A Circle, Closed

PETERMBALL Sunday Circle

The TLDR version of this post: I’m taking a time-out to rethink the Sunday Circle and how it functions in 2020, which may see it either migrate to a new platform or have the shutters pulled down entirely.

I started the Sunday Circle a few years back, inspired by a write-up of the idea in Todd Henry’s The Accidental Creative and an idea that it might be possible to replicate the process online. Over the years we’ve had a number of writers, voice actors, and others drop by on a Sunday to check in with each other, laying out their various projects and inspirations for the coming week.

At the time I kicked off the Sunday Circle, it was part of a long-term strategy for the blog. A natural fit for the kinds of topics I blogged about and talked about in the long term.

These days, not so much. My focus has shifted away from the long conversations about writing and business, and blogs posts don’t get the numbers they once did (largely, I suspect, because they can no longer cross-post to a personal Facebook stream).

And one of the other big take-aways from the Accidental Creative is this:

It’s easy to assume that because something has always been done a certain way, that must be the one and only right way to do it. We sometimes develop the assumption that because a system or method brought us success in one instance, it will always do so. Or we may assume that because something didn’t work in one instance, it will never work under any circumstances. Any of these assumptions can, over time, be disastrous to our creative process because they limit how we look at problems.

Henry, Todd. The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice (p. 68).

The Sunday Circle was always an attempt to solve problems for me: a means of connecting with other writers and artists as I moved away from regular work, a public habit that prompted me to define my focus and shift attention onto positive influences on my work.

Lately, it’s felt like less of a solution to those problems, so I’m packing it away for a stretch and see if there’s an alternative solution.

Twelve Months On

PETERMBALL Stuff

Hornets Attack Your Best Friend Victor crept onto the top 100 free downloads in the Contemporary Fantasy section of Amazon Australia over Christmas, snagging a position at #16. This occurred twelve months after I first republished the story via Brain Jar, on the heels of nearly 300+ downloads in various storefronts.

It’s interesting to look at the books that surround it in that section—one of these things is very clearly not like the other ones. Not just in terms of being a short story, but in the choices around cover arts and fonts that position it within the genre.

This pleases me.

One of my great issues with the indie publishing scene lies in the rush to conformity. The conversations that dominate forums are how do I produce fast and earn some sweet kindle money, and familiarity is a powerful tool for achieving that goal. The advice always boils down to the same core principles: hit the genre tropes, use a cover concept that speaks directly to genre, publish fast and find a profitable niche to mine it for all it’s worth.

I don’t begrudge the folks who do it—making money from your writing is an important and powerful thing—but for me it fritters away the true joy at the heart of the indie publishing world: Every madcap idea is feasible & nobody can stop you. It’s a space where you can take chances without fear of wasting time and effort, because everything has the potential to find its audience if you give it long enough (and, unlike traditional publishing, you can).

Essentially, every barking mad literary project you’ve ever dreamt up has potential in the indie world, so long as you don’t have your heart set on making an immediate profit. The economies of scale that see traditional publishing focus all of it’s marketing push on the first six weeks are gone, replaced by a system where books can take time to find their audience.

It can be slower—Hornets Attack is over a year old and just finding a new group of readers who dig its weird little blend of slipstream sensibilities and teenage ennui—but it’s also one drop in a growing bucket of projects I’ve got out there for readers to find.

While Hornets has been killing it of late, Black Dog: A Biography overtook it in terms of downloads leading into Christmas. It’s the weirdest, least-accessible short story I’ve ever written, and it’s still finding its way into reader’s hands. I recently did the math and discovered the Short Story collections tend to sell a book a month on average

Newsletters and Kintsugi

PETERMBALL Smart Advice from Smart People

I’ve put my weekly newsletter on hold for the holidays season, scheduling a return date in 2020 that just so coincides with the release date of These Strange & Magic Things on January 8.

One of the recurring features in my weekly missive is a list of seven interesting things I wanted to share with people. Sometimes they’re round-ups of things I’ve posted here, or capsule reviews of books that I’ve read. Quite often, of late, they’ve been links to Austin Kleon’s blog where he talks about creativity and process in some really nuanced ways.

If I were writing a newsletter this week, you can bet that Kleon’s latest post about the new Star Wars film and the Japanese art of Kintsugi would be going front-and-centre.

For the record, if you want to subscribe and get the newsletter when it returns (in addition to a starter library of neat ebook swag you see below), head this way.