What’s in a Sale Price (An open letter to Johnny B Truant)

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In today’s Self Publishing Podcast Johnny B Truant said:

“A book is F*ing $3. As an artist I have a little bit of a problem with the idea that people would balk at that.”

I’ve been having a similar discussion with people regarding games. Specifically the idea that game makers, like Sony, want to curtail second hand game sales, like Gamestop, as they feel that used games are lost revenue.

Here the crux of the matter…. Even if you managed to stop every free/sale/used transaction for every single item in the entire world, producers of content still won’t make more money, for one really simple fact: we can’t all afford new.

Yes, you’re an artist. Your product is worth money. I get it, I’m a writer too. I want to earn a living off my writing as well. However, you are looking at it from the perspective of “this is my stuff, you’re getting my stuff, and you should pay me what I think it’s worth.”

Game developers also have the added incite of “this is how much it cost us to make this game, and this is how many we think we can sell this month.” So they slap a tag for $60 on it, and release it. They are absolutely right that the game is worth, from their perspective, $60 dollars.

Now, lets look at it from my perspective.

I’m a single mom of three. I love books and games. I am teaching my three children to also love books and games. I make less then $2k a month, and my bills alone suck up most of that money.

$60 is one bill. Or a car full of groceries  Or two pairs of shoes. Or two tanks of gas to get to work. Or three nice dates with my wonderful boyfriend.

So I wait till games are on sale, (got to love Steam!) or I wait till the price comes down. Two, three years after a AAA title has come out and grossed the company millions of dollars it might be available for $20 from the company. Maybe. If I’m lucky. Or I can hit a used bin and possibly find it for a little less. It still won’t be that cheap, but maybe I can finally play it.

It’s the same with books, only most of the time I have to go to the library. Sometimes, if i really love a book, or an author, I will splurge and buy their book. Maybe give it to a friend, or sell it back to Half Priced Books, more then likely just keep it on my shelf. Keep in mind I read about 50+ books a year. I can’t afford to buy all of those even if they are only $3.

Yes, you as an artist deserve to be paid for your work. I, as an upcoming author, deserve to be paid for my work. But not everyone is in the same place that you are. Not all of us are able to go out and buy every book/game we want.

I currently own over 23 of David Write and Sean Platts books. I got a lot of them for free, and then I started buying them. I joined Seans list and got this nifty little email saying “Thanks for joining, I’d like to give you a free book.” I turned it down because I already had so many of their books. I also own several Johnny B Truant books, and I bought most of them, but I did get several for free.

I try to repay in my way by giving reviews, and sharing the podcast with other writers, and by buying a few now and then when I have some extra money. But I keep a look out for sale prices of my favorite authors.

Steam is actually an incredible example of what sale prices can do. Summer sales, and winter sales on Steam can lower game prices up to as much as 75% off games, sometimes more. And what happened? Well I bought 80+ games this year. I know I’m not the only one. Steam sales more games during these sales, and they make more for the people selling games through them then any other time of the year.

When you lower the price a lot more people see it, and buy it. You make up for lower prices through volume.

Now, Steam has an amazing platform, they have sales specifically a few times a year, and a few games on sale each day. They can afford to do this, and they do it well. While books are a bit different  you shouldn’t discount the power of “free” through KDP.

TL;DR Remember that your buyers are made up of different kinds of people. We can’t all afford things at the higher prices, so giving us intensives (sales and freebies) will get us interested, and may get you future sales, reviews, and rating to drive future business. It’s about making a brand, not just making a buck.

Slightly Overwhelming

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This is my story list. Or rather it is a list of every story I have started and which I think would make a good finished product. Some have as little as a page already written. A few are finished. The ones on the left are all novels with as much as 100 pages already written. This is overwhelming, to say the least. It’s why I have taken it upon myself to actually stop screwing around and WRITE. It’s what I dreamed of doing when I was growing up. It’s what I should be doing. It’s what my brain wants to do. So I say to myself: No excuses! Go write!

Easiest thing to do: Nothing

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I am quite comfortable in my little job, with my little office, helping customers and never actually doing anything very significant at all. I get paid enough to live fairly comfortably with my three children. My store is even ranked in the top 50 in the company. I drive 5 miles to work, and home each day. There are parks, museums, libraries, and a plethora of games and TV shows to keep me busy.

By all accounts, I could do this till I retire, and never really do anything (not including raising the three children.)

But that’s just it. It is so incredibly easy to do nothing. To sit passively and just allow life to happen. To let old dreams and passions fade away while life becomes a monotonous drone in the back of your mind.

There was a quote I heard that said “When you stop learning, thats when you start dieing.” I’d like to add “When you stop living, that’s when you start dieing.”

Are you sitting back, allowing life to happen? Or are you pushing forward, making new dreams, and new aspirations? Are you a “wanna be”, or are you on your path to being it?

There was a very good discussion… a young writer asked one of his favorite authors “when can I call myself an author?” The author replied “When you decide you are one.”

Titles don’t mean anything. What matters is what you place your heart, mind, and determination into. Are you doing everything you can to be “it”. Or are you letting “it” just pass you by?

Games and Writing

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gamesI now have over 90 games… just on my steam account. That’s not even counting the rack of games for the various counsels I have over there.

I love games. I love figuring out puzzles, gathering items, killing the bad guy. I love the thrill of discovering new worlds, and ransacking dungeons. The sudden adrenalin rush as the boss battle grinds you down and kills you yet again, and you pick up the control and start all over. Just die, and try again.

I love it all. I’d play games all of the time if I could.

However, of those 90+ games I have, I haven’t been able to play any of them very much. A few minutes here and there, maybe an hour. But I have yet to finish one. Why?

Because I’d rather be making my own worlds and sharing them with others. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to discover other peoples visions for worlds. That’s why I just spent every spare moment for the last week (and there hasn’t been a lot of free moments) reading “Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher, and finding out what happens to Harry Dresden.

I’d love more hours in the day to finish a game, a book, and finish writing my own novel. But we each get the same amount of time each day. We each have to work out way through it. It’s a battle of priorities.

So… what did you spend your time on today?

Just a Quick Update

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I’m working on editing “Osiren’s Tears”, one of the stories I did during NaNoWriMo. I’m also trying to write a description I think doesn’t completely suck. 

Everyone who does something creative, I don’t care if it is sewing, painting, writing, or cooking… We all have that one thing about it that we are horrible at. For me it’s the blurb you put up on Amazon. I just can’t seem to wrap the story into some neat little catchy paragraph or three. Everything sounds forced, sterile, or just plain horrible. So I’m working on that trying to get better.

While I am editing “Osiren’s Tears” I am also working on a Sci-fi romance. I know I mentioned “Message in a Bottle”, but when I got the idea for “Starcrossed” I just had to go with it. It involves some quantum physics going awry, and the merging dreams between a young scientist, and an alien. You can have some interesting encounters when you think you’re dreaming.

The Past Hurts Sometimes

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I spent much of my childhood trying to do “the right thing”. How does a child even know what the right thing is?

I knew that if I did certain things at certain times I’d get a little more attention from my parents. But they were so busy with everything in their lives that they really didn’t have all that much time for me.

It seems a silly thing to complain about sometimes. You see children who have no food, or suffer incredible abuse. My parents just didn’t have any time for me.

I spent a great deal of time alone. To clarify, I have two sisters. We didn’t get along very well. I found it easier to just spend my time outside, away from them, and avoid arguments.

I spent so much time trying to make my parents happy, and proud of me that even the small things hurt. Once I made dinner for my family. I usually did because both of my parents worked. I think I was 14 at the time. Steak, mashed potatoes, and some sort of vegetable.

My dad took one bight of it and got very unhappy. You could see the disapproval oozing off him. He was mad at me because I didn’t put any spices on the food. I forgot. I never ate spices on food, and I forgot. And he told me how bad dinner was, how horrible it was.

I learned a long time ago that I was never going to be able to please the people around me. And then I got married.

New mother, new baby, new home, and I cleaned the entire house. Even got on my knees and hands to scrub the kitchen floor because we didn’t have a mop. My husband came home. I thought he’d be so happy with me… No, there were things up on top of the computer case stashed out of the way that I hadn’t gotten too. The rest of the two bedroom apartment was clean, but there was paper up on top of that case. He was so disappointed in me, and I was that little girl trying to get approval. Trying so hard to earn someone’s love.

It took me a long time to learn that you can’t, and shouldn’t EARN someone’s love. Love is a gift you give. Love is free. Love is beautiful. It is full of hope and joy, and all those wonderful things of acceptance.

And even now, at 35 and trying to start something brand new I feel myself shutting down. Hurting. Afraid to try and earn someone’s love and attention. Will they like my books? Will they care? Will it affect anyone?

Who knows. And I shouldn’t care. I should be doing this because I love the writing, not because I’m trying to find that illusive acceptance somewhere.

My parents will never be proud of me. I accepted that years ago. And my life is saner now without them in it.

My husband would never be satisfied with anything I did. So I divorced him. And I have been happier without him.

But you can’t close yourself off from the world. You can’t satisfy the world. You have to satisfy yourself before you can do anything else.

That’s my struggle every day. Somewhere inside I am just that little girl still trying to find approval. And I suppose I always will be.

Drunk Writing

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I am amazed by all the stories about people who wrote, painted, or created while dunk or high. I know, this shouldn’t amaze me. I’ve read some interesting books on LSD, and the scientific studies that were done before the bathtub version was available outside the laboratory. It is all quite fascinating.

I say this as a person who has never done anything harder then a shot of whiskey.

Here I am, after drinking a bottle of “Mocha Death” from Iron House Brewery (the best beer EVER btw) and… I couldn’t write if my life depended on it.

Well… I’m writing this. I’m also expecting to do terrible things with it.

I think the idea behind a substance and creating, be it art, writing, or whatever, is simply this: when you are slightly tipsy you turn of that internal voice that is constantly whispering at you that you are going to fail, you are wrong, your writing/art/whatever is AWFUL!

The trouble I have with the whole thing is that when I wake up completely and entirely sober I am going to come back to this and read it. The spelling will be correct, but only because of those ugly little red squiggle lines under so many of my words. But the grammar? The flow? The ideas behind it.

I think I’m going to post this anyway. And to all my brethren who have a nice glass of wine while sitting down to write that long epic that has been brewing in your mind I say GO FOR IT!

Turn off the internal editor. Sit down. And write. Worry about everything else once the words are down on the paper.

I think I’m going to go do the same.

Giving for the sake of giving

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I have had a lot of Christmas’s where others have been very helpful. When you’re down on your luck, I guess, having someone get your kid a present, a doll, or an MP3 player, can be incredibly uplifting.

My family is at a point now that we’re getting by alright. I don’t have a lot, but we have presents under the tree. But I wanted to give something back this year.

On that note, I found Random Acts of Christmas on Reddit. I didn’t have much to give… I mean, we’re okay but I still can’t go out to eat every week (not that’d I’d want to, it get’s old after a while). But, I did have a bunch of things I made. Stickers, magnets, bookmarks, and some simple jewelry.

So I stuck up an offer to give away some stocking stuffers…

It’s amazing how good it feels just to give away these little things. There not much, but hopefully some little kids will really enjoy them.

Maybe you can’t do much, but even the little things count. And I hope you all have a great Holiday season, whichever Holiday you’re celebrating.

The Leftover Pieces

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I don’t have much from my past. I had three life changing moments where I was left with only a box of things, and everything else had to be donated, trashed or sold, so only the few things that meant a great deal to me managed to make it to my home now.

 

But I’ve always thought those things, those precious memoires you choose to keep even when the world is collapsing down around you, those are what define you. They are what show what really matters to you.

Of all the “things” that survived the upheaval in my life, being homeless, a failed marriage, moving to four different states, and crossing thousands of miles of land with just a little suitcase to my name, the only thing that truly survived all of that was my writing.

I have the paper I stole from school, stapled together, and wrote in bright orange marker about a nymph in a forest. I have the poems I typed up on an old typewriter, stapled together, and marked with “1cent” up in the corner. I have the first school assignment that asked for a story about a picture. Some of these are 20+ years old, and I have them all.

In fact, over the last 30 years of writing I have lost only one thing (that I know of). Half of the very first novel I ever completed. Called “Deaths Gate”, it was about a girl who was unable to ever get close to anyone because Death marked her as his bride and would kill anyone who tried to claim her as his.

The novel took five years to put together. I started it in my Junior year of high school, and continued on through the first few years of my marriage. We moved around a lot. Had children. Got our first PC. Had to put all the hand written notes into the PC for the first time.

It took five years of a sentence here and there to get through the 200 page manuscript. It had elves, hunters, battles, nymphs, magic, and one lost young woman who simply wanted to claim her life as her own. It was terrible. Poorly written, and full of Mary Sue’s. But I finished it.

Then my computer crashed and took it with it. All of my hard work just gone. Lost. Unrecoverable.

I did find half of it in a drawer somewhere, the last half, and I still have it. No one else will ever read it, but it will follow me to every home I move to from here on out.

When I took some college classes I tried figuring out “what do you want to be when you grow up?” for the first time since my divorce and having my life in my own hands. I looked back n those leftover pieces and started to think about what was important. What made me “ME”.

What do you have as leftover pieces?