Dystopias seem to be the dominant science fiction type in the last decade or two.\u00a0 And the dopiness of the ones ending up on the large and small screens doesn\u2019t encourage much hope in the genera.\u00a0 We have the ever popular \u201cHandmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d that bangs away at the female victim of the evil patriarchy trope.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the \u201cHunger Games\u201d which I suppose reflects the idea that somehow resources on Earth are about to collapse and a zero-sum game will emerge where we all will be fighting for our lives to get a loaf of bread.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 Who knew science fiction could be so much fun?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve recently heard that horror is becoming a big genre with young men (apparently written stories and video and also video games).\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t alarm me.\u00a0 I think this is wrapped up with the popularity of video games and I think that is more a matter of the desire to work through puzzles and shoot monsters with guns (which is always a good thing!).<\/p>\n
I have a theory that the current science fiction publishing model will not endure much longer.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they can make enough money from selling romantasy porn and feminist dystopia much longer.\u00a0 Of course, it\u2019s possible that AI writing will completely destabilize all fiction writing.\u00a0 In that case the whole thing becomes academic.\u00a0 That would leave us just downloading AI slop at virtually no cost.\u00a0 But either way the world will be changing to resemble nothing like what we old-timers remember from the before time when books were an industry and grammatical sentences actually existed.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is a hell of a time for me to become an author.\u00a0 But in a sense, it may be the best time for me to write.\u00a0 The barrier to getting published doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 The only barrier is figuring out a way to let the reading public know my book exists and what it\u2019s about.\u00a0 But that\u2019s far from a trivial problem.\u00a0 Key words and algorithmic search engines and Amazon ad management are complicated and confusing topics and I\u2019ll confess that I know next to nothing about any of that.\u00a0 But I\u2019m slowly picking up some practical and painful experience.<\/p>\n
For instance, so far today my Amazon ads have 23,417 impressions.\u00a0 I believe that means, that number of people had the chance to see my ad on the search pages they viewed on Amazon.\u00a0 Out of those thousands, only 16 people clicked on my ad.\u00a0 Out of those 16 people only two bought my book (e-book version).\u00a0 And that was with the e-book discounted to $0.99.\u00a0 So, there was $1.98 worth of sales.\u00a0 Of which I only get 30% (~$0.59).\u00a0 Now currently the cost per click is $1.71.\u00a0 Which means so far today I\u2019ve been charged 16 X $1.71 = $27.36!<\/p>\n
Obviously, this isn\u2019t the way to become rich through writing.\u00a0 But it is a very educational exercise to understand how the current self-publishing model leaves quite a bit to be desired.\u00a0 But I still have few more ideas to try before giving up on my dream of becoming the next great science fiction author.\u00a0 Excelsior!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dystopias seem to be the dominant science fiction type in the last decade or two.\u00a0 And the dopiness of the ones ending up on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,1289,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[5147,1290,4484,5205],"class_list":["post-36880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-marketing","tag-my-fiction","tag-the-american-archipelago-book-1-the-sniper","tag-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n