When I decided to put Make a Move out myself, eBooks were still the next big thing, and print was an obvious choice for me. I don’t regret that choice, and I’ll release a small print run of the next book when it’s done, but it did steer me down a path that undermined what Make a Move was meant to be. It was never supposed to be a novel – it’s six stories – but the cost equations of print forced me to squeeze it into that container, and defused some of its impact, its originality. I compromised.

I’ve never been happy about that, but now eBooks are mainstream, and give me all the flexibility I need to deliver the story as it was intended, which is what I’m working on. The hard part is the pricing, but I’ve got some ideas on how to get the numbers to balance. It’s going to take some more work, and probably some time booked off my day job, but it’ll be worth it as it will free me to create book two the way it should be done. Think of this processes like when Apple released Mac OSX Snow Leopard; a re-architecture step to make what follows even better.

So what else have I been up to? Well, something strange happened about 6 months ago, when I said yes to doing something I had no real idea how to do, namely shooting a video for a local Roller Derby team (YouTube link). I said yes because I was bored and thought it’d be fun, which it was. I learned so much about shooting and editing video, and even more about recording, mixing and mastering music. That was a period of extreme creativity for me, and I loved every second. It was also a lesson in the benefits of just saying “yes” and working out the details later; as long as you can outline what you need to learn in the time available, taking risks is a great way to get fired up.

I’m really happy with the result: the music-video-speed edit, the over-compressed colour palette, the punk-rock-meets-High-School-Musical soundtrack… I think it came out great.

And so did some other people…

I was asked off the back of that to do a studio shoot for a newly formed burlesque troupe (www.burlettes.co.uk) including stills. We had no idea how to light a shoot like that, but we knew we could work it out in time, and we nailed it. We’re still editing the dances together, but the quality of the footage is something the whole team are proud of.

Another derby video shoot came up, and we were happy to do that, as this time it included interviews, so the audio recording/processing gave us another learning opportunity, and it was off the back of that shoot that we were invited to work with some local magic practitioners, shooting a street magic show on a full set of broadcast-quality gear. And this show is targeted for more than YouTube…

So what has this got to do with Make a Move? Well, everything.

I can’t work in a vacuum, creating derivative plots and characters, recycled from all of the other media I’ve consumed. I just don’t see the point. I have to live these adventures, meet these people, breathe in these places, and capture those experiences, all enhanced with a touch of fantasy to elevate the narrative beyond the limits reality can endure.

You might be surprised how much of Make a Move is based on experience…

But I have a mortgage, and a child in nursery, and a day job to support them both, and the opportunities for adventure are harder to find. So when I get a chance to explore this life, and meet new people, and create something cool, I’m going to say “yes”, and fight that nagging thought that I should be writing, knowing that the only way that I’ll write anything worth my readers’ time will be to live it first.

But that doesn’t mean that there’ll be magicians in Make a Move 2, and you might be thinking that a show about magic might be boring (it won’t, not the way we’re going to shoot it) but you have to remember the fact of which I remind myself daily:

This is only the beginning.

But rather than be negative, I’ll try to be balanced by suggesting a fix. Saying something’s “broken” is pointless commentary unless you can state, clearly and with neither emotion nor agenda, what “fixed” is.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking on Amazon for a book on audio mixing. I’d already bought one title for my Kindle (the well-written and professionally converted Zen and the Art of Mixing by Mixerman) but I wanted something more in-depth. A friend of mine did a degree in audio engineering, and has a load of books on the subject, but they’re all over ten years old, and a lot of the technology described within has moved on to the point of being unrecognisable, so I wanted something published within the last couple of years. I found Mixing Audio – Concepts, Practices and Tools by Roey Izhaki, and it has a Kindle edition, but I decided to go for the print copy for a few of reasons:

• It was only £2.21 more than the Kindle version
• It comes with a DVD, that I then won’t have to download
• I can lend it to my friend when I’m done

The second point is just laziness on my part, but the first and third could have been predicted and negated by the publisher. The point about lending is a contentious one, as legally, I’ve bought the book for personal use, and don’t pay the publisher for lending rights. Fair enough, but it’s a bit… backwards. Many software programs allow you multiple installs within certain, fair, scenarios. I’m thinking of audio plugins from Stillwell and Cytomic, but that’s just where I’m at right now. Other, much larger, companies are moving to the same kind of thinking. And that got me thinking.

I’ve bought books that teach software or technology, read them, and each time a new version of the product is released, I’ve just read up on the changes from the website; I’ll never buy a new release of that book again. But eBooks, in their simplest form, are software. You don’t buy a full license each time a new version is released; you buy a much cheaper upgrade. And you always buy it, because you like software, and you want the latest and greatest.

I ordered the Roey Izhaki book, and I’m reading it now, but once I’ve read it, I’ll never buy a subsequent edition. It’s too expensive for the 20%-or-so of updated content you’d get in that full-price printed book. If the eBook came with updates – new editions at discounted prices to the owners of previous versions, as confirmed by your Amazon purchase history, I’d have bought it. I’d have bought it because the eBook, even at the same price, offered better long-term value. Never mind colour, or video, or embedded sounds (I can download them from the website once I pull my finger out…) upgrades to content that becomes quickly outdated are a serious value-add, at little cost to the publisher, that don’t impact future sales, of which there won’t be any anyway.

So that’s my suggestion for a new business model; find out how your customers want to use your products, and work with your distributor to allow them to do it, and pay you for the privilege.

Anyone Can Play Guitar

No, they can’t. As a musician, you’ll find yourself hanging out with other musicians, so you get the impression that everyone has a degree of musical talent. Most people, however, don’t. Not because they lack the raw ability, but because they lack the time, desire, or opportunity to learn. And, yes, some people will never be able to play, because their brains just aren’t good at that kind of thinking.

You tell someone you play guitar, they assume you’re good. The same is true of film-making at any level. You say you shot a roller derby video, people assume you know what you’re doing and that the end result is going to be awesome (it is, by the way – Steve). They don’t assume it’s going to suck.

You tell people you write, they assume you suck.

Not Everyone Can Write

Yes, they can. Not everyone can write well, but they can write. Most people use a computer at home or at work, so they all know their way around Word. They can use a web browser to research as well as you can. They can spell – maybe.

And this, I think, is the key to the different attitudes the three creative endeavours receive. Musicians and film-makers are seen to have technical skills that non-participants don’t, so even if the song or film is bad, it’s better than anything the unskilled observer could produce, which translates into a sympathetic view of the work. Add to that the significant financial investment in producing anything that can be played on an iPod or a DVD player, and the creatives are further elevated in perceived stature. Ignoring my computer, which I use for lots of things, my basic home recording setup – including instruments – cost over £3000, and I’m not quite done yet. My writing setup cost about £40. I could write an amazing book and record a terrible song, and the latter would still be seen as the greater achievement, as anyone can write a book, but not everyone can play guitar.

Customer Perception is Out of Our Hands

No, it’s not. Producing an eBook independently is never going to require a huge cash outlay unless you pay for professional editing, typesetting and conversion, but even if you do, that value perception won’t be increased, as readers won’t know. The book will be better for it, but readers won’t know why, or how much you spent. A professional cover designer adds visible value, but there are great designers working at all cost scales, so no help there.

But writers do have skills that non-writers don’t: namely grammar and typesetting/eBook conversion. The problem is, these skills are being aggressively devalued, and the group responsible is, well, us.

I’ve read way too many blogs/tweets stating that grammar is an evolving discipline – that it’s alive – and that as long as communication is maintained, anything goes. Anyone questioning this stance is branded a grammar Nazi (gotta love the internet) but a thorough understanding of grammar is what separates a skilled written communicator from the rest of the population that don’t understand even basic sentence construction. It’s a skill that makes our book understandable to anyone, and yet we seem hell-bent on throwing it away. Is grammatically correct prose seen as elitist? Condescending? Not to me. I think classical grammar combined with stilted writing can alienate readers with more modern tastes, but that’s just style; the underpinning grammar isn’t to blame.

Formatting an eBook isn’t easy either. Uploading a Word doc to Amazon is easy, but taking control of how your text is displayed on an eReader requires time, effort, and a steep learning curve. It’s a discipline most people would struggle with, yet it’s another skill that separates skilled eBook writers from the crowd. So why do so few independent authors try to do a proper conversion, or connect with someone who can help them? Even eBooks from my favourite mainstream authors are riddled with formatting errors, so this is one area in which a writer can elevate their standing, yet so few try.

As modern, independent writers/DIY publishers, we do have skills – skills we should be proud of – but as long as we’re happy to allow their devaluation, or to actively participate in that process, readers and outsiders will continue to look down on our independent trade while lauding others.

And right now, as a reader first and a writer second, I can’t say I blame them.

It’s got me thinking, though, about the perceived value of entertainment media, and how the work of teams of talented people, over a year or more, is now considered disposable when viewed in the context of the torrent of freebies available online.

Maybe the answer is in finding a way to monetise the experience surrounding the product, rather than the product itself, but that leads me to think that the only money is in the medium – the technology – and not in the message. The message used to be everything; now it’s the added value. As an amateur writer/filmmaker/musician, it pisses me off, as it makes me think there’s no point trying to build a career out of what I love; I have to accept a conventional day job – either working for myself or a company – and relegate my other endeavours to hobbies. I’m not at that point yet, but like I said, it’s on my mind.

Today, I was asked to shoot some video for youtube, and not wanting to do a half-assed job, I offered to record some music for the soundtrack too. I love this kind of project – pure creativity, and zero business. It’ll be fun, and nothing more than that, so I’m in. I am concerned about the devaluing of creative media, and its implications for me, but maybe the bigger question should be, ignoring the wider business world for a second, what do I want my creative life to be? And this video project, right now, is it.

A couple of weeks back, I started wondering if I should start submitting Make a Move to publishers again. It was never my intention to stop; I decided to put the book out myself to have some fun while waiting for responses, but the process has taken so much of my time that the submissions have fallen by the way. Then a couple of people independently asked about my submission status, and that confirmed that I needed to give it more brain time.

The problem is, I like where I am right now. Not in a “indie ’till I die!” kind of way, but I like the creative freedom that I have. I’m not a writer who worships the process; writing has always been hard for me, and I have to force myself in front of the computer most days. What I do love is how the stories and characters make me feel – how they make my readers feel. I love ideas – how they collide and coalesce into something amazing. Books let me capture these experiences and share them, but they’re not the only way.

Right now, I’m working on a script for an indie film – nothing major, just a 10-minute short – that features a band. I’m also writing/playing/recording the music for the soundtrack. Thinking about the roll-call of musicians in the fictional band, I realised that the soundtrack would need to feature the instruments they play (I have a keyboard player, there need to be keys/synths in the music). The reverse is also true; I can’t have characters playing instruments that I (or the multi-talented @theanonwonder and @jooleemarie) can’t play, as we wanted to do the music ourselves, without bringing anyone else in. I love that relationship between the reality of the music and the fiction of the film – it gives me the restrictions I need to produce my best written and musical work. The situation transcends story.

I love working this way. I fires me up. I have the best job in the world. I’m just not getting paid for it…

But would an advance on Make a Move change anything? I’d be contractually compelled to write the second season of the book, instead of being able to rely on the understanding of my readers while I get the film done. And I’d have more money, but not enough to give up my day job, which I like. I’d have print distribution, which would get my books out to more readers, but unless the goal is financial reward, more readers isn’t a goal in itself. Sales of the book are far from stellar, but I know the best way to drive more sales is to get the second book written and published, which I can currently do at my own pace.

I think the main reason I still want a book deal is that I love the publishing industry. Yes, I said it. Even though I find their output largely unreadable, and I’ve often said bad things about the way they operate and the mistakes they’re (in my opinion) still making, I love the concept of the institution of publishing. I guess it’s the same way people still see a need for the royal family; they’re a flawed institution, but they’re important just because they are. And as I love publishing, I feel like I should play my part in the big machine, even if I’m not convinced it’s the best path for my career as a writer, or for Make a Move.

Like I said, I’m conflicted.

I’ve taken my foot off the marketing gas this last couple of weeks. Balancing writing and promoting is difficult at the best of times, but I let disharmony creep into my domestic life, and that’s been eating away at my free time. Now that I’ve been able to straighten out my schedule, I’m back in the game, but with an air of tension that I’ve somehow damaged my reputation as a self-publisher by not pushing the book as hard as I could have. It’s not been a complete washout – one of my retailers called to ask for more books – but I have this feeling that I could have, and should have, done more. I was beating myself up over this failure, when I came to a realisation.

This project is running to my schedule.

This mantra of promote, promote, promote didn’t originate in my world – it came from publishers of music, books and films who have moved from a position of developing artists over time, to looking for a fast return. If your debut album bombs, you’re done. If a film underperforms on its opening weekend, it’s a flop. The big publishing houses are still putting marketing money behind significant releases, but that window is narrow, with other book slots chasing it, and that title has to hit big in its allotted time. No one cares about letting a product find its market through word of mouth any more, as it takes too long.

Word of mouth is everything to me for two reasons. First, I don’t have access to national/international physical distribution, and second, I want my book to find the readers who will love it, and I know they’ll love it because it’s been recommended by friends who know their tastes.

Word of mouth takes time to build. A long time. And I have that time, as I don’t have to provide an immediate return on this title. Yes, I’m mad that these last two weeks have been unproductive, and yes, I’m working my ass off to catch up, but I’m not stressing about it anymore. There is no deadline.

Not that I’m being complacent, and allowing apathy to creep in. I’m just seeing this project for what it is: my life.