by john | Sep 8, 2011 | Appearances, Business of publishing, Real Life, Theatre, Writing
Or whatever most closely approximates reality for me these days. Looks like September will be the calm before the ridiculousness that is October for me, as I think I’m home most of this month, and gone most weekends next month. I spent a large portion of the morning looking at regional cons and trying to figure out which ones I want to attend next year, and then looking at budgeting for all that travel, which is no small feat.
Cons are one of those things that some people love and others loathe. I’m still trying to figure out where I need to be at a con, and what makes the most sense for me. There are almost always at least a couple of panels that I can get some valuable information out of, but frequently only a couple. I went to close to a dozen panels at Dragon*Con and actually took notes at two. It’s certainly not that I think I’m such a great writer that I don’t need more information, but with an hour-long panel most of what people go over is going to by nature be very basic. I did pick up some recommendations for good resource books and some networking sites that may prove useful, but that was more me grabbing little nuggets of wisdom out of the air than the panel itself being hugely useful.
So I’ve looked at all the remotely local cons that I could find, from as close as right here in Charlotte to as far away as Memphis, and tried to see which ones are worthwhile. I’ll definitely do Dragon again, and ConCarolinas would be a good one. I made back my table rental at Heroes Con, so we’ll give that one another shot, and since I’m kinda putting together the lit track for RoundCon in Columbia I figure I should plan on attending it. ChattaCon looks good, as does MidSouthCon, but damn, Memphis is a long way from here! Fandom Fest is a yes for me for next year, and the SC Book Festival is a maybe, if I can share a booth with someone and get a better location. Being all by myself and way on the back wall made it very hard to make any sales. And if I can’t get on any panels it won’t be worth attending.
But that should be easier, now that I have a publisher behind me. That’s another major reason I wanted to sign with a publisher – it’s a lot easier to get on panels and things like that if you’re not self-pubbed. So having BellBridge in my corner will give me a legitimacy in a lot of eyes that I can’t get on my own. Ugly truth, but truth nonetheless.
Obviously I still plan to self-publish some stuff. The money is really good, and some of my stuff just doesn’t fit, even in the small press world. Plus there are only so many publishing slots out there in a year, so just like no writer can keep up with the speed of a reader, no publisher can keep up with the speed of a fast writer. So now I’ve got a foot in both worlds, and we’ll see how it all works out. I can’t wait to get my first massive revision letter so I can go through all the cursing, weeping and drinking that my friend Misty describes. I’m sure I’ll be just as distraught as she was, because after all, how could anyone not LOVE my Black Knight Chronicles books?
Heh. I got that answer in spades this morning when Hard Day’s Knight got its first 1-star review on Amazon, and it was pretty ruthless. Unfortunately, there have been enough recent incidents of sock-puppet reviews that the first thing I did after reading it was to check the person’s other reviews and see if it looked like a fake review. Even more unfortunately, it looked like the review was legit, just from someone who hated the book.
I thought it would hurt more. You know, getting the first bad review was supposed to have me all devastated and stuff, right? Nah. I’ve gotten bad reviews before, because you can’t do theatre for any length of time without getting them. So I’m used to seeing people in print say I suck. But I did find a great trick for dealing with bad reviews. Other than ignore them and not read them at all, which is the best advice that I try to follow (and fail miserably). I went to one of my favorite books, Book 1 of The Dresden Files, and read one of his 1-star reviews. Yep, no matter how much a lot of people like something, somebody out there will hate it. So now I’ve gotten a 1-star. Won’t be my last, and I lived through it.
On a completely different note, the nominations for the annual Metrolina Theatre Awards are out, and both Suzy and I got nominated! I got a nod for my lighting design on Rent, and Suzy got nominated for her costuming of The Princess Bride and King Lear. So I guess we’ll break out the monkey suits on October 9th and go see who takes home the lucite statues. That is, if I’m not in rehearsal for another show. I did mention October was a little nuts, right?
by john | Sep 7, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Welcome to Insanity.
Welcome to the State of Insanity. Several people have asked about my books, and have wondered where the idea of Brodie came from. I thought I would take a minute to explain him, if you would indulge me. I believe that every character ever invented is — at some level — a reality of the author. Even the most vile villains exist deep in the core of the author, just expounded by a thousand-fold by the time they reach the paper.
For me, Brodie is a real part of who I am. He’s the shy introvert in me that would rather read a book than turn on the TV. He’s the kid in me who was bullied in grade school; that part deep inside that’s wounded and doesn’t want to come out. We all have that emotion deep inside of us, somewhere. Sure, we’ve shoved him back down so far that we’ve forgotten the pain, but he’s there. It’s a black hole that seems to attract all of our craziest thoughts of depression, anger, hate and loneliness.
In my first novel, Death Has a Name, my goal was to create a character that was actually insane. Certifiable, even. In fact, he had been institutionalized three times for his schizophrenia over the course of his life thus far.
Of course, I had to do research to determine what “insane” looked like. It can take on so many different forms, but the one common thread always seemed to be that the person in the midst of the event believes it — to the very core of his being — to be true. Which of course sent me down a very long, rhetorical, in-depth soul-search of “what is true?” Have you ever tried to answer that question? You should, but before you do, I would suggest taking the alcohol and other mind-altering substances out of your house. That is a question that can only be answered when looking through a very specific, well-focused lens. More on that lens in another post, maybe. That topic is so deep, that it may take five or six posts to even scratch the surface.
So, this damaged character needed a name, and I named him Brodie. John Wayne wasn’t named John Wayne when he was born. He was Marion Robert Morrison. Marion? Really? Several very smart people in charge of Marion’s career decided that Marion wasn’t “manly” enough for the roles he was to play. They knew that the name can really define the persona, so they chose John Wayne for his stage name. In that same light, but in the absolute reverse situation, I named my character Brodie. It’s an odd name, and — like Marion — it isn’t exactly the most strapping name I’ve ever heard. For this character, the name was a great fit for someone on the edge of reality and daily had his lunch money ripped from his shaking hands.
As I began writing the book, I realized that if I put the reader in Brodie’s head, then they, too, would be on the edge of reality. If that happened, the book would quickly spin out of control. After all, if you are in the head of someone who is insane, where is reality? Anything is true, and everything is in question. It would be like launching a jet plane, blacking out all the windows, and disabling the horizon device. No, Brodie needed someone to ground him and keep the reader pointed in the right direction. Enter Phil Dawson.
Phil is Brodie’s best friend. He is also the device I used to introduce the plot, and keep it moving on the straight-and-narrow. Brodie is the train, but Phil is the train tracks. Together, they make up one complete persona, and help the reader see the big picture. Phil can see only the case at hand, but Brodie can see only the paranormal manifestations. Through both sets of eyes, the reader can see everything.
In the end, the reader must discover whether or not Brodie is truly insane, or if he is just blighted with a curse that makes him appear to be insane. And that is the fun of the story. What if you could see things that other people swore didn’t exist? And what if these “non-existent” entities told you about things that have happened or have yet to happen? Would you be crazy? Or would everyone else in the world be deficient, leaving you as superior?
Brodie progresses a little from the first novel, and finds a love interest (something very foreign to him!) in the second novel, Thaloc Has a Body. But in the end, he’s still broken and fragile, and has to deal with The Truth that haunts his every move.
And that, my friends, was the thought process behind the creation of the mysterious Brodie Wade. I hope you’ve learned a bit about me as a person as you read Brodie’s story. It is, in fact, a hyperbole of that broken inner part of each of us. At least, that’s The Truth that I believe to the core of my being.
–Jerry
by john | Sep 6, 2011 | Business of publishing, Writing
So this weekend I landed a deal with a traditional publisher.
Yep, you read that right. Regardless of my statements about the logic of self-publishing (which I still stand by, as you’ll see later) I have sold large portions of The Black Knight Chronicles to Bell Bridge Books, an up and coming small press with an eye toward the future and a savvy marketing plan.
Why would I do this, you ask? My wife and I had a long talk about the possibility and the decision came down to a couple of things. One, having a publisher behind me will mean that I can work with an excellent editor with a long history of developing writers and making them better. My experience with Red Adept editing was awesome, and I will continue to use them on my self-pubbed stuff, but the developmental editing that a publisher brings to a project is something that doesn’t really exist right now in the indie market.
Also, they made me a sweetheart deal. I’m not going to go into much detail about that here, but I’m still free to self-pub some of my work, I still control parts of the Black Knight series, and their royalty structure is pretty badass.
You’ll notice I’m not talking a lot about advances. That’s because the advance is pretty small. I’m not buying a car with my advance, but I can buy more than a cheeseburger, too. I not only don’t mind this, I kinda like it. One of the questions I asked Deb Dixon, the publisher, at Fandom Fest was “what percentage of your authors earn out?” The answer was 100%. I understand that keeping advances low is one way to do that. And frankly, I’d rather have royalty checks every few months than an advance check that I’ll never earn out. So I didn’t go into this discussion looking for much of an advance, and got more than I was looking for. Our negotiations went very well, and I read over and agreed to the deal memo today. So now their lawyers will draft a contract, I’ll read it, consult with an IP attorney, and get them the first book under contract.
I still intend to publish a couple of books each year on my own, mostly because a publisher can’t publish books as quickly as I can write them. So there will be plenty of Black Knight stories to come, along with plenty of new material. I’m really excited about this opportunity to reach a broader audience, and to make my books the best they can be, and make me the best writer I can be. I think this is a good step along the road.
Thanks for coming with me.
by john | Aug 29, 2011 | Travel, Writing
So this weekend I got off my ass and got back to work. This time the project was Return to Eden, the apocalyptic YA fantasy novel I’ve been working on for what seems like forever. I figured out what some of the problems were with the book, and started to address them. One of the key issues was too many characters – I had something like nine principal characters in the thing, and no way to focus on any one of them! Since I always thought the book’s protagonist was the one teenage girl, I went through the first seven chapters or so this weekend and chopped out a bunch of characters. So now instead of five kids running from their high school together, there are three. And instead of them picking up five more people through the first half of the book, they’ll pick up three. And a couple of those will be really secondary, so I can focus the narrative more on Christin and her feelings about the situations they find themselves in.
I’m no Martin or Jordan, so cutting a bunch of characters lets me focus more on the lean type of storytelling that I prefer. And since I really want to get into this girl’s head (albeit from third person), trimming extraneous people from the team will be good for that as well. I realized once I finished the first draft that I didn’t have a novel, I had the first year of an X-Men comic, and that wasn’t what I was going for. This time. I’ll be spending the rest of the month working on rewrites for this book, hopefully finishing it up by October 1. I’ve got a bunch of description to add into the book as well as a bunch more people to cut, so it’s going to keep me pretty busy.
Sales are continuing to go up and up. I think the combination of new covers and a new Black Knight novel are working together to really drive things. August is my best month ever for sales, and everyone on KindleBoards says that August is the worst month of the year. That makes me hopeful for the rest of the year, which I’m loving since I won’t have any new releases until the end of the year at the earliest.
I’m heading to Dragon Con on Thursday, so if you’re in the area, look me up. You know how to find me, and if not, look on Twitter or Facebook.
by john | Aug 26, 2011 | Appearances, Business of publishing, Writing
So here’s what’s up in the Hartness-land on a Friday.
Happy to be home in Charlotte after working out of our Atlanta office this week. Yes, not all of us self-published authors are superstars who sit around chatting and posting monkey videos online, some of us still have day jobs. But you can fix that by buying more books (and more and more of you have been, so thanks!). So yeah, I got home yesterday and hung out at home last night watching my Panthers suck against the Bungles and catching up on Season 2 of Glee (don’t judge). I think the Panthers could be better this season than last (can’t be much worse!), but they need to start Derek Anderson for at least a little while and let Newton get his confidence and skills more NFL-ready. The kid isn’t ready, and in a win-now league he could get wrecked by a bad start. I hope not, but it could happen. Look at last year with Jimmy Clausen, or David Carr, or Jamarcus Russel (ok, probably a bad example there, but you get my point). Newton will be an amazing player someday, but today ain’t that day.
I’ll be playing a little poker this evening, and I’ve really missed hanging with the guys and flinging cards around. Hopefully I can recoup some of my nasty losses from a few weeks ago, or at least hold my own.
Book sales have been great – the release of Knight Moves has gone better than I had ever hoped. To date the new book has sold over 800 copies, which is way better than my hope of 500 in the first month, so I’m ecstatic about that. It’ll unfortunately be a while before I get back to the Black Knight boys, because I have at least two other books to knock out before I get to Volume 4. But I’m amazingly pleased with the first month sales of the book, especially since everyone tells me August is the slowest month for e-book sales. So I’m really interested to see what happens in the fall!
Next week I’ll be in Atlanta for Dragon*Con, which I’m very excited about. There are a few people I’ll be autograph-stalking, including James Marsters and Stan Lee. And I just saw that they added Bill Sienkiewicz, who was one of my favorite artists back in his New Mutants days. I’ll also be going to a bunch of panels, readings and parties. If you’re there and want to hook up, hit me up via a Twitter DM (@johnhartness). That’ll probably be the best way to find me.
Once I’m done with Dragon, it’s on revisions of Return to Eden: Genesis. I think I’ve figured out the big problem with the book, now I just need to make myself sit down and do the edits. It’s a huge change/rewrite, so I’ve gotta make myself remember how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time. That’ll probably take the rest of September, then I hope to have it out by November 1. When it’s out I’ll spend November and December working on Copycat, then get to Black Knight Vol. 4 the beginning of 2012. That’s unless a shiny object catches my eye, of course :).
by john | Aug 24, 2011 | Business of publishing, The Chosen, Writing
So I’m working on a redesign of the cover for The Chosen. I think the cover I have is okay, but similar to the old covers for the Black Knight books, it doesn’t really tell a prospective reader what the book is about. So for those of you out there who have read the book, what images do you associate with it? What kinds of things do you think would make a good cover? I can’t offer much for your help (unless you want to design the cover for me, in which case let’s talk money), but you’ll have my undying gratitude.
Here’s what I have –
Pros – The title font is good, and it’s BIG. That needs to stay. It’s a striking color combination, the red background with the yellow letters. I like that and think it grabs the eye.
Cons – It says nothing about angels, devils, Adam, Eve, fantasy literature or anything like that. Angel fiction is very marketable, and obviously fantasy lit is as well, but nobody looking at this cover would have any idea what the book is about. That needs to change.
So help me out here, folks. Let me know what the book says to you – what images stick with you from the book?
Someday I’ll get back to actually, you know, writing again, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on trying to maximize my promotional stuff right now. I hope to have the second draft of Return to Eden:Genesis done by October 1. Especially since I just booked another design gig that’s going to lock up most of my free time in October, so if that book stands a prayer of getting out this year, I’d better step on it.
