I don’t personally have anything enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (or Kindle Select, or anything else exclusive), so I can only share what I’ve read.
Apparently Amazon has expanded the Unlimited subscription service (which normally allows subscribed readers to read as many enrolled ebooks as they want for the $9.99 monthly fee) to India where they are only charging $3.00 a month to subscribers, meaning that authors will make less on an enrolled book read in India than if the same book was read in the United States or another country. (I don’t have Amazon’s numbers but I would guess since the fee is roughly 1/3 the cost of the normal subscription, reads would be worth 1/3 as well – again, this is only a guess on my part.)
Am I advocating jumping ship from Amazon? No. I don’t advocate abandoning ANY platform.
Exclusivity is a personal decision for an author, and while I refuse to ever do it, someone else may be happy that way – and that’s great. What I think is sad, however, is how many authors I’ve spoken to who AREN’T happy but feel like they have no choice. “Amazon is the biggest.” That’s true, but Amazon is only the biggest because we make them the biggest – not just as readers (quick, and be honest, where do you buy books at?) but as authors. When we list our links most of us (myself included) list Amazon first. We submit books to email lists that cater exclusively to Amazon links. When we post a link on our twitter profile (or our tweets) we use the Amazon link rather than a personal webpage that has links to all retailers. And I know, if I’m in a hurry in an email message or Facebook comment, I will ONLY give someone the Amazon link because I think “It’s the biggest. Everyone buys there”. Much like reading Twilight, we’re all doing it because “everyone else is” – and everyone else is because that’s where all the links point – that’s where the top link is, that’s where we’re told is the best place to go – either literally or subliminally.
If you’re happy reading Twilight (and some people are – there’s nothing wrong with that!), then you should keep doing it – stay exclusive and post Amazon links everywhere. But, if you’re only doing it because “you have no choice” or “everyone else is”, remind yourself that you DO have a choice. Either way, go check out Mark Coker’s great article.
Last semester I took part in a creative-writing class of about seventeen people, including our instructor. This class taught me many things about writing and gave me several new insights into my craft as well as many new tools to write more compelling and interesting stories. It also gave me a few ideas for articles, such as this one:
My classmates and I each had to turn in three short stories during the semester (two original short stories and one edited story). A few times people turned in stories that were really short and just had the barebones of a story. There were numerous reasons for why one or another student would turn in stories like that, with very little meat to it if any. Usually it was something along the lines of having their deadline sneak up on them and rushing to get something written and printed before class (I remember one girl was actually stapling the typo-plagued copies of her story together in the first few minutes of class before she turned it in. She later said that she’d rushed to get the story done, and had spent the first hour or so just wondering what the first few words should be. We all laughed at that, mostly because we’d all been there at one point or another).
However while other students were pressed for time, one or two said they were afraid that if they wrote anything longer it would be too long! When we heard this, we often told the student that their fear of making the story too long had actually made it far too short.
I’ve always defined a short story as between a thousand and ten-thousand words. This leaves a lot of room to work with, even for authors such as myself who are better suited to more expansive works like novels. Yet a lot of authors fear that getting close to twenty-five hundred words is going too far, getting too long, crossing into a territory reserved only for longer projects. Why?
I think it might have something to do with magazines and getting published in them. Many magazines, especially ones that pay, have a maximum word-limit, usually around five-thousand words or so. This creates pressure on the author who wants to be published. They want a wonderful and engaging story but at the same time they’re hampered by the feeling that they can’t go over a certain word limit or they won’t get published in this or that magazine. Even self-published authors aren’t immune to this: many indie authors write stories and send them out to magazines, often to get people to read their work, along with maybe a desire for income and maybe a small wish to show the critics of self-publishing that we can get published in the same magazines as traditional published authors and still have quality work.
The thing is, a story is going to be the length it needs to be. You can’t help it. Twice I’ve thought up and even written short stories that turned out that they needed to novels. And even when a short story manages to stay a short story, I find that a story that needs to expand to four or five thousand words or more is going to expand that length. As much as you try, you won’t get it down to twenty-five hundred without sacrificing quality. At least, not very easily.
I usually end up writing short stories between four and five thousand words. In fact, I try to make sure they stay that length. I’ve tried for shorter but that usually doesn’t happen, and longer stories do sometimes happen, though they often get shorter when I start to edit. The thing is, these stories are going to be as long as they need to be and sometimes you have to accept that. If you want to write a story that’s shorter than what you usually write, do it more as an exercise, as a way to get better at saying something in less words than normal. Don’t feel like you have to make a story shorter, but just try and see if you can. And if you can’t, don’t feel disappointed about it. Just meant that story wasn’t meant to be that short.
And if you’re worried about getting published, there are plenty of magazines, anthologies, contests, and podcasts that accept longer short stories and even short novelettes. Just do your research, you’ll find them. Or don’t go looking for them at all, but try and put together a collection of short stories. You have full creative control then and can make your stories whatever length you desire.
Or perhaps short stories aren’t your thing. They’re certainly not my area of expertise, though that hasn’t stopped me from trying. Either way, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of authors don’t do short stories and they’re excellent. Just stick to your area of strength and see what amazing stuff you can do there.
But if you do endeavor to create amazing short stories, just remember not to let the length of your story become an inhibition and a drag rather than a tool for successful writing. As I and my classmates have learned, length is important, but it’s by far not the most important thing to keep in mind. That would be the story itself.
On an unrelated note, thanks to Ruth Ann Nordin for the new background on this site. I was kind of attached to the old one, but I like what’s here now. It’s warm and welcoming, if you ask me.
*Warning: The following essay contains spoilers from a recently released motion picture. If you are planning on seeing said movie and don’t want it ruined, please refrain from reading this post. If you’ve seen this movie or don’t care either way, then go on. I only spoil the first ten minutes or so anyway, so if you’re not too fussy, it probably won’t ruin too much of the movie anyway.
Not too long after I got back from my study abroad trip to Europe, my roommate and I went to go see Maleficent, which had just been released at that point. Early on in the movie though, there were a couple of things that my roommate and I had trouble with. Particularly the use of narration to tell the audience of Maleficent’s relationship to Stefan rather than actually showing how it developed. It actually made it really hard to get to know the characters and in the end, and the movie was less enjoyable than it could’ve been (though the CGI was rather amazing).
The example above is an example of showing vs. telling, which in my experience is one of the harder aspects of writing to master and one of the most difficult to teach. Yet it is vital for writers to learn to differentiate between the two and find the right balance of both showing and telling, because without being able to find some sort of balance, it makes for less entertaining stories.
Here’s an example of too much telling: Bob walked into an old house. There he encountered a beautiful woman who was really a witch. She stole his youth and he became an old man and died while she became beautiful and younger.
Now besides being dull, what can be said about this story? Very little, really. Your mind may have created an old house, a beautiful woman casting spells, Bob turning into an old man, but what else did it do? Nothing. You don’t get any detail about how we know the house is old, or how we know the beautiful woman was beautiful or a witch. We’re not shown how she steals Bob’s youth, or if he has any youth to give! He could really be middle-aged, for all we know. And why did he go into the house in the first place? Did he know about the witch?
Some writers call this the camera test. If you can’t build a picture in your mind with the information given to you in the text, then there’s too much telling and there needs to be more showing.
So what is showing? Basically it’s the meat of your story. Think of the telling as the barebones of your story, or what you would use in a summary of your novel. The showing is the dialogue, the details that paint the picture, the emotions and the exchanges, the tension and the moments of insight where you really get a sense of who the characters are and what happens to them in the course of the story.
In the example I used above, showing would involve us learning about why Bob went into the house in the first place. We would know what made the house old, as well as what the atmosphere around the house is like. Maybe there’s an oppressive air about the place, like a funeral that never seems to end. Perhaps there are dead trees and faded grass and it’s late in the evening, giving it a further creepy feel.
Once inside the house, we would find out what Bob experiences while in the house up until he meets the witch. We’d know what he’d think of the witch, if they exchanged any dialogue, and if he had any warning bells telling him to flee. Finally we’d see how the witch would take Bob’s youth, what it was like for him to lose his youth, and how the witch uses the stolen youth. If the author told the story right, we’d be able to picture all this with great clarity, and the story would have the required amount of showing and telling.
I know I just gave this example with a lot of telling and exposition, but you get the idea.
So along with the camera test, what are some other ways to gain a better understanding of showing vs. telling? Luckily as authors, we can go right to our favorite books to gain an understanding. Look at books you’ve enjoyed as well as books you hate. See how the author handled showing the story vs. telling the story, or how they didn’t handle it. You can also look for some articles on showing vs. telling, of which there are probably many besides this one (there’s a great one from Writer’s Digest that I found). And when you’ve done enough reading, try practicing telling and showing. Show it to someone if you feel comfortable and get their feedback. With practice, you can get very good at finding the balance of showing vs. telling.
Now using some exposition is necessary at times in stories while at other times there are passages where there is just too much information in the passage and a quick summary would be better. But one has to figure out where these passages belong themselves. And once you do, (pardon the pun) it will definitely show in your work.
Not to mention, we’ll actually come away with a better understanding of that maxim that writers, editors, and agents love to throw at their pupils: show, don’t tell. I’ve had one or two lessons with teachers where I wished they’d show me what they meant and not just tell it to me!
In every writing class and seminar we take and every book on the writing business we buy, they tell us over and over again, the same piece of advice: write what you know. Judging by the content of popular fiction today, either people are very experienced with supernatural creatures, are involved in romances that take on all forms and in all time periods, and have been to dystopias that kill off their own citizens, or authors of all types are disregarding that write-what-you-know rule.
But what if you want to write about something you don’t know very well? What if you’d like to know more about the White House, neuroscience, or the life of Leonardo da Vinci, and incorporate it into the plot of a story? Then as an author, the thing to do is to research the subject in question. It may be one of the least exciting parts of the writing and publishing process, but often it is one of the most important parts and usually highly necessary.
Here I would like to offer some ideas for resources an author may use for their research, as well as some tips on things to watch out for or some smart habits to do when you do your research. First, I would like to point to some resources and ways of going about researching a topic:
•If you’re researching something, visit it. If you’re planning on setting a story in Florida, then take a trip to Florida and do a little sightseeing. If you want to do a story involving an anthropologist as your protagonist, then meet with a few anthropologists and interview them on their jobs. If your latest thriller involves a modern art caper, visit a few museums and galleries to learn a little bit about what they display and sell.
Of course, this suggestion isn’t always feasible. Most self-published authors can’t take off on a research trip when they want. Luckily they are alternatives:
•Read about the subject. One of the best things about authors, we are voracious readers, which is an asset when it comes to research. Read as many books as you feel you need in order to familiarize yourself with a subject. When I was researching my science fiction novel Reborn City, I read several books on gang violence and the Islamic religion in order to be as well versed as I could be on the subjects.
And it’s not unusual for writers to read more than just a handful of books. Some authors will read one thousand books, letters, manuscripts, diaries, and other sources in order to find information that both agrees with and disagrees with a point they will make in their story.
This brings me to my next subject:
•The library is your new best friend. Whether it’s a university library with thousands of tomes in its stacks, a city library with branches all over town, or a local library that hasn’t changed much since it first opened, libraries are great places to go and get your research materials. It costs no money to join or be a part of a library, and you can often hold onto the books you need for long periods of time.
And should your local library not have the books you need, many libraries these days have InterLibrary Loan programs, which allows your library to ask other libraries if they wouldn’t mind lending out the book you need. You won’t believe how many books I’ve been able to find just by using InterLibrary Loan.
•Ask the experts. I’ve often consulted with experts on subjects for details both minute and major in my stories, and you can find them just about anywhere. I’ve asked teachers at my university about various subjects from healing loss to psychogenic fugue to Russian transliterations, and they always seem happy to help.
And you don’t have to limit your inquiries to university professors. When I needed help with creating the psychological profiles for my novel Snake and learned that none of the professors at my school dealt with that sort of thing, I contacted a clinical psychologist at a local psychiatric firm and asked if he wouldn’t mind helping me. Sure enough, he gave me excellent psychological profiles which I incorporated into the story and which also saved me from using pop psychology to explain my killer (which apparently would’ve been so off the mark, it’s not even funny).
Other experts you can ask for help in understanding unfamiliar subjects include doctors, lawyers, clergy, and anyone who’s experienced with a field or business to the point they can answer obscure questions about the field. And they’re usually glad to help without any compensation (though it’s considered polite to cite them if they contributed significantly to your research efforts).
•Use the Internet. Yes, I know using the Internet isn’t always the safest way to get information, but if you know the right websites, there is plenty of useful information that you can use, even if it’s just quick facts you’re looking up.
And now for some tips that help with the research process:
•Be careful what websites you use. Yes, I know I just said using the Internet isn’t as hazardous as it’s made out to be, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that one must be careful with websites, especially with websites like Wikipedia, where anyone can create an account and edit an entry or article on the website. You could read about Elvis Presley on that site and read a passage that says he was investigated for Communist ties in the fifties, never realizing that was added in by a conspiracy theorist in his mother’s basement.
In addition, sites that seem reputable may not be. The website martinlutherking.org claims to be the site for Dr. King, but in actuality the site is run by a white supremacist group. The real site for Dr. King is actually thekingcenter.org, though most people don’t realize. Like I said, be careful what websites you look at and who you listen to on the Internet. Otherwise one risks looking like the girl from the State Farm commercial below.
•Check your sources. When I was researching Snake, I read a book about psychopathy and mental illness called The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. I thought it was awesome and I learned a lot from it. I was devastated to learn later on that Ronson, the book’s author, edited or made up several of the interviews he used in the book in order to further his point. So whenever you use any book/person/website/etc., make sure there’s not a scandal behind it or there’s any other reason you shouldn’t use the item in question. You’ll save yourself my embarrassment.
•Keep a list of the sources you use. If you do a lot of research on your story, the kind that involves more than ten books, keeping a list to cite your sources so you can add them to the end of your book will not only show how much work went into the research and writing of the book, but it’ll keep the people who go to great lengths to fact-check and disprove your book that you’ve got your bases covered.
Research is an important aspect of writing, and if one goes about it correctly, one can create a wonderful story. And even if it’s a pain to do sometimes, it is well-worth the effort when people say they loved your book and thought the level of detail seemed so real.
Good luck with future research projects, everyone.
* If there are any other resources or tips you think should be included in this list, please let me know. I’ll add it in at a later time and date if I think it could be useful.
I don’t personally have anything enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (or Kindle Select, or anything else exclusive), so I can only share what I’ve read.
Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors 
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