Posted on by ajbrown · 1 Comment

Back In The Saddle

A couple years ago, I quit the business of publishing for a while. I even wrote a letter and posted it here and on social media. I was frustrated with the way the publishing world treated people, the way many authors treated other authors, with the amount of plagiarism I saw in this business, with the amount of … I don’t know … hate I saw in the writing community. 

When I left everything behind, I went through a period of mourning. You see, I loved writing. I loved the act of telling a story. I loved sharing those stories with the world. That period of time was slightly depressing, almost like a lesser version of Runner’s Depression. In case you don’t know what that is, let me try and explain it in as few words as I can. This happens to people who run, who love to run and all of a sudden, they can’t. They were born to run. They lived for that alive feeling they had when they were finished running. It’s an exhilaration that is similar to an adrenaline rush. Not being able to run can sometimes send a runner into a depression that could last a long time or just a little while. It’s as if part of them has died. It’s a mourning period.

After a few weeks, I started writing again without the pressures of wanting to put out a story, without feeling like the story needed to be amazing or I was wasting my time. I wrote a lot of bad stories during that time period. They were pieces that had been inside of me but I refused to write because I knew they would be crap and ain’t nobody got time for that. 

I also wrote some really good pieces, some I think will end up getting published at some point. 

Though I was writing, I can honestly say, I wasn’t really happy or content with what I was doing. I had been part of the writing community for over twenty years and by leaving it, I also left part of me behind. Hence, the mourning.

A few months after leaving publishing, I was convinced by two friends to give it another go. So, I did. I put together a collection of stories, titled A Color of Sorrows and began querying publishers. Not long after submitting to this one particular publisher, they responded saying they loved the collection. Yes. Awesome. I was excited. A contract was worked out. They did an analysis of my writing and deemed my style was similar to this exceptional author of horror whose initials just happen to be S.K., who also just happened to be my favorite author. 

Things were going well. Discussions were had and I did a lot of work on my end. About six months before the book was to be released, I was sent a formatted copy of the book to look over. It looked great, but there was one problem. I still hadn’t been assigned an editor. I had received edits, but those had been done by software, not a person. I had rejected half of them because they made no sense within the context of the stories. A month of so later, I enquired about an editor, more specifically, when was I going to work with one. 

I was told they don’t provide editors unless the writer pays for it. Umm … no. Up until right then, I had been excited. The discussions after that were not as cordial as they had been. I told them I expected an editor and that editing the stories was part of the process and the publisher should be the one paying for the editor. They didn’t see it that way and my excitement went from on fire to ice, ice cold. 

My enthusiasm for getting back into the publishing world tanked. You see, this was one of the things that made me want to get out of the business, poor treatment by publishers. 

Still, I was under contract and I didn’t want an unedited book to be released to the world. I asked my editor to go over it, even though she had done so before I submitted the collection. I wanted one more pass. She found two things that needed correcting, one of which was a change I had made because of the software suggestions. 

They released the book in May of 2023. I promoted it … Just. Once.

You see, the very first publisher I worked with after getting up and dusting myself off, didn’t do things the right way. 

And just like that, the experience was soured for me. To say I was frustrated and aggravated was an understatement. 

I’ve released two books since then, but I have to be honest, my heart wasn’t into promoting them and I did a bad job of letting people know about them. I’ll talk about those later. There are other things to get to for now. 

Not only did I lose enthusiasm for publishing, I neglected my website. I mean, seriously neglected it. Don’t believe me? Go look at the last post. It was in February, it’s June now. I also shut down my Patreon page. I mean, really, I just kinda said screw it.

Now for some hard truths I had to tell myself. I wrote a book called Motivational Shit You Didn’t Ask For. Great title, right? I think the title will sell the book all by itself. The book isn’t huge and most of the chapters are under two thousand words. Yeah, it’s short. Something I mention in the book multiple times is making excuses. We humans make excuses to not do things. We might say we want to do them, but if we don’t then do we really want to? Nah, I didn’t think so. 

I sat back recently and thought about why I didn’t promote my work. Sure, maybe I had some valid points with the publisher issue, since it felt like I did all the work except formatting (which I could have done) and cover layout (which I could have done, also). However, it was MY book, those were MY stories. Okay, let’s just say I had valid reasons instead of excuses for not promoting The Color of Sorrows. What about Six Strands To Lost Sanity? What about Human Touch? What about two books I believe are really good? I mean, seriously, what is the reason behind not promoting them? I have no valid reason. Only excuses. 

I have neglected a lot since first walking away, then coming back, then making excuses. That passion and drive I had when I first started out have been gone for almost three full years now. I’m trying really hard to find it again. So what have I done about it? I started mentoring again, which is going well. I’ve written a bunch of stories. I’ve joined the staff over at Memento Mori Ink, where you can read the first article at the end of August. More on that later. I’ve started submitting stories to publications again. 

And … I’m posting here. I recently realized I don’t have to post long pieces like this one. I can simply post something like: It’s coming, and post the cover of a book. And I can post as many times as I want. Once a day, once a week, 18 times a day. It doesn’t matter. You’re either going to stick around or not. If you do, thank you. Also, thank you for sticking around while I’ve been gone.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

Posted on by ajbrown

The Suckage Called Excuses

Recently, I had to ask myself a few questions. Before I get to those questions (and the subsequent answers), let me state a couple of things.

First, I suck at promoting myself. Second, I suck at promoting my books. Third, I suck.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the question and the why behind it. So, let’s start again:

Recently, I had to ask myself a few questions. The first question is: Have I done everything in my power to get my work into the hands of readers? The answer is NO. Question number two: Have I done everything I can to promote my books? The answer, again, is NO. Question number three: Why the heck not? I’ll answer this one later.

CiPvrIyWEAAv-gJGoing into 2018, these are questions I had to ask myself. Up until recently, I chose not to answer them. It’s like that thing you ignore in hopes that it will go away. Instead of going away, it gets bigger or worse or it learns how to talk and you can’t ignore it anymore. It is at that point where you have to face your fears (and the thing you have been ignoring). You brace yourself, hoping you can handle the situation. Then you find out there was no reason to worry and the issue is easily resolved. If you would have just faced the thing you were hoping would go away, you wouldn’t have had sleepless nights, and you wouldn’t have worried yourself into a corner with your thumb stuck in your mouth.

Being stuck in a corner, I decided to answer the questions and face the music. I hoped it was punk music I would hear in return. So, I asked myself the first question and sat back and thought about it. Have I done everything in my power to get my work in the hands of readers? I scratched my head and rubbed my chin. I even had a few false starts, telling myself excuses as reasons to why I can’t do everything in my power to get my work in the hands of readers. Not all readers will want to read your work. You don’t have enough books (or money to purchase those books) to put them in everyone’s hands.

“Fair enough,” I said and moved onto the second question: Have I done everything I can to promote my books? Again, I responded, Come on, A.J., you don’t have the money to market your books. You don’t have the network to market your books. You don’t know how to market your books. You don’t know how to use social media to promote your books as well as you would like. You don’t have the time to market your books the way they need to be marketed in order to do it right.

“Fair enough,” I repeated. The two questions I needed to answer had been answered and I was satisfied with them.

Here is TRUTH #1: All of that is bogus. They are excuses I told myself so I could sleep at night. They are excuses I told myself so I would be satisfied with where I’m at. They are excuses I told myself so I could say, hey, you’ve done everything you can. The problem is I wasn’t sleeping at night and I wasn’t satisfied with where I am as an author, and I certainly haven’t done everything I can.

Here is TRUTH #2: If I truly (and I mean truly) want to get my books in front of people, then I will do it. If I truly want my books to sell and do well, then I will do it. I’ve said similar things to other folks in the past: if you want it, you will do everything you can to achieve it.

This led to three more questions: Have I worked for it? Well, yes, I have. But have I worked hard for it? Umm … yes. Have I worked as hard as I can for it? Umm … not really?

This leads me back to my original third question; WHY THE HECK NOT? There are two answers to this question. The first being confidence. The second is quite simply, fear. Both of those things lead to self-doubt, and self-doubt can be crippling.

Let’s break down the excuses I told myself. Have I done everything in my power to get my work in the hands of readers? Excuse #1: Not all readers will want to read your work. To this I say, “So what?” Does it really matter if everyone wants to read my work? Of course not. Different strokes for different folks and all that jazz. Excuse #2: You don’t have enough books (or money to purchase those books) to put them in everyone’s hands. This is really not an excuse. I don’t have enough money to purchase enough books to put them in everyone’s hands. But should that stop me from getting as many Brown Bag Stories into the readers hands? No. The more of those I can get in readers hands, the better. They are like business cards, with all the proper information in them, and a story to boot.

[[Side Note: In case you don’t know what The Brown Bag Stories are, they are booklets I put together each month. Each booklet contains a story, author’s notes on what inspired the story, and information about some of my books you can purchase. This year there is a little something extra in them. Do you want to know what that is? Well, I guess you’ll just have to subscribe to the newsletter to find out. You can do that by going here: http://eepurl.com/cDEh9v. End Side Note.]]

On to the next question and its excuses: Have I done everything I can to promote my books? Excuse #1: You don’t have the money to market your books. So? You don’t always need a lot of money to market. You just have to have a cost effective plan. Excuse #2: You don’t have the network to market your books. Maybe not, but you will never have the network if you don’t try to build it. Excuse #3: You don’t know how to market your books. That is somewhat true, but still, you have to learn. Research is your friend. Excuse #4: You don’t know how to use social media to promote your books as well as you would like. Hey, Self, see the answer to Excuse #3 above. Excuse #5 (and this one is a doozie): You don’t have the time to market your books the way they need to be marketed in order to do it right. Really? You have time to watch a basketball game, right? How about do some marketing during commercials and at half time? What about Facecrack? You have time to be on it, right? If you’re not using it to market yourself, then hop off and, I don’t know, market yourself.

Lack of confidence and fear often lead to excuses. I’ll be honest here and say it isn’t so much a lack of confidence—I have plenty of that when it involves my ability to tell a story. That is one area I do not lack in.

Fear, on the other hand … I think we all have a touch of fear in us. I was once told the definition of fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real. Our minds conjure up false evidence and then tells us it is real. Kind of like our media outlets and their news reports.

Fact: if I stick a knife into a live electrical socket, it will shock me. There is no fear of doing it. There is only knowledge and that knowledge is enough to keep me from being an idiot and sticking a knife into a live electrical socket. So, I need not to fear doing it. I just need to be smart.

Fear: I’m not going to be any good at this. I can’t do this. I don’t know where to start, so why try?

Again, let’s pick this apart. Fear #1: I’m not going to be any good at this. Really? You never know until you actually try. Fear #2: I can’t do this. See Fear #1, and with that mentality, of course you can’t do it. Fear #3: I don’t know where to start, so why try? Why not try? There is always some place to start.

Here is the point to all of this: In order to do anything you have to believe you can, you have to be willing to have a dream and then chase it. In order to chase the dream, you have to put a LOT of effort into it (and not some half-hearted try, either). In order to catch that dream, you have to work harder than you ever have before. In order to live that dream, you have to want it. And anything worth wanting is worth working hard for.

I’ve been bad about keeping up my blog (a form of marketing) and my website (another form of marketing) and posting on social media (yet, another form of marketing). I know, I suck. I make no excuses—I think I’ve made enough of those already. What I do want to say is stick around. There is news on the horizon and there is effort …. lots and lots of effort.

Until we meet again my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.