The costs are always the first hurdle. For example, a good, solid, university-level Photoshop course might well cost an easy grand or so. But there are student loans and education grants and corporate training allowances and other continuing education resources that might be available to help cover that investment. And it’s an investment that pays for itself—over and over and over again—with every inevitable business need that calls for some graphic design work.

Yes, I said business need. Unless you’re just content to enthrall yourself—and maybe your friends and family members—with your prose and fancy, then writing is a business. If you intend to build an audience, get your name out there, gain recognition as an established author, and earn royalties or direct sales… writing is a business.

And it helps to view it in terms of business. What does one do to get a business off the ground? One engages in business training and learning opportunities. One gains the skills necessary to run a successful business.

I cannot stress enough the value I find in broadening my personal talents, skills, and capabilities beyond the silo of writing, revising, and editing. Obviously, those skills are the foundation of the writing business, but those skills focus exclusively on the wording elements—only a single department of the business. The business of writing encompasses so much more than the mere writing of words. Producing and selling a novel involves writing, editing, formatting, layout, design, copywriting, publishing, packaging, distribution, shipping, networking, marketing, advertising, promotion, public relations, communications, and finally—with a little bit of luck—sales.

The more of those things you can add to your professional repertoire—the more of those languages you can learn—the more successful you can become as a businessperson, and the more valuable you can become as an author.

Yeah, I know, this is the part where you roll your eyes and want to skip on to the next link. But don’t. Okay? If you wish to make an income from your writing… if you aspire to eventually make fiction writing your livelihood… then don’t ignore the business side of things.

Of course, I know most of us hate this part. I know we writers tend to hate crossing over to the “dark side” of sales and commercialization. We hate viewing our art and expression as a packaged product. We hate the onus of having to learn about a bunch of boring business stuff that doesn’t interest us at all when all we want to do is sit down and write our hearts out for the rest of our lives. Most of all, we hate turning these children of our creation over to be bastardized by the processes of marketing and promotion.

And that is exactly why we fiction writers must actively seek and obtain business-focused opportunities that support our professional development. That is exactly why we must position ourselves for a seat at the table in every step of the concept-to-creation process—and beyond. That is exactly why we must cultivate the technical skills and the business acumen to become participating movers and shakers in the ultimate success of our work. That is why we must gain exactly those skills that do not come naturally to us. We must become a reserve of one-man armies who are capable of pulling off the whole show by ourselves, step by step—even if we do have people to do that stuff for us.

Why? Because we writers no longer have the luxury of remaining content, believing our publishers and agents will take care of all that business stuff on our behalf. They have other clients to take care of, too, you know. And if you don’t know how to handle the business of your writing, how will you know if the publishers and agents are covering all the bases? How will you know if you’re being railroaded into an inadequate marketing plan or getting short-changed on your royalties?

No, I do not advocate that writers should try to tell publishers and agents how to run their businesses. Goodness, no. I advocate that writers should become valuable partners in their own businesses of writing fiction. I advocate that writers should pull their own weight.

We must seek always to build upon and enhance our professional skills and abilities. We are our own hot-ticket items, and we must engage in a process of continuous improvement, so we can become the comprehensive package deals that blow the socks off our competitors. We must elevate our efforts around our work to professional-grade standards and bottom-line expectations. We must learn to leverage our work as a profession—not as a craft.

If, that is, we wish for our work to gain recognition as a profession. If we’re happy to simply dabble over a common hobby, then, by all means, skip on to the next link.

For quite some time, I was content to treat my fiction writing as a hobby. I didn’t think of it in those terms, but that’s the way I treated it. I was content to write in my spare time. I was content to send off a submission here and there, content to wait passively for a rejection slip or an acceptance letter. I was content to leave the business stuff to the publishers and agents who knew the business… and I was content to wait for someone to discover me.

I’m not content anymore. I’m tired of the passive approach.

I will continue to utilize traditional channels to their fullest, but I will no longer take a reactive stance toward my work. I endeavor to become an active champion of my writing business, and I hope you’ll consider embarking on your own targeted charge toward building a profession from this craft.

This is where all that technology and strategy and marketing training comes into effect. The stories are written, revised, and edited. It’s time to flip the switch. It’s time to change shifts. It’s time to give the writer the day off and bring in the marketing director. We must take an objective look at this product and determine the most effective means of making it sell.

Yes, I said it. That’s just what it is: it’s a product. It has to be. That might sound like a hell of a turn-off, but if we want to sell it, we must make it sellable. Just set aside the ego for a few minutes. No diva syndrome beyond this point. Average consumers do not consciously set out to buy abstract pieces of our souls. Not until we’ve first built our personal brands and engendered customer loyalty to the point that they know and trust what they’re buying from us. In order to influence our own business success, we must become active players in the future of our product.

There are no better salespeople for this product. We created it, and we developed it, and we know it inside and out. We love it, and we are passionate about it. Good salespeople use their passion. Good salespeople believe in their products, and they use their passion to make their buyers believe in their products.

This way of thinking did not come naturally to me. Like I said, I used to just wait by the mailbox or the inbox and hope my big publishing contract was on its way, so I could keep on writing and let someone else sell me for me. It took me a lot of years to make the connections that I’m sharing with you right now, and I’m sharing them because I wish someone would have made these connections for me a long, long time ago.

Throughout my professional writing and editing career, I have taken correspondence courses in copywriting and nonfiction writing and business writing and technical writing. I have taken Web design and online communications courses through corporate training opportunities. I have taken English and journalism classes through my local community college, and I have taken graphic design and illustration courses through an accredited online university. I have attended more seminars than I can count, learning about everything from Microsoft Excel to Adobe Dreamweaver to Adobe InDesign, from public speaking to media law to leadership and managerial skills. I have read more articles, studies, and books on technology and eCommerce and social media and online marketing than I would ever care to revisit. I am soon to complete a(nother) degree program in Business Communications, this time with a concentration in Marketing & Sales.

Here’s the thing: only a few years ago, I had zero interest in any of these subjects. Zilch. I just wanted to write stories.

Somewhere along the line, though, I grudgingly acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, that crash course in copywriting might help me write better query letters. I hated it at first—it was dull and boring and held nothing of interest to me—and I was right. It helped. So I tried a few other things. I worked on a few other areas of improvement. It helped. I began to actively seek out learning opportunities through which I could confront my professional weaknesses head-on, one at a time. And it helped.

And you know what? I don’t hate it anymore. After a while, after I started seeing results—after I watched my efforts and strategies come together more easily, after my campaigns began to progressively get better and better—it started to be fun. It’s fun to get good at new things.

Let me tell you something else I’ve learned: a lot of these skills are transferable. A lot of these new talents find their ways into my fiction writing. And it helps. Marketing is based on effective communication and persuasive writing skills, after all. Tell me persuasive writing and storytelling don’t go hand in hand.

Again, it was only throughout recent years that I began to clearly see the connections as these professional pieces started to fall into place around my personal aspirations as a fiction writer. It took me a while to see those connections because I wasn’t focusing my professional development around my fiction. I was focusing my professional development around my full-time jobs in the newspaper, trade magazine, and online media fields. I was cultivating that professional development a little bit here and there, over time, as I needed it for the positions I held. I didn’t apply that professional development toward a direct strategy for my fiction writing. Now I do.

It took a while for that light bulb to go on in my head and bring my attention to the fact that every bit of my professional development over the course of my career has overlapped and benefited my fiction writing. Now that I see the connections, I see how I can continue to build my professional presence—my talents, skills, and capabilities—to directly enhance and influence my business of writing horror and dark fiction. I wish I saw these synergies years ago, back when I began to pursue publication of my fiction for real.

Now I do see those connections, and anyone can do it at any time. You can do it. You can start right now.

But only if you want to see horror and dark fiction in terms of a profession for yourself. Only if you want to leverage your business of writing to new levels. Only if you want to take an active role in your business success.

And I venture to guess you must feel something about that idea resonating in you right now, or you probably would have skipped on to the next link a long time ago.

Publishing as we know it has evolved by leaps and bounds, from earliest civilization throughout human history. From cuneiform tablets to hand-painted hieroglyphics to annotations in clay, from sonnets to encyclopedias to political pamphlets, from William Shakespeare to Benjamin Franklin to J.K. Rowling… as a species, we have consistently engaged in ever-inconsistent systems of written communication. Since our inception, the very definition of the published word has adapted as the millennia have passed.

Our Present…

August 2010: We find ourselves on the threshold of another evolutionary leap.

Restrictive methods of publishing via ink on paper have given way to countless capabilities involving electronic connectivity and wireless transmission. Those who fail to cross the straits of industry are doomed to be left behind—to perhaps surface again one day for study by future historians.

We six undersigned refuse to become relics of an outdated system. We six embrace the freedom and potential of today’s media and communications options. We six see the future of publishing laid out before us in myriad intersections of partnership and innovation, and we set forth together to pave a road less traveled for those who opt to pick up our paths henceforth.

Thus, we six hereby form an authors’ cooperative by the name of Dark Continents Publishing: a not-for-profit organization working to entrepreneur today’s publishing opportunities and model tomorrow’s writing businesses. As a global, international authors’ cooperative, Dark Continents Publishing seeks to unite the self-steering wordslingers of the world who are dedicated to taking back control over their own work and who commit to exploring new realms of possibility for their own career success.

We are…

• David M. Youngquist – President and Publisher
• Tracie McBride – Vice President, Associate Editor and Australian Liaison
• Serenity J. Banks – Secretary and Editor in Chief
• John Prescott – Treasurer and Chief of Design
• Adrian Chamberlin – Board Chair and United Kingdom Liaison
• Sylvia Shults – Board Chair and Group Publicity Director

We six bring to this authors’ cooperative over one hundred years of combined experience in the fields of fiction, nonfiction, editing, publishing, graphic design, advertising, marketing, print journalism, digital media, business communications, public relations, event coordination, content strategy, audience engagement, and more. Backed by our diverse array of professional skills and talents, we draw deep from our pool of proven experience and business know-how, and, together, we heretofore seize our destinies by our own hands. Today, we band together to turn the tides of our own new era of publishing industry evolution.

Today, Dark Continents Publishing is in the process of incorporating as a legal entity under nonprofit workers’ cooperative status and structure. Tomorrow, we will define a new class of author-owned, author-driven publishing business.

Our Future…

We above-mentioned six are the first to forge the foundations of Dark Continents Publishing. Within our first year of operation, we will invite six like others to join our authors’ cooperative. We will select six other fiction-writing professionals who seek non-traditional channels through which they can oversee more control of their books, maintain more say in their futures, and play a more meaningful role in building the next stages of the publishing industry evolution.

As Dark Continents Publishing is a cooperative effort by definition, new members will be asked to make an initial, minimal monetary contribution to the organization, as the six founding members have done before them. All member contributions are applied directly toward—and only toward—the operating costs of the organization. Under the not-for-profit, cooperative business structure, dividends will be paid out to each member during each quarter of the fiscal year. True to the cooperative spirit of the founding principles, group income generated from the combined sales of members’ books will first be applied toward covering business operating costs (printing, advertising, et al), and all group profit after expenses will be divided and distributed equally among members.

Dark Continents Publishing operations are inspired by successful models and best practices currently utilized by industry and warehousing visionaries. The principles of streamline manufacturing dictate that only product ordered is product produced. Therefore, no “extra” is created, and no surplus remains to be stored at expense.

Dark Continents Publishing will work with local printers (to keep costs down and to keep money in our local economies) to satisfy orders placed by worldwide bookstores, both at the chain and independent levels. By these means, Dark Continents Publishing incurs no massive print runs to fill… no unsold copies to recycle… no books to sell at a loss. By minimizing overhead, we maximize profit.

In this modern age of global business communications, e-commerce is a fact of life. Dark Continents Publishing may offer print versions of its members’ books in conjunction with distribution of electronic titles. A number of titles may initially be made available only in e-book format. Decisions regarding availability will be made on a case-by-case basis to control overhead costs while increasing profit ratios. Electronic versions of books produced through Dark Continents Publishing will be made available in multiple formats to ensure compatibility across a variety of consumer devices and platforms.

The official Web site for Dark Continents Publishing will go live as of December 1, 2010. Our site is currently under development, and it will provide in-depth information and history about the authors’ cooperative concept and the founding members’ backgrounds. Retail booksellers will be able to place orders and interface with Dark Continents Publishing via the official Web site. In addition, the site will allow all Web visitors to log in and purchase print and electronic titles through a secure, user-friendly Dark Continents Publishing online storefront.

Our Vision…

We founding six undertake these steps toward developing our mutual future in an effort to separate and distinguish our careers from the death spiral of the traditional publishing industry. We have watched from the sidelines as honored publishing firms perish in throes of failure to adapt. Outdated models are dying of self-inflicted wounds, while longstanding business discrepancies continue to go unresolved.

Together, we individuals are the solution. Together, we authors are the future of publishing.

There will always be books, for there will always be writers, and there will always be readers. The challenge we face lies in bringing together these elements to create catalysts for change. The opportunity we embrace lies in taking up our existing capabilities and exploring our untapped potential to guide our own destinies—and, by extension, our business success and mutual gain.

Dark Continents Publishing is taking a first step toward altering our landscape. Would you like to go for a walk with us?

Coming October 31, 2010, the M is for Monster project is headed by horror author John Prescott, with yours truly acting as contributing editor.

Here’s the lowdown: M is for Monster is a book of horror stories inspired by the “alphabet novels” concept popularized by mystery author Sue Grafton. Originating with some good, old-fashioned elbow grease on John’s part, who has been cheerfully networking his bum off over in Facebook Land for the last few months, M is for Monster features authors from all over the globe who have come together to contribute a mad mix of short horror stories the world has never seen.

In a nut shell: for each letter of the alphabet, we present to you a story about a different monster inspired by that letter. So you get 26 international authors, 26 diverse tales… just in time for Halloween!

Now, of course, my story is brought to you by the letter V.

Curious? Look for M is for Monster on Amazon this fall!

“As I’m wandering through my FB friends list, I clicked over to DFU. Then, bored, I actually went to the official site. Wow. Just… wow. So, in a shameless suck-up ploy, I’ll now be sacrificing whatever I can find around the house to random, ancient dark gods in honor of DFU.” -Brian Fatah Steele

Sweet.

Because foresight dodges the inevitable
Whilst whimsy accrues narcistic debt
Oh, she sees each unintended consequence
Around every reckless, weighted misstep

To tarry, head strong, down a dead-end road
Seems just and adventurous then
Oh, defiant of remorse, letdown seen await—
Yes, even before the woes made hence

There’s never room for miscalculation
No mistakes in judgment past this point
Oh, she knows exactly what she’s getting into
And bears the certainty it will disappoint

Private are the transgressions
And the bitter pills taken solo
Oh, when she’s the only one to blame
She has no one to say, “I told you so”

The vicious cycle is the price she pays
Against guidance and intervention
Oh, nobody tells her what she already knows
Nor fails to support her expectation

Not only did I fall behind on just about everything for a while there, but I also recently discovered a disturbing percentage of my incoming email was getting hung up in the spam filter.

After much cursing and manual whitelisting, I’m now (finally) caught up on subs through June. If you subbed prior to July, and you have not received a response as of this notice, please resub.

Love,

The Dragon

Sometimes, the people I hardly even know take a moment out of a day to give me some small gesture of kindness or appreciation that makes my world go ’round for another day. Sometimes, the people I care about most do the most unexpectedly awful things to other people, and those things never go away, no matter how many apologies ensue.

Sometimes, an off-handed remark can jettison pages upon pages of what-could-have-been’s and what-should-be’s. Sometimes, the best of my characters arises as an observational note on the worst of my real-life acquaintances.

Sometimes, I wonder how many people I know recognize themselves in my fiction.

2:00 a.m. and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer
Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
‘Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to…
-Anna Nalick

But you know what? Unpaid dues are gettin’ a little out of hand these days. Here’s the thing: if you’re getting and getting from me, and you’re not giving back, I’m willing to bet you’re not giving back to the other people who are helping you out, either. And that’s not cool. That’s not the road toward making friends – in any biz or in any social arena.

Think I might be talking about you? I might be. I might not. Either way, you might want to give it some thought. Just sayin’.

See? There I go, giving away free advice again.

The psychiatric types like to call this “using humor to deflect.” I call it “using humor to cope.”

Obviously, I’m a bit of a sarcastic, cynical sort by nature, and my particular brand of humor is not welcome in all social settings. I know this, and I keep it to myself when appropriate. (And if you all knew what I was really thinking most of the time, you’d laugh, too.) In my darkest hour, I still think most things are funny, when taken in big-picture context. The things that suck the most are usually the things that can kick my funny bone the hardest, once I have a moment to reflect on how much they suck.

For me, humor is the opposite of deflection. Humor is honesty. I use humor to recognize, to acknowledge, and to work through the difficult, complex, painful things we all sometimes have to deal with together — the things that just plain suck.

I learned something about myself a few years back. I learned that I become my best me when called upon to cope with the things I didn’t think I’d ever be able to cope with. No matter how bad things get, they can always get worse. Always.

But guess what? No matter how bad things get, we can’t get out of reacting and responding in some way. And we all get to choose the ways in which we react and respond. We can be angry or desperate or blindly optimistic or action oriented or, if there’s no more action we can take, we can laugh and simply wait it out. Sometimes, in our darkest hours, the only option we have left is to sit back, light another cigarette, shake our heads, and just laugh.

Things suck sometimes. Sometimes, everything sucks. Usually, we have to deal with each other on top of dealing with the things that suck. It’s not about deflecting or denial or softening the blow. It’s about coping. We all have our coping mechanisms of choice. My choice is to laugh, to joke, to poke fun at myself… and to know that I can still be my best me, even when everything sucks.

How about you?