Furry Writers' Guild

November’s Book of the Month, Inhuman Acts, is edited by Ocean Tigrox and features stories from several FWG members.

Stalking the streets after dusk is risky business, but some tales are only told in the depths of night. Crime pales against the cold, murderous motives of those behind it. Claws and fangs open doors for a twisted soul to find a means to an end. It’s a deadly road spiraling downwards when the deeds done are Inhuman Acts.

Explore thirteen anthropomorphic noir stories about betrayal, corruption and deceit from award-winning authors and up-and-coming writers. Pour your favourite whiskey and light up a cigarette as Stanley Rivets, PI shares with you his collection of case files from dim to dark to downright ugly.

Features the following stories:

Muskrat Blues by Ianus Wolf
Fixer by Watts Martin
Danger in the Lumo-Bay by Mary E. Lowd
River City Nights by Tana Simensis
Every Breath Closer by Slip Wolf
Ghosts by Solus Lupus
A Blacker Dog by Huskyteer
Crimson on Copper by Tony Greyfox
Vermin’s Vice by T.S. McNally
Scorned by K.C. Alpinus
Bullet Tooth Claw by Marshall L. Moseley
Guardian Angels by Nicholas Hardin
Brooklyn Blackie and the Unappetizing Menu by Bill Kieffer

Cover art by Seylyn.

Parental rating PG-13. Available in print format from FurPlanet and as an ebook from Bad Dog Books.

New Members

Welcome to our newest members Lorxus, Miriam “Camio” Curzon, C. W. Euwyn, James Daniel Ross, and Danath Tiger, and to our new associate members Madison “Makyo” Scott-Clary, Patch O’Furr, and Thurston Howl!

(Writers — if you were approved for membership but aren’t listed in the member directory, it’s because I haven’t heard back from you about what name you want to be listed under. Drop me a line at furwritersguild (at) gmail.com and let me know!)

Member News

Congrats to Dwale, whose short story “Splinters” (from Typewriter Emergencies) has received a Pushcart Prize nomination!

In publication and other news, Mary E. Lowd’s mini-fiction “Small Smooth Pebble” appeared at Every Day Fiction, Tristan Black Wolf now has a Patreon, Renee Carter Hall’s short story “The Spirit of Pinetop Inn” has been reprinted in audio format by Podcastle, and three poems by Weasel appear in the October issue of The Syzygy Poetry Journal. Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort’s serial From Winter’s Ashes continues, with chapters 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2 now posted.

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines: The quarterly furry zine A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature is open for submissions until November 15. The conbook for Further Confusion is also open through November 30. In anthologies, Knotted from Red Ferret Press will close to submissions on December 1.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Guild News

We have a Telegram group! More info and a link in this thread.

We’re always open for guest blog post submissions from members — good exposure and a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for details.

On Goodreads? Don’t forget we have a Goodreads group and a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

Need a beta reader? Check out our critique board (you’ll need to be registered with the forum in order to view it).

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here.

Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!

Have a great month! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My most recent project, The Stolen Guardian, was published just two weeks ago! It’s a dramatic action/adventure story about two high ranking military individuals dealing with a foreign invader and invincible monsters. There’s magic, drama, death, and even a little romance.

The story has been a long time in the making. The original version of the story was actually a role play that I did over the course of about a year with a friend of mine during my senior year in high school. It was also originally a Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction, though it was a very loose fan fiction which only used a few basic elements from the world. No canon characters or storylines were involved with the story, and it even took place on a different planet.

As I studied craft and worked toward making my world an original world, The Stolen Guardian went through a bunch of drafts and changes until I ended up with what I have now.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I’m kind of a mix of both. I tend to write really detailed outlines with descriptive beats and clear goals, but I allow myself to pants things if the story lends itself to it. Any time I hit a wall, I’ll try to re-outline to make sure everything matches up. I like to see where I’m going while writing.

For short stories though, I tend to shoot the breeze. My best short story, “White Assassin,” which will be coming out next month, pretty much wrote itself. All I did was throw characters into a situation, and everything fell into place. “White Assassin” actually won an Honorable Mention in the prestigious Writers of the Future contest, which I see as proof that sometimes pantsing can be awesome.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I prefer character driven action and drama, with a bit of wit mixed in. I’m a very introspective person myself, so my characters tend to be introspective too. I also prefer speculative fiction. Pretty much all my stories have some level of magic, science fiction, magical realism, or other such things in them. Real life is boring. Magic is awesome!

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Hmm, that’s a difficult one. Probably Matt Azure from The Stolen Guardian. Matt is a really passionate character, and he’s got a powerful drive to do whatever he can to help others. He throws himself into situations that he knows might be bad for him to protect those he loves. I’m not always good at that, but it’s something I admire and strive for, so Matt has become the sort of person I’d like to be.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Three authors really stick out in my mind. Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, was my first major inspiration. A lot of my writing style reflects his, such as close third person POV, lots of different POVs in a book, extreme detailed descriptions, and we even have similar characters.

The second is K. M. Carroll, author of The Spacetime Legacy series. She was one of the first really serious authors I ever sent my work too and she was completely honest about how much my writing sucked at the time! But she was patient and she helped me develop my craft and style, and still helps me with editing and marketing strategies today. She’s also an amazing author in her own right, and she always amazes me with how many books she’s put out. She has a big family, but she’s found a way to be the best mom ever, while still writing quality books and putting out several a year. She’s a big inspiration.

The last author that has really influenced me was Jess E. Owen, author of the Summer King Chronicles. K. M. Carroll introduced me to Jess’s books and I fell in love immediately with her writing style. I love the fact that she has such a strong sense of style and her characters feels so real. I’ve found over the years that some animal books never feel right because the characters never feel like animals, but Jess’s books aren’t like that at all. I also love the way she describes things, especially flight. Any time I get to describe flight myself, I think of Jess’s books, which makes flight feel so authentic and beautiful. The fact that she has an amazing series of great animal books has inspired me to believe I can do the same.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

Gosh, I read so many books, that’s hard to know! I think A Shard of Sun by Jess E. Owen is one. I’m actually rereading it for the third time. I’m also reading The Martian right now, which has immediately grabbed my attention. Excellent books.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I’m a college professor of English, which means lots of essay grading, so generally I don’t have a lot of free time. But when I do get it, you’ll often find me drawing or painting, walking through the botanical gardens by my home, or playing any number of video games. I’m a huge Assassin’s Creed and Halo fan, and I’m looking forward to both of the new games. Especially Halo. The game comes out on my wedding anniversary!

I also spend a lot of time reading webcomics. Questionable Content and Furry Experience are my two favorites.

8. Advice for other writers?

A lot of writers tell you to write every day. Don’t listen to them. Write on your own schedule. Make sure you’re making time to write, but don’t kick yourself if you don’t write every day. Sometimes life is more important than writing.

Also, don’t be afraid to try a lot of different genres. Sometimes writing a brand new genre will be a breath of fresh air and will rejuvenate you as a writer.

9. Where can readers find your work?

My novel is available on Amazon here.

Readers can also visit www.zyearth.com and access the first two chapters of The Stolen Guardian there. I’m also going to be releasing three short stories in the next three months, all of which can be downloaded for free from my website.

You can also find me on Goodreads.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The openness! I’ve only really been involved with the furry fandom for about a year, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I was drawn in and how kind everyone was. It seems like furries happily invite everyone into their circles and it’s made me feel really special. I’m very glad and blessed to be a part of such a wonderful group of people.

Check out R. A. Meenan’s member bio here!

Advertising Statistics and ROI for Authors: Part 3 by Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort

 

[Part 1] [Part 2]

For the next few parts, we’re going to look at major advertising channels I’ve used for my webserial “From Winter’s Ashes” and analyze them one by one for the ROI and needs of an author and publisher. Today’s focus is one of the busiest sites in the world, Facebook!
  Facebook advertising is extremely cagey about presenting its stats in a standard advertising way, which doesn’t inspire much confidence in me. However, the response results weren’t terrible:   My response rate was 32 interactions out of 1055 impressions, which translates into 3% CTR. Compared to Reddit and Google, there’s definitely a LOT more engagement per impression.    Almost 90% of those engagements came from Mobile users, which means that if you’re going to use Facebook for a webserial or author’s, make *absolutely* sure that your site works well on mobile devices. Mobile devices are taking the internet by storm, make absolutely sure your website is presentable to them in mobile format.   User demographics were particularly revealing:   18–24 5 Likes 261 Impressions $1.19 Cost per Like $5.95 Total Spent   25–34 3 Likes 242 Impressions $2.18 Cost per Like $6.55 Total Spent   35–44 7 Likes 263 Impressions $1.04 Cost per Like $7.26 Total Spent   45–54 9 Likes 168 Impressions $0.93 Cost per Like $8.34 Total Spent   55–64 8 Likes 121 Impressions $0.86 Cost per Like $6.86 Total Spent     Gender Breakdown:
  Female:  22 Likes  709 Impressions  Cost per page like: $1.09  Engagement 3.1%   Male:  10 Likes  336 Impressions  Cost per page like: $1.08  Engagement 2.9%
    Country Breakdown:
  Canada: 1 Like, 134 Impressions United Kingdom: 3 Likes, 257 Impressions United States: 28 Likes, 665 Impressions     Device Breakdown:   All 32 engagements were on mobile devices. No Likes at all occurred on PCs.    25 of the 32 likes came from Android smartphones.
 

Analysis:

The numbers provided are of a limited and low-confidence sample base. As such, some interesting artifacts of data are easy to dismiss as error bars, while other insights provide reliable feedback on the performance of Facebook ads.

The biggest surprise to me was the gender disparity in engagement on Facebook. More than twice as many women as men are clicking on From Winter’s Ashes, despite the advertisement being deliberately as gender-neutral as possible. Facebook simply engages women much more than men.

Age of engagement wasn’t as surprising: Facebook appeals to an older demographic, and that shows. While they’re more likely to have disposable income, they are less likely to engage in modern payment methods, such as PayPal and Patreon. Of the 32 Likes, only two resulted in conversions to Patreon clicks. None of them became Patrons.

Of greater value in this advertisement, if not financially, was that 32 people with Likes on Facebook are 32 people who see each update notice posted to Facebook. (Ideally. As some have noted, Facebook is notoriously bad for playing silly buggers with this.)

Demographically, specific to the story itself, engagement was especially high with Christian women of color ages 40-65, with notable spikes in engagement in Alabama and Ohio. Facebook gives you some incredibly in-depth analysis of your advertisement successes. They know a LOT about you, and they’re not shy about sharing it (in aggregate).

Monetarily, the higher expense of a Facebook Like will only trade off if you’re using Facebook effectively to engage your audience. Your content will definitely matter; Facebook demographics overall are skewed towards women ages 35+. If you believe your content would appeal to that demographic, Facebook might work for you.

Overall, I’m not sure that Facebook’s high cost-per-engagement is a fit for From Winter’s Ashes, or most webserials. I’m wondering if most of my readers are, in fact, engaging the story with mobile devices. (If so, then designing for mobile presentation is critical.) The CPC is, of course, miles and miles too high for the business model of most publishing sites. But it’s a great way to get repeat engagements with customers down the line. I could see Facebook working if you’re already an established author with multiple titles for sale and more in the pipeline.

 

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My latest published project was Plowed, an erotic anthology I both contributed to and edited about foxes on farms. It actually started as a joke on the days-long drive back from Anthrocon, which then evolved into an anthology with eight authors. I was surprised at how enthusiastic all the contributors were, considering it all started as a joke, but I’m glad we got such stellar stories from everyone.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I am absolutely an outliner and a planner. When I’m working on a novel, I tend to plot out the entire thing on a whiteboard before even starting, which helps me stay focused and keep a train of logic going. “X happens, which causes Y,” etc. This certainly can change as time goes by, but it helps move things along. Once I have the subject, scene, or section of the novel I am working on, I tend to write for an hour and see where and how things go, especially when it comes to character interaction and action sequences. Sometimes I will run through an action sequence with someone else on how it would look on film or as a drawn piece of art.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I really enjoy writing a story where the characters aren’t confident in what they’re doing. I want them to question if what they’re doing is worth it, if it’s right, and I don’t want it to be easy for them. Getting to the ‘eureka’ moment or the relief after a big decision’s results come through is really fun for me.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Honestly, probably Carson from All Tied Up in Knotz, because he thinks he’s content with where he is in life, and is scared of change. The character really reflected where I was at the time in my life, and despite how adult the book is, I do think the conflict in that book is one I understood personally, and one I think a lot of other people have gone through as well.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

I have different inspiring authors for different genres that I write, so I’ll go through them. For everything fantasy I’ve written, probably Tamora Pierce, since not only did I find her stories fascinating and her worlds inventive, hers were the first fantasy books I ever read that had gay people in them, which gave me hope that I could write fantasy books with gay (fox) people in them and that people would read them. For my more slice-of-life and modern stuff, I can say no two authors have inspired me more than Fuzzwolf and Kyell Gold.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. It’s probably one of the most romantic novels I’ve ever read, and definitely one of the most creative uses of a framing story I’ve ever seen. I had only seen the movie prior to last year, when a friend got very angry at me for not reading what she considered a masterpiece. After reading it, I agreed.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

My big hobbies are definitely tabletop gaming and video games, but probably my biggest hobby is reading manga from all sorts of genres.

8. Advice for other writers?

Read, and read broadly. That’s the single most important tool for gaining experience as a writer. I read well outside the genres I write, just to get a feel of different styles, experience levels, and format. Read poetry, short stories, novellas, and novels. If you write only furry fiction, read more mainstream books as well as furry novels. I definitely recommend picking up anthologies in either case — they will give you a wide selection of writers, which will help guide you to finding more authors you truly love.

9. Where can readers find your work?

Everything I’ve published can be found through FurPlanet and Bad Dog Books, FurPlanet’s digital store. I’m hoping to have more exclusive digital content up soon, but everything that’s currently available as a physical book is also available as a digital title.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The creativity really surprises me every day. This is a fandom full of thousands of talented people and the people that love them, and the fandom comes up with new characters, species, art, stories, interpretations of popular culture, and other wonderful pieces every day. I hope it never changes.

 

Check out Andres Cyanni Halden’s member bio here!

Advertising Statistics and ROI for Authors: Part 2 by Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort

 

[Part 1]

 

For the next few parts, we’re going to look at major advertising channels I’ve used for my webserial “From Winter’s Ashes” and analyzing them one by one for the ROI and needs of an author and publisher. Today’s focus is the popular web 2.0 social/news aggregator, Reddit!     Advertising on Reddit:  

Here’s what my marketing campaign on “From Winter’s Ashes” looks like on Reddit right now. I’m currently advertising in /r/Fantasy, and I’m at 89% of the campaign budget’s run as of today. I decided to see what gambling a modest $10.00 would look like advertising this way, and here’s my results.

Budget: $10.00 (the minimum) Impressions Purchased: 10,000 CPM: (Cost per thousand impressions): $1.00 Impressions Delivered: (to date) 8890 Clicks: 17 CTR: 0.191% CPC: $0.52   Analysis: The click-through rate of this advertising campaign is mildly disappointing, call it a C grade. More concerning, however, is the CPC.    While $0.52 is, in fact, a very reasonable CPC for most advertising? I have to compare that against the performance of my website:   Conversion rate 0.02% (abysmal), average income per conversion $1.00. (That’s one conversion in 1823 unique visitors.)   I’d need a CPC of only $0.00055 right now just to break even. One THOUSAND times better performance just to break even.   If, however, I could add an ebook onto my website for sale, and turn that conversion rate to 2% and an average income of conversion of $4.85? My CPC break-even bar becomes $0.097. So anything below a $0.10 CPC and I’d be breaking even, really.     What if I really went snazzy with my site, though, and brought it up to the standard like Tor.com or Amazon.com enjoyed, of 10% conversion rate, at the same cost? Then, and only then, would the CPC I’m paying begin to make sense, at a per-conversion income of $4.85 off of a $6.00 sale.   Thus, Reddit advertising is far too expensive for my current business, from an ROI standpoint.    However, there are some nice advantages to Reddit advertising:   1. The CPC is very reasonable, and I can target my advertising to a particular subreddit, allowing me to target users in a meaningful way based on their interests. 2. The advertisement includes a little bit of graphical space, and is presented top-center on the page, which makes it hard to miss or ignore. 3. Interactivity. People can comment directly on your advertisements and engage you, as an author. Handy for starting conversations that convert the curious into the committed.   Disadvantages:   1. The AdBlock rate on Reddit is much higher than the general internet, with the average block rate being 55%, with some subreddits seeing 85-90%(!) of ads blocked. 2. Lead-in time. Unlike other websites, Reddit inventories advertisements by the subreddit. I had to wait 23 days until my advertisement began to show. Unless you’re planning well in advance of your event, Reddit might not fit well for your marketing plan.  

October’s Book of the Month, An Anthropomorphic Century, is the latest furry anthology edited by Fred Patten.

What if animals could talk? Or communicate telepathically? What if they evolved to become something more than human, or we made ourselves more like them?

Storytellers have asked these questions from the dawn of human history to the present day. An Anthropomorphic Century showcases the answers to some of these questions from the last century.

Features stories ranging from 1909 to 2008, including the talents of Peter S. Beagle, Philip K. Dick, Michael H. Payne, Phil Geusz, Renee Carter Hall, and more.

Tobermory by Saki
Dr. Lu-mie by Clifton B. Kruse
The Blue Giraffe by L. Sprague de Camp
Barney by Will Stanton
Expendable by Philip K. Dick
The Conspirators by James White
Sic Transit… ? A Shaggy Hairless-Dog Story by Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop
Crow’s Curse by Michael H. Payne
Nine Lives To Live by Sharyn McCrumb
Vole by John Gregory Betancourt
Choice Cuts by Edd Vick
Transmutational Transcontinental by Phil Geusz
Daylight Fading by Chris Hoekstra
The Good Sport by Bill Kieffer
The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick
Cat ‘n’ Mouse by Steven Millhauser
Pig Paradise by Scott Bradfield
Sergeant Chip by Bradley Denton
Gordon, the Self-Made Cat by Peter S. Beagle
The Wishing Tree by Renee Carter Hall

Cover art by Mark Brill.

Parental rating PG. Available from FurPlanet.

furrywritersguild:

Dogpatch Press recently published an excellent post compiling FWG member Fred Patten’s book and film reviews as well as his articles on furry fandom history. As it’s relevant to furry writers and readers, I find it well worth reblogging here.

Originally posted on Dogpatch Press:

Discussion of the history of furry fandom with Fred Patten, at ConFURence 9.

Fred Patten is the most valued contributor at Dogpatch Press.  He came here during editor down time at Flayrah, seeking a stable place for his reviews and history articles.  (For those who aren’t acquainted with Fred’s impressive resume as a fan historian and curator, he has spent a lot of the recent decade in a convalescent hospital.  Writing is a major benefit to his life and a good cause to support.)

• The “Fred Patten” tag has everything he has contributed here.  

Without Fred’s guest posts, there would be no five day a week schedule here.  Assisting and formatting his articles takes a lot of work, and five days a week makes a very demanding pace.  But I think the promise of regular content should inspire anyone who contributes.  It makes this the most active “Furry News” source.  It’s all non-profit, so…

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New Members

Welcome to our newest members KJ Kabza, Shoji, and Camron Cuccu!

(Writers — if you were approved for membership before September 23 but aren’t listed in the member directory, it’s because I haven’t heard back from you about what name you want to be listed under. Drop me a line at furwritersguild (at) gmail.com and let me know!)

Member News

Lots of new books and anthologies featuring FWG members were released at this year’s RainFurrest. Here’s a possibly-not-complete list (and if I’ve missed yours, please comment and let me know):

A Menagerie of Heroes (RainFurrest charity anthology – general)
An Anthropomorphic Century – edited by Fred Patten
Dungeon Grind – edited by Kandrel and Rechan
Huntress – by Renee Carter Hall
Inhuman Acts: A Collection of Noir – edited by Ocean Tigrox
Koa of the Drowned Kingdom – by Ryan Campbell
Losing My Religion – by Kyell Gold
Naughty Sexy Furry Writing (RainFurrest charity anthology – adult)
The Necromouser and Other Magical Cats – by Mary E. Lowd
Will of the Alpha 2 – edited by Rechan and Lafitte

(Many of these titles are also available in ebook format from Bad Dog Books.)

Phil Geusz also has a new science fiction series at Amazon with the first books out now — check out Early Byrd, Fledgling, and Jail Byrd.

Check your What the Fur conbook from earlier this year for the story “Fleeting” by MikasiWolf. (What the Fur is also holding a writing contest for 2016, accepting entries in both English and French — details here.)

In addition, Laika Dosha (whose creative team includes Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort) had a successful demo at RF, and the Alpha 0.1 version is now available via Patreon.

In audio offerings, we have the audio edition of Huskyteer‘s story “A Blacker Dog” from Inhuman Acts, recorded by Savrin Drake, and you can also give a listen to an interview with Mary E. Lowd from last spring.

In nonfiction news from our members, George Squares had an article published over at [adjective][species], and Fred Patten presents an exhaustive list of What the Well-Read Furry Should Read.

And finally, congratulations to member Ryan Campbell, selected as the Writer Guest of Honor for RainFurrest 2016!

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines: The anthology WERE- is open to submissions until October 31, and the new quarterly furry zine A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature is open for submissions until November 15. (We also have other anthologies with later deadlines listed on our Paying Markets page.)

In conbook news, Further Confusion is now open through November 30.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Guild News

Thanks to all who made our Meet & Greet and Cóyotl Awards ceremony a success at RainFurrest! If you weren’t able to be there, check out the full list of Cóyotl Awards and nominees (plus the awesome song) at the Cóyotl Awards website. And now that 2014’s awards are complete, it’s time to start thinking about potential nominees for 2015. If you’ve read furry literature published this year that you think is worth recognizing, come tell us about it in the 2015 Recommended Works thread in our forums.

On Goodreads? Don’t forget we have a Goodreads group and a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

We’re always open for guest blog post submissions from members — good exposure and a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for details.

Need a beta reader? Check out our critique board (you’ll need to be registered with the forum in order to view it).

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here.

Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!

Have a great October! If you have news, suggestions, or other feedback to share, send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com or leave a comment below.

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

By the time this is released, the most recent published work will be “Vermin’s Vice”, a short story in the anthology Inhuman Acts: A Collection of Furry Noir, released at Rainfurrest this year.

I’ve always felt that noir is supposed to show the shadows of life to the reader, and I’ve also felt that a lot of times those that put up a show of prosperity tend to use those material things to either hide or distract themselves from the fact that we are, at heart, animals.

So my wish was to show that the seedy elements of society, while seedy, are probably just more honest than those we consider more wholesome, who tend to see external expressions of base desires as undesirable. But in the end, those desires are still there, waiting to be unlocked.

Also having a hand in part of the main anthology’s final name was pretty cool. It was a challenge to think of a word that would project something furry, while sounding more grim and not so fluffy. I only got half of the final answer as my suggestion for the title was “Inhuman Avenue” based on other noir titles with street names. I do like the current title better, both the word inhuman and acts hold double meanings. Basically it could be read as “Furry (inhuman) Stories (acts)”, but it has that dark edge to it.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

Oddly I’ve done both from time to time. However, the thing that seems to be consistent with me is that I know how I am going to start a story, and the ending I want to see happen. Usually those details are outlined. It is the in-between parts that are more fluid.

I may outline scene orders, but not too much more than that.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

The genre I seem to write the most is Action/Adventure type. I’ve been bleeding into narrative based social commentary here and there. Usually the later ends up better when an event triggers the need for it.

For instance, Travis McCuddy’s suicide inspired, I feel, one of my better of these types: “Passing with Failure”. In it a computer reinterprets the Turing Test in a most disturbing way based on how the life story surrounding Mr. Turing himself. As a warning though, it’s not a furry piece.

It is tough to write good social commentary pieces without being too preachy, and when it happens it can be quite stirring. So I consider doing them when I feel like particularly challenging myself.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

I don’t quite identify with any in particular. Usually most characters I create are exaggerations of particular characteristics that I am capable of. All in all though, I tend to be a bit boring, as watching a man type on a screen doesn’t make for entertaining narrative in its own right.

Unless you have a psycho fan holding you captive and pressuring you to via Misery of course.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Stories happen all around, and I feel it’s important not to try and get too caught up with trying to emulate specific items. However, we were all young once and for some odd reason I was a Sonic fan. I liked the Saturday AM arc in particular and I created fan fiction based on it, so I think the late Ben Hurst could be seen as a major influence.

Exaggerated and colorful character development I always feels are great ways to hold stories together, and that is something those old Sonic cartoons did very well (barring the throw away half-episodes). It also holds true to many furry fiction, and the creatures we use help solidify this. It is also why I am stronger at character development than at setting development.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

In a recent podcast of Fangs and Fonts I noted that I haven’t been a reader of books as much as I should be. I read articles, blogs, and such, but fictional novels have been few and far between. I also have a tendency of to not gush too much over things and works an always looking with a bit of a critical eye toward them. I find that’s what makes me more creator than consumer.

I do have one thing going for me, and that’s retention. I can remember details about things long after they have passed.

That being said the last story I loved that I read was Fredrick Douglas’s autobiography An American Slave as Written by Himself. My favorite thing about this story was how you could see he had to hold back a raging peeve he had that occurred throughout his life when the institutions of Christianity were used to preach the justification of slavery. The bittered passion Douglas felt over this, you could feel rising up, but him having to hold it back to keep himself distracting from the narrative. You come to find the reason he felt so strongly over that is, as a man of God himself, it tore him up to see the very beauty of his religion being used as a tool to cage black people.

At the end he added an epilogue where he finally lets all that emotion go.

I feel those furs within the minority who identify as Christian (or gays who do so as well) will find echoes of themselves in there. It’s amazing that as much as things seem to change, how constant certain things really are. And thus, the story, while over 100 years old, is still very relevant to this day.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

If I really have not much else to do, I will read some news articles here and there. I don’t game as much as I used to, I seem to find that my job keeps my mind stimulated and engaged to the point where I don’t feel I need to escape to feel influential or important as I one did. I’m in a rare position of feeling empowered and essential in my workplace, and ironically I’m applying many lessons I learned in my virtual tenures of leadership to my real world ones.

Other than that I’m also working on non-fiction items. There are the Flayrah articles, but that’s technically technical writing. However I also want to share some of the lessons and problems I’ve solved in my spare times that I feel will help individuals and society as a whole. I plan on calling it “The World in Rooview”. The pilot will be about sometime in the future, or it could be one of those projects I start and never fulfill.

8. Advice for other writers?

If there is a universal trait about humanity it is this: We are a creature of narrative. All conflict can be drawn to simply a competing of narrative. We all want to write our own stories and have endings we want to see.

Conflict or “drama” is what arises when two endings cannot exist in the same narrative desires of two groups/individuals.

9. Where can readers find your work?

I have a Goodreads profile here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8578080.T_S_McNally

I have free stuff up on SoFurry here: https://www.sofurry.com/browse/user/stories?uid=164657

I would advise against buying my novel of Light right now. I plan on releasing a new version with “bug fixes” later in the year and will be doing a promotion at that time.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

Above all else, our perseverance. We deal with a lot of garbage from others in this world. And when Nuka released his statistics on furries and their history with bullying, it shows we seem to have always had to in some shape or form. Many have taken this bitterness of others and allow it to fester within them, consuming them to the point where they themselves become bitter. Many have done so, and continue to do so. As we hear stories about needless violence, death threats from the shadows, we see the negative sides of anonymity. However, in opposition to that stands this fandom, ones who use anonymity not to spread fear, anger, or disgust. Instead we try to spread happiness, joy, and creativity. My hope, if anything, is that is a foundation that will not change.

 

Check out T. S. McNally’s member bio here!

Advertising Statistics and ROI for Authors: Part 1 by Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort   In a past career and under current contracts, I’m responsible for the advertising analysis of clients and customers. As a small business owner and operator, making sure that my dollars spent pay back in sales is critical for me. In this series, I’m going to dissect and analyze my paid advertising efforts for my current webserial, From Winter’s Ashes.   I advertised the WebSerial through three major channels of online targeted advertising:    Reddit – 170 million users, offers targeted advertising by subreddit. In this case, /r/Fantasy with a user base of 83,750 readers, with a peak daily readership of ~1300. Facebook – 1.5 billion users, 1.1 billion active users. Twitter: 316 million active users.   My methodology on this analysis involved making minimum advertising commitments to each advertising channel. Each represents the minimum financial commitment through advertising on that channel:   Reddit: $10, for a month-long campaign on modestly populated subreddit. Facebook: $35, at $5/day for a week.  Twitter: $35, at $5/day for a week.   Understanding your key metrics for advertising your writing and determining the cost effectiveness:   1. Impressions. How many times was your advertisement served? Chances are good that actual human eyeballs didn’t see them. (Thanks, AdBlocker). Depending on the website, 35%-85% of users block ads. Young markets with tech-savvy users block ads much more. 2. Clicks / “Engagements”. How many times was one of your advertisements actually interacted with? 3. Engagement rate: What percentile of your ads served resulted in an interaction? (For Search advertising, 3% is a good target. For display advertising, 0.3% is a solid average.) So per thousand impressions, expect an average of 30 clicks on Search advertising like Google, and 0.3% on display advertising like Reddit/Facebook/Twitter. 4. Cost Per Click (CPC). The core metric in any advertising campaign: Divide the cost of your campaign by the number of times the ad was interacted with. That’s what you paid per click.  5. Conversion rate: What percentage of visits to your website, overall, resulted in income? 6. Conversion income: What’s the average income that a conversion supplies you? 7. AIpV / Average Income Per Visitor: On average, how much money do you make per click on your website? 8. ROI-A: Return on investment on your advertising. Realistically, 10-20% is a good target. Most ads, if they’re profitable at all (most aren’t), will return only 10-20% more in additional sales than the advertising cost you. The best campaign I’ve ever run for a client returned a 310% ROI, but that was a finely tuned Google Search ad campaign for a regional, limited-supply professional service.    Be aware that some advertisers (Facebook) will obfuscate their metrics or want you to use their own interaction metrics, which can make it very difficult to determine to industry standards some of these metrics. If you plan to make a serious advertising campaign on one of these advertisers, spend extra time learning what metrics will matter, and look to professional advertiser forums for appropriate targets for your campaign there.     How to determine if your advertising campaign for your writing will be profitable (MATH TIME):   1. Look up your own website’s conversion rate. (If you don’t know, divide your number of transactions on your site in a month by the number of unique visitors in a month. Google Analytics can help you determine this.)
2. Determine your conversion income. (Divide your monthly income from your site by the number of paying customers on your site.) 3. Divide your conversion rate by your conversion income.  4. Look up the average CPC on the advertising channel.  5. Compare that against your AIpV.    Chances are distressingly good that your advertising campaign will not be profitable. Sorry. Just because it won’t be profitable doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be useful, however. When building a name or a brand, having a lot of Impressions hitting eyeballs consistently can help build your brand awareness, and get your name to stick in people’s minds.   A sample advertising campaign, using plausible numbers:   Author writes a book titled “FooDog Generic Fantasy”, and sells it directly from their own website as well as through other distribution channels. It’s a nice book! It’s got great cover art, a solid synopsis with plenty of hooks, and the pricing is well within market norms for a genre book.   Author decides they want to advertise their book. The Author has a choice between two fundamentally different kinds of online advertising: Search Advertising, and Display Advertising. Search advertising displays when someone searches for a related search term that the Author specifies. Display advertising shows to (potentially) just anyone visiting a site/network.   Because the product is a book with a specific title, Author wisely decides that people aren’t likely to be searching for their book by name if they don’t know about it. The title of their fabulous book is “FooDogs Generic Fantasy”, and Author rightly determines that almost nobody will do a Google Search for the nonsense term “FooDogs” unless they already know about the book anyway, and the words “generic” and “fantasy” aren’t going to be useful search terms. (Google will agree with them, and degrade or decline their advertising.)   So Author wisely decides to advertise FooDog Generic Fantasy on display ads, instead. Author is hopefully either decent with art design, or else they’ll be paying someone else for nice artwork for their ads. If Author is going to do it themselves, Author needs to know the technical specifications of the display advertising on their channel, such as resolution of image, size limits, file formats, and form factors. Author will also have to invest the time (10-30 minutes per channel) setting up their user accounts to advertise.    It takes Author 1 hour to make their own art to their satisfaction, and Author spends 30 minutes setting up their first advertising campaign, researching, and implementing the ad, and another 30 minutes tuning it to their target: Readers who would plausibly enjoy and be interested in FooDog Generic Fantasy. Author knows not to waste their money advertising to people who would prefer to read Wartime Specific NonFiction, so they ensure their ads go where they’d be most effective.   Author makes a $35 investment in one weeks’ worth of advertising, and is down 2 hours of labour.   After week’s worth of waiting and tweaking, Author’s results come in:   Impressions: 35,000 Clicks: 105 Engagement Rate: 0.3% Cost per Click: $0.33   Author’s results from this advertising campaign are firmly average for a Display ad campaign. So, the advertiser is delivering pretty average results on the internet. Not great, not terrible.    Next, Author goes to their own website, to track their statistics:   Visitors last week: 105 Conversions: 3 Visitors this week: 210
Conversions: 7   Conversion Rate: 3%. (Firmly average for retail sales online. Not great. Not terrible.)   Author sells FooDog Generic Fantasy eBook for a retail price of $6.00. Of that $6.00, $4.85 is the Author’s profit after taxes and fees.    Since this is all that the Author currently sells on their site, calculating the average income per conversion is easy: $4.85.   Author’s advertising campaign ostensibly brought in 4 additional customers, for a net benefit of $19.40.    The ROI-A on this advertising campaign, therefor, is -45%. Ouch!    BUT.
  While it cost the author money out of pocket to commit to this advertising, it teaches the Author a few valuable lessons about their own website’s offerings:    1. Author’s advertising campaign was average, it was middle of the road, it was unremarkable. It worked. It was not a failure. By every metric the professionals care about, the ad did what it was supposed to do. 2. Author’s website sucks at making them money.  3. Author paid only $15.60 (net) to double their site traffic for a week, and put their name and brand awareness into the minds of 105 additional customers. That’s about $0.15 per potential customer, and that isn’t counting the number of people who saw Author’s name and advertising and had it stick in their minds.   If Author had, say, a second and third book to offer on their website for sale, that average income per conversion might rise from $4.85 to $7.50 as readers found interesting looking titles to buy. In this case, Author would still be losing money, but they would be losing only $5.00 for the same advertising and brand marketing benefit.   The better your website is at making conversions of visitors, the more effective your advertisement will be. We’ll see in part 2 my personal experiences with advertising channels, and why controlling your CPC (and, more importantly, improving your conversion rate and income-per-conversion) matters for an author.    

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

The project I’m most excited for is Inhuman Acts which is an anthology of anthropomorphic noir stories set to be published by FurPlanet and released at Rainfurrest 2015. Anthropomorphic literature has an interesting ability to spin any genre, and I wanted to see a variety of different noir stories seeing how they change when you add animals to the mix. Noir and mystery are some of my favourite genres so I’m happy to bring some of that love into this project. It’s been a big challenge to step up and be a lead editor, but it’s been a lot of fun too.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I used to be a heavy outliner but would find myself bogged down on trying to figure out the story and never sitting down to write it. Now I like to start with a central concept, a main conflict, or a twist and go from there. From the initial idea, I set up some characters, point them towards some plot points and a goal or a climax, then let them fill in the rest. I still like the loose structure of knowing where the story is going, but by allowing the characters to lead me there, the story becomes more organic and real. Sometimes they get to the end I set for them and they replace it with something better!

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

A story filled with twists and mysteries. I love creating interesting and smart characters, tossing them in dangerous situations or traps, and watching them find a way out. When a reader comes back and tells that an ending took them by surprise, it always puts a grin on my face.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

There’s a story I’ve written that I’m trying to publish about two teens in small town Saskatchewan. It’s really a love letter to what it was like growing up in such a small rural community and the two main characters are a reflection of my experiences and thoughts. There’s something about such a small community and a simpler life that creates a world view most people don’t see and you appreciate the small things in life.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

One book that changed my outlook on literature was Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Most sci-fi I had read up to that point came from Arthur C. Clarke and others, and when I was looking for a book for a grade twelve book report, I stumbled upon Hitchhiker’s Guide. Here was a book that took everything I knew about stories and literature and turned it on its head. A ridiculous tale of world building and hilarity while still telling a fantastic story. It showed me that there’s no real rules to writing and you shouldn’t be afraid to try new things.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

In preparation for editing Inhuman Acts, I brushed up on some classic noir titles. One of them was The Maltese Falcon. It was great to see the foundation of a lot of hardboiled crime and noir elements before they were even tropes. I’m still a sucker for reading the classics and you’ll often find there’s more than one crowding up my reading pile.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I enjoy playing games of all types: video games, board games, table top RPGS, card games (I’m even a level one Magic judge), and even just any kind of puzzle I can get my paws on. There’s usually a pair of headphones or ear buds near me at any time so I can listen to my music. I’ve also taken up poi spinning to dance along with my music. When the weather’s nice (AKA not winter), I like to take my motorcycle out to the mountains to go soak in the hot springs.

8. Advice for other writers?

“Write now! Edit later!” is my writing mantra. It’s something I often have to chant it to myself over and over while writing up a first draft. Otherwise I’ll want to go back and edit what I’ve written and worry too much about if it’s right when the story isn’t even written yet. I’ve seen too many beginning writers get stuck in this editing loop, worried if their first chapter or first scene is good enough before they’ve even written more. Finish writing the story first! There’s always time for editing later and you’ll have the accomplishment of having written a full first draft.

9. Where can readers find your work?

Check out Inhuman Acts when it’s released and let me know if you liked it! While at the FurPlanet table, you can find my stories in some anthologies like Roar 6, The Furry Future, and the latest Rainfurrest charity anthologies. I also have a story in Rabbit Valley’s Pulp! and occasionally I post stories on my SoFurry account: ocean.sofurry.com. You can listen in on the bi-weekly writing podcast I co-host called Fangs and Fonts (fangsandfonts.com). It’s put on by myself and my local furry writing group. We talk about writing techniques and the writing culture in the fandom.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The fact that you can be whoever you want to be in this fandom. The furry fandom is very open and friendly, and it’s great to see so many people get along without caring about gender, race or sexual orientation. You wanna be a purple tiger fox or a orange elephant or a green wolf? Cool! I hope it continues to be a place where people can be themselves and happy with who they are.

 

Check out Ocean Tigrox’s member bio here!

Furry writers now have their own five-day workshop, the Regional Anthropomorphic Writers Retreat (RAWR), to be held in the California Bay Area in January 2016 (ending on the first day of Further Confusion).

From their website:

Come spend five days writing and critiquing stories with other furry writers from across the world! The workshop will be led by Kyell Gold and may feature special lectures from other published furry writers.

This is a great opportunity for you to meet and bond with a small group of other writers in the fandom, a relationship that can continue beyond the workshop for years to come.

Welcome to an intense, thoughtful, enjoyable visit. We hope to see you there!

. . .

During the five-day workshop, you will read and critique your fellow workshoppers’ stories, write and edit your own, and have some time to talk one on one with the workshop leaders about your goals and challenges in writing. The workshop also includes instructional sessions from experienced guest writers (subject to availability).

RAWR 2016 will be limited to 6 participants. The application deadline is October 5, and the application, as well as more information about lodging, travel, and cost of the workshop, can be found on their website. You can also follow them on Twitter at @RAWRWorkshop, and there’s a thread on our forums where the organizers are answering questions.

September’s Book of the Month, Typewriter Emergencies, is the first furry anthology from Weasel Press, edited by our associate member Weasel and featuring stories from several guild members.

Welcome to the first release of Typewriter Emergencies, a collection of psychologically damaging and hard-hitting furry literature. It’s a mad world we live in, a world where we are still uncovering some of the darkest of our secrets. We were asking a lot when we started our submission call. We were asking our authors to really dig the knife into their story; to give us the real maddening details, the secrets, the loss of control. And they did just that. This anthology has a total of thirteen gut-wrenching stories from several talented individuals. It’s a collection that drops the reader into thirteen rough worlds without anything to protect themselves, only the leadership of the characters they’re following. Each author handles a different aspect of the universe, touring the reader through some rather diverse struggles. Typewriter Emergencies is a journey not lightly made, and one that will definitely leave a deep impression on our readers. Weasel Press is proud to have our first furry collection on the books, and we hope you will enjoy every moment this intense anthology has to offer.

Includes stories by Dwale, W.B. Cushman, Junior Gordon, Timothy Wiseman, G. Miki Hayden, Neil S. Reddy, Gareth Barsby, Phil Geusz, Amethyst Mare, Jerod Underwood Park, Con Chapman, Mark Plummer, and Renee Carter Hall.

Available direct from Weasel Press and from Amazon.

New Members

Welcome to our newest members Erin Quinn, BanWynn, and Dire Wolf!

(Writers — if you’ve been approved for membership recently but aren’t listed in the member directory, it’s because I haven’t heard back from you about what name you want to be listed under. Drop me a line at furwritersguild (at) gmail.com and let me know!)

Member News

Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort continues to reveal the world of Laika Dosha, and From Winter’s Ashes is now on Wattpad as well. Weasel’s documentary Poetry is Dead! has been completed. John Van Stry has two new books available on Amazon, Demigods and Deities (book five of the Portals of Infinity series) and Lost Souls, the first book of a YA series. M. C. A. Hogarth’s The Three Jaguars business comic is now available as a collection.

In crowdfunding news, Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things is seeking funding for their next year of publication. The Spring 2015 issue included Renee Carter Hall’s “The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon,” and Mary E. Lowd’s “Frankenstein’s Gryphon” will appear in Fall 2015. One of the perks of the campaign is a book of writing prompts from Ember contributors, including both of those members.

Congrats, everyone!

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines: Thanks to an extended deadline, there are still a few days to get your stories in to the furry anthology Fragments of Life’s Heart, now closing on September 7.

New markets: The new quarterly zine A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature will open for its first submissions on September 15. Fred Patten’s next anthology, Gods With Fur, is now open until May 1 (see link for full guidelines). And if you like your were-creatures as something other than wolves, the anthology WERE- is open to submissions until October 31.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Guild News

If you’re headed to RainFurrest this year, be sure to join us for our FWG Meet & Greet Thursday at 9 PM, followed immediately by the Cóyotl Awards ceremony at 10 PM. Come put some real-life faces to the online names!

On Goodreads? Don’t forget we have a Goodreads group and a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

We’re always open for guest blog post submissions from members — good exposure and a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for details.

Need a beta reader? Check out our critique board (you’ll need to be registered with the forum in order to view it).

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here.

As always, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!

That’s all for this month! Send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com with news, suggestions, and other feedback, or just comment here.

The Lady or the Tiger or the Wolf?

by Carmen K. Welsh Jr.

 

I was asked by more than one person while writing my book if I’ve owned any dogs. The answer is no. Most of my life, I have actually identified with cats more but decided many years ago that I refused to get into the eternal debate about which pet is Better: a Dog or a Cat. I didn’t want to get caught up in nonsense and senseless hype.

Both cats and dogs are no better or worse than the other. I don’t even like that there’s such a debate. As an animal lover, it makes more sense to learn to enjoy and learn more about as many creatures as possible, even those one may be deathly afraid of, because, it’s nature, and nature’s cool.

Many cultures do not, or once did not, view animals as separate species. Animals were spirit guides, soul companions as well as kin. Depending on the individual, and among many animal-lovers and pet owner anecdotes, a human and a particular creature will bond no matter what, solidifying the idea that the human and animal species have more in common than is understood.

To tell you the truth, since I was a child, I felt drawn to cats (both literally and figuratively as well as artistically). I would draw them constantly. Cartoon cats I would often copy and change to my liking. If one reads my FWG bio, my first character at age 5 or 6, was a cat with bat wings! My avatar is an anthro snow leopard from one of my short stories. Saturday night, with my older brothers, watching original Star Trek episodes had me drawing on leftover cardboard a space opera comic with a galactic ship complete with captain and crew (all cats! What I wouldn’t give to find some of those drawings).

Also, as a child, I was deathly afraid of dogs. I mean, it made sense. Cats hate dogs because dogs chase them, right? But dogs also barked with large teeth when one walked by their wired fences or wooden gates. Yet, when I stayed in Jamaica with relatives, and after a few summers, having even lived there, going to school and all (talk about culture shock) the dogs there seemed… nicer. The strays didn’t try to bite. Dogs would run to a person, mouth wide open, tails wagging. House dogs seemed quiet and not growly. They also looked similar, lanky, medium size and short-furred, but that’s because being on an island did not allow for a varied gene pool. United States’ dogs seemed meaner to me at 8 years old. Do I sound as if I’m making ‘cultural stereotypes’ on dogs?

But I learned from those dogs and how to interact with them. Also, my grandma, being of old ideas, believed cats were evil and didn’t want them around. However, she had no problem with canines. There was a dog known as Old Max in the neighborhood. Though he had an owner, he would amble about our block. Nearly every household he visited would feed him, including my grandmother. He was a stately gentleman and never barked loud and always allowed us children to play with him.

It took more years and experience to realize that dogs weren’t the antithesis to cats. They couldn’t be. It was like comparing from the old adage about apples and oranges. One could love cats and still love dogs! Once I understood that I began to incorporate more dogs into my writings.

Also, plenty of my beloved childhood films during the 1980s had canine actors I cheered for! I loved the Benji film series as well as Disney’s A Dog of Flanders, Ol’ Yeller, The Shaggy Dog and its sequel The Shaggy DA. One of my favorite Disney animations is Lady and the Tramp, which I count as the earliest inspiration for my novel draft. But I equally loved The Aristocats!

If I’m the animal writer I believe myself to be, then I should learn from them, and not just the ones I readily relate to. A writer should step out of the comfort zone. Writing what one knows is fine, yet it’s even better to learn new things so one could write on that as well. I read more on dogs, I met friends’ dogs and I began to study them.

When my thesis needed new life, I began to dig deeper into why I loved dogs (ah, puns). That’s when the story’s voice and tone were found. Not just deciding on Third-person vs. First POV (on my thesis mentor’s advice, I switched all previous drafts to first-person), but experimenting with other literary vehicles to best tell my story. Instead of the ‘aloof’ third-person I used for my cat characters in my fantasy series (there’s those stereotypes again), I would let go and let my dogs tell their own stories in immediate First-person.

Because such a voice felt more historical, I wanted a sense of the familiar as well as what we humans often overlooked or took for granted in canines. Though I still haven’t had a dog for a companion yet, I’m looking forward to many more adventures with both dogs AND cats. See? Cats aren’t the only muses for writers; dogs can be a writer’s best friend too. And yes, I went there. *groan*

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

My latest project is a new novel that I’m working on called Stargazer, the sequel to my 2013 novel Summerhill. In the course of writing Summerhill, the nature of the setting kept expanding and growing more complicated, and I realized I’d need more than one book to fully explore it. This time around, I’ve flipped the dynamic a bit: this is the story of Katherine, one of Summerhill’s traveling companions from the first book, and now he’s her sidekick, which will hopefully let me tell a fun story that’s sufficiently different to its predecessor. I’m posting the first draft to Patreon (for free!) as I’m writing it, too, so readers can follow along as the story takes shape.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

For me, it depends on whether I’m working on a novel or a short story. For novels, I tend to have a central theme and central conflict in mind, I start writing a first draft, and about halfway through I stop to outline the rest (and after I complete that draft I look at the whole thing and re-outline it so that it makes better sense). When it comes to short stories, usually those ideas are simple and self-contained enough that I can just hop onto the page, play around with them, and see where they go (which sometimes winds up being ‘nowhere,’ but that’s thankfully pretty rare!).

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

I suppose I’m quite fond of writing stories where I really get into someone’s head, for better of for worse, and show the reader what makes them tick. Even the nicest person you know has issues they’re dealing with and sometimes thinks nasty thoughts about certain things, and even a complete jerk can be relatable or sympathetic on some level, and so I think it’s fun to explore that sort of thing, and to leave the reader with some thoughtful insights. That, and I like to use fantastical backdrops to explore otherwise mundane, everyday issues, because then you’re giving the reader something fun and different while also giving them something they can personally relate to.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

This is a tough one! If I had to pick one, though, I’d probably have to say Arkady Ryswife from my novel The Seventh Chakra — not because I’m an artificially augmented super-spy ferret, but because his entire core conflict is doubting his own capabilities and putting too much pressure on himself for fear of letting down others, and those are both things I can personally identify with a whole lot.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

I drew a lot of inspiration early on from the works of David Weber, particularly his Honor Harrington series, when it came to laying out large, convoluted plots and interweaving setting and story without having to resort to info-dumping on the reader. Nowadays my style doesn’t really resemble his at all, but I learned a lot about long form structure and plotting from those books. Kazuo Ishiguro’s wonderful novel The Remains of the Day was a great example of how feature an unreliable narrator in addition to showing how a slow and subtle buildup can still reach a devastating conclusion, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas was just monumentally inspirational for how diverse one single author’s writing can be within a single work.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

David Mitchell again, with The Bone Clocks. It’s a masterful look at an individual’s life from so many different perspectives, and a story that goes from banal to surreal in a way that’s hard not to be impressed by.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

My big hobbies include tabletop roleplaying, amateur photography, wine, and Star Wars (honestly a lot of my time goes to Star Wars in some form or another).

8. Advice for other writers?

Read. Read, read, read. Read things that you like, read things that are outside your normal area from time to time, read things by your peers and by people who inspire you, but read. It’s such a fundamental part of being a good writer that it can often be too obvious, and it’s something I see get ignored all too often. You can’t be a good concert pianist if you don’t listen to music, and you can’t be a good writer if you don’t read stories. So read. Read short stories twice; you’d be amazed how much different the experience can be, even if it’s only been a day. Learn to identify what you like and what you don’t like, and then try to discern why you do and don’t like those things.

9. Where can readers find your work?

My novels are all available on Amazon if you search for me by my people-name, and of course directly from the furry publishers themselves: FurPlanet and Sofawolf Press. My short stories are available on FurAffinity, where my username is ‘Rikoshi,’ and I’ve had stories published in numerous anthologies, such as New Fables from Sofawolf Press and ROAR from FurPlanet.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

Honestly, just the sheer amount of creativity that this fandom has bundled up in with itself, and I think it’s important for people to not lose that spark of imagination. We’re not all writers or artists, but we’re all here because we’ve got a fantastic propensity for make-believe and suspension of disbelief; sometimes it’s serious, sometimes it’s silly, but it takes all kinds and I’ve never come back from a convention not feeling energized to write something, whether it was a larger project or just some quick thing.

Check out Kevin “Rikoshi” Frane’s member bio here!

Furry markets for poetry tend to be few and far between, but a new furry-based poetry anthology has just opened for submissions. Civilized Beasts, a charity anthology, is seeking animal-related poetry of all forms, styles, and lengths.

The anthology will be published by Weasel Press, and all proceeds from the sale of the anthology will benefit Wildlife Conservation Society.

Full guidelines are below. If you have any questions, please contact the editors at the email address listed.

Theme: Animals
Sub-theme: Outside observation of animals, in the mind of animals, symbolism of animals*
Rating: GA
Line Count: Unlimited**
Publisher: Weasel Press
Payment: A copy of the book.  All profit will be donated to charity.
Charity: Wildlife Conservation Society.
Editors: Altivo and Munchkin.  GeorgeSquares, Lunostophiles, and Televassi have volunteered to help.
Submit To: [email protected]

Guidelines: Size 12 Courier font, .pdf, .doc, .docx. Please include the name of the poem(s) in the subject line. If you are doing anything purposefully different in spelling, punctuation, format, etc. for artistic reasons, please be sure to list them in the body of the email.

Deadline: October 1, 2015 

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us.  Thank you, and good luck!

*The first includes fandom observations, though including fandom-related material is still up for debate.  The last allows for works about sonas, totem animals, spirit animals, etc.  This is assuming we get enough of each variety to warrant the break-up.
*If you send in a short poem, please send in a few so they can be bundled together.  We will be hyper-critical of longer poems since we only have so much room to work with.

August’s Book of the Month, Rat’s Reputation, is by member Michael H. Payne (author of The Blood Jaguar).

“Orphans have it tough no matter where they are. But for an orphaned rat in a community of mice, it’s twice as hard. For every mouse willing to look past Rat’s oversized physique and sketchy relatives, there are two convinced he’s just a thief and a murderer biding his time. It doesn’t help that Rat has a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to do the wrong thing just when someone’s watching. Vandalism, robbery, even murder: as he grows, so does the legend around him, and Rat will have to separate truth from fiction to find out not only where he comes from, but where he’s going, and, most importantly, where he belongs.

For the first time in print, Rat’s Reputation is author Michael Payne’s further exploration of life in the lush, beautifully realized world of The Blood Jaguar. More a companion story than a prequel or sequel (though some characters will be familiar to readers of his first book), Payne here shows that you don’t have to follow a prophecy to travel an epic journey, and you don’t have to save the world to be a hero.”

Available from Sofawolf Press.

New Members

Welcome to our newest members Laura “Munchkin” Lewis, Joel Kreissman, and Baumarius!

(If you’ve been approved for membership recently but aren’t listed here or in the member directory, it’s because I haven’t heard back from you about what name you want to be listed under. Drop me a line at furwritersguild (at) gmail.com and let me know!)

Member News

Tristan Black Wolf’s The Laputan Factor is now available in print and ebook formats, Renee Carter Hall’s new enhanced ebook version of Huntress is available for pre-order in epub format, and Donald Jacob Uitvlugt has a poem in the anthology In the Trenches: The Psychological Impact of War and a space opera story over at Cast of Wonders.

Patrick “Bahumat” Rochefort continues with both From Winter’s Ashes and Laika Dosha, Fred Patten and Kyell Gold have contributed essays to the collection Furries Among Us, and Weasel has some videos to check out on YouTube — reading for the Gulf Coast Poets at Barnes & Noble and this interview as part of his upcoming documentary Poetry is Dead!

Lastly, in crowdfunding news, be sure to check out Kevin “Rikoshi” Frane’s Patreon for Stargazer, the upcoming sequel to Summerhill.

Congrats, everyone!

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines: The furry anthology Fragments of Life’s Heart closes on August 15. (Check out the editor’s recent post to that thread with updates on what they’re looking for.)

New markets:  ROAR #7 is now open for submissions, and so are Heat (with a deadline of August 31) and the furry poetry anthology Civilized Beasts. The new quarterly zine A Glimpse of Anthropomorphic Literature will open for submissions on September 15 and is looking for flash fiction, reviews, articles, and more.

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for all the latest news and openings!

Guild News

Members, there are just two weeks left to get your votes in for the Cóyotl Awards!  Voting closes August 15. If you need to get some last-minute reading in, there are links to all the nominated works in this thread.

If you missed our chat with senior production editor Jennifer Tait, you can find the chat log here. Thanks again to Jen for joining us!

The FWG now has a Goodreads group, and we also now have a bookshelf featuring books by our members. Feel free to add any members’ books we’ve missed so far (see the instructions here on how to do that).

We’re always open for guest blog post submissions from members — good exposure and a great way to help out fellow writers. See our guidelines for details.

Need a beta reader? Check out our critique board (you’ll need to be registered with the forum in order to view it).

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us in the forum shoutbox for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern and Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern. More info on the Coffeehouse Chats is here.

As always, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!

That’s all for this month! Send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com with news, suggestions, and other feedback, or just comment here.