More Clicky Clicky

Some excellent reading and information here for you, if you're curious.

An Open Letter to Agent Donald Maass

Some Highly Interesting Facts and Figures from J.A. Konrath

Want a Free Book?

I realize it isn't fair to have my book on Amazon only for 90 days, and then within that time offer it for free for 5 days.

So if you have a Nook, Kobo, Sony, iPad, or other e-reader, here's your chance.

Head on over to Smashwords if you feel like reading a little romance-fantasy-fractured-fairytale-type story. Once you pop the book into the cart use the coupon code CP47X and the book will be free.  That's it! To get the book to your device, just follow the instructions that Smashwords gives you. Easy as pie. The coupon will be good until October 31st, so if you have friends and would like to share, feel free to do so.

Hope you enjoy and Happy Halloween!

Why Self Publish? (Continued)

(Continued from Part 1)

Not long after publishing Blood for Wolves - and I really do mean not long - I got responses. I thought to myself, "I guess I should make an author Facebook page..." Maybe 20 minutes after creating said page I had a reader pop on to tell me they loved the book. That surprised the heck out of me. Not that they liked the book (but that was pretty cool), but that they had somehow found it out of all the other books out there, read it, and then discovered my FB page with such speed. The numbers for sales were pretty surprising too. I supposed it was because somewhere my book was being shown on some Amazon "Just In" page that I hadn't seen (and still haven't so who knows?).

I also discovered my book in some interesting places when Googling it several weeks after it came out. I found it at:

A USA Today web article
Once Upon a Time Book Blog
Maryse's Book Blog
Romance Lovers
Brightdreamer's Book Reviews

I hadn't contacted any of these people and requested they do anything - post my book or review it or anything. And it's other places as well, lists that included new releases, places that list books when they're for free (since I offered mine for a free on 5 different days), Goodreads lists (and I didn't even put my book on Goodreads - someone else did), and yes, even places that hijack your book and give it out for free download. And no, I wasn't mad about that. Not at all. Because 1.) If that's how they want to get their book, then nothing I can do will stop them, and 2.) I'd already given away over 3,000 free downloads anyway. Why would I flip out over a handful of unauthorized downloads? Metallica flipped out over Napster - meanwhile Paulo Coehlo pirated his own book in other countries. Who came out on top?

Am I an amazing bestseller? No. Do I need to do more marketing myself? Absolutely. Does it matter that some of those links above are just little personal blogs? Heck yeah. Because even if one person looks at a blog and decides to buy my book, that's one more sale, right? And if they like it, they might tell others about it, which leads to more sales. Those places are a part of your reader base, remember, so don't ever think them beneath you or meaningless.

Since publishing, I have learned a lot of things I don't think I would have found out otherwise. Do I still want to break into traditional publishing? Of course I do. I see it as a massive challenge. Will I ever be able to? We'll see. As of right now I'm revising another book in my Figments series to hang out with Blood for Wolves and will simply go straight to the electronic shelves. I'm also very seriously considering e-publishing my science fiction novel as well under a different name. Because at this point - why not?

Life is so short, and that's one of the big reasons I don't have a problem with self publishing anymore. In the past it could tarnish your reputation with agents and editors - give them a negative impression of you and your work. But those times are slipping into oblivion. Even if they weren't, a lot of successful e-published authors don't care becuase they're making a nice bit of income from their digital sales. I think, what might happen tomorrow that no one ever gets to read some of my other books? Why am I holding back? Just because one too many editors said no? Sometimes they have finite spaces to fill and can't pick all the books they might want and hand out the old, "It's good - but we can't market it right now" stuff, or some other reason they can't use your story. Authors have heard countless reasons and excuses over the years. Now there really aren't any.

Just remember - don't put out your first draft. Have good readers examine your work and be willing to hear them tell you it sucks. And don't cry and hide under the bed when they say that. Suck it up and get back to work. Kill all the typos and grammatical errors. Fix pacing and adjust characters. Erase scenes if necessary. Don't know where to turn? Seek out writing groups or workshops. Take a class if you have to. If you think your work is the best thing since sliced bread, know that it's not. Or at the very least, that someone somewhere won't think so. Be ready for negative reviews and grow a thicker skin than you think you had. Work just as hard - if not harder - before hitting that self publish button because you won't have agents or editors to make you tweak things or discover flaws. You have only your fellows, yourself, and that's it. In the end, the books all end up in the same place - the readers. And you want it to be the best book it can be.

Why Self Publish?

Times have changed a great deal since, well, even a handful of years ago. E-readers, tablets, and even smartphones and PC apps have made it possible for people to read a book at any given moment. In the past, authors looking to get published had to make it past agents, then editors, and then their superiors, all the while hoping someone along the way didn't decide that their manuscript wasn't good enough, thus putting yet another temporary halt to their dream.  Self publishing was left to the stigma that it was the place to go for authors who weren't good enough. For those that couldn't make it past the agents and editors and had to resort to sub-par or self-indulging practices to get their story out. True, there are plenty of authors who, both in the past and present, probably should have had someone (or multiple someones) take a look at their manuscript before sending it out into the wild. Yet at the same time, take a second to look up all of the now famous authors who started out self published, selling books out of their car trunks and so forth. I'll wait.

Back? Yes, I know, it's an impressive list, isn't it? My point, before I start rambling too much (although given the name of this blog, should be expected by now anyway), is that self publishing has a lot of positive points and can be a very freeing tool for an author to use. Today it's easier and in many ways better than ever because we have such amazing access to technology. We're not stuck spending thousands of dollars and prodding as many people as possible in the hopes of selling all of the hardcopies. Instead, a single self published author using the right mode of distribution doesn't have to spend a dime to get their books to people. And not just people within their home country, but around the entire globe. Any self published author from this particular digital era will tell you that there's something very cool yet rather surreal to see that they've sold a book in Germany, the UK, or Japan.

There is - somehow - still the worry that the book world will get too saturated. As if it weren't already. Work in a bookstore long enough and you will see for your own eyes just how many books come in each and every day - old and new alike - and you'll realize that the publishing world is still chugging along and books are EVERYWHERE, self published or not. People will find your book whether you help them or not. Whether it's electronic or not. I may have even linked a great article by Nathan Bransford about this in the past. The only real challenge is to make yourself known - but this rings true for any author, self published or not.

I can use myself as an example. I used Amazon's platform to publish my book, Blood for Wolves, and then moved on to use Smashwords as distribution to the rest of the e-reader world (Nooks, Kobos, Sony readers, etc.). But Blood for Wolves is not, I repeat, NOT my first book. Not by a long shot. Rather, it was my sixth. I went the traditional route with it, got a lot of nibbles, but no bites. I kept looking at the self publishing world, but continued to resist it. I was extremely curious though. How did it work? What kind of results would I get? How much would a good cover cost? Would I be able to make back that amount? What kind of reviews would I get? Was the 3 month exclusivity with the KDP program worth it?

Finally, one day I just said, "Fuck it." And I began my little experiment. Yes, I know, one does not just experiment with self publishing. But one does not just walk into Mordor either - and guess what? That's right. But I also wasn't just chucking out a garbage story, either. I revised it multiple times, had several fellow writers review it so I knew what needed fixing, if I'd missed any typos, how the pacing was, and so forth. I lost track of how many times I revised it, in fact. Eventually I got to the point where revising again would probably mean I would end up jumping off the roof of my house instead. So I hit the publish button and let it out for all the world to see.

And let me tell you, that's one of the more terrifying and exhilirating moments of my life. Terrifying because you don't know how people are going to react - how much they'll hate it or love it. Exhilirating because you know that even if they do hate it, there are people who will be out there, miles and miles away, reading the words you agonized over for a year or more. But at the very least, I would learn more about publishing electronically than just reading about it. I could view my stats, explore great ways of promoting my book, and make adjustments if there ever was a next time.

Now, knowing what I know, there will indeed be a next time...

(Continued in Part 2)

Not In Stores?

I've been meaning to write this for a while. More and more I've noticed that people coming into the bookstore are asking for books we simply don't have. It's not because we're out or that it's not something we usually carry - but it's because the book has been self-published.

A few years ago I remember Nathan Bransford reassuring everyone that even in the seemingly endless mire of books out there people will find the books they want to read. Well, he's 100% right. People already did that when physical books packed the shelves, and now the same is true for all of the electronic books floating around out there. Initially I found it to be a little frustrating. Partly because the people looking for the book would demand to know why they couldn't get the book (if it was only an ebook) or express frustration over it being print-on-demand. Partly because I found it a bit tiring to have to explain the reasons why they couldn't immediately get the book or why this print-on-demand book had to be sent to their home and not the store, etc.

Now, however, as more people come in requesting ebooks and POD books, I don't get frustrated. In fact, I'm actually pleased. I'm happy for those authors that somehow, in some way, these people have discovered their book. What's more, they want to spend the money and buy it. That provides an income to people who have worked hard to create a book. And that is excellent. While it doesn't always work because people still can't quite handle waiting for the book to be made and then sent, sometimes it does, and that's great.

For the longest time my dad always demanded why I didn't just self-publish my books and sell them. For a long time the answer was the same most of us would give. It costs money. It doesn't offer the same distribution as the bigger publishers can offer. You have to work your buns off to convince people to buy your book. A lot of big name authors actually did start out self-published, some even selling their work out of the trunks of their cars (John Grisham, James Redfield). And I thought, "I would do that - if I had the money." I never had the money and I didn't get a car until after college.

Epublishing allows all of us to do that. I'm doing it. I finally decided to jump into the deep end of the pool and see what happens. I want to know. I'm selling my book out of the trunk of my car - the only difference is that now it's all done electronically, I have access to so many more people, and I don't have to pay a dime (except to get an excellent cover, of course). It's terrifying and thrilling all at once. Yes, people are reading my book. No, I have no idea if they'll like it or not. But it allows to me reach an audience I never thought possible - like other countries. I found out today that I sold a unit in Germany. Germany! Someone in that country purchased my book. It's only one book, but that has got to be one of the coolest things ever.

So if you are working hard on a book and feel it is ready to be out there and can't get through the agents or publishers, then maybe epublishing is the way to go. The stigma of self-publishing is slowly but surely going away because there are just too many people out there with excellent stories that they want to tell. Not everything will be amazing, but not everything published now is amazing. And in the end, it doesn't matter because as Nathan said, people will read what they want. They'll be able to find despite the thousands of books out there. And that's pretty cool.

On a final note, if you would like to read my book, it will be available for free April 19th on the Kindle and devices that can host the Kindle app.

You can download the book here.  And in case you were curious or in need of a cover yourself, this lovely piece was done by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design and Photography. You can also find her on Facebook and her work is amazing. :)

Some Light Reading

I thought I might share a few interesting pieces I stumbled upon yesterday.

I've been getting impatient when it comes to publishing and have been seriously entertaining the idea of going the e-publishing route - though I do admit a lot of that is also due to sheer curiosity.  How well might one of my books perform?  How could I boost the sales?  How good are my marketing skills?  I didn't know how exclusive Amazon was with their publishing and I'm already familiar with how PubIt, CreateSpace, and Smashwords function, so I was curious as to whether or not Amazon's system could be used at the same time as one of the others.  So I looked and found a great article with a few handy additional linked articles.

10 Questions to Ask Before Committing to Any E-Publishing Service

Second, due to my potential e-publishing future, I wondered - if I published my SF novel should I use my name or a pen name?  And if I did use a pen name, it would be a male one.  Would that help my chances of getting more sales or does it matter?  I know that I don't pay much attention to authors - if I want to read it, I read it.  But since I was curious, I started looking to see if anyone had done any articles with actual information on whether or not gender still mattered to people and found a quite interesting blog entry that also had a lot of interesting articles linked to it that I ended up reading as well.

Fantasy Book Cafe's Women in SF&F Conclusion

You may find these interesting and helpful - you may not.  But I thought I'd share either way.  Time to go write!

The Deluge

Granted, you have probably already read this over at Nathan Bransford's blog, or either straight from the Huffington Post, and I kind of hate to be a schmuck and just repost other people's stuff - but dangitall if it isn't a really good article that squelched even some of my fussing when it comes to ereaders. He makes several points, all of them good.

While I still maintain that people are going to think we're the techs that can fix their gadget problems or something else - at least for now (just yesterday I had a guy literally yelling in my ear over the phone about the audacity that he register his credit card to get an ebook), that's a different concept altogether.

Indeed, when we worry about all the "bad books" that can get into the book world, who hasn't read a craptastic book as it is? One of those books where you sit there with a horror-stricken look and say, "How the hell did this ever get published?" But Mr. Bransford is correct. There are so many out there now, how the heck will we ever truly know the difference?

(Still though, if silence is going to be the rejection, please let us know on your website beforehand so we don't bother you with follow-ups. =D)

Well, if you're going to get on board, choose your poison.

Post 100 - The Nook

Originally for my 100th post I was going to do a nice long piece about Seton Hill University where I got my MA. After all, I'm forever referring to it, the mentors there, and have lists along the side of links to Seton Hill people.

But I decided that might take some time and instead have opted for a different route, one involving e-readers in a post that I haven't seen anywhere else, regarding a matter that I'm not sure anyone has considered yet.

Selling an e-reader in a bookstore and how that changes things (in a not-so-good way).

I wanted to work for Barnes & Noble because I love books. I love to play with them. I even love the smell of the store when I walk in, working day or no. And one of the things I knew I could count on was catering to a better clientele than in other retail locations like sporting goods or clothing (trust me, I've done both). Sure, on occasion you get a fussy customer or even a really unhappy one, but they're few and far between when compared to the rest of the retail world. Why do you think every B&N store has a huge backlog of applications?

But getting to the point. Just yesterday a woman comes in. Her Nook (the B&N e-reader to rival the Kindle, in case you didn't know) won't turn on. Now, I'm not a total idiot when it comes to gadgets. I'm fact, I'm pretty friggin' tech savvy. But I don't own a Nook. I work part-time and freelance wherever possible and barely make enough to cover my expenses - you think I'm going to shell out $259 for any e-reader? Especially when, even with my discount, I only buy maybe a total of 5 books a year? The company certainly isn't going to give out Nooks to all its employees (just the district managers...or store managers? I don't remember). The simple fact is that I know perhaps 1% about the Nook. We haven't been schooled in Nook technology yet. This may not be true for all B&N stores, but it is for us. We only recently got our little front store Nook nook set up.

Basically what happened was this: The woman's Nook refused to turn on. She maintained that it was charged. None of us knew what its deal was. So we told her to call the help hotline on the Nook package. Of course this is too much for her. She hemmed and hawed about how if it was a quality product we should stand behind it and be able to take care of such things in the store. As always, we were polite and explained that we weren't tech savvy just yet on the Nook (as evidenced by our not-yet-functioning Nook nook) since it's still relatively new, etc. Naturally she wasn't satisfied and left all huffy.

Fine, we get people like that all the time even on books. My complaint isn't about her. My worry is that we'll get more people like her. The issue is that we'll go from booksellers to tech people. And we're not tech people. None of us (save the store manager) owns a Nook. We don't know what all their potential problems are. We can't fix them for you. We don't have the know-how and we certainly don't have all the tools and toys to open it up and check it out. People, as a whole, get a lot more frustrated and - in a word - bitchy about electronics than they do about books. Myself included (just not to any employees because I know better). Even after the woman left, I later had a man come up and ask me all sorts of questions about the Nook and I could only answer a handful of them, which was also frustrating to me because I like helping people.

True, I'm sure they'll school us employees on Nook functions soon, but the fact remains: We are still going to be booksellers. We are not going to be tech support. Yet I am willing to put money down that all sorts of people who own Nooks will mosey into the store and expect us to fix it. In fact, I don't even think our Nook nook is meant to fix things; I think it's just a kiosk to help push the product. In which case people coming up to the desk expecting the poor soul behind it to fix their jacked up Nook will get all pissy when the person can't. People are impatient. They don't want to call a help hotline and tinker with their own product. They don't want to have to send it anywhere and then wait for it to get sent back. They want it fixed now.

They'll want us to be the Geek Squad of the Nook. And we're not.

Will the clientele for the Nook be different than typical book shoppers you might ask? Yes. E-reader owners don't have to go to bookstores to get their books. They won't be browsers who mosey through the store and ask or give book suggestions. They'll just come in when they want us to fix something. Granted, that won't be every e-reader owner, so I'm not assuming that just because you own an e-reader you suck at life. But anyone with a brain knows there's a difference between the atmosphere in B&N (or even Borders) and the atmosphere at the Geek Squad table at Best Buy (no offense Best Buy - I like your tech guys and applaud them for their skills. I've even used them a few times when my computer has gone beyond me).

Maybe someday in the future all new hires will be required to understand the Nook inside and out. But I think that day is far ahead. For now, if you have a Nook and it's broken, we can't fix it. Don't be a jerk about it. Going on a tirade won't help. I work at a bookstore because I love books and I love the people that love books. If I wanted to work in tech support I'd be at Best Buy or somewhere else. Amazon is lucky they're online only - people with Kindles have no choice but to call or email. Even then, guess who they talk to? Someone specifically trained to handle fixes for the Kindle.


Here we go...

P.S. I don't actually think it's called a Nook "nook," but I just found it amusing.

Clash of the Titans

In case you haven't heard yet (and if you're an author, you should have), there's a nasty little tiff going on between Amazon and Macmillan. Basically it's a price thing. I mean, isn't it always? Always about money.

But I thought perhaps I'd give a shoutout to the BookEnds blog, because Jessica Faust speaks of how the author pretty much always gets left behind in issues like this, how it sucks, and how it's not fair.

Also be sure to pop on over to PubRants to see a letter from John Sargent.

But if you want to hear an uplifting post - at least, about ebooks - then Nathan Bransford's blog is the place to be. (not sure I agree about all of that, but I like that he's gung-ho about things)

Choose your destiny.