by john | Aug 23, 2011 | Business of publishing, Vampires
Well, we’re almost three weeks in from the release of Knight Moves, and I’ve been amazed by the outpouring of support for the book. So far, we’ve sold 667 copies, far exceeding my hopes for the first month. I had hoped for 500 copies in the first month, and we blew through that number! In comparison, there has only been one month ever that Back in Black sold more than 650 copies, so I couldn’t be happier.
Obviously, with two new products released this month (I also tossed a new short story, called Black Magic Woman out there) this will be my best sales month ever. Last month was my first month over 3,000 books sold, and we have a chance to crack 4,000 for the month of August! It’s a close race, and I’ll need some help to get there, but I’ve done some limited paid promotion this month, so hopefully we can reach another milestone!
Speaking of promotion, I spent very little cash promoting this month. I paid for a Release Blitz with The Bookish Snob Promotions, which got the blurb on a dozen different websites for $20. Then I got a spotlight on Two Ends of the Pen for $10, and jumped on that. Everything else has been from my Facebook and Twitter folks, and you good people here. So a huge thanks to all of you for making the first month of the new book a rousing success!
by john | Aug 20, 2011 | Business of publishing, Real Life
So if you watch my Facebook page (and really, you don’t? How dare you actually have other people you might be interested in!) you’ve seen the new covers for the Black Knight Chronicles Books. If you don’t, here they are.
These were all created by the grossly talented Carl Graves at Extended Imagery, and I couldn’t be happier with them. Carl was exceptionally professional, and the end results are amazing.
But why did I redo covers on two books that were selling pretty well?
I’m glad you asked, even if I did have to prompt you. When I did the Heroes Con in June, I had print copies of all my books out on the table. As people would walk by, if they looked like my target demographic, I’d try to hand them a postcard.
Sometimes this went well, sometimes not. But nobody punched me, so in the end it was okay.
But once thing I realized is that people were more likely to pick up Back in Black than Hard Day’s Knight, and I didn’t really understand why. Then I took a good look at the covers.
This is the original cover for Hard Day’s Knight. It’s a very nice cover, looks great in print, and is EXACTLY what I asked my designer to provide for me. Right down to which side of the building the moon is on.
But it says nothing about vampires, or horror, or supernatural beasties. And if you’re writing a book about supernatural beasties, and you’re going to steal a Beatles song for the title, you need to give a reader a clue what the book is about. And this cover does not do that. At all. So people who might buy a book just because there’s a cool monster on the cover, will be passing this one right on by.
The cover for Back in Black was better, but as time went on I became less enamored with the 3d troll I had on the cover. It all started to look more like a video game box than a book cover to me, so when Knight Moves was ready to go, I contacted Carl and we re-did the first two books while we were working on the third one. I’m exceptionally happy with how they turned out, and the titles and my name are now legible in a much smaller size, so they can be read in a thumbnail on the Amazon or Barnes & Noble site. And that’s really important. Especially the name thing. Because people buy books from people they’ve read before, and name recognition is immensely valuable in this business.
So that’s why I redid the covers for my best-selling books, to try to grab all the market share I could! And something is helping, because this has been an awesome sale week! Knight Moves is outselling Hard Day’s Knight at times, and that’s awesome! The book will break 500 total sales this weekend, making it my fastest to that number by a long mile. If things keep going, we’ll hit another record month, which is good, because after buying three new book covers, Daddy’s got a credit card to pay off!
Y’all have a good weekend, I’ll be sleeping late, performing The Irish Curse at night, and drinking too much.
On a serious note – my heart and prayers go out to those injured and killed in the collapse of stages at the Sugarland show and the Belgian Pop Festival. I don’t have any good words except to say that I hope my industry will band together and do everything we know how to do to make sure this NEVER happens again. These were preventable tragedies – NEVER AGAIN.
by john | Aug 20, 2011 | Appearances, Business of publishing, Travel, Vampires, Writing
Well folks, here we are a hair more than two weeks after the release of Knight Moves, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. The new book has already broken 500 copies sold, a figure that’s unheard of for me in the first month (or several) of a book’s release, and with a promo blitz going on this weekend thanks to The Bookish Snob, I think we’ll see that carry through the rest of the month. So here I’ve got a few announcements and a couple of updates for all of you.
Firstly, for the folks who still love paper books – yes, Knight Moves will be available in print. The proof copy has shipped, and if history is any indicator, it should get here Monday or Tuesday. I’ll look over the proof and try to get some copies in hand for Dragon*Con. I won’t have many with me, unless this THING happens that I’m trying to schedule. If the THING goes off, then I’ll probably get 40 copies or so to tote with me. Watch this space for more info on the THING.
But if you’d like a signed copy, and live in the US, you can order yours here. Just click the PayPal button and let me know who to inscribe the book to, and I’ll send it right along. NOTE – books will not ship until after the Labor Day holiday. But $15 will cover shipping and a signed copy of the book. If you live in the Charlotte area, and want to pick the book up, you can click the pick up option. You can do the same thing if you want to pre-order a copy for Dragon*Con (this would really help me know how many books to carry).
As always, the book will be available for $10 from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and wherever books are sold. I’ll also be doing a signing in October at The Last Word, a cool used bookstore here in Charlotte, so hopefully some of you folks will come out and say hello to me then.
And for my friends across the pond – I know you currently can’t get my books in print outside the US. I would love for that to change at some point, but I don’t really know how. So if you’d like to see my stuff over there, tell your friendly neighborhood bookstore to pressure the publishers to buy my international rights. Or stop by North Carolina on your next intercontinental vacation. We’ve got good sweet tea!
by john | Aug 18, 2011 | Business of publishing
Blame Kris Rusch and her excellent blog for this post. Kris writes one of the best business of writing blogs out there, and if you desire a career in this business and aren’t reading her stuff, you’re probably missing opportunities. But anyway, that’s irrelevant here, except that she mentioned Yog’s Law in a recent post, and it inspired this rant. So…sorry about that
Yog’s Law, simply put, states that “money flows to the writer.” Traditional publishing companies and writers use this anthem to decry shady business practices by vanity presses and unethical agents, and in those cases it is very valid. If an agent charges a “reading fee” to look at your manuscript, they’re not a real agent, they’re a scam artist getting paid to read books. Agents get paid to sell books. When you make money, your agent makes money. Same as a sports agent or an actor’s agent. None of these people get a thin dime if their client isn’t working. That’s one reason agents have more than one client — so they don’t starve!
And the statement used to be just as valid in the publishing world. Unscrupulous vanity presses trying to pass themselves off as legitimate publishers would come up with fees for all sorts of things that publishers typically do for their authors for free, like editing, layout, formatting, cover art, etc. These are red flags when dealing with a publisher – if they want you to pay for these things, and you’re an author, then you’re not dealing with a publisher, you’re dealing with a crook.
But the world is different now. I say that a lot, because we’re living in the flippin’ future, people! Seriously, my cell phone has more computing power than the machines that put men on the moon! So the world is different, and the usual laws don’t always apply in the same ways.
Or do they?
Does Yog’s Law still apply just as firmly as it used to?
Yes. But in the case of a self-published author it’s important to understand that sometimes the PUBLISHER has to spend money so that the WRITER can make money.
And those people often inhabit the same body. That’s where the wicket gets all sticky. As a self-published author, or even someone just reading about and paying attention to self-publishing, you need to understand that there are times when you wear the writer hat, and times when you wear the publisher hat. When I’m ripping apart Return to Eden: Genesis next month, I’ll be wearing my writer hat. When I just paid a guy to redo all the covers for my Black Knight Chronicles books, I was wearing my publisher hat.
Yes, money should flow towards the writer. But sometimes the publisher has to pay for things. And those two roles may be fulfilled by the same person. So whenever you hear someone toss around “money flows towards the writer” just understand that they haven’t thought through the fact that sometimes you’re the writer, collecting the coins, and sometimes you’re the publisher, spending them.
by john | Aug 16, 2011 | Business of publishing
Yeah, I know it’s redundant, get over it. Here’s my point – if there’s one thing to be gained by pursuing traditional publishing, and I think there’s more than one, but that’s beside the point – if there is only one thing to be gained by pursuing traditional publishing, a thick skin is certainly it. I’ve recently seen several self-published authors either go batshit crazy at a bad review and flame the world, or make some stupid comment on a message board, get hammered for it and then storm off in a huff (or in tears).
I really have only one thing to say to those folks – life’s tough, wear a cup.
No, really. Life is hard, and art is hard. And putting yourself out there for public consumption isn’t just opening yourself up for criticism, it’s inviting crticisim. It’s begging for it!. Trust me, I’ve spent the last two decades (and more, but I might be a little touchy about just how old I am given my recent anniversary of my first trip around the sun) putting myself out there in the public eye. And I’ve gotten hammered for it. And sometimes I’ve gotten accolades for it. And then I’ve gotten hammered for it again.
But I chose this life. I chose to be an actor. I chose to be a writer that publishes. I chose to have a blog with my friggin’ name on it. I don’t write under a pseudonym. I don’t blog under an alias anymore. I stand in front of everyone, me, one fat redneck writing about fairies and vampires and things that go BUMP in the night. And I read too many comics, drink too much and fart too loudly in public. And I write about all of it on the internet. And sometimes I say stupid things in a workshop and hurt someone’s feelings. And sometimes I say too much on a topic and people get mad at me. And sometimes I just look stupid.
And it’s all my fault and I fucking deal with it.
But that seems to be lacking in some of my self-published brethren and sistren – the ability to take the consequences of their actions. Not all of them, mind you. The more professional authors behave, well, as professionals. I know, shocking, right? It’s probably not a surprise that some of them are the people who sell a shit-ton of books. Because they approach everything with the same level of professionalism, from book covers and editing to behavior on message boards.
So I posit that going through the years of rejection typical in the traditional publishing world does a few things for writers that self-publishing does not. First, it builds up a thicker dermis. After dozens of people tell you that your work isn’t good enough, or marketable enough or whatever, you either give up or you toughen up. And either way, you don’t get your panties in a twist about a bad review. Because either you’ve quit before anyone ever reviews the drivel that you put out there, or you’ve toughened up enough to take it.
And there is inherent in that first thing another thing that traditional publishing does for us – weeds out the pansies. Now I like pansies – in a vase. But I don’t like them cluttering up my kindle, or my iPad, or my bookshelf. If you aren’t tough enough to handle a bad review, or someone calling you out on your bullshit on a message board, then be Emily friggin’ Dickinson and put all your crap in a trunk to be released after your death. Because I don’t have time for you.
But if you’re willing to own your mistakes, if you’re willing to take your lumps and get right back up, if you’re willing to say “My bad. I fucked the pooch on that one,” then I’m right here with you. I’ll link arms with you as we skip down the yellow brick road of fuckups together, and I’ll help you up when you fall on your face. I might even loan you a hanky.
</rant> Thanks, I feel better. And I’m sure I’ve hurt someone’s feelings with this rant. And I’m sure there are people out there saying “but but but I don’t do that!”
If that’s your first reaction – then obviously you do.
More updates from the first month of Knight Moves coming soon, and I’ve got a special guest post coming this week, too!
by john | Aug 15, 2011 | Real Life, Writing
I did a show. I drank a few beers after Saturday night’s show. I worked on planning my 20th High School reunion. I did not end up at any bars of ill repute. I did not have a dog eat my shoe. I did not almost start a gang fight in downtown Charlotte. I did not lose my cookies in the back of a kidnap-van. And I did not do the walk of shame in flip-flops Sunday morning.
But I might do all of those things this Saturday night, because I plan on blowing it out once this show closes!
Sales for Knight Moves are very strong, and I’m getting some great feedback from the book. I really do believe it’s the best in the series (at least I do now, there was a period of time a couple of months ago when I hated the book and wanted to trash the whole thing), with better character development and tighter prose. I know what Book 4 is going to look like, but it’ll probably be next year before I get working on it. I want to finish up with Return to Eden and Copycat before I go back to the Black Knight boys. But I’ll keep churning out short stories, so you’ll be able to get your snarky vampire fix.
I’m currently looking for a couple of folks to give me an alpha read on Return to Eden. This is a FIRST DRAFT – it’s nowhere near ready to be seen by the general public. But I’d like a couple of folks to take a look at it and let me know if it’s workable, or if it’s just a hot mess. If you’re interested in doing that, email me and I’ll send out an electronic copy in whatever format you like.
Thanks!
by john | Aug 12, 2011 | Writing
Yep, Sunday is my birthday. 38 years on the planet down, hopefully at least that many to come. This last year has certainly been one of change, as I’ve gone from writing on a purely recreational level to focusing much more seriously on this secondary career. I find it interesting sometimes that after having been in a career for sixteen years now, and working in the theatre in some form for more than twenty, that now I’m finally getting back to doing what I’ve always wanted to do with my life – writing.
Knight Moves is doing well, outselling Back in Black for the moment. I’m not really surprised by that, as it is the cheaper book (at least until September 1), and it’s the book that I’m currently promoting. We’ll see what happens to everything when the price goes up next month, and when all the places that have Hard Day’s Knight listed at $.99 take it down. I’m trying valiantly to raise the price of the intro novel to $2.99, but apparently it’s still out there for $.99 somewhere and hasn’t come down yet. When it does, I’ll see how HDK does at $2.99. I hope it doesn’t take too much of the momentum away. I only need to sell 1/6 the number of copies to make the same money, but I don’t want to lose all visibility, because that would be bad for the other books. We’ll see. If it nosedives too badly, I can drop the price.
I’ve now got two short stories out at $.99 each, and will try to keep those coming. Next week I start edits on Return to Eden: Genesis, so we’ll see how that goes. Serial Character is now going to be called Copycat, and I hope to finish it up and get it out this year as well.
I had an agent take a look at HDK, and while she liked it, she didn’t think she could get it sold to the publishers, so I’m still currently agentless and self-publishing. But that could change at any time if the offers are right.
So, back to the original question – What should you give me for my birthday?
Well, I’m always a fan of cash, and there’s a donate button around here somewhere. So there’s that.
You could also buy a book, either e- or analog. That wouldn’t hurt my feelings.
Or you could go to my Amazon wish list and buy me something. I wouldn’t complain. Or you could get me something off my Comic Book wishlist!
But, really, I just wanted to take a moment as another year has gone by, to thank you for your friendship and support. It means the world to me.
Thanks
by john | Aug 9, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Writing
Cameron Dockery is a fine example of the neat connections we can make with people through writing. He and I have never met face to face, but I’m happy to call him a friend. Here’s a little about how we met.
On Christmas day this past year I was surfing Amazon on my Kindle app when I came across John’s Short Story, The Christmas Lights. I read it, liked it and shared it with the family before breakfast.
That was seven months ago and little did I realize how reading that story would pull me into the rising tsunami of Indie publishing. This past week Borders Books announced they would be closing and with that my wife and I walked into the local Borders Store to check out the sale.
I was amazed at the rush of people and at the same time saddened by the fact that another local business was going down which meant more hurting people in our small town would be filing for unemployment.
As I browsed through the chaos of people I walked over toward the restrooms and noticed they had been roped off and a sign was hanging that read, “Sorry no public restrooms are available, try Amazon.com.”
I stood there in absolute bewilderment. They stated the obvious with an attitude. To be honest it ticked me off a little. Enough has been said by people far more capable than I about how the world of publishing and distribution is changing.
However if I may suggest… we are living in a time of extreme change that brings an enormous opportunity. I am a pastor who loves poetry and prose. My taste in literature is rather eclectic in that I love the Psalms, Robert Frost, Czeslaw Milosz and Edward Hirsch to name a few. I also follow a guy from Charlotte N.C. named John Hartness whom I have found to be polite, accessible, encouraging and even allowed me this guest post.
Though I’m am not sure how high the tsunami is going to rise or how far this wave is going to go, it does appear if you have ever had a passion or desire to publish now is the time, to pull out the stops and go for it.
In May I wrote a short story called, The Note. It is a true story of how an eleven year old boy gets himself into trouble and lies when he is caught. In the end he learns something about the nature of living in a small town and he also learns something about his father’s heart. It is a story about Grace.
I would invite you to check it out http://www.amazon.com/THE-NOTE-ebook/dp/B0052VXDD8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311906387&sr=8-1
My website (camsquill.com) went live on August 1st. This is an invitation to stop by and spend a little time with a novice. Maybe we can link up and take the journey together. Opportunity is knocking.
by john | Aug 7, 2011 | Vampires, Writing
With the release of Knight Moves this week, I thought I’d drop a little sample in here for you guys. As always, the book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Once I get print copies formatted, they will be available online, at cons and here.
Chapter 1
I woke up with a beautiful woman staring down at me, her brown curls cascading over my face. I smiled into the dark eyes of Detective Sabrina Law. “This is a nice way to start an evening. I love the way your hair smells.” She straddled my waist fully dressed, but I had faith in my ability to fix that. Then I noticed she wasn’t returning my smile. Her expression wavered between betrayed and furious, and her green eyes were red-rimmed. I smelled the salt on her cheek and raised my head a little, surprised when she pulled back, scowling.
“Don’t move,” she said in a low, tense voice.
Not being one to listen much, I tried to sit up, then realized I was handcuffed to my bed. While not my normal thing, I wasn’t going to ask questions until I realized that the handcuffs were silver-plated, and that my skin was starting to blister from the exposure. I pulled experimentally at the restraints, got nowhere, then tried to move my legs with a similar lack of results. I started to get a little worried. When I saw that Sabrina still hadn’t so much as cracked a smile, I really started to worry. When I noticed the silver stake she had pressed against my chest, I became downright concerned.
“I didn’t mean it. Those jeans definitely do not make your butt look big.” I smiled, giving my best disarming look, to no avail. No surprise there. I’d always been the guilty-looking one, even before I became an undead creature of the night.
Sabrina looked down, disgust and anger coming off of her in waves, and poked the stake a little harder into my chest. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shove this overgrown toothpick into your heart right now.”
“Ummm… my sparkling personality?” I tried one more time for humor, but my jokes were falling flatter than usual.
“Not even close, you parasite.” She pulled her arm back as if to jam the stake home, but just before she perforated me, she very quietly asked, “How could you?”
“How could I what?” I asked, just as quietly. I figured if a little quiet time was what the situation demanded, I shouldn’t argue. Besides, I had no idea why she was angry. I was no stranger to inspiring violence in other people, especially women, but this time I couldn’t come up with anything I had done to her specifically. And since it was close to impossible for me to get blackout drunk anymore, my memory was pretty solid.
“You know what, you monster!” She poked the stake into my chest a little. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I heard a sizzling sound as the silver came into contact with my blood.
I hadn’t known my blood would boil when touched by silver. “No, really, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about! And you know my “stupid face” by now!” I tried again to twist away from the pointy bit.
“You murdered a girl tonight, Jimmy. You drained her dry and left her in a construction site. I saw the body, and I know a vampire kill when I see one. She was just a kid, and you threw her aside like a piece of garbage. I thought I knew you. How could you do that?” The look of betrayal in her eyes hurt almost as much as the silver stake. Almost, but not quite. Really, not even close to as much, but it still hurt.
“Sabrina, what the hell are you talking about? You know me better than that! I could never do that to someone.” I pulled against my restraints, desperate to do something, anything to make her stop looking at me as though I were a monster.
“I don’t know anything about you.” She just kept looking at me, eyes full of betrayal. That part hurt the worst, the look.
I twisted around again, then looked her in the eyes. “Sabrina, I swear to you, I didn’t kill anyone tonight. I didn’t even eat takeout! I was here all night with Greg watching Being Human reruns on Netflix. Go ask the svelte avenger if you don’t believe me!”
“No need to go anywhere, Detective. He’s telling the truth. And please get off of my partner. You’re distraught, and I’d hate for you to make a mistake and let him live.” Greg Knightwood, my partner and roommate, stood in the doorway to my bedroom wearing, of all things, baby-blue footie pajamas. A forty-year-old vampire in footie pajamas. I wasn’t sure which was worse, that I had to be rescued by the fat half of our Laurel and Hardy duo, or that he did it wearing footie pajamas. I finally decided that the pj-wearing was the worst part.
“Besides, I think he’s starting to enjoy it a little too much,” Greg added.
Sabrina blushed and got off of me, but she didn’t remove the cuffs. “Why should I believe you, Greg?” She got right up in my partner’s face. To be precise about it, she got way over my partner’s head because she had a couple inches on him, especially in her ass-kicking, dark red leather boots. I guessed when you were going to kill your friend, you dressed for the occasion.
“Because I didn’t shoot you in the back of the head.” Greg raised his 9mm, then holstered the weapon. I wasn’t sure where he kept a holster in his jammies, but right then I wasn’t interested in asking a whole lot of questions. “Now, shall we have a drink and talk about this like civilized people?” He turned and walked toward the living room. Sabrina watched his retreating back for a moment, looked back at me, then followed him.
“Hey kids, not for nothing, but you wanna uncuff me first? I gotta pee.”
Like it? Click Here to buy on Amazon. Barnes & Noble info coming soon.
by john | Aug 1, 2011 | Appearances, Real Life, Travel, Writing
Okay, there’s a lot going on, so I’m going to try not to ramble. I know, but I’m going to try.
First, The Irish Curse opens Thursday night, so I hope you’ll come check it out if you’re in the Charlotte area. It’s really a pretty good show, and by the time we open I should know all my lines!
Then Saturday, again for you Charlotte-area peeps, I’ll be teaching a workshop for the Charlotte Writers’ Club on Self-Publishing and Self-Promotion. If you’re interested in getting your work out there or getting more eyes on the work that you’ve already got out there, join me at the Providence UMC at 9AM. There’s more info to be found here. It will be a good time, and I think there’s plenty to share.
Knight Moves WILL be released August 14th, I’m happy to announce. This date is special to me for a bunch of reasons, most of which having to do with it being my 38th birthday. It also coincides with the first anniversary of me putting The Chosen on sale, so I’ll have managed to publish four novels in a year’s time, which is pretty good, if I do say so myself. Check out my Facebook page for more info on the online virtual release party I’m doing for the rest of August. I’m going to release the book at $2.99 through the end of the month, then it will go to its normal price of $4.99. I’ll also be taking pre-orders for the print version here as soon as I get it added to the Paypal widget over on the side of the page.
Just in time for Dragon Con I’ll have my next book out, so on Saturday night at Dragon Con I’ll be having a book release party! I’ll have some copies of Knight Moves with me, and some snacks and booze, so if you’re going to be at Dragon, let me know and I’ll get you the room number. I’ll also post it to Facebook and Twitter. Hopefully I can get one or two people to join me in this endeavor, so we can have a rockin’ part-ay!
Then in October I’ll be back in Columbia, SC for RoundCon 2011.1 – return of RoundCon! This will be the second RoundCon to feature a creative track, and I’m heading it up. That’s what happens when I open my big mouth! I’ve lined up some fantastic guests already, with more on the way, so keep your eyes peeled and if you’re anywhere near Cola-Town, come hang with us!
So that’s a lot of stuff going on, and somewhere in the middle of all that I have two books to finish and publish, and a 20th High School Reunion to go to!
