Hope Is Not a Business Strategy
In this newsletter: thoughts on business strategy, shout-out for a book I’m looking forward to, updates on CROWNWORLD and CODE AND CODEX, FAQ (Foxily Asked Questions), ObCattenPic.
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Also: Rachel A. Rosen’s Blight is available for pre-order! It’s the sequel to her terrific cli-fi sci-fantasy political thriller satire Cascade. Icepick language, terror, and hilarity in magical apocalypse Canada. I…have only been to Canada once (Rachel is Canadian) so I’m sure some of the context is over my head, but I’m looking forward to the sequel. :)
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Hope Is Not a Business Strategy
I’ve been thinking about the business/career side of writing for a long time. Every writer is in a different place, has different goals, has a different community, has a different personality and strengths and weaknesses, has different resources, etc.
If I could give ONE piece of advice to writers who want to write as a business/make significant income from writing, it is this: hope is not a business strategy.
Hope is vital. Hope is part of your motivation. (Or maybe it’s spite, if you’re a Sith. Speaking for a me.)
But hope isn’t going to magically sell your book.
Do the research. If you’re getting this newsletter, you have some kind of internet access (probably). Do the research.
And then, having done the research, run the numbers.
I did terrible research when I started planning for this. I relied on books and articles from decades earlier, at a time when (US, sf/f) publishing was in flux and was going to change more, about a writing career model that didn’t exist in that form anymore. In my defense, I was twelve years old. Please do better than I did. :)
(If you’re twelve years old and reading this, good luck and be smarter than me!)
Alternately, if you’re a kazillionaire, carry on. But for those of us who aren’t, run the numbers.
I have the general mindset that: of course I’m disappointed when XYZ endeavor and/or book does poorly. I’m human! But I scatter seeds with the idea that not every seed will sprout, and not every sprout will thrive, and even if a bunch do, I have finite time/attention/resources so I’m culling some sprouts myself to focus on the ones that matter to me and/or will bring in an income because, y’know, bills. (This is especially hilarious as a metaphor because I have a black thumb.)
I consider risk vs. potential benefit in the short and long term (and sometimes the benefit is “ooh, fun!”). I have contingency plans and (because I am fortunate) a savings “cushion” in case all my income from writing dropped to literally $0 for some years. That level of income drop is unlikely, but barring other catastrophe, our household could carry on without too much incident.
Fiction writing is a wild, uncertain, oversaturated, crazy-making business. It can be hard to succeed financially and it’s hard to know what the heck is going on. But if you know that there’s uncertainty, you can make an educated decision based on the uncertainty, your goals, your resources, your risk tolerance.
One of the weirdest but most useful classes I took in college was one in differential equations. Not a typical traditional one where you learn bunches of techniques for taking diffy-q’s into a solution in closed form (lol). Many can’t (easily) be handled this way. Rather, the technique involved finding simpler functions as upper and lower bounds for the solution space. Fortunately, you don’t need to take diffy-q for this. Figure our your upper and lower bounds, and plan accordingly.
Right now, at mid-career, my strategy involves repositioning to diversify into transmedia; more on that another time.
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FAQ (Foxily Asked Questions)
What are you working on?
CROWNWORLD, still, despite Life Complications. Sorry it’s slow; I’ve written off this week for productivity anything because my focus is shot and my health is in free-fall.
CODE AND CODEX: the book has been turned in since August 2024; scheduling means the release is pushed back until 2026 (likely). Sorry about that—I’m eager for y’all to read it!
I had a short story accepted at a zine! It was a rewrite of a preexisting story that I dusted off. I’ll tell you the story behind the zine story someday. :)
I scoped the Ninefox animation project version I’d like to run with while continuing to work out mechanics for the visual novel. A five-minute runtime (animated music video) seems doable by an individual and a great fun experience for a Personal Project of My Heart where I’d be doing the animation, sound design, music, editing, whether I ever release the results. (Most of the preproduction already exists!)
Also still brainstorming on visual novel/videogame thoughts. Fortunately, the nice thing about a Personal Project of My Heart is I don’t have to worry about deadlines. Right now what I desperately need is stress relief for the Circumstance that put me on intermission from my master’s program, so.
What are you reading lately?
In nonfiction, Gabe Barrett’s Find the Fun: Learn How to Go from Idea to Published Game. I love reading game design books and this one is terrific—no surprise, since Barrett is the person behind the terrific site Board Game Design Lab.
In fiction, I’m treating myself to a couple audiobooks: the one for Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, which I’m reading for the first time (yay!), with its amazing shivery opening into a wild heist and fantasy drugs, and on a different note, revisiting an old favorite in audiobook format, Janny Wurts’ Curse of the Mistwraith (first in the epic fantasy WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW series, complete as of 2024). I love this book about two star-crossed brothers, and which I suspect has Dorothy Dunnett vibes, but I’m looking forward to the second and third books, which have amazing strategy/tactics plotting and counterplotting. Kudos to all the narrators, too! Great narration/voice acting is such a pleasure.
What are you listening to lately?
Something old: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, to study the orchestration, of course. :)
Something new: Kole Audio Solutions’ The Vigilant Menageries, created as a soundtrack for his gaming group’s playthrough of Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords! You may be more familiar with Kole for his work in composition for video games, but as a long-time Pathfinder fan, I was chuffed to discover this album.
What’s a game you’re playing lately?
Mechabellum! My husband introduced me to this indie? sci-fi themed auto-battler videogame. Terrific use of deployment and semantic positioning. The interface has quirks, but the gameplay is solid gold. I’m addicted; more later. :)
What are you watching lately?
I have been gently teased about going into a media composition program while not having seen one single Indiana Jones movie. So, I think most of us know that some aspects of the movies have not aged well, but as action-adventure flicks, super enjoyable, and a score for the ages! I wasn’t prepared for how scary they got; I’m used to PG and PG-13 movies being a little less terrifying!
…I guess now I admit that I have still not seen one single James Bond movie either, so that’s next…
I have a foxy question you haven’t answered here!
Sure, please email deuceofgearsart@gmail.com and I'll get back to you!
And the obligatory catten pic:
(My life goal is to never experience headphones nicer than the Sennheiser HD650s, already a major upgrade for me, because I don’t think I could cope with lusting after wildly expensive very professional mixing headphones that manage to sound even better than these!)
Yours in calendrical heresy,
YHL