Thoughts on the DBW Writer Survey with Author Lisa Grace

Lisa Grace: I asked Joe to please respond to the DBW 2014 survey questions because I just love how he rips through all the *flakes. Many people spout utter nonsense that is meant to slam self-publishing back into a little box marked "they can't really be doing that well since everyone knows self-publishers really don't make more than $500 per book, ever" so let's write a survey that highlights that particular wish-oid  (which are related to hemorrhoids.)

Joe: You can see some of the results here, but I'm not going to link to the actual survey because I STRONGLY advise writers not to waste their time with it. If you're really curious, Google it, but I'm not going to send any writers DBW's way. 

Keep reading on to see why. TL:DR: The DBW survey is damn near worthless.

The survey results are… well… "skewed" would be overly generous. Do you know how lawyers only ask questions they already know the answers to, in order to persuade a judge and jury? And how what is left unsaid is just as important as they way certain questions are phrased? And how they can ask you to reply either "yes" or "no" even though that doesn't tell the whole story? Add in researcher and response bias, awful and/or incomplete questions, limited and/or missing possible responses, and no random sampling, and welcome to the DBW Survey.

DON'T TAKE THE SURVEY.

Lisa: I just don't get the point of this survey.  Most of the questions, the ones that should be relevant, asked questions relating specifically to the last book published.  This is ridiculous. My last book was published on November 12, 2014 (Angel in the Fire, Book 4) and like many others I do a soft launch.

Referring to "the last book published" shows a complete misunderstanding of the fundamental difference between self-publishing and traditional.

This particular book is the fourth in a series. I still sometimes promote the first, and won't do a large marketing push for another four months when the final book in the series is finished.  This is all by design as there is no urgency to promote mid series.

Joe: I had many similar issues, which would lead anyone reading the results to form incorrect conclusions. When this survey is trotted out to prove various points, or its results are cited, be wary.

Here are the survey questions that we thought were problematic, with our fair use critique and comments.

Question: Have you had at least one book published (either traditionally or self-published)?

Lisa: Okay, I thought this survey was for published authors. Yet, a surprising amount of non-published writers are posting.

Survey over for them, right?

If they've never published, it's fairly safe to assume they make zero, and this survey is no longer applicable to them, UNLESS they were going to add some questions (spoiler alert: they don't) like:

Have you ever queried a traditional publisher?

How many times have you queried traditional advance paying publishers?

How many works/books have you queried publishers with?

How many rejections did you receive on each work?

Now each of these responses should be going into the ZERO made column on the trade side.

Actually, there should be another set of follow-up questions, like: 

How much do you estimate you spend in a year on postage, fine linen paper and envelopes, SASEs, paper and toner for your full and partial manuscripts that were rejected?

This of course, puts the trade-pursuing faction in the NEGATIVE column for earnings for the year.

Joe: I used to be known for saying, "There's a word for a writer who never gives up... published." Years ago, when publishing was exclusively a lottery/carny game, not every manuscript was published. But this survey allows authors who haven't even finished a manuscript to provide data. So far, 47% of respondents haven't complete a book, yet they can still take part of the survey. Who would be interested in that data?

Companies that market products and services to wanna-be authors.

Question: Do you currently have—or are you working on—another book that you'd like to publish?

Lisa: 99% said yes. Since this is a survey for authors…'nough said.

Joe: This made me LOL. If this were a random sample, the question is pertinent. But this sample is (presumably) taken from those who are writers, think they are writers, want to be writers, or are fakers with too much time on their hands.

I wonder what type of author would spend time completing a survey about writing when they never plan to complete a book, which makes me wonder why this question is even asked. Objection, Your Honor, the question is leading.

Question: How do you want to publish your book?

Lisa: The five categories go from "death before self-publishing", to "death before trade publishing."

Most authors don't have a choice, trade is not open to them and self-publishing may be their only option. I really don't like the insinuation that this is a choice.

Joe: I want to make a billion dollars. It wasn't one of the options. But I suppose asking what writers wish will happen qualifies as data.

They could have asked what contract terms are important to writers. What's the minimum advance you'd take? Would you sign away your rights for life? Would you accept a non-compete clause? What are the minimum royalties you'd take?

Or how about asking why writers want to self-pub, or why they are looking for a legacy publisher? That's where this next question fails:

Question:  How important is each of the following publishing-related priorities to you?

Lisa: This is split into 11 categories such as: make money, write a book people want to buy, see my book in the stores, etc.

Again, this question must be written so companies can use it to sell self-publishers services. Fine. More educated sp'rs know all the information they need to self-publish is free or relatively cheap on the web. The Christian Writers Guild, which was offering to publish self-published works for the bargain basement price of $9,999.00, closed its doors.

I'm a Christian, Joe, if I wasn't I'd have to do this ##$$%^% (hashtag, hashtag, dollar sign, etc. = my frustration) plus face palm that people would pay $9,999 for their services.

Joe: I'm an atheist. Fuck 'em.

The survey didn't list my main priority: keeping control over my rights and my career. I was at the mercy of legacy publishers before, and I'll never forget how helpless I felt. That's my main motivator.

But once upon a time I was a newbie, and naive. My publishing education involved a lot of research, and like all new authors I came across vanity presses, fee-charging agents, dubious conferences and writing retreats, and various scams aimed to part me from my money and prey on my desire for publication. I never fell for these, but other writers continue to. 

I would never, in any way, shape, or form, endorse anything that preyed on writers. The deeper I got into this survey, the more I wondered whom the data was intended for.

Question: On average, how much time do you devote to WRITING each week?

Lisa: Why is this important? No one asks after a work is out there how long it took.

Joe: Especially since a book can earn money forever. If I work at McDonald's for $10 an hour, that's all I earn. If I spend and hour writing, my grandchildren will someday earn money off of that hour I worked.

Lisa: With self-publishing I bet this number is higher than with trad writers. If we don't publish, we don't build larger fan bases. We don't buy into: "You can only publish one good book a year." We don't have to waste time re-writing for editors that won't be around by the time the book comes out—or gets cancelled.

Joe: On surveys, do people ever inflate their own numbers in order to seem impressive, even if it is anonymous?

For example, I write for 90 hours a week. I do this after I run my marathon, and have vigorous sex for seven hours each day.

While the question is seemingly innocuous, I've only met a few writers who actually are disciplined enough to write for a set number of hours per day. Some have a daily word count they try to hit. Some work like dogs while they're on a project, but may take weeks or months off between books. My axiom is: I write when I can, when I'm working on something. Sometimes that's 14 hours a day. Sometimes it's twenty minutes.

This survey doesn't take that into account, and I bet I'm more the norm than someone claiming 40 hours a week.

Question: About how many hours per week do you spend on OTHER ACTIVITIES RELATED TO WRITING (social networking, marketing your titles, engaging with fans and other writers, etc.)?

Lisa: Again, this is important for those who want to cross-sell services to authors.

Joe: Writing is hard enough! Do you also want to work 250 hours a week running your own business?!?!? We here at Screwya Vanity Press know that you're an artist who shouldn't have to get bogged down with all the non-writing parts of the job, so for only $4999 we can do them for you!

This survey is looking less and less like a way to analyze the industry and more and more like a way to survey suckers to better sell them stuff.

Lisa: Or maybe this question is on the survey because trade publishers plan to go back to their authors and say, "Look, they're spending X hours a week promoting, you should too."

Don't trade publishers ask their authors to submit a marketing plan? Or have a platform? A friend of mine just mentioned he was offered an advance from a well-known publisher in Christian circles, but they wanted him to guarantee 10,000 sales. Ooops. There might go the advance. Is this what they do? Brag about giving advances, then take them back if a book doesn't make a guarantee. My friend said "no thanks."

Joe: I've never heard of that. Advances aren't normally returned, which is why Mike Shatzkin says that authors really earn more than 25% digital royalties; because the advance never is recouped by the publisher.

Question: What is your approximate pre-tax (gross) annual income (in U.S. dollars) from WRITING BOOKS?

Lisa: More than it would have been if I'd still been waiting to get a trade publisher.

This is where the survey really starts to blow. According to the respondents so far, only 20% have made less than $500.

But which year? 2014 isn't over, so do they want 2013? Or your best year? Or the last twelve months? Or an average of all years?

What if some income is from trade, and some from self-publishing?

"Writing books"? What does that mean? Should I include audio, paperback, ebooks, braille, large print, foreign rights, short stories, flash fiction?

Joe: 50% of those surveyed made under $1000 a year, according to 2033 responses (at the time of this blog post). Only 1690 writers had at least one book published. So that's 343 who aren't going to be making any money because they haven't pubbed anything. According to the results, there were 394 that didn't make any money. So we've got 51 authors out of 1690 who published something who didn't make a dime. That's about 3%. But the survey calls it 19.4% based on the number of respondents.

I'm not a statistician, but a casual glance at that 19.4% seems to imply an incorrect conclusion.

I wonder how many of these people paid some vanity press to self-pub, and if they subtract their costs before approximating gross annual income. THAT would be some helpful info. How many writers published via Xlibris or AuthorHouse and made money? Compare that to someone self-pubbing on Kindle, or someone who landed some shitty Harlequin deal. 

That's a survey I want to see. Something that compares costs. You mentioned SASEs earlier, but landing a legacy publisher has more costs than that. A legacy publisher is a value-added service, and authors pay dearly to get that service. This is something www.AuthorEarnings.com does so well; shows the costs and profits of various types of publishing.

Question: How satisfied are you with your pre-tax (gross) annual income from WRITING BOOKS?

Lisa: Satisfied? Writers are some of the most angst filled homo sapiens walking the planet. When has someone ever really cared about how tortured writers are? Alcohol manufacturers, aspirin suppliers, and those who dabble in the illegal stuff (they don't read surveys) care.

Readers will pay what they feel an author is worth.  If an author isn't happy with his income he does something Mark Twain suggested (I'm too lazy to look up the quote, but most writers know it anyway) and write more books. I'm pretty sure Joe says that too.

Joe: I'm never satisfied. That's what keeps me productive and continuing to try harder.

Question: Is writing books your primary source of income?

Lisa: Ha! No. Not yet, it will be.

I'm sure this is a sensible question. Very few authors since the time of papyrus have made a full-time income writing. And guess what? I know very few trade authors who make a full-time income writing. Most teach, or do something else to supplement their advances.

So, it would be shocking if the majority were a yes.

Joe: Even so, 25% did state that writing books is the primary source of income. But what does "primary source of income" mean unless it is cross-referenced with how much money an author earns per year? How is this data parsed?

Writing has been my primary source of income for ten years. In 2004 I made $30k. In 2014 I made $1m. 

How about asking, "Do you making a living wage writing?" Isn't that more important? 

Question: How many books have you self-published?

Lisa: Amazon says 13. Again, this question does not take into reality the nature of self-publishing. If I have a piece in an anthology, and as a stand-alone, KDP is counting them as two separate works. And again I'm assuming you don't mean in each format, such as ebook, paperback, audio, or translations.

Joe: I self-pubbed all my books that were legacy-pubbed after I got my rights back. Which ones do I count, and where do I count them? Do I count them twice because Question #16 asked how many books of mine were traditionally published?

And what about short stories? Novellas? Bundles? Box sets? What is the definition of "book"? Is the story I have as a standalone and in four collections just a single title, or five?

Did anyone talk to an actual writer before coming up with these questions?

Question: Check all that apply: Which of the following reasons weighed most heavily into your decision to self-publish this book?

Lisa: It's the only way I can publish at this time? But this isn't listed as a choice.

Joe: Okay, I got a different question at this point in the survey, probably because I had a legacy deal. So they gave me more questions than you, Lisa, but they are equally silly:

Question: Thinking about the book that you most recently had TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED, how satisfied were you with each of the following:

Joe: Why is this survey only asking about my last book? Don't the other seven count? They were all unique in how satisfied/unsatisfied I was. Context is needed. And when asked if a writer is satisfied with "how many copies sold", is there any writer alive who wouldn't want to sell more than they have so far?

It asks how much my last book earned, which was 1/10 of what the previous book earned because I switched genres and used a pen name. Isn't that data important? I think so, but the survey doesn't care to ask.

Earnings are cumulative. The last book I published is a small percentage of my income, but how does this survey discern that? 

Question: To date, approximately how many copies of this book have SOLD?

Lisa: Okay, again this question totally blows as it doesn't take into consideration all 13 of my books across several platforms, when added up equal way more than this one soft launch book, which BTW, because I'm a mom who had to drop my dd off at school, then p/u, take her to school skate night, find a home for a stray dog I picked up, write a magazine article I'm committed to, and a dozen other things; I haven't gotten around to uploading on all the platforms yet, just Amazon.

And that is the beauty of self-publishing. It's nothing like trade, unless you want it to be.

Joe: I was asked this for trad pub, and self-pub. Why wasn't I asked what my bestselling title was in each? Or total number of sales in all, since they are all still selling? If I self-pubbed yesterday, and was asked how many books that last title sold sold, the number couldn't predict the much higher number a year from now.

It's just a bad question to ask about the last book, without a frame of reference. When and how was the book published? How did it compare to previous books? What promos were run? 

Why didn't the survey ask: Did you do a BookBub promotion, and did you recoup the cost? For the record, I've always recouped my BookBub costs, and they continue to be one of the best resources for writers.

Where are the questions about income rising or falling? About sales of multiple titles over multiple years? Or how much I've earned since I've been published?

Question: Did you hire someone to edit this traditionally published book?

Joe: Is this asking if I hired a freelance editor before the editor at my publishing house did any editing? Or am I in effect paying the editor at my publishing house by giving that publisher 52.5% of my royalties? 

And what if my editor didn't do any editing?

The next group of questions ask me about my last trad pubbed book. But since I self-pubbed this after getting my rights back, I don't know how to answer.

How would I compare my income in terms of print and digital sales? It was pubbed in 2010 by Berkley, before ebooks became huge, so most of my sales were print. Since I self-pubbed it, most of my sales have been digital. But since there is no delineation in this survey, any conclusions drawn from my results are meaningless.

Question: How much did you pay for editing, proofreading, formatting,  cover creation, and marketing/promotion other services for you book?

Lisa: I spent $99 total on services, and have volunteers who love my writing so much they volunteer their professional services. Not the norm, but true.

Joe: I spend about $1500 for editing, proofing, cover, and design for a novel (including the print version). About $600-$800 for a shorter work.

So what did we just learn from these facts? On average, we spend $766 per book ($99+$1500+$700) / 3.

What does that mean? Some authors spend zero. Some spend thousands. Are median and average important to know? Maybe if someone wants to market services to authors. But Lisa no doubt doesn't care that I spend $1500 on a title; it doesn't effect the $99 she spends. And her $99 doesn't matter to me.

Authors can't glean any real information from this question. Knowing the mean or median that other authors spend doesn't presume that's what you'll spend.

But I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps, maybe, perchance, this DBW Author Survey isn't meant to help authors...

Question: Do you feel you receive fair compensation when readers access this book from subscription services?

Joe: This is the first question on the survey that I found interesting. But no data can be gleaned from it, because it is just opinion. "Fair compensation" is the ringer. What's "fair" to me might not be fair to someone else. How about actual numbers?

Question: In your opinion, has the subscription service hurt your sales, enhanced your sales, or made no difference?

Joe: Has my income gone down since Kindle Unlimited was launched? Yes. But that isn't opinion. It's fact. 

My opinion happens to coincide with the fact of the matter, but wouldn't it be nice if the survey asked some specifics? How much has your income changed? How many borrows vs. sales did you have last month? How were your sales prior to enrolling in the subscription service? 

I'm not the only one curious about this topic, and the survey botched it.

Question: Thinking about the sales platforms, brick-n-mortar bookstores, and subscription services where this book is available, please rank the TOP 3 in order of how much income they generate for you from this book.

Lisa: They don't list direct sales at speaking engagements, nor do they list D2D. How can you have a survey without mentioning D2D?????????????????? The owner of DBW needs to get his money back from whoever wrote this survey for leaving off a major up-and-coming player in ebook distribution.

Joe: For those who don't know, D2D is www.draft2digital.com. Remember some prescient young lad talking about estributors back in 2009 Who could have ever guessed I'd predict something?

Question: How much do you agree with this statement? — "I currently earn enough income from my writing and writing-related activities to support myself."

Lisa: Most writers do not, but those who want to can if they write enough good stuff, long enough.

Joe: Support myself? Or support my family? Shouldn't this question take my expenses and dependents into account? Why didn't they ask if I made a living wage? There is even a calculator for it. 

Question: How satisfied are you with your writing career?

Lisa: We went over this is an angst-filled profession. Yes, I love what I do.

Joe: I love what I do, too. And I'll never be satisfied.

Question: Do you have a literary agent?

Lisa: Yes. And an IP lawyer, but you don't ask about that.

Joe: I have several agents, several lawyers, accountants, assistants, artists, designers, etc. The survey asked about my gross income, but not how much I pay these folks.

So much fail.

Question: What did you like or dislike about working with this particular publisher?

• My publisher guaranteed me a minimum return from the book by paying an advance      

Joe: How does a writer dislike that? It's like going to a massage parlor to get a back rub, paying for the back rub, then saying, "I do not like people rubbing my back."

It's a perfect example of begging the question. And the conclusions drawn will be meaningless.

Here's another stupid one:

• My publisher got visible placement of my book in online stores

Joe: Well, stupid unless you're a Hachette author. (rimshot)

But Hachette authors still had visible placement, even though ordering was more difficult for consumers. 

Other than that, the implication is that publishers get extra visibility on Amazon. This has to be about extra visibility, because any self-pubbed author can get regular visibility on Amazon by doing the same thing all publishers do: uploading a book. But then, any self-pubbed author can get extra visibility, too. There are BookBub, Booksends, EbookBooster, etc, as well as Amazon's own ad program.

Or maybe the survey is contrasting visible placement with invisible placement…

On the plus side, it did ask if publishers were pricing ebooks too high, and keeping too much money. 

But even those questions are loaded. What author with two functioning neurons looks at their publisher pocketing 3x their ebook royalties and likes it? 

I asked William Ockham and Data Guy what they thought of the DBW survey, and they sent me their thoughts:

William Ockham: The primary problem with the survey is that it uses a convenience sample. That means that the respondents are the people who were available to answer the questions. A convenience sample is a non-probability sample. To quote Wikipedia (emphasis added):

In non-probability samples the relationship between the target population and the survey sample is immeasurable and potential bias is unknowable. Sophisticated users of non-probability survey samples tend to view the survey as an experimental condition, rather than a tool for population measurement, and examine the results for internally consistent relationships.

In plain English, the survey tells us nothing about the target population. And the target population is people who self-identify as a "book author". I'm not even sure a random sample of that population would be useful. 

Originally, DBW started this survey so they could sell an analysis of the results to legacy publishers. If they really wanted to gather information that would be useful to legacy publishers, they should be asking a completely different set of questions. Instead of "would you consider a trad pub contract", they would ask "How big would the advance have to be to get you to sign a trad contract" and "how much did you earn last month from self-pubbing". When all you have a self-selected convenience sample, you have to ask yourself, what can we find out about the people who answered the survey rather than trying to reason about the target population. The "writers who would answer this survey" could be an interesting group to gather data on.

Joe: William didn't read this blog post, so I'm encouraged that he independently reached several conclusions that I did.

Data Guy: William Ockham nailed the fundamental problem:

DBW's self-selected survey respondents are simply not a representative sample of authors. Period.

Imagine collecting responses to a survey at Absolute Write, and then separately at The Passive Voice.

Each data set would paint a vastly different picture of writer experiences, earnings, and publishing preferences.

And neither could be projected in any meaningful way to statistical conclusions about writers in general or about the state of the publishing industry.

The structure of the survey questions also seems biased toward supporting last year's conclusions. An author who is exclusively self-publishing new titles while trying to get backlist rights reverted from traditional publishers will be treated identically to an author choosing to be both self-published and traditionally published. Both are lumped together as "hybrid writers."

The questions also fail to distinguish between true self-publishing (where you hire supporting professionals) and paying thousands to a predatory vanity press such as the Penguin Random House-owned AuthorSolutions ripoff companies (Xlibris, Trafford, etc.). Therefore, we can expect the survey results to present highly inaccurate and inflated conclusions about the true expense of self-publishing.

The other bizarre oversight is the treatment of traditional publishing as something an author can unilaterally choose to do instead of self-publishing.

The questions related to publishing path fail to capture the actual decisions about publishing path that authors are making today.

For example, we have the question:

How do you want to publish this book?

- I only want to publish my book with a traditional publisher

- I would prefer to publish my book with a traditional publisher, but I may consider self-publishing

- I have no preference for traditional publishing or self-publishing

- I would prefer to self-publish my book, but I may consider traditional publishing

- I only want to self-publish my book

  

The above multiple-choice options fail to include the path that very many -- perhaps even most -- authors are actually following today.

- I am self-publishing my book and not submitting it to any agents or publishers... but if a traditional publisher makes a great unsolicited offer out of the blue, I will consider it.

Those authors might well select any of the three middle choices instead, resulting in muddy and inconclusive results.

Joe: Data Guy didn't read this blog post, either, but he brought up some of the points we did, which again makes me think we're correct.

But this blog isn't a random sample, and is in no way scientific. I'm not gathering data in order to draw conclusions. I'm offering information and opinion.

The information and opinions on this blog are also offered freely.

Last year, DBW sold the survey results for a whopping $295. Last year's results are now on sale for half that. I'm guessing they're going to sell this one as well.

Anyone who plunks down money for these skewed numbers deserves to get what they pay for. Caveat emptor. 

But why should writers help DBW make money? AFAIK, we aren't able to see the full results unless we buy them. (If I'm wrong, and there is no intent to sell this data, or authors will be allowed to access it freely, I'm sure someone will let me know and I'll correct this blog post.)

Let me repeat my earlier advice and help you save 15 minutes of your life: DO NOT TAKE THE SURVEY.

I'll end this blog post quoting Passive Guy, who gives his impressions about last year's survey on his blog and contrasts that data with the data acquired by www.Authorearnings.com.

Passive Guy: PG will add that non-scientific surveys cannot be relied upon to reflect the experiences and opinions of a population as a whole – authors in this case. Investigative journalism is most definitely not any sort of gold standard for discovering the opinions and experiences of a large group of people.

PG doesn’t know how many people still read or subscribe to Writer’s Digest, but the opinions and experiences described in the survey results only represent the 9,000 or so people who are on a Writer's 

Digest email list who decided to spend their time filling out the online survey.

Scientifically generated random samples are expensive, but they’re the only way for the results of a survey to represent a larger population with any degree of reliability.

Somebody somewhere is bound to bring up the Author Earnings data as they have when prior results of Digital Book World’s surveys have been released. While past DBW surveys have confirmed the beliefs of many in tradpub concerning idie authors and the continuing desire of most authors to be traditionally-published, Author Earnings reports tend to cause discomfort among the denizens of legacy publishing.

Author Earnings takes its measurements from the entire population the survey covers – the 50,000 ebooks on Amazon with the highest sales rank on a particular day, for example (PG doesn’t remember the exact number that AE grabbed the last time).

The analysis Author Earnings conducts on its sample presents a completely accurate picture of those books on Amazon on that day. (This is the case with any survey, scientific or otherwise. The survey results are a picture of a population at the time when the survey was conducted.)

With each Author Earnings report, we receive another completely accurate picture of a large group of top-selling books on Amazon on a particular day. While it is theoretically possible that the days between each single-day snapshot Author Earnings analyzes are completely different than the snapshot days, it seems unlikely.

With each snapshot, we not only have another completely accurate data point for comparison with prior snapshots, but we have a basis for comparing one picture with another to discern trends and develop more reliable extrapolations of what was happening on the days between each snapshot.

Obviously sampling of any sort, scientific or non-scientific, is not as good as having all the information all the time, but sample reliability is fundamental to the reliability of any conclusions drawn from survey results. It’s yet another garbage-in/garbage-out situation.

Joe: Don't take the survey, don't pay for the survey, don't trust the results of the survey.

That's my advice, and I didn't charge you $300 for it.

Guest Post by Anjo Bordell

Anjo Bordell has lived in Shanghai, China since 2007. He completed his debut novel Default in the summer of 2014, and describes it as “half expat novel, half great American adventure.” It is available here on Amazon.

Please sign up for his newsletter, a hilarious and informative monthly dispatch from Shanghai with photos and short podcasts.

This lengthy guest post is also available as a (very entertaining) podcast. Click here for the audio download or here for the player. Pro tip: Listen to the podcast while reading along and clicking the links! Click here for the Kindle version of Writing an Expat Novel.

Visit: anjobordell.com Contact: anjobordell@gmail.com

WRITING AN EXPAT NOVEL

“If you could fight any celebrity, who would you fight?”

“Hemingway,” says Tyler Durden.

Good answer. I’d roundhouse that geezer until he was on life support. After his crimes of shooting unarmed POWs in the face and having written The Sun Also Rises, he’s left me no choice. “Blimey, old chap! Another apéritif?” Screw you, old timer. “Café crème?” Smack! And then he had the audacity to Cobain himself on the same day Céline died. Who made the front page? The genius? No, the murderer, the so-called expat novelist.

Maybe the escapades of “lost” interwar boozers yapping about irrelevant nonsense made for great expat writing in the 1920s, but these days, churning out something so inexcusably mundane should earn you an immediate ticket to permanent obscurity.

Brass Tacks, Not Bullshit

Say what you want about Shanghai, this magnificent city of the future where much of my novel Default is set, but it is anything but mundane. Indeed, China (and most of Asia) offers an endless supply of situations, settings, and characters so bizarre and morbidly fascinating that the writer who finds himself here will soon realize he has enough material to write a new book every week. And this is the perspective from which this broadside has been written—an American white boy novelizing from the teeming depths of Shanghai. Not in Shanghai? Lucky you. Just apply what I’m saying to the context of stories from anywhere. And regardless of where you’re writing from or about, always remember that modern readers don’t want a contemporary rehash of The Sun Also Rises. I don’t, anyway. The original was bad enough.

With so much compelling madness going on around him, the crafty expat novelist knows better than to defile his book with talk of Starbucks and iCrap, and the boring banter of bourgeois baloney. Shanghai is chock-full of that, by the way. Fiction fans are seeking escape, and the tedium of stateside suburbia already offers a generous bounty of these post-millennial plagues. People want “foreign” and “exotic,” not KFC and Facebook. They want dark alleys and intrigue, not bonbons and Louis Vuitton. Uncertainty and suspense, not silly, superficial romances.

Speaking of which, I could be terribly mistaken about all of this, as evidenced by the massive success of a book like Eat, Pray, Love, which tells of the pseudo-spiritual pseudo-awakening of a globe-trotting narcissist searching for pseudo-happiness. Yes, it’s a memoir, but you get the idea. I say we’ve endured enough of this inconsequential claptrap, the middle class musings of an ungrateful bore. What the world needs is straight talk, unencumbered by the poisons of political correctness. Boots on the ground, both barrels. Brass tacks, not bullshit.

You see a lot of both when living abroad, and much of the BS that’s been festering in your head will get rewired into something approaching truth. Or at least a new angle, a different lens through which many assumptions are corrected, refocused, and understood anew.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

So says Mark Twain. I understand the sentiment, but it’s only partly true. Yes, Americans in particular would do well to broaden their horizons, and that’s exactly what happens when you move overseas. But see what a stint in a country like China does for your “wholesome, charitable views.” Prejudice and bigotry? Don’t get me started. Sometimes we’re enlightened to the point that it’s worse than the BS we’ve been fed all our lives.

These charitable views apply not only to your host country, but even more so to the country you’ve bailed. You might think “bailed” is an exaggeration, but as your passport fills with stamps and stickers in languages other than your own, you come to realize that is exactly what you’ve done. And for good reason.

Many of us had the feeling we’d been living ringside in some kind of neo-Weimar freak show long before we “bailed.” But now, the view from outside the fence is so much more objective and sharp, like an unstable image on an old TV made clear with a good slap. This is the true value of witnessing the world with long-term immersion in a parallel universe, an alternate reality from which our notions and judgments of our personal history, opinions, culture, and general way of thinking get a tune-up, a recalibration that can neither be avoided nor reversed.

Ringside: the perfect way to describe the foreigner’s life in Shanghai. But it’s a different kind of circus, one we learn to tolerate as simple annoyance or entertainment. Trivial shenanigans compared to what we’ve escaped, which, as we confide among ourselves, can only be described as daily indications of the imminent downfall of the West.

From my novel Default:

We were well past the days when, if asked to describe the future, one would conjure up images of bright blue skies with cotton clouds and smiling Norwegians flying around in puttering air cars. But we hadn’t yet descended to the point we’ve reached today when, if asked the same question, one either comes up blank or flat-out refuses to answer, cursing you for ruining the entire day by having to think of such terrible things.

Pending apocalypse or not, the need for a respite can get the best of even the most hardened expat in the form of a round-trip ticket to the West. Not everyone is immediately appalled at what they see during the rare vacation back home, and I will admit to the usual symptoms of staring open-mouthed at blue skies or at the stars at night. Proper climate control and big fat steaks. Unfettered, blazing internet, blue eyes, and boobs. But the high quickly fades, and the creeps begin. Old hang-ups and phobias, even revulsion and fear—reminders that we’ve become outsiders in our own countries, and that even short, infrequent visits are more than enough. Further reminiscing grows futile as we realize the cursory perks of home aren’t really the nostalgia we’d thought we were looking forward to, but rather confirmation, closure of everything we’ve left behind.

Temperaments vary, of course, and not all expats have such a negative reaction to a first-world vacation. Some of my friends reached their limits long ago, bought one-way tickets west, and bailed China for good, vowing never to return. But we have all suffered similar misconceptions born from our diverse starting points, and by assuming some risk and seeking a little adventure, we have gained invaluable insight that will serve us well no matter where we end up, especially those of us who fancy ourselves writers.

Characters and Foreign Environments

Jaded businessmen, stoned engineers, ultra-capitalists. Losers, drunks, deadbeats, and the occasional drifter turned novelist. An all-star cast of post-imperialists, unrepentant and unapologetic. Nothing two-dimensional here, no boring dialogue or lack of at least mild intrigue. Just pay attention and your novel writes itself. Up against the wall of an unpredictable alien environment, these characters, these self-imposed exiles—

Oh, what’s this? A knock at the door. My friend from down the hall, the Spanish architect. I don’t like the haggard look on his face. Puts me off my writing game. “Everything alright?” I say. Urgent news. Big changes coming soon. He’s just learned that all the foreigners in the building have to scram. “Who told you that goddam lie?” He says he heard it from the maintenance man. “Seems a little far-fetched, since I just spoke with him about the pipes and he didn’t say a word about this!” He asks me if I’ve all of a sudden learned Chinese. I tell him that’s preposterous. He gives me a look that says, “I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.”

The Texan next door sticks out his head. A rare scene—he and the Spaniard going at it in rapid-fire Chinese. I hold up my hands and point to my face. They get the idea and switch to English.

“The landlord told me it was because of renovations. I figured it’s because I’m black.”

“Renovations?” says the Spaniard. “Remember those soldiers we saw snooping around last week? Apparently, the People’s Liberation Army just liberated this building. So guess who they don’t want around anymore?”

“Blacks?”

“Any of us,” I say. “How much time do we have?”

“Nobody knows,” says the Spaniard.

Tex has heard enough. He slams his door. The Spaniard and I listen for a few seconds at the cursing and crashing inside the Texan’s apartment.

I wouldn’t mind having a go myself about now. My face is straight, but I’m seething inside. For weeks I’ve been anticipating diving into my second novel in my little concrete cave. So much has been written here already. History, greatness! Oh, but my passport says otherwise. Even though I’ve faithfully paid a fistful of redbacks every month for four years (without complaint!), this dirty foreigner’s money is no longer good.

What a shame to have to leave. And for the most laughable of reasons. A hate crime, where I’m from. Shanghai—city of the future, my ass! It might make sense if they’d simply said they didn’t like the looks of me, or had tracked me down after the release of Default. “We no like how you portray our city like circus!” Truth be told, I tried to be as fair and balanced as reasonably possible. But in Book Two, the gloves come off.

Things could be worse, I suppose. I could have been deported—again. Back in 2008, they were taking their Olympic debutante ball very seriously. Thousands of us were caught in a dragnet of nationalistic paranoia, and promptly returned to sender. Lesson learned? Of course not. Most of us came back as soon as we could. Gluttons for nonsense. Hedonists, lechers, powerless against our impulses and the allure of the Orient. The perfect destination for a writer. China—a never ending source of material so ridiculous that most of it is unusable because no one would believe it.

Kicked out by these miserable racists! Must try to stay positive. A lot of good that’s ever done. I’ve even tried to maintain a semblance of integrity. And it’s been years since I’ve had to explain to some very unfriendly cops exactly from where and whom my sketchy work visas had been issued. No more. The straight and narrow! Playing by the rules, and then this happens. Indeed, the thanks I get for putting myself in the poor house writing my novel. Reaping the many rewards.

The Spaniard interrupts my mumbling rant. He says something about our deposits. I give him a look. He takes a step back. I tell him the landlord and the maintenance man are having a laugh in the KTV downstairs, blowing our deposits on ketamine and hookers.

“Ketamine?” he says. “From carrots?”

“Hmm . . .”

I’m thinking about the move. Guess I’ll start looking for a place as soon as I knock out this post. Maybe somewhere near work. Commuting is no way to live. But oh, the dread of moving to Zhabei. Sure, the rent is cheap, but for good goddam reason. Mile after mile of tenement blight, smog, and phlegm. But I’ll save some cash. A couple more years and I’ll be able to bail China for good, vowing never to return.

See what I’m saying? Life is loose. Disaster can strike at any minute. Periodic crackdowns on this or that. Bus fires, building fires, train wrecks, war. Immigration snafus! Graft, theft, greed, general incompetence that can blow a good plan to smithereens. Thugs and cops could burst into your brothel suite right at the moment of truth. Poison milk and gutter oil. SARS, bird flu, swine flu, and this most recent affliction: not being Chinese.

Bright side, Bordell! A minor issue in the grand scheme. At least it got me writing again. I was hopelessly stuck, but now I can show you exactly what I’m talking about. Foreign environments can explode in your face without notice, leaving the intrepid novelist, once he’s calmed down, with a whole new chapter.

Where was I . . . Ah, I was about to tell you more about all the lovely folks you come across in this haphazard habitat. And the locals—don’t get me started. All smiles and emphatic bows until the president makes some offhand remark about the supposed sovereignty of Taiwan. Bite your tongue, sir, for it is the lowly expat who pays the price of your geopolitical indiscretions! Today, just eviction. But tomorrow, who knows? The gulag? We won’t stand for it!

We came here for opportunity and adventure. And when the time is right, we’d like to leave with happy endings and fistfuls of green. No desire for a last-minute chopper escape from the roof of the Ritz. But can you imagine? This lot? Look at us, so varied, so colorful—characters with personas as unique and rare as our very DNA. The Turk, the Dane, the Mad Belgian. The Pope, the Queen, Sexy Barkeep. The Spaniard . . .

He snaps his fingers in my face. “You okay?”

“You’re from the Canary Islands, right?”

“Yes, why?” he says, before looking over my shoulder to my open laptop. “Please don’t put me in your stories, Anjo.”

“Stories?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t worry. No one reads my stuff.”

He’s shaking his head, about to say something else as I shut the door.

Equipment

Hardly anyone uses a typewriter anymore, that time-honored battle ax on which countless of our favorite books were written. But the essence and vigor within that industrial clamor can still be summoned by typing on my weapon of choice: the mechanical keyboard. Invest in eternity—big and clunky, blue switches if possible. Anything worth doing!

I doubt much of any significance has ever been written on cheap, effeminate tap pads. Most garbage they sell these days are so metrosexual, so anemic, so . . . bloodless. Mac? Degenerate nonsense! Manicured, silent little widgets, so dainty and pale, engineered for maximum emasculation. Candy-coated impotence, unfit for writing even the most trivial of emails.

But clackety-clack! You know what that is? The sound of your roommates kicking you to the curb, your wife rescinding her vows. Progress, productivity—the sound of your novel being written. Noise, glorious noise! Like the jackhammers outside my window. And you, your words, your scathing indictments—take another swig of Chivas as you write your stories in maddening, explosive keystrokes, subversive prose roaring across the page—evidence of your existence, proof of your creative power, your vitality, your final purpose.

The keyboard I use is 100% double-fisted badass, tough, reliable, and loud.

Much of my novel was first written with old fashioned pen and paper. I recommend finding a pen you like and buying five of them and fifteen refills.

About this pen and paper . . . As you cut the lights before bed, make absolutely sure that your writing tools are within easy reach. I have a notebook and pen assigned to this post, never to leave my bedside except when transcribing the pages on my computer with my noisy keyboard. (A separate notebook and pen(s) are in my bag at all times.)

Very important: As we shut our eyes, we must be ready for those beautiful checkmates and ingenious plot twists to fall from the heavens into our pre-sleep subconscious. These are lucky breaks, offerings bestowed upon us from the cosmos of creation that’s always swirling around us. We must treat these gifts accordingly. Their value is immense and the price is merely switching the light back on and putting pen to paper.

We’ve all told ourselves at some point that “this is such an obviously grand maneuver that only an idiot would forget it by morning.” Then back to sleep, smiling to ourselves at how incredible our ideas are and how swimmingly our book is coming along. And then halfway through the next day we’re vaguely aware that there was something important we should have remembered. I can’t speak for everyone, but I never remember. Once I realized how indispensable were these bedtime brainstorms, I never chose sleep over inspiration again. And had I allowed laziness to prevail, my book would have been far inferior to what it has become, or would never have even been completed.

Routine

Everyone does his own thing. But my life is so impossibly fascinating that I’m sure you’re just dying to know about my personal writing routine.

China is loud, even louder than my keyboard, especially ground zero in a mess like Shanghai, and even more especially with the busy intersection below my window. I’m used to it by now, with two notable exceptions: the curse of the hammer drill, and the old man outside, street level across the way, who plays the instrumental theme to Titanic on infinite loop on his little radio made for old deaf people. Even with all the traffic, bus horns, shouting, sirens, and street cleaners, I can hear that old man’s radio as clearly as if it were sitting on my desk. And that song is really, really annoying. But God bless him. Haven’t seen him in a while. Hope he’s okay.

I can write during the day, but it’s not optimal. I’m most productive in the hours before the sun shows up for its usual morning struggle against Shanghai’s atmospheric filth. If I get to bed on time, around 9pm, I’ll be up at four. I’ll drink half a liter of warm water with the juice of two lemons. (No Chinese hocus pocus here. I’m worried about kidney stones. Once was enough.) Then a steaming mug of Bulletproof coffee and half a pack of Reds. Coffee is one thing. Bulletproof is another. It should be the standard breakfast of writing champions everywhere.

Civilization is quiet, and only those of us who have been deprived of the relative noiselessness to which we are accustomed can fully appreciate it. An early start with a clear head ensures the best conditions from which imagination can burst like a supernova through the splendor of silence. I can write full tilt until the bar girls come home at 5:30, tramping up the steps and chatting down the hall, finally returning my solitude with the slamming of their apartment doors. The sky brightens, a thousand buildings come into view, traffic increases, and I’m done by 6:30, maybe 8:00 on weekends.

A few hours of daily stress cripples my creativity, so afternoons are less productive. Sometimes I’ll spend three hours on one lousy paragraph, cursing out loud my hermitic calling, disgusted with the entire situation, and wondering if fifteen stories is high enough for an effective cure.

I’ve tried writing in coffee shops. Of the 100k-plus in this city, I’ve found a couple of decent spots, with soft music and comfortable chairs. But like a lot of places in Shanghai, they vanished without notice, were gutted, and a week later rechristened as real estate offices or banks. I’ve tried a few others, but even when empty, the Whitney Houston and Kenny effin’ G. blasting through the speakers got old in under a minute. I don't bother anymore, resigning myself to writing at home in my dilapidated dugout. You should see these digs. Most people would be appalled if they saw the conditions in which I live and write. They'd buy my book out of head-shaking pity. I can't even bring local guests here. I've learned my lesson with that. And now that I’m getting the boot, things are about to get a lot worse.

But anyway, I like a view. Not that the view I have now is so great, but it’s something. Distance in front of me, an expanse to absorb my stares. And there’s a certain third-world urban loathing in my surroundings that keeps me in check. I fear being mesmerized by a better environment. A more picturesque setting, like a misty Irish coastline or a panorama of Rockies, could sap my ability to write with such caustic mockery. My conscience might not allow it. The devious creativity on which I depend might turn soft and sentimental, and this is not a risk I am prepared to take. Like it matters. Barely a buck to my name. So, for now at least, Shanghai it is.

Distractions

I don’t mind the odd, unplanned distraction, as long as it’s entertaining. Like the occasional fist fight in the street below, or fireworks going off in my face, provided it isn’t during Chinese New Year, when the novelty of fireworks wears off after the first of many 24-hour periods of uninterrupted incoming. And even that is preferable to the hammer drill and the old man’s radio.

The internet isn't too much of a distraction for me, especially in China, where the blood-boiling ritual of connecting to the outside world is far more distracting than the would-be content. But mobile messaging apps will kill your productivity. I've had to quit chat groups altogether because I couldn’t get anything done. It isn’t so much the time that’s stolen, but your attention span, which will eventually be reduced to a generous five seconds. And it's not enough to merely put down the phone, because you’ll still have that constant urge to check what new hilarious and very important messages have been posted, and how you can contribute to such earth-shattering discussions. Cold turkey, friends. On par with quitting smoking. And be ready for withdrawals—the shakes, depression, and loneliness. But come deathbed regret day, I doubt you’ll be wanting to trade all the books you’ve written for another animated meatspin. This is just my experience, of course. If you can write your novel in five-second increments, then by all means.

And TV is a bottomless black hole of time, soul, and productivity. Nothing new here. They make excellent targets at the range.

Prestige

Steve Albini, sound engineer extraordinaire and peerless champion of the analog medium, has said that if he were to cease presenting bands with reels of magnetic tape documenting their grinding toil in the studio, and instead were to simply hand over a digital file, then he would “feel like a fraud.”

Indeed. And while “ebooks are forever,” as Lord Konrath says, they’re about as prestigious as MP3s. On the fringe of physics, they barely exist. The fruits of our struggle, years of drudgery, reduced to faceless data. I hate telling people, after they learn of my novel, that it's only available as a crappy digital file. Do I “feel like a fraud?” Not exactly, but there is a certain dismissive sentiment, on both sides, that the author and his work have been confined to amateur hour.

After all, any jackass can upload his miserable tripe to the internet. Just like indie bands. But musicians showcase their true worth by performing live, which is much more effective for gaining fans and income than a lousy author’s website and feeble pleas to “buy now” and prayers that unsuspecting readers will invest hours of their precious time reading your book, actually liking it, and then telling ten thousand friends.

But yes, I have effectively bypassed the Manhattan puppet masters and have therefore avoided years of low-crawling through broken glass. And the money is already rolling in. All twelve dollars of it.

I gripe about our measly digital files masquerading as “books,” but I concede that Amazon has done a remarkable job with its development of the Kindle. I was a diehard, and they had skeptics like me in mind when engineering this little device that may prove to be more profound and game-changing than the so-called smartphone. I still revere the superiority of paper books, but the Kindle is a worthy second.

What about CreateSpace? My apologies, but if I were ever to see my book in bound paper, I would never settle for less than a proper offset printing. I’m very particular about presentation and quality, and with paper books, only industry standard can satisfy my demands. Anything less would be like watching a brilliantly shot movie on dusty old VHS. In mono. It’s hard for me to enjoy the content when I’m being distracted by the inferior format. And I would find it difficult to live with myself if I were to subject my readers to standards beneath my own.

It’s not just me. Everyone knows there’s more status in having a traditionally published book. But I suspect, as we all do, that this lamenting of self-publishing’s lack of prestige will diminish in the coming years as young readers, brought up with various devices in their faces at all times, are less instilled with the pleasure of paper books, and will have little nostalgia for these relics from prior generations.

But until this becomes “normal,” self-published Kindle authors will be fighting an uphill battle of preconceived notions of illegitimacy. This makes it all the more important that we are fanatics in our pursuit of excellence, and that we refuse to settle for anything less. This is our responsibility to ourselves and the poor reading public, whether you’re writing an expat novel, a self-help book, or a dystopian epic about nuclear zombie . . . lesbians.

Simple Things To Avoid

I’ve never been much of a team player, but some of the rules of our trade have been established for reasons that are incontestable.

“Ah, thank you, Bordell! How many books have you written? One?”

Yes. But even so, I am well aware of certain foibles to avoid, glaring weaknesses I sometimes see in the writing of even “properly” published authors. I’m no expert. But the internet is. Just do a search for the overuse of dialogue tags and LY-adverbs. How these infirmities have yet to be eradicated is beyond me, but your writing will click up a notch by simply reducing them to an acceptable level.

Flat characters and boring dialogue are common complaints of dissatisfied reviewers. Remember this, and write accordingly. With an international cast ranging from charismatic to shady to outright full of shit, there is no excuse for flat, uninspiring discourse in an expat novel. Make your dialogue realistic and interesting whether or not it’s actually “moving the story forward.” Extra points if the reader laughs out loud.

Keep in mind that your book needs to pass the expat smell-test. Make sure you know, or at least appear to know, what you’re talking about. And readers back home might not notice the hackneyed accounts of over-tread foreign subject matter, but people with experiences similar to your own might cringe. Some things are inevitable, such as confusion resulting from the culture and language barrier. But use your judgment and try to avoid the more wince-inducing clichés of the country in which your novel is set.

Watch the overuse of foreign words. My first draft had too many Chinese terms, phrases, and street names scattered about. Then I realized they added nothing to the story and were like unnecessary narrative speed bumps. All but a very few got the ax. Of those remaining, if the meaning isn’t immediately obvious, then it’s explained later, but not necessarily defined. This is an important distinction, akin to “show don’t tell.” Explain the meaning in the context of the story, or otherwise cleverly insert it into the following dialogue.

I touched on this earlier—my disdain for the use of pop culture terms and brand names, especially when related to our ubiquitous connectivity. iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, selfies, YOLO, etc. Don’t talk about this crap. In the interest of making your novel as timeless as possible and not so immediately dated, be very careful with the use of these timestamps of fleeting relevance. Mentioning Facebook is one thing. But imagine having written your novel a few years earlier and your hero was using MySpace. Or dialing up to CompuServe on his 486 to do a Lycos search for PB Max on the World Wide Web.

Everything today is so transitory and cheap. Make your work the exception. Ebooks are forever, yes? Then we must write like we believe it. After all, I’m talking about writing a novel here, not a blog post. The ebook format is flighty enough. There is no need to make it even more throwaway. We should treat our work with a sense of permanence, and avoid the mistake of choosing the low road of our temporary culture, awash in gizmos, gadgets, and gimmicks. Because in the space of one year, an otherwise timeless novel could become as irrelevant as The Sun Also Rises.

Shortcuts and skimping will sabotage your efforts regardless of what you’re trying to accomplish. Anything worth doing, remember? So don’t skimp on your artwork! I went with awesomebookcovers.com and I think the results are fantastic. Note to Amazon: if our book covers are so important, then why has your pathetic resizing algorithm destroyed my colors, eh? I’ll tell you what—sign up for the newsletter on my website and I’ll send you a link for a downloadable poster. Print it out four feet across. It looks amazing.

And if you're not going to hire an editor to wade through your sloppy mess and turn it into something worthy of your good name, then you are wasting your time as well as everyone else's. I didn’t skimp on Default, and I didn’t rest until I got the results I wanted. And while readers might disagree on how many stars it should receive for story and style, I am absolutely certain that no one will lump my novel in with that contemporary scourge of ebook self-publishing: the “tsunami of crap.”

Closing Argument

Expat or homebody, novelist or pamphleteer, we are all witnesses to global changes of historic proportion. Whether it’s confrontation between restive empires or the proliferation of this little device called the Kindle, the Order is in transition, and these shifts in power are nothing short of momentous.

Regardless of what the future holds for the victims of international upheaval, I agree with Lord Konrath when he says there has never been a better time to be a writer. And if you combine this with the intoxication of an increasingly unstable yet readily travelable world, I’d say it’s even more true for the expat novelist.

But there’s no Parris Island for this, no drill instructors kicking our butts and violently molding us into professionals. It’s up to us to lay on the hate, putting our miserable selves through this awful, desolate gauntlet of writing, editing, publishing, and promotion.

Everyone has a “voice” now, for better or worse. Don’t waste yours. We must do our part in breathing life back into a culture that has become so childish, superficial, and complacent. Make your life count, make your writing count. Write every day like it’s your last. Write every book like it’s your last. Carpe diem, carpe librum.

Become a fanatic. Aspire to greatness.