Years ago, I went to a one-man show put on by director Kevin Smith. Between the jokes, he talked about taking advantage of opportunities and making good things happen. One key takeaway was the Wayne Gretzky quote: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”That advice proved timely. It coincided with meeting a harbinger of the future at a writing conference in 2010. The experience set me on the path to founding Ex Parte Press.
That harbinger? She was the first person I’d met who read ebooks exclusively. It was a glimpse of the imminent future. A new market had opened and was rapidly expanding. Growing pains and a gold rush lay dead ahead. I’d written a lot, and now I had a place to put it. Mostly, that meant Amazon.
That writing conference took place in Victoria, BC. The outlier was one of the conference organizers. She introduced me as “Roger” as I was about to perform a reading of a short story. I made a joke of it, beginning with, “You got my name wrong, but by the end of this story, you’ll know who I am and remember it!” Sure, I flirted with being obnoxious, but I was confident in my material. I didn’t just read that story about a fight with my dad over money. I attacked it. The reading was very well-received.
It was fun to meet other writers, pick up some tips, and even make a few allies. The thing I enjoy most about writing conferences is how energizing they are. In April, I’m headed to Toronto for a Writing Day Workshop. There will be lectures and discussions and wonky stuff about the book business. I will meet with four agents that day, and I am so excited.
I spent the last couple of mornings working on a short story for a big writing contest. Between editing the new novel and beginning work on the sequel, I have found renewed purpose in my writing. After a fallow period, I’m in a creative frenzy again. The days fly by, and I’m always surprised how late it is when I come up for air.I’m having a great time here at Ex Parte Press world headquarters, but maybe it’s time for a change.
Then
I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read or write. I always wanted to be a writer. I thought journalism was the way in and wrote for magazines and newspapers. By the time I finished journalism school, I’d become disillusioned with the newspaper business. I wanted something more creative. I freelanced for magazines and wrote a regular column. Speech writing was rewarding, but there wasn’t enough of it. I won a bunch of writing contests, but mostly, I wrote for myself. Often creating worlds long into the night, I immersed myself in the work. More compulsion than plan, I just had to write. There was no goal other than the work itself. Always focused on composing the next shiny word bauble, I did not submit anything to publishers or agents.
Why did I hold myself back? A character flaw. I haven’t had a boss since 1991. I always eschewed team sports. Even the word “submission” connotes many agents’ and publishers’ relationship with their stables of ink-stained wretches. “Spec” is another clue to the hierarchy. Working on spec, you are a speck. In short, I have a history of being a control freak.On the other hand, I’ve worked collaboratively multiple times and enjoyed it, so maybe I’ve grown.
Ancient History
After graduating from the Banff Publishing Workshop boot camp, I moved from the East Coast to Toronto and found myself in the publishing industry. I toiled in production, editorial, sales, and marketing. My exposure to the industry played a big part in how I felt about the establishment. I sat in meetings where authors, the backbone of the business, were openly disparaged. The choices of what was bought and sold often held a distasteful element of caprice and snobbery.
I entered the arena with such romantic ideas about publishing. I left with a greater understanding of the world. This is true everywhere, no matter the industry: Some firms court and hire geniuses, but every staff has a knob (sometimes several more than few).It’s not easy finding a good match with an agent or a publisher. And yet, here I am, contemplating the possibilities in earnest.
Why so cautious, though? The simple answer is plenty of authors have horror stories about their agents and publishers.For instance, back in the early days of Twitter, some agents used the medium to show their asses. These self-proclaimed sharks made fun of pitches they deemed unworthy. Whether it was foolishness, fatigue, or hubris, some made sweeping generalizations about what books were “acceptable.” Not just to their taste, mind you! Just, in their eyes, bad and wrong. “No characters with synesthesia! No divorced dads writing about being divorced dads!”
I understand agents’ need to curate, even discourage, the incoming avalanche over the transom, but the offenders’ tone was offensive.(Full disclosure: I’m not a divorced dad, but I did write a main character on the spectrum who also experienced synesthesia. It’s my most successful series.)
Now
Someone asked me what changed my mind about jumping back in the traditional publishers’ end of the pool. The reasons are multi-factorial, but here’s a peek inside the nutshell:
Political forces have changed. That affects my chances of getting read. Many are already boycotting Amazon. As the next four years progress, I expect more readers will opt to buy from other legacy publishing platforms. I’ve done well by Amazon in the past, but the Amazon gold rush has been over for years.It’s time to seriously explore ways to expand my readership.
I haven’t enjoyed the marketing end of the business. My experiments with going wide to other e-publishing platforms have consistently failed. Amazon marketed me best. They simply proved themselves better at selling my genres. It’s time to give going wide another try, but this time, I mean really wide. Bookstores, book fairs, book clubs. I’ll show up to the opening of an envelope if it means I get a chance to interact with readers and plug my book.
Like Batman, it would be nice to have some backup, so I’m looking for a solid partner, a Robin, if you will. I want more heft behind my next marketing push.Before someone chimes in, I know! I know! Most publishers offer very little marketing support. For sound financial and logistical reasons, even if you get hyped, it doesn’t last long. Most marketing still depends on the author. I have no illusions about that, but I’m also willing to do more on the marketing side than I have in the past.
The high commercial potential of my latest novel makes a big difference here. I find myself with an up-scale thriller that isn’t bogged down with the drawbacks of my usual genre choices. With an intellectual property that is easier to sell to a broader audience, it’s a good time to jump.
My wife had a health scare recently. We’re dealing with that, and it’s going well, but going hybrid makes more sense from a time management perspective. Despite my independent leanings, I’ve never really been a one-man band. I have great resources among my friends: my editor, Gari Strawn, my prime beta reader, Russ, my graphics people, and many supportive readers. The term self-publishing is a misnomer. I’ve never published alone. However, partnering with the right agent and publishing firm would spread some of the responsibilities around.
Perhaps most important of all my considerations, going hybrid now makes more sense because I have recently developed a shortlist of likely agents. My strategy is not to blanket the planet with pitches. I’m aiming at particular targets. If it doesn’t work out with literary agents whom I consider the A-Team, I’ll go it on my own as I have since 2010.
I’ve written a bunch of good to great to excellent novels. Don’t believe it? Just ask me. The writing quality is there. The visibility is not. I’ve long felt my literary stock is undervalued. By opening myself to options and trying something different, my work might finally get noticed.
That’s my why of becoming a hybrid author. Now, to work on the how.
TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to block Biden’s law that would drive the app from the American market. The deal was that if the app’s parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell it before Jan. 19, TikTok is gone. (The actual deletion could be delayed until April.)
At least seven million Americans depend on TikTok for income. Will Trump save it? There’s a rich lobbyist working on him, but who knows? The American government cites national security concerns to justify the abolition. In Canada, no government phone is allowed to run the app, but Canadian citizens can still use it.
If the app is deleted from the app store in the United States, its value will certainly plummet for me. Most of my readers are from the United States. If I can’t use TikTok to reach them, I won’t be looking at it much. BookTok has been a great marketing phenomenon for book publishing (at least for some books). Bookstores across the land have Booktok displays that move books. Several times, I’ve become aware of books I would have missed without TikTok influencers informing me of their existence.
The US government refuses to explain the deeper details of why TikTok is a security threat.What bothers me is that all social media platforms collect information from their users.While the CEO of TikTok was advocating for the app in a hearing with a racist senator, Meta was gleefully lobbying for its demise.That’s shifty. If your nonsense alarm is going off, you’re not wrong.
The threat to the platform has led many creators to lose interest in using TikTok. Others are running with it as long as they can, at least to point their followers to their new social media of choice.
What might replace TikTok?
Threads’ user interface is still hard to chew and swallow. Bluesky is increasing in popularity as X spirals. Many users are turning their energies to YouTube. That’s where most creators will gofor the platform’s monetization advantages.
More people are talking about Lemon8, but I’m not convinced yet. There is another app lurking on the horizon, but it won’t even be released until February 2025. I will reserve judgment until we can learn more. None of these platforms has TikTok’s powerful algorithm. I’m hoping TikTok survives somehow, but there is no reason or justice in the world, so…hmph.At least for now, it seems like we’re stuck, doesn’t it?
If you’ve ever wondered about the writing and publishing process, I have answers. Vengeance Is Hers took longer than usual due to variables beyond my control. Creating Bigger Than Jesus took three months, from conception to publication. The trilogy of This Plague of Days took a little more than three years. At my fastest pace, I published four books in one year.The writing process for my next thriller was a mess, but in the end, it’s going to make a big happy splash.
Round One is back from the editor and the prime beta reader!
Now things start to speed up for Vengeance Is Hers! From the top, this is how we do it:
My official start for this novel was August 15, 2022.
I wrote the first draft, backed up halfway through, switched from first-person narration to third.
I endured two hip replacements in 2023, got distracted by a lot of pain and rehab, and relearned how to walk.
Wrote 120,000 words, and rethought the story arc. Clenched teeth in frustration.
Keeping most of the story in one small town in Maine, I had to cut 50,000 words. This was originally going to be about making a movement of female vigilantes. Some of what I wrote in the original draft may be used for a sequel.To make this a better book, I had to sacrifice a lot of words and time. I went back to rework the concept.
Second draft. A lot of back and forth here as I went deeper. The word count climbed back up to 105,000 words.
Hip pain receded almost entirely. Back to my old self, I have more energy to deal with this project.
Found words with the “-ion” suffix for every chapter title.
Third draft: filled in plot holes and found more jokes and clever turns of phrase.
Listened to most of it. Reread all of it. Cut the long chapters in half so most chapters are no more than 1,200 words. (For a fast pace, I like short, fast chapters so readers feel like they’re burning through the book).
Added tweaks, usually fleshing out something vague, adding a joke, or turning up the dialogue to eleven.
Woke up in the night, continually plagued by little tweaks to make the story better.
Word count climbed back up to 113,349.
When I can’t look at it anymore, it’s ready for more eyes on the prize. Prime beta reader begins.
The manuscript is shared to two more beta readers for comments.
Google Drive alters corrections I’ve already made! Frustration ensues.
Editrix Extraordinaire Gari Strawn begins her first round of editing. She downloads it off Google Drive so we won’t get new errors introduced to the manuscript.
I review all editing suggestions from beta readers and my editor, making all necessary changes. That’s the step I’m at today.
Gari will dig through the manuscript for Vengeance Is Hers for two more rounds.
When she’s done, and I finish final revisions, we’ll lock it in.
Then it’s back to the designers about the details of the paperback and hardcover.
My first suggestion is so dead easy, you’ll wonder why you haven’t done it already! In the back matter of your novel, include a list of questions to stimulate discussion. For whom? For book clubs, of course!
In Vengeance Is Hers, I added a list of questions to get book clubbers talking and possibly arguing. The hardest part of getting a book club on track is keeping everyone on task, reading the books, and not devolving into a wine club. (There is nothing wrong with wine clubs, but I’m talking about getting more readers on board.) Make it easy for book club organizers to choose your novel for their next read. When everything else is in order, this is an easy add-on.
The second enhancement is harder to do and not always scalable, but it would entice more readers.
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok’s Booktok, you’ve seen videos of books with spray-painted edges. Some of them are really beautiful. I love gilded edges. Some edges continue or are consistent with the jacket design.
If you have an artistic streak with a paintbrush, you could elevate your game by decorating the edges and shipping special editions directly. There are other options, like using stickers. Most authors will probably try the DIY approach.
A quick Google search reveals a bunch of companies that will pretty up your edges for you. The first time I heard of this, the author added to the print specs so the printer could add edge art or messages. For direct shipping special editions, selling on Etsy, or to enhance your in-person sales, I see the value in artful edges.
The main character in The Night Man is not your typical hero. Easy Jack returns home to Orion, Michigan, wounded and struggling to recover. A former Army Ranger, he has a scorching case of PTSD. His vision is impaired in bright light and his left knee always hurts.
His dad gets mixed up in some shady criminal activities, but Easy’s got nowhere else to go. His history in Orion leaves him cold as a romance with his high school girlfriend heats up. All he wants to do is forget the past and train dogs for K9 units. He’s got Sophie, a loyal German Shepherd, by his side. Good thing, because some very nasty people keep trying to kill Easy. And what’s with the devious billionaire showing up on his doorstep? The mystery unfolds with many revelations and twists. If you haven’t checked out The Night Man yet, please do. Here’s the universal link to take you to your country’s Amazon store. It’s available in ebook and paperback.
About the Cover
Several of my covers have evolved over time. Sometimes I experiment. I love this powerful cover image, but I did worry that some may interpret the novel’s presentation as horror instead of a suspenseful action thriller. When my editor, the ever-helpful Gari Strawn (of strawnediting.com) wondered out loud about the same issue, I finally got my butt in gear to do something about it. I added the subtitle “A Killer Crime Thriller”. I tweaked the keywords and the book description, too.
Of all my work, I suspect The Night Man might be among the most underrated, not least because, amid all the soulful mayhem, it’s damn funny.
I’ve been using Scrivener to write and format my books for years. I remember, before the dawn of time, having to format my first book manually. The challenge of constructing a working Table of Contents was a real chore when I used chisel and stone. Then Scrivener came along and life got easier. With the release of Scrivener 3.0, things have become harder again, at least for me.
Let’s be clear: I love Scrivener as a word processor
Microsoft Word was developed for composing business documents, not killer thrillers. With Scrivener, writing is so much easier. I can bop all around a manuscript and find what I need to make edits in a flash. As a formatting device, Scrivener has a learning curve that can be pretty steep at first. When I first dove in, I remember spending many hours trying to get a print book design just right. As I published more books I cut my formatting time down. The summer I published a weekly serial to Amazon, I got so good at it that I couldn’t remember what my initial mental blocks had been. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. Life was glorious.
I’m a tad less than enthusiastic now.
How things went off the rails
Last week, I finished revisions to The Night Man. The manuscript was finally ready for the editor. I hit compile to get a Word doc to send to Google Docs. Simple, right? The evening was young. Hit share and hit the gym. That was the plan. Then the tooth grinding began.
It seemed that no matter what I did when I hit compile, I got wonky formatting. I tried many variables. Either the resulting document was all underlined, or all in italic or I lost all italics. I could create a pdf file but I couldn’t use that for my editor. Frustration mounted. I’d used Scrivener for years. How different could the new version be? Quite, as it turned out.
I broke down and went back to the manual. My search words were of no help. I watched YouTube instructional videos and hunted through forums. Since it’s a new update, much of what is out there on YouTube is out of date. In the forums, I found threads where some power users scolded those of us with less technical expertise.*
Finally, I found a note that hit on the problem.
There’s apparently a bug between Scrivener and .docx files. This doesn’t appear to be an especially new bug but it persists. Switching to .rtf fixed the problem. I did not get to the gym. It was about midnight when I finished. All this to compile one Word document?
Looking around, I’m not the only one who has struggled with the compile feature. I get it, though. Scrivener can do so many great things that it has to be complex to carry its heavy load. When one piece of software can create ebooks, print books, film scripts and proof copies etc, it’s bound to be complex. It’s also valuable. I still like Scrivener as writing software.
People tell me that, mostly, Scrivener is still great. However, for formatting and book design, I’m not up to climbing that learning curve again. I use Vellum for book design now. It’s awesome and easy. Some of Vellum’s interfaces are reminiscent of earlier versions of Scrivener.
Vellum is not inexpensive. An unlimited license will set you back $250. If you’ve got plenty of books to create for yourself or others, the investment makes sense.
Here’s what I’d humbly suggest:
1. For software developers: I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just a novelist. You’re way smarter than me in the ways of the tech force. Please recognize that and make the user experience more intuitive. More intuitive to mere mortals, I mean, not your fellow tech geniuses and power users.
2. For software developers: Please bring in a focus group of idiots like me before you revamp your software so much. Digging through the instructions, I felt like I had to hire Sherpas to climb that learning curve.
3. For software developers: Fix the bug if it’s on your end. My understanding is that this .docx bug is not actually Scrivener’s problem. The fault, if it must be assigned, lies elsewhere. However, it is a problem for Scrivener users.
4. For software developers: Try to make sure users are alerted if there is a bug even if it’s not on your end. I figured out the problem but it took a lot of digging while my blood pressure went up and my spirits went down.
5. If you’re a writer: Buy Scrivener. I’m still a fan. It is wonderful and wondrous as a word processor. If you only have one or two books in you, take the time to learn how to use all the miracles it has to offer. I took the time to learn the earlier versions and I’m very grateful Scrivener came along to rescue us from building TOCs manually. Copy special to create a Table of Contents with a click? That was a huge time saver.
6. If you write a lot of books and the expense is in your budget, write in Scrivener but format your ebooks and paperbacks using Vellum. It’s as user-friendly as can be.
*The title for this article (Scrivener: Just a Word Processor Now?) was inspired by an unknown user in a forum. She was trying to figure out Scrivener. That question was her lament. The replies she got were insistent that no, she was just being silly and obtuse. Well, no, she didn’t understand the new version of the software. Neither do I so I sympathize.
(The standard license for Scrivener is $45 though deals do seem to come along frequently. For all it can do, that price is very reasonable.)
~ Hi! I’m Robert Chazz Chute. Thanks for reading this far down! You’re a keener, aren’t you? I like that! Maybe you’re willing to go a little farther and meet me in Zihuatanejo, Red?
About me: I escaped the 9 – 5 for the 24/7/365. I construct apocalyptic epics and suspenseful crime fiction. My next killer thriller, The Night Man, will be released soon. Please subscribe to be alerted when Easy’s adventure in darkness becomes available. Thanks!
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