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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Zoe Who? It's Zoe Winters, of course

(Scott: Zoe and I have sort of played a little "Good cop, bad cop" on message boards, discussing the publishing industry. She is a firm believer in controlling everything, while I am willing to concede a lot for one big fat check. Her energy is exhilarating or exhausting, depending on your caffeine level, but she is never dull. Check out the "Zoe Who?" video series. She's also a gifted paranormal romance author who knows how to push the right buttons in an intimate scene. And meeting people like her is one of the real joys of the indie era. I'm off at her blog today, and since we're both giving away Kindles, hit us both!)





Stealing From Smart People (and Giveaway)


Scott and I are house swapping today. He's blogging over at my place, and I'm blogging at his. I'm in the middle of a week-long book blitz and blog tour to promote my latest release, "Blood Lust". And I'm giving away an Amazon Kindle (possibly two).


That possibly two part is the stealing from smart people thing. See, Scott is doing a big blitz, too (As I'm sure you've noticed). The difference is that his is a marathon and mine is a sprint. He's going to be doing this for 90 days. I don't have the stress-tolerance for 90 days of this craziness. About a week of crazy is all I can handle at a time.


So he asked me early on about doing a guest blog at my place and said I could do one at his. And I mentioned I was doing a blitz as well for my book. When I got the contest details of his Kindle giveaway, I saw that he was giving a second Kindle if he got into the top 100 of the overall Amazon Kindle store. And I thought... dude, that's smart! What more incentive can you give people to buy the book on Kindle than offering to double their odds of winning the grand prize?


So of course I swiped the idea for myself. As an indie, I'm always watching people around me. What they're doing. What's working for them. What isn't. What doesn't work for someone else might work for me. Or what works for someone else might not work for me. But I'll totally steal a great marketing idea from a smart person like Scott and try it to find out.


So I thought about the second Kindle giveaway idea. I wanted to make it a high enough goal that if I didn't get there, I could console myself with the fact that I only had to buy one Kindle prize, but that if I DID get there, I wouldn't care that I had to buy another one, lol. So I picked "top 25 in the overall Kindle store."


That's the first page of overall Kindle bestsellers. Getting there, even for an hour or two to me was worth a second Kindle giveaway.


Bestseller lists on Kindle aren't about vanity or being able to say: "Hey, look how awesome I am." It's about more exposure and visibility. The goal is first to get as high in sales ranking as possible, then to see how long you can stay there, then keep repeating that. Each time hopefully you'll spike a little higher briefly, as well as stay a little higher, longer.


So that's what I'm doing this week. If you'd like a chance to win a free Kindle, check out my blog for contest details. There are multiple ways you can enter. And some of the options allow you to enter multiple times.


I'll also be giving away a signed print copy of Blood Lust to a commenter in the comments section here.


And now the obligatory Blood Lust description...


It’s all about the blood...

Comprised of three novellas, Blood Lust gives readers a snapshot look at the world of the Preternaturals Series. (Future installments of the series will be novels.)


KEPT:

As a cat therian (shifter), Greta's blood is already sought after to enhance spells and potions, but due to a quirk of her birth, her blood is potent enough to kill for. When her tribe plans to sacrifice her, Greta must ally herself with Dayne, the dangerous local sorcerer, and the only person strong enough to protect her.


CLAIMED:

For a vampire, Anthony isn't a picky eater, but he's drawn to Charlee's blood more than any other. Like a fine wine saved for a special occasion, he's denied himself this pleasure. But one night, high from the potent magical blood of another, he claims his prize and loses control. Ashamed of almost killing the one woman who means anything to him, he wipes her memory of the event. When Charlee awakens with complete amnesia, Anthony is the only one who can clean up the mess he's made.


MATED:

Because of the vampiric blood that has run through her veins since birth, Jane has been a target for vampires who resent a human being "kindred." She's forced to disguise herself as a vampire groupie to appease them and safeguard her life. When she's abruptly given to Cole, the leader of the werewolf pack, to satisfy a gambling debt, she discovers the blood running through her veins has a far greater impact on her destiny than she ever imagined.

Print and ebook copies are available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. (other retailers coming soon.)

Buy links are available from my blog (The top stickied Amazon contest post.)

You can find me here:

Author Website
Author Blog
Twitter

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Catching The Trade Winds with Vicki Tyley

(Vicki Tyley is one of the Kindle success stories and I'm friends with her agent, so we've struck up a correspondence and she was kind enough to blurb The Skull Ring. I haven't read her new mystery Sleight Malice yet, but if it is anything like Thin Blood, you can expect taut, intimate drama with high command of language--and, hey, Australian isn't that different from English. I'm off on the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour, schedule in the sidebar. Welcome, Vicky, and thanks!)

Catching the Trade Winds

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Eight years ago, I threw off my bowlines and set sail for unknown literary shores. It’s been one hell of a journey but is that land I can see? I’m sure that island wasn’t charted when I set out. Technology is changing /has changed our world, and that includes the publishing world.

When I started writing, my dream – like most new writers’ – was to be a “published author.” I didn’t expect it to take so long. I was naive, but in hindsight I don’t think that’s a bad attribute to have when you start out. If I’d known that I’d write two novels, only to consign them to the bottom drawer, would I have even started? I don’t know. Would I have given up everything to write if I’d known that my third novel, Thin Blood, even though agented, would fail to sell in large part because most of the publishers refused to even look at the book? (“Americans don't want to read Australian mysteries,” my agent was told.) I don’t know.

But “would haves” don’t matter. It’s what I did that’s important. I just kept writing and my agent kept pitching my work to publishers. Six novels later, Thin Blood, the novel rejected by publishing house after publishing house, has sold in excess of 25,000 digital copies, peaking at #1 Mystery in the Kindle Store (#6 All Paid Kindle Books). Another novel, Sleight Malice, has just been released on Amazon and Smashwords and is selling well. None of which would’ve been possible without digital publishing.

With the rapid rate of technology innovation, who knows what tomorrow’s trade winds will bring. Are your sails up?

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Blog Tour tomorrow-- coffee and keyboard ready

Well, here we go...the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. Well, maybe not my entire life, and maybe only involving books, but here comes 90 days of nightmares, three months of mischief, an autumnal adventure, a...well, you get the picture.

If you don't, here's one, as I go from the World's Laziest Hack to the Ugliest Hillbilly On The Internet, the Steve Buscemi of paranormal fiction, the Johnny Depp of supernatural suspense, the Seth Rogen of--oh wait, I don't want to be the Seth Rogen of anything.



Be sure to check back here tomorrow when bestselling mystery writer Vicki Tyley flies in from Australia for a visit. And the day after that, the unquenchable Zoe Winters will be here, who is conducting a Kindle Giveaway tour of her own!

I will pop in here at the blog from time to time with news, but will have a roster of guest bloggers checking in, too, so give them warm treatment! (BTW the Pandora's Box is now up to 71 ebooks).

My wife doesn't really understand how the whole thing works, but I explained that I was finally telling my whole story--the full Scotty--in all my crazy glory, and of course she instantly took credit. The best thing about the new era and Act II of my career is that I get to do whatever I want. Unlimited dreams. The only people I need to worry about are you and my other readers. If I can't turn this into a spectacular failure, I haven't tried hard enough. But you know what? I am having a blast. It feels like this is what I'm meant to do right now. Fourteen years of writing. A stack of books. And the Internet. This couldn't get any better unless they invented virtual chocolate.

I hope you follow the tour and comment. Spread the word. Laugh at me or with me, as long as you laugh. Best of all, have fun. I am!

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Czerwony kościół by any other name

Through the wonders of Facebook, I have learned The Red Church has now been published in Polish. Way cool. Great cover. Looks like it's been out since spring and I haven't seen copies or a check so I didn't even know it existed. Thanks to Mateusz Bandurski for the heads up. Maybe I can do a trade to get the translated edition for digital release. The title also seems to be the name of an actual village in Poland. Hmm, guess I will have to learn more.

In the meantime, I have translators working on French and Italian editions, and a Spanish edition was supposed to be published in paper this year. It's very exciting to see all these markets opening up. A midlist writer may soon be able to earn a blue-collar income sitting in sweatpants at home...

Shout outs to Lost for Words, Inside of a Dog, and Larissa's Bookish Life for hosting spots on the Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour. As you can see on the sidebar, it's nearly two-thirds full now and about to gear up with a vengeance. Please pass around the press release because the better the tour does, the more stuff I can give away. Hooray for everyone!

House-sitting writers

While I am away (mostly) on my Kindle Giveaway Blog Tour, other writers will be providing guest posts here--among them Zoe Winters, Debbi Mack, and Vicki Tyley.

They are among the growing list of writers who have contributed to the Pandora's Box of free e-books--I hope to get a few hundred in there by the end of the tour on Nov. 30, when I will be back here with a wrap and a long winter's nap. Writers who want to donate can send mobi, PDF, and epub file(s) to pandorasboxebooks AT yahoo.com, or a Smashwords coupon valid at least through the end of 2010.

Look for three new releases during the tour--the metafictional thriller As I Die Lying, the science fiction pulp thriller Forever Never Ends, and Gateway Drug: Mystery Stories. I will also be releasing a novel co-written with J.R. Rain.


Hope you join in, spread the word, celebrate books and bloggers, and most of all, have fun!
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Writer at the Crossroads

I love success stories such as Amanda Hocking's, who took the Kindle bestseller list by storm--part serendipity, part timing, but most of it built on hard, persistent work. But now at 26 she is at a huge crossroads of entering the traditional realm or sticking with the independent vision that brought her success. I wrote this on her blog comments as the advice of one guy who has been there and watching this writing business closely (and I see it as a "writing business," not a "publishing business," because publishing has no defined meaning anymore):

This is a beautiful, beautiful story and one I want my daughter to read. Just this morning I was talking to her about how other fifth graders might need a "How to Survive Fifth Grade" ebook and she said, "No, it should be 'How I Survive Fifth Grade." A brilliant distinction.

Amanda, I've followed you career a good bit since even BEFORE you were cool. And be careful when you open yourself to advice because you will get a lot of it. Well meaning, maybe, but from personal perspectives and agendas.

Here's my perspective based on six books in NY and now a handful of indie books (though I am nowhere in the same league as you):

Last year, it may have made sense to do what Boyd Morrison did and sign with an agent, because he had a dream of getting published in NY and seeing his books in stores. Sounds like you had that dream. Is it still your dream? Your primary dream? Or is it to connect with readers, which you can so easily do now?

Would you really want an agent now after they wouldn't take you before? It's sort of like the girl who takes off her glasses and gets the makeover and THEN the star quarterback notices her and asks her out. That's what I call a lazy agent. I've worked with five or six agents on different things, and they can be useful if you trust them. But make no mistake, they will always do what's best for them instead of what's best for you. That's just human nature. And they have other clients, friends in the industry to please, and ego and standing to consider--things that likely will be more important than you.

From a practical perspective, the minute you sign with an agent, here's what you get: someone who is likely to get you an advance and MAYBE a movie deal if you are lucky (though most deals are options that will pay you about what you look to be earning this year and you'll probably lose the whole series).

You will probably get a really good advance and be a full-time writer--for the near future. I know several people who got snazzy deals, but by Book Two the publisher dumped them and their careers were dead. One nice check, a couple of years to write, then back to Walmart or Burger King or house painting, and worst of all they'd lost rights to their own books. They didn't even own the one thing that was truly theirs (though it used to be you could eventually get your rights back). Your career is living and thriving now.

With a publisher: You will get 25 percent royalty, with luck, on your ebook sales, instead of the 70 percent you now get. It's possible and maybe even likely that your paper sales will far more than offset that, but only in the short term. Modern publishing clauses basically keep the rights forever, so you will be losing MORE per sale than you are getting, possibly as long as the book is in copyright, past your own life and into the life of your heirs. Hard to think about when you are 26, but you are in a good position to think long term.

If you sell to a publisher, it's likely you will have to take your books down from Amazon and then have a year or 18 months of waiting for a book to come out from a publisher. That's lost sales and lost readers--forever.

What exactly is a publisher going to bring you at this point that you can't already get? Only one thing--your books in stores. And I believe bookstores are going to be dying as fast as video stores have done in the last five years. It's like jumping off your own sound boat that you built yourself and climbing aboard a sinking boat that has someone else at the helm and they tell you to sit in the back and shut up.

Amanda, your industry is Amanda, not the publishing industry. Are you willing to give up control and vision of My Blood Approves to people who will never care as much as you do, no matter how hard they try and how much they say they do?

This is all heavy stuff, and things I've been mulling all year. A publisher may promote you if you are already a bestseller or they invest a lot of money. An agent may get you some foreign, audio, and maybe even a film deal, but people are getting that kind of interest without having agents. (At that point you'd probably need an agent or lawyer to handle a specific negotiation, but if they want to control everything, then you need to ask them all these hard questions. Many agents are in total denial about what's happening--clearly the ebook era is growing rapidly and clearly publishers are no longer necessary for success, as you and others have proven.)

I'm not one of these people gleeful about the "demise of the publishing industry." I think it will survive and find its own way, but with painful changes like any other business. You're already finding your way, and you did it your way, believing in yourself. How much do you want to turn that over to another person now? You can find editing, graphic design, formatting, and other services independently, people without any agenda except making your work the best.

I'd suggest you talk to some people in your genre who have agents, and talk to several agents. Don't forget (though many agents have), the agent works for you and you are basically hiring an employee, though it's also a bit like a marriage and hopefully a friendship, too.

Good luck, and most of all, enjoy it!

Scott Nicholson
www.hauntedcomputer.com