Is it Christmas?

Or just feel like the night before? I’m so ridiculously excited about going to Dragon*Con tomorrow that it’s like a kid at Christmas. This is kind of a big deal for me, and I don’t really get wound up about much anymore. Not that I’m all that blase by nature, but anymore I really have been there and done that. I mean, in my work life I’ve worked for some of the biggest names in entertainment and seen their foibles. I know that big rock stars put their pants on one leg at a time. I’ve done the comic con stuff and seen the biggest creators in the world, and it’s really not a big deal.

But what is a big deal is that now I feel almost like I belong there with these folks. I’m not a guest, or even a participating artist, but I’m still a peer to these folks. We all sit down in front of a keyboard in our underpants and try to spin magic out of thin air. Okay, I usually wear pants when I write, but anyway, you get my point. I really feel like a new chapter in my life is opening up right f’n now, and this is kinda the beginning of it. Yeah, I’m a little more than a year into this writer’s journey thing, but this is my first BIG con. So I’m excited, and anxious, and nervous, probably more like a kid going to his first day of high school than a kid at Christmas.

The last time I was this excited about going anywhere was right before I headed down to Greenville for Brad-o-ween, way back in 2005. Six years and a couple weeks ago I walked up on Brad’s lawn and met some folks who have gone on to become my best friends in the world, even if I do see some of them only once a year. From that grew trips to Vegas, legendary benders involving drinking beer from buckets, and bonds that are stronger than any of us would have dreamed of back then. If this weekend goes half as well, it will be a remarkable success. I do have a little bit of an edge going to Dragon that I didn’t have going to Brad-o-ween – I actually already know a few people that will be in Atlanta this weekend. And Suzy will be with me, which makes any trip better.

And I’m guaranteed a parking spot at the Marriott, ’cause I’m Platinum. That’s right, I’m a Marriott Elite, bitches. That’s how I roll. I live the glamorous life, spending at least three months out of every year sleeping in hotels. But at least I get a parking spot, even if my cats don’t recognize me. I’ll be posting updates throughout the weekend on Twitter, so you can follow me (@johnhartness) there if you’re interested in me geeking out over shaking Stan Lee’s hand or something like that.

 

Return to Eden update

So this weekend I got off my ass and got back to work. This time the project was Return to Eden, the apocalyptic YA fantasy novel I’ve been working on for what seems like forever. I figured out what some of the problems were with the book, and started to address them. One of the key issues was too many characters – I had something like nine principal characters in the thing, and no way to focus on any one of them! Since I always thought the book’s protagonist was the one teenage girl, I went through the first seven chapters or so this weekend and chopped out a bunch of characters. So now instead of five kids running from their high school together, there are three. And instead of them picking up five more people through the first half of the book, they’ll pick up three. And a couple of those will be really secondary, so I can focus the narrative more on Christin and her feelings about the situations they find themselves in.

I’m no Martin or Jordan, so cutting a bunch of characters lets me focus more on the lean type of storytelling that I prefer. And since I really want to get into this girl’s head (albeit from third person), trimming extraneous people from the team will be good for that as well. I realized once I finished the first draft that I didn’t have a novel, I had the first year of an X-Men comic, and that wasn’t what I was going for. This time. I’ll be spending the rest of the month working on rewrites for this book, hopefully finishing it up by October 1. I’ve got a bunch of description to add into the book as well as a bunch more people to cut, so it’s going to keep me pretty busy.
Sales are continuing to go up and up. I think the combination of new covers and a new Black Knight novel are working together to really drive things. August is my best month ever for sales, and everyone on KindleBoards says that August is the worst month of the year. That makes me hopeful for the rest of the year, which I’m loving since I won’t have any new releases until the end of the year at the earliest.

I’m heading to Dragon Con on Thursday, so if you’re in the area, look me up. You know how to find me, and if not, look on Twitter or Facebook.

Freewrite Friday

So here’s what’s up in the Hartness-land on a Friday.

Happy to be home in Charlotte after working out of our Atlanta office this week. Yes, not all of us self-published authors are superstars who sit around chatting and posting monkey videos online, some of us still have day jobs. But you can fix that by buying more books (and more and more of you have been, so thanks!). So yeah, I got home yesterday and hung out at home last night watching my Panthers suck against the Bungles and catching up on Season 2 of Glee (don’t judge). I think the Panthers could be better this season than last (can’t be much worse!), but they need to start Derek Anderson for at least a little while and let Newton get his confidence and skills more NFL-ready. The kid isn’t ready, and in a win-now league he could get wrecked by a bad start. I hope not, but it could happen. Look at last year with Jimmy Clausen, or David Carr, or Jamarcus Russel (ok, probably a bad example there, but you get my point). Newton will be an amazing player someday, but today ain’t that day.

I’ll be playing a little poker this evening, and I’ve really missed hanging with the guys and flinging cards around. Hopefully I can recoup some of my nasty losses from a few weeks ago, or at least hold my own.

Book sales have been great – the release of Knight Moves has gone better than I had ever hoped. To date the new book has sold over 800 copies, which is way better than my hope of 500 in the first month, so I’m ecstatic about that. It’ll unfortunately be a while before I get back to the Black Knight boys, because I have at least two other books to knock out before I get to Volume 4. But I’m amazingly pleased with the first month sales of the book, especially since everyone tells me August is the slowest month for e-book sales. So I’m really interested to see what happens in the fall!

Next week I’ll be in Atlanta for Dragon*Con, which I’m very excited about. There are a few people I’ll be autograph-stalking, including James Marsters and Stan Lee. And I just saw that they added Bill Sienkiewicz, who was one of my favorite artists back in his New Mutants days. I’ll also be going to a bunch of panels, readings and parties. If you’re there and want to hook up, hit me up via a Twitter DM (@johnhartness). That’ll probably be the best way to find me.

Once I’m done with Dragon, it’s on revisions of Return to Eden: Genesis. I think I’ve figured out the big problem with the book, now I just need to make myself sit down and do the edits. It’s a huge change/rewrite, so I’ve gotta make myself remember how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time. That’ll probably take the rest of September, then I hope to have it out by November 1. When it’s out I’ll spend November and December working on Copycat, then get to Black Knight Vol. 4 the beginning of 2012. That’s unless a shiny object catches my eye, of course :).

Crowdsourcing Cover Ideas

Crowdsourcing Cover Ideas

So I’m working on a redesign of the cover for The Chosen. I think the cover I have is okay, but similar to the old covers for the Black Knight books, it doesn’t really tell a prospective reader what the book is about. So for those of you out there who have read the book, what images do you associate with it? What kinds of things do you think would make a good cover? I can’t offer much for your help (unless you want to design the cover for me, in which case let’s talk money), but you’ll have my undying gratitude.

Here’s what I have –

Pros – The title font is good, and it’s BIG. That needs to stay. It’s a striking color combination, the red background with the yellow letters. I like that and think it grabs the eye.

Cons – It says nothing about angels, devils, Adam, Eve, fantasy literature or anything like that. Angel fiction is very marketable, and obviously fantasy lit is as well, but nobody looking at this cover would have any idea what the book is about. That needs to change.

So help me out here, folks. Let me know what the book says to you – what images stick with you from the book?

 

Someday I’ll get back to actually, you know, writing again, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on trying to maximize my promotional stuff right now. I hope to have the second draft of Return to Eden:Genesis done by October 1. Especially since I just booked another design gig that’s going to lock up most of my free time in October, so if that book stands a prayer of getting out this year, I’d better step on it.

 

Knight Moves – a couple of weeks in

Well, we’re almost three weeks in from the release of Knight Moves, and I’ve been amazed by the outpouring of support for the book. So far, we’ve sold 667 copies, far exceeding my hopes for the first month. I had hoped for 500 copies in the first month, and we blew through that number! In comparison, there has only been one month ever that Back in Black sold more than 650 copies, so I couldn’t be happier.

Obviously, with two new products released this month (I also tossed a new short story, called Black Magic Woman out there) this will be my best sales month ever. Last month was my first month over 3,000 books sold, and we have a chance to crack 4,000 for the month of August! It’s a close race, and I’ll need some help to get there, but I’ve done some limited paid promotion this month, so hopefully we can reach another milestone!

Speaking of promotion, I spent very little cash promoting this month. I paid for a Release Blitz with The Bookish Snob Promotions, which got the blurb on a dozen different websites for $20. Then I got a spotlight on Two Ends of the Pen for $10, and jumped on that. Everything else has been from my Facebook and Twitter folks, and you good people here. So a huge thanks to all of you for making the first month of the new book a rousing success!