The good morning, good night thread

[omega1300]

Hello Gents! Guess I'm a chicken as well. You barely knew me back when (if at all) from a few flash entries, but I still miss it here. Need to get back to stringing a few sentences together!

[Geoff_N]

Just touching base. Partly because I had a dream last night in which I was inside Cafe Doom doing crits and being in angst over a harsh crit of one of mine! haha.

Seasonal felicitations all.

[elay2433]

Good to see folks still checking in. Merry Christmas everyone.

[delboy]

Latest book is out today: Easy Money - it's western # 8. Number 9 has been accepted, and # 10 has just been submitted to a different publisher (just for a change - eggs and baskets and all that). And I've even submitted a short story yesterday - one that went through the crit group here all those years ago. So all going well. Still can't quite shake the shackles of having to work for a living, though. They keep offering redundancy packages to everyone but our team. So my dream of writing for a living (by that I mean writing to top up the pension by a very small amount) is still eluding me.

[Geoff_N]

Congratulations Del, you're probably the most commercially published of the Doomers and it's great. My publishing count is around 80 short stories and 8 novels that will become 10 before 2019 is out. However, almost all the shorts are in non-paying mags, ezines such as The Horror Zine, and anthologies. All my novels are published by tiny indie presses no one's heard of.
Yes, I'm pleased with them and I always hope for an email from one of those publishers saying, hey guess what Geoff? There's been a huge spike in sales for one of your novels and we're auctioning the movie rights!

Haha, we can dream. Meanwhile, we know you Del and are warmed these cold days in the glow of your success. Seriously - dead chuffed for you.
 

[delboy]

Hi Geoff

Thanks for the kind and flattering words. I'm not sure I'd agree - I think your achievements, and Cathy's and Jon's and Paul's and probably many more all exceed what I've done. Looking back, it's quite a remarkable set of achievements by the class of... whatever year it was.

I'm lucky that the genre I've stumbled upon has given me the chance to learn and improve whilst having a bit of a ready-made market. I think my library lendings exceed 16000 now and the last couple of books have been available as eBooks and there have been a thousand or so sales. So it's nice to know people are reading this stuff. I still harbour ambitions to try a few more ambitious stories, but can't do it whilst working.

PS already had a rejection for the short submitted yesterday...

Cheers
Derek

[Ed]

Cuh, was it really December when I last checked-in? Nice to see some posts in here, and people still dropping in from time to time. I miss this place

Hi omega -- I remember you. I hope you had a good Christmas 

Hope you had a good Christmas, too, Elay. Ours was quiet, and I was on call the whole way through, so I was grateful of that. Only had to go out twice. Our hols in Egypt for the first two weeks in January was very welcome, if a bit on the cold side. It's usually around 25C-29C, which is perfect, but this time something changed and we were wearing hoodies on the beach a couple of times. I wonder if the weird weather has something to do with the magnetic poles shifting. Apparently it's moved a lot more than usual and they (forgotten the name of the body responsible) have had to release an interim correction.

Geoff -- still banging away at your keyboard. You've definitely put in the time, and you enjoy it, so I see no reason why you won't get that phone call one day.

Well done for the new publishing credit, Del. I remember you saying things had changed at the publisher's and you were a bit worried about how it might affect their procurement process. I'm glad they are still picking up your work. You write good fiction, and long may it continue

[Geoff_N]

Just checking in again. No, a lie, I've a new science fiction release and here it is! Don't all buy at once or you'll break the internet.
A vegan publishing a science fiction novel with a vegan main character set on a 'vegan' planet.
I've been vegan for 40+ years but rarely make one of my characters veggie or vegan for fear of alienating my millions of non-veg readers. However, my critique group who are bloodthirsty carnies, say no, we like your SUPPOSE WE novel and its surreal plot and characters.
So, in 500 years time an "Ark" ship crashlands on a faraway planet. Sadly the natives are a million years ahead of Earth and ignore the humans. How do they attract the help they need, cope with this strange planet with no predators larger than insects, and what is the secret mission payload ?
The release date is today! Well, May 20th 2019 and the link is
https://mybook.to/SupposeWe
If you see the magnificent cover art note that the butterfly is a kind of character in the story. It is alien. It isn't really a butterfly

[Ed]

Hi Geoff -- good luck with the new release. There's a new interest in veganism lately, so it may be a good move to include it in the book.

Must admit, I always thought it was a bit weird, because I grew up being told you needed meat and dairy in your diet to get the nutrients you need. I watched a film on Netflix that changed my mind, I think it was called 'Forks, not Knives' where they apparently proved a link between animal protein and cancer, and talked about the inflammation caused by dairy products in the body, etc. It made quite a compelling case for eating a plant based diet. My problem is that I can't find anything vegan that I want to eat. I've decided to reduce the amount of meat in my diet, though. Meat production is bad for the environment, and if my body doesn't really need it and I can find other things to eat, then I will cut it out where I can.

[Rev. Austin]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Cafe...Rev. Austin reappears! Wheeeeeeeee! 

Hi folks! I haven't checked in for some time because the last couple of years have been nuts. I'm currently teaching English in Colombia, and have recently had my first child! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. My job keeps me busy most of the day, 6 days a week, so time for writing has massively dwindled  However, I'm looking at taking time off to help look after my son (he's called Tommy), which will actually afford me some time to write again!

I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by (finally) dipping my toes into the murky waters of self-publishing - I mean, I've been self-publishing my music for years so why not try with my stories? I've been out of the loop, writing community-wise, for a few years so I don't know if/how the self-publishing landscape has changed at all (all I have noticed is Createspace is now owned by Amazon, and you have to provide a tax number to sell books through the service). Do any of you guys have any advice/suggestions about any of this? Also, and more importantly, how are you all doing?

[delboy]

Hey Rev. Good to hear from you. Congratulations on little Tommy!

I don't know 'owt about self-publishing. I did think about having a dabble myself, but it all look likes such a lot of effort. I have a western that, for a number of reasons I won't go into, has had its rights reverted to me after just a short time on the market with an online publisher. The owner of the company said it was one of the best westerns he'd read in a long time, and I'm really happy with the book, too, so it feels a shame just to leave it doing nothing. There are so few markets out there for westerns now - even my main publisher is on a hiatus. So all of a sudden self-publishing feels like it might be worth a shot. But like I said, it appears to be such a lot of effort. In all the guides I have read by people who have done it successfully the main activity appears to be marketing - get a website, maintain that website, build an email list, get on social media, get on other people's blogs, get on the book review sites, maintain your website, chase emails for your list, advertise on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, build the email list...Oh, and you'll need to write a book, too. There's only one part of all of that which interests me...

If you don't do all of that then the likelihood is that the book will vanish with all the other hundreds of thousands self-published every month.

So at the moment I'm taking the opportunity to write a non-western novel. It'll probably go nowhere, but we shall see in about two years time, which is when I reckon I'll finish it.

I actually wonder if there isn't some middle ground? There appears to be a lot of ePublishers out there who, for their cut, might take all the marketing side away from one.

Anyway, let us know how you get on.
Cheers
Derek

[Ed]

Hi Rev and Del -- good to see you dropping in. I've no idea about self publishing, but I think Geoff and possibly Cathy would be a mine of information. Del's idea about ePublishers taking on a book and promoting it for you sounds like a good one.

The only thought that just popped into my head is you might try looking at marketing it on Amazon??? If you can get a few good reviews on there, it might take off.

Good luck, both, and congrats on your nipper, Rev  Don't go fooling yourself he will afford you the time to write, though -- I think that's probably a tad optimistic

[delboy]

I was pondering on this, and it struck me that those in the know are always talking about marketing when it comes to self-publishing - building a mailing list, getting on review sites, sending out emails / news letters, appearing on blogs etc etc

If there were two people doing this, in a linked manner, then they might get twice as many people on their email list. Say, 20, instead of ten. They might get two reviews instead of one. If there were three people, then it's a little easier. And so on.

Maybe there's an opportunity for the Cafe Doom Collective? If there were enough of the old-timers who bought into the idea then it might be a way of sharing the pain of the marketing whilst spreading and multiplying the benefits?

Derek

[Ed]

Sounds like a plan, Del. Personally, I don't have any writing to market, but I hope you're able to get a few of the old salts to push on with it

Suddenly had a thought -- have you looked into selling on Amazon? Might be worth investing a few quid. It costs about £30 a month to sell your products on Amazon, and it's a huge marketplace. If I had as much material as you, Del, I'd maybe take a punt on it for six months and see what happens.

[Ed]

Funnily enough, I've just been on Amazon to see about opening a vendor account and they've got a self publishing section as well -- https://kdp.amazon.com/?language=en_US could be worth a shout