Author Harry Shannon

Author Harry Shannon is a talented guy and I was lucky enough to win a copy of his first collection BAD SEED way back when we both had darker hair. Since then, he's piled up the properties. A musician, counselor, filmmaker, author, family man--and guy.

 

What is the working title of your next book?The Hungry 3: At the End of the World, co-written with Steven W. Booth. The novel should be out in February, 2013. It concerns the further adventures of Sheriff Penny Miller of Flat Rock, Nevada, who is still braving the Zombie Apocalypse.

Where did the idea come from?

The first book The Hungry began as a short zombie story written for a charity anthology. Steven and I had so much fun doing it we continued on and finished the novel version on a lark. It sold very well, so The Hungry 2: The Wrath of God followed in August. We're still not sure if this finishes a trilogy or if we'll feel compelled to do more.

What genre best defines your book?

Zombies, baby! And tongue in cheek horror, I guess.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie? 

The actress featured on all three covers of The Hungry books is the lovely Ms. Gillian Shure, who co-starred in my micro-budged ode to 80's horror Dead and Gone back in 2007. She has become so connected in my brain with redheaded Sheriff Penny Miller it has become difficult to imagine anyone else playing the part. Our fans tell us Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl on The Walking Dead, has simply got to play her biker friend Scratch.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Sheriff Penny Miller and her friends hide out at a hunting lodge in the snowy mountains of Colorado, hoping to escape the zombie plague. It is not a Merry Christmas.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

All three of The Hungry novels are published by Genius Books, which is owned by my co-author Steven.

How long did it take you to write the first draft?

We do an outline first, emailing back and forth, working out just the key beats of the story in rough chapter form. Once that is set, Steven generally does the rough, I rewrite that and send it back. Once we get going the actual first draft (one pass for each of us) generally takes us about three months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I suppose we'd be considered a mix of drama and comedy. We have loads of redneck humor, a touch of Zombieland or Shawn of the Dead, but the satire is mixed with genuinely creepy scenes similar in tone to the zombie work of Jonathan Maberry and Joe McKinney. Joe and Jonathan are friends of ours, and fans of Sheriff Penny Miller. In fact, Joe wrote the introduction to the first book.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I've always loved zombie lore, particularly the George Romero school and the 1970's classic Night of the Living Dead. I'm from Nevada, and often set stories and novels in that state. When we were writing the charity story, it just tickled me to combine those two and see how a redneck Sheriff in a small town might react to facing a horde of the undead. We began in the jail, in a salute to Rio Bravo, and it took off from there and became a series.

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

You can read The Hungry: At the End of the World by itself come February, or buy and read the first two now and start from the beginning. Either way, be sure to make a very, very big bowl of popcorn, dim the lights and be prepared for a mix of laughs on scares. These novels have been a ton of fun to write, and we think anyone who loves shambling monsters is bound to enjoy reading them.

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KDP Select, aka Amazon lending library

Having been put in the "stir" by the L.A. Times, and since every writer with an opinion (which is basically all of them--which is why we are writers) has to chime in on KDP Select*, here's my take:

1. More books for more readers.
2. Chance for writers to meet new readers.
3. Chance for readers to meet new writers.

Risks? Sure, but mostly for authors. This could signal the downward spiral of the value of ebooks, which could lead to fewer people bothering to write them and eventually fewer new books for people to read.There's the possibility a writer choosing Amazon exclusivity will alienate fans in other markets, but the author can opt in and out of the program every 90 days. That should give anyone truly interested in the author a chance to buy in the non-Amazon markets. Plus paper copies will be exempt from the exclusivity requirement.

Those who are screaming that Amazon is taking away the hard-earned freedom of indie authors, I have to snort coffee through my nose. Indies earned nothing (unless you were one of those who succeeded selling paperbacks out of the trunk of your car). Indies were just sitting there, largely either unpublished or cast off by the industry, when Amazon created a huge market and then let them in it. Amazon created the device, the market, and the audience, and Amazon's success forced other competitors to open up to indies and offer excellent compensation and terms. Any author who claims Amazon is "the enemy" is not working from facts but from emotion.

Every single move Amazon has made resulted in MORE money for all participating writers, MORE ebooks for all readers, and MORE opportunity instead of a monopoly (if you follow me at all, you know I'm a contrarian and I see huge, huge opportunity in the other markets now, which of course will have to do something to counter Amazon's big move.)

As The Dude says, "There are a lot of angles to this thing," but it looks like everyone wins for now. Who knows what the future will be, but did we ever know that anyway?
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*This is basically a lending library for anyone who is enrolled in the Amazon Prime program. You can check out any book in the library for one month.

Ebook subscription models? Book It

Big news bubbling about Amazon's moves for Christmas, including the new Kindle Fire tablet and possible $99 Kindles, as well as a Touch Kindle. I'd never own a touch screen of any kind because I don't like greasy smears on my screen, but others like them. And I am not a techie by any means, I just want what works at a low price and doesn't give me headaches. IreaderReview is one of my favorite places to follow such Kindle developments.

But for readers and writers, the real issue is: What does this mean for ebooks? I've been predicting for about a year that Amazon will soon be bundling books into a "Netflix" model, where you get all the books you can eat for one monthly fee. Amazon already has the model in place, and they just announced new additions to its Prime offering. It's never really been a device war in the long term--iPad and Kindle never were direct competitors for the ereading audience. Just ask any author who has access to their sales numbers (and don't believe what you hear from publishing companies, who are still desperately trying to spin their Apple agency pricing as a win). People reading on iPads are using the Kindle or Nook apps. Apple maybe has 2 percent of the book market. Probably less.

The cheap Kindle will pretty much lock up Amazon's crown as the content king. At least for five years, which is eons in the technological era. Look how many different devices have come out in just the last three years. Yet Amazon continues to be the content king, with at least 70 percent of the ebook market. (Again, if you look at publisher data, publishers will claim BN has about 27 percent of the market, but their data is incredibly skewed--don't forget these two are joined at the hip through the physical bookstores.) And Amazon is rapidly expanding its world markets.

BN's problem is the weight of those physical bookstores. It's difficult to promote the Nook while still paying lip service to paper books and investing resources in managing the bookstores where books are an ever-lower percentage of their floor space.  Kobo will be lucky to survive another year. Google is still freighted with its illegally scanned books, plus they don't really have a device out there. Sony will ride the Pottermore wave until those buyers realize they really don't have a very good bookstore selection after Harry Potter.

I don't know the pricing structure of the Prime books model. I only know it's coming. It's not only inevitable, I would be shocked if it didn't happen by next summer. Amazon has already been sending out feelers to publishers, and the Kindle library lending is a big step in mainstreaming ebooks. We still don't know how authors will be paid--presumably enough to keep writing, making less per book on a higher volume of sales. And Prime is a natural fit for rolling in advertising which means even lower prices for devices and ebooks.

Is it a win for everyone? It certainly is for Amazon. And I signed a book deal with Amazon, which is where I am putting my chips. What's funny is that BN was uniquely positioned to become a publisher a decade ago, and even put out a few books under its own imprint. And traditional  publishers never built ebook stores where they could control their own catalog and peddle their own subscriptions. Probably it was the shortsightedness of having to show investors a nice return every three months.

Bottom line looks like: cheaper, faster, more. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm holding on for one hell of a wild ride!
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Cross-web linky

Here are some other cool places I've been recently:

Interview at author Gary Ponzo's blog
http://www.strongscenecontest.com/2011/06/guest-post-from-author-scott-nicholson.html

Guest at Allan Guthrie's Criminal-E blog
http://criminal-e.blogspot.com/2011/07/scott-nicholson-interview-liquid-fear.html

The Slowest Bookworm reviews Transparent Lovers
http://www.theslowestbookworm.com/2011/07/book-review-transparent-lovers-by-scott.html

Eerie Digest: arts and entertainment magazine interview
http://www.eeriedigest.com/wordpress/2011/07/interview-with-author-scott-nicholson/

And of course you're invited to the Summer Book Club on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/summerbookclub

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Too Many Witches

 

Because I love you, or you love me, or something, here's a sneak peek at the concoction now bubbling away in the labs of Mssrs. Nicholson and Davis. TOO MANY WITCHES tells the truth about jealous girls, stinky old bat wings, and  what happens when you eat too much candy. In the tradition of If I Were Your Monster, but for big little kids learning new words, coming soon to e-reading devices near you. And paper, if you are an old fuddy duddy who doesn't believe in magic.

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Disintegration signed copies with FREE e-book!

Disintegration is now available in paper, and you can get your signed copy for $8.95 (plus $3 shipping) at Haunted Computer PLUS you get a free e-book version in the format of your choice. The free e-book offer is good for any of my available paper books, and I sell them cheaper than anyone. Also still running the Big Buy Three, Get One Free offer on my paper books.

E-book of the Day is The Red Church: 
If you care to tweet: The Red Church. A boy, a sheriff, a haunted church. #kindle http://amzn.to/d0Lsa6 #nook http://bit.ly/gaVlOW

Thanks! 
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Pros & Cons of Self-Publishing

(Official Kindle giveaway stop for Nov 13 so comment to enter before Nov 20!)

Today’s little bulleted list of the “Pros and Cons of Self-publishing” comes from someone who has been there. I’ve had agents, not had agents. I’ve been rejected hundreds of times. I’ve published in major, small, and independent presses, and now primarily self-publish. I’ve been a bestseller and had books I couldn’t make someone read at gunpoint. And all of the routes are difficult. If you think it’s hard to write a book, try selling one.

Pros of having agent
1. Most writers can’t arrange lunch with an influential publisher, talk over salad, and leave with book deal.

2. An agent can get you more money, usually more than the 15 percent commission.

3. An agent can guide you for an entire career, point out the landmines, dun publishers for money owed, and stay ahead on trends.

Cons of having an agent

1. The best book in the world won’t matter to them if they can’t sell it.

2. Your book immediately becomes New York-centric, measured by all the other deals, relationships, commodities, industry politics, and corporate bottom lines, as well as the pecking order of your own agency.

3. It’s possible the agent becomes a roadblock or black hole, where your work vanishes for years.

Pros of having a publisher

1. They do most of the work besides the writing.

2. They have a system in place designed to distribute and promote books.

3. They can pay you money immediately.

Cons of having a publisher

1. They take most of the money.

2. They may keep your rights virtually forever.

3. They solely determine the fate of your book, via profit-and-loss statements, print runs, and the amount of the advance, so there’s automatically a ceiling placed on your book.

Pros of doing it yourself

1. You keep all the money.

2. You get to find your own audience.

3. You control everything, and the success and failure are yours alone.

Cons of doing it yourself.

1. You keep all the money and there may not be much.

2. You have to find your own audience.

3. You control everything, and the success and failure are yours alone.

More and more writers are developing hybrid careers, where they have agents or use publishers but also self-publish material that’s either been out of print or has a small audience. This will probably become the standard working model for middle-class writers in the next few years. But to make it work, pay attention to the rights you sign away in contracts—the fairest deals should return the work to you after a certain period of time or when sales drop below a certain level. After all, it’s your work. If you don’t care about it, why should anyone else?

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Scott Nicholson is author of 12 novels, including the thrillers Disintegration, As I Die Lying, Drummer Boy, Forever Never Ends, The Skull Ring, Burial to Follow ,and October Girls. His revised novels for the U.K. Kindle are Creative Spirit, Troubled, The Gorge, and Solom. He’s also written four comic series, six screenplays, and more than 60 short stories. His story collections include Ashes, The First, Murdermouth: Zombie Bits, and Flowers. His web site is www.hauntedcomputer.com.

To be eligible for the Kindle DX, simply post a comment below with contact info. Feel free to debate and discuss the topic, but you will only be entered once per blog. Visit all the blogs on the tour and increase your odds. I’m also giving away a Kindle 3 through the tour newsletter and a Pandora’s Box of free e-books to a follower of “hauntedcomputer” on Twitter. Thanks for playing. Complete details at http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/blogtour.htm

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The Digger at Bookgasm, LC at Zombiepalooza

Okay, Amazon blew up the bestseller list by switching a bunch of free books over to the "paid" bestseller list so The Red Church got pushed down a few hundred slots overnight. That's okay, though, it's sitting in the ballpark of Top 100. I also tried the trick of making The Red Church and Ashes free at Apple's iBookstore to see if Amazon matched the prices there (which is what happened to all those indie books the authors were giving away and suddenly they were top ten bestsellers!)

Come on over to Bookgasm today and see The Digger, my comic character, and also pop in my guest post at Amanda Hocking's Zombiepalooza and enter for signed books. And Creative Spirit is having its formal UK launch Friday, so tell your Brit friends to go buy a copy and review it so we can rush for the Top 100 there.

And, in case you missed it, LC Glazebrook came out of the closet yesterday at http://ajourneyofbooks.halfzero.net/

The Next Step in the Indie Revolution

That squee you hear today is book bloggers, authors, SOME publishers, and tech geeks, as well as discerning ebook readers, waking to the news that Amazon has really upped the stakes in the indie book game.

That sigh you hear today is a lot of bookstore owners and those who work in publishing-support industries wondering what they will be doing for a job in three years.

Amazon has announced a Kinde for Web program that allows more interactivity for book browsers, but the critical component is the addition of affiliate sales for ebook purchases. What this means is anyone with a blog can run an e-bookstore. Sure, Amazon already has affiliate stores for paper books and all manner of products, but e-books are uniquely appropriate for one-click purchasing because you get the product instantly. Ebooks were made for impulse sales in a way that only Internet sex or gambling could rival...and it's legal in most states (sales tax laws vary). Want to run your own bookstore and make money off all those wonderful Scott Nicholson books? http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000579091

Let me know if you want to feature me and I will give you bonus content! This development may seem a small ripple but it contributes to the growing wave by taking away yet another advantage of corporate publishing--the stranglehold on deciding what books are deemed "worthy" of being read. Now, more than ever, readers can easily decide for themselves.

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My Reading Room

Day 27 on the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour is: http://myreadingroom-crystal.blogspot.com/

And a Red Church review at http://www.bewitchedbookworms.com/2010/09/review-red-church-by-scott-nicholson.html

It's going to be a cool week...stay tuned for some big announcements on more free Kindles and new books.
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The Writing Jorney

Today's post "The Writing Journey" is at http://yzhabellasbookshelf.blogspot.com

Comment to enter for the Kindle Giveaway. And please write a review for The Red Church at Amazon, because it will be the Oct. 2 "Scary Short" from Kindle Nation Daily, going out to 10,000 subscribers and Kindle owners. It has a good chance to make a run for the Top 100 and trigger an extra Kindle 3 giveaway.

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September Zombie event

Velvet at VVB is running a zombie event for the end of September--http://vvb32reads.blogspot.com/2010/08/september-zombies-schedule-2010.html I'll be giving away a Murdermouth copy and doing some other things. Looks like some cool bloggers involved so give them some love.

Also the Pandora's Box is over 100 e-books now, sow make sure you follow me on Twitter to be eligible!

Working on a four-way novella with Steve Lockley, Steven Savile, and William Meikle, it is definitely interesting and a little different, especially since they are all Brits! They'll have ot fix my slang.


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Kindle Giveaway Tour one-sixth done

With today's post at Candace's Book Blog, I've passed the halfway point of the first month. People have asked "How can you keep it fresh for 90 days?" That is a good question that once in a while gives me pause. Can I do five or six Q & A's and answer honestly but different each time? How much can I write about the same topic, such as the ever-popular use of ghost hunting as used in Speed Dating with the Dead? Can I go that long without breaking into a writing-related rant, or examination of the publishing industry that few care about?

When I step back, here's how I can easily do it. I think I will have 15 books out during the tour. I can feature one title at individual stops (there's 15!) I have a few video stops to make where I visit sites from my novels, so I can double-dip on those books. I have some UK and Australian stops where I can talk about e-books as relatively new discoveries. And a few posts on the indie era and the changing nature of books, Appalachian legends, and future projects, as well as my comic books, screenplays, and side interests (Saturday's post will be about my film-acting experiences) and I should be able to keep it fresh even for people who make every single stop.

I haven't seen a huge surge of sales, but this is more about laying a foundation for readers, bloggers, and writers to meet around the digital/virtual world. I haven't even tried to quantify the tour on success/failure measurements, because it's improvisational and a moving experiment. The goal is to stay a few days ahead on the posts, stay involved with you who are commenting, and present the spectrum of all I do, and maybe show a little about the "real me," since I've mostly been just a name on a book to a lot of people.

The tour was originally called "90 Days of Nightmares." It's barely two months since I first got the idea and still not a single nightmare. So all in all I am rather pleased. I know some people are watching to see if I can make it. Hello! I'm still here.
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The Safe Play

The Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour Day #3 is now a post at Joe Konrath's blog so go over and enter for the Kindles. While you are here, take a chance to sniff some ink and paper.

I was thinking this morning about playing it safe, partly because of some peripheral things in my personal life and partly because of some good comments over at A.P. Fuchs's blog regarding self-publishing. What he says makes sense: if you are just a generic genre writer, you probably won't be able to stand out in any environment, whether in NY or out in the world of readers. I made my original launch of the tour with The Skull Ring, a fairly well-crafted suspense thriller with a few good twists. Satisfying, but nothing ground-breaking or earth-shattering, nothing that would have you closing the book and thinking about it for weeks.

Even back when I wrote it, it was more with the idea of writing a popular book, and it has sold pretty well, but perhaps its most damning feature is that everyone likes it. At Amazon, it has nothing but four- or five-star reviews. It's the best reviewed of all my books, and I believe it has the most number of reviews. I don't generally read my reviews though I occasionally check a couple just to see if people are pointing out the same things, which may indicate a problem I can learn from. This book just doesn't make people angry. It doesn't make them want to throw it (or their Kindle) across the room.

I have this novel Disintegration that is bleak, written at a really dark time for me, and I have never done much with it, partly because I am not sure I want that message in the world. The Left-Handed Puppeteer tells me somebody out there might need that message. But I was planning to revise it, to make one or two characters more redeeming or virtuous and have some hope of a happy ending for someone. In fact, I left the original ending--those final five pages--unwritten for months because I knew what had to happen, and I hated to write it. It nearly made me physically ill (and, no, not because it's gross, but just because it felt that intense and irredeemable.)

Changing it would have been artistically dishonest. Sure, change for plot clarity, change for coherence, change for consistency. But never change to please. Because I knew the original ending would enrage a certain portion of the readership. But I've learned over the years that it is better to enrage than have someone close the book and not remember a thing about it, as has happened to me with some commercial bestsellers. So Disintegration will be out in Full Scotty, the way it was meant to be. I still have a final revision pass to make and some beta readers to knock it around a little, but it doesn't need surgery just because someone might not like the size of Frankenstein's monster's ears. Look for it in October.

At times I have tweeted or posted something and lost a follower or two, and I review what I might have said to offend someone. But then I get two or four followers in their place, and I realize what is actually happening is I am losing the people who don't share the message and finding people who do share the message, meeting people on common ground. And I also am a better receiver of their messages, too, because we're talking the same language. We are the people who choose to spend time with one another.

This tour is meant to be The Full Scotty. No hiding, no more playing it safe. It's not even about selling books, though that is always nice. It's about sticking with a vision and being who you are. I've hidden a lot, especially in my personal life, though they say it's all buried in the stories if you know where to look. The writers I admire, and the people I admire, do just that--keep the faith. They lose a few people along the way but were those people really on their side in the first place?

Okay, while we get the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour back on track, let's do a random giveaway here of a limited edition hardcover copy of Brimstone Turnpike from Cemetery Dance. Features novellas from Thomas F. Monteleone, Mike Oliveri, Harry Shannon, and Tim Waggoner, edited by Kealan Patrick Burke. Also contains my novella "Burial to Follow," which is also available as a 99 cent e-book. Signed by all contributors, I believe the market value is $40. Only 600 copies made, but this is a "PC," a personal copy, which is even rarer. If all contributors got four like I did, that means there are only 24 in the world.

EBay here we come. But please, wait until we are dead. Value will increase.

Simply comment below with your email address and I will randomly select a winner in seven days. Good luck!

(P.S. If you ARE into the whole PUSH FOR TOP 100 thing, then tomorrow may be a good day to ask your friends to buy Speed Dating with the Dead for Kindle. That's a hint, not a command!)

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Six Things I'm Grateful For Today

As a the owner of a cottage industry called Haunted Computer Books, I spend my days tweeting, blogging, boarding, networking, revising, writing, and attending the many tiny details of a dreamer's life. But this dream is real, and I can't forget how cool it is. So I offer for your consideration, and God's, these simple wonderful things:

1. The wall between me and my reader, and me and the author I am reading, is now so thin as to be blurred.

2. I don't have to ask anyone's permission to attempt the most spectacular and impossible literary or publicity stunts.

3. If you and I agree, we don't have to share our direct personal transaction with anyone--you can buy my books on my site and I send with a thanks. You are my boss, and I trust you.

4. Digital books will soon put almost every word ever written, and the sum of human knowledge, right at our fingertips, and at a low cost--or free.

5. The weirder I am, the happier I am--old rules no longer apply, nor the fear and control that go with them.

6. The future is limited only by doubt, and imagination is as vast and ever-expanding as heaven. Be brave and embrace this perfect day.

That's enough to get me to sleep tonight. Sweet dreams.

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Bestsellers on crack, bloggers on speed

Writers love to give themselves labels, and bookstores love to use labels, and publishing industry types love labels. It's easier for slotting if something is "mystery," or "horror," or whatever happens to be trendy--like all the paranormal romance authors who used to be horror writers but are now writing "urban fantasy." Book bloggers also tend to have their favorites, and seek their own brands and communities through blog hops. Same stuff, different label.

No matter how trendy, most writers just want one label: "Best selling." It's practically a category of its own, and usually comes before any genre delineation, such as "best-selling romance writer" or "best-selling historian." Writers of best sellers often must cross genre boundaries to break out big enough to get the title. And it used to be easy to determine who was a best seller, because Publisher's Weekly and the New York Times told us. And book bloggers act in concert because they have taken on the role of newspapers in reviewing and promoting books. Naturally, they are going to have the same bestsellers as everyone else.

However, those numbers have never been "floor-level data." They are based on store orders, which is why books show up as bestsellers before you ever see them in the stores. It's based on units shipped more than units sold, and why a book produced, marketed, and shipped as a best seller rarely fails to be one. Even in the era of e-book bestsellers, the numbers are based on major publisher numbers and fails to account for all the independent outlets and all the books that don't even have tracking numbers. Amazon doesn't require a number for its e-books, and only the author and Amazon know how many units sold. Amazon does a great job of constantly updating data, so the actual, real-time bestseller list is based on the previous hour's sales.

I've hit #1 in the "Ghosts" category with three books, Speed Dating with the Dead, Drummer Boy and The Red Church. I've also hit #1 in the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy list with The Red Church. Yet I hesitate to call myself a "bestseller" simply because that word has taken on loaded meaning in the industry and I feel like I would be corrupting its intent, even though it is literally true--no bestseller stays a bestseller forever, so it keeps that label merely from having once been a bestseller. Even if only for an hour. And some of the push is from the generosity of passionate book bloggers.

However, in lining up blog stops for the "90 Days of Nightmares" tour, I have started pointing out the books have hit #1--partly to overcome the perception that because these are basically self-published (through our collective press), they are somehow less legitimate and I am not a "real" author. Even though Amazon doesn't lie about such things, as far as I know!

So I use the stats, and I mention I used to publish with a "real" publisher. I promise you, based on sales and reader responses, I am more real now than I have ever been. I've been very lucky to find some passionate bloggers taking chances on indie or newer authors, without waiting to be told what's cool. I think the wheel is turning, and more and more book bloggers are going to help guide the indie ship--and, sooner or later, the indie ship is going to be the transatlantic liner. Bloggers have incredible power, and they haven't yet realized it beyond the nice cases of new books that show up every week from the big publishing houses. Some, like Kindle Nation Daily, Red Adept and Kindle Obsessed, are already riding the next wave and will become influential gatekeepers of their own.

Right now, it's still backwards--bloggers are sent new books and pretty much told what book to review when, which is why so many bloggers are reviewing and blogging about the same book at the same time. And, under the current industry system, it makes sense, because the publisher needs to push that book for a week to make room for the next bestseller. But when shelf space doesn't matter, and books are available 24/7 all around the world forever, a different type of ripple can form.

And that's where progressive bloggers are going to become the new gatekeepers, possibly more powerful than agents and editors (and, possibly in 5 to 10 years, more influential than the major buyers for the big chain bookstores). All it takes is a willingness to read and review a book for its own sake and with no promise of free "product" and giveaways. Bloggers, you're going to create the next generation of bestsellers! I think that is a precious gift and a beautiful service to literature. Indie bloggers will shape the indie scene in unforeseen and magical ways.

Now, time to go off and try to hit #1 again! Being a bestseller isn't what it used to be.

And book blogging hasn't even begun to be what it's going to be.

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Ebook price move

If you're an indie author, you probably are quite aware, but if you're the average Kindle consumer, you probably don't keep up. But on July 1, Amazon begins paying a 70 percent royalty to authors whose books are priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Right now, $1.99 seems a reasonable price, though I've played with different numbers. Most of my books are 99 cents, though I just moved The Red Church from $1.99 to $2.99. Predictably, the sales tailed off a little.

There will be a lot of experimentation in the next few months, as authors move their prices around and balance things out. Right now, you can get tons of indie authors for 99 cents, and that may very well be the "standard" for indie authors. Most will move to $2.99 because you only have to sell one-sixth of the numbers at the higher price to make the same amount of money. As a pro, you want to earn the most money you can, but as a writer you want to connect with readers and keep prices low so they can buy more books. I will almost certainly be moving Drummer Boy and The Skull Ring to $2.99, though I may launch the new paranormal thriller Speed Dating with the Dead at 99 cents until it builds up a body of reviews. Choices, choices. Fine tuning. Guesswork.

I can easily foresee a summer of frantic price moving, and then indies start moving their prices back down. I may even do it myself, because readers don't really care about royalty rates. All they want is a good read at a fair price. And, today, more than ever, they get to set that price. Viva la revolucion, but no revolution comes without a few heads rolling.
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Publishers aren't as dumb as people think

(Reprinted from guest post at Megalith Books)

Most observers and even some authors believe the major publishing industry has been slow to respond to the electronic-book era. True, the industry is struggling with pricing while trying to protect hardcover sales and has not been especially welcoming of digital books, especially those that compete with their higher-priced versions. But they have not been putting their heads in the sand, either.

Publishing contracts of this century almost universally grant publishers the electronic rights to the content, and those clauses may have seemed innocuous even two years ago, when e-book sales were negligible. The clauses that were afterthoughts returned the electronic rights to the writers when the book went out of print, back when that term was more cut-and-dried.

But, increasingly, the publishers are setting clauses that lock in the license as long as some minimum sales levels are reached. I don't get a lot of contracts these days, but the ones I know about generally have numbers like "If ebook royalties reach $100 in a six-month period, the clause automatically renews." In other words, if some laughable minimum of sales is met, the publisher retains the rights. Possibly forever, if the clause keeps renewing.

That is literally indentured servitude that traps writers over an entire career, at least those unlucky enough to have the moderate success needed to stay trapped by the clause. Ironically, those writers who are most deeply invested in The System are the ones who are going to be in the worst shape in five years, and even worse in 10 or 20, their retirement years, when they will be getting nickels instead of dollars.

You'd think agents and authors would be screaming about this development, but the ones who are most invested in The System are the ones most actively in denial. Look at the agent blogs--most are talking about how challenging the current system is and how lousy the quality of submissions are (when they are not actively making fun of some poor author's query letter), not how their roles may be diminishing, and very few (I've only found one) will admit that the current ebook clauses are suicide. I know agents have fought these battles with publishers, insisting on better e-book terms, but at the end of the day, you just get the most you can right now and take your 15 percent. Any agent who did otherwise would be either looking for job or heralded as a true advocate of the author. In other words, blackballed by New York.

In today's publishing environment, you still need an agent and the agent still needs to get a significant deal. It makes sense for them to do the best they can right now and not worry so much about the long term. Unless the client is a blockbuster, the client likely will not be earning royalties or a lifetime revenue stream anyway.

Even if you are an e-book phenomenon, you will do better if you have shelf presence. Take Boyd Morrison's deal for The Ark, after making a name selling $1.99 e-books. He was signed by a major publisher and now his e-book is $11.99 and he's not making much more per sale than he did back then--and the poor consumer is expected to pay six times the price. By Boyd's own admission, the biggest edits were some minor stuff and the changing of one character's name. Where's all that extra money going and what value was added?

Publishers are great at distributing books and can afford to ship free copies to the numerous book bloggers, who often seem to be reviewing the same book at the same time. That's been the carrot publishers are still holding out while they grip the stick to beat authors over the head. "You're not a real writer and no one will review your books" is still a powerful tool.

If publishers use the carrot to lock down long-time e-book rights, and ebooks become even 20 percent of the market (as is predicted by 2015), then those publishers have just made major bank, and will continue to do so as e-books increase in popularity. I don't see anyone predicting the genie will be shoved back in the bottle and all this new-fangled technology will get boring. After an e-book is published, it is nothing but content, and the publishers will be skimming both the cream and the milk, with little additional work besides dipping the ladle. As the e-book market grows, those publishers who have hoarded the most content will be on Easy Street. Those writers who gave the most away will be in the soup-kitchen lines, or, if they're lucky, they will be the beneficiaries of charity auctions at fan conventions.

Agents are debating whether it's better for the writers to get 15 percent of list or 25 percent of net--well, what about 70 percent of gross? How about that, Mr. Agent and Ms. Publisher? (And, by the way, you can trim 15 percent off that 15 percent, so the writer is getting around 13 percent.) And when e-books reach their natural price range of $1-$5, those writers will be getting a quarter a copy and have no control over anything, while publishers will have an easy, ongoing revenue stream because they essentially own the content (you can call it a "license," but if it's for a rock-bottom e-book floor to keep the clause active, then it will last forever).

Sure, publishers will be happy to return your rights once the content is worthless, meaning your career is dead and every drop has been squeezed from the teat. Of course, agents will get their spillover as long as their names were on the original contracts.

The odd thing is how little the word "author" appears in all this discussion of "The Future of E-books." But, then, most authors went into writing because they were lousy at math. And, I suspect, they like getting beaten with sticks.

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Scott Nicholson is author of 10 novels, including Drummer Boy, The Red Church, The Skull Ring, and They Hunger. He's also written three story collections and six screenplays. He works as a journalist and freelance editor in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His web site is www.hauntedcomputer.com.

Brave New Worlds

If you're a writer, it's very easy to be defeatist. In fact, it's the only easy thing about writing. I have encountered a couple of posts in various blogs or groups I follow that were decrying the "toughness" of the publishing industry. Well, it should be tough.

Show me Rembrandt, hands crippled by debilitating disease, still painting daily as his life unwound...what did he have to gain? Give me Stephen King, who was getting rejected as a 10-year-old, and nailing all his slips to a wall as he continued telling his stories. How about Clint Eastwood, who got only tiny parts until he was in his late 20s, and no doubt saw lots of younger, hunkier guys nabbing up all the juicy roles? Even Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, no matter your politics, who overcame all sorts of perceptions about a "man's world" to achieve influence?

I posted on JA Konrath's newbies blog about the beauty of this new age for creators. I was dubious myself, having had the lessons of "professional writing" drummed into my head for 15 years: get your 500 rejection slips, find an agent, be grateful if a publisher likes you, and then work your tail off hustling, under threat that if your sales aren't as good as the next gal's, then you will be dumped. And for all this, you'll get 8 to 15 percent of the cut.

Even now, most of the major writing organizations have "approved publisher" lists by which they measure the professionalism of a writer. "If you publish with X, then you are a pro." Even if that publisher only pays a $500 advance, totally mishandles your book, expects you to do all the marketing, and then ties up your rights for years, even if the book isn't available. Yet if you publish on your own and make $25,000 a year, you are NOT a professional.

That has never made sense to me. While I believe professionalism is an attitude than any writer could and should adopt from Day One and the typing of "It was a dark and stormy night," the point is to find readers and earn money. I'm usually the last one to take my own advice, but ultimately the crafting of a realistic career is my goal.

At DragonCon, I had the great good fortune to talk at length with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Gene Wolfe in the guest suite. I would have been far too intimidated to approach them, but my lovely, vivacious wife immediately engaged them in human conversation, having no idea who they were. Both were lamenting the state of the industry and how ephemeral a writer's career was, and both these legends were saying they were only as good as their last books, and despite tremendous contributions to their fields, they might easily see themselves set on the curb next year. And they expressed pity for the newer writers trying to break into this hostile environment.

Of course, every writer should say, "Well, I don't care about the odds. I'm going to make it anyway." But "making it" sure can look like many different things. For me, it was always to be able to tell my stories full time and put all my energy into spinning yarns and entertaining readers, while subtly expressing my worldview. I never aspired to be a bestseller, or launch a cult movement, or hang out in New York coffee shops. I wanted to be near family and enjoy the easy rhythms of the garden, the animals, the forests, and the weather. Why in the world would I ever want to leave the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Now, I can do that. "Can." I AM doing it. Not as fully as I like yet, but increasingly, it's within my grasp and power. I hope every writer feels as inspired, hopeful, and ecstatic as I do about this new era of communication. Not from bitterness or the idea of "revolution," but as a simple, direct line between writers and readers. Take heart, writers of the future. The world is at your command.
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New interview

A new interview is up at the cool site Omega's Apple, compliments of Anthony Morgan. I'm starting on the Ghostwriter Publications ebooks, with Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith heading for the "little screen," a pulp creature classic.

Making the rounds of various digital sites like Mobile Reads, Kindle Boards and the Amazon forums, it seems opinions on digital book prices are still all over the map. I've been trying to approach the issue from a long-term view, notably in how authors will or won't control their long-term royalties, but few seem interested in that. In the meantime, I'm staying busy and going full steam ahead on the ebook effort, with The First going live on Amazon yesterday and soon to be headed for ePub, Sony Reader and other formats at Smashwords and Zulu Express. Work also continues on the freebie download, Write Good or Die, with Douglas Clegg and Alexandra Sokoloff contributing.

If you want to be a working-class hero, we're looking for more Microchips to join the Haunted Computer team--you'll get free advance reads and be in drawings for paper books as well. Email hauntedcomputerbooks@yahoo.com with "Microchip" in the subject line and let's cook some electrons!
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