Discouragement Brain--Cheating Authors Prosper on Amazon and This Is How

I have this thing called discouragement brain. 

Musicians, actors, artists, writers, dancers--we're all hypercritical of ourselves. We have to be. Art is a process, not a blast from some supernatural agency waving inspiration over our heads and daring us to catch it. We all edit. And while I edit words, musicians edit notes; dancers, nuance; actors, delivery;  and artists, technique. We have to. In order to create that perfect expression, we must refine until it feels as natural as breathing. 

Discouragement brain happens to everyone in the arts. 

This week has been tough. I've been writing a lot this year. A lot. My current yearly first draft word count exceeded 700,000 words last week. You're reading that correctly. Six full-length novels since January 1. I spend a portion of every day writing, a portion editing, and a portion doing all that other stuff authors have to do. I usually work around sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Beginning Labor Day weekend, I *might* take Saturdays off--I don't give up college football for anybody. I also edit for a few clients--very picky about who I accept, honestly--and now I'm blogging and writing a sports column too. All that falls into the "other stuff" category.

But I am also self-publishing eight books in eight months, and that's feeding my discouragement brain.

All of this work takes a toll on a writer. Self-publishing is hard and expensive if you're going to do it right, and while it would have been easy to slap a cover on an old manuscript and put it out there that was never an option for me. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right. Each book costs me hundreds of dollars to publish, but at least I know it's a product I can be proud of. 

 And yet--

Doing any part of all this requires confidence, and when discouragement brain rears its ugly head it's hard to justify moving forward. And this week has been that way for me. This week I find myself questioning my own career path. 

Let me explain.

With writing and publishing there is a right way and a wrong way to go about doing things. Right now, there's a growing percentage of self-published authors who are most assuredly making things difficult for everyone else. Aside from the content farmers and the spammers, there's a cross-section of self-published authors who have figured out how to beat the system. High Amazon rankings translate to bigger sales--and a self-published author who does well in sales may be approached by Amazon's publishing wing. The authors who manage that get preferential product placement, advertising, and direct marketing from Amazon--along with editing, standard promotions, professional cover art, etc etc etc. 

Any author wants that. But there's a quirk in the system. You see, on Amazon you don't have to actually buy a product in order to rate and review it. So authors have their friends go in and write tons of positive reviews with five star ratings. The book creeps up the rankings, which in the Amazon sales algorithm (based on the star ratings of the product) gives the book better product placement. 

Which leads to more sales. 

Which leads to more reviews and ratings.

Which leads to more sales. 

It's fascinating, in a sick sort of way, to find a self-published "Amazon bestseller" where all the reviews WITHOUT a verified purchase are glowing, and all the reviews WITH a verified purchase are critical. Even more interesting to me is the fact that after a critical review from a verified purchaser, there's a flurry of glowing reviews from unverified ones. 

Have to counteract that two-star with enough five-stars to keep that book's overall rating up, after all. 

And while the authors who cheat are rewarded, the authors who are doing everything the right way are penalized by a sales algorithm that was created for one purpose. Not to put great books in the hands of readers, but to increase sales for Amazon. They don't give two shakes of a pig's tail if the reviews are given by people who--you know, actually READ the book. All they care about is the obvious--books with high ratings and tons of reviews are easier to sell to more people who see all those huge ratings and erroneously assume the book is GOOD. 

In the meantime, authors who did things the right way, who paid for editing, cover art, formatting, interior design, copyediting, etc. stagger along in the cheaters' wake and wonder what they're doing wrong. 

You know--my writing isn't for everyone. I write genre, I write lots of gory battles, I don't write explicit sex scenes. And I don't self-publish all my work either. My new work goes to my literary agent, who submits them to publishers that are closed to unrepresented authors. I have a backlist of books that were small-press published, and that's what I self-publish. 

But I don't cheat. I don't ask all my friends and social media followers to run off to Amazon and rate/review my book. I don't manipulate the system. 

Hence, discouragement brain. 

Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way. Maybe I should manipulate the system too! Maybe I should get all my friends and acquaintances to run right over to Amazon and rate and review my books. You don't have to buy or read them. Who cares about reading them anyway? Just review them. And then maybe, just maybe, people who actually would enjoy reading my work will actually see my books and maybe, just maybe, they'll buy them.

Sure. Sounds kind of shabby when you put it that way, doesn't it? 

Food for thought. Unfortunately, discouragement brain binge-eats food for thought, and lately even looking at this situation has made my discouragement brain into a glutton. 

The Redemption of Asphodel--Available Today!

Release days are always fun!

The second book in my epic fantasy series based upon Homer's Iliad--The Asphodel Cycle--has just been released! The Redemption of Asphodel is available now at Amazon, Smashwords, and ARE and will be available on other online retail outlets in the next few days, including iTunes. 

This novel was originally published as The Gift of Redemption in 2008, when it was a Top Ten Finisher in the Preditors and Editors Best Sci Fi/Fantasy Poll, and was nominated for Best Fantasy Novel at Love Romances and More.

Aside from a title that actually goes with the other three books in the series, this is the one that received a more stringent editorial pass and is much better than the original version, speaking as an editor instead of an author. So I'm more excited than I probably should be, especially as this book is so important in setting up the sequel series The Black Dream, to be released later this year.

With Asphodel and the Elven Realm safe for a time, Tamsen de Asphodel dives headlong into the political turmoil. Her decision to wade into these shark-infested waters is complicated by the fact that she hasn’t yet regained her strength from the magic she used to defeat her uncle, Spesialle. On top of that, Brial is none too pleased that Tamsen’s pushing herself physically in the search for Ansienne’s new king—or with their best friend’s feelings for his wife. So when the Virgin Huntress sends them all on a new quest, Tamsen is haunted by the single question she must answer.  

What gift can buy the redemption of the Elves?  

In the end, Tamsen must determine if she has the courage and strength to give the right answer.

One of my favorite scenes ever is in this book--a scene that earned me a lot of reader emails back in the day and that was commented on by several reviewers. 

...4 ½ tombstones. I loved revisiting the characters, and watching them grow – especially Tamsen – was a delight. Celina Summers really packs in the drama and love that was so evident in her first novel into this action-packed delight. There is a scene at the end that left me in tears..."--Bitten by Books

Never ever underestimate what Ms. Summers has planned next. 

Ms. Summers creates battles that rival any historic saga.  Her leaders are precise and flawed.  Her heroes are worthy. Their sacrifices heavy.  They have learned that with every blessing from the gods there is a price to be paid.  What more do the gods/goddesses want from Tamsen? 

There have been times I have felt cheated when reading a fantasy quest…Ms. Summers never cheats.  Each of her books is packed with intensity and gentleness.  Still she leaves you craving more.While reading “Redemption” I felt there was an underlying meaning to Tamsen’s journey.  There is more to her adventure and battle, she is learning her own truth, her strength of being.  How does a writer capture this?  This is the craft of writing, which Ms. Summers dominates--ChrisChat Reviews

This novel is available in mobi, epub, and pdf. Grab your copy today, so you'll be ready for the release of Book 3:The Temptation of Asphodel when it releases on July 5!

Happy Reading! And as always, please leave a review!

Why Reviewing Books You Enjoy Is So Important

Being an author is difficult--at any level. Few writers--usually only the big names--are provided marketing by their publishers. Even writers who are signed by the Big Six publishers don't get marketing support. For the small press or self-published writer, any promotions have to be undertaken by the author. 

Some have the finances to buy a marketing company. But those don't always work. When I was at Musa, we hired a marketing firm for a big name author--a NYT Bestselling, Nebula award-winning, made famous by a blockbuster movie author. We invested thousands of dollars in marketing his book, which was a sequel to the book that had made him famous in the first place. 

Didn't pay off. It was like pouring that money down a black hole. And this was a reputable marketing company, one that had a portfolio of success stories longer than the list of books I've edited. 

So what drives book sales for a small-press or self-published author? Reviews. Not just the professional reviews of critics, but the customer reviews on Amazon and other retail sites. Some authors manipulate the reviews by creating sockpuppet accounts and getting friends to do the same. But most--like me--prefer to do things the right way. 

One of the right ways is to do what I did last month. I offered the first book of the series for free for a week upon release. I don't do things like that because I'm a kind person. I do that because I am hoping for reviews. Literally thousands of people downloaded my book for free--enough to catapult it into the top 25 for the genre. And out of those thousands of people, only two have so far left reviews. 

Two.

Not a great percentage. 

I posed this question on my Facebook page today, and a good friend of mine commented that he'd grown up when only professionals did book reviews, so he didn't feel qualified. And I thought for several hours on what he'd said. 

I'm an editor. I've left reviews on books many times. And I strive to make those reviews both unbiased and constructive, especially for self-published authors who may not be getting the kind of feedback they need. For example, my Amazon customer review on KM Shea's book Queen of Ice. This young writer has a lot of talent, but her book suffered with issues a strong editor would be able to correct. And so, that's what I told her--not to be a bitch, but to let her know what she needed to do to make her writing career even better. 

But I am an editor. This review is the kind of thing I'd normally include in an editorial letter to an author I am working with--an email that has attached a red-inked document with hundreds of comments and corrections. 

So maybe...just maybe, Ed has a valid point. Maybe, to many readers, writing a review is intimidating. 

See--here's the thing. Not every review needs to be an editorial critique of an author's work. Amazon gives you options--and even if you just RATE a book on their one-to-five star scale, that helps. Because the more ratings a book has, then the higher it's going to show up on the "Avg Customer Review" filter on the sales page, and that's HUGE. For example, today's Fantasy sales page based upon Average Customer Review. Obviously, the more 5 star ratings a book gets, the higher it's going to be on the page. And while the top of the page is predictably JK Rowling, Tolkien, and Diana Gabaldon, look at the bottom of the page. 221 reviews. 191. 106...

These authors are showing up on the same sales page as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Outlander. 

That's where ANY writer wants to be--needs to be in order to generate sales. Look at the second page. By page ten, the bottom book has 18 reviews--all 5 stars. 

Not many customers are going to cruise past page ten. 

Take a look now at the reviews for that last book on page ten. The top review reads as follows

Excellent story with twists and turns you don't see coming. It is hard to put the book down, because you want to see what is going to happen next and how the story ends! Looking forward to buying a hard copy and will be reading this one again!

Here's my point--you don't have to write a huge review, although there's a lot of benefits another reader can get from your extensive and detailed review. You can write a THREE SENTENCE review like this reader did, explaining what you liked about the story and give that author as much benefit as one of my 2000 word critiques. 

And if you really love a book, then help that author out by posting your feelings as a review. You have no idea how much your review is needed by the author, and how many other people will read your words and think, "Hey, maybe I should try this out." 

So review the books you read--on Amazon, or Goodreads, or wherever. Because when you do, somewhere, an author gets her wings. 

You know what I mean.