This is number 141 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“DO YOU TAKE THIS…”
Author???
Oops! Wrong kind of engagement. No. I am not getting married. I’m actually responding to a serious question I received from a patron the other day. I answered him directly, but the question was important enough that I thought it merited a more in depth and public response.
“I wanted to ask you about how to encourage a very good author [REDACTED] to get back into the groove. He is the author of the acclaimed [REDACTED] serials and books. I know that a bunch of his Patreon followers have tried to encourage him back, but he has been fallow for almost a year.”
Wow! What a hard question from a real fan who wants to encourage a favorite author. And it merits more of an answer than ‘It depends.’ But it does depend. There is honestly no one size fits all authors response.
I’m personally 76 years old and whenever I hear this about a fellow author, my first thought is “Is he still alive?” I’ve seen all too many cross over in the past few years. I’ve lost editors, fans, reviewers, and fellow authors. And a number of others popped back up a few months or years later as if they’d never been missing. But check on the well-being of your favorites now and then. Some folks thought I’d passed on a while back when it was just two months between the end of one story and the beginning of another. [SPOILER: I’m still alive. The last time I checked. But thanks for asking.]
There are probably as many reasons for an author to have gone silent as there are authors. We never know which it might be. Illness? Depression? New job? New baby? Deported? Burned out? Expatriated to a country that blocks certain kinds of content? Said everything they had to say? Married someone who disapproves of their stories? Married someone who keeps them too busy with other things to write?
That last one, by the way… I started getting up before five o’clock in the morning when I was in seventh grade. It was a habit that continued through high school, college, grad school, and two marriages. I got up early and if I was writing, I could get more written before eight a.m. than I could for the rest of the day. Then, at 39 years old, I got married again and discovered that I no longer wanted to get out of bed in the morning! Imagine that!
Anyway, encouraging an author really depends on their condition and what motivates them. [As I wrote this, an ambulance arrived to take away my next-door neighbor.] There are also almost as many motives for writing as there are authors, so it will depend a little on how well you know them.
I am personally not motivated by money. Not that I don’t need money, but if money was my major interest, I’d be a greeter at Walmart where I’d make about the same amount as I make working around the clock writing. You see, I used to write for a living. I’ve written training manuals, documentation, newsletters, marketing materials, and just about anything else that required words. Except novels. I didn’t have time to write novels, even though that was what I wanted to do.
Since I retired, I’ve published over seventy of those pent-up novels. I didn’t do it for a living! I write to live.
But it is important to some authors and if income falls off, they become discouraged, depressed, and may become silent. I’ll repeat an oft-quoted bit of advice: One of the best things you can do for an author is leave a review of their work wherever it is sold. We all appreciate that, even if we aren’t ‘in it for the money.’
And that brings me to the title of this post: Engagement! It is very hard to encourage an author by means of an intervention. It needs to be done before they go silent. Preferably a long time before. Once an author has shut down, it’s really hard to get him ‘back in the groove.’
There are many kinds of engagement, like leaving a review as mentioned above. Commenting on serials or on forums or on blog posts is a great way to engage the author. Voting for stories. Direct email is a good form of engagement. Checking out their Discord channel is good. And even giving a thumbs up on social media can be considered engagement and encouragement.
I’d only just begun my endeavor to write erotica in 2013. My first short entry was well-received. The second, not so much so. I was still pretty enthused, so I decided to return to the art theme I’d started in the first story. In the Model Student series, I wrote the story of a depressed art student struggling with loneliness and self-doubt at an art school 1500 miles from his home. It was heartfelt. I understood this from my daughter’s experience. But people seemed to flock to the story and at the end of the first part, Mural, I received this email comment:
“My God. I have just read 5 and 6. Now I understand your blog and the forum when you talk about the feedback you've been getting. Your work is amazing! You have a gift. You really don't need hints on where the story should go next, because these characters inside you will tell you exactly what you need to do, and which step to take next. That they are so alive on paper (well, on the screen), means they are living and breathing inside you, and there is no skin between them and the words you write. Oh my god. Thank you for daring to do this, to open your heart like this. I don't know whether these people exist in real life or not, but they for sure exist inside you, and now they live for us. Incredible, and thank you.”
I don’t know how long it took this reader to pen the paragraph above, but it truly held me together for nearly two years! And now, fourteen years later, I still look at it and feel a fresh burst of pride and power to go out and write another. You simply can’t imagine the power readers wield.
Mural and the entire Model Student series are available as eBooks on ZBookstore and in paperback at other online vendors.
It was about that time that I also realized this was what I write for. I hadn’t made a penny off my Devon Layne books yet. I recognized there was probably an opportunity to earn some money there (and I began publishing them for sale), but what I really wanted was to touch readers in such a way that they were moved by my books. I wanted to engage with them.
I also noted that many of my readers were older people on limited income, just as I was. They flocked to the free reading site (SOL). I promised myself and my readers that I would always make all my novels available for free online reading. Stories don’t necessarily make it to all sites at the same time, but specifically, I offer all of them as online serials at StoriesOnline and at DevonLayne. My patrons, for their kindness in supporting me with monetary contributions, get the stories first, both as online serials and as eBooks.
So, kiss an author—if they’re willing. Show your engagement with the stories. Even just say hi when you see him flit across your screen.
By the way, the ambulance left without my neighbor, so either he wasn’t in as bad a shape as they thought, or he couldn’t afford the transport.
Enjoy!