Archive for category Appearances

March is for Monsters Giveaway winners and Con Updates!

Apr 4

Posted by john in Appearances, Promos/Giveaways, Real Life | 1 Comment

Check out the widget for the winners! Entering enough times to flood the system certainly worked for JK, who picked up one of EVERY PRIZE! Thanks to everyone who entered, I appreciate your help in spreading the word about my work. I’ll be doing another giveaway in the next few months, so stay tuned for that! All the books will go out by mid-next week, because I leave for Vegas at the end of the week, and want to get all that off my plate before I fly.

I’m still adjusting to life without a day job. I still sit in front of a computer for most of the day, and it still starts at about the same time, but I will admit that there are days that I don’t put on pants until well after noon. This being one of those days. It’s a perk, I’ll admit it. I broke down and bought a new MacBook Air, which I love. It’s crazy fast, and all my stuff transferred over almost seamlessly using Migration Assistant. The only thing it looks like I lost was the saved games in Zuma’s Revenge, so I guess I’ll just have to make my little frog burp up a lot more balls and reclaim my accolades.

Still working on the weight thing – I’m cutting back on portions and cutting back on sodas, so I think I’ve lost a few pounds. Nothing spectacular, but it’s a slow process. I figure in this time of life change if I can lose a couple pounds a month that’ll be a miracle, especially as much as I’m traveling over the next few weeks.

To that end, here’s a list of where I’ll be the next few months if you want to say hello. If you live in any of these areas and want a hard copy of a book, let me know and I’ll pack some, even if I’m not coming to a book show. And I’m always happy to meet folks in a bar or casino to chat about writing, the characters, whatever. If you’re interested in meeting me and hanging out, please don’t be shy. I love to talk about writing, literature, all of it.

April 13-17 – Las Vegas, Nevada – National Association of Broadcasters. I’m staying at the Excalibur and plan to play the Venetian Deep Stacks on Saturday and Sunday. Then I’ll be pitching my new marketing firm at NAB during the week. I’m totally available for drinks in the evening.

April 20-22 – Batesville, Arkansas – Pulp Ark 2012. I’m driving for two days to get to this convention featuring the best new pulp writers and fans in the nation! Come on out if you’re in the Mid-South area. I’ll be stopping in Nashville on the way, so if you wanna get a beer there, let me know.

April 27-29 – Wilkesboro, NC – Merlefest. The only exception to the “I’ll bring books anywhere” rule. I’ll be on a mountain listening to boogie. You’re welcome to listen with me. And chat. But there’s no booze at the festival, and I’ll conduct no business there. It’s a family vacation, and a semi-holy spot for me. You’re all invited, it’s a great time. But no business that weekend :) .

May I’ll be buried in a couple of theatres. I’m designing 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee for Theatre Charlotte, then I go straight into the theatre for the Blumey Awards, a new awards show the big performing arts center in town is hosting to celebrate regional high school theatres. That’s got me booked most of the first three weeks of May.

June is back on the con circuit, kicking off with ConCarolinas here in Charlotte June 1-3. I’ll be hanging out with my Magical Words friends and plenty of other cool folk, so come on by! It’s an excellent mid-sized con for writers.

June 22-24 I’ll be at the Charlotte Convention Center for HeroesCon 2012, one of the largest comic book conventions in the US each year. I’ll be sharing a table with Stuart Jaffe and Tamsin Silver, so come say hi! I’m counting on them to wrestle me to the ground and keep me away from the other vendors so I might actually make a profit this year instead of spending all my money on comics.

Then at the end of June I’m heading to Louisville for what is shaping up to be one of the best cons of the year – Fandom Fest. Stephen Zimmer is putting together some of the best panels I’ve ever seen at a con, and the guest list is super-badass! With guests of honor like Richard Kadreay (Sandman Slim), Ernest Cline (Ready Player One), Robin Hobb (too many to list), Jim Hines, Julie Kagawa and others, not to mention media guests like Bruce Campbell, James Marsters and Sean Astin, this is going to be an awesome show.

That gets me to the July 4th weekend, when I plan to collapse for a few days. I’m currently only scheduled for one con in July and then DragonCon, so I might be looking for a beach house to hole up in and write for the month of August. Hope to see you around one of these events!

I promise I’m not dead, just retired

Mar 31

Posted by john in Appearances, Real Life, Travel | No Comments

Well, for a week or two the jury was kinda out. But here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on since I’ve been out gallivanting around and doing a piss-poor job of telling anyone where I am or if I’m alive.

I went to the Southeastern Theatre Conference in Chattanooga for the 19th consecutive year. It was pretty apropos that I essentially ended my career with Barbizon at this conference, since it was at this conference in Norfolk, Virginia in 1995 where I first heard of Barbizon and met anyone from there. A year later in Louisville, KY I was working in the Barbizon booth!

Some of my best friends in the world were there, and my buddy T-Bone bought what amounted to a bottle of Patron to do a round of shots on Friday night. If you ever stay in Chattanooga for anything, I highly recommend the Chattanoogan. The rooms are lovely, and Alan the cocktail server was amazing. Which reminds me, I need to send him a book for taking such good care of us all weekend. We ended up with twenty people outside by the fire pit on Friday night because it was a lovely night and the band sucked. That marked another first for me – we helped get the house band fired because they were absolutely dreadful. The above pic if just a few folks that were part of the toast, but I wanted to commemorate them here. Thanks to Jeremy K for the pic.

Then I came home and turned up with bronchitis. This happens to me once a year or so ever since I caught pneumonia a few years back. My lungs are a little sensitive, and if I try to go too long without reasonable rest (like doing StellarCon then working a week and doing SETC right behind it), I get sick. This was a doozy, too. I ended up flat on my back for a solid week, and barely recovered for the following week. I was sick enough that it was Wednesday of MidSouth Con before I was 100% sure I was going to Memphis. I watched a lot of Supernatural, broke down and went to the doctor, got some antibiotics that kinda worked, got some hydrocodone-laced cough syrup that certainly made me feel better, then went to see John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett in concert.

Or at least most of John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett in concert. I’d paid a lot of money for those tickets, and there was no way I was staying home, but I only lasted about 2/3 of the show before it got too warm in the theatre and my cough came back with a vengeance. But they were still amazing, and I highly recommend their acoustic set to anyone, especially if you can see them in a converted church that still has the antique Tiffany stained glass windows. But I might be a little spoiled seeing as many shows at Spirit Square as I have. For those of you that have read Back in Black, yes, Spirit Square is a real place, and it’s one of my favorite concert venues ever. If you’re in Charlotte for anything, I highly recommend seeing a show there.

Then I went back to bed for most of a week. Then I tried to get moving again, because I still had a couple days’ worth of my notice to work out, an office to clean, and another con to attend. But more on that later. Now I’m up, I’m healthy (ish) and it’s time to get some writing done!

March is for Monsters starts NOW!

Feb 29

Posted by john in Appearances, Promos/Giveaways | 1 Comment

I know it’s really still February, but I’m starting the giveaway early. Today through Friday, you can get Monsters Beware free on Amazon.

Yesterday you could get Love Stinks, the newest Bubba the Monster Hunter story, free right here. Today it’ll cost you a buck on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

And now you can get entries into the March is for Monsters giveaway! You can win a Kindle Fire, or autographed books!

As always, there’s other cool thriller and horror freebies over on Epic Kindle Giveaway!

And it now seems that I signed up for a table for StellarCon, which I completely forgot about, so I’ll have a table and will be around to sign stuff and sell books all weekend. Stop by and say hello. Did I mention that Patrick Rothfuss is the Guest of Honor? Did I mention that Patrick Rothfuss has written two of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read and that I’m totally a fanboy of his? Did I mention that I ordered his books in hardcover for the express purpose of getting them signed this weekend, regardless of the fact that I’ve already read them electronically? I might be a little excited to meet him. In case any of you were wondering, we writers still have our favorite writers that we get all squee over, and Rothfuss is one of mine. So I’m more than a little excited.

I’m less excited about going to the dentist tomorrow, but I totally need a cleaning, and I think I need a filling, and I need to get both of those things done this month while I still have dental insurance. The dental insurance plans that I’ve seen suck – they’re something like $80/month, with a max annual coverage of $1,000. If I’m going to have to pay almost a grand a year to have insurance, and that insurance only pays a grand in benefits, then I’m still screwed. So I’d not going to have dental insurance after this month, so I’m trying to get anything done by the end of March, when my coverage ends.

Hope to see you at StellarCon,or if not there then at SETC next weekend, or at MidSouthCon the end of the month!

Epic News

Feb 27

Posted by john in Appearances, Business of publishing, Writing | 1 Comment

I’ve joined forces with Scott Nicholson (although according to a comment recently, I may actually be Scott Nicholson, since no one has ever seen us in a room together, but I assure I am not Scott Nicholson, nor could I play him on TV. I’m much too fat these days. But I digress, which makes me more Peter David than Scott Nicholson, but that’s a whole ‘nother post) in his promotional site The Epic Kindle Giveaway. This is a collection of thriller and horror writers all tweeting, facebooking and cross-promoting our Amazon freebies. This should hopefully bring some additional exposure to my work, and some more Twitter followers and more subscribers to my mailing list.

You are signed up for my mailing list, right? I’m still learning how to use MailChimp, but I managed to get out a promo newsletter last week about The Chosen, and some of you obviously enjoyed the reminder, because I sold twice as many copies of that novel the day after the newsletter went out than I had the rest of the month. So that was effective.

I’m also learning to use HootSuite to more effectively manage my Twitter and Facebook feeds, which will become increasingly important as some of my other ventures get off the ground later this spring. I like the interface, and I’m learning how to schedule tweets and posts so I don’t have to be at my computer all the time, which is nice. These tools will let me jam all my promotion and social media time into a shorter window, so I can write in bigger chunks. And that’s the whole goal, right?

This weekend was pretty good on that front. As my days at the job are dwindling, I decided to burn an extra vacation day and not work any more full weeks in the office, so I took Friday off. Friday I got 3,519 words in across two projects, Paint it Black and the Cindy Slaughter book. Saturday I did 4,170 words on three projects – Paint it Black, Cindy Slaughter and mostly on the new Bubba story. And yesterday I got 2,685 words in on the new Bubba story and Paint it Black. I haven’t titled the Cindy Slaughter book or the new Bubba story yet, hopefully I’ll finish the story tonight and have it available for purchase before the end of February.

Yes, I know it’s tight. Thank god for Leap Year. I also still have revisions on Genesis that I’m working on, and I’d like to have that finished soon after getting the Bubba story out the door.

This weekend is StellarCon in High Point – I have three panels, a reading and a signing, so there’s plenty of chances for folks to come by and say hello. If you’re in the neighborhood, please stop by.

And here’s a little more of my music to write by – The Dirt Drifters. I’m loving these guys right now.

Photos for Friday

Feb 24

Posted by john in Appearances, Theatre | No Comments

I’m in a play right now called Almost, Maine for Ballantyne Community Theatre, a fledgling theatre company here in Charlotte. We have our last two performances this weekend, so I thought I’d put up a few photos from dress rehearsal to give you guys a little of the flavor of the show.

StellarCon 36 Update

Feb 21

Posted by john in Appearances | No Comments

I got my schedule this morning for StellarCon 36 in High Point, NC. It looks like a jam-packed weekend of geeky fun, so if you’re anywhere in the area, come on over and say hi! Here’s what I’m scheduled for -

Friday – 5PM – 5:30PM – Reading – I think I’ll pull out some Bubba stuff, maybe a little Black Knight stuff, and maybe even a little poetry if anybody shows up to see the reading.

Friday – 8PM – Prop Building – I’m a theatre guy, so I can talk a little about building props, but it’s not really my strong suit. This will be a rare chance to see me on a panel where I don’t talk a lot.

Saturday – 2PM – The Role of the Publisher in Today’s Market – this will not be a chance to see me be quiet. I’ll be the one championing small press and self-publishing. Should be fun. Too bad Mike Stackpole is doing an interview at this time slot, since this is kinda a hot button for him. With Misty Massey, so I’ll be polite at least. She’ll poker me if I misbehave.

Saturday – 6PM – Pushing the Limits in YA Fiction – What issues should YA lit deal with and what should the boundaries be? I feel like YA lit should deal with anything that young adults may actually have to deal with, but I’m kinda silly that way. On a panel with people who know way more about the genre than I do, like A.J. Hartley and Davey Beauchamp.

Sunday – 1PM – Where do you get your Ideas? And other stupid questions. – This oughta be entertaining

So I hope you’ll be able to come out and join me. In other news, I still have need of a minion for a couple of cons coming up this year. It’s not a paid position, but I’ll get you into cons for free. If you live somewhere that I’m going to be, and have interest in attending cons and helping out a scatterbrained author (or maybe two), let me know.

 

I just blew up a book, I think

Jan 24

Posted by john in Appearances, Business of publishing, Writing | 2 Comments

So I’m pretty sure that my editor and I just blew up Paint it Black, Book IV of The Black Knight Chronicles. I sent in my synopsis, and she did exactly what I want her to do – she poked holes in the book and called me on my BS. That, kids, is why I signed with a traditional publisher instead of continuing to do everything by myself. Having someone who’s worked on a ton of books to look at a sketch of a book and say “nothing is happening, where’s the excitement?” Is worth the chunk of royalty percentage I’m giving up. Especially at this point in my career. I’ve got five novels out, and I think I’m just learning to tell a story.

I’m not going to pitch everything I’ve written in Paint it Black, but I am going to blow up a fair bit of it. As I read my editor’s notes on the synopsis, I realized that there were a couple of things that made this book very different from the others in the series, and not necessarily in a good way. There was practically no supernatural stuff going, I was almost 20,000 words in and we hadn’t had a fight scene yet, and there was no Father Mike. These are problems. I love the character of Father Mike, and he needs to be in every book. The characters are vampires, and they fight supernatural bad guys, so there needs to be a supernatural element. And really, I went nearly a third of a book without a fight scene? God, I was doing some serious navel-gazing.

So I now have a totally new direction for the book, and I’m pretty excited about it. There will be supernatural stuff going on – fairies, trolls, vampires, and new monsters. There will be Father Mike. And there will be fighting. Oh yes, there will be fighting.

So that’s my lesson for the week for self-pubbed authors. If you don’t have someone you trust to bounce ideas off of, then go find that person. I chose a traditional publisher to fill that role, but it can be a critique partner, a friend, whatever. It’s usually not a great idea of it’s a spouse but your mileage may vary.

I’ll leave you with a scene from Chattacon, where I spent the weekend chatting with some awesome authors and publisher types, got to watch one urban fantasy bestseller’s phone leap unprovoked to its death in a vat of bourbon, and realized that writers drink even more than theatre folk. I gotta step up my game! And I got hammered on chocolate wine by mute writer with an iPad and an evil, evil soul! Lando says “Playa, please!”

Chattacon and sales update

Jan 18

Posted by john in Appearances, Business of publishing, Real Life, Travel | No Comments

I got my schedule for Chattacon this weekend – I’m on two panels and have a table in the dealer’s room. So if you’re in Chattanooga come on by the ChooChoo and say hello!

Saturday at noon I’m on a panel called “Out of the Closet and Onto the Page:Self Publishing” with Alan Gilbreath from Kerlak Publishing. As two of the most out-of-the-closet and out-of-bounds panelists in the building all weekend, it oughta be fun. Alan is a good panelist, he has opinions on everything, has experience in the publishing biz, is witty and articulate. And he’s fun to drink with. So I expect us to have fun there.

Saturday at 2PM I’m on “Technology – Help or Hindrance for Writers?” with Mark Van Name and Stephen D. Rogers. Mark is a best-seller for Baen Books, and Stephen has a bunch of books out and teaches workshops on writing and publishing, so that should be fun. I’ve never met either of these guys before, but that’s pretty common for panels.

I’m still looking for a Con Assistant – and I’m willing to take on multiples for different cons. My friend Melissa has already volunteered to minion for me at ConCarolinas and DragonCon because I hang with the other authors she minions for, so adding one more kitten to herd isn’t that tough. Suzy will be my minion at MidSouth Con and Fandom Fest, and I’m sharing a table with folks at Heroes Con, so I really only need a minion at a couple of events. I can’t offer money, but I’ll cover your con costs and most if not all of your food for the weekend. You’re probably going to have to ride with me to the con to keep costs down, but if you already live where I’m coming for a con, then it’ll be easy!

Here’s where I’ll be and when -

March 2-4 – High Point, NC – StellarCon

July 20-22 – Chattanooga – LibertyCon (unconfirmed)

August 3-5 – Columbia, SC – RoundCon (unconfirmed)

Hmm, looks like I need less minioning than I thought – excellent! I knew I got married for something other than love and laundry.

 

Sales are going awesome so far this month – the Bubba the Monster Hunter Collection Monsters Beware is doing very well. I think it might have dipped into the individual short story sales a little, but since I make more on one collection than I make on all four short stories put together, I’m pretty happy with that.

Doesn’t make sense? Here’s the math – I sell the collection for $2.99, which qualifies for Amazon’s 70% royalty, so I get $2.04 per copy sold. Each individual short story sells for $.99, which qualifies for Amazon’s 35% royalty rate. So I get $.35 for each short story sold. There are four shorts, so $1.40 for each set of four short stories. $2.04 is better than $1.40, so I’m better off selling the collections. Of course, my hope it that someone buys (or freebies) the first one, then buys the collection, so I double-dip for an extra $.35. I know, thirty-five cents is less than a pack of gum, but in multiples of a hundred it adds up. I’m still not making Konrath money, but I’m making decent cash, enough so that I can still plan on quitting my day job in March.

Livin’ the dream, baby. Livin’ the dream. See you out on the road!

 

2012 – the schedule (so far)

Jan 9

Posted by john in Appearances, Travel | No Comments

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?

Last Shopping Days…

Dec 16

Posted by john in Appearances, Promos/Giveaways, Real Life, Writing | No Comments

If you wanna guarantee delivery before Christmas, and you want signed books, Monday is pretty much the last day you have any hope of making that happen. So put in your order now!

I’ll be signing at the Charlotte ComiCon this Sunday, come on out and say hi!

Don’t forget that the Win a Kindle Fire contest ends Monday, so get your entries in!

One of my other sites, Red Dirt Review, has a new print and ebook out – check it out. Red Dirt Review is a literary magazine dedicated to bringing you the best in Southern-themed poetry, short stories and memoirs. And you can earn the same number of Kindle fire entries by buying the print or digital edition of that magazine as any of my other books!

And since ’tis the season, here’s my favorite Christmas song of all time, by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.