Thinking about books
Feb. 28th, 2013 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdMy sales have fallen precipitously since mid 2009. I'm trying to come up with the next thing to write to boost them. Because in what universe does a mostly vanilla heterosexual paranormal romance NOT sell?
A dear friend and constant reader suggests that I am "Out There." I protested that aside from the whole "turns into a horse every month" thing, my current guy is just my grandfather--only without malaria and PTSD and with gayness.
I maintain if an idea has made it to prime-time TV, it cannot be considered "out there." Then again, someone who can write incestuous necrophilic bukkake (and it's only necrophilia until she wakes up!) and make it poignant instead of just gross, has no grasp on what real people consider "normal."
He has suggested that I am like Clive Barker (Amazing things happening to weird people), rather than like Stephen King (Amazing things happening to ordinary people)
So now I'm thinking. What PoV characters in my books are weird?
By sales numbers:
Chastity Millwood--Disgraced daughter of a wealthy family, sent via steam-driven spaceship to Io, there to be married as quickly as possible
Ulysses Carter--junior officer on the space-ship
This is my best seller (1729 copies). It was part of a big flagship anthology. But this is every big technicolor stagecoach romance ever, just dressed in steampunk drag.
Chuck Hummingbird--Cherokee trucker in a balkanized US
Seven McCullough--convicted homosexual from one of the more dystopic regions
This is my personal best seller (1312 copies, released 2009) It's a futuristic. But Chuck is an ordinary guy--money trouble, family disapproval--even if he does have to cross an international line at the Iowa/South Dakota border.
Shane Davis--writer of an excessively violent series about a spree killer
Victor Williams--head of the history department at a local university
This has been out for 6 years and sold 1218 copies. It's a brutal D/s piece that slides into SM. The paperback was also one of the publisher's last books to get national distribution, which accounts for 740 of the sales.
Jarrett--computer genius who works out of his home
Connor--minimum wage appointment setter who turns tricks to make the rent
1080 copies, mostly through Amazon. I credit the cover and non-con theme of the anthology. These guys are a "love it or hate it" piece. It is consistantly either 5 stars or 1 star rated.
Sean Dempsy--PTSD war vet
Gabriel Herne--double amputee phone psychic and pagan
849 copies. Inspirational Pagan Romance, with disabled characters.
William--a former library director now dying of cancer
Chris--his boy. No eductaion, no outside interests
Mike--the hospice nurse
My best seller with its publisher (809 copies) This is a basic tearjerker kinky contemporary. And the kink gets fairly heavy in places.
Robin Hood
Maid Marian--illegitimate son of King Richard who has been rasied believing she is the Princess
743 copies. You can see the drop between this and Glad Hands (above, 1300+ copies from same pub). Everyone stopped buying books in 2009, I guess. Nothing has sold as well as GH.
Teague--university president, with a showpiece house
Ian--out of work bottom, taken in by Teague
698 copies. Kinky contemporary. Not much more to be said.
Chad--University librarian. Painfully shy
Jace--nontraditional student and mechanic. Historical re-enactor with a chainmail business on the side
640 copies. Kinky contemporary, with a side of geekery.
Everything else has sold less than 500 copies.
Worst Sellers:
Sean O'Neill--conman and street rat used by powerful and wealthy men and women to futher their aims
Caitlin McLean--net-runner, stolen and trained as a slave
4 copies. While cyberpunk isn't hot right now, I'd think the heterosexuality would bridge the sale gap. But my het consistantly performs at 1/2 to 1/4 what the gay boys do.
Molly--plucky youngest daughter, abandoned in the woods
Brigitte--youngest daughter of a giant
24 copies. Lesbians don't sell.
Shelby Carter--net runner, preferred avatar is a merman (quad amputee in a life support chair in the real world)
Mark Grayson--net-runner, preferred avatar is seedy 1920s detective in a Lovecraftian milieu (see Shelby)
39 copies. Same cyberpunk universe.
Apparently more ordinary truckers?
Or more steampunk romances, as long as they are the same romances we've always seen, given brass, bolts, gears and goggles?
Help me out, constant readers. What am I doing wrong? Am I just too weird, too far out?
(Oh please, I get weirder things than me with my breakfast cereal!) Are my guys so far out of the ordinary nobody can get a handle on them?
Do I fail at creating That Guy, the one who is a touchstone into the weird universe we find ourselves?
Note to the D-Man, all the best sellers are gay, except the first. It's not the sexuality of the characters. My work is aimed squarely at the crowd who thought Bagoas was the BEST part of Alexander, not a cause of the movie's failure.
A dear friend and constant reader suggests that I am "Out There." I protested that aside from the whole "turns into a horse every month" thing, my current guy is just my grandfather--only without malaria and PTSD and with gayness.
I maintain if an idea has made it to prime-time TV, it cannot be considered "out there." Then again, someone who can write incestuous necrophilic bukkake (and it's only necrophilia until she wakes up!) and make it poignant instead of just gross, has no grasp on what real people consider "normal."
He has suggested that I am like Clive Barker (Amazing things happening to weird people), rather than like Stephen King (Amazing things happening to ordinary people)
So now I'm thinking. What PoV characters in my books are weird?
By sales numbers:
Chastity Millwood--Disgraced daughter of a wealthy family, sent via steam-driven spaceship to Io, there to be married as quickly as possible
Ulysses Carter--junior officer on the space-ship
This is my best seller (1729 copies). It was part of a big flagship anthology. But this is every big technicolor stagecoach romance ever, just dressed in steampunk drag.
Chuck Hummingbird--Cherokee trucker in a balkanized US
Seven McCullough--convicted homosexual from one of the more dystopic regions
This is my personal best seller (1312 copies, released 2009) It's a futuristic. But Chuck is an ordinary guy--money trouble, family disapproval--even if he does have to cross an international line at the Iowa/South Dakota border.
Shane Davis--writer of an excessively violent series about a spree killer
Victor Williams--head of the history department at a local university
This has been out for 6 years and sold 1218 copies. It's a brutal D/s piece that slides into SM. The paperback was also one of the publisher's last books to get national distribution, which accounts for 740 of the sales.
Jarrett--computer genius who works out of his home
Connor--minimum wage appointment setter who turns tricks to make the rent
1080 copies, mostly through Amazon. I credit the cover and non-con theme of the anthology. These guys are a "love it or hate it" piece. It is consistantly either 5 stars or 1 star rated.
Sean Dempsy--PTSD war vet
Gabriel Herne--double amputee phone psychic and pagan
849 copies. Inspirational Pagan Romance, with disabled characters.
William--a former library director now dying of cancer
Chris--his boy. No eductaion, no outside interests
Mike--the hospice nurse
My best seller with its publisher (809 copies) This is a basic tearjerker kinky contemporary. And the kink gets fairly heavy in places.
Robin Hood
Maid Marian--illegitimate son of King Richard who has been rasied believing she is the Princess
743 copies. You can see the drop between this and Glad Hands (above, 1300+ copies from same pub). Everyone stopped buying books in 2009, I guess. Nothing has sold as well as GH.
Teague--university president, with a showpiece house
Ian--out of work bottom, taken in by Teague
698 copies. Kinky contemporary. Not much more to be said.
Chad--University librarian. Painfully shy
Jace--nontraditional student and mechanic. Historical re-enactor with a chainmail business on the side
640 copies. Kinky contemporary, with a side of geekery.
Everything else has sold less than 500 copies.
Worst Sellers:
Sean O'Neill--conman and street rat used by powerful and wealthy men and women to futher their aims
Caitlin McLean--net-runner, stolen and trained as a slave
4 copies. While cyberpunk isn't hot right now, I'd think the heterosexuality would bridge the sale gap. But my het consistantly performs at 1/2 to 1/4 what the gay boys do.
Molly--plucky youngest daughter, abandoned in the woods
Brigitte--youngest daughter of a giant
24 copies. Lesbians don't sell.
Shelby Carter--net runner, preferred avatar is a merman (quad amputee in a life support chair in the real world)
Mark Grayson--net-runner, preferred avatar is seedy 1920s detective in a Lovecraftian milieu (see Shelby)
39 copies. Same cyberpunk universe.
Apparently more ordinary truckers?
Or more steampunk romances, as long as they are the same romances we've always seen, given brass, bolts, gears and goggles?
Help me out, constant readers. What am I doing wrong? Am I just too weird, too far out?
(Oh please, I get weirder things than me with my breakfast cereal!) Are my guys so far out of the ordinary nobody can get a handle on them?
Do I fail at creating That Guy, the one who is a touchstone into the weird universe we find ourselves?
Note to the D-Man, all the best sellers are gay, except the first. It's not the sexuality of the characters. My work is aimed squarely at the crowd who thought Bagoas was the BEST part of Alexander, not a cause of the movie's failure.
