything, but I wrote one hell of a blog.”

So there you have it.

My hour’s up. It’s time for me to get up from your leather sofa I’ve been lying on and for you to get up off your chair you’ve been sitting ramrod straight in and for us to ride out that awkward moment when we don’t know whether we should shake hands, hug, or just quietly nod at each other after I’ve told personal stuff to you and probably cried a little. Is the same time next week good for you? Excellent.

If this was useful or as therapeutic for you as it was for me, hit one of the share buttons below. Right now this blog’s a tiny snowball, with your help it could become a snowman’s ass.

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My fiction books can be checked out here.

Some of my more dedicated therapists hang out with me on my Facebook page here. Like it and become one of them.

You Won’t Believe What These Guys Had to Say about Sharknado 2

Regular visitors to the blog, if they existed, would know that I love mining comedy goldmines, such as when Amazon decided to sue a load of fake-review writers. I was all over that shit like flies on…well, shit. The same hypothetical readers would know that I love really dumb damming reviews written online by bad-intentioned and misguided assholes, such as this blog post where I critiqued bad reviews of my comedy mystery worst seller. So it goes without saying that if I could somehow combine these two favorite blogging subjects, then I could probably have the most fun I’ve ever had while writing a blog post. With that said, that which went without saying, it just so happens I stumbled upon that perfect subject to blog about. Wait for it…Sharknado 2!

A shark in its natural habitat, as opposed to a tornado

Okay, not strictly Sharknado 2, but reviews of that movie written on the Netflix website. You guys who have never accessed Netflix through the website using a laptop or desktop, like I did in the time before everyone had an iPad and/or a smart TV, might have never seen the extensive collection of reviews Netflix has for the movies you can stream. You’ve been missing out in a big way. People who write reviews for Netflix movies are just like any other demographic of people. The majority are balanced, rational, and functioning human beings, but there’s a small number, and they tend be inherently vocal, who don’t quite get it like the rest of us. And in not getting it, like children, they tend to say the funniest things. This is where the fun is. Choose a favorite Netflix movie, one which has a niche audience, and scroll down until you find a one-star review, and you’ll most likely strike comedy gold. Trust me, you can’t miss.

Hey! I nailed it with my review of Big Ass Spider!

Before we get into it, a little bit of background for you guys who haven’t seen the anti-genius that is Sharknado 2.  Where to begin? Well, it’s a sequel to an ironic horror/sci-fi movie about a tornado that sucks up a bunch of sharks, which then wreak havoc on a bunch of characters played by Hollywood A-listers of yesteryear. It’s in the “so bad it’s good” category, but as you’re about to find out, this idea that a movie can be so bad it’s good is lost on some people.

“Why would a tornado ever want to hurt this little guy…?”

Let’s jump right in with the first review.

1. Science enthusiast

I’m impressed. Ridiculous is only one word.

I posted this review on my Facebook page, and for good reason. Ignore the stupidity of someone critiquing the acting in a B-horror movie, which tends to be intentionally camp, and ignore the oh-so-awful comment about one of the actors having possibly suffered a stroke, and move onto the second-to-last sentence. This guy, in all his wisdom, states that his enjoyment of a movie about a shark-laden tornado might have increased had the plot explained “where all the sharks came from.” I’m going to go ahead and assume that if the screenplay writers had put some scientist type into the script to explain “the sharks came from the Pacific Ocean” or some shit that this bad-intentioned, dumb reviewer still wouldn’t have understood what irony is.

Ohhhhh…now I get it.

2. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, then I’m a freakin’ genius.

It is.

Oh, boy! This is the first time I’ve seen this one. I think it might be relatively hot off the press. Thanks for the belly laughs, guy. Every time I receive a bad review for a book, I think, At least this dude won’t read and review any others. I’m now rethinking that rationale. Having watched the first one and hated it, our genius amateur movie critic went back for a second bite. Something beyond reason happened: He didn’t enjoy the sequel. What did he expect from it? If he was thinking soppy Oscar bait, he was wrong. He got sharks in a tornado again. And with a title like Sharknado 2: The Second One, who can blame him for thinking it was otherwise.

Just keep making them at the rate of one a year and you’re golden, guys. It’s bound to happen.

3. Amateur geneticist and all around good guy

Being the result of generational inbreeding isn’t the sole qualification required to enjoy this movie.

There are quite a few one-star reviews for this movie insulting the intelligence of the people who like ironic film making, but this one’s my favorite. It’s his use of the word somewhat when defining the target demographic for the movie. If you are the product of generational inbreeding with an IQ of “somewhat lower than 3” then this movie’s for you. I’ve got news for you, buddy. You’re no Charles Darwin yourself. Given that the range of IQs you’ve stated merely goes from 1-2, everything single person with an IQ lower than 3 can only have an IQ somewhat lower than 3. And for all you Ivy-league college graduates with whopping IQs in the range of 3 to, say, 10, this movie probably isn’t for you. You’re way too intelligent for a movie about a shark-infested tornado. Keep practicing writing cynical reviews, buddy. You’re not quite there yet.

My IQ is like thirty. I’m way smart.

So there you have it. Next time you cozy up on your sofa and watch a movie on Netflix and have time to spare before you go to bed, use that time to read some reviews of said movie on the Netflix website. But make sure you save some of the popcorn for one-star reviews written by bad-intentioned assholes.

As always, if this was as good for you as it was for me, press one of the share buttons below. Just don’t expect me to pay for your cab.

You can check out my ironic comedy mystery book here. Anyone who’s crazy smart, maybe with an IQ as high as twenty, might not enjoy it.

Say hi on my Facebook page, I don’t bite (my apologies).