We Are All Whiners

This blog post does not represent the opinion of anyone else on Do Some Damage but Dave White.

Shut up.

We--the writers and fans of books--all need to shut up. Big time.

Lately, there's been discussion about self-promotion on Twitter, Amazon boards, Facebook. Basically it comes down to this. Book writers are promoting their books on Twitter. Posting "I have a book out. Buy it! Here's a link." Apparently, it's constant*. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Then came the next wave. All the fans of writers have now revolted and started complaining about self-promotion. Immediate unfollowing of self-promoters. Creating arbitrary rules about promotion. "You can only do it once a week." "Five, ten, fifteen percent of time should be self-promotion." Wahh, wahhh, wahhh**.

Shut up.

First off, fans of writing... you have to understand something. Writers need to be noticed. There's a lot of noise out there and they want you to know the name of their book. Wouldn't you be upset if a writer you loved came out with a book and you never heard about it? All writers have fans. Some have a lot of fans. Some have 2 fans***. The only way their fans are going to notice them is if they mention their book. And you know what? Not everyone is always on Twitter at the same time. So sometimes these writers have to post about it more than once! So, if you're a fan of writer and of writers, give people a break okay. Especially if their book has only been out a month or two.

Okay, now writers. Yeah, you guys. Over here. Listen up. You need to chill out a little bit. Talk to people. Come up with conversation. And also, be creative. Let's not shout it all out all the time and then whine when people complain. You're a writer. Creativity is your life. You have to come up with a way to get noticed that's different from the ways everyone else gets noticed. And I'm not talking contests. Everyone does contests. No one who enters a contest ever buys the product their in the contest for. They want free stuff. If they don't get the free stuff, they'll go try to get other free stuff. I don't know what the real answer is. But you need to lay-off the shouting a little bit. I'm not going to come up with some random arbitrary rule for you****, you need to find your comfort zone. But maybe ease off the gas a little bit.

(Or, how about this. Everyone on Twitter picks a different author to promote. If we all promote each other, it's not self-promotion. Then what? Oh, snap!)

See the problem isn't self-promotion... or complaining about self-promotion. Not really. It's about society. The society we live in. The society of protests.

You see, in real life, protesters are doing something good. They're protesting BIG ISSUES. And they're trying to make real change. Look at the Wisconsin Unions, or Egypt, or the Tea Party, or Occupy Wall Street. They've all created real change over big issues.

Us?

We're complaining about .... commercials. Sorry, but commercials are a way of life. You're always going to have them. And some of them are pretty damn annoying. But we've always been able to ignore them. And then the people who make the commercials have to try a different tact. When all we do is complain... complain about the little things...it takes away the power of complaining about the big things. About fighting against something.

But we see all these protests, and we need something to whine about so we take up this issue. OOOHHHHH, there's too much on my Twitter feed. OOOHHHHHH, no one's buying my book.

Gimme a break. All of us. We all need to take a breather. We allllllll--even me--should shut up.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath and just chill out. Yes, I know Freedom of Speech is a right. But by both clogging up Twitter with self-promotional commercials**** and complaining about those commercials, you are trying to prohibit free speech. Complainers want to shut people up, self-promos want Twitter to be nothing more than a commercial.

So, let's ease off. Everyone. Be positive. Have fun. Because you know what? Discussion on Twitter never lead us to real change in publishing. Their circular conversations, ones that end up in the same place****** and never solve anything.

So, let's all take a deep breath and stop the freaking whining*******.

*My Twitter feed did have some advertising in it, but I wouldn't say it was constant. And I follow a lot writers.

**I actually saw a lot more of this than I did the actual self-promotion because it got retweeted a lot. And people didn't just post it, they went on ten tweet rants about it.

***Hi mom! Hi dad!

****Unlike those people on the Amazon message boards. Whoa are they crazy. Anyone tries to do something nice for a writer and they flip the f out. And then high five when the writer slinks away, trying to be nice.

*****Funny. When the promotion comes from a publisher, I NEVER see anyone complain about it. There are never "Boyyyy, Little Brown tweets about their books too much."

******Yes, I understand the irony of me posting about this. But I wanted to say it in more than 140 characters. Then I'll shut up. Plus, I like reading comments.

*******Look at all these footnotes. I hate footnotes. I should stop the footnotes. BLEEECCCHHH. I wrote a whole blog post complaining about footnotes once. Ask Russel. But now...it's a truce. I won't complain about them.

The British Are Coming

By Jay Stringer

It's almost time for you to get your hands on this years edition of The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime. My initial disappointment at the books lack of an actual Mammoth was soon washed away when I saw the list of contributors. Who needs the come back of a long extinct prehistoric creature when you can sit and read all that crime goodness?

There are stories in here from Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre, Stuart MacBride, Declan Burke, Ray Banks and the tartan ninja himself, Allan Guthrie. And that's just the start. Reading the full list of writers involved shows the real depth of talent in crime writing right now, including such friends of DSD as Nigel Bird and Paul D. Brazil. And they even let me in.

The details I have right now are for the British edition, from the folks at Robinson Publishing, but I'll have details soon of the American release. Lucky Limeys can get our hands on it in April, and it'll make it's way over to the states sometime in May.

Here's the official bit;

This is the must-have annual anthology for every crime fiction fan - the year's top new British short stories selected by leading crime critic Maxim Jakubowski. This great annual covers the full range of mystery fiction, from noir and hardboiled crime to ingenious puzzles and amateur sleuthing. It is packed with top names such as: Ian Rankin (including a new Rebus), Alexander McCall Smith, David Hewson, Christopher Brookmyre, Simon Kernick, A.L. Kennedy, Louise Walsh, Kate Atkinson, Colin Bateman, Stuart McBride and Andrew Taylor.

The full list of contributors is as follows: Sheila Quigley, Nigel Bird, Jay Stringer, Paul D. Brazill, Adrian Magson, Colin Bateman, Gerard Brennan, Matthew J. Elliott, Andrew Taylor, Lin Anderson, Christopher Brookmyre, Ray Banks, Declan Burke, Liza Cody, Simon Kernick, Stuart MacBride, Allan Guthrie, Ian Rankin (two stories, including a new Rebus), Nick Quantrill, Edward Marston, Nicholas Royle, Zoe Sharp, Robert Barnard, Simon Brett, Peter Lovesey, A.L. Kennedy, Roz Southey, Phil Lovesey, David Hewson, Amy Myers, Marilyn Todd, Peter Turnbull, Keith McCarthy, Paul Johnston, Alexander McCall Smith, Stephen Booth, Denise Mina, Mick Herron, Kate Atkinson and Louise Welsh.

And it's made possible every year by the hard work of Maxim Jakubowski, writer, editor, bookseller and all-round doyen. Maxim's shop, Murder One, used to be one of my favourite bookshops, and a must-visit whenever I was in London. The store lives on here on ye olde worlde wide webbe.

So, on your marks, get set, PRE-ORDER.

And while you're at it, why not buy yourselves a second copy of TERMINAL DAMAGE, and then, just incase it gets lonely, pick up DISCOUNT NOIR.

The Man With No Shame

By Jay "The Nature Boy" Stringer

Something a bit different this week. I'm here to talk about the glory of me.

Only Joking. But no, really.

I've actually been pretty light on the self promotion since we started this here site. Truth is I'm not very good at it. The quickest way to get me to shut up at a party is to ask me about my writing. For some reason, I just can't do it. I am the king of one or two word answers, which probably gives off the impression that I'm a lousy writer. What do you write about? "Oh, I dunno, crime, stuff." Oh, I like crime, is it like Martina Cole? "No." And that's about my lot.

Truth is, the more I've become a writer, the less I've wanted to talk about it. Part of it it the writing process, I think. A wit will think of a funny thing to say on the spot. A writer will think of the perfect thing to say an hour later. And then talk to himself about it.

I cant be pretentious and put it all down to being a 'writer' though, because there are plenty of fine writers out there who are good at the hustle. In fact in the modern world a writer needs to have that about them. They need to be their own campaign manager in an election race. They need to be a rainmaker as much as a page turner.

And I have a lot of respect for the writers who can do that, because each time I try, I fail. My greatest concern about my own career, whatever that is, rests with the fact that I'm most comfortable being allowed to sit and work on my stories. The hustle side of things is a struggle for me, and my attempts to develop it never go well.

How about you guys? Lets hear about how you learned the hustle, or how difficult you find it. What are the best examples of writers who've found the right balance in the modern day?

And now back to the glory of me. I have a few news tidbits to throw out there, so here goes.

Firstly, as of April next year you will be able to plonk down some of your hard earned cash on a book that has by name in it. One of my shorts is being collected in The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 8. I'm very proud to be published in the anthology alongside writers like Ian Rankin, Ray Banks, Al Guthrie and Stuart MacBride.

If you check out the full list, you'll also see a few names regular to the comments here at DSD and on 'the circuit,' like Nigel Bird and Paul D. Brazil. It's great to be alongside them. Thanks go to Maxim Jakubowski for putting it all together, and to the tartan ninja for the push.

How to follow that up?

Well, with another one I guess. Coming very soon from Untreed Reads is the ebook anthology Discount Noir. I get to share a billing with more of my favourite writers. Hell, that's McFet over there. And Weddle. And that shifty Bryon Q fella. Looking at the list of contributors really is something, over the next few years that's going to become a who's who of great crime writers.

Thanks on that one go to Patti Abbott and Weddle for their hard work, to Untreed Reads for joining in on the heist, and to worlds best agent Stacia Decker for making it all work.

Yes, that's right, we're taking over.

And one final plug. The good folks over at Matinee Idles let me sit in on another show, this one focusing on Chris Nolan's first film Following. It was a lot of fun, and I think we covered a lot of ground. Give it a listen, and check out the website. You might see a familiar writer on there. Cough. Cough.

And this one's not really self promotion. Mr Banks put me onto some good music and, against my best snobbish instincts, I'm going to share. Going to see C.W.Stoneking live was an absolute blast, it felt somehow like being in the middle of an episode of Treme. So check him out if you haven't already.