# KKR: Gaming the System



## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

> It has taken the latest Kindle Unlimited Apocalypse (KUpocalypse 2? KUpocalypse Part Deux? KUpocalypse XXL?) to help me understand my visceral reaction to all of those writers who game the system ... By gaming the system, I mean artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related.


http://www.thepassivevoice.com/06/2015/gaming-the-system/


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

is that what some of these people writing 10-page crap stories are doing, part of a system of gaming royalties from KU.

That is so crappy.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Yes, very entertaining. Makes for great science fiction.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

This article is ridiculous. It doesn't even really mention what this "gaming of the system" is, so it's hard to even craft a response.


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## Ian Fraser (Mar 8, 2011)

'Money matters but it can’t be the only thing that matters.'

Since when has anyone ever operated like this? Its downright communism! (  )  Who dares say folks can't aim for money? 

Seriously though, the article seems just a little too simplistic...


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

I'm with Briteka, I kept waiting for some sort of definition of what "gaming the system" the article was talking about, and instead got a lot of fist-shaking at clouds.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Ian Fraser said:


> 'Money matters but it can't be the only thing that matters.'
> 
> Since when has anyone ever operated like this? Its downright communism! (  ) Who dares say folks can't aim for money?
> 
> Seriously though, the article seems just a little too simplistic...


It's simplistic because the author is too afraid to spell out what she means because she will get quickly swatted down.


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## Lucas (Jul 15, 2014)

Equally liking the comments as much as the article.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I've seen lots of people game systems over the year. All the exploiters swear rivers of blood every time that a system is fixed to stop their exploits. I doesn't matter if it's KU, MMOs, card games, or sports.

Gaming a system [which is a standard English term] is doing a non-intuitive action action in a system to gain an advantage, but your actions only produces gain for you while weakening system as a whole. Most of these sorts of actions get banned in games.

For example, running out the clock in football is gaming the system, which is why they don't let teams do that. It's good for the winning team but it's boring for fans. Bored fans don't buy tickets. These sorts of exploits don't last long.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

I also don't fault authors for taking advantage of the system, as long as they are actually writing real stories. They didn't invent the system, and they certainly didn't ask for it. I don't blame authors for chopping up their novels to make more money per borrow. They figured out a way to maximize revenue in an unfair system. I looked at doing this as well, but realized that my novels were not written in such a way as to make this possible. The result would have been a greater abandonment rate for the entire series.

It isn't 'gaming' of a system if you're staying within the rules. It's 'playing the game.'


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

Dragovian said:


> I'm with Briteka, I kept waiting for some sort of definition of what "gaming the system" the article was talking about, and instead got a lot of fist-shaking at clouds.


I think KKR assumed the readers of her blog already know. She means that people are writing the absolutely shortest possible work for KU borrows. Instead of a 65k novel, write a 13 episode serial and get 13 borrows instead of one.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

She defines gaming the system as "artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related." It would by hiliarious if it weren't so crazy or hypocritical.



Douglas Milewski said:


> For example, running out the clock in football is gaming the system, which is why they don't let teams do that. It's good for the winning team but it's boring for fans. Bored fans don't buy tickets. These sorts of exploits don't last long.


Football teams run out the clock in nearly every game. Assuming you're talking about American football, that is.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Chris Fox said:


> I think KKR assumed the readers of her blog already know. She means that people are writing the absolutely shortest possible work for KU borrows. Instead of a 65k novel, write a 13 episode serial and get 13 borrows instead of one.


Except she doesn't seem to be aiming at things like scamphlets, which I think everyone would agree is gaming the system, but rather having the temerity to target markets and maximize sales/borrows while not writing in a manner she approves.


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## doolittle03 (Feb 13, 2015)

vrabinec said:


> I don't like that it doesn't throw any love out to those of us who PLANNED to game the system, but never got a chance. Now we have to change our strategy.


I snorted my red wine all over my keyboard.

There are some writers who wrote what they loved, honed their craft and the System said Meh.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

vrabinec said:


> I don't like that it doesn't throw any love out to those of us who PLANNED to game the system, but never got a chance. Now we have to change our strategy.


5,159 posts there, vrabinec. As my Dad used to say when we played pool and I was overthinking my shot: "stop talkin' and start chalkin'."


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2015)

This KKR lady wins the trophy for Miss Too Late. Aren't we going to have a new regime in 11 days?


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

As usual, Courtney Milan puts it in perspective with her tiny little comment at TPV.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

vrabinec said:


> Oh no, I can't take that kind of pressure. I'm too fragile for that. My brain's shutting down. Someone hurry and get me a rum and coke and a chocolate bombe, stat!


I think you mean to say, "Eight ball, corner pocket."


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

vrabinec said:


> Actually, I'll be happy if I don't break the cue on the shot.


You never make the shots you don't take.


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## Overrated (Mar 20, 2015)

vrabinec said:


> Oh no, I can't take that kind of pressure. I'm too fragile for that. My brain's shutting down. Someone hurry and get me a rum and coke and a chocolate bombe, stat!


This.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

There will always be people who see taking advantage of markets and maximizing profits by looking at how to adapt and change as "taking advantage" of something. But adapting to changes and marketing have never been KKR's strong suit so I can see why she would think somehow being intelligent about business practices in ebook publishing is really just scamming.

I think all the people who believe that somehow this will make serials less popular with readers or the serial writers doing well magically go away thereby somehow magically leaving them a bigger piece of some imagined pie are going to be pretty disappointed. 

As Scott said upthread, it's a nice piece of science fiction she's telling herself.

Change happens. The ones who survive adapt, experiment, and change with it. Those who try to pretend it isn't happening or won't affect them wither away.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Annie B said:


> There will always be people who see taking advantage of markets and maximizing profits by looking at how to adapt and change as "taking advantage" of something. But adapting to changes and marketing have never been KKR's strong suit so I can see why she would think somehow being intelligent about business practices in ebook publishing is really just scamming.
> 
> I think all the people who believe that somehow this will make serials less popular with readers or the serial writers doing well magically go away thereby somehow magically leaving them a bigger piece of some imagined pie are going to be pretty disappointed.
> 
> ...


Where is the upvote feature on this board? I want to +100 you.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Annie B said:


> ...But adapting to changes and marketing have never been KKR's strong suit, so I can see why she would think somehow being intelligent about business practices in ebook publishing is really just scamming.


Thank you. That's a much more polite way of saying what I was thinking.


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

Briteka said:


> This article is ridiculous. It doesn't even really mention what this "gaming of the system" is, so it's hard to even craft a response.


I agree Briteka. I had trouble understanding what she meant as she gave no examples or specifics. I'm guessing she meant people who buy fake positive reviews and things like that. I wouldn't imagine she would mean people who write short instructional booklets that may be of some use. A friend of mine wrote a short booklet on selling successfully at flea markets and, although short, it was a really complete and helpful booklet. I would hope people aren't complaining about things like that.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Well put, Annie B.

I had to chuckle at this:


> Honestly, I haven't made much of a study of it, because, as you can tell from my tone, I don't think it important.


Which is why more and more of those who do will eat her lunch. If she honestly doesn't believe that it matters to understand the algorithms and the changes put in place by an entity which probably sells around half the products in the U.S. in her chosen industry. . .as you can tell from my tone, I don't think she's correct. There are folks who have taken the time to learn what works and made a comfortable six figures in a year. If that disappears on 7/1, lifetime they'll still be ahead of 99% of writers who have made a legitimate attempt at sustaining sales in other ways.


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

Stop gaming breakfast with your pancake eating!

Bravo, Ms. Milan.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

Glad I'm not the only one who found this article ridiculous. Most of the best selling indie authors have "gamed" the system in some way according to her.

You need to pay attention to trends and what works to be successful. Also all serials aren't gaming the system. All of them aren't chopped up novels. Take mine for example -- it's modeled after police procedurals like Law & Order, Bones, etc. Each book is a different mystery and ties into a larger story. I planned it this way before I even started studying self-publishing because it's what I want to read. 

I just hate that it's cool to diss serials. Most serial authors are writing them because it works better for their story. Like deciding between a TV show or movie.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

My comment:



> This article makes no sense. First, you define gaming the system as "artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related." However, then you go on to give this example: "That writer analyzed every story in every issue I had my byline on up until that point, found common elements, and told the writers reading his essay that I looked for those elements." If they're writing their stories to meet certain requirements, that is most certainly writing related. And later you say, "Some of them found a new way to game the system, still with Kindle Unlimited, figuring out the new algorithms and what those writers "should" be writing in order to win the big prize" If you're choosing a subject to write about based on trends, then, once again, that's writing related.
> It appears the author of this article is confused.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

I asked if they thought all the people writing "true life boy's adventure stories" back in the heyday of magazines really loved writing them, or were writing because they sold, but last I checked I was still awaiting mod approval.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Dragovian- don't bother commenting on their sites if you disagree. You won't get out of moderation mostly likely. They can't handle people disagreeing with them, as I learned first hand


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Okay, who is G over on PV? Bravo/a!


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

Back in 2011 people who managed to get a permafree were considered to be gaming the system.  It took a lot of knowledge and luck to get a permafree back then. The ones that had one got lots of sales, at least that is what they claimed.  

Now it is easy to get a permafree so it isn't considered gaming the system any longer.


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## Nick Marsden (Jan 28, 2015)

There's a difference between trying to make a living writing short fiction and serial because they sell well and copy/pasting wikipedia articles into a word document and selling it as a clever facsimile of a real book. Someone was selling this crap for $200 bucks, pretty much forcing/asking people to borrow it on KU. The books are so small that paging 2-3 pages in is the 10% required to give the publisher the royalty. Those first pages are usually filler pages, so a naive reader won't realize they've been scammed until they've activated the 10% rule. I recently saw no less than 6 of these types of books focused on Chris Kyle (American Sniper) on Amazon a few days ago. I'm guessing they popped up right when the movie came out and people were looking for the real book. The covers look like legit biography covers. Only by looking at page count or reviews would you see otherwise.


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## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

While I think it's possible to 'game a system' short-term, readers are savvy (as is Amazon).  I'm not exactly sure what the article is referring to, but it seems to me that when a mass movement occurs to take advantage of something (for example the KU borrows and short stories), the 'system' corrects itself (Amazon changing to a per-page percentage).  

The only game is to work hard, write great stories, make awesome covers, and do it frequently.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

vrabinec said:


> See, to me, "gaming the system" means that inferior writing gets pushed and sold more than superior writing through some gimmick, right? First of all, who's to say what writing is inferior to another's writing? Second, even if it does happen, don't people CHOOSE to buy cheaper or more accessible products at WalMart, rather than going farther into town and paying more for a "superior" product? It's a choice. This is a marketplace. I have NO doubt that some "better" writing is passed over because the author doesn't understand how to get his/her work in the hands of the readers. Someone's going to have to explain to me why anyone needs to be "shamed" for it.


Perhaps fittingly, I'll explain the dynamics in a gaming analogy. 

There's this game that is exclusive and fun and rewarding. Many want to play it, but only a few are allowed to. They figure out the rules as they go, and they are ranked in the order of their performance.

There is a game master who decides who gets to play, and who praises players for doing a great job, which is part of the fun of the game, for them. The game master also imposes some rules that are not part of the game, per se, but which the game master nonetheless insists must be followed. The game master shames those who break these extraneous rules.

Enter an invention that allows pretty much anyone to play the game, and in the same court along with the veteran players.

The new players don't have a game master to praise them for doing a great job. Nor do they have anyone imposing the extraneous rules on them. Instead, the new players either 1) cheat, or 2) get extra good at figuring out the actual rules of the game itself.

The veteran players are envious of the freedom that these new players enjoy, but at the same time, they are emotionally dependent on the game master's praise. So instead of breaking free of the game master's extraneous rules, the veteran players shame all of the new players. They shame cheaters and non-cheaters alike, the cheaters for cheating, and the non-cheaters for breaking the game master's extraneous rules.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

vrabinec said:


> See, to me, "gaming the system" means that inferior writing gets pushed and sold more than superior writing through some gimmick, right? First of all, who's to say what writing is inferior to another's writing?


This is exactly right. Take my second novel. I have a couple five star reviews from people who lost sleep because they couldn't out the thing down. We're all readers here in addition to writers, we know what it means to find a book like that. If it happened one out of five books you picked up, you'd consider that awesome. This same book has another review from a guy who thought it was among the worst things he's read. We all know those type of books, too, the ones where you just shake your head for a few pages before putting it down and making a mental note to steer clear of the author in the future. And probably think unkind and superior thoughts even if you consider yourself the kind of person who wants to avoid that.

But a single book. . .is both. And that's why KKR's article is so ridiculous. I think a lot of trad-type authors really believe that it is more noble and admirable to avoid understanding and or adjusting your approach for the nuts and bolts of online selling. Almost like you have to suffer for something to be worthwhile. I have never understood the neurosis behind that attitude, and I don't think I ever will.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

KKR is one of the champions of indies who don't sell well. Not exactly the same thing...


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## Gone Girl (Mar 7, 2015)

We miss you, Harvey Chute.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I guess my response got moderated out of existence. 

Not the first time.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

I like to get paid. I do things in such a way that I will be paid more than if I didn't do them. Someone else's opinion of how I run my business doesn't affect me at all, frankly.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

vrabinec said:


> Cherise, have i ever told you that sometimes you confuse the [crap] out of me?
> 
> Okay, I get it. But isn't KKR one of the champions of indies? I honestly don't read these blogs. Too busy trying to get my own stuff done. That's what makes the blog post confusing to me. Of course, I'm pretty easily confused.


Some of the old players try to teach the new players the game. The trouble is, they teach the extraneous rules as if they were part of the game itself. They mean well, but...


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2015)

Briteka said:


> This article is ridiculous. It doesn't even really mention what this "gaming of the system" is, so it's hard to even craft a response.





Dragovian said:


> I'm with Briteka, I kept waiting for some sort of definition of what "gaming the system" the article was talking about, and instead got a lot of fist-shaking at clouds.


Did you guys even read the article? She defined it very clearly in the third paragraph.

"By gaming the system, I mean artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related."


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Did you guys even read the article? She defined it very clearly in the third paragraph.
> 
> "By gaming the system, I mean artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related."


Define "non-writing related". Is marketing non-writing related? Is chasing trends non-writing related? Is researching what the editor - oh, wait, these days it's the reader him/herself, not a gatekeeper - wants, non-writing related? Because KKR seems to take issue with these things.


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## Stephanie Marks (Feb 16, 2015)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Did you guys even read the article? She defined it very clearly in the third paragraph.
> 
> "By gaming the system, I mean artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related."


Sooooo, like running a promotion? Or having an ARC team? Because it sounds like what she's saying is that if you dare to anything other than just write a book, and publish it you're "gaming the system". Sounds like rediculous sour grapes to me.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

My opinion is she is liking the clicks to her blog.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Did you guys even read the article? She defined it very clearly in the third paragraph.
> 
> "By gaming the system, I mean artificially elevating book sales by doing something non-writing related."


But then she goes on to use writing related examples:



> For example, when I edited The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I stumbled on a writing article in which some newbie writer claimed to have found "the secret" to selling short stories to me. That writer analyzed every story in every issue I had my byline on up until that point, found common elements, and told the writers reading his essay that I looked for those elements.


Using common elements is writing related.



> Some of them found a new way to game the system, still with Kindle Unlimited, figuring out the new algorithms and what those writers "should" be writing in order to win the big prize


Writing to follow trends is writing related.

So I guess it would be appropriate to ask if you read the article.


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## T.K. (Mar 8, 2011)

> I saw it before it got nuked. It was BRILLIANT


Where is the comment? Now I'm curious.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I posted it earlier in the thread. It was neither brilliant nor offensive.


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## T.K. (Mar 8, 2011)

swolf, when I thought your post was 'nuked' I thought I missed something AWESOME. Now I'm on a quest to find out what it was.

ETA
Okay so I searched for it and read it, but I also found this and loved it! Yes, it's totally unrelated to this thread, but it's late, I'm tired and I don't care. 



> Quote from: Doglover on Today at 03:36:00 AM
> 
> The longest and hardest thing I have ever read was the King James Bible. I read it from start to finish, as one would any book, and I found it fascinating but I did have to keep going back to bits I didn't quite understand the first time round.
> 
> ...


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

T.K. Richardson said:


> swolf, when I thought your post was 'nuked' I thought I missed something AWESOME. Now I'm on a quest to find out what it was.


Page 2 here.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

T.K. Richardson said:


> swolf, when I thought your post was 'nuked' I thought I missed something AWESOME. Now I'm on a quest to find out what it was.


I only pull out the AWESOME for my customers. 

This is what it was:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,216719.msg3022186.html#msg3022186


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Good lord. That was one of the more annoying things I've read of late.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## T.K. (Mar 8, 2011)

My in depth rebuttal and response is this:

Keep writing series/serials.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

lilywhite said:


> I'm done saying I'm sorry.


I'm still trying to figure out why we're supposed to be sorry for "chasing trends" just because now, we're following what the readers want to read in realtime, rather than what the editor wants to buy. Working writers, especially of short fiction, have always written to the market. The only real difference now is who we mean by "the market".


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Monique said:


> Okay, who is G over on PV? Bravo/a!


Seriously. Kudos!


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Don't be sorry. Laugh all the way to the bank as your mailing list fills up with readers clamoring for your next book.

It's the best revenge


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2015)

swolf said:


> I guess it would be appropriate to ask if you read the article.


Oh, I read it all right, and I won't disagree that her reasoning has its flaws. But there is a difference between "she doesn't even define her terms" and "her definition is unclear." If you're going to criticize her argument, at least have the decency to hold her to her own words (as you did swolf, so thank you).

Personally, I think she has a good point buried in the midst of her poorly reasoned argument. I've been writing novellas for the past two years, and had some decent success with it. At the end, though, I've concluded that novels have the true staying power, at least in SF&F. They take longer to write and can be harder to market, but you can attain much greater heights with them and have a much more lasting impact.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Libbie got to get paid, son.

I regret nothing.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

cinisajoy said:


> My opinion is she is liking the clicks to her blog.


And with that, Cin has nicely summarized the situation!


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

What strikes me about the article most is the huge gulf between the world before and after the ebook explosion. The notion of writers doing all this research to get something published in F&SF seems so foreign. I know it was a huge honking deal and a great way to exposure with insiders, but doing this kind of extreme research to sell a $600-1000 story seems almost funny in today's climate.

That brings me to my other thought that I don't think she understands exactly how much money people are making from this and I am not sure she really grasps how scammy some of the scams were. She seems to think it's a little unseemly to break up a novel, but there's a big difference between that and choosing to do novellas as your next projects instead of a novel and there's a huge chasm between that and hiring people on Fiverr to crank out 20 pages of whatever so you can get the payout before people realize the writer had a tenuous grasp on English and stop reading.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Chris Fox said:


> I think KKR assumed the readers of her blog already know. She means that people are writing the absolutely shortest possible work for KU borrows. Instead of a 65k novel, write a 13 episode serial and get 13 borrows instead of one.


And, so what? If people weren't borrowing, if it wasn't effective, people would have stopped doing it. Readers like KU. Just because some folks get their panties in a twist because short story, doesn't mean it's not just as viable and honorable a way of writing as any other.

I can't comment over there, but I liked this:



> I tend to think of "gaming the system" as including activities that compromise either artistic integrity or moral integrity or both.
> 
> But I have seen a number of people use that phrase to describe merely understanding the system and then seizing the opportunities it provides.


Giving readers what they want isn't gaming the system. It's doing our job as publishers -- you know, that part that involves getting our work out to the reader.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Nick Marsden said:


> There's a difference between trying to make a living writing short fiction and serial because they sell well and copy/pasting wikipedia articles into a word document and selling it as a clever facsimile of a real book. Someone was selling this crap for $200 bucks, pretty much forcing/asking people to borrow it on KU. The books are so small that paging 2-3 pages in is the 10% required to give the publisher the royalty. Those first pages are usually filler pages, so a naive reader won't realize they've been scammed until they've activated the 10% rule. I recently saw no less than 6 of these types of books focused on Chris Kyle (American Sniper) on Amazon a few days ago. I'm guessing they popped up right when the movie came out and people were looking for the real book. The covers look like legit biography covers. Only by looking at page count or reviews would you see otherwise.


This is what I see as "gaming the system" proper. Not strategically writing serials for KU or understanding algorithms/30/90 day cliffs or using launch teams to get a new release high in the ranks, or other "non-writing" things. Scamlets.

Amazon created KU and set the conditions for participating. Amazon was responsible for paying out a 10-page scamlet the same rate as a top selling 400-page novel. Of course authors are going to respond accordingly and adapt their strategies to the new reality -- if they want to succeed.

KKR sounds like someone trapped in a different era.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Dragovian said:


> Define "non-writing related". Is marketing non-writing related? Is chasing trends non-writing related? Is researching what the editor - oh, wait, these days it's the reader him/herself, not a gatekeeper - wants, non-writing related? Because KKR seems to take issue with these things.


Exactly. It's like KKR is specifically trying to hamstring indie authors by telling them they can't do what the system requires to succeed.

Write a book that you love blindly and without any thought to the market, put it wide before you've even got an audience, and then wait for it to either catch on or sink into the murks. NEVER think of doing anything "to artificially" increase it's visibility or rank and thus find an audience and flourish.

NOPE you poor little naive indie... Thou must write books from your deepest soul and unleash them unto the world and if they are good, they will organically succeed and if not, they will linger in obscurity, but at least you have INTEGRITY!!!

Faugh...


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Tulonsae said:


> Can you define "non-writing related"?
> 
> Because I would think that would include marketing, promotions, etc. And I don't see marketing and promotions as gaming the system.
> 
> Or are you referring to the "artificially elevating book sales"? And, if so, what does that mean?


This is my opinion.

If the big publishers do it, then it's fair. Advertising is fair. Keywords are fair. Product giveaways are fair. Permafree is fair. Serials are fair. Reacting to the market is fair. Competition is fair. Giving the public what they want is fair. (And it's showbiz.)

Removing your lower-selling books to increase your author rank? That gaming the system. Including irrelevant keywords? That's gaming the system. Paysing someone to get your sales into the Top 100 of a category? That's gaming the system. These things are not writing-related.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Very disappointed to see some comments deleted from the PV article.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Monique said:


> Very disappointed to see some comments deleted from the PV article.


I only see three of G's comments there; last night there were well over a dozen. Now DWS appears to be responding to a phantom.

Why do that? It makes no sense.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Becca Mills said:


> I only see three of G's comments there; last night there were well over a dozen. Now DWS appears to be responding to a phantom.
> 
> Why do that? It makes no sense.


I have a theory, but it does not paint PG in a very positive light.


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## Diane Patterson (Jun 17, 2012)

There are a whole bunch of comments there now that make no sense, because G's comments were removed.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Monique said:


> I have a theory, but it does not paint PG in a very positive light.


But I love PG!!! 

ETA: Er ... in a way totally not intended to tread on the toes of Mrs. PG, of course.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Everyone has feet of clay.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Monique said:


> I have a theory, but it does not paint PG in a very positive light.


Yeah, but when the shoe fits... 

Removing non-selling books to improve author rank and clean up your brand so readers can more easily find the things that people have shown they actually want? That's not gaming a system. It's choosing to be the GAP instead of Goodwill. It's fine to be the Goodwill, but people will have to hunt to find the gems and figure out what is actually on offer. Go to the GAP and it's a different kind of shopping experience, everything is clearly labeled, color-coded, and easy to find what you are looking for.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Yeah, it makes the comment section pretty nonsensical, and I'm not sure what the criteria for removal were, but in all fairness, it looks like some of DWS' comments were removed to. AB there  is replying to nothing at the end, so whatever he said has to have been deleted.

At least it wasn't just a voice of dissent that got erased. That's important. 

Nope. Really disappointing.


----------



## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Nah, his comment calling me a stalker is still upthread, just unlinked from everything.


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

The points made in the original blog post were unclear at best. There are writers who work hard to figure out what sells, what doesn't and under which terms and conditions. I call it doing the job. If somebody wants to call it gaming, fine by me. 

There were scammers in KU aka "writers" who published ghost/fake books or copied publicly available material to gain an unfair advantage from the KU 10% system. If there are people who damaged the system permanently, it's the scammers and not the gamers. 
Sadly, this sort of behavior escaped the eye of the author.


----------



## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Yeah I was very confused when I looked at the blog yesterday to see what this G everyone was talking about had said.  I couldn't find anything but one or two one line replies from them, but lots of replies to them and assumed I was just following the blog's format incorrectly or something.  Disappointing that they were actually removed.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Annie B said:


> Nah, his comment calling me a stalker is still upthread, just unlinked from everything.


Oh, found it. Vilifying you only makes him look petty at this point. DWS used to be kind of a writing hero of mine. The 'with us or against us' mentality, our way or the wrong way, has eroded that. Then listening to him explain to the SPP guys, who were having wild success at the time with their Yesterday's Gone season packs, how they were doing it so wrong, broke my cringer.

I wish I could have read G.'s comments, though the context is hinted at by the replies.


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

I liked DWS a lot too. Then I followed a few of his advices and an advice by Kristine Rausch that cost me a lot of time, energy and cash…


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## CJAnderson (Oct 29, 2014)

Chris Fox said:


> I think KKR assumed the readers of her blog already know. She means that people are writing the absolutely shortest possible work for KU borrows. Instead of a 65k novel, write a 13 episode serial and get 13 borrows instead of one.


Did the minds at Amazon not anticipate that from the start of KU?


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

I don't think it's possible to anticipate everythinng from the beginning.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I'm in love with this comment by Anon Author responding to one of the bitter old players' comments and am quoting it before it gets deleted over there:



> _I read with dismay and perhaps disgust the recent figures on the income of self-published authors. I have a hard time even earning the median income and I'm a professional and award-winning author of mysteries. My income declines every year even though I publish two new novels each year._
> 
> Readers are tricky folk. They sometimes ignore the fact that an author has won awards. They read what they read, and until Amazon and eBooks, they pretty much read what was put in front of them on B&M shelves or library shelves, picking and choosing amongst the offerings, selecting their own bestsellers. The publishers were never certain what would sell and so they followed a tactic of throwing a lot of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks - aka - what readers decide is worth spending money on. Publishers also bought coop so they could get the books out front and in the customer's face in an effort to sell those books over the ones left mouldering spine out on the shelves at the back of the store. Word of mouth and good marketing sells books.
> 
> ...


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Shelley K said:


> Oh, found it. Vilifying you only makes him look petty at this point. DWS used to be kind of a writing hero of mine. The 'with us or against us' mentality, our way or the wrong way, has eroded that. Then listening to him explain to the SPP guys, who were having wild success at the time with their Yesterday's Gone season packs, how they were doing it so wrong, broke my cringer.
> 
> I wish I could have read G.'s comments, though the context is hinted at by the replies.


G's main point was that he/she ... I'll just say "they" ... had switched from writing the genre closest to their heart and begun writing to market instead. They generally enjoyed writing what they wrote, even if it wasn't what they'd choose to read, and were grateful that writing to market (something KKR's post specifically criticizes) had allowed them to fulfill their dream and support themself as a writer. They saw nothing wrong with making that sort of choice and disagreed with the idea that writing to market = gaming the system. Their take on DWS and KKR was that, while some of their advice was valuable, neither had a good grasp on how to sell ebooks.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Chris Fox said:


> She means that people are writing the absolutely shortest possible work for KU borrows. Instead of a 65k novel, write a 13 episode serial and get 13 borrows instead of one.


As they should be. We aren't charities. We aren't going to add our novels to a system and take a loss to benefit Amazon.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Apparently pointing out issues and inconsistencies with his words and methods, and sharing my direct experience with said methods is considered "stalking" now. I guess our definitions differ on that word, lolz.

But really, they just can't handle dissent. They hate it. It's what ended our friendship, alas. I wish they were who I had tried to believe they were for four years, but they aren't and it became more and more obvious. Ditching their "marketing" and publishing advice was the best thing that ever happened to me, so I guess I can't be that sad.  What makes me sad is that they are still held up as experts, but so many people don't seem to actually examine what they say. I know listening to them as long as I did directly hurt my career, and I don't wish that on anyone else.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Looks like replies are closed on that article now. It's too bad, because many people were starting to ask G for pointers.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm really disappointed in PG's purge here. The very selective deletions do his friends a service, but are a disservice to everyone else who reads his site. 

Yuck.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm actually surprised he left my posts. I was far less diplomatic than the mysterious G. It's weird.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm surprised he left yours, too. That does muddy the waters.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

Perhaps G deleted his posts?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Moist_Tissue said:


> Perhaps G deleted his posts?


That is possible. I guess we'll probably never know. Regardless, the article and comments were entertaining if kind of sad.

Life in an echo chamber isn't healthy.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Moist_Tissue said:


> Perhaps G deleted his posts?


I hope that's the case, but I don't know why they would have. I've read G.'s comments there on a couple of different posts. They're spot on.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Moist_Tissue said:


> Perhaps G deleted his posts?


It's possible, though s/he would have had to ask for PG to do it since editing posts isn't possible after 30 mins there.

And to clarify- my issues with them are about their looseness with the truth and their marketing/publishing advice. If they weren't trying to sell themselves as experts to writers, I'd just shake my head at them and go away (which would be easy, because they wouldn't constantly be talked about in forums etc and would be much easier to ignore). But they are setting themselves up as experts and selling things to writers. Anyone selling themselves as experts should be able to handle examination and criticism, because savvy people looking for advice should question the advice-givers, especially when those people ask you to pay money for the privilege. It isn't unfair or mean to question someone selling information about their expertise and how good that information really is. If you see me as petty because I'm sharing my direct experiences with the things they teach, well... that's not on me. Sorry. They sell a product, I have years of experience with that product failing, and I'm going to call them out when they are giving out what is, in my experience and opinion, bad information.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Monique said:


> That is possible. I guess we'll probably never know. Regardless, the article and comments were entertaining if kind of sad.
> 
> Life in an echo chamber isn't healthy.


Hey, I am "the mysterious G." Lol.

No, I did not delete all or any of my posts. In point of fact, I appear to be banned from commenting on the Passive Voice in any way.

I tried to write another comment on a totally different thread today and it didn't go through...maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's a temp ban. Who knows?

I'm not totally clear what separated my comments out from others who seemed to be equally as critical of DWS and KKR's advice. I know that my tone can be very caustic, which I actually apologized to Dean for when we interacted on the thread itself. It seemed like we were cool by the end of it, but somehow I suppose not...

It kind of bummed me out that I got nuked, but then again, I can be very abrasive, so I shouldn't be too surprised. I also had a lot of comments, so perhaps Passive Guy just saw a ton of my comments, got some complaints and decided to hit me with the ban hammer.

Probably will never know, but it has left a slightly sour taste in my mouth. Despite my tone, I do generally try and provide advice and honesty around how to do well in this digital publishing game.

Thanks for all the kind words everyone.

-G


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> Here is what I think about it -- I'm tired to DEATH of being made to feel like trying to maximize profit is shameful.
> 
> My next book comes out on Sunday. It's 25K words. It's not cliffhangery, but it is very much intended to get people to pick up the second and third novellas in that trilogy. I could have written it all as one big book. But it separated itself very neatly and sweetly into three distinct acts, all of which have their own story question that I can answer within that act. So I went with three books to experiment with things like reader magnets and permafree and bundling. I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm tired of being made to feel like I should be ashamed of it.
> 
> ...


+1,000


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

There have been some seriously caustic remarks by many in the comments over the years. There's one guy who gets my dander up every time he posts--he's vicious. So I can't imagine your 'tude got you deleted. 

Changes my whole perspective on TPV.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

gorvnice said:


> Hey, I am "the mysterious G." Lol.
> 
> No, I did not delete all or any of my posts. In point of fact, I appear to be banned.
> 
> ...


I read all of your posts yesterday and thought they were respectful. You said a lot of things I agreed with. It's a shame that you were banned. I used to read TPV every day because it seemed "fair". Now, not so much. His bias is showing.

I also read DWS occasionally but after his responses yesterday....

I need to quit wasting time and get writing!


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Shelley K said:


> There have been some seriously caustic remarks by many in the comments over the years. There's one guy who gets my dander up every time he posts--he's vicious. So I can't imagine your 'tude got you deleted.
> 
> Changes my whole perspective on TPV.


Well if it wasn't my attitude then I wonder what it was?

Honestly, trying to give PG the benefit of the doubt, I sort of imagined him checking the site, seeing a firestorm with a bunch of my comments littering the page and just deciding to nuke me. It could happen--maybe he was in a bad mood and my tone annoyed him.

I really don't know, but he even deleted stuff I wrote that was just about ebook philosophy around marketing and promotions, stuff that literally had nothing negative about Dean or KKR or anything. it was strange.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> Well if it wasn't my attitude then I wonder what it was?
> 
> Honestly, trying to give PG the benefit of the doubt, I sort of imagined him checking the site, seeing a firestorm with a bunch of my comments littering the page and just deciding to nuke me. It could happen--maybe he was in a bad mood and my tone annoyed him.
> 
> I really don't know, but he even deleted stuff I wrote that was just about ebook philosophy around marketing and promotions, stuff that literally had nothing negative about Dean or KKR or anything. it was strange.


I don't know, since a couple of your comments are still there.

Anyway, kudos on your truthiness!  The truth just happens to hurt those invested in ignoring it.


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## Overrated (Mar 20, 2015)

gorvnice said:


> Hey, I am "the mysterious G." Lol.
> 
> No, I did not delete all or any of my posts. In point of fact, I appear to be banned from commenting on the Passive Voice in any way.
> 
> ...


I read all your comments before they were booted.

I'm not sure why they were. They were in opposition but respectful. More snark is still readily available in the comments section.

You were spot on.

I'm disappointed in TPV. I didn't expect to see that sort of moderation there. I don't post but I lurk and read the discussion and that discussion was shot completely to bits.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Shelley K said:


> I don't know, since a couple of your comments are still there.
> 
> Anyway, kudos on your truthiness!  The truth just happens to hurt those invested in ignoring it.


Thanks Shelley.  Yeah, the truth does sometimes hurt and I also could do better to buffer my tone from time to time.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Lisa Manifold said:


> I read all your comments before they were booted.
> 
> I'm not sure why they were. They were in opposition but respectful. More snark is still readily available in the comments section.
> 
> ...


Hmmmm...well, it seems most people here don't have a problem with what I was writing. Me being me, I'm a bit biased in favor of myself obviously. 

So I guess I don't know what was so offensive that I got banned.

Everyone goes after Mike Shatzkin on the Passive Voice when they reblog his stuff, and the commentary is sometimes really cruel. I've interacted with Shatzkin on his own site and he seems almost gun-shy from all of it. But if you engage him somewhat respectfully he's all right.

Occasionally people even say really mean, nasty stuff to him on his blog comments section and he still lets it stand.

So, whether you agree with his views or not, I say kudos to people like Shatzkin who can dish it out and take it.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

These last few posts have made me wonder something.
Nope never mind don't want to accuse an unknown of getting support ($$$) from a certain source.


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## AmberDa1 (Jul 23, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> Hey, I am "the mysterious G." Lol.
> 
> No, I did not delete all or any of my posts. In point of fact, I appear to be banned from commenting on the Passive Voice in any way.
> 
> ...


A lurker coming out to comment 
I read most of your comments too before they were deleted and I thought they were right on point.
I remember a lot of the good advice you used to post on KB
It was and is appreciated
Yours too, Annie B


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## Carriec (Jun 21, 2015)

A few different people have moderating privileges at TPV. It could be he doesn't even know the posts were removed.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

LOL, F&SF is in Kindle Unlimited. Great stories as always. Great stories that are just a bit overly clever and don't leave me wanting more. As always. Love/Hate since I first read an issue circa 1982.

_edited to remove odd hyperlink artifact. --Betsy_


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

**********


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Carriec said:


> A few different people have moderating privileges at TPV. It could be he doesn't even know the posts were removed.


I'm going to cling hard to that possibility. I really hope it's the case. TPV is a pillar of the indie community.

I'm guessing DWS is as annoyed as gorvnice and the rest of us are. The hack job on the comments makes DWS look like he needs someone to nix opposing views on his behalf. That's certainly not helpful to him. Everyone wants to look capable of fighting their own battles.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

The indie community isn't monolithic. Writers are profiting by using vastly divergent strategies. Camps form. Fights break out. It's going to happen. 


I'm here to learn every lesson that I can. Folks here are good at Amazon, but if I get into scriptwriting or contracting to write nonfiction, I don't see you folks being very useful. As I don't know where my career will go in the future, I want all the lessons, even the ones that don't work, because my situation will change, and what works will change as well.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Douglas Milewski said:


> I'm here to learn every lesson that I can. Folks here are good at Amazon, but if I get into scriptwriting or contracting to write nonfiction, I don't see you folks being very useful.


I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that this was simply poorly phrased and possibly written pre-coffee, and that I'm pre-coffee and not feeling in a generous mood this morning, but it's this kind of remark that makes me less likely to even want to post semi-helpful things in public any more.

Many of the things I learned in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing in other fields actually are translatable across fields. And when they're not, it's like someone telling you your degree in sociology means nothing because they've decided to become a mechanical engineer.

What it *feels* to me like you're telling us is that you're here to suck up all the knowledge some of us have spent years collecting through diligence and hard work, use it to your advantage to the extent you can without giving back or paying forward, then toss us away to be metaphorically euthanized because we no longer serve your needs.

So I'm going to get a cup of coffee now, then enjoy some snuggle time with the dogs and ponies and see if that changes my perspective any...


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

So I literally moved house from Wednesday to yesterday (finally got new living location unpacked and I have an office in a corner, yay!) and I missed most of the fun. Darn.

While I respect KKR and DWS a great deal and their posts on their blogs helped me get my own publishing business going, I too am tired of the "novels only" rhetoric that now permeates the indie world. Last year I was told by a ton of authors novellas would flop. Well, they didn't. And I received feedback from a slew of readers who LOVED that I trimmed the fat down to the captivating story they love to read. Of course not ALL novels are bloated messes of meandering scenes, but in my little teeny-tiny corner of the crossroads between historical fiction, fan fiction, and classic romance, most were (and some still are). There are published novels in my categories that are 600 pages long that word-for-word repeat long sections every time a specific action for the character happens. Like straight copy and paste job. I am not somehow better than those novels, we actually sell the same # of copies in the first 30 days. Sure, if you want to start critiquing the works, I would hope pieces with large repeated passages would not be higher value than a work that is original words throughout, but either way, that critique doesn't help me pay my bills. Sales do. And readers dictate what sells. 

There are MORE than enough longer works out there that if readers truly HATED the shorter works, they wouldn't sell. But they do. Short stories, novellas, serials, there is a large audience that loves them like they love their TV shows, on demand. Certainly, write that 400 page long historical fiction work or fantasy epic, but think for a second that IF it's ever picked for mass consumption media, it will likely be a miniseries, series, or mutliple movies. 

The bottom line is we are NOT authors. We are PUBLISHERS. A good publishing house has a wide variety of titles to turn a profit. I didn't fully grasp this in reality until I reached about 7 titles published and then my strategic thinking really began to change from looking at a release in the frame of its individual success to what it would do for the whole catalog of titles. Personally, I had to stop worrying about the people who tell me I can't do this or I can't do that and just DO. 

Finally, there is no either/or. I bundled the first 4 novellas of my series into a one year set. The first novella is free to help other vendors since I am out wide, and the individual novellas sell as does the boxed set. Readers who like what they like, short or long, will take what you give them and you can always make BOTH available.


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## TuckerAuthor (Jan 31, 2014)

I posted comments in support of the KKR article on her blog and over on TPV, but I had a different take on "gaming" than most people seemed to have gleaned from the article. Here's my last comment over at TPV in response to someone else who had taken umbrage to the article:



> I think lots of people are missing the point. And maybe it wasn't KKR's point from the article, but here's my take:
> 
> Regardless of whether you posted a thousand "How to Roast a Marshmallow in 10 Easy Steps" type of "books" or the next "War and Peace", for me the telling question is: How does the average reader feel when they are finished with your offering? Do they feel like it was worth the time they invested in reading?
> 
> ...


I, too, am disappointed G's comments were removed over there, even though he saw the article differently than I did. His replies were a bit caustic at times, but so were some others. G did become apologetic when Dean entered the fray (I think it is too easy to forget that people exist on the other side of the screen sometimes) but the exchange certainly seemed no more heated than others have been over there. Someone mentioned upthread that PG has other moderators and perhaps one of them allowed themselves to get too close and made a poor decision. Let's hope so.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

TuckerAuthor said:


> How does the average reader feel when they are finished with your offering? Do they feel like it was worth the time they invested in reading?
> 
> If the answer is overwhelmingly, "No", as is the case for many of the ultra short items on KU, then my conclusion is you are writing simply to game the system, not provide a meaningful product.


By your logic, then "The Goldfinch" was written to game the system. According to the stats I saw recently, the completion rate was 50%.

War and Peace is supposed to be a fantastic piece of literature. I read a few chapters and put it down. I just couldn't get through it.

I've read Checkov without any problems. Ditto for Shakespeare. Classics (US and International) as well as contemporary books.

Reading is subjective. And a good story has *nothing *to do with length.

I've read posts about "scamphlets" on KU. I've never run across one. So I don't have a problem with it interfering with books I'm interested in reading. If Amazon has a problem with "scamphlets" they would have done something about it. Remember, if you violate their TOS, they can ban your account. They didn't have to change the KU payout model to deal with "scamphlets".

It will be interesting to see how authors fare under the new model.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

TuckerAuthor said:


> but I had a different take on "gaming" than most people seemed to have gleaned from the article.


The author gave two examples of what she considered gaming. First was authors changing what they wrote in order to match what they thought an editor was looking for, and the second was authors figuring out the Amazon algorithms to decide what they should be writing. That's what people were responding too. If you gleaned something different than that from the article, you were overlaying your own personal opinions of what gaming means.

If the author had stated she thought gaming was putting things out there that would ultimate dissatisfy readers, she wouldn't have gotten the backlash she did. But the truth is, what she thinks is gaming IS an attempt to give readers what they want.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

MeganBryce said:


> A writer writes. A professional writer pays the bills, and writes what they love in the after-hours if they can't live on the books of their soul. And how is that any different from waitressing all day to pay the bills and writing in the after-hours? Can you be a good waitress when the job of your soul is to be a writer? Yes. Can you write a good book in a bill-paying genre when you don't personally like the genre? Yes.


Haven't writers/storytellers been doing this since humans started telling stories? Shakespeare wrote plays intended to put butts in seats, after all. If anything, we're going back to an earlier system, where the audience tells us if we're succeeding or failing, not the whims of an editor.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

MeganBryce said:


> I usually enjoy KKR's thursday articles but this one went over like a lead balloon. In the comments of her blog she says it makes her angry that writers will follow the money and write for genres they don't enjoy. So she did mean to say she considered that gaming and I think she's angry about it because she assumes the readers must be getting a poor read if a writer is only writing it for the money (I'm assuming because I don't know why she would be angry for the writer). But I disagree. A writer writes. A professional writer pays the bills, and writes what they love in the after-hours if they can't live on the books of their soul. And how is that any different from waitressing all day to pay the bills and writing in the after-hours? Can you be a good waitress when the job of your soul is to be a writer? Yes. Can you write a good book in a bill-paying genre when you don't personally like the genre? Yes.


I agree. The books I'm currently writing are all about the money. And there's nothing wrong with that because people enjoy reading them. I'm not scamming anyone. Authors have been doing this for centuries.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

MeganBryce said:


> A professional writer pays the bills, and writes what they love in the after-hours if they can't live on the books of their soul. And how is that any different from waitressing all day to pay the bills and writing in the after-hours? Can you be a good waitress when the job of your soul is to be a writer? Yes. Can you write a good book in a bill-paying genre when you don't personally like the genre? Yes.


Well put. I'd also say that for most writers, there's a range of stories they like to tell. Am I always writing the book that I want to write at that exact moment. No. But what I do is I look for the intersection between the stories I want to tell and the stories the market wants. Then I write those stories the best I can.

My first professional sale was to KKR in the dying days of her tenure at F&SF. I'll always be grateful to her for that. It gave me a boost when I really needed one and helped both me and other people see me as someone with a legitimate shot. The funny thing is that I _did_ try to game the system, to a certain extent. I'd taken a workshop from what was then called the Kris and Dean show, where they talked about their "story a week" plan to improve your writing and break into the market. Everyone in my writing group was fired up about this, but I was the only one who managed to stick with it for more than a couple of weeks.

Kris saw that I was trying to follow her method, and she began to give me valuable feedback. Eventually, she bought my story. It was one of the last that she bought, and I don't think she'd have done it if she hadn't been helping me and encouraging me. I was tailoring my approach to what she told me worked. And it did! I gamed my way right into the pages of F&SF.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

I also hate that so many critics of writing to market don't seem to understand that when many of us say we write in the genres that make us the most money as opposed to the one genre of our heart or whatever, that doesn't mean we don't enjoy the hell out of the genres we write in.

I mean, just speaking for myself, but I have a ton of story ideas, more than I could ever write in a lifetime. And they're in all different genres.  But the thing is, I don't have an absolute single favorite genre.  So when I ask myself 'which of these stories is most likely to sell best', it's simply another means of narrowing down my choices and making what story to write next an easier decision.  It says nothing about how much more or less I'll enjoy writing that story as opposed to other story options.

Just saying, 'which of my story ideas will sell best/fit the market best' and 'which of my story ideas will I enjoy writing most' are not as mutually exclusive of questions as critics of writing to market want to portray them as.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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## TuckerAuthor (Jan 31, 2014)

dianapersaud said:


> By your logic, then "The Goldfinch" was written to game the system. According to the stats I saw recently, the completion rate was 50%.
> 
> War and Peace is supposed to be a fantastic piece of literature. I read a few chapters and put it down. I just couldn't get through it.
> 
> ...


Of course reading is subjective. Otherwise we wouldn't have such a wide variety of stories out there. And I never said length had anything to do with a good story.

There are many works throughout history that have been acclaimed by the relatively small (compared to all regular readers) group of academicians and literary critics that never achieved popularity with the general populace. While I don't think the Goldfinch was written to game a system, I do believe it may have been over-hyped by its publisher and the literary community. Time will tell. I don't think making the leap from 10-page click bait stories to the Goldfinch is really relevant, though.

I've heard many more people complain about the "scamphlets" than not, and I think the payout change is designed to not only curb them, but to address the ongoing complaints from authors of longer form works about the inequality of the payment system. I don't know anyone who's ever walked into a bookstore and expected to pay the same price for a single short story as a full novel. (Not that you could find a single printed short story, which is one of the beauties of the digital age.) Printed collections of short stories charge the same because they are of similar length.


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## TuckerAuthor (Jan 31, 2014)

swolf said:


> The author gave two examples of what she considered gaming. First was authors changing what they wrote in order to match what they thought an editor was looking for, and the second was authors figuring out the Amazon algorithms to decide what they should be writing. That's what people were responding too. If you gleaned something different than that from the article, you were overlaying your own personal opinions of what gaming means.
> 
> If the author had stated she thought gaming was putting things out there that would ultimate dissatisfy readers, she wouldn't have gotten the backlash she did. But the truth is, what she thinks is gaming IS an attempt to give readers what they want.


After reading the tidal wave of comments and re-reading her article, I can certainly see how people came to that conclusion, whether she intended it or not. Regardless, I'm happy to see the change in KU payout philosophy from Amazon. The end results may still turn out unsatisfactory, but I think they stand a better chance of being equitable than the previous system.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Kalen ODonnell said:


> I also hate that so many critics of writing to market don't seem to understand that when many of us say we write in the genres that make us the most money as opposed to the one genre of our heart or whatever, that doesn't mean we don't enjoy the hell out of the genres we write in.
> 
> I mean, just speaking for myself, but I have a ton of story ideas, more than I could ever write in a lifetime. And they're in all different genres. But the thing is, I don't have an absolute single favorite genre. So when I ask myself 'which of these stories is most likely to sell best', it's simply another means of narrowing down my choices and making what story to write next an easier decision. It says nothing about how much more or less I'll enjoy writing that story as opposed to other story options.
> 
> Just saying, 'which of my story ideas will sell best/fit the market best' and 'which of my story ideas will I enjoy writing most' are not as mutually exclusive of questions as critics of writing to market want to portray them as.


Where are those critics of writing to market?

If anything it is writers who write the stories they feel need to be written who are reviled as unprofessional and naive. And some other terms, which I'm sure are against forum decorum, were regularly used as well.

It seems that if your primary goal isn't making as much money as possible, you can't be a "professional" writer, according to some.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Dragovian said:


> Haven't writers/storytellers been doing this since humans started telling stories? Shakespeare wrote plays intended to put butts in seats, after all. *If anything, we're going back to an earlier system, where the audience tells us if we're succeeding or failing, not the whims of an editor.*


Exactly.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

I'm a little surprised that she's surprised. Writers have been writing to the market since there's been a market to write to. Of all people, I would've thought a former editor of a genre fiction magazine would be aware of this, especially since "market expectations" have been institutionalized in both genre conventions and editorial processes. A developmental editor, after all, is really a kind of market-conformity specialist who makes sure your prose, characters, plot, and pacing align with genre (read: market) expectations. You can actually see this process in action in film and TV: Anyone remember how Mulder lost much of his weirdness and his obsession with porn as the show's popularity grew? Anyone remember how the film version of _I am Legend _ended (might've been a bad choice, but it was ostensibly done to please the market)?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

D. Zollicoffer said:


> I agree. The books I'm currently writing are all about the money. And there's nothing wrong with that because people enjoy reading them. I'm not scamming anyone. Authors have been doing this for centuries.


YES.

Writing great stories is part talent and part skill. Being successful in business requires smarts. If you have all three, it doesn't really matter if you write one genre or another. You apply your talents and skills and produce a novel that readers either enjoy or not. If you write a novel that readers enjoy, there is no gaming of the system.

The suggestion that writing to the market is gaming the system sounds a whole lot like sour grapes from someone whose heartfelt soulbaring fiction not written for the market is not selling well enough.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> Where are those critics of writing to market?
> 
> If anything it is writers who write the stories they feel need to be written who are reviled as unprofessional and naive. And some other terms, which I'm sure are against forum decorum, were regularly used as well.
> 
> It seems that if your primary goal isn't making as much money as possible, you can't be a "professional" writer, according to some.


KKR suggests that if you write to market you are gaming the system. There are a LOT of people who agree. All you have to do is start a thread on how to succeed in today's market and talk about writing to the market and you will find the critics.

Writers are free to write whatever they want. The market decides if what they write will find readers.

If a writer want to _make a living as a published author_, and that is the definition of being a "profession writer" then writing whatever their heart desires may not result in a professional income because there may not be a market for the "stories they feel need to be written". It's that simple.

I always encourage everyone to write the story they want to write. But if you want to be a professional author, if you want to make a living as a published author, then you may not be able to write exactly what your heart desires. You may have to write the kind of book that has an audience.

For me, writing books and making a living off my book sales is what my heart desires, so it doesn't matter to me whether I am writing paranormal or contemporary or erotic romance -- or mystery, or thriller or SF or high fantasy. I would like to write any of those genres. I want to write novels, period.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Sela said:


> KKR suggests that if you write to market you are gaming the system. There are a LOT of people who agree. All you have to do is start a thread on how to succeed in today's market and talk about writing to the market and you will find the critics.


Maybe so. But I'm not KKR, and I know from personal experience that if you start a thread how to find readers for your not-so-mainstream book(s), within a few posts someone will come and say, "You're doing it wrong. You should research the market and write what people want." It is a completely valid approach, but not what some of us want to do. When that is explained, the reaction is something like, "Oh, excuse me for being a complete idiot and wanting to make money. I have three kids who need a roof above their head and who like to eat. Sorry, that I'm alive." Which is NOT was was said or implied. This can devolve in accusations of being arty-farty, thinking we are Shakespeare, etc. After the snark usually comes, "Why are you even in this thread since you seem to despise money?" Eh... because we started it and we _do_ like money. We just want to make it, or at least as much as possible, with the books we write because we think it's important we write them. "Well, see, that's why you're unprofessional. You should write to market. You're an idiot, and I know what I'm talking about because I have the sales records to prove it, but hey, if you think you know better, be my guest and stay a hobbyist. And poor." And so on and so on...

Not writing to market (and still wanting to optimize your chances of making money) is not tantamount to criticizing those who do.

I've seldom read posts _here_ saying making money with writing was reprehensible. I've read dozens of posts ridiculing those for who money *wasn't* the *absolutely most important* reason they wrote and published.

I agree that it seems KKR is suggesting that writing to market is the same as gaming the system, and that _is_ ridiculous.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I do find it ironic that someone like KKR who has written tie-in and work-for-hire fiction is saying writing to market is gaming a system. I'm sure though that she totally loved those work-for-hire books and would have written them for free. Totally


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Annie B said:


> I do find it ironic that someone like KKR who has written tie-in and work-for-hire fiction is saying writing to market is gaming a system. I'm sure though that she totally loved those work-for-hire books and would have written them for free. Totally


Honestly, I'd like to know if she's pro-fanfic. After all, fanfic writers are the ultimate "writing for love" writers.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> Maybe so. But I'm not KKR, and I know from personal experience that if you start a thread how to find readers for your not-so-mainstream book(s), within a few posts someone will come and say, "You're doing it wrong. You should research the market and write what people want." It is a completely valid approach, but not what some of us want to do. When that is explained, the reaction is something like, "Oh, excuse me for being a complete idiot and wanting to make money. I have three kids who need a roof above their head and who like to eat. Sorry, that I'm alive." Which is NOT was was said or implied. This can devolve in accusations of being arty-farty, thinking we are Shakespeare, etc. After the snark usually comes, "Why are you even in this thread since you seem to despise money?" Eh... because we started it and we _do_ like money. We just want to make it, or at least as much as possible, with the books we write because we think it's important we write them. "Well, see, that's why you're unprofessional. You should write to market. You're an idiot, and I know what I'm talking about because I have the sales records to prove it, but hey, if you think you know better, be my guest and stay a hobbyist. And poor." And so on and so on...
> 
> Not writing to market (and still wanting to optimize your chances of making money) is not tantamount to criticizing those who do.
> 
> ...


I had similar experiences here, which is part of the reason why I don't post very much anymore. And for the record, I have absolutely no problem with people writing purely to market, if that's what they want to do. But some people have other goals and that doesn't automatically make them invalid or unprofessional. Everybody must find their own path.

As for KKR's post, I didn't read it as a criticism of writing to market. And considering that KKR and DWS have both written in multiple genres, have written tie-in work, ghostwritten work, etc... I don't think they're the people to make a claim that writing to market is bad either, because they have done it. I read her post as a criticism of practices like copy and paste non-fiction scamlets, novels randomly chopped up to turn them into serials (which is not the same thing as an actual serial or series), copying bestselling indie books and their presentation within an inch of the plagiarism line (again not seeing what sells and writing something similar, but deliberately copying plots, blurbs, cover design details, even authors names). That's what I see as the gaming of the system KKR speak of. Realising that e.g. were-unicorn erotica is selling really well and then thinking, "Hey, I've got an idea for a great were-unicorn erotica story" is not really gaming the system in this sense, just maybe nudging it a little.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

CoraBuhlert said:


> As for KKR's post, I didn't read it as a criticism of writing to market. And considering that KKR and DWS have both written in multiple genres, have written tie-in work, ghostwritten work, etc... I don't think they're the people to make a claim that writing to market is bad either, because they have done it. I read her post as a criticism of practices like copy and paste non-fiction scamlets, novels randomly chopped up to turn them into serials (which is not the same thing as an actual serial or series), copying bestselling indie books and their presentation within an inch of the plagiarism line (again not seeing what sells and writing something similar, but deliberately copying plots, blurbs, cover design details, even authors names). That's what I see as the gaming of the system KKR speak of. Realising that e.g. were-unicorn erotica is selling really well and then thinking, "Hey, I've got an idea for a great were-unicorn erotica story" is not really gaming the system in this sense, just maybe nudging it a little.


Once again, I think you're overlaying your opinions of what 'gaming' is over what KKR actually wrote. She gave two examples of what she meant by 'gaming':



> For example, when I edited The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I stumbled on a writing article in which some newbie writer claimed to have found "the secret" to selling short stories to me. That writer analyzed every story in every issue I had my byline on up until that point, found common elements, and told the writers reading his essay that I looked for those elements.





> Some of them found a new way to game the system, still with Kindle Unlimited, figuring out the new algorithms and what those writers "should" be writing in order to win the big prize-which is, either, some imagined (unprovable) bonus to their bestseller rankings or part of the Prize Pool.


No discussion there about the topics that you consider gaming. Perhaps that's what she meant, and she gave examples that were completely opposite to what she was trying to get across, but I doubt it.

If she had actually wrote what you think she wrote, she wouldn't be getting the blowback she's receiving.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

If you've ever talked to magazine or anthology editors, many of them report the same phenomenon KKR talks about with regard to F&SF, namely that they receive a lot of submissions that try to hit all the boxes what some writers believe these editors want. And most editors are no more thrilled about such submissions than KKR, particularly if they get a lot of them.

And while KKR is somewhat vague about what she means by "gaming the system" with regard to KU, probably because the post was already long enough, things like copy and past scamlets or novels randomly chopped up into serials are all well known phenomena that arose in response to KU. 

It seems that you are deeply offended by what KKR wrote, but I don't know why you feel the need to attack anybody who disagrees with your interpretation of her words. Personally, I don't care if anybody writes were-unicorn erotica purely to take advantage of KU borrows (that's only an example, apologies if anybody here actually does write were-unicorn erotica). If that's what you want to do, then more power to you.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

CoraBuhlert said:


> If you've ever talked to magazine or anthology editors, many of them report the same phenomenon KKR talks about with regard to F&SF, namely that they receive a lot of submissions that try to hit all the boxes what some writers believe these editors want. And most editors are no more thrilled about such submissions than KKR, particularly if they get a lot of them.
> 
> And while KKR is somewhat vague about what she means by "gaming the system" with regard to KU, probably because the post was already long enough, things like copy and past scamlets or novels randomly chopped up into serials are all well known phenomena that arose in response to KU.
> 
> It seems that you are deeply offended by what KKR wrote, but I don't know why you feel the need to attack anybody who disagrees with your interpretation of her words. Personally, I don't care if anybody writes were-unicorn erotica purely to take advantage of KU borrows (that's only an example, apologies if anybody here actually does write were-unicorn erotica). If that's what you want to do, then more power to you.


Not sure why you think I'm attacking you. And I'm not deeply offended. I'm just stating the facts as I see them.

And I'm not interpreting her words at all. I'm quoting what she actually said. You seem to be the one assuming she meant something other than what she actually wrote.

No one is going to get upset by anyone complaining about authors gaming the system by using copy-and-paste scamlets, near plagiarism, copying plots, blurbs, or cover designs. All legitimate authors are upset by those kinds of things. If that was the focus of her complaints, there wouldn't have been anywhere near this much disagreement in the comments.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

I can understand both sides. Right now I'm writing for the market, but I'm also slowly chipping away on some pet projects. So that's my long term plan. Have a massive backlog that pays the bills, and then I'll be free to write whatever. Honestly, I'd recommend this for anyone who wants to go full-time as quickly as possible. 

Look at actors. A lot of them take whatever they can get early on because they want to act.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

MeganBryce said:


> I really wonder if we are talking about the same kind of "professional".
> 
> From Google definitions: professional
> (of a person) engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.
> ...


According to your definition, a lot of trad-pub authors with lengthy careers, including a whole lot of award winners, would not be professional authors either, since they have day jobs.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

MeganBryce said:


> I really wonder if we are talking about the same kind of "professional".
> 
> From Google definitions: professional
> (of a person) engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.
> ...


No, we aren't talking about the same kind "professional."

As a professional, I get my definitions from a dictionary, in this case Merriam-Webster:

I refer to these meanings:

*A. "participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs"*

Note that the activity is engaged in for gain *or* livelihood, not exclusively livelihood. An amateur would be someone who writes e.g. Fan Fiction for free. Let me hasten to stress that there is nothing wrong with this.

Let me also stress that I don't write for free.

*B. "of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession"*

and a profession is:

*"a type of job that requires special education, training, or skill"*

No monetary gain required.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

MeganBryce said:


> So now we know we aren't talking about the same kind of professional. But my definition is what I mean when I use it, and I would guess by your posts that others have used the same word to you, perhaps with my meaning, and you were insulted that they didn't consider you a professional according to your definition. I'm just saying that might not have been what they meant.


I (originally) took exception to someone who said that writers-to-market were sometimes looked down upon here. That's just not the case.

I'm not in the least insulted by what others think. Which doesn't mean I won't tell you when I think your narrow down the definition of a word in an unacceptable way trying to prove one of your theories.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

A job is something you do for money.  If you work for someone for free, that's called a favor, not a job 

I'm pretty sure KKR believes writers should be paid for their work. I mean, even she begs for donations at the end of every blog post saying that she wouldn't write them if she didn't get paid for it... so...

However, she also seems to believe that you should write first and ignore any market considerations until you are done, which is something she and I disagree with. I used to agree with her, and I made no money because I was writing whatever instead of paying attention to readers and what they might like. I now make sure I have my potential readership in mind no matter what I write and I make a very good living. Writing to market isn't gaming a system, it's being smart in my experience and opinion.  A lot of people jumped on the opportunities that KU afforded and took advantage of them. Most of those people weren't writing scamlets.  Being intelligent and paying attention to what the readership you want is buying and how they are buying it in order to maximize profits isn't gaming anything.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

MeganBryce said:


> Yes, that's right. A lot of writers I really enjoy reading are teachers, who write. Or lawyers, who write. (A lot of lawyers, I don't know why.) Being able to quit your day job used to be a huge milestone for writers because it was rare. It was feast or famine. You couldn't be a professional writer unless you were a huge name because the money just wasn't there.


Funny how writers are the only part of the tradpub industry _expected_ to have a real job because "the money just [isn't] there", but everyone else involved has a real job with a (presumably) living wage, because why else would they be doing it.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

MeganBryce said:


> At a cocktail party...
> 
> "So, what do you do?"
> 
> ...


Your definition of professional is a little idiosyncratic. Doctors who volunteer fulltime are still professionals, are they not? Or take me. I have a fulltime job editing and writing, does that make me a professional writer? On your definition, it seems, I have stronger claim to being a professional writer than someone who's had five novels traditionally published but still works a non-writing day job.

A worse problem, maybe, is that your definition implies that someone who writes fulltime making $25k/year off three books is a _professional_, while one of those lawyers who makes $150k/year from his 12 books is an _amateur_ because he still works fulltime lawyering (at $200k/year). Making a living doing something is relative to the person and his or her circumstances, after all, so I don't know think it's the best way to distinguish professionals from amateurs.

None of this is meant as a refutation, by the way; I just think your definition of professional writer is lacking something is the way of...solidity.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I'd just like to point out the IRS distinguishes amateur (or maybe they call it hobbyist) and professional based on whether or not you make money, and you don't have to "make a living" to be a professional, just make money period. I say that because back in the days when I raised horses, you could call your horse business a business and deduct losses against other income IF you made money a certain number of years out of so many. There were no rules as to how much money you had to make in those profitable years either, although generally it was accepted it couldn't be a token profit. My recollection is the standard was 2 out of 7 years, but it's been awhile. While that specific rule may have changed, the IRS's attitude about what constitutes a business and can be taxed hasn't.

You get bounced out of amateur classes and are considered a professional at both horse and dog shows if you ever take money to ride/handle someone else's animal.

I'm with Andrew - if you make money at your writing, you're a professional. And I don't think the way you answer nosy inquiries about what you do for a living has anything to do with it.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Andrew Ashling said:


> I (originally) took exception to someone who said that writers-to-market were sometimes looked down upon here. That's just not the case.


I think you took exception to my post. To me a professional author is someone who makes their living through their writing. That's all. You use the term differently. Hence, we are talking at cross purposes.

It's the difference between noun and adverb.

You can act _professionally_ without being a _professional_.

But in my view, you can't be a professional unless you make your living as an author. The reason I think it should mean "making a living" is that anyone can publish a book and sell 10 copies and call themselves a professional. It would be like me calling myself a professional card player after playing for $5 at a casino. It's like the difference between a pro baseball player and amateur. There has to be some kind of dividing line in terms of income or else the term is meaningless.

That's how I define it. You can be an author who does not make a living at it, but still act _professionally_, as in take classes and hire editors and book cover designers, and attend conferences, do book launches, blog tours, send out ARCs, etc. Not all professional authors act professionally. 

As to the perception of authors who write to market, look back at some of the threads on how to succeed in the market and you will see that yes, a lot of people admire those authors, but there were also authors who implied you couldn't write quality if you wrote fast, if you were trying to write to trends, etc. it would show in the quality of the writing, the implication being you are a hack if you look at writing as a business rather than an art. If you weren't writing that book that expresses your innermost soul as an artist, you were a sell out, or not a real author, etc.

Anyway, YMMV.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Well, I say I'm a professional quilter.  I could never live off of what I make, but I do do it for money.



Betsy


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

dianapersaud said:


> By your logic, then "The Goldfinch" was written to game the system. According to the stats I saw recently, the completion rate was 50%.
> <snip>


I don't get all this ranking on "The Goldfinch." Which I admit not reading. But it sold ten thousand paperback copies last week, which isn't too shabby. Is it really that bad?

Oh, and do you want to know what a scamphlet is? Just go over to ACX and look at the books offered for royalty share. e.g.

http://www.acx.com/titleview/AKYXGL3IUG950/ref=acx_ts_sr_rh_p1_4

or this (same author) - there were a whole series of short non-fiction titles that came out a few months ago with celebrity author names.

http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Benefits-Uses-Coconut-Oil-ebook/dp/B0103H4744

Sorry to drag this out. Can we put a fork in it?


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

> as in take classes and hire editors and book cover designers, and attend conferences, do book launches, blog tours, send out ARCs


That's acting professional? Seriously? 

And all this time I've just been writing books that sell well.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> I (originally) took exception to someone who said that writers-to-market were sometimes looked down upon here. That's just not the case.
> 
> I'm not in the least insulted by what others think. Which doesn't mean I won't tell you when I think your narrow down the definition of a word in an unacceptable way trying to prove one of your theories.


It was my post that you quoted originally, and I never said writing to market was looked down upon here. So I'm not sure why you took exception to it specifically. I was responding in a thread about KKR's stance, a stance which you also agreed stated that writing to market was gaming the system. So I'm honestly confused why you chose it to make your point that this isn't a particular stance which is widely catered to on this particular forum. I never claimed it was. I simply referenced critics of writing to market - of which KKR, the subject of this thread - happens to be one, hence my reply in this thread. This isn't the only writing-focused online community I participate in, and I wasn't limiting my reply simply to experiences on this particular forum.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but it has nothing to do with anything I said. I've personally never seen any purpose in placing judgments on why other writers choose to write or how they choose to define themselves. What each individual writer considers being 'a professional' is entirely up to them in my opinion and nothing to do with me. I only responded to this thread to express my thoughts on one particular argument critics of one particular writing stance make.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Rykymus said:


> That's acting professional? Seriously?
> 
> And all this time I've just been writing books that sell well.


 

It depends on how well they sell. 

Some people stumble onto success. They write a book that sells well without any other intervention besides Amazon algorithms. Others figure it out through trial and error and do what they can to help it along. Traditional book publishers had staff that did all those things for a book.

If you do none of those things and make a living selling your books, more power to you!


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

It sounds like she thinks if you figure out what works and earn a living you're gaming the system. What's wrong with all you scammers on here trying to figure out what sells books. Shame on you!


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## Stephanie Marks (Feb 16, 2015)

You don't have to make a living at being a writer for the IRS/Revenue Canada etc to consider you a professional! A lot of tax stuff when declaring your writing income comes down to "intent", when determining if you are a business or if it's a hobby.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

We are all suffering from a nasty bout of semantics. 

The concept of "professional writer" does become problematic in say my genre where we have some authors who write and publish for fun/hobby/bucket list a book or two a year and have some other stream of income that is primary. Where this becomes a problem is in groups of authors where one author is literally putting food on her table because her spouse is out of work and the other author has no dire need for royalties. The work ethics rarely match up. The philosophies rarely match up. And at times, the "hobbyist" professional author is very holier-than-thou about what other authors should or should not do, such as ONLY write novels and don't you dare price them above $3.99. 

So I have adopted the term "working writer." I am a working writer in that I work at this day in, day out. Others in my genre who are doing a different job 9-5 or are retired and having fun are NOT "working writers," though they absolutely are professionals.

My husband plays in a band of three guys who get together once a week to jam. Every few weeks, they would play a bar and get paid. But none of them would say "I'm a professional guitarist." So I think one sense of the word for people is where are you making your living and the other sense of the word is what is your behavior in the industry and yet another is are you getting paid for it? What form the word takes completely depends on the context and what the other person you are speaking with is expecting. 

Don't we just LOVE the English language and its nuance? 

But I have to go game the system some more, I mean, write more books.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

MeganBryce said:


> I should start a new thread...
> 
> When someone asks what you do, what do you say?


I have multiple income streams. I'm a writer and a freelance translator.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

Weird, I make a living, but I don't consider myself a professional. Guess I'm selling myself short lol


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

My reaction to the article was completely negative, so it's funny that I find myself here defending KKR. 

There are two kinds of writing to market. There's writing to market in the sense of picking and choosing what project of the many you have in mind that you want to write next based on what is likely to sell. If you write PNR, writing werewolves instead of vampires makes sense in the current market. With KU writing a serial or novella instead of a long epic novel made sense. I think KKR choose poorly with her anecdote about people writing specifically to sell to F&SF because there are all kinds of ways that you can do that and in no way compromise your craft. 

There's a different kind of writing to market that's shown up in the indie community though: people who have no feel or care for the genre they're writing in whatsoever and are doing it as some kind of dodge to avoid getting a real job. Maybe I'm a bit more sensitive to this because I write romance and that's a genre that sells big so people want to get into it. It's also a genre that a lot of people have really snide opinions about being easy to write. But how many times have seen seen someone on a message board who says basically "Hi. I've never read a romance before. What sells?" Um. Go out and read. Go pick up the top 10. Do the same thing for a month or two. Find out if you like it or care enough to write it. Immerse yourself in the genre. And yes, when I read someone explaining it's too much work to read a couple of romance novels if you want to be a romance novelist, like KKR I'm offended by the attitude.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2015)

Annie B said:


> A job is something you do for money. If you work for someone for free, that's called a favor, not a job
> 
> I'm pretty sure KKR believes writers should be paid for their work. I mean, even she begs for donations at the end of every blog post saying that she wouldn't write them if she didn't get paid for it... so...
> 
> However, she also seems to believe that you should write first and ignore any market considerations until you are done, which is something she and I disagree with. I used to agree with her, and I made no money because I was writing whatever instead of paying attention to readers and what they might like. I now make sure I have my potential readership in mind no matter what I write and I make a very good living. Writing to market isn't gaming a system, it's being smart in my experience and opinion. A lot of people jumped on the opportunities that KU afforded and took advantage of them. Most of those people weren't writing scamlets. Being intelligent and paying attention to what the readership you want is buying and how they are buying it in order to maximize profits isn't gaming anything.


The difference in writing to market and writing what you want is black and white.

I wrote what I wanted for all my life and published 4 novels and several novellas in the same vogue. Sales were almost zip ( made 100 dollars in a year) but gave away free books which led to a storm of horrible, hateful reviews.

Since then, I changed gears and learned paranormal romance. I wrote to market. And I sucked at first - still got them horrible reviews. Until ... I got better. And then made a living at it.

There was no other way for me. And the biggest hurdle was breaking through that wall of 'integrity' as an 'artist'.

Now I'm on the other side, I still have integrity, and everything I believed before was an indulgent crock.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Sela said:


> I think you took exception to my post.


No.



Sela said:


> But in my view, you can't be a professional unless you make your living as an author. The reason I think it should mean "making a living" is that anyone can publish a book and sell 10 copies


In _my_ view your interpretation of the word is too limiting. The dictionary has another view. Several of them, actually. 

I do make a living by doing a few things. Writing is one of them.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

If the end product is good and readers enjoy it... who cares what the motivation of the writer is? Readers sure don't.  

I write for money as I am a professional and this is my day (and night, heh) job. I am fortunate to write things I like to read, mostly by choice but also because what I like to read is marketable. If it weren't, I'd write what was. Getting paid and getting read are awesome enough motivation that I don't have to write what I love, those things can help me love what I write no matter what it is.

That's not gaming anything. That's writing good books that readers want to read. Motivation is personal and I could care less WHY someone wrote a book as long as the book satisfies readers.

After all, isn't this profession about giving readers books they want? I'm not going to police someone's motivation. That's just silly, and tends to come off as petty and bitter.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Kalen ODonnell said:


> It was my post that you quoted originally, and I never said writing to market was looked down upon here.


This was the passage.



> I also hate that so many critics of writing to market don't seem to understand that when many of us say we write in the genres that make us the most money as opposed to the one genre of our heart or whatever, that doesn't mean we don't enjoy the hell out of the genres we write in.


1. There aren't all that many critics of writing to market here. Speaking for myself, I don't write to market myself, but I'm not a critic either.

2. In many threads those of us who don't write to market have been ridiculed. So, in my, granted, subjective experience it's the other way around.

Then all this gave rise to the professional-discussion. 

And frankly, I'm on record as not giving a hoot about being called a professional or not. But you don't get to redefine or restrict the meaning of words to fit your theories either.


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## D. Zollicoffer (May 14, 2014)

Something I'd like to add (not really directed at anyone): You can write for market and still inject your personality into your books. IMHO, this is better than trying to imitate best selling authors. Find a popular genre and put your own twist on it (while hitting all the main points like HEA or HFN if you're writing romance).


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## Kenzi (Jul 28, 2014)

Annie B said:


> After all, isn't this profession about giving readers books they want? I'm not going to police someone's motivation. That's just silly, and tends to come off as petty and bitter.


Thumbs up. People should spend less time worrying about why other people are writing and more time concentrating on their own careers.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Annie B said:


> After all, isn't this profession about giving readers books they want? I'm not going to police someone's motivation. That's just silly, and tends to come off as petty and bitter.


For most it is about giving readers the books they want. For others it may be giving them the books they don't know they want. Or the books the author thinks they need. Or just the pure joy of presenting them with something unique. If your primary motivation is making money, the last three options may backfire in a major way, let me tell you. 

MacDonald's gives people the food they want, and they make good money doing it. There are restaurants where you pay a fortune, and you don't even get to choose what you're eating. The Chef decides for you. There's room for all kinds of business models.

Let's just respect each other's choices.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Kenzi said:


> Thumbs up. People should spend less time worrying about why other people are writing and more time concentrating on their own careers.


Seems to me like the only people who care if a writer is considered writing professionally and all definitions thereof are other writers.

I doubt readers care very much at all.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

But even if I go to a fancy Chef's choice restaurant and get food I don't like... I won't be back and I'd probably tell everyone I know that the place is no good. No matter how unique/cool/whatever it is. So that chef still better think about who they are feeding and what those people might want


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Annie B said:


> But even if I go to a fancy Chef's choice restaurant and get food I don't like... I won't be back and I'd probably tell everyone I know that the place is no good. No matter how unique/cool/whatever it is. So that chef still better think about who they are feeding and what those people might want


No. I know restaurants that have evenings like these. If you ask for another wine with a certain dish, you will be told that is not possible. If you insist, you will be asked to leave. Much in the same manner as when you were to insist for your food and a glass of Chardonnay to be brought to your table at MacDonald's.

So, okay, you won't go anymore... but maybe enough others would.

Or, possibly, that would be the backfiring part I mentioned.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

The thing about writing to market is that the market is never static.

When Ron Moore developed the modern Battlestar Galactica, he chose to avoid writing to market. In his opinion, he created a show that fans didn't know to ask for. 

In any market, there is a risk and opportunity curve. At one end, we've always had hacks who wrote books to the current market. Some became classics, but most didn't. On the other end, there are visionary works, some of which became classic, but most didn't. On balance, it's always easier to sell something that people are already looking for, but finding a new or underserved market can be even more lucrative.


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Never mind.  Settled through pm.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Writing is an art.  Publishing is the business of selling that art.  I wouldn't be in business if I was limited to writing only activities.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Sela said:


> ... To me a professional author is someone who makes their living through their writing. ...
> 
> Anyway, YMMV.


Change the sentence to read "a professional author is someone who makes _money_ through their writing," and I totally agree.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> The difference in writing to market and writing what you want is black and white.


Sorry, but simply not true for everyone. Just because something is true for you, it doesn't apply to every other writer.



> Change the sentence to read "a professional author is someone who makes money through their writing," and I totally agree.


I agree 100%. In many fields once you accept ANY form of payment for your work you are considered "professional" status.

I, too, have seen the posts where people jump on someone saying they are simply looking for ways to find "their" readers, not make a certain amount of money and tell them they have to write to market. Or when someone says they have to write what's inside them someone jumps on and calls artists "special snowflakes". Frankly, the way some people on here have looked down their noses at those who don't write to market is sad and unprofessional. They may be making professional sized incomes, but they sure don't act professional. And, no, I'm not saying everyone on here who makes a living with their books has done this. (Another thing about kboards that frustrates me is how kneejerk people are about a statement. Some means some, not all.)

Maybe it would be helpful if when someone does start a post asking how to find readers for a less popular type of book, only those who actually KNEW how to do so would reply, instead of those who feel they know better than the author and should guide them to another way of writing. There is room for both in writing.

As far as people replying about their career...I have seldom heard anyone call themselves a professional something or other. It sounds pompous.They might say, "I play tight end for the Minnesota Vikings." or "I'm a sugeon." or "I'm a race car driver." But a professional something or other? Not often said.

When people ask me, it depends on my mood. If I'm feeling playful, "I lie for a living. I write fiction. And I paint, telling myself my paintings actually matter"  Most times I just say, "I write novels and I paint." People will ask what types of books or paintings, but they have never asked what I'm paid. They have asked if I am making a full-time living. I can finally say, as of 2015, "Yes." And that was from books I wanted to write, making me one of those "special snowflakes." I also realize it could change in a heartbeat. I've also discovered I loved writing psychological fiction, so I'm sticking with it and--since I don't have a burning story dying to get out right now--I'm writing to that market. It scared the hell out of me, wondering if I could do it. But I've discovered I can and while doing so I can still write the characters, backgrounds, and moods of the books that I love, can still try to make people think and feel.

I also absolutely LOVE writing gay mm romance, so I do.

But, make no mistake, if another story comes along that eats at my soul, I'll stop and write it, regardless of where it "fits".  That's just how a "special snowflake" rolls...or should I say "falls"?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Adding to Caddy's post... some amateur writing contests consider you a professional if you have ever had anything published whether you got paid or just the book/magazine/nothing it was published in.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

Caddy said:


> When people ask me, it depends on my mood. If I'm feeling playful, "I lie for a living..."


My daughter works in sales and marketing. I pick on her about it, saying that she does the same thing!


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

T. M. Bilderback said:


> My daughter works in sales and marketing. I pick on her about it, saying that she does the same thing!


I never wrote as much fiction as I did when I wrote marketing copy.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Shelley K said:


> I never wrote as much fiction as I did when I wrote marketing copy.


Oh, yeah. 20 years of advertising sales here. "Make 'em believe they need what they don't need."


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

.


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