I’ve got a lot of plans for 2012 – quit my day job, survive the end of the world, lose weight, write half a million words…the usual. But one thing I’m definitely doing is traveling a bunch (and while on the subject of traveling, leveling and other words that end in “el,” when did we stop spelling those words with two “l”s? I’m pretty sure it was travelling and levelling when I was younger, but the great god spellcheck says NAY). I’m currently booked for a bunch of different cons this year, and talking with the rest of the Musketeers this weekend (I got dubbed D’Artagnan, BTW) we sorta solidified our DragonCon plans. So in case you’re going to be anywhere in the SouthEastern US this year, or Vegas, or just anywhere that I’m going to be, here’s how track me down.
January 13-15 – Illogicon, Raleigh, NC. – This is the smallest show that I’m actually paying to go to. It’s a new con in the state, and it’s cheap, so I’m going to go hang out and see what it’s all about. Plus I like to drink and there’s a bar in the hotel!
January 20-22 – Chattacon, Chattanooga, TN – The first of my guest appearances for the year. I haven’t done this show before, but there will be a bunch of people that I met at Fandom Fest last year attending, so I can hang with them. Allan Gilbreath from Kerlak will be there, along with the fabulously entertaining Lee Martindale and a host of other folks. I don’t know what to expect from this show, but it has a decent reputation.
February 10,11,17,18,24,25 – Almost, Maine – Ballantyne Community Theatre – My first acting gig of the year. I’ll be performing in a small scene as part of a larger show for the first show by a new theatre group. The folks running it are some of my best friends, so it should be fun. Especially as they try to work around my crazy-ass schedule.
March 2-4 – StellarCon, High Point, NC – Patrick Rothfuss is the guest of honor, and it’s a small con, so the chances of me being able to buy a beer for one of my favorite writers is pretty high. Seriously, I’m not starstruck much anymore, but Rothfuss is a Big F’n Deal. His Kingkiller Chronicles books are some of the most amazing high fantasy I’ve ever read, and I’m tempted to buy hardbacks just to get an autograph. Plus our Aramis will be there as well, the lovely and talented Misty Massey!
March 7-11 – Southeastern Theatre Conference, Chattanooga – Back to Chattanooga for the last lighting convention as a full-time employee. SETC is a conference I’ve attended since 1993, so I’ll almost certainly make it a point to get there next year for my twentieth convention. I’ve made a ton of friends over the years there, and a ton of business contacts. There will be a few drinks consumed.
March 23-25 – MidSouthCon – Memphis, TN – Apparently this is quite the sizable con, so I’m looking forward to this one. A bunch of folks will be there, and Michael Stackpole is the Guest of Honor. I read his blog, and I enjoy his perspective on the current state of the publishing world. A bunch of folks I met at Fandom Fest will be there as well, so it’ll be good to see them again.
April 13-18 – NAB – Las Vegas, NV – The National Association of Broadcasters trade show will be more about marketing work than writing work, but since I plan to start a small business doing marketing work for entertainment lighting industry firms, this would be a place where I could grab them all at one time and pitch them. Unsure if I’m actually attending this show or not, it depends on the cash.
April 26-29 – Merlefest – North Wilkesboro, NC – If you need me the last weekend of April, I’ll be in the mountains. Either come with me to listen to amazing music, or lie down til the feeling passes. This is the 25th anniversary of Merlefest, and I ain’t missing this chance to recharge, reconnect with friends and get my karma bubble right for anything! You should come, it’s great fun.
June is ridiculous, just wanted to get that out of the way early.
First off we have ConCarolinas – June 1-3 – Charlotte, NC – I was accepted as a guest last year but couldn’t attend because it conflicted with Heroes Con, but the shows are not on top of each other this year, so I’ll be there. So will all my Carolinas writing pals – Misty, Kalayna, Faith, Stuart and tons more. This is a really writer- and fan-friendly mid-sized con right here in Charlotte, so it’s very much worth attending for any aspiring writers.
Then we have HeroesCon – June 22-24 – Charlotte, NC – the largest comic show in the Southeast, and a great way for a fantasy/horror writer to hit their target audience. I’m currently splitting a table with one or two other folks, and if we get one more, I think we might have to upgrade to a real booth. I’m not on any panels at this one, just hawking books for three days. And buying comics. God, the comics!
Finally, I’m going back to Fandom Fest/Fright Night Film Fest – June 29-July 1 – Louisville, KY – This is a con that has a sweet spot in my heart, because it’s where I first connected with BellBridge Books, my publisher. There were a TON of small press publishers there last year, making it the best opportunity I saw for writers to connect with the people who actually put their words in print. Stephen Zimmer does an awesome job putting the literary track together, and I made so many connections at that show it was ridiculous. Plus my wife grew up in Kentucky, so she’s excited about seeing old friends.
August 3-5 is RoundCon – Columbia, SC – I haven’t been officially invited yet, and I probably won’t head up the lit track this time, but if I’m asked I’ll happily attend. It’s a small con, but it is growing.
August 30-September 3 is the big one. Dragon Con – Atlanta, GA – This is by far the biggest con I’m doing, and I’m not even a guest! There will be about 45,000 attendees, and I’m working to get a part of a spot on the show floor with a bunch of other people. If that works out, I’ll go in with a few other folks and we’re working on a program ad to drive traffic to our booth, and I’ll likely end up on a few panels just because there are always opportunities to crash :).
This doesn’t include the dates for the Charlotte ComiCon, which I will always do as long as Dave and Rick have room for me. It also doesn’t include the NC Writer’s Network Fall Conference, which I’ll likely attend again now that Red Dirt Review is up and running. One show I did last year that I’m unsure about for this year is the SC Book festival. I lost a few hundred bucks at that show last year, so I don’t think I’m going to attend at this point, but if something changes I’ll let you know. I don’t have any plans to buy a booth, because that was crazy expensive last year, and the crowd wasn’t really much for genre fiction.
I think that’s a good little year’s worth of cons, don’t you?
I write to music. It’s almost to where I can’t write unless there’s music. So I can wear out a Pandora channel pretty quickly. I’m going to try to post videos from bands you might be less familiar with, or just stuff that I enjoy and like writing to. The first group this week is one I’ve really been wearing out lately – The Civil Wars. They have a serious Swell Season feel to them (the guy and girl from Once if you didn’t know) and I think they’re brilliant songwriters.
You only know what i want I you to
I know everything you don’t want me to
your mouth is poison your mouth is wine
you think your dreams are the same as mine
And of course, in looking this up on YouTube I went down the rabbit hole for a little while. So here’s some other stuff I kinda love.
I’m a big Adele fan, I just think she’s got a breathtaking voice. And Darius Rucker used to play Winthrop when I was in school there in another life for both of us. So to have the two of them doing one of my favorite (if terribly overplayed) songs from the past few years was kinda awesome.
Roger Creager is a big favorite, and I loved his concert at the Evening Muse last month. A tiny little room with a lot of boogie crammed inside. Roger’s got a new album coming out this month, check it out. Creager makes me think of my buddy The Fat Guy.
And the Avetts have been working on new stuff, so hopefully there’s a new album coming soon.
So 2011 was my first year really working at the self-publishing thing. And it was a big year for a lot of people in my situation. Here are some overall numbers that might be of interest to folks starting out on their publishing journey. Feel free to take them wildly out of context to prove whatever point you’d like to prove.
$40,000 – roughly what I made last year as a writer. That’s a pretty good nut, considering things didn’t take off for me until April. It’s not quite enough to support me and Suzy, but when you consider that this year I’m staying in the day job for the first quarter of the year, I think we’ll muddle through.
25,000+ – The number of books I sold or gave away last year. My numbers aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty close, and I think I broke through the 25K number sometime in December. That would be a decent print run for one traditionally published genre fiction novel by an unknown author. I sold that many, but that’s across a dozen or so titles. Still, I’m pretty happy with those numbers, because it certainly proves that more people are buying my books than just friends and family. I’m a helluva guy, but I don’t have that many friends.
10,000+ – Number of copies Hard Day’s Knight sold last year. By far my biggest seller, with the sequels holding the #2 and #3 spots, in order of release. All in all, the Black Knight series accounts for over 17,000 of my books sold.
45 – Number of books I sold in January. I had two books out at that point, Hard Day’s Knight and The Chosen. Things really didn’t take off for me until I released Back in Black, underscoring the importance of continuity for continued sales.
4300 – Number of books I sold in August, the release month for Knight Moves. I had eight books out at that point, some of then only selling a handful per month. This further underscores the concept that a series sells itself. It doesn’t, but it sure is easier to get people to take a look when you’re selling a handful of titles instead of just one.
4 – books in the deal I signed with BellBridge books. They bought the omnibus edition to The Black Knight Chronicles, along with books 4-6. We haven’t really gotten cooking on things yet, but I think it’s going to be a good fit. They’ve got a lot of good plans for making my titles discoverable, and a good track record, so I’m excited.
1 – Book deal I signed in 2011. It may be the only deal I sign for a while, but I plan to keep my options open. I think BellBridge can do some good things for me, and I think I can make us both some money. If another company comes along with a deal that makes sense, I’ll talk to them, but I’m not out looking.
These numbers aren’t meant as a (total) brag post. There are a bunch of self-published authors out there doing as well as or better than me. It’s more to let you know that the midlist does still exist, and there are new voices on it, and you can be one too. Because gods know, if I’ve managed to find some level of success in this wild world of publishing, it’s proof that the sun really does shine on every dog’s ass at some point.
Just for the record, five hours of tattooing is a lot. A whole lot. This is my third tattoo, and by a mile the most extensive. I went in wanting something to symbolize rebirth and transformation as I move from one career into another one entirely. So I looked around for a while before I decided on a tattoo shop, Fu’s Custom Tattoo’s here in Charlotte. I met with Christian Dunn, set an appointment and gave him a piece of reference art to think about.
We started here.
Or more specifically, here, because as much as I love Jean Grey, she wasn’t what I was shooting for.
only without the ginormous boobs. I love boobs, but I don’t want them tattooed on my shoulder.
I left that with Christian to think about, and we scheduled an appointment. I’ll admit to a certain level of nerves when he said that I should come in at 12:30 in the afternoon and that I would be his only appointment that day, because it would be extremely detailed. And a very long process. And take multiple sessions.
I was nervous because I knew what that meant. Pain. Lots of Pain.
I was right. After about an hour and a half of drawing, we were ready to start the outline. Yep, it took over an hour of freehanded drawing before we actually got to any tattoing. Another two hours of needle work, and we had this.
Two hours of having a needle jabbed into my flesh at a bajillion times per minute. A pretty good start. We took a dinner break, and I returned for the last three hours.
Three more hours of having a needle jabbed into my flesh at a bajillion times per minute. And honestly, Christian had a pretty light touch. There were only a few spots where I wanted to cry for my mommy. Mostly up around the top where there’s not much flesh between the skin and the bone. Those spots hurt like hell.
But after three more hours, a bout of lightheadedness, a stomach cramp that would NOT go away, and about a gallon of ink, here’s the end of session 1.
Today my upper arm feels pretty much like I’ve got a bad sunburn. And over the next week this piece will go from lovely to scabby, to flaky, to crappy, back to lovely.
Then in a month or so I get to go back in and get more color done. That will probably only take a couple of hours. I figure when all is said and done I will have spent at least 8 hours in the chair getting inked up.
And I already know what I want for my next one. And the one after that. And the two after that.
It’s a sickness, I know. But they don’t wear out like expensive boots.
I’ve known today’s guest blogger longer than I’ve known any of the other writer friends in the fantasy world. We met long, long ago in another life, in another state, and before a couple more careers for both of us. We reconnected through Facebook and realized that we’re chasing the same dream. Her first book, The Betrayal, came out late last year. Give it a look at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
GO FORTH!
Anyone who loves acting or directing, dreams of working on Broadway.
Anyone who loves dancing ballet, dreams of dancing at Lincoln Center.
Anyone who loves painting, dreams of having their work in a gallery in Paris, London or NYC.
What about writers? Well, many dream of being published.
When you’re about to be forty there’s really no more lying to yourself. I looked at what I’d been doing and realized that there was no way with my current lifestyle I was ever going to be a well known director. In order to really do that I needed to have a flexible job and I work in an office. It’s a good job. I like it. It pays well and gives me insurance. To walk away from that would be stupid. But if I wanted to really have the freedom to be a director I needed to be able to travel and be flexible. I could do neither. So it was apparent to me that staying in theatre for me was just me spinning my wheels. I wasn’t going to move up any higher than I already was at. And to be honest, I wasn’t happy with that.
I thought of my first love, writing, and weighed that against what I was doing. The answer was very clear. I wanted to write more than I wanted to keep plugging away at directing/producing. Hell, the idea of even attending an Off Off Broadway show made me want to squirm. I swore if I saw one more experimental artsy performance I’d shoot the cast and walk out with a clear conscious. So I hunted for the book I’d started writing in college, loaded it up and finished the damn thing.
I hate to even type this…but it was Twilight that made me do this. DON’T SHOOT ME! Let me explain! It’s not the reason you think.
To be honest, I was suddenly afraid someone was going to write/publish my story. No, Twilight is NOTHING like my series (unless you count the word “vampire” as a connection) but it made me go, “Get off your ass, girl, and get it done!” So, though I’m not a huge fan of the series, I thank the powers that be for putting a foot on my ass.
So, book is finished. Now what? Get an agent…right? Then they’d get me a publisher and so on and so forth. Little did I know how much the publishing world was changing. I don’t think I really understood until I owned a Kindle. I was buying books right and left on that thing. So when a writing pal of mine emailed me a link to an e-publisher looking for Fantasy Novels I thought, what the hell, why not?
But what about an agent? I was trying but I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. I’d been submitting to literary agents for a year and a half and nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I caught the eye of some of them and they asked to read it, but then they would disappear off the planet. Or as I had reached the point of saying, “They fell into a ditch and they swallowed their laptop and forgot how to check their email.” Yeah, I’m a little bitter. I’m working on it.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the link my friend had sent me was to Eirelander Publishing. I researched them and submitted. By that Saturday I had an offer in my email. I was shocked. I was in tears. I was leery. It shouldn’t be this easy, right? Then I thought, “Easy? I’ve been bustin’ my ass for a year and a half to get someone to give me a chance!” And when you write vampire novels and your publisher/editor’s name is Buffi, how can you not see it as “meant to be”?
For you see, I started to try and sell the first book of The Living Dead Girl Saga in December of 2009. I told myself if I’d not found an agent by December 2011 I would start considering going to Grad School (somewhere warm ‘cause NYC weather really bites). But, on October 14, 2011 that book was released by Eirelander Publishing in e-book format. We hope to see it hit Amazon Print on Demand early in 2012.
For me, two of my dreams have come true. I’ve worked successfully in the indie-theatre world of NYC and now, I am published. To be honest, the latter really hasn’t sunk in fully. I think that’s because it’s so new and because I’m still a tiny fish in a big pond.
But I will push forth! Book Two, called Shattered, in the Living Dead Girl Saga, has been requested by my publisher so if you’ve read Book One, The Betrayal, and enjoyed it, the next one will be out in 2012!
For more information on me and my books, visit me at www.tamsinsilver.com . Once there you can find links to purchase my book in e-format (Amazon and B&N) as well as a PDF form through my publisher. You’ll also find cool things like pictures of my characters, videos from the photo-shoots, and if you hit the October entries of my blog there are character profiles for most everyone in the LDG Saga. Or, if you want…here are links:
I hope you are following your dreams. If you’re not, stop making excuses and GO FORTH! Jump on the ambition train and make it happen. You won’t regret it. Honestly, even if I’d not gotten published yet, I’d not regret my decision. I’ve met so many great people doing National Novel Writer Month and getting involved with a writing group here in NYC, that I feel suddenly like I’m on the right path. I just wish I’d not avoided that path for ten years due to my fears.
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