by john | Dec 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
So hey there. It’s hard to get back in the habit of blogging regularly when you’ve been the kind of slackass I have lately, but I’m working on it. Just wanted to pop by and give y’all a heads up on the classes I’ll be offering and the cons I’ll be attending in the next couple of months. All these classes are offered through Carolina Learning Connection, and you can click the linky to sign up.
December 29 – Self-Promotion and Marketing for the Writer – this is how to use social media to sell yourself, how to market your book, how to dress and behave at conventions, essentially the entire guide to how to sell yourself and your books, all in a 4-hour workshop.
January 5 – The Next Step – What to do with a short story or manuscript after you’ve finished it. We’ll talk about all the various forms of publishing from magazines and literary journals to self-publishing or selling s series to a NY publisher.
January 19 – Self-Publishing – We’ll talk about what it is, what it isn’t, why should, why you shouldn’t, and what to expect from a self-publishing experience.
February 5-26 (One Night per Week) – Novel Writing – We’ll go through the whole thing – the outlines, the pantsing, the character development, the turning points, the two and three-act structure, word count, world-building, the whole nine yards. Then you’ll need to go take The Next Step class to figure out what to do with it.
February 27-March 13 (one night per week) – Short Story Writing – like the one above, but for short stories. Duh.
March 30 – Teaching Self-Promotion again. Most writers need this more than any class I teach. Less of them sign up for it. Silly writers.
Conventions and Appearances –
Sunday 12/16 – Charlotte Comicon – Come on out to our new, larger location and check out this awesome one-day family-friendly con! I’ll be there with books, t-shirts and other awesome Christmas gifts.
January 11-13 – Illogicon 2 – I went up to hang out at this new con last year, now I’m going back as a guest! Should be a lot of fun, but still pretty low-key. I dig low-key.
February 22-24 – Mysticon – This will be my first trip to Mysticon, so y’all come out and make a brother feel welcome!
So that’s what I’m up to the next few months. Come out and say hello, especially this weekend at the Charlotte ComiCon!
by john | Sep 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
Yep, the omnibus is finally here! And for just nine bucks, you can download the first three Black Knight Chronicles books. These are heavily revised editions, re-worked with a lot of extra details, better character development, all that good stuff. Think of it as “the author’s preferred edition.”
No, you don’t have to buy them all over again.
It’s not that I don’t want all my readers to read these new versions, but it would be pretty rude of me to make you pay twice for a book you’ve already bought, wouldn’t it? So here’s the plan – within a few days I will upload the revised editions to Amazon in the individual books. If you’ve already bought the Black Knight novels, all you’ll need to do to get the new editions is delete the old file from your kindle, and download it again. The new download will be the new books, and you’ll get the revised editions without having to pay for the books again.
This will only work on Amazon, and will only work on ebooks. I can only manipulate the universe in so many ways, sorry. But since the vast majority of my readers have bought the book on Kindle, this should get 95% of you the revised books at no cost.
It won’t hurt my feelings if you go out and buy the omnibus, but you don’t have to. Welcome to the digital world.
In other news, I had a great time teaching my Next Step publishing class last Saturday at Carolina Learning Connection, and am offering a new set of Writer Services as an outgrowth of that class and the Self-Publishing class I’ve taught a few times. If you’re a writer and are looking for developmental editing/book doctoring or just need someone to help with ebook creation and upload, click the tab for “Writer Services” at the top of the page.
And if you’re interested in learning more about Self-Publishing or Marketing for Authors, check out my other classes at Carolina Learning Connection.
by john | Sep 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
I’m joking, of course. I enjoyed the vast majority of Dragon*Con, as I do almost every con I attend. This one, however, had some . . . challenges that had little to do with Dragon*Con itself, and more to do with circumstances and expectations. So I had a good time overall, learned a lot about how to do a major con as a working author, made some great connections, and came home exhausted.
Let’s start with the good – it was awesome seeing friends old and new. As David Coe said in our booth on Monday, “These are the best times of any con.” The times I get to spend with my friends is what makes a con worthwhile. So spending booth time with David, Faith, Kalayna and James was awesome. Getting to know the adorable Lucienne Diver better was incredible. The Bell Bridge Books luncheon and meeting awesome authors Jim Melvin, Parker Blue, Laura Hayden, Trish Milburn and Anthony Francis (who I met for a few minutes last year but really spent time with this year) was amazing. Spending time at the bar with Delilah, grabbing food with A.J., dinner with Emily, Jay, Darin, Margot, Eden and Oliver was super-cool. The cocktail party and hanging with Deb Dixon, Deb Smith, Wayne, Pam, Hank, Nancy and Brittany was a real highlight. The fly-by visits from the awesome Carol Malcolm between panels were great.
And seeing fans and meeting new fans is always a highlight. The best part of Day One was having a guy come up to me and say “Hey! I know your stuff! It’s awesome!” It’s still such a thrill when people have actually heard of me, because that part is all shiny and new to me. So the people part of the con was awesome. Reconnecting with old friends, making new friends, picking the brains of experts in the field for career advice, helping friends make connections with other people who can help their careers, all of that is worth everything else that goes into making a con appearance happen.
And boy, was there a whole lot of everything else this year. Let me start by saying that I’ve already booked my room for 2013, and that will make things better. I’ll be back in one of the main convention hotels, and that’s going to save a lot of drama. We were off site this year, and NEVER AGAIN. I’m still waiting to resolve some billing issues before I go into a full-on internet rant on the hotel, but let’s just say that it wasn’t the quiet, relaxing environment I was looking for by booking off site. And also not the safest environment, based on a couple of stories I’ve heard. I’ll spill more details later.
So this was my first year as a working author at Dragon*Con, and boy did I work. I still wasn’t afforded “guest” status, but we’ll work on that for 2013, but I made my way onto three panels, and had about four hours scheduled each day in the dealers’ room. Holy crap, there were a lot of people through that dealers’ room! I sold out of Bubba books by the second hour on Sunday, and sold out of almost everything else before I was done on Monday. Then I get home and find another 15 Bubba books sitting on my bookshelf. Oh well, I guess I don’t need to order those for Comic Con. So I sold a shitload of books, a few t-shirts, and moved a bunch of books for my friends, too. I did much better selling books I’ve read, so apologies to the other folks in the booth. Next year, email me ebooks of your stuff ahead of the con and I’ll pimp you just as hard as I did the stuff I’ve read. But I was exhausted every night by the time I left the booth, partly because it was a hell of a day, but also because I spent three days loading in the Google tent for the Democratic National Convention right before the con.
Don’t do that again.
Seriously, it’s good money, but this con is too big for me to start it off tired. A smaller con I could probably manage, but it was Sunday before I actually felt good at the booth, and I was so beat up the only way I moved every morning was a Vicodin/Mountain Dew cocktail that would have any physician shuddering. Not a recommended practice, but it was effective.
So I learned that I can sell a lot of books in a booth. I learned not to do a three-day gig before Dragon*Con, and I learned not to stay off site. Wonder what I’ll learn next year?
I’ll get some pics up on Facebook over the next few days. In the meantime, go pick up the new Bubba novella – Family Tradition!
by john | Sep 4, 2012 | Uncategorized
I promise there will be a Dragon*Con report here in the next couple of days. As usual there will be fewer pictures that I’d like, but I was pretty busy. It was an awesome time hanging with some awesome folks and I learned a lot about things I should and shouldn’t do to work a super-con like this in the future, and hopefully some of that will translate into big results at NY Comic Con next month.
So if I met you at DC – thanks for stopping by and there will be new content coming soon, I promise. But right now I gotta go check out of the hotel and drive home.
Peace!
by john | Aug 24, 2012 | Uncategorized
But it looks to be productive as a mofo.
You might have heard that there’s a little political convention rolling into Charlotte over Labor Day weekend. Well, the DNC (and RNC for that matter) brings with it a flaming shit-ton of media, parties, and other types of gig work for your friendly neighborhood theatre types. And since I’m not yet so wealthy that I can just randomly turn down lucrative work, I’ll be spending Monday – Wednesday working 8-12 hour days helping set up the Google tent and whatever else they’ve got going on.
Yeah, so the three days before I go to the biggest fantasy con of the year, I’m working my nuts off on things that have nothing to do with getting ready for Dragon*Con. I did mention this gig pays well, right? Because that’s the only thing that makes it smart for me to do this. But do this I shall.
Then I’m off to Dragon*Con. I’m sharing a booth in the bottom of the Marriott with a bunch of other fantasy writers, many of whom you know from Magical Words. I’m only on a couple of panels so far, but I may end up on more and may end up stepping in to do some moderator duty if needed.
I will definitely be at the following –
Saturday – 11:30 AM – Westin International Room BC – Pulp History with Bobby Nash, Van Allen Plaxico, James Tuck and Barry Reese.
Sunday – 2:30 PM – Hyatt Embassy Room D-F – Spotlight on Bell Bridge Books
Otherwise, look for me in Booth 100&102 in the Marriott, or hit me up on Twitter if you want to get together. My mornings are pretty free, and I plan to be in the booth every afternoon but Sunday, when I’m booked at BBB stuff.
I’ll have bookmarks with the new Hard Day’s Knight/Omnibus cover and Read Recklessly buttons to give away, plus t-shirts and books to sell. Hope to see you in Atlanta!
by john | Aug 17, 2012 | Uncategorized
Hey folks, just a quick heads-up on availability of the Black Knight Chronicles books. Part of my book deal was licensing the rights to the existing Black Knight books to Bell Bridge. That’s why we’ve spent all summer polishing them, revising them, working on new covers, etc. That does mean that at the end of this month, the books will be going away from all sites for a little while. They’ll be off Amazon for a day or so while I get the new files uploaded. They’ll be off Barnes & Noble and Smashwords starting when I leave for Dragon Con. So if you’re desperate to have the original editions, you should grab those now. But you won’t hurt my feelings if you wait for the new editions to come out, especially if you’d rather have them all in one place, like the omnibus. This is mostly a “don’t freak out, I’m not dead or retired” post to let you know what’s going on if you want to order the books one day and can’t find them. They’ll be back in a day or so, it’s just part of the transition. I’m really, really happy with how the revisions have gone, and I think you will be too. The guys are the same guys they’ve always been, only better. We’re almost done revising Knight Moves, then I’ll dive back in, rewrite Paint it Black, and you guys should have that in the first half of next year. Sorry for the delay, but in the long run it will make it a better book, and make Books 5 & 6 even better still!
Come see me at Dragon Con in two weeks! Oh God, Dragon Con is in two weeks! I gotta get ready.
