by john | Apr 19, 2011 | Writing
So the vast majority of this post was taken directly from Derek Canyon’s blog post of yesterday. I asked him to send me over the copy because I’m lazy and I didn’t want to write a blog post of my own announcing this very excellent project. I am very proud to be part of Twelve Worlds, and hope that everyone who enjoys the Black Knight Chronicles will buy a copy to get the exclusive Black Knight story!
I’m pleased to announce that the science fiction and fantasy short story anthology, Twelve Worlds, is now available for $2.99 on Amazon.com. Buy it here!
I contributed a Black Knight Chronicles short story, Daddy Issues, to the anthology. The story takes place before the events in Hard Day’s Knight, so it should be a lot of fun for fans of the series. Admittedly it’s still a little surreal to me to think about having “fans,” but I think it’s actually starting to be true, so I’ll try not to make snide comments about the fact that I have fans. It’s kinda been a dream of mine, and is somewhat hard to believe that it’s happening, but that’s beside the point.
Daddy Issues was a challenge for me, because I don’t do many short stories. The shift from writing a 60,000-word story to a 4,000-word story was a tough thing for me, because I’ve kinda got my rhythm down for how the books go. In a novel, I take my time setting up the main fight, then there’s a red herring or two, a final plot twist then a resolution, usually with a big honkin’ fight at the end. In a short story, I had to strip away all the extra twists and dig right down to the plot and resolution. I think the story still works, and it’s pretty fun, so I hope you guys enjoy it. Plus the money goes to a great cause, so you should all buy it!
TwelveWorlds contains 14 short stories by new and aspiring authors. Genres include my own gritty cyberpunk as well as epic fantasy, romantic fantasy, paranormal detective mystery, star-faring scifi, and more. There’s around 80,000 words total, so that’s a great deal for $2.99.
Author royalties for Twelve Worlds will be donated to Reading is Fundamental, the nation’s largest nonprofit children’s literacy charity.
Here’s a full list of the stories in this anthology:
By a Whisker by Kevin O. McLaughlin (3500 words): Someone is siphoning magical energy from the powerful ley nexus at Northshield University in this urban fantasy. Ryan goes to investigate, and gets help from an unexpected quarter.
The Accidental Muse by Amy Rose Davis (6200 words): A girl with no memory, a grieving widower, and a sweet-natured boy with strange power live a quiet life in their sheltered Keep until the night a traveling musician arrives at the door. The power of the musician’s harp threatens to destroy their family unless one of them can stop it. A tale of gods, muses, mysterious spirits, and the power of love.
The Price of Vengeance by Derek J. Canyon (7400 words): In 22nd century Atlanta, Maggie hunts the genetically-engineered dwarf who killed her entire gang.
Insomnomancer by JE Medrick (3400 words): Witness life through the eyes of a predator. Kyle Hall, barely remarkable in a world of gray faces, is targeted by a very specialized hunter. To the target, it is night after sleepless night. To the Insomnomancer – a game of points and hungry satisfaction.
Thump by NB Kelly (4650 words): When a hitchhiker becomes part of an impromptu road trip, peace is the last thing that two young men will get out of it.
Iron in Shadow by Edward L. Cote (14900 words): The best thief in Rithmoor, the City of Dark Water, goes by the name Slip. He takes on a promising job, but it gets more complicated and dangerous the more he learns about what exactly it is he must do. To avoid certain death at the hands of the Great Magus Dibian, he must risk the wrath of the world’s hardest people.
Together They Die by Brian Drake (3220 words): A former cop helps a ghost solve her murder.
Incubators by Manley Peterson (3200 words): Lost in space, three astronauts struggle to accept their fate aboard a crippled ship. Could a last-minute rescue be all they hoped for?
Cube by Coral Russell (4150 words): Luke’s family isn’t perfect, but they’re worth saving. How far would you go to save your family?
The Star-Eater by K Gorman (6000 words): Karin wakes up one day on her starship, realizing her sister has been killed–but not before her sister cursed the murderer. Now she’s got a man to kill. And her boss is starting to suspect that she’s a little more than human…
Man-Maker by BC Woods (8050 words): A young boy in a society based entirely around defending itself against zombie-like demons refuses a sacred rite of passage.
Daddy Issues by John G. Hartness (4200 words): Vampires, voodoo, zombies and gold-diggers, it’s all in a day’s work for the boys at Black Knight Investigations. Vampire Private Investigators Jimmy Black and Greg Knightwood are called in to dispose of a zombie in the library, but there’s always more than meets the eye where these detectives are concerned. Takes place before the events in Hard Day’s Knight.
BONUS STORIES!
Weird and Wondeful by Tony Lavely (6000 words): Mailira and Marelsa together bring an old Scottish folk tale to life for a young musician.
The Light Stream by Jaylin Baer (3060 words): The transition between waking and sleeping, dreaded by some and enjoyed by others, becomes something altogether different for a very select few. Discover one woman’s journey into the Light Stream.
So, if want to read new stories from 14 talented new authors, you should definitely buy this ebook! Who knows, you might find a new author that you really enjoy!
After reading it, don’t forget to write up a review on Amazon. It really helps sales.
You can also visit the official Twelve Worlds website and discuss the stories.
by john | Apr 18, 2011 | Writing
Never let it be said that there isn’t any benefit to procrastination – the winner of the Kindle 3 giveaway posted her review of Back in Black right under the deadline wire, and got her trivia questions in with just a week to spare!
Our winner is Cat Lail!
Cat did all the stuff you could do to get extra entries – she bought books, reviewed books and answered a bunch of trivia questions. Well, it all paid off because her lucky number was drawn and now she’ll be the proud owner of a Kindle 3G!
Congratulations Cat, and thanks to everyone who stopped by and entered! Stay tuned tomorrow (or the next day, because sometimes I’m slow) for a big announcement about an upcoming promotion event!
by john | Apr 17, 2011 | Poker, Real Life, Writing
Not for me so much, but certainly for a bunch of my friends in the poker industry. For those of you new around here, I spent several years doing tournament coverage for major poker news and play sites. Before and during that time I made a little money, and made a lot of good friends. Due to a change in leadership at my major employer, a disagreement with an editor and a shift in focus in my life, I left all that pretty much behind me a couple years ago. Last summer was the first in several that I didn’t cover the World Series of Poker, and I haven’t stayed up late to watch an internet poker tournament in at least a year.
Turns out to be good timing on my part, since Friday the US Dept. of Justice laid out indictments against key figured in the operation of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UltimateBet. What does this mean for yours truly? About $700 of my money is trapped in online poker accounts that I won’t be able to get to for the immediate future. I’m sure I’ll be able to get it eventually, and I’m not really sweating it.
What does it mean for some of my friends and acquaintances? Unemployment, major chunks of their life savings locked away in the poker sites’ accounts, uncertainty in their income stream for the foreseeable future, and a lot of other ugliness. I have the utmost faith that most of my friends will eventually come out okay, because they are very bright and talented people, and they also were pretty aware that they were riding a volatile vehicle and it could go KABOOM at any moment. So, with the exception of some denial that may have led some folks to leave more money in online poker accounts than they should have, they’ll be okay in the long term.
But for me, the events of the weekend did make me sit back and look around for a minute. Two years ago, I was counting on about a quarter of my income coming from writing about poker. When that went away, I tightened the belt a little (but not much, because it’s still a significant girth to go around), but I’ve never really replaced that revenue. Now I’m beginning to be in a place where that revenue is starting to trickle back in via book sales. This month will be my best month ever for sales (by a LONG shot), with over 500 e-books sold already. That’s more than triple the number of books I sold last month, and if I’m lucky, I’ll break 900 for the month. That’s a big help with the monthly finances, and with at least two more books to come this year, hopefully we can keep things on an upward trend.
But what happens in the future? Do I quit my job and try to write for a living? I could certainly be more prolific if all I had to do each day was write and promote. But will the money ever be there? I dunno. I honestly have no idea. I have hopes, and I have examples from other indie authors that I’m trying to follow, but who knows if I’ll ever get to David Dalglish numbers, or Michael Sullivan numbers, much less Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking numbers. I’m not looking for James Patterson money, just enough to pay my bills and live comfortably (and I could be very comfortable in a yacht, BTW). Right now I have a good job and my book sales are finally approaching enough money to be considered a nice side income. For now, I’ll live with that and keep writing. Book 3 of Black Knight Chronicles will drop this summer, with another book coming in the fall. I’m not sure if it will be book 1 of Return to Eden or this odd horror novel that’s been bugging me the past few days. But my point is, I have plenty of ideas, so I can keep writing for a while. And as long as people are buying books, I’ve got something going for me.
by john | Apr 9, 2011 | Writing
I’ve got a post up on Derek’s blog and he was kind enough to trade me one for here. Go check out his blog to read my drivel after you’ve read him here.
John and I (and a dozen other indie authors) have been collaborating on a science fiction and fantasy anthology titled Twelve Worlds. It will be available very soon for $2.99. It has fourteen different stories by different authors just starting out in the epublishing arena. It’s a great way for you to find great new worlds to explore. Plus, author royalties go the Reading is Fundamental charity.
While working on Twelve Worlds, John suggested that we swap excerpts for our novels in hopes of cross-pollinating our readership. Before I agreed, I read John’s novel, Hard Day’s Knight, to make sure that our genres were compatible. After all, my gritty, action-packed cyberpunk novel wouldn’t fit too well at the end of a Victorian romance or courtroom drama. I really enjoyed HDK, and I decided that John’s sarcastic, action-packed paranormal detective stories are a great accompaniment for Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance. I think that our styles complement each other nicely, and apparently so do our readers. We now show up on each other’s Customer Also Bought lists on Amazon.
Unfortunately, there is no way to know how many sales we are creating for each other. We can only hypothesize. I’m selling around 40 copies of Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance per day. Every one of those purchases also gets the excerpt from John’s novel. Since John’s excerpt is such a great hook into his world, I have to believe that at least a few of my readers also buy his book. Even if it’s only 5%, that’s still an extra 60 books a month for John. I’ve been seeing my numbers increase since we traded excerpts, so I’m guessing I also get an extra few a day from John’s readership.
Another great thing is that I’m also showing up on the Also Bought list for John’s other ebooks. My excerpt is in Back in Black, but my books also show up on the pages for Hard Day’s Knight and The Chosen. John’s books are also showing up on my other ebook page. So, even though our excerpts appear only in one other book, we’re both getting exposure on multiple book pages. What this tells me is that authors with multiple titles are very valuable for the excerpt trading strategy.
The Also Bought lists are a great advertising tool. Actually, the Also Bought lists are prime advertising real estate. But there’s no way for writers to show up on those lists except by selling our books to the same audience. Fortunately, trading excerpts is a great way to do that. Any additional exposure is a godsend for us small indies. For no cost at all I’m getting advertised on John’s Amazon book pages, and he’s getting advertised on mine! Win win!
What this means for me
I will continue to trade excerpts with authors writing in genres compatible with mine. I see no reason not to include multiple excerpts in the back of my novels. Maybe 3? So, if anyone else would like to trade excerpts, give me a shout and let’s talk about it.
What this means for you
If you’re an aspiring author, I recommend that you locate other authors to trade excerpts. There is absolutely no downside to it. At the very worst, you spend an hour or so adding their excerpt to your book and you get no additional sales. At best, you get free advertising in the other author’s book AND on their book pages AND you sell more books.
by john | Apr 7, 2011 | Poker, Real Life, Vegas, Writing
Ok, not as young as I once was, but as the song goes, I’m as good once as I ever was. I leave tomorrow night for Vegas. I’m going out to attend the National Association of Broadcasters show for the day job, but since the show starts Monday I thought I’d take the weekend and play a bit. Then I found out that the Venetian is having their Deep Stacks Extravaganza poker tournament series this month, so I’ll definitely be playing that on Saturday. My friend Hoyazo went deep in one of those last year for a very nice score, and since I’ve cashed in the Venetian daily tournament several times I thought I’d give it a shot. I get in around 8PM Vegas time Friday, and hopefully I’ll catch a couple hours sleep on the plane so I can stay up for a while when I get there. I don’t really care if I do anything tomorrow night, but I want to be able to go to bed and sleep until at least 8AM Saturday, so my sleep schedule will get right quickly. It’s usually not an issue for me in Vegas.
So if you’re in Vegas, and want to get together, email me. I’ll be at the Venetian Saturday, and hopefully Sunday, and at the Convention Center during the day Monday thru Wednesday. I fly home on the redeye Wednesday night and am participating in a writer’s panel Thursday afternoon. That should be entertaining for everyone!
Book sales are soaring, for some reason I’ve jumped from averaging 3 books a day in February to 20 or so per day in April. Hard Day’s Knight keeps creeping up and up in the Amazon rankings, finally breaking through the 3,000 mark today. Lower is better on those rankings, and all three books had been living in the 20-30,000 level. Now HDK and Back in Black are pretty much living under 10,000, and The Chosen is hanging out around 20,000. I’m thrilled with the progress, and with some recent reviews. Obviously I hope it keeps up, I’ve got truck payments to make :).
Volume 3 of The Black Knight Chronicles is coming right along, I’m probably about 10% finished with the first draft. I hope I’ll be able to get some work done on it while in Vegas, but I’m not holding my breath. NAB is a tough show, with long hours and a huge attendance, so I’ll be working pretty much non-stop the whole time I’m there. That’s okay, I’ve got this weekend to play!
by john | Apr 6, 2011 | Poker
Best Books About Poker
Lots of poker fans love to read about the game but of the thousands of poker books on the market, 95% of them deal solely with things like poker strategy and the mechanics of the game. While everyone would love to know the optimal way to play pocket jacks from early position, it doesn’t exactly make for gripping reading, especially if you’re a more casual fan of the game (or buying a present for a poker playing friend or family member). Below you’ll find some of the best books about poker that take a broader, more writerly approach to the game and include a lot of the fascinating history that makes poker such an interesting game.
“The Biggest Game in Town” by Al Alvarez is one of the most compelling books about poker, coming from a writer that’s well-known in literary circles. Alvarez deals with poker before the online boom of the early 2000s, weaving together a variety of amazing stories, anecdotes, and interviews with poker players in the early 1980s as they made their way to Las Vegas to take on the world’s biggest poker games. Be forewarned, though, that Alvarez deals with an older generation of poker players (such as Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Johnny Moss, and Nick the Greek), so you’re not going to find any ink spilled on players that weren’t even born in 1983 such as Tom Dwan or Viktor Blom.
Anthony Holden’s “Big Deal’ is another amazing poker book, which chronicles Holden’s attempt to make a go of it on the professional poker circuit for a year from 1988-1989. His book deals much more with the psychological and emotional toll that poker can exact, with players chasing a big score that often remains just out of reach. While it’s very much about poker it also appeals in a broader sense to anyone who’s found themselves chasing a dream that takes them farther and farther away from the people they care the most about in their lives — a plight that many poker players face each and every day.
Jim McManus has contributed two excellent poker books to the canon: “Posititively Fifth Street” and “Cowboys Full: the Story of Poker”. “Positively Fifth Street” includes personal poker action from McManus’ deep run in the in the 2000 WSOP Main Event, with the backdrop of the murder trial of Ted Binion (which is the story he was originally sent to Vegas to cover). “Cowboys Full” is a more historical piece on the evolution of the game of poker over the years, from its humble beginnings to the poker boom fueled by online poker rooms that has seen it grow into a multi-billion dollar global industry.
This has been a sponsored post.
by john | Apr 4, 2011 | Writing
I’ve got a few posts percolating, but here’s a quickie for a Monday morning. Hard Day’s Knight has gotten a great review over on Grace Krispy’s MotherLode Blog. She enjoyed the book, and lodges some valid critiques about character development and editing. Editing is something that all self-pubbed (indie) authors struggle with, and I’m grateful that for the most part people give me at least a partial pass on a few typos. I try as hard as I can to weed them all out, and use beta readers and freelance editors to try and get the ones that I didn’t see, but some slip through the cracks nonetheless.
I’m not making excuses (yeah, I know I really am) because the ultimate goal is as error-free a product as can be produced, but for me typos are something that are going to fall below writing new material and promoting existing material, at least as long as I’m a one-man band. Once I get to the point where I can hire an assistant to handle some of those things, I’ll be doing everything myself, and thanking all that is holy for Richard Brodie every time I see the red squiggly line (inside joke, I’ll explain it over a drink if you care that much). And frankly, it’s hard and I’m pretty lazy by nature, so I appreciate the folks that read the books and enjoy them anyway, and I’ll take my lumps for the typos that slip past me and my editors.
But let’s be real clear – it’s not just a self-pub issue. I had real problems with a legacy publishing book a few months ago because there was a consistent homonym error. Not once, but every time the word was used, the incorrect homonym was chosen. I don’t remember the book, and I don’t remember the specific words, but it was something as basic as “through” instead of “threw.” And I remember how it jarred me out of the world of the book (and also made me a little schadenfreude – esque to see a major publishing house miss one, too. So I try to weed all the typos out of my work, because I know it’s important to keeping my readers in the world of the book and not disrupt the flow of the story. And thanks to all the readers and critics who cut me a little slack (just a little) for being stuck in a one-person enterprise.
On the promo and contest front – the winner of the Kindle/Nook/Gift Card will be announced this week!
Also on the promo tip I’ll be running a blog tour coming up in the near future, so there will be more coming on that soon.
And I’ve actually gotten rolling on Knight Moves, Book 3 of the Black Knight Chronicles. I’m only at a bout 3,000 words, but I’ve plotted most of it out, as well as a rough story arc for Books 4 & 5, so I should be able to get the first five books out by the end of next year!
Sales are cooking right along for April, so thanks for all the support, I appreciate it!
by john | Apr 1, 2011 | Writing
To say that things picked up a little in March with regards to books sales would be a pretty significant understatement. I’m happy to say that my revenue rebounded from a dismal February, and that I blew through all hopes of my ebook sales for the month.
February was a good ebook sales month, seeing 88 total units sold, but a terrible revenue month, barely breaking $100 for the month overall. There are a couple of reasons for this – I dropped the price of Hard Day’s Knight to .99 halfway through the month, and I did no personal appearances/signings/cons during the month.
So in March I had high hopes for a 20% increase in units sold, which would be 106 ebooks (these are all Amazon-only numbers, because so far my sales on all other ebook sites are negligible). I chugged along through the month, steadily selling a couple of books each day, and when we got into last week I felt pretty good about my chances of getting there. My revenue also increased pretty strongly because I did a few trade shows and friends from the lighting world bought a few copies off me at those shows (I actually sold 16 books at the two shows, and two more at the Charlotte ComiCon, so 18 books sold face to face in a month is pretty damn good for me).
Then this week happened. And I have no idea what happened, but somewhere a switch got flipped and books started to sell. I had a strong sales night last Sunday night, with 4-5 overnight sales, and then proceeded to average about 10 sales per day for the rest of the week. Now these aren’t Joe Konrath numbers by any stretch, but they resulted in a whopping 43% increase in sales from month to month! That also equated to a minimum of $315 total revenue for the month, the first time I’ve cracked the $300 mark in a single month. I don’t expect for every month to be this good, but I would like to hope that I can get steady growth from month to month. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, according to everyone who sells more books than I do.
So I got started last night working on Book 3 of Black Knight Chronicles, with a hopeful release date of June (yeah, I can do that – write a book in April and release it in June – one of the nice freedoms of being indie). Because the best way for me to keep sales increasing is to keep adding to the list of stuff I have for sale. So there’s my quick update on March, sales like a lion, let’s hope April continues the upward trend!
by john | Mar 30, 2011 | Poetry, Writing
As we pull into the last couple of days of March (just a few hours left to enter my contest for a Kindle!), National Poetry Month is looming on the horizon. To celebrate said celebration, I’m going to participate in Kells’ Poetry Book Giveaway! All you have to do is comment here to enter, and you’re entered! One lucky winner will win a copy of Rhett Iseman Trull’s amazing book, The Real Warnings. The consolation prize will be a copy of my book, Red Dirt Boy, signed by the redneck himself!
Yes, I know the link is to the ebook, but you are registering to win analog editions of both books!
I saw Rhett Iseman Trull read selections from this book last year at an event at the Green Rice Gallery, and it’s simply one of the best books of poetry I’ve ever read. I laughed, I cried, I was in awe of the poems this woman crafted. I liked it so much I quit writing poetry for a month or two because I felt like I couldn’t touch the quality that she nailed in this book. Don’t worry, eventually my ego rose back to the surface and I resumed writing. But I still love the book and think everyone should have one, so leave a comment and you might just get one!
Red Dirt Boy is my second collection of poetry for people who think poetry is for wussies. There’s laughing, shooting, drinking, strippers and even a little dancing scattered through the pages, and I’ll be happy to autograph it for whoever wins. I might even spill a little moonshine on it just to complete the package! So leave a comment, and win a book!
by john | Mar 29, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
So I’ll admit to crushing a little on Kalayna Price just off of her author’s pic. But seriously, go here and tell me she’s not just cute as all get out. I dare you. Then I met her at RoundCon, and found out that she’s just as nice, engaging and smart as she is cute and fashionable (there’s a post coming about convention/signing wear, the writer’s costume and all that, but I think I have to finish formulating my opinion before I can write it. Not that having a half-baked opinion has ever stopped me from writing anything.). Then I got my paws on an electronic copy of Grave Witch, her first Alex Craft novel, and damn if she isn’t the trifecta – gorgeous, nice and a hell of a writer, too!
I only have the ridiculously good-looking and talented parts covered, personally. I’m not really that nice, so I only get two out of three. Oh well, just imagine how insufferable I’d be if I were any cooler? But I digress. Again.
Grave Witch is a novel about Alex Craft, and she sees dead people. More to the point she’s a private investigator that can raise ghosts (shades in the world of the book, as ghosts are different, but world-building isn’t my gig). Alex is a great character in that she’s struggling – she doesn’t have her crap together by any stretch, and I love that real weakness in a character. Alex is broke, has a crap car, is estranged from her family, and doesn’t have a boyfriend. Except for Death, who keeps dropping by and looks better in a pair of jeans than a force of nature really has any right to.
I found Grave Witch to be a quick read, engaging from start to finish, with a good foundation for sequels (one’s coming later this year, as a matter of fact). I cared about the characters and wanted to see more of them, which is great for a first book in a series. I thought Kalayna built an interesting world, with some neat twists on our own society, but still similar enough to our reality to be really familiar. I happily paid the publisher’s retail on the ebook, even though I usually balk at paying more than $5 for a digital edition, and I’ll buy the others as soon as they’re available, too.
So here’s a raging debate in the ebook world – pricing. What’s fair for an ebook? I paid $6.99 for Grave Witch, and just bought Neil Gaiman’s American Gods today for $9.99. Those are pretty steep prices for a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, but certainly not significantly more than I’m accustomed to paying for an album of a dozen songs. So what’s fair? Neil Gaiman will get maybe $2 out of the ten I spent, and Kalayna got maybe $1.50 off her book. When I sell an ebook for $2.99, I get $2.05, but am I still selling too cheap? After all, I don’t write for art, I write to get paid. I know, I’m supposed to love my work and suffer for it, but I’ve got twenty years of theatrical suffering under my belt, I don’t need any more.
I think $5 is a reasonable price for a novel, and it should stay in the “impulse buy” category. So April 1 I’ll be raising the price of my $2.99 novels to $4.95, as an experiment. So if you’ve been planning to buy The Chosen or Back in Black, you should do so before Friday, or you’ll pay more (not that I have a problem with that).
On a related but different note, what do you think about combo packs? A paperback book packaged with a promo card for a free download. Any interest? How about being able to buy a postcard at a book show with a promo code for a download? That way you can still get something signed by the author if you’re into that, but you can stay all-digital in your reading habits. That was something Bobby and I were chatting about at the con last weekend.
