Summing Up July 2017

I’ve been reveling in a chance to be productive and at home after a summer so full of travel, and have been getting at least 1-2k words in on most days, plus I’ve gotten back to early morning gym runs, so hurray me and boo for the fact that it stays dark later and later every day.

It’s very much fall and drizzling rain here. The raccoons have devoured the last of the grapes from the grapevine, shelf fungi has sprouted at several points on the front porch, and we’re experiencing an invasion of Seattle’s notorious Giant House Spiders, so I feel ready for October. Recent experiences include leading a trivia team in the Clarion West Trivia Night, lots of gaming, and taking Seanan McGuire to the Washington State Fair. Also so many spiders lately. Just so many. We have a detente and when I catch them I let them go under the bookcase downstairs but I have also warned them I will destroy any egg sacs I find in the name of sanity.

With projects and books, here’s what’s going on:

Carpe Glitter comes out in November from Meerkat Press. It’s a present-day fantasy novelette featuring Nazis, hoarding, and female stage magicians. This was fun to write and is in the same story-universe as my various Wizards of West Seattle stories.

The Tor book: Still lacks a title, as you can see, but my current favorite is Spaceship, To Go, which I think is GENIUS but I am always the worst judge as to which of my many ideas actually are genius. Just turned around the first set of edits, which were fun and on the mark, and next comes the line-editing part, so I will be curious to see what that looks like, and am anticipating it. When I get those and go through them, I’ll do my own read-aloud and polish pass. I do think I have a scene to add — I’m just not sure what it is, so I’m waiting to hear what the editor thinks. The sequel’s half-written and on deck to finish the first draft in November.

Middle-grade book: I’m about to pick this up and finish fleshing it out before it goes out to beta-readers by the end of the first week in October. It’s currently 40k words and needs to grow by 15-20k more.

Exiles of Tabat: Currently a completed and incredibly messy and incoherent first draft (as always) sitting on the sidelines. Once the middle-grade book is off, this gets picked up and the plan is to have it also off to beta readers, this time by October 31.

Novella project: Got something here I’m currently outlining, and I’m not going to say anything more about that until it’s written, but it’s got me really excited and lets me pay homage to one of my favorite books.

Got one story finished up and gently cooking on the back burner with the intent of serving it up to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, in part because it should be their kind of story, in part because they’ve published Tabat stories before, and last part because Scott’s such a good editor. Another story is in similar state. It’s a short little near-future SF piece and I think it’s going to be one of the good ones if I’m willing to take some time with it. I’m taking it on a writing retreat with me next week. I’ve got a third near-future, novelette or novella length SF story that’s been itching at me and which feels like I can hit out of the park if I take my time with it and do the topic justice; it’s about a third written, I think.

In the Department of Stories-That-Are-Still-Mostly-In-My-Head: Got one bespoke story half-written, a possible anthology story, and another novella project in the offing that would involve working with someone whose writing I greatly respect, so I hope that last works out. As always, there’s a mass of story ideas in my notebook — the problem is never not enough ideas.

I will be co-hosting a monthly podcast starting in late 2019 and have been recording some episodes for that. Details to come — but that won’t be all, audio/video-wise. Plenty more on that to come.

Patreon supporters have been showered with a varied range of content, including editing sessions like this one, snippets from work in progress, photos of the giant house spiders, special access to Twitch classes, market news, a poem, and a Taco Cat caption contest. Opening up the Discord server and adding more channels has been popular, and thank you to all of you who’ve signed up this month or upped pledges to make this the most successful Patreon month I’ve seen so far!

Travelwise: I’m off to a writing retreat next week and looking forward to it, then Surrey International Writers Conference in Surrey, BC (Mom’s going with me, so that should be fun. She’s been working on a romance, and this is my birthday present to her.) and MultiverseCon in Atlanta. That’s the last of my working travel for the year, and my intent is to not travel at all

I will save most of the Rambo Academy stuff for another time, but will say a couple things!

• Diane Morrison has put together a terrific class on making/finding time for writing called Writing in the Cracks. The live version will be hosted online October 13 and there are still some free scholarships available.
• Writing flash fiction is a good way to build your publication list as well as provide impetus for daily writing. Want a class on it that lets you go at your own pace, repeating things when you want to, in your space? There’s now the on-demand version of Writing Flash Fiction.
• Critclub has been a smashing success and running semi-daily writing sprints in the motivation channel there has been great for my own productivity. If you’re a F&SF writer that has been looking for a good and thoughtful critique group, I hope you’ll check out the Rambo Academy Critclub.

#sfwapro

I recently taught a Patreon and Other Forms of Crowdfunding workshop for Clarion West, focusing on running an effective Patreon, and thought I’d provide some of the notes from that.

When I first started on Patreon, I remember one elderly SF writer calling it “hipster panhandling,” and I dunno… I’ve been pretty happy that I’ve stuck with it, and I know I’m giving my patrons a solid value in return for their support. It has been interesting to see some attitudes shift towards crowdfunding in general, particularly with the rise of self-publishing as a valid career approach, and nowadays it seems like Kickstarter is driving many anthology projects.

Some background for those that might want it: Crowdfunding is a way of funding (perhaps a one-time project, perhaps a long-running or ongoing entity) that depends on small contributions from many people. It can be a one-time donation or an ongoing one, like a subscription. Examples of cowdfunding platforms include Patreon, Kofi, GoFundMe, IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, and Onlyfans. Patreon can be subscription or per-creation; I’ve chosen to go the subscription route.

I have been running my Patreon for a number of years now and have hooked it into my school. Along with other benefits, supporters get discounts on classes and, at higher levels, free classes. I try to post on at least a weekly basis, and to include snippets of what I’m working on. In March, I’m bringing back the story discussion group and adding one to look specifically at books on writing craft. Those events are recorded on Zoom, and the story group has been a lot of fun, particularly when we’ve had the authors in to talk about the stories as part of the discussion. I’ve tried all sorts of things over the years: weekly AMAs, recipes, serial fiction (still need to finish that one up!), etcetera, and my patrons have been patient with the various convulsions over that time.

Currently Patreon provides me somewhere between $1400-1500 per month, depending on monthly fluctuations (I am on the Premium plan, rather than the free version, which means Patreon takes less.) Some of that incoming money then flows out to pay guest teachers, depending on which classes people sign up for. Here’s the list of what’s coming up, and you can see it’s 50% guest teachers, 50% my own classes. But it ends up being a nice chunk of money that helps stabilize an income that can be pretty erratic otherwise, and which comes primarily from writing and teaching.

That money doesn’t magically fall out of the sky, though. (Alas!) It’s not a question of someone happening to read one of my stories and thinking “I loved that” and searching me out on the Internet to find out if I’ve got a tip jar on my website. That would be lovely, certainly. But it takes a level of fame and exposure I, and most writers, lack.

Plus that’s not really how tipping works, people dumping money in random containers without much reason. You have to give people something in exchange for that, even if it’s a fleeting experience. It doesn’t have to be carefully composed and polished — sometimes a random picture of a pet being cute will turn out to be one of the most popular things you’ve ever done. Authenticity is one of the best things you can give. I often provide snippets of what I’m working on, or take a look at something that I want to think about, like examining a paragraph of description to see how it works.

The most important thing that I can tell you is that Patreon or other crowd-funding efforts require work. That’s something that you have to factor in when you want to start one up. You need to figure out how to provide value for your patrons in a way that works for you. For me, hooking it into my online school was a terrific fit.

Patreon provides the tools I need, although I will continue to gripe about not being able to find old posts easily. More than anything else, I make use of the Discord server that Patreon provides me. They handle getting patrons on there, but one time out of twenty or so, I end up having to troubleshoot. The Discord server also hosts a number of students, friends, other Rambo Academy Faculty, etc, and is the place where a lot of activity gets coordinated. We’ve finally achieved enough of a critical mass that it’s a lively and entertaining community, with channels devoted not just to writing stuff, but community exchange like pet pictures and such. While on the road right now I haven’t been able to access the server and I have been sorely missing checking in.

There are a number of extra benefits like that when creating a Patreon campaign. I focused on growing that community when the pandemic started, and it’s one of the things that kept me sane and productive in the last couple of years. It’s been a great thing seeing so many students and mentees publishing in recent years, and it feels important to be making a contribution to the F&SF community not just in terms of “here’s my content, enjoy” but helping drive events and gatherings.

I think of Patreon as a side-gig, one of the freelancing projects that make up my work flow. Like any side-gig, you want to not let it derail you from the most important stuff, nor do you want to get overly dependent on it. One of the best things you can do as a writer is cultivate those small springs where you can, doing things like sending out reprints, getting speaking engagements, etc. Patreon can become a pretty good source of revenue, but it takes time, thought, and effort.

I recently did the Patreon Creator survey and that made me aware I’m not promoting mine quite as heartily as I should be, and that I’m not using every aspect. For one, I will confess that I do not look at the exit surveys when someone decides to stop, even though I really should. That’s because I had someone say something hurtful enough in one few years back that I made the conscious choice to just assume everyone’s doing it for financial reasons and just not worry about it anymore.

And that’s another thing about Patreon that I need to underscore – it can be a source of incredible encouragement, but it can also be a place — most particularly when you start out — where you feel like you’re howling into the void without anyone answering back. That one step forward, two steps back feeling can really start to come into play if you get a few people dropping off at a bad time. Build in some armor for yourself, however you need to, and remember this is your campaign. You get to do it the way that works for you, and it’s okay to experiment.

Overall, writing is a sporadic and inconsistent financial existence. One month you’ve got a hefty advance check and then the next it’s just a handful of things like that 2.23 royalty from Smashwords. A Patreon or other crowdfunded campaign can be incredibly helpful in evening some of that out — but it’s not a magic fix that will do it effortlessly.