Please don’t take away my indie author badge just because I have a hybrid career, y’all. It’s no secret to people that follow me on Twitter or Facebook that I’m a fan of Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. Not just because I think the few men writing urban fantasy have to stick together (me, Hearne, Butcher, Tuck and now D.B. Jackson are the ones that leap to mind) but because the books are funny as hell, well-crafted and feature an awesome dog as a main character.
Not THE main character, unless you ask the dog. But I digress.
But here’s the interesting thing about Hearne’s series. He sold his series to Del Rey, an imprint of Ballantine, one of the Big 6 publishers. These are not people typically considered to be welcoming of change, or open to new ways of doing things. But when they bought Kevin’s series, he already had the first three books finished. They went through what I’m sure was an extensive process of editing, revising, cover stuff, etc. But they did this on all three books at essentially the same time, and then they released them.
One each month. All last summer. So instead of readers having to wait a year for the next book in the series, they got three books all last summer, kept their appetites honed for the characters, fell in love with the characters and the series, and then, when they had to wait seven or eight months for Book 4, they were chomping at the bit. Book 4 released earlier this year, and Book 5 will release this fall. This breaks the traditional “one book a year” pattern that traditional publishers had used in the past to manage their release dates and was very effective in Kevin’s case. He came from out of nowhere to become a very popular upper-midlist fantasy author in a very short period of time. This kind of market awareness and adaptability deserves a little shout out for the people at Del Rey, because it shows that they were paying attention. They understood that fun books like Kevin’s are great summertime fare, and people are going to want a lot of them. So good for them. I hope more publishers pay attention, because the idea of only putting out one book a year is anathema to fast writers like me.
The pic is from Kevin’s signing at Park Road Books in Charlotte last week. Yes, that is my book beside him. I gave him a copy of Hard Day’s Knight since I rode the coattails of his also-boughts to great sales numbers last summer. The pic below is how I spent my Friday night, finishing Book 4 of the Iron Druid Chronicles. It was my favorite of the series since Book 1. Really recommend it if you haven’t already gotten hooked on that series.
Well, judging by the comments on yesterday’s post and the responses to my Facebook posting, way too damn many of us have been the victim of this same kind of thing. And at 6′ 1″ and 295 lbs., I’m not really the “victim” stereotype. But let’s look at my recent (past ten years) history with crime.
2006 – My wife was held up at gunpoint when a trio of thieves robbed the local community theatre during a performance of A Chorus Line. No, I cannot make that shit up. They got her purse with her car keys and ID, leading to a huge pain in the ass of replacing things, towing cars, calling locksmiths, etc. Because I was in Philadelphia when it happened. Of course.
2010 – My car was broken into in Little Five Points in Atlanta. Bastards took out two windows and made off with my brand-new MacBook Pro, my Canon Rebel XTi digital SLR camera, a bunch of tools, and a bunch of lighting equipment. Minimum replacement cost, $5,000. Insurance doesn’t carry equipment that belongs to your workplace if it’s in your personal vehicle, so I was on the hook for that. Out of pocket – about $2,000.
2011 – My truck was broken into in the parking lot of the Sheraton Suites across from the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. Window smashed, lock jimmied, all kinds of crap damaged. I was down there for work so my employer paid for the repairs. The cops caught the thieves after they broke into 50 other cars in the same parking garage. Yes, FIFTY. I got all my stuff back. Nothing out of pocket.
2012 – Read yesterday’s post. At this point I’m not sure if it’s going to be worth filing an insurance claim or not. The impact on my premium for the next three years may be such that I’m better off just eating the loss and sharpening the dog’s teeth a little more. So my out of pocket is going to be somewhere from $500 to $2,500. And that’s IF I decide to replace everything. Which is unlikely.
But on the bright side, I got my shit together enough yesterday to get 3,000 words written, even though I stayed up until 1AM to do it. I also went out to Park Road Books and met Kevin Hearne, the author of the fantastic Iron Druid Chronicles. If you haven’t read these, you should totally pick them up. And if you’re in Chapel Hill tonight, he’ll be at FlyLeaf Books. He’s a nice guy, funny as hell and very gracious. I gave him a copy of Hard Day’s Knight since I picked up a bunch of fans last summer when his stuff was released thanks to the Amazon also-bought algorithms.
And a really cool thing happened to me while I was standing in line waiting to get my book signed. I was chatting with a few people, and dude I didn’t know asked me “Are you John Hartness?”
I replied in the affirmative, because I was pretty sure I didn’t owe him money. He then proceeded to pull out a copy of Hard Day’s Knight and get me to sign it. He’d seen on Kevin’s Facebook page that I was going to be at the signing, and he and his wife wanted to meet me! So I signed his book, then he pulled out a Sharpie and had me autograph the back of his Kindle, right under Kevin’s signature! That was a pretty awesome little “rock star” moment for me, the first time I’ve ever been recognized somewhere and had someone ask for my autograph when I wasn’t a con guest or at a dealer’s table somewhere. So I felt downright thrilled about my evening, no matter how crappy a chunk of my day was.
So thanks to Joseph and Mary for making my night!
And thanks to everyone for the words, tweets, emails and texts of support. This burglary has hit Suzy pretty hard, and I hate seeing her scared. That’s the worst thing for me, far worse than losing a few pieces of electronics. But your support really means the world to us. And thanks to everybody who bought a book to help the recovery fund, or donated using the button on yesterday’s post. I really appreciate it.
That’s how I felt last night when I realized that my house had been burglarized. While Suzy and I were down in SC celebrating Father’s Day with my family, a couple of young black men broke into my house, stole my Macbook Air, my Canon Rebel T3i digital camera and a Wii game console. My neighbors saw them and chased them on foot, but the thieves got away.
On the bright side, I had an older laptop that I was able to quickly get up and running. I didn’t lose any of my writing, thanks to a combination of DropBox and Time Machine backups. My Macbook was password-protected and is now remote-wiped thanks to the iCloud apps. No one was hurt, and our pets were safe. And I learned that I really do live in a good neighborhood, where three young brothers were willing to put their own safety on the line to try and protect my possessions. That last bit means a lot.
On the darker side, I’m fucking pissed. Some little sonofabitch broke into my home. He came into my office and stole my computer. The computer I write on. The way I make my living. My home. I feel violated, I feel scared, and more than anything I feel angry. Last night I re-loaded the shotgun and put it back in its rightful place beside my bed. The warning shot is what you get when you hear the shell racked into the chamber. It’s bird shot, so I’m at least giving you a chance to live through the next round.
Suzy and I have lived through this before, each in different ways. I’ve had two vehicle break-ins within the past three years, both in Atlanta. The first time, ironically, my MacBook and digital SLR camera were stolen. The second time not only did the thieves get nothing of value, but they were caught just hours later and my stuff was returned. Suzy was held up at gunpoint while working in a theatre, and had her purse and car keys stolen. That was decidedly more traumatic and scary.
But this just pisses me off. I know it’s all just stuff, material possessions, and I really am very happy that neither my neighbors nor my pets were hurt. But it was my stuff. I worked hard to be able to afford those things, and now some assclown that doesn’t want to go out and get a damn job has my stuff. And I’m pissed.
And now I can see a little better how things like the Trayvon Martin shooting happen. I don’t want to say that my situation is analogous to George Zimmerman, because only two people know what happened that night in Florida, and one of them is dead. But I know that my immediate experience has trumped my liberal leanings right now, and I could see me overreacting to some perceived threat right now. My personal security has been rattled, and I don’t have much of a flight instinct, it’s all fight. So please send a message to the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Mormons that this is a bad week to knock on the door of Casa de Hartness, because the nicest thing I’m holding down behind the door when I answer it is a baseball bat.
I really do appreciate all the well-wishes on Facebook and Twitter. It’s nice that folks were concerned. If you want to help, buy a book. I’m not sure yet whether it’s going to be worth filing a homeowner’s insurance claim or not. It may affect my premium more than the stuff was worth, so I have to weigh that in making my decision. If you really want to help, click the Paypal button below.
And thanks for reading my rant. I’m not going to shoot anybody. Much. But a .22 slug to the kneecap is looking like a better and better answer. After all, if I shoot a bitch in the knee, he’s not going to be playing second-story man anymore.
Last weekend was my first time as a guest at ConCarolinas, and I had an awesome time. Last year I couldn’t attend this con because I had already bought a table space at HeroesCon and couldn’t do both. This year they are not on the same weekend, and I am loving it! I had a great time hanging out with all my friends from Magical Words, as well as some other good friends like Gail Martin and Stuart Jaffe. I also met some new great friends like my brother from another mother, James Tuck, author of the Deacon Chalk urban fantasy series. It’s awesome, you should buy it! I was on several panels, had some great conversations with some fans, and generally had an awesome time.
And I sold a shitload of books. I sold almost completely out of the Bubba print collection, and had to reorder those and Hard Day’s Knight for Fandom Fest and Heroes. I was amazed at how Bubba was flying off the table, but then I realized that you tell folks it’s Larry the Cable Guy meets The Dresden Files, and that’s worth $15 right there. I hope they all enjoy those stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.
And I also corralled a lot of my writerly friends into appearing on Literate Liquors with me. So over the next few weeks you’ll see a bunch of new episodes, and I’ll be taping more at Fandom Fest and Heroes Con. I hope you’ll make it out to one of those shows. In the meantime, here’s the newest Literate Liquors video, featuring James R. Tuck.
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