Saturday, March 21, 2020

It should be simple, but it's not

March 21, 2020

Happy spring, everyone! The daffodils are finally blooming and I'm home to enjoy them. Life should be good...but it's not. We are living in challenging times and everyone has a criticism to share. Just remember - if you hate just one person, you are a hater. But enough about that. 

We've all been asked to stay home to limit our exposure to those who may be infected with the COVID-19 virus. We've been asked to only venture out for necessities. I'm happy to comply, but then I'm not exactly housebound. I have three acres of ground and the nearest house to my property line is a good five-hundred feet away. I have no worries when I take Deuce outside. 

So I'm home. You'd think sitting down and writing would be the simplest thing in the world for a writer to do, wouldn't you? Yeah, I thought so, too, but everywhere I look I see something that can be done before the hazy, hot, and humid days of the Mid-Atlantic summer arrive. Maybe I need to close my eyes or close the curtains, so I can't see all the work out there waiting for me. Maybe that won't help because I have a lot of writing "chores" that also need to be performed. 

It may all be moot musings. My employer considers me to be essential personnel, and it's not bragging to say I am. Everything passes through my hands. Whether or not I'll be expected to report to work on Tuesday remains to be decided. The thing is, I don't trust others to stay out of the building and stay away from me. They've already proven it's beyond their brains to comprehend such a thing. Another simple concept that is obviously not simple in practice. 

I'd like to work from home. The caveat there is that if they want to cut my pay, well, it'll be time to officially retire. 

It should be so simple, but it's not. 

KC Kendricks
www.kckendricks.com

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Ponderings on the state of publishing March 2020

March 18, 2020

A few days ago I sat down to blog about romance fiction industry stats and ended up on a rant. Today I will stay on topic. 

The romance fiction industry is worth over $1B a year. Yes, one billion dollars. That's about the size of the mystery and science fiction markets combined. I look at the number of mystery and adventure books that regularly place on the bestseller lists and I question this, but it's the sheer volume of romance fiction readers with multiple "must-read authors" that boosts the number. There was only one of the late Clive Cussler so of course, he would always make the lists. 

The majority of romance fiction readers are women. As a woman, I want my romance to be a character-driven love story and I'm not alone in that. I like a little sub-plot or two, but the story must be about the main couple. That couple can be any combination of genders. I like the endings to be upbeat and personally, I want it to be realistic to the couple the author just spent a good chunk of their life creating. 

So this is all well and good, interesting up to a point, but there is some bad news brewing. The American Booksellers Association reported, on Valentine's Day no less, that book sales are down. Glancing over its industry-statistics webpage, the reports of dropping sales go back over a year. Its report on March 2019 says that month was down about seven percent over sales in March 2018. 

As a writer, it's my job to figure out if the romance readers of the world have gotten jaded on what's available, or if the time available to relax and read a book has gone the way of the Dodo bird. Or is it something more insidious? 

I've long pondered the impact the ease of Amazon's self-publishing model has had on readership across the board. I've read some really poorly constructed and written stories lately. 

Have we, and by this I mean published authors, turned off our readership? It's a question worth considering. Has the market been flooded? Is it better for us to produce quality or quantity? What's the next big sub-genre we should be writing? Has our readership's age demographic changed? Did the ebook publisher model work better, after all? Are there any good epublishers still out there? 

It's a lot to consider as we continue to write the story we want to read. 

KC Kendricks
www.kckendricks.com








Sunday, March 15, 2020

Going way off topic

March 15, 2020


The world has gone mad. As I write this, we are in the midst of global hysteria over COVID-19. While this is a serious health issue, once again the mainstream media has mobilized to whip the populace into a frenzy. Part of me says there are some people out there who deserve to live in their own created hell for buying into the dystopian hype, but most of me just feels sorry for them. My generation has birthed and raised a generation of idiot robots. How did this happen? It's like the mainstream media has found a way to reach inside their skulls, suck out their brains, and replace it with tapioca pudding. 

I can't believe the political sniping going on over COVID-19. The people of the United States deserve better. 

If there's one big takeaway for me from all this it's that the Affordable Care Act has wrecked our healthcare system. The Affordable Care Act put the government in charge of our healthcare and when faced with its first big challenge, it failed. Healthcare has become ALL about the money and not health. 

Many, many, many of the politicians who believe in, and voted for, the Affordable Care Act, who in effect created a big part of this mess, now criticize the government's response to the COVID-19 response. GROW THE FUCK UP AND OWN YOUR MESS.

The government, which now controls our healthcare system, has turned on itself. We're being controlled by a pack of flaming idiots. 

Wow. That was soooo not what I sat down to blog about this morning. Perhaps I really needed to just get that out. 

I'd better go do something else for a bit and come back later. Maybe then I can stay on topic. 

KC