Aric Mitchell's Blog

Recently, author Solitaire Parke (Vengeance of the Wolf) stopped by the Aric Mitchell official blog to talk shop about politics, the indie writing scene, and what it takes to become an author in the 21st Century. Well worth the read if you haven't found your way to it yet. I've included a short excerpt below, but highly recommend you make the jump to the full interview.

Q. What do you want people to know about you as a person, as a writer?

I'm really not much different from most people at least down deep where it counts. I try to calibrate my moral compass every day and work as hard as I can. As a writer, I try to never box myself into a genre corner and just write what I feel, or what I dream.

Q. Describe your publishing journey for readers.
 
Like so many other authors, I have file cabinets full of rejection letters. I got to a point in my life where I didn't trust anyone else to publish my work, so I decided to do it myself. Indie authors understand exactly what I mean. In the independent world it's more important to help others because what you do for them comes back tenfold. I discovered it's easier to help them than to stress over me. In the end, your work reaches the public and we as authors control our own destiny.

Q. What are some of the best/worst writing tips/advice you’ve ever received, and what advice would you give to an aspiring writer?

I think the worst tip I ever got was from a publishing house in regards to my poetry and was told that real poetry died two hundred years ago, ergo...go get a real job.

The best advice I have gotten came from an Indie author who told me not to listen to negative advice and just keep writing.

Q. When did the writing bug first bite and who, if anyone nurtured you into what you would become?

I got bit on my twelfth birthday after being introduced to the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of A Princess of Mars. So I guess it was his fault.

Q. Employers always ask about the 5-year plan. If you had an employer in indie writing—and thank God we don’t—what would you tell him your 5-year plan is?

Write a lot, laugh a lot, love with abandon and make as many friends as possible. Oh, and sign on for five more years.

Q. From inception to The End, discuss your process for getting a book like Vengeance of the Wolf ready for the public?

That book required a massive amount of research into the paranormal. I sat down every day and wrote my brains out. Once it was finished, it went through multiple edits and I had everyone I knew read the book, sometimes more than once. I'm sure it was more grueling for them than me. I sent it out for reviewing to as many people as would say yes and then sent it to every publishing house that would read horror. The rest as they say is Independent history.

Q. In VOTW, there are several unfortunate, ill-fated politicians. As a journalist, who covers politics, it was a nice bit of escapism for me. What are your views of the American political scene?

Read the rest of the Solitaire Parke Interview at the Aric Mitchell Official Blog.

It hasn't happened yet, but it's bound to. And when it does, that feeling of dread will have its day.

My book The Congregation has been reviewed more than a dozen times across the Internet, and so far, it hasn't received anything less than four stars. But the day of the dreaded one-star review is coming, I'm sure.

How do I know? Because reading is largely subjective, for starters. Also, Stephen King has some one-star reviews, so it's bound to happen to me. I've never pretended to be King and never will. I've never actually read an entire King novel, but I've seen some of the movies, and when they're done well, with an obvious affection for the source material, they are quite good in my opinion.

Yet some people, albeit the minority, look to King--a guy, who's succeeded in marrying commercial fiction and literature together across multiple genres--and thought, "He sucks, worst novel everrrrrrr!!"

Obviously, King doesn't suck, but the reviews are out there, so it must be true, right?

What chance does a guy like me have?

The sooner a writer can make peace with the fact that sometimes his work just isn't going to do it for people, the better.

Writer Scott Nicholson has a fantastic way of looking at reviews. This is not an exact quote, but essentially, he states that in either case, the reviewer is always right.

Your book can be the best thing ever written, or not worth the paper it's printed on. You've just got to allow for that as a writer.

Make peace with it. Move on.

While The Congregation hasn't been trashed yet, there are around 5,000 people, who have it on their Kindles/Nooks/iPads right now. Some have read it, loved it, reviewed it. Others have started it, gotten sidetracked and forgotten. Still others began reading and found out quickly it was not for them. And of course, others started reading and found the words I'd written so obnoxious they abandoned ship. Some of these people may come back and lay waste to me. I hope not, but it happens. Will happen. And the sooner I'm aware of this, the better off I'll be.

I know enough about the writing/editing process to know The Congregation is not a turd. I make my living with words, for Pete's sake. In fact, I would dare say writing in general is the only thing I've ever been able to do well. The book, on its technical and storytelling merits, is fine. I know this. On the other hand, you may not feel a connection to my characters or like them particularly much. (At times, I don't either.) But the book itself is competently, professionally put-together. It's not "part of the problem," in other words.

You know the kind. Indie writer thinks that since he can write an email, he can write a book, and puts out a horrible piece of crap that angers the average reader to the point said reader will never try another indie writer again?

But it's not going to land for everyone, and if it doesn't land for you, my sincere and most humble apologies. You are correct. But if you loved it/liked it, and you're ready for the next book, I am thrilled you're along for the ride. I'll try to give you more of what you want in a horror thriller. Never hesitate to share your thoughts. My email address is aric dot mitchell at gmail dot com, and I respond to every email. I look forward to hearing from you.

The "new" has worn off the eReader.

That's not to say I don't still love my Nook Color and Kindle Fire. I even catch myself reading books on my iPhone still. But that initial affection I had for these devices, where I pretty much refused to read anything unless it was on a touch screen, is gone. I'm working on two books currently. Both are print. I just finished Master of the Delta by Thomas Cook, also print. Seems like, in spite of having my shiny new devices, I'm still flipping through dead tree pages.

Not only has it led me to believe print's not going away any time soon, it's even convinced me to launch The Congregation in print sometime next month. I don't get the same jolt out of seeing my name in print any more. That's not what this is about. Been there, done that. Did nothing to ease the financial burdens and stresses of life. So I turned to ePublishing because it makes a lot more sense financially--almost no overhead, larger profit margins for me, and cheaper prices for the readers. Can't go wrong there.

But why limit my book to niche reading preferences? I don't expect to sell many print titles, since it's POD, and the distribution isn't worked out to chain stores--besides, all they want are bestsellers--but I don't want to exclude what essentially remains the largest side of the reader market either.

From a business perspective, my print endeavors will never be profitable, but they will add legitimacy and perhaps fuel online sales with the more work I produce, so it makes sense to go this route. That's what I'm hoping anyway.

Regardless of my plans, the "Digital vs. Print" debate that rages on around the web on sites like J.A. Konrath's "A Newbie's Guide to Publishing" is a flawed concept. As an author and a reader, I want both, and I want them forever. Here's why:

1. Digital publishing has increased the amount I read all together, and will continue to do so.

Since discovering I could read books on my iPhone, and it didn't suck, reading once again became one of my favorite pastimes. I embraced the digital bug in early 2011 and read about three dozen books between January and the end of the year. In 2010, I read four books, period. Currently, I've maintained my busy reading schedule, and even though a lot of it is in print, I still credit eReaders for the surge.

2. Length preferences vary by format.

I don't like reading long books on eReaders. I borrowed the ePub of Stephen King's It from my library and lost interest quickly. The print version, however, sucks me in and convinces me to keep reading. Quality is not the issue. It's a wonderfully written book. But psychologically, I want to see my progress on such a mammoth tome. But for short stories and novels/novellas up to 75,000 words, it's the eReader every time. And to be frank, I think the 30,000-50,000-word range works best. Which highlights a third reason why I'm hoping these formats stay around, side-by-side, forever.

3. Literary diversity is finally commercial.

Buying a short story for 99 cents or a short novel for $3.95 was not gonna happen in the print only world. It wasn't even possible. Publishers stopped trying the short novel in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Selling an individual short story was impractical, and collections were reserved for the top names, who could do whatever they wanted. Now anyone with a nose for social media and a talent for writing can make money off their shorter works. I've even flirted with the idea of going to all 30,000-word stories, which the writer Guido Henkel now does through his Jason Dark series, which you really should check out if you haven't, by the way. Whether you're writing 10 pages, 100, or 1,000, there's a market for it.

While I realize not everyone shares the same reading preferences, this Digital vs. Print debate is pretty silly business. It's not a competition. We should embrace both, not because of tradition or progression, but for the love of great storytelling in whatever form it takes.