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Figuring What You Are Worth, and Sticking To It

By
Ralph Greco
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In quite a few of these sex writing columns, I’ve either skirted past what a writer should charge for his or her time and work, tried to wax poetic while giving salient advice, or have skipped over the subject entirely. And while you can find plenty of formulas for calculating your time, what this or that website advises this or that kind of writing might be worth in the marketplace presently, knowing what to charge and sticking with what you charge, needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Not just from one writer to another but even from the same writer considering one job over another.

Let me give you a recent example of something that was proposed to me:

An agent I had worked with a while ago, somebody who hits me up across Skype every so often or I’ll send a “Hey, how you doin’?” to every couple of months, left me a message that he has a new job for which he thinks I might be suitable. I had worked about a year-and-a half on a massive project for this guy where I had to employ six other writers to handle the workload. I made some good money, got to spread a little cash around to some writers I knew who could use it, and had some fun traveling a bit for the job. It also made me crazy in that I was locked at the computer all the time and, quite frankly, was scrambling to produce more content than was probably healthy for me to do, all because I was being paid so little I had to make it up in volume.

Hey, I had signed up. I knew what I was getting myself into, and at the time, I needed the dough badly.

The new job the guy is presenting? Well, the price for the work is, again, way too low. But these days, ten years on from the last job I did for this dude, my circumstances are a bit better (or maybe I just give less of a shit and really don’t want to aggravate myself now). These days I can choose to be slightly more picky with the work I may take (slightly) and once again, the price the agent quoted me is so low I can’t see clear to expending the time and energy on this job. I countered with a ‘family-and-friends,’ rate but I doubt the client will come up as much as I need them to… and believe me, I’m being very reasonable. I really would like to help the agent and a few more jingles in my old coin purse would not hurt, but I can’t take steps backwards.

But even when you are desperate for work, or know what you’ll be doing might be kinda fun (this new job would be writing dirty evergreen articles, a job that’s right up my back alley, so to speak) there are just some jobs that are not going to be right for you.

Working as hard as I have over these years I have found what I feel I am worth and generally I try and stick to this price quote. Assuredly this calculation wasn’t easily come by and making it for yourself will be one of the harder aspects of the freelance writing life you’ll come to. Like I mentioned, you can rely on formulas and calculations, or even simply assume what you’re worth, but you could come to price yourself out of jobs well before you have the skills or experience to handle them. Or you could quote yourself too low.

I’ve done both.

Consider how long you have been at this, what your unique skills are, and what the job will entail. Think hard on the job presented, will it require you to bend to a learning curve, or is it something you could jump right into? Has the time come now for you to up your quote? Have you just completed a bunch of work that you feel has really increased your skills and even your reputation? Or are you feeling the bite of a tough personal economy and think it might be prudent to adjust your quote, at least for a little while?

Get what you think what you are worth my dear fellow writers but always think hard on what that might be.

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Featured Image by Photo by maitree rimthong from Pexels

Shooting Up The Old Mental Enema To Relieve You Of Writer’s Block

By
Ralph Greco
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writer's block

This is one of the areas of writing (and there are a few, believe me) where I am not very learned. Simply, I never suffer from the all-too-common, writer’s block, so I have never personally needed to combat it.

Sure, I suffer from the lazies, sometimes I will do all I can to avoid sitting down to write. Still, for the most part, I have so many projects needing completion, that fluttering from one to the other to another keeps my mental muscle exercised enough that I don’t get stuck or blocked.

Image by luxstorm from Pixabay

I’m not saying I get much work done this way, in fact, I probably get less work done on one specific thing than if I just concentrated on one piece of writing and didn’t start another until I finished the first. But I get bored quickly, especially of my own writing and this is the way I have always known to work.

As I always say with this or any endeavor…you do you, I do me; we all have our approaches.

Even though I don’t suffer from writer’s block, I know it is ‘out there. There are plenty of writers do face it from time to time, some lots more than others. What I can an offer, and what I have noticed that works for others, that, in theory, should get your juices flowing, is to push yourself back from your desk, get away from what you are trying to slog through, take a break from the writing for a time.

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Getting your mind off the work and your ass out of your chair (and disconnecting from social media, screens, online, etc.) is the first and best solution. Besides, we writers need to refuel, get out and about, sniff some new stuff into our brains, marinate, give forth and take in… just like anybody else does. No matter how much you want to write, how it might be your bread and butter, you need a break, as does anyone else.

Isaac Asimov was famous for declaring that he was on vacation all the time when writing. He felt that the writing he did—being taken away to different worlds, delving deep into iconic creations and characters—was all the break he ever needed. I know most writers  want to be writing, even when they aren’t, but all Asimovian considerations aside (and really, there was only ever one Isaac Asimov), the first real way to break through your block is to break away from writing.

You could also try to plow through by assigning yourself writing of a wholly different nature than you are presently into or have ever managed. If you are stuck trying to write yourself through some bodice-ripper, open up a new document instead and try to pen an article on fly fishing or start a new blog post on another topic.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

What usually gets us hitting the wall here (beyond burn-out) is that we have been attempting to do the same kind of thing for too long (again, another reason why I don’t do this). If you can’t or don’t want to step away from the laptop or desk, ok, keep writing, but try writing something different, or even wholly opposite to what’s got you stuck.

Lastly (and you are going to have to take a break here to do this): read. When people come up to ask me how to start writing (a subject I tackled in my first column here), one of the things I tell them is: if you want to start writing, well, you damn well better start reading. For me, reading is the very best vacation, as powerful and vital to me as any actual trip I have taken. It cleans out my cobwebs, sets me traveling, and feeds me the words and techniques of other scribes; what could be better?

So try this.

Image by chloestrong from Pixabay

Try everything above, actually. I think one, two, or maybe all three will get you through the log jam.

I hope something does.

I have heard that Aaron Sorkin, writer of such successful stuff as T.V.’s “The West Wing,” and movies like A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Moneyball, takes multiple showers during the day to keep his writing muscles warmed.

I am sure you have heard of plenty of writers who go for the old walk ’round the block or take in a round of handball with a bud.

Some, yes, smoke, and imbibe, but I don’t do either, and I’m not sure if this kind of distraction will do much more than blot you for a while (it worked wonders for old Dylan Thomas, until it up and grabbed him). But who am I to say what will work for you once you find the solution to writer’s block.

I just hope whatever enema you chose it keeps you unblocked often.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Featured Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

9 Places Where You Can Get Your Erotic Stories Published And Get Paid 

By
Ralph Greco
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Photo by Кристина Алексеева from Pexels

Okay, so here are 9 Places (I didn’t want to be cliché and give you ten) Where You Can Get Your Erotic Stories Published And Get Paid.

Drum roll please!

I can’t say what these might be like when you click to explore any of these places. Of course, guidelines and acquisition needs change as much at erotica publishers as at any other house. But what I have tried to do with these nine is present you with places I know that accept erotic fiction on a regular basis. Or at least ones I have worked with that I can vouch for.

 

So…Good luck.

 

1.) Bust Magazine’s “One-Handed Read” section features short fiction (under 850 words) for the discerning horny female. Send your submissions as an MS word attachment, with your email containing your author info to submissions@bust.com, to the attention of the section “One-Handed Read” section.

 

2.) Penthouse Letter’s and Penthouse itself still accept pornographic fiction. The stories usually need to be about 3000 words. To letters@penthouse.com

 

3.)  Cleis Press is a venerable publishing house for erotica. 

 

4.)  Berlinable is a new erotic house, with a particular (but not only) interest in erotica centered in Berlin, Germany. 

 

5.)  Circlet Press, a house that I have been published by, are always on the lookout for fiction for their various anthologies. Circlet marries the erotic with genre fiction, like fantasy, sci-fi-fi, and horror. 

 

6.)  Erotica For All is a unique one. It is a website where you can post non-fiction directly related to something you have already published (at the time of posting here, what you’ve had published need not be all that old). You are not getting paid, as you will in any of the above, but it is a great way to promote your work with a quick essay about the theme or book you have just put out, with a snippet of that book below the essay. For instance, I wrote a short essay about how women don’t have to be leather-clad and wield a whip to still be a femdom lady; then, I included a story from my just-published short story collected called No Whip, No Problem. Get the idea?

 

7.)  Xcite Books is another I have published books with. They are UK-based and take stories for anthos as well as for one-off shorter single-story books.

 

8.)  My buddy Jim over at Wordwooze accepts all kinds of books that he puts out as ebooks as he does audio. He has published erotica as well as a one-act play collection from me.

 

9.)  SinCyr is another house I can’t say enough about… and not only because they have been smart enough to publish me often. They publish a consistent batch of anthologies during any given year. I’d advise checking them out as well.

 

So, what are you still standing around reading this column for?! Get out, get published, stop bugging me already!

It’s A Small World After All, So Shut The Fuck Up Already

By
Ralph Greco
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If I ‘ve told you once, I‘ve told you a thousand times; whatever you do, do not burn a bridge. Plant on a smiley face, be as diplomatic as you must, stamp down your true feelings, but don’t cut anybody down to size or bad mouth anybody to anybody else. If you don’t want to work with someone ever again, then just don’t work with them. Stay off Twitter or Facebook if your only goal is to spread ill feelings—your missives and mockings are sure to be heard as much, or even more so, than your praise.

As Patrick Swayze’s “Dalton” instructs the amateur bouncers under his care in the not-so-subtle homoerotic movie, Road House, “Be nice.” So, be nice.

Road House / Silver Pictures

Let me give you a recent example from my professional naughty writing life why I say this…

I sent out a query to a publisher this week. In my experience, this was a new house. I knew of one of the imports that they had just bought, someone who had published a few stories of mine over a decade ago, and this is how I got hip to this. Again for me, new publisher. Reading over their updated guidelines (Something else I would strongly advise doing, sending an editor or publisher what they indicate they need from guidelines that might have been published a year ago could find you submitting stale stories.) I came to the conclusion that this house might just be perfect for a short story collection I had been trying to place.

Related: Saying “NEXT”: When Fired From A Sex Writing Job…

Lo and behold: when I received a quick email back from the acquisitions editor (I found out she was the CEO of the house as well), she told me she had not only heard of me (which certainly made me feel good) but that we had met.

I don’t recall meeting the lady, although when I searched pictures of her online, she did look familiar. But imagine if, somewhere along the line, I had slagged her off, been impolite, or had been a major headcase to the person whose imprint she had bought. I am not a headcase, and I am always nice, but here’s a perfect example of your ‘tude traveling far because, really, the sex writing world is a small one after all.

I have no idea of the down and dirty specifics of other businesses. But I have interviewed enough folks for the ghostwriting jobs that I do, folks working in other industries than the adult world, to know that they too advise the “no bridge-burning ethos.” In this day and age, where we have the infinite facility to get our opinion out there, as quickly as we like, I caution a little common sense, a little grown-up considering and say: “Just cause you can Postie, don’t mean you should.”

Image by Yaroslav Shuraev

Whatever your opinion about Tom, Dick or Mary, that magazine you once wrote for, that editor that almost drove you to drink, I’d say keep it yourself. If you want to share ’em, do so with your nearest and dearest. I shoot the proverbial shit with only one other writer and good friend who, like me, keeps his mouth shut. We get to jawing about the smut writing business and caution each other with what we learn on our own, but we never “tell tales out of school,” keeping our business our business.

Related: The Question Of The Non-De Plume For The Erotic Writer

Go forth and do what you will the way you will. I can’t stop you. But if you take one thing from any of my writing columns here (beyond the fact that I am a sexy, well-hung, incredibly talented sage of writing advice), please realize that there are times when you are served best just shutting the fuck up.

 

Featured image by Andrea Pacquiado

 

Goodbye Mr. Vachss

By
Ralph Greco
-

On the heels of Anne Rice and Joan Didion dying at the tail end of the year, I learned that another of my favorite writers, Andrew Vachss died, on December 27th. A man who wrote “hardboiled” crime novels, comics, short stories, song lyrics, and plays, Vachss was unique among his penning peers in his professional defense of abused children.

 

Vachss worked as a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, and even directed a maximum-security prison for violent youth. He represented children and youth exclusively in his private law practice and was a founding member of the Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection.

 

Of his 33 novels, arguably, the reading public knew Vachss best from his 18-book Burke books (where I first found the man) and his signature look; Vachss’s eye was injured at the age of seven and because of this he wore an eye patch and usually a stern, “I know what you did and I will out you because of it,” look in public life.

 

His books took place in an underbelly world of crime and revenge, with urban mercs enacting vigilantism on a Grand Guignol scale. His wonderful family of characters often hunted down child predators, and well before it became of virtue signaling value, he championed LGBTQ characters by writing them into his stories as much lead characters as anyone else.

 

His books also were heavily peppered with eroticism.

 

Here was a guy who knew how to mix genres while creating fiction that was undeniably his.

 

There was a time; I couldn’t get enough of the guy.

 

Vachss was married to Alice, herself a former sex-crimes prosecutor. She later became Chief of the Special Victims Bureau in Queens, New York, and wrote the nonfiction book Sex Crimes: Ten Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators, which became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. 

 

“When people tell me a warm, caring volunteer can ‘represent’ a kid, I tell them that the next time they need a root canal, go to a volunteer,” the man famously said.

 

Andress Vachss lived what he preached and wrote outstanding fiction from it.

Sometimes You Do Get A Check, And Sometimes You Don’t Know Why

By
Ralph Greco
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Photo by Nadi Lindsay from Pexels

Freelance writers usually know when their payments are coming in, spend an inordinate amount of time chasing those that are supposed to come in, and worry insistently about trying to get them to come in. Although I am terrible with anything that has to do with numbers, rest assured I try to keep up on those numbers that mean cash in my pocket. So, you can assume I was damn surprised today when I received a check from a rather reputable publication that I was not expecting for a piece of writing I can’t recall.

Yes, I do write a lot of erotica. I’d say more than half of my output is naughty writing, either article, blogs, or fiction. But I also write for mainstream clients and attempt to get fiction or little humor essays into those inoffensive old mags that have been around forever. It was from one of these magazines, that the check came from, for… well… for whatever it was.

I went on the magazine’s website to search, to no avail, and just emailed a letter to their editor, thanking him and asking, ‘Hey, by the way, can you tell me what this is for?’ I’d at least like to grab a couple of copies of the magazine to throw around as I don’t get to do this all that often when I get some piece of erotica published. Old aunt Tessie is a sweet lady, but she won’t take well to logging onto some porn site to read my latest on the best positions for spanking.

Don’t think for a minute I’m complaining! I love getting money, and I love that it seems a venerable old magazine has published me. I just have no idea what the piece was! But you might find this happening to you a time or two. Lots of places have online templates to plug your writing into. In the case of what I am assuming was published here, I probably scribbled off a little humor piece of 100 words and sent it off. I’m sure I didn’t even save the few paragraphs, figuring, hey, if they can use it, great, if not, no skin off my apple.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is, just keep sending stuff, throw your writing out and about, even if it’s little quips or a short-short. You never know who might publish you, and when you might see a check, you were not expecting.

Sex Writing: Where to Publish Your Smut

By
Ralph Greco
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I went to see Kurt Vonnegut lecture sometime in the mid-’80s. Being one of my all-time favorite authors, you can bet how rabid I was to be among the sold-out crowd in that college auditorium on a weekday night, digesting every word the master said. One of the points Mr. V was adamant about was how when he was first starting to write and publish, a fledgling author could find a whole host of places to send stories, essays, and poetry. These places would pay for these pieces, and they were almost all professional magazines, well respected in their fields. Some were indeed fiction mags, while others would run one or two stories an issue, alongside with the rest of their usual non-fiction fare. Dearly departed Mr. Vonnegut didn’t have to tell us all, although he did, that this free range-like publication opportunity does not so much exist anymore. 

Image by ugururlu0 from Pixabay

I’m sorry to say, things have gotten worse in the ensuing years. And what’s even more harrowing is that following along with the mainstream fiction marketplace dying, there are less and fewer places to place erotic fiction these days, in print or online, small press or major market, and those places that do take erotica tend to have strict guidelines of their needs. I’m not trying to discourage you, as there are indeed publishers still out there, and if you get slightly creative, you might be able to sneak some dirty stuff into places you might not have ever imagined. But as dear old departed Kurt Vonnegut warned and has come to pass, the field has shrunk for us all who scribble and dream, no matter what it is we scribble and dream about.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

So, where does one go to try publish a naughty slice of their life? a hastily written dirty haiku? a salacious fictionalized memoir?

I find the Erotica Readers & Writers Association (ERWA) the first and best resource for us smut writers presently. Here you will find current calls for anthologies (a great way to get published), the latest eBook or actual book publisher of naughty stuff, and a whole host of other invaluable resources and opportunities for writers. I have a small group of publishers who I send my works to regularly (some on this list). And maybe in time, you will build relationships here and there with a small press, magazine, an eBook publisher, or even some audiobook spot that will take your latest sight unseen. Lots of smaller publishers do indeed take unsolicited submissions. I’d suggest a little more research online to see who does, and to checkout what is trending.

Hell, I still look around plenty, even with my connections, as much in the hope to spread myself around as to keep up on who is out there and what they are looking for.

Plenty of ‘mainstream,’ magazines (The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, director Francis Ford Coppola’s literary arts publication) takes erotica—although they stay away from niche or fetish—as do lots of online journals. There is the online storehouse of Literotica where many an erotica writer goes, newbie or those long-in-the-game to get something up, just to be seen (they do not pay here). And if you sign-up for a newsletter like Duotrope, you will get email updates where you might be able to send stuff (this online newsletter handles all kinds of writing).

Photo by Tofros.com from Pexels

You can also try your hand at self-publishing erotica on Amazon and Kindle. Tread carefully here, though. I have put up a few self-published books on the portal and have seen a mix of results. They are also always on the lookout to kick a book off their listing for any one of a wide range (and seemingly always changing) criteria.

Besides searching far and wide for markets (try punching “erotica” + “write for us” OR “ghostwriting erotica” in Google for places that are seeking erotic writers), look in unusual spots (Freelancer.com), or pimp your work out on Fiverr and Guru.com. You can make moments happen by being even pushy at times (something I certainly am not and have suffered for not being). It’s a ‘got to be in it to win it’ kind of pursuit, as much about sitting down and scribbling as doing the deep dive into the market place that brings one publishing credits.

Good luck.

Featured Image by VisionPic .net from Pexels

Meta Verse Erotica?

By
Ralph Greco
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Photo by Designecologist from Pexels
Photo by Designecologist from Pexels

I am not part of the cult of social media personality; I have never been. I do not really know how Facebook, Instagram, etc., work nor have I ever wanted to. And I am truly blind to why Facebook is switching its name to Meta and what that word even means (as well as what the hell “Metaverse” means). But as I have too often seen in the insidious recent rush of technology, I fear there might be some infiltration of that which I do not know nor engage in to my business of scribbling naughty little words across papyrus with my stylus under candlelight.

I’m not a Luddite, but I do grow a bit squirrely round the edges now in my 6th decade with anything that seems to have the potential to create ever more divisions between folks. My great friend, podcast co-host, and a writer you should be reading right now (and contributor as well to this wonderful sexpert-a-verse), M. Christian, is the futurist I go to when I come up against the world changing in ways I do not understand. Asking him about the conversion of Facebook to Meta and what meta is in general, Chris pretty much reiterated what I thought I knew in that there are folks who enjoy an online experience, no matter what it is they are experiencing, as much or more so than they do going out and about in the world to experience whatever it is they like to experience. What Chris warned, and something we have all come to see for sure, is if one immerses oneself with one population, one news source, one religion, one whatever-it-is, then one can get rather indoctrinated in one set way of looking at things. I don’t care where you come down politically (or if you are like me, you don’t come down politically at all) or what your belief system is; I agree with Chris, one can all too easily spin down a rabbit hole one might never see oneself free from the more one goes looking for that damn rabbit.

In the ‘new’ Meta world that Mark Zuckerberg seems to be morphing his old Facebook into, it seems folks who like to be online will be able to dive even deeper online. The question then becomes, if being online is so rewarding, easy to facilitate, and keeps us inside where we already want to stay anyway (pandemic or not), why would those predisposed to being online ever want to interact with the non-online world? And extrapolating from this—and for my private bread and butter—I wonder if anyone in the Meta world or even tickling into it from time to time will want to read my naughty little stories, or any stories in general. Will what Chris and I labor at and many more writers like us try to make their living from being soon regarded as an antiquated static resource, not at all interesting to the generation living solely online?

In a world where you can set your avatar to any appearance (and well protect your actual appearance in the process), speak a language you don’t normally but can easily translate, buy goods and services from an exchange of something other than the coin of the realm, and never leave your Barcalounger when doing all of this, the digital world you could come to live can all too quickly become one of your own making.

Will anybody want the fictions or anyone else’s makings if one is Meta?

Has Amazon Killed Sex Book Publishing?

By
Ralph Greco
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It’s undoubtedly been a wacky, weird road to travel down these past couple decades for those of us involved in sex writing. Be one a scribbler of naughty stuff or a publisher of those scribblings; the goalposts have been “slip, sliding, away,” as Paul Simon would say, over what to write and where to publish during these heady and hearty days of digital. And if anybody gives you a clear-cut definitive answer on where things are headed, even within the next couple months, ignore them; they truly have no clue.

Jeff Bezos, CEO and President of ‎Amazon

Yes, eBook publishing was a massive change to the landscape and a good one for those of us writing niche or genre stuff. I didn’t start publishing my stuff in earnest until I met the wonderful Jean Marie Stine of Renaissance E Books and found that not only could I publish, I could get paid for the naughty stuff that was pouring out of me that I knew mainstream publishers did not want (this was before Fifty Shades of Grey hit and every house everywhere suddenly wanted to publish erotica). The little risk/solid reward model of eBook publishing made perfect sense to me, and I got up a whole bunch of titles with Jean, which led to me gaining some traction (and confidence) to search out other houses and jump-start my career.

eBooks are still out there, but I dare say another and probably the most significant change to the market—to all markets actually—is Amazon.

Good and bad.

For publishers? 

Let’s take the good first. 

Amazon provides exposure of a scale no publisher’s already hard-working distribution department could beat.

The bad? 

Suddenly, Amazon provides exposure of a scale no publisher’s already hard-working distribution department could beat. Being the biggest player, Amazon set rules everyone had to follow, or one could not get their books up on this depository of stuff.

Early on (and still happening), there were guidelines (lots of us saw them as restrictions) set up across the Amazon platform that quickly found, and pretty much deleted, any erotica that did not play by Amazon’s rules. Those authors who wrote fetish stuff, especially age-play fantasy stuff (which was exactly what my first books with Jean Marie were) were set under deep scrutiny, with books excised from Amazon lists at the drop of a hat.

The problem here was that there were no concessions made for the grey areas (like adult consensual age play or fiction about ‘water sports’) in the initial flagging and mass exodus of lots of titles Amazon thought exploitative. Yes, they have gotten better with not just jettisoning stuff whole cloth, pretty much lightening-up on us smut scribes, but still there are lots of restrictions on the site/store that are not so easy to decipher.

Hey, it’s their sandbox, they can make the rules, I have no problem with that. But Amazon’s reasons for jettisoning titles, in the best of instances, still seem somewhat arbitrary.

For writers?

The good. 

Amazon worked hard (I will give credit where credit is due) to create a template where just about anyone can upload a book, its cover, and price (and Amazon helps price books as well if you are ignorant in this area) and set up their own ‘shop’ to start selling directly. For the most part, and within the restrictions mentioned above, erotica authors could technically ‘publish’ without having to spend all that much money (or any at all) to do so.

The bad. 

Amazon worked hard (I will give credit where credit is due) to create a template where just about anyone can upload a book, which means, now, a pro erotica writer, who may have worked for years building his or her talent, skill, and business acumen, is pretty much competing on a level playing field with amateurs.

Is this good or bad? You decide. But it does mean there is a lot more stuff for the picking out there and a wide range of ‘quality.’

(It reminds me what you find when you got out for an evening at your local café and catch an “Open Mike” night).

The Only Game In Town

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

There is no dirty little secret here. Amazon works on a rather ‘transparent’ business model.

But it has become an only-game-in-town situation, and that usually scares the shit out of me; monopolies have always scared me and I don’t want only want one option when it comes to the ice cream flavors I can chose from.

And really, it means nothing much at all if somebody comes up to you and says, “I have published a book on Amazon.” Having a book up on the portal is about as unique as having an Instagram page these days.

I don’t have an Instagram page and have long since forgotten the short stories I self-published on Amazon.

Why?

I have a natural aversion to making money and becoming famous. That’s a joke.

Actually, as you have realized reading these columns, I abhor social media and figure just adding to the din of so many other-self-published sex scribes out there will just result in me spinning my metaphorical wheels.

If a publisher I am with puts my book on Amazon, (and pretty much everyone I have published with has), that’s their business. But I have long since given up the idea of putting stuff up there myself. My thoughts might change on this, but for now, I dance with the devil just about as much as I care to.

Should you publish on Amazon? Are they indeed the biggest, and best? I’d advise doing some research beyond my sage advice (not that I really gave you a thumbs up or down here) and figure how, and if, you want to get involved with Jeff Bezos baby.

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NINE TO ETERNITY is an anthology of science-fiction short stories edited and anthologized by M. Christian. NINE TO ETERNITY, features a whole bunch of other excellent writers, including Ralph Greco, M. Christian, Ernest Hogan, Emily Devenport, Cynthia Ward, Arthur Byron Cover, Jr., David Lee Summers, Jean Marie Stine, and the estate of Jody Scott, to make Nine To Eternity: A Science Fiction Anthology a memorable reading experience.

Step Back, Shut Up, Fuck Off

By
Ralph Greco
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Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

I began this one initially as a plea to playwrights. Having had the pleasure of seeing a bunch of my one-acts produced across the U.S. (even some of a more ‘adult’ nature) I thought maybe I could pass along salient advice for scribes of the stage. But then as I explored the idea of what I wanted to say here I realized what I wanted to expound upon might just be applicable to all writers, to all people actually who create a thing from whole cloth and put that thing out for the masses to enjoy or purchase.

This falls well beyond the advice I gave about knowing when to “fold ‘um” as opposed to knowing when to “hold ‘um” when it comes to letting the thing you create just be, consider it done as opposed to picking at it. Or that should-I-or-should-I? conundrum over editing something yet again. What I am on about here is the tired old need writers/musicians/actors/creatives-in-general have to yawp a good game about what they do, have just done, or might be presently giving forth.

You see this lots of times when a singer/songwriter sits down to play a song but spends more time talking about the song’s inspiration. You get it lots of times when you ask an actor about his or her latest performance and they all too quickly rifle off their resume. So many writers are all too happy to tell you about the lives of their fictional characters and plenty more people will give out the specifics of their websites, Facebook page Instagram or Twitter handle, well before you even ask for it. But to me, this kind of self-promotion white noise feels like desperation to me (kind of like how the populace seems to have an addiction to posting every idea, vacation pic and political rant…but don’t get me started on the epidemic of narcissism birthed by social media).

I understand, we who create stuff and get it out there (and I think everybody creates stuff, all of us are artists in some sense, so I don’t hold musicians, actors, writers, etc. in a higher regard than anybody else) feel we need to consistently show ourself, be seen and heard above everybody else trying to be seen and heard, have to claw and fight to perform or win that audition. I understand that there will come more rejection, than there ever we be acceptance. But one comes from an infinitely stronger base, reveals the confidence of one’s convictions, if we just do the thing and don’t talk about the thing, unless you are asked to talk about the thing by people who want to hear about your doing, or are paying for you to do it.

Let me give you and example which will tie this all up neatly in a bow, I hope.

Going back to my playwriting. I have found infinite pleasure in this kind of writing, not only because I get to hear my words spoken, out loud, but because I can instantly judge their impact by an immediate reaction, or no reaction, from an audience. And quite a few times in the community theatres that have ‘put up’ my plays, there’s been a Q&A after the performance, where audiences are invited to ask directors, actors and writers questions. For a writer especially, this public airing can be both fun and unnerving. We get to come out into the light beyond our garret and react to real human beings, but at the same time that light can be blinding when somebody starts asking you about what you meant by this and that when you might not have a clear answer. Luckily, from my performance background, especially playing music for kids, the toughest audiences you are ever likely to meet, I am pretty quick on my toes and mostly I lead with humor, which diffuses even the most serious, deep diving questions.

But in these instances, I am being asked to expound. In writing classes, the website that initially ran the columns that make up a bulk of this book, somebody has come to seek my consul, asked me my opinion. I shouldn’t be lurking around backstage before a performance jawing with the actors of my play or having a chat with the director or even attend a rehearsal unless I have been invited (which I have been, but still meter my time out and about judiciously). I try and just sing my song with the requisite pyrotechnics and not talk about it too much and when I come upon somebody reciting their resume on the many books they have published with this or that publisher, I nod and compliment them on their good fortune, but have to need to compete with what I have had published myself.

As I come to re-read my works above I realize that this column is less a piece about some aspect of writing as it is the social aspect of the craft. But if and when you get the chance, and maybe even when you don’t, I say step back, shut up and generally just fuck off.

 

 

 

 

 

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