ALL A-QUIVER: WALKING THE STRAIGHT ’N ARROW

Indie author shout out: Hey, hey everyone! Come take a walk on the cyberpunk side with Tyro Vogel's novelette, Extatica. Wild and strange and sexy, all wrapped into one. [please note: mature audiences only] Available at Smashwords, pay what you'd like!

Word of the week: cantankerous \kan-ˈtaŋ-k(ə-)rəs, kən-\ - adjective - (hear it!) - :  difficult or irritating to deal with 

Two Months, Too Little, Too Soon to Tell

Hark and hear ye, thus and so, lo and behold and other random old exclamations connected by conjunctions!

Two months since the release of The Perfect Player, two months since Marisa and Locrian, Donovan and Eden, Lamont and Daft, Throe, Abigale, Ariana, Kahlil and Tayib have snagged the hearts and minds of those I’ve lovingly coined as “my underground readership.”

Yes, a modest cluster of actual readers—many of whom I know, though some of whom are still strangers—truly like my novel. Even those who aren’t fantasy readers! And here I was worried about its reception. Well, you know . . . demons and death and destruction and all that, it’s hard not to worry . . .

So how fairest the book thus far, you ask? Well, it fairest fairly well, thank you. Absolutely by no means is it a lifestyle supporter; not even a decent paycheck, really. Modest returns, all told.

Honestly, if I were forced at popgun-point to sit down and figure the amount of time spent near-perfecting the book in relation to the amount of profit its taken in? Well . . . let’s just say minimum wage has never been that low.

Not even close.

In fact, no one in his right mind would ever work for such laughably pitiful wages.

Fortunately, authors aren’t usually in their right minds, and readers often benefit from our crazy love for writing until our fingers fall off and our minds turn to baby mush as we forgo sleep and sustenance . . . um, well, everything except coffee, that is.

But you know what? After much hemming and hawing and grumbling and fuming, and strong (albeit brief) disappointment in the work-to-monetary reward ratio, I’ve come to accept what I’ve always known in my heart: the story lives because of its readers.

Currently, it’s in the hands of 640 people (both sold and through giveaways) . . . and that’s 640 more readers it has now, than if I’d continued to crack my skull against the brick wall of trad-publishing rejections.

So, where to now? Best advice I’ve ever heard: Release your first book, start your second. Sounds simple, right?

Yes . . . well . . . um . . .

*ahem*

Hmph! Right. Go ahead, you try working with a cantankerous red-haired teen who flatly refuses to crawl out of bed until she feels so inclined, then demands her story be told in first person—period. [insert spitting action here]

*sigh*

At least I’d managed to talk her out of a retelling in present tense . . . for now.