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.
by john | Mar 28, 2011 | Comics, Travel, Writing
I had bronchitis and was sick as a dog, but I made it down to the Crown Plaza hotel and hung out for the day with some cool peeps like the guy who got stuck being my neighbor, Bobby Nash. Bobby’s a comic writer among many other things, and he was gracious enough to snap the picture below and email it over. Check out his stuff and give him some love, he’s a great guy!
I sold a couple of books, but of course spent more than I made, thanks largely to finding the Sandman Dream Hunters hardcover, as well as the second and third collected editions of Echo by Terry Moore. If you’re not familiar with Terry Moore, then get on over to his website and snatch up as many copies of Strangers in Paradise as you can! SiP was one of those groundbreaking comics for me, in that it was a story of normal people (mostly) with normal loves, lusts, hates and issues (mostly). Okay, some of the issues were a little exaggerated, but it was a phenomenal comic, and I have the Omnibus edition sitting on my shelf at home. It has to sit on the shelf. I tried to read it on my lap once and my legs fell asleep for three days. The move towards Omnibus editions still leaves a little to be desired. But I digress. Anyway, Terry’s now writing and drawing Echo, and I’m way hooked. I’m not going to give away any of the story, but you should buy it.
But I had a good time, also chatted for a few minutes with the lovely Chrissie Zullo, who has done the covers for the Fables spinoff/limited series/whatever Cinderella. She’s cute as a button and incredibly talented, a real up-and-coming artist from right here in Charlotte! I think I heard she was moving to NYC, but she did mention she’ll be at the Heroes Con in June, along with Terry Moore and yours truly! I bought a small press table for the weekend and will be pushing books on unsuspecting comic book geeks June 3-5. This means that I won’t get to be at ConCarolinas, which would have been fun, but I think my profitability potential is greater at Heroes, so that’s where I’ll be this year at least. I’ve also submitted my applications to Dragon Con and the NY Comic Con, so that might book a lot of my travel for the fall. I dunno how those will shake out, but if Dragon doesn’t take me (they get a lot of movie and TV star types, as well as a ton of authors, so I’m only moderately hopeful on that front) I’ll probably grab a tent at the Decatur book festival, which is the same weekend. Either way I’ll be somewhere around Atlanta for Labor Day, and hopefully in NYC mid-October.
Started work on Knight Moves, Book 3 of the Black Knight Chronicles, last week. Should be ready to go sometime in June. Hope I get it finished before Heroes, but I’m not going to rush it. This book is going to add more characters, a new recurring semi-baddy, and see the boys actually contemplate something deeper than beer and blood bags.
And this is what I look like with bronchitis at a comic book show!
by john | Mar 24, 2011 | Writing
Not really, but back from the exceptionally busy with the day job, then flat on my back for a few days with bronchitis. But here’s a quick announcement for all of you who want to win my contest giving away a Kindle, Nook or Amazon Gift Certificate!
You can earn additional entries between now and March 31 by “liking” my Facebook page and by following me on Twitter! If you already follow me and like me, you get one entry for each location already!
That’s right, click here to go to my Facebook page, click the “like” button, and you get an extra entry into the contest!
For another entry, follow me (@johnhartness) on Twitter!
Don’t forget, there are a bunch of ways to win -just go to the Win a Kindle page here on my site and check out all the ways to win!
Good luck, the random drawing will be held next weekend!
by john | Mar 8, 2011 | Writing
Back in Black is now available in paperback! You can get your copy by following this link, or if you want a signed copy, in a few days I’ll have a link added to the side of the home page so you can order them directly from me. Beware – those will take a while to arrive. I do not yet have my hard copies in hand, and life is hectic right now, so signed copies will probably take a week or two to ship. Your best bet, as always, is to see me at a show (like the Charlotte ComiCon next weekend) and get a signed book there. You also save $5 on shipping that way.
I’ve sold about a book a day so far in March of Back in Black, and about the same for The Chosen. The surprise has been the dip in sales for Hard Day’s Knight, which is only selling very slightly better than the more expensive books. I’m going to hold the $.99 price point for at least March and April, to try and get a significant enough sample size to make a decision about long-term pricing. With a little luck, this month might be a milestone month for me – I might break the $100 mark on ebooks sold. Not a huge amount of money, but better than a kick in the junk.
I’m also starting to feel the itch to get back in the heads of Jimmy and Greg, which is good, since it’s about time to start working on book 3, which I’m tentatively calling Knight Moves. This one is going to get a little deeper into some backstory on the boys, add a major character for this book only, and begin a three-book side plot for a major character that is going to change the way the boys look at life (or unlife) forever.
You think I’ve read enough comic book promos in my day?
In the meantime, go buy a book, Daddy needs more caffeine!
And don’t forget, time’s running out to win a Kindle 3, Nook or a $200 Amazon gift card! All you have to do to register is click this link! And you get bonus entries for buying books, doing reviews, and answering trivia questions! You get the same bonus points for buying my poetry books, too!
by john | Mar 2, 2011 | Writing
So I ran a few numbers after reading my buddy Derek’s blog this morning (and you can check out more from Derek in the back of Back in Black, a preview of his novel Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance is part of the Bonus Content) and his sales report led me to crunch a few numbers of my very own. I don’t have exact numbers on gross sales, or on exact numbers of copies sold across all distribution channels, so my figures aren’t exact (which in the world of figures would tell me that they were largely meaningless) but there are a couple of things to note.
1) As of the end of February (and probably a hair before that, truth be told) The Chosen is now in the black! I spent a little over $500 getting that book made and ready to go, and I’ve made back just a hair more than that. And I calculate this using profit on copies I hand-deliver, not the total sell price, so it’s a pretty solid number. This means that no matter what happens with that book, I will make profit on it forever and ever, amen. Even if all I do is sell the 20-30 ebooks a month I’m selling now, that’s around $50/month for a book that I’m done working on. For nothing. For ever. And ever is a very long time. I figured it would take at least a year to make back my money, so to do so in half that time makes me very happy.
2) As of the end of March, good lord willing and the Creek don’t rise (which actually references the Creek indians, not a stream), I will have made back all the money I spent on Hard Day’s Knight. That means that I will have two books making me money for ever and ever, and I don’t have to do anything else with them. That’s a pretty good feeling, frankly.
Of course it would be a better feeling if the Amazon remittance that came through yesterday was enough to put a tank of gas in the Silverado, but it was enough to pay the gas bill, so that’s something. And Back in Black has moved a few copies, so hopefully there will start to be some momentum going.
Now – a favor. If you’ve read any of my books and enjoyed them, please go to Amazon and write an honest review. It doesn’t have to be very long, but reviews are the currency of the realm, and they do help me sell books. So far I’ve gotten some great ones, but I could really use a few more to get me to the tipping point. And don’t forget, purchases and review get you bonus entries into my Win a Kindle contest!
by john | Mar 2, 2011 | Real Life, Writing
Atlanta, of course, because I’ve spent way too much time down here lately. The Southeastern Theatre Conference is in town, so I’ll be here through Saturday, teaching classes, buying drinks and generally trying to make the company some money while having as good a time as is allowed by law. You know how to find me if you’re in town.
I’m also online in the new issue of Truckin’. Pauly was kind enough to offer up a spot in a couple of issues for previews from my books, and being the attention whore that I am, I took him up on it gladly. There are always great stories by great writers in Truckin’, you should check it out!
I’m in proof review for Back in Black, so hopefully hard copies will be available for people to order from Amazon next week. They would likely already be good to go, but for the fact that I’m not in town to see the proof, and the pagination in the first copy was all jacked up.
Until I have time to write more, check out this pic I swiped off Tommy Tomlinson’s Facebook page.
