I think I've figured out what I'm going to do with the Burger, for the next twelve months or so, anyway. I've been feeling guilty and anxious about the amount of time I'm not putting in here. So guilty and anxious that worrying about it has been taking up even more time and energy than simply posting would have.
It's all down to time and energy, and how much I don't have any more. Family commitments aside, without the safety net of big publisher advances I have to earn every dollar that comes in. The last 12 months have proven I can do that, but it's hard work. Good work, and fun, but hard. I'm looking at my whiteboard right now, where I have my major projects for the year listed. All of them 100 000 word novels.
The Cruel Stars.
World War 3.1
The Golden Minute. (The sequel to A Girl in Time).
Sleeper Agent. (A conventional thriller).
Stronghold. (Dave Hooper 4)
In addition to this, I have my remaining media commitments and my new investment in Alien Side Boob. That turns out to be a lot of work, writing a private column to a standard that people are willing to pay for. There's also the fanfic collections, a couple of collaborative projects I'd like to work on, and a screenplay for A Girl in Time.
It doesn't leave a lot of time left over from blogging. And yet I'm not willing to simply close down the Burger. As I explained in a comment in the entry below, I trust this place and the people here in a way that I don't trust, say, my 3000 closest friends on Facebook. I can put out a call for beta readers here and know that the manuscript isn't going to turn up on BitTorrent 24 hours later.
But I don't have time to run a full service blog any more. Not for the next 12 months anyway, while I get my indie publishing business up to full speed. Last year was just proving the concept.
So what I've decided to do is keep the Burger open, but basically as a link blog. Mondays Tuesdays and Fridays I'll put up a link to and an extract from whatever column I have written that day. That will mostly be it. I won't be writing book reviews or movie reviews or even personal entries unless something really strikes me. I just don't have time. As more of the fanfic entries come in, I will publish extracts from them. And as my own books come due for release, I'll drop sample chapters here, but also at Medium, FB etc.
That should be enough to keep the place ticking over, but not so time-consuming that I hesitate to even open the page.

I realised yesterday, with a strange, contrary mix of emotions, that I now have more people subscribed to my book club than Fairfax has journalists on its payroll. A lot more, actually. The latest round of layoffs, another 120 jobs to go out of an already shrunken newsroom would have landed as a heavy blow in Sydney and Melbourne. I have no idea what effect the cuts will have in Brisbane, but I can’t imagine we’ll dodge the bullet again. It’s not just the newsroom, of course, the freelance budget has also been slashed. You can expect a lot more opinion pieces on the op-ed page to be written by politicians, lobbyists and the various urgers and bagmen pimping for vested interests and what they used to call in the 1930s “the money power”.

My Saturday morning column in the Herald was cut two weeks ago, although there was no announcement made. Wendy Harmer spilled the beans when they gave her the arse as well. It was gratifying to be a trending topic for a couple of hours as readers vented their anger, and then moved on to the next outrage-of-the-moment. As the media world contracts, I can feel my own acceleration away from it gathering pace. This has been coming for years, and I’ve been preparing for it for a long while now, but of course doing everything it just the right moment is a matter of timing.

I sat down to do some schedule planning yesterday morning, before the Fairfax announcement, looking at which books would be finished when, and even more importantly at what point they might start turning a profit if they’re ever going to. It looks like Cairo should be ready for distribution to bookclub members by mid April. It’ll be free and exclusive at jbismymasternow.com before dropping into the online retailers. But it’s not really meant to make money directly, simply to drive subscriptions to that mailing list.

The first real pay day comes with the launch of the two Hooper ebooks, A Protocol for Monsters, and A Soul Full of Guns, most likely on May 30. Given the way ebook payments work, I’ll probably see a return from them in September. Before then, of course, I have to cover the costs of production from my own pocket. Each novella length title, averaging 30-35K words, costs about two grand to drop into the channel. Stronghold, the first full length novel I’ll publish myself will probably top out at $3K+.

I have no idea what happens next at Fairfax, or whether I’ll have any part to play in it but I’m pretty sure that ten years from now my media commitments will be zero.

That’s why I’m sucking up the pain of building an independent income stream through my own ebook line. It is painful and difficult to do while managing the collapsing business models of old school media and book publishing, but the prospects for turning it into a sustainable business are a lot better than simply sitting in place and wishing for the best.

I’ve been pondering where the Burger sits in all this. It doesn’t have the firepower of Twitter or Facebook for channelling traffic and generating sales, but it does have a role to play. It’s a kind of complicated role, actually. In one sense it’s a simply place to retreat, like the bar in Cheers where everybody knows your name. We have a lot of social capital invested here, a lot of trust built up. That’s why I’m comfortable calling for Beta readers here, for instance, but nowhere else. If I did the same thing anywhere but the Burger, I am certain the raw drafts of those ebooks would be in the wild within days.

The Burger also gives me somewhere to write things that need more than 140 characters, on topics that would make most readers outside this joint scratch their heads. The people who follow me in the wider realm of social media have no interest in discussing things like naval strategy or a submarine program – not unless it’s to complain about all the kindergartens you buy for the cost of a Collins boat.

Finally, the blog can and does work to build the mailing list and provide a place for me to sell books directly, or at least via associate links to collect a little extra cream off the cover price. I’m talking to Dan about redesigning the site to foreground this stuff in the near future. He’s done yeoman’s work in the background getting a store set up. I’m not ready to cut the ribbon yet but for anyone interested you can have a look here.

I probably shoudn't have done that. I probably should have written the second last chapter of Cairo instead. But they backed a truckload of money up to my door.

What could I do?

*tears our last of hair, rends sack cloth*

WHAT COULD I DOOOOO?

I'd been putting off a return to Facebook for a long time, but I'd known for at least a year I'd have to slink back there with my tail between my legs. It's the advertising. Increasingly online ads are served up by either the Book of Face, or el Goog, or nobody.

Building a mailing list, I had no choice. Facebook's creepy omniscience makes it too powerful to ignore. It is the stalker at all our windows.

Still, I can try to control things. I've set up an offical JB Books page where I wont be posting cat videos or personal info. It's all about the merch.

Go like the page. They tell me that's important.

I've been testing out the advertising back end, which is insanely powerful, but which has a bit of a learning curve. It's chewed up a couple of mornings now, putting me behind schedule with Cairo. I've got the Page working as I want now, however, and can get back to the book, which is two chapters from done.

Thanks to all those who have signed up so far. The spam factory is running around the clock and will soon extrude the first glistening pink tube of industrial grade processed meat product.

Mmmm... delicious direct marketing goodness.

I'm waiting until I hit a set number of sign ups from the Burger, however, for a good reason. The same reason I haven't mentioned this project anywhere else because I want the initial subscribers to come only from here. The Burger is my stronghold on the web. It is where my Centurions gather.

From you I will draw the murderous, blood thirsty champions of the campaign I will fight to ensure world domination when...

Er...

That didn't come out right.

Let me try that again. I want to build out my ebook business next year. Finish (finally) Stalin's Hammer. Start (finally) a return to The Disappearance. And open up some new storyworlds, including a classic space opera. Not all of these will happen under the aegis of my trade publishers. (They're not much interested in long form space opera, for instance).

The newsletter, as a marketting channel I can control, will be a big part of all this. If everything just rolls along, and Season 2 of HOOPER comes out sometime next year with Pan Mac and Random House and Titan, the newsletter will help sell that series. If I decide to take more control of my own business (or I ever have that decision thrust upon me) the mailing list I'm building now becomes even more important than serving as simple channel for a newsletter.

I'd be looking for Beta readers for more than The Oral History of the Monstyr Wars, for instance, and I'd be looking for them here. Not on Twunter or Farcebuck. The mailing list provides an immediate pool of trustworthy candidates because the first couple of hundred names are all long time Burgers. When it came time to pimp the books, everyone who signed up first and was interested in coming along for the ride, would get sorted into a small, bespoke, and highly fucking exclusive list for free Advance Reader Copies.

You wouldn't be reading these freebies to help me with editing. They'd already be edited. You'd be reading them for fun. And because, if you liked the books, upon release you could hit the online stores en masse and shit out sparkling 88 Star reviews like a herd of Unicorns with explosive magic diarrhoea.

Who wouldn't want that?

You can sign away your soul and all associated property rights here.

It's a fleeting visit. I fly in lunchtime on Saturday, and out again Sunday evening. I have a couple of sessions on for the Festival.

Saturday 2.30-4.00 pm "Ask a Columnist" for Writer's Victoria.

Sunday 11.30-12.30 "Monsters and Mayhem." Gettin' down with The Dave!

If you can find a way to get to either, I'm always happy to catch up.

I'm planning to drop into Mark Dapin's book launch at Fed Square, 5.30 on Saturday for a few fizzy sherbets.

Saturday night the publishers sometimes spirit us away somewhere to a party. I'll check on that, but Sunday arvo drinks, or even breakfast might be nice.