Tag: design

Just fall flat on your face

Books, branding, publishing, Writing

Before I started the Artsy Raven podcast, I spoke with a friend who gave me the advice of just being dumb. “Don’t try so hard! Just make videos of yourself falling flat on your face and thousands will watch!” was their sage advice.

I thought about it and considered it for a long time, but I just couldn’t do it. It’s the same situation when I see romance or erotica writers amass huge mailing lists and sell lots of books. The ladies that sell dino erotic made a million in their first year! There was a call for an erotica anthology and I wrote a piece which was rejected perhaps because you can tell my heart wasn’t in it.

Everything has their ups and downs in life, it is foolish to expect one will have good fortune indefinitely. The only thing you can do is build up support so you don’t fall too far too fast.

Some writers warned me not to do other things other than write. So the things I’m doing now, hosting a podcast or design work is frowned upon by the “pure writers.” Since my mother died I haven’t been writing much because it takes up a lot of energy to world build.

Over time I’ve been taking small steps around writing with my podcast and design work because I find them easier to do. All these other non-writing activities are my support because they involve other people and that gives me energy to go on. April NaNoWriMo camp just started and I have written a few thousand words so far, so I’m warming up to return to writing again.

In university I was told by some male students that I was too smart and had to dumb myself down to attract a boyfriend. I didn’t listen to their advice and found someone who appreciated me for who I was.

As much as falling flat on your face or acting dumb is the easier route to some problems, it’s just not worth it sometimes and you may never reach your goal! After a long struggle, you will appreciate your rewards more!

Why a publishing house is selling design work

Artsy Raven, Books, business, Writing

Recently we merged the Dark Helix Press newsletter mailing list with the Artsy Raven club mailing list due to limited time capacity. Marketing people will say we are doing something wrong, but we have too much to do and need to focus on creating things!

At Dark Helix Press we are working on new books, but we have also started making designs that are suitable for t-shirts, notebooks, mousepads, etc. These items are in our Threadless shop: https://darkhelix.threadless.com/

Books take a long time to make and are not easy to sell. Designs aren’t easy to sell either but people may pick up t-shirts or other items for their friends as gifts knowing there’s a better chance that material goods will be better liked than books.

All revenue from design work goes back into books because they are expensive to make and since we are a traditional publisher, the costs are all up front.

As a small press, Dark Helix will never qualify for any grants because there are conditions of selling X and reaching revenue of Y. We are a tiny player on a large playing field and over time, the larger companies have been merging into mega-corporations with different labels. The Goliaths are getting stronger and the Davids are trying new things to avoid them!

The future of the playing field for publishing seems bleak, as the larger Goliaths still have much control over the usual aspect of the industry such as access to bookstores, superstores (Walmarts, Costco, etc), databases and libraries. There are many emerging Davids over time – the self-publishers who are publishing themselves because the Goliaths refuse to. The most successful Davids are the ones that can get published by a Goliath for one or two books because the Goliaths have more marketing dollars and staff to make a book a success. It’s all still a gamble, but if the Goliath can shield a David temporarily it’s easier than a David struggling by themselves. Then after the partnership is over, the David can earn more from selling books themselves since there is no Goliath to take a giant cut of the revenue.

There are no easy answers to publishing success if you are a David! Throw in a mix of people using AI to the party and that changes everything as well! Hope my biblical analogy makes sense and have a great day!