Every once in a while I just like to remind y’all that you can find me all over the interwebs.
So if you visit here, feel free to “like” me on Facebook
You can follow me on Twitter.
You can even subscribe to my email list, which I’m using more since there’s a free Bubba story every week nowadays!
Nah, I’m not giving you my phone number, that’s a little creepy. But you check out all that stuff above, and you’ll see I’m really easy to find.
With apologies to Scalzi. But not really. He doesn’t own the term, no matter what the Google machine might think :). I hate titling blog posts. Frankly, I hate titling anything, which is why I rip off song titles for almost all my books and story titles.
First off, the Help Peter David contest will keep going until next Monday! You have more chances to win a t-shirt, but the real reason the contest is going to keep keeping on is because the awesome Davey Beauchamp is donating some signed Peter David comics! So I have more prizes for more winners! You don’t need to buy anything to win, but the whole point is to get people to buy Peter’s books to help him and his family deal with the bills from his recent stroke. So don’t be a cheap-ass, go buy something to help one of my favorite writers.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, either scroll down or click here. According to his blog, which his wife is keeping updated, he’s been moved to rehab, which is way less cool when you’re not a rock star drying out, and will be living there apart from his family for a month or more. That’s gotta suck eight ways to Sunday, and is going to be hell expensive any way you slice it, so reach deep and buy his shit while he’s sick. Hell, buy his shit when he’s well, too. Peter is a giant in the comics industry and I’ve been a big fan of his almost as long as I’ve been able to pay attention to the writing in comics. I think after Chris Claremont, Peter David was the second comic book writer name I learned to recognize.
Moving along, because this can’t all be a blog about me being charitable and nice, otherwise it would fuck up a carefully crafted reputation. I got an agent! Not a literary one, which might make a few people shake their heads. Some of y’all know I’ve been an actor for a long time. It’s what I went to school for, it’s been a passion of mine for many years, and now I’m taking steps to make it a secondary revenue stream. Hell, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if it became a primary revenue stream. But don’t sweat it, I’m still writing, I’m still editing, I’m still designing. I’m still doing all the things I’ve been doing, I’m just trying to add a little acting on top of that to help pay the bills. But I’m excited about the prospect of doing some commercials, maybe some small features. Who knows, maybe I can get a little spot on Homeland? After all, it shoots right up the road!
Come see me this weekend at Illogicon! Here’s my Schedule!
The State of Short Fiction: (Friday, 5 PM, Reynolds)
Comedy in Sci-fi/Fantasy: (Saturday, 1 PM, Reynolds)
Reading (Saturday, 7 PM, Crescent)
Ebooks: (Sunday, 11 AM, Smith) (M)
Humanizing Your Villains: (Sunday, 2 PM, Smith)
Self Promoting Without Going Broke: (Sunday, 3 PM, Reynolds)
Other times I can be found somewhere drinking, so come look for me!
Bullshit.
There, I think that’s enough of a post for one day, right?
No?
Okay, fine, I’ll expand a little. We’ve heard those words uttered for years about various teachers who have failed at various things, and I’m certainly guilty of throwing the phrase around more than once about a professor or two that I’ve had in my day. But now that I’m teaching with something resembling regularity at Carolina Learning Connection (next class Saturday, a few spots still available!), I realize what utter bullshit that is.
I am never focusing more on my writing than when I’m trying to explain writing to someone. This goes for editing as well, but for my post on editing you’ll have to wait until next week when I debut as the newest regular member of the Magical Words blog team! Yep, I’m no longer the pinch-hitter, I’m now a regular member of the team. I’ll be posting every other Thursday, alternating with the amazing and lovely Kalayna Price. So for more craft-specific posts, you’ll be able to find me there.
Eventually. For now, I’ll talk about these classes that I teach. So far, I’ve led three half-day workshops in rotation. One is called The Next Step, and it talks about the various paths to publication for various types of work. Since I’ve published everything from news articles to poetry to novels, I’ve seen a lot of angles of the publishing business in a very short time. The second class that I offer is Self-Publishing for Fun & Profit, where I talk about why people should self-publish, why they should NEVER self-publish, and what to expect if they decide to self-publish. Then I also teach a Social Media and Self-Promotion for the Writer class. This goes into Facebook, Twitter, blogging, why you should, why you shouldn’t, what you should do, what you should never do, and how to avoid my mistakes. :).
And other writers teach as well, frequently much better than me. If you want to see an amazing writing class, check out this YouTube series featuring Brandon Sanderson.
I have a great time teaching them, and am looking forward to this weekend’s class, but I really do work at these things. It’s not like back-breaking labor, I am sitting in a conference room talking to people for four hours, but the prep is sometimes tough. This weekend we’ll be looking at shrinking markets, as mergers in publishing are going to eventually narrow the number of major publishers even further. And with the timeline of corporate mergers, that narrowing will take place right about the time that books bought by those houses today are ready to drop. That means orphaned books, kiddies, so be careful who you’re submitting to for the next six months or so.
Just a little Nostradamus (sp?) action from your favorite hillbilly.
On a completely different tip, I continue to be amazed at the consistent growth in Bubba book sales. All the collected volumes continue to do well, and I’m very grateful for that. If anybody out there has a hookup with the SyFy channel, feel free to slip a Bubba ebook under the door. I think the series would be so awesome on that network. But that’s beside the point. At last night’s writer’s group I knocked out the outline for Bubba Season 2 Episode 1, called Love Hurts. But gimme your feedback – is that too similar to Love Stinks, which I used last year? Leave a comment and let a brutha know.
I’m also hip-deep in editing clients, and do not have any more slots for edits until the last week of January. So if you have a book ready to go that you want to have drop in March, get on board with me now or we won’t make that deadline. It takes a couple of solid weeks up to a couple of months to get a book polished and ready to go, so don’t find yourself behind the eight ball.
I’m out – got a bunch of freelance stuff due and some invoicing to send out. Also booking some travel. Very excited to have snagged a table at MidSouthCon this year, which I’ll be sharing with the awesome James R. Tuck. If you’re going to be in Memphis, please come by and say hello. And if you’re going to be anywhere in the Raleigh/Durham area next weekend, please come out to Illogicon and say hi! I’ll be there all three days!
Hey y’all –
I don’t know about you, but I’m just now getting back into my groove after Dragon*Con and NY Comic Con. That’s certainly one reason I don’t think I can do both of those cons in a year again – they’re just a little too close together for massive cons like that. I know there’s six weeks between them, but I need more. Anyway, nobody cares about all that.
Here’s where you can find me at upcoming events for the next couple weeks. When I’m not at these places, I plan to be nose-first in my keyboard because I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year and I really intend to blow it up. I think I should be able to easily hammer out 50,000 words in about two weeks, so this bitch better be done by Thanksgiving!
Tonight & Tomorrow Night (and Sunday @2:30, Nov. 1-3 @ 8PM, Nov. 4 @ 2:30PM, Nov. 7-10 @ 8PM, Nov. 11 @ 2:30PM)- 8PM – Theatre Charlotte, In the Heat of the Night. Great play, come check it out. The cast is going to Philosopher’s Stone tonight after the show, you’re welcome to join us and tell us how awesome we are.
Sunday – UNCC Cone Center – UNCC Guild Game Day – this is where the gamer geeks come hang out, play Magic or other games, and I set up my little display table and try to sell books. Worst case I’ll play cards and hang out.
November 14, 7-9PM – I’ll be signing the Black Knight Omnibus at Park Road Books. Faith Hunter and Kalayna Price will be joining me. Come by and say hello. Maybe we’ll grab a beer afterwards. Well, let’s put it this way – I’m going to get a beer afterwards. You’re invited.
November 15 – Time Warner Cable Arena – Madonna. Don’t judge, I’m a married man, and I owe her this. I will be intoxicated. That is all.
November 16-18 – Charleston Convention Center in North Charleston, SC – Magic Grand Prix Charleston. I’ll be playing Magic: The Addiction all weekend long, but if you want to come say hello, I’ll probably have books in my bag if you want to pick one up.
November 22 – Thanksgiving at Mom & Dad’s. There’s always plenty. If you can find the place by lunchtime, drop by. We have extra. Just say you’re Cousin Ralph. No one will notice, but you’re in charge of the cranberry sauce. And it better be that gelatinous crap with the ridges from the can left in it. None of this real cranberries bullshit for my family!
November 24 – New World Comics in High Point – 4PM – 6PM – I’ll be doing a signing in a comic shop. Sounds like I’ll be spending more than I sell again. But I’ll have a great time doing it!
Then December 16th, join me for the Charlotte Comicon at the new location. No I don’t remember where it is, go to the website. It’s the best one-day con in Charlotte. It’s awesome!
Yeah, except for the thirty-seven appearances I have this month, I’ll be writing. No friggin’ wonder I never get anything written. I got more done when I had a day job. At least then I had a lunch break. Whine, whine, whine, grumble, grumble, grumble. See ya in the funny papers!
Because when there’s over 100,000 frigging people at a convention, it gets more than one post! And yes, there will be photos. And yes, most of them will be of hot chicks in skimpy outfits.
Let’s start with a quick overview. If you’ve been to many fandom-based conventions, like MidSouth Con, ConCarolinas, even Dragon*Con, you ain’t seen nothing like Comic Con. It’s way more of a trade show than a con. What I mean by that is that people mostly buy their Comic Con tickets for the exhibit hall and the autographs, and the panels are kind of an afterthought. There were exhibits from Xbox, Marvel, DC, Legendary Pictures, Dark Horse, Chevrolet, Craftsman Tools.
Yeah, I said Chevy and Craftsman had booths at Comic Con. Now do you get what I mean by this was a trade show and not a normal con? Craftsman paid someone to write and draw and custom comic book with their superhero in it to promote their Bolt-On series of tools.
Take a minute and go there. The first time I saw “Bolt-On Tool” I went there. Couldn’t help it.
So it was a very different environment for me than most cons. I kinda knew what to expect, having done the Heroes Con for a couple of years. But this was way, WAY bigger. Like 4X bigger. And that meant that it was easy to miss stuff, like a small book booth. Or like Artists’ Alley, which I never set foot in all weekend. Or the panel rooms, which I never saw.
And missed out on a chance to meet Kim Harrison, which was a bummer. But there will be other cons, and hopefully she will attend some of them. But I did see Richard Kadrey and had a nice chat with him on Sunday, so that was nice.
But I sold almost everything I took with me. I had about a dozen books left when the show was over, so that was good. I was mostly pushing the Black Knight Omnibus, because it’s new and shiny. And looks amazing!
I took 50 copies of the omnibus with me, and sold 40 of them. I sold out of Genesis and The Chosen, and had 2 copies of Bump in the Night left at the end of the weekend. So it was a good weekend for sales. I even sold a couple of Read Recklessly t-shirts!
But I won’t be doing NY Comic Con again any time soon.
It’s a really expensive show, because everything in New York is expensive. And it’s not a wonderfully organized show, and there aren’t really very many opportunities for me to really connect with fans, other than pitching them a book. And while that’s fun, it’s not as much fun as sitting on a bunch of panels and talking about the craft.
And I’m trying to cut back (a little bit) on the number of shows I do. I’m already committed to nine cons next year, with a couple of other maybes, and that’s a bunch. It gets expensive, and while some of the cons I can split rooms with folks and ride share for gas, I can’t always count on that. The only way I was able to afford NYCC was because my awesome friend Tamsin let me sleep in her spare room for the weekend and shepherded me around the subway. Otherwise it would have cost half again as much as Dragon*Con!
But I had a good time. I met some awesome folks, a couple of whom have already dropped me a line on Facebook or email, so I hope I can get scheduled into some smaller con in the Northeast soon. Just not a con with 100,000 people. That’s way too big for this old country boy!
But check out some of the costumes! 
I’m here. I know, I start a lot of posts that way, don’t I? I haven’t been on here in a while because I’ve been swamped in my new obsession, Magic:The Gathering. And I’ve been using that to distract me from some other issues, namely dismal book sales numbers for the past six weeks. Things have been bad since the middle of August and I’m hoping they pick up, otherwise I’m looking for a McJob to fill the gap come the first of the year. That wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing in the world, but it wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun, either.
But on the bright side, the Omnibus is out, in print and on Kindle. It will be hitting the Nook and all other ebook formats soon, just waiting for it to get processed. You can order it from Amazon here, or if you’re going to be in the Big Apple next weekend, come by Booth #2167 at the Javits Center and say hi. I’ll be up there with my friend Tamsin for NY Comic Con. This is my first time hitting that show, and I’m very excited. And a little terrified.
I’ve been teaching workshops each weekend on writing and publishing, and that’s been a lot of fun. My classes are getting larger and larger enrollment, and that’s good, since I get paid on a tuition split :). The classes have been getting favorable reviews, too, so if you’re in the Charlotte area, come on out and spend a Saturday morning with me! Tomorrow I’m teaching marketing and self-promotion for writers. And now I’ve got to get back to writing the outline for that class, so I gotta boogie.
