Cover Art, Graphics, and Slowly Going Blind.

Sorry for not posting on Wednesday, I was busy blinding myself.



No, I'm not kidding.



So, you know that It Was Only On Stun! will be self published. And, I gotta tell you, I didn't particularly like everything that was offered to me, in terms of cover options at the self publishing places I'm looking at -- Amazon.com, and Lulu.com.



So, I decided to try it myself.



I know, I know. You're thinking, "John -- or is it Declan now? -- we've seen your artwork.  Your Vatican ninjas were a bit of a joke. Why do this to yourself again?"



Well, because I'm stubborn, and because this should have been simple.



Let's start with what I showed you already.



Now, this photo on the right is what I originally had up.  There are a few problems with it.  The quality isn't that good when you look at it up close, the blood spatter on the badge isn't that good, and the "Junior" has become unneccessary.



"Junior" by the way, is because my father had his own company called "Declan Finn Associates," a little side gig for resume building and interview preparation.  Anyway, that's where the Junior came from.



Then my father said I could drop the Junior.



Did I mention that I love him dearly?



Anyway, so there was that.

So, what's the next step, you ask?  Well, there had been an option on Amazon.com that gave you a banner-type display for your title and author name.  It looked kind of nice, actually. Also, someone suggested that they liked one of the earlier "flair button" image that said, "Good Morning, I see the Assassins have failed."



And, so, I started to build that with the Amazon cover generator.



Unfortunately, it didn't want to work for me.  The image I had was always getting cut off from the cover layout that Amazon had. It was a pain in the ass.



So, I built that myself.  While it looks nice, can you see the problem?



It now looks like I have two titles to the book.



Oh joy.  Shoot me now.



So, once again, back to the drawing board.



I knew I had to go back to the original thoughts on the matter. I knew the assassins comment had to go. The blood covered badge seemed to offend no one, and it's part of the convention, called C-Con in the book.



So, that's good, right? Perfect?  I copied a "Hello, my name is" badge from offline, then slapped it on, morphing it a little, and presto, done.



Not quite.  You see, Amazon's cover creator requires 300 pixels per inch. I had 96 PPI.



AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!



Ahem.  Anyway.  So, back to the drawing board.



So, I had to go back to the beginning on the badge.  The image I had stolen from online hadn't been that high definition to start with, and I didn't like the blood spatter.



I made my own badge, from scratch, and tinkered with some blood spatter online. I had to adjust it later, in the image itself later on, but aside from that, it seemed to work.



After that, it was easy.  Start with red background.  Add black circle, white letters, past the badge over it, and we're done.



Then what do we do with the author name?  Simple white lettering?  Black on red?  Orange on red?  Seriously, what would make it easily distinguished from everything else? What would be bright enough to leap out and grab someone's attention if this were on a screen, or a bookshelf?



Enter Clive Cussler.  He's been an author I've read since I was a kid.  His Dirk Pitt novels were very much straightforward adventure stories, and he's been a bestselling author since, well, forever.  I remember he once mentioned how he was in advertising and insisted on four-color covers, so that it would be eye-catching.

So, I cheated.



Do you see something somewhat similar between the Flood Tide cover, and mine for It Was Only On Stun!  



I literally took the color from the title graphics, and used it to ink my own title.



And then there was the back cover, which I had to jury rig multiple times because I had to put text in with margins I couldn't see, and I had to account for a bar code I didn't have yet.



Not to mention, I hated the lower cases in the author name.

So, then it ended up like this.

And then there was the author picture.  A friend of mine told me I had a great Facebook photo, but it wasn't professional.  So, I had to fix that with freeware called Photofiltre.



So, at the end of the day, what does the full cover look like?



It looks something like this.

So, what do you all think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Leave a comment below, and tell me what your opinion is.



We're getting close, people. Almost there.... We're so close, the next blog entry is number 300. I want to hold off until next week. I hope to have an announcement then.



What announcement? Well, the title I want is "Forget Sparta: I! AM! PUBLIIIIIIISHED!"



Let's see if Amazon can keep up with my ambition.



So, until next week, all.

Honor At Stake, and publishing

Cedar Sanderson

Last week, I announced the news: I've been picked up by a real, honest-to-God publisher. Notice I didn't say much about it. I'm not exactly excited about it. I'm not gushing about it.



Imagine if you just finished moving furniture for a whole day.  Are you going to go out to a party to celebrate by dancing, and getting more sweaty, or are you going to plop down on the couch and take a nap?



I've been moving this particular piece of furniture for ten years. And I tripped over it. That was it. Dumb luck, and an acquisition editor with a high reading speed and an empty in-box.



Do I regret the self publishing? Hell no. In fact, if I weren't trying to be social online, I wouldn't have tripped over this, so, saying that God works in mysterious ways isn't exactly true. Mildly annoying ways, sometimes, but not much on the mystery.



The book is a vampire novel entitled Honor At Stake, and it's going to be include all the usual vulnerabilities you ever read in a copy of Dracula, because removing the religious defenses against vampires is just bull. It allows vampires to be your standard overpowered enemies, and we only survive based on their good graces.



And, second, REAL VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE. Period.



Now that I'm going to be working with a "real publisher," who will help me market my book, pay for an artist to cover my book, get me into actual bookstores, what does that mean for The Pius Trilogy?



Well, the publisher, Damnation Books, part of Eternal Press .... yes, I now work for Eternal Damnation, Inc ... will not touch self published novels with a ten-foot pole. They might take the sequel to Codename: Winterborn, mostly because it won't be so tied to the sequel that you can't read one without the other.



If you've read A Pius Legacy, you realize that book three, A Pius Stand, isn't going to be that easy to read without the other two books.  So, yes, A Pius Stand will come to an Amazon shelf in short order.



Will I party that day? No. But I'll flop on the couch and take a nap.



But Declan, you ask, what does that have to do with the cute redhead on your page?



The cute redhead is Cedar Sanderson, a fellow author. This coming Saturday, her book, Trickster Noir, is coming out as a freebie on e-book


Cedar Sanderson is interesting. She's half-way through a degree in microbiology, "just getting to the interesting bits." A former military brat, she grew up in Alaska (when the family became nailed down to one place). She grew up learning to hunt, fish, trap, garden, forage wild edibles, prospect for gold and gems, survive in the wilderness, camp, can, butcher, cook, bake, paint, research, and blow stuff up along the way. After Alaska, her adult life, was spent in New Hampshire, before moving to Ohio.

So, she's got a colorful little background....AND she's a cute redhead.  Yes, I have a thing for smart women. And cute redheads. Shut up.



The book is described as follows.

Book two in the Pixie for Hire series,
Trickster Noir picks up where Pixie Noir ended. Lom, the little pixie
with the tough-guy mentality, has proposed to Bella. All should be
well, but their happily-ever-after is in grave danger. Threats from
both Underhill and the human realms are closing in on them, and the
fairy princess raised Alaskan redneck has to learn on the job, and
fast!   

So, while you're waiting on A Pius Stand, you might want to check out her stuff.  Seriously, you can't beat free, now can you?

Announcement: PUBLISHED!!!!

I wrote  A Pius Man in 2004. Thinking I wanted a real job to fall back on, I went for a PhD in history, tinkering with the novel on occasion along the way. At the end of 2006, I discovered that I was screwed on the PhD angle, and my books were my fallback.



Since then, A Pius Man has outlasted two agents, and even the professor who originally inspired it. It brought me a great new friend, and then I lost several.



And, apparently, someone else thinks it's a good book.



It's even been compared to The Avengers.



So, after nine years ....



Watch the video. Please. I was up until 4 a.m. making it. I'm going back to bed now. When you're done, please follow the links below.















And, thank you all.  It's been a very, very long road.



Now, let's go out there, and make it a bestseller.





A Pius Man comes in paperback:  http://tinyurl.com/co5b7ry

Or kindle: http://tinyurl.com/ca485zu

DragonCon Report #6: an hour with Peter David

Just when you thought that this thing would never get posted (and, at several points, I didn't think it would be), it goes up.

Peter David is at the end of every Star Trek track at the end of every year.  He's the last hour on the last day of the convention. The way he told the story one year, someone in charge of scheduling said "Peter David? He's the last person I'd want to see," and random minion wrote down "Peter ... David ... last .... person."

And so a tradition was born.

Anyway this is an hour video.  He starts by killing time with some DragonCon memories, discusses projects he has with Will Smith (a movie called After Earth), his problems with the publishing industry (which suddenly doesn't make me feel so bad), and more.

Hitting the big leagues -- being interviewed at Fortnight of ... Mustard?

Today, I"m going to be a little bit lazy.  I'm going to let someone else do the work for me.....

Sort of.

I'm actually interviewed over at A Fortnight of Mustard (yes, seriously.) and at Catholic Once Again.

It's always nice to deal with someone who likes my books. :)

Anyway, enjoy the interviews.

Pricing, royalties, and Createspace

Before I begin, I should probably mention: Declan Finn has an Amazon.com author page. And two five star reviews.    And another one on A Pius Man.  Go me. :)

So, now that I've published the book, the one question I've gotten has been: "So, how much money do you make from this?" Alternately phrased as "What way of selling makes the most money for you?"

Well, that's a funny story.

First of all, you may have noticed my above links. I have different tabs for different pages -- in particular, Amazon.com and Createspace. Why is that? Here's the reason.

My first book book is $14.95. No matter where you see it, it's $14.95. In Great Britain, it's £9.55 ... which is $14.95, as of this writing. In Europe, €11.88. How much of that do I get? Depends on where people buy it.

If people buy an Amazon.com paperback, I get $5.22. If people buy it on Kindle (at the price of $9.99), I get between $3 and $7 (it's a long story, I either get 30% or 70%, depending on multiple factors). The same goes for the equivalent exchange rate in the UK and Europe.

If people buy at my original publishing website, Createspace, I make more money ... a whole $8.21 per book. It doesn't seem very impressive, but trust me, when you start selling a few dozen copies, that extra three dollars adds up quickly.

And here comes the reason why the publishing companies are in trouble, comparatively -- I am allowed "Expanded Distribution," which means my books are available at brick and mortar locations, such as bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, other online retailers, that sort of thing.

However, that way, I only make $2.23. Why? Think about it -- there are logistics involved, transportation fees, the inherent risks of not selling every last copy that a brick and mortar bookstore buys, making up for the money lost in the books that didn't sell, that sort of thing.

And people wonder why some authors, like Barry Eisler and Terry Goodkind, have gone to publishing on Kindle. Keep in mind, they have name recognition and they are their own franchise. I just have friends, family, and you, gentle readers.

In short, in an ideal world, to make close to six figures, I would need to sell 10,000 copies via Createspace, 20,000 copies via Amazon.com, or 50,000 copies at brick and mortar bookstores.

As of this date, I've sold 40 books, and made around $300. I don't think I've been this happy in a long time. No, it's not much, but I worked for every last penny.

In my quest to be published, I have worked within the system, and relied upon the people in it in order to reach the end goal. Through no fault of their own, these people could not get me published. And, because of that, I have been reluctant to rely on anyone besides myself and God Himself.

As the old Bill Cosby routine with Noah's Ark concludes, "It's just you and me, Lord."

Well, now I'm relying on myself, and God, and you, dear reader. Enjoy.

DragonCon Report #6: an hour with Peter David

Just when you thought that this thing would never get posted (and, at several points, I didn't think it would be), it goes up.



Peter David is at the end of every Star Trek track at the end of every year.  He's the last hour on the last day of the convention. The way he told the story one year, someone in charge of scheduling said "Peter David? He's the last person I'd want to see," and random minion wrote down "Peter ... David ... last .... person."



And so a tradition was born.



Anyway this is an hour video.  He starts by killing time with some DragonCon memories, discusses projects he has with Will Smith (a movie called After Earth), his problems with the publishing industry (which suddenly doesn't make me feel so bad), and more.

Hitting the big leagues -- being interviewed at Fortnight of ... Mustard?

Today, I"m going to be a little bit lazy.  I'm going to let someone else do the work for me.....



Sort of.



I'm actually interviewed over at A Fortnight of Mustard (yes, seriously.) and at Catholic Once Again.



It's always nice to deal with someone who likes my books. :)



Anyway, enjoy the interviews.

Promotions Update: Read the Book for Free

Yes, you can read It Was Only On Stun!, the prequel to A Pius Man, for free....



But you don't think it's that easy, do you?  Of course not.



Let's talk talk promos.



As I've mentioned previously, Amazon.com allows me five promo days for people to read my book whenever and wherever they like.



But only as long as it's on a Kindle.



So, I've expanded the dates.  Anyone can read my novel, It Was Only On Stun!, from September 2-6.



Why those dates?  Because I'm going to be dropping these fliers all over the place at DragonCon (okay, it's slight hyperbole; I'll be dropping a ton of these fliers on the tables with all the other promotions).  I don't see anyone stopping their fun at DragonCon to read my book. However, I can see them downloading a free book so they can read it on the plane ride home.



And if you don't like the flier, this is only a first draft. I've been a little busy lately.



Twelve days to DragonCon.

Pricing, royalties, and "It Was Only On Stun!"

Before I begin, I should probably mention: Declan Finn has an Amazon.com author page. And two five star reviews.  Go me. :)

So, now that I've published the book, the one question I've gotten has been: "So, how much money do you make from this?" Alternately phrased as "What way of selling makes the most money for you?"



Well, that's a funny story.



First of all, you may have noticed my above links. I have different tabs for different pages -- in particular, Amazon.com and Createspace. Why is that? Here's the reason.



My book is $14.95. No matter where you see it, it's $14.95. In Great Britain, it's £9.55 ... which is $14.95, as of this writing. In Europe, €11.88. How much of that do I get? Depends on where people buy it.

If people buy an Amazon.com paperback, I get $5.22. If people buy it on Kindle (at the price of $9.99), I get between $3 and $7 (it's a long story, I either get 30% or 70%, depending on multiple factors). The same goes for the equivalent exchange rate in the UK and Europe.



If people buy at my original publishing website, Createspace, I make more money ... a whole $8.21 per book. It doesn't seem very impressive, but trust me, when you start selling a few dozen copies, that extra three dollars adds up quickly.



And here comes the reason why the publishing companies are in trouble, comparatively -- I am allowed "Expanded Distribution," which means my books are available at brick and mortar locations, such as bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, other online retailers, that sort of thing.



However, that way, I only make $2.23. Why? Think about it -- there are logistics involved, transportation fees, the inherent risks of not selling every last copy that a brick and mortar bookstore buys, making up for the money lost in the books that didn't sell, that sort of thing.



And people wonder why some authors, like Barry Eisler and Terry Goodkind, have gone to publishing on Kindle. Keep in mind, they have name recognition and they are their own franchise. I just have friends, family, and you, gentle readers.



In short, in an ideal world, to make close to six figures, I would need to sell 10,000 copies via Createspace, 20,000 copies via Amazon.com, or 50,000 copies at brick and mortar bookstores.



As of this date, I've sold 18 books, and made $120. I don't think I've been this happy in a long time. No, it's not much, but I worked for every last penny.



In my quest to be published, I have worked within the system, and relied upon the people in it in order to reach the end goal. Through no fault of their own, these people could not get me published. And, because of that, I have been reluctant to rely on anyone besides myself and God Himself.



As the old Bill Cosby routine with Noah's Ark concludes, "It's just you and me, Lord."



Well, now I'm relying on myself, and God, and you, dear reader. Enjoy.

Cover Art, Graphics, and Slowly Going Blind.

Sorry for not posting on Wednesday, I was busy blinding myself.



No, I'm not kidding.



So, you know that It Was Only On Stun! will be self published. And, I gotta tell you, I didn't particularly like everything that was offered to me, in terms of cover options at the self publishing places I'm looking at -- Amazon.com, and Lulu.com.



So, I decided to try it myself.



I know, I know. You're thinking, "John -- or is it Declan now? -- we've seen your artwork.  Your Vatican ninjas were a bit of a joke. Why do this to yourself again?"



Well, because I'm stubborn, and because this should have been simple.



Let's start with what I showed you already.



Now, this photo on the right is what I originally had up.  There are a few problems with it.  The quality isn't that good when you look at it up close, the blood spatter on the badge isn't that good, and the "Junior" has become unneccessary.



"Junior" by the way, is because my father had his own company called "Declan Finn Associates," a little side gig for resume building and interview preparation.  Anyway, that's where the Junior came from.



Then my father said I could drop the Junior.



Did I mention that I love him dearly?



Anyway, so there was that.

So, what's the next step, you ask?  Well, there had been an option on Amazon.com that gave you a banner-type display for your title and author name.  It looked kind of nice, actually. Also, someone suggested that they liked one of the earlier "flair button" image that said, "Good Morning, I see the Assassins have failed."



And, so, I started to build that with the Amazon cover generator.



Unfortunately, it didn't want to work for me.  The image I had was always getting cut off from the cover layout that Amazon had. It was a pain in the ass.



So, I built that myself.  While it looks nice, can you see the problem?



It now looks like I have two titles to the book.



Oh joy.  Shoot me now.



So, once again, back to the drawing board.



I knew I had to go back to the original thoughts on the matter. I knew the assassins comment had to go. The blood covered badge seemed to offend no one, and it's part of the convention, called C-Con in the book.



So, that's good, right? Perfect?  I copied a "Hello, my name is" badge from offline, then slapped it on, morphing it a little, and presto, done.



Not quite.  You see, Amazon's cover creator requires 300 pixels per inch. I had 96 PPI.



AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!



Ahem.  Anyway.  So, back to the drawing board.



So, I had to go back to the beginning on the badge.  The image I had stolen from online hadn't been that high definition to start with, and I didn't like the blood spatter.



I made my own badge, from scratch, and tinkered with some blood spatter online. I had to adjust it later, in the image itself later on, but aside from that, it seemed to work.



After that, it was easy.  Start with red background.  Add black circle, white letters, past the badge over it, and we're done.



Then what do we do with the author name?  Simple white lettering?  Black on red?  Orange on red?  Seriously, what would make it easily distinguished from everything else? What would be bright enough to leap out and grab someone's attention if this were on a screen, or a bookshelf?



Enter Clive Cussler.  He's been an author I've read since I was a kid.  His Dirk Pitt novels were very much straightforward adventure stories, and he's been a bestselling author since, well, forever.  I remember he once mentioned how he was in advertising and insisted on four-color covers, so that it would be eye-catching.

So, I cheated.



Do you see something somewhat similar between the Flood Tide cover, and mine for It Was Only On Stun!  



I literally took the color from the title graphics, and used it to ink my own title.



And then there was the back cover, which I had to jury rig multiple times because I had to put text in with margins I couldn't see, and I had to account for a bar code I didn't have yet.



Not to mention, I hated the lower cases in the author name.

So, then it ended up like this.

And then there was the author picture.  A friend of mine told me I had a great Facebook photo, but it wasn't professional.  So, I had to fix that with freeware called Photofiltre.



So, at the end of the day, what does the full cover look like?



It looks something like this.

So, what do you all think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Leave a comment below, and tell me what your opinion is.



We're getting close, people. Almost there.... We're so close, the next blog entry is number 300. I want to hold off until next week. I hope to have an announcement then.



What announcement? Well, the title I want is "Forget Sparta: I! AM! PUBLIIIIIIISHED!"



Let's see if Amazon can keep up with my ambition.



So, until next week, all.

Cover Art, Graphics, and Slowly Going Blind.

Sorry for not posting on Wednesday, I was busy blinding myself.



No, I'm not kidding.



So, you know that It Was Only On Stun! will be self published. And, I gotta tell you, I didn't particularly like everything that was offered to me, in terms of cover options at the self publishing places I'm looking at -- Amazon.com, and Lulu.com.



So, I decided to try it myself.



I know, I know. You're thinking, "John -- or is it Declan now? -- we've seen your artwork.  Your Vatican ninjas were a bit of a joke. Why do this to yourself again?"



Well, because I'm stubborn, and because this should have been simple.



Let's start with what I showed you already.



Now, this photo on the right is what I originally had up.  There are a few problems with it.  The quality isn't that good when you look at it up close, the blood spatter on the badge isn't that good, and the "Junior" has become unneccessary.



"Junior" by the way, is because my father had his own company called "Declan Finn Associates," a little side gig for resume building and interview preparation.  Anyway, that's where the Junior came from.



Then my father said I could drop the Junior.



Did I mention that I love him dearly?



Anyway, so there was that.

So, what's the next step, you ask?  Well, there had been an option on Amazon.com that gave you a banner-type display for your title and author name.  It looked kind of nice, actually. Also, someone suggested that they liked one of the earlier "flair button" image that said, "Good Morning, I see the Assassins have failed."



And, so, I started to build that with the Amazon cover generator.



Unfortunately, it didn't want to work for me.  The image I had was always getting cut off from the cover layout that Amazon had. It was a pain in the ass.



So, I built that myself.  While it looks nice, can you see the problem?



It now looks like I have two titles to the book.



Oh joy.  Shoot me now.



So, once again, back to the drawing board.



I knew I had to go back to the original thoughts on the matter. I knew the assassins comment had to go. The blood covered badge seemed to offend no one, and it's part of the convention, called C-Con in the book.



So, that's good, right? Perfect?  I copied a "Hello, my name is" badge from offline, then slapped it on, morphing it a little, and presto, done.



Not quite.  You see, Amazon's cover creator requires 300 pixels per inch. I had 96 PPI.



AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!



Ahem.  Anyway.  So, back to the drawing board.



So, I had to go back to the beginning on the badge.  The image I had stolen from online hadn't been that high definition to start with, and I didn't like the blood spatter.



I made my own badge, from scratch, and tinkered with some blood spatter online. I had to adjust it later, in the image itself later on, but aside from that, it seemed to work.



After that, it was easy.  Start with red background.  Add black circle, white letters, past the badge over it, and we're done.



Then what do we do with the author name?  Simple white lettering?  Black on red?  Orange on red?  Seriously, what would make it easily distinguished from everything else? What would be bright enough to leap out and grab someone's attention if this were on a screen, or a bookshelf?



Enter Clive Cussler.  He's been an author I've read since I was a kid.  His Dirk Pitt novels were very much straightforward adventure stories, and he's been a bestselling author since, well, forever.  I remember he once mentioned how he was in advertising and insisted on four-color covers, so that it would be eye-catching.

So, I cheated.



Do you see something somewhat similar between the Flood Tide cover, and mine for It Was Only On Stun!  



I literally took the color from the title graphics, and used it to ink my own title.



And then there was the back cover, which I had to jury rig multiple times because I had to put text in with margins I couldn't see, and I had to account for a bar code I didn't have yet.



Not to mention, I hated the lower cases in the author name.

So, then it ended up like this.

And then there was the author picture.  A friend of mine told me I had a great Facebook photo, but it wasn't professional.  So, I had to fix that with freeware called Photofiltre.


So, at the end of the day, what does the full cover look like?

It looks something like this.

So, what do you all think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Leave a comment below, and tell me what your opinion is.

We're getting close, people. Almost there.... We're so close, the next blog entry is number 300. I want to hold off until next week. I hope to have an announcement then.

What announcement? Well, the title I want is "Forget Sparta: I! AM! PUBLIIIIIIISHED!"

Let's see if Amazon can keep up with my ambition.

So, until next week, all.

Marketing concerns and self publishing

One of the dangers of self publishing is marketing. How do you get people to hear about a book that you alone published?  I don't have the money to take out a lot of internet ads.  In fact, I have only a Google adwords coupon for $80, so figure that might be it there.



So, with limited amount of funding, and no big names publishing house behind me, now what?



Well, I've got a plan. Sort of. Consider Facebook, twitter, and Myspace (sort of) accounted for. And stumbleupon. And the Catholic writer's organization mailing list.  (Where do you think I met Karina Fabian?). And virtual book tours on blogs.



Celebrities: Anyone I can get my hands on, really. I'm apllying to be a guest at DragonCon in Atlanta, I-Con in New York, and NYComic Con. So, I hope to both talk at large groups of people, and bump into a few people. Peter David checks in at all three Cons, John Ringo is at DragonCon-- I don't intend to harass anyone, but more like say "Hi, I have a gift for you. Autographed. It mysteriously has the author's contact info."



Churches (churches have book groups, don't they?)



Senior groups -- make a large print edition, swing by a nursing home, a senior center, and start speaking like it's a Barnes and Noble reading.



My alma maters. I have people I would like to tell about my success. What there is of it.  This includes my high school, my college, my and those of my family members.



The American Society for Clinical Laboratory Scientists. I know, it sounds strange, but my parents are members of this society, and I have gone to enough meetings to be considered a mascot.



Libraries, of course.



Instapundit.  This one is going a suggestion from my friend Jason over at Axes and Allies.  Instapundit is a massive news site, and the man who runs it is also a science fiction fan.  If Jason gets his attention on my behalf, you will know because my website will crash with the increased traffic flow.



Glenn Beck -- Wait? What? Yes, Glenn Beck, that wierd little fellow with his own radio channel. Why?  It Was Only On Stun is not a political book.  All of the politics in it is from Europe, and a lot of those are from the 1990s -- remember them? However, he does read thrillers -- he has interviewed Brad Thor and Vince Flynn, other thriller authors that I also read. He is also a fan of science fiction.  He might like a thriller set at a science fiction convention.  It's possible.



Literotica.com -- After the last one, this is also going to stand out as strange. As you can tell from the url, this is a written erotica website. However, they have a non-erotic section, and I've posted some of the stories from this website there. I figure that if I start posting little slivers, one chapter at a time (or modified chapter -- maybe a few pages at a time, a few scenes at a time), and when I get a few dozen pages into the novel, the last post says, "Thanks for reading. To get to the rest of this story, buy the book, muahahahaha."  Well, maybe without the evil laughter.



These are only some of the ideas I have right now. With luck, I'll have more soon.  If you have some thoughts, let me know.  If you're a publisher with an offer, let me know. :)



Be well, all.

What Happened To A Pius Man?

 I mentioned the book I first published was called It Was Only On Stun. As I said, it's a murder mystery / comedy with bullets thrown in.

After pushing A Pius Man here for years, you would think I would want to publish that first, no?

No.

You see, I'm going to bounce A Pius Man off of one or two more people while I'm at it. There's a small Canadian publishing company with an editor who really wants me to submit it to her. My first agent (no contract), Joshua Getzler, wanted to use my book to graduate from his apprenticeship (but was too bogged down to follow through) now has his own agency. So I want to see what Josh wants to do, if anything, then try the other publishing company, and then self publish it. I liked Josh enough back then that I want to see if he's still interested now.

Why self-publish It Was Only On Stun then? Why not wait?

Simple answer: the wait was killing me.

Let me put it this way -- I have been writing since I was 16. I have written, rewritten, spiked, and reconstructed 17 books to the level where I would unleash them on the general public. Problems include how many are sequels to other books, etc.

In 2007, I started looking for an agent for my best novel -- it was historically accurate, edifying, educational, filled with character and story and explosions and fight scenes .... A Pius Man.  I had Josh by April, 2007; he became "too busy" by that September, and 12 months later, in 2008, told me to move along.

By March of 2009, I had another agent.. I let that one go, as I mentioned earlier.

Every book and every author and everyone at every convention I've ever been to have told me that if I have an agent, I have a foot in the door. It's only a matter of time. Be patient. And I did everything that everyone told me to do.

And, following those guidelines, I waited 5 years to publish one book.

Playing by the rules, I got absolutely nothing.

I know that other authors have been rejected 27 times by other publishers. I know that "it's been tough" on publishers. I know that 

Will I try small presses in the future? Certainly. I have other books. I could (self) publish a book a month for the next year and a half before I can slow down. But I'm going to dedicate at least six months per book, possibly more (since IT WAS ONLY ON STUN! is a mystery at a science fiction convention, I'm going to try visiting DragonCon, New York Comic-Con, and I-Con, a major local convention in April).

But, short of someone telling me they want to buy my book with a full publishing contract, I am not going to put my livelihood in the hands of anyone else so I can be whipsawed for another half a decade.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And through the Holy Spirit, patience is probably infinite. But I am 30 years old, unemployed (except for my Ambit Business), and due to some bad educational decisions (degrees in European history when no one is hiring in that field), I am probably unemployable.

Prudence is telling me that patience is going to kill me.

I'm getting published

So, on Friday, I fired my agent.

Why?  Don't get me wrong, I like Sam Fleishman.  I could talk to him, he could understand what I meant, what I wanted, and what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, he himself told me he had problems selling anything by nonfiction lately. As much as I would have liked to stay with him until the bitter end, it's been three years of my life. There has been no movement. And I'm only going mildly insane. I need to do something, and, even though I have my own business now, it's not exactly going as fast as I would like (granted, if it went as fast as I would like, I'd be going door-to-door, but I'm told that's frowned on. And illegal in some cases).



So, I fired Sam.  He was understanding about it.



So, while this did not lead to a sudden discovery by a publisher, this did lead to a decision.  I'm going to start self-publishing my books.



You read it correctly, books, plural.



You see, A Pius Man was never a one shot; not only was it a trilogy, it was also the last in a series of novels I had written.  Characters like Scott Murphy and Giovanni Figlia had been bit players in two previous novels (though they never met). You can imagine the rewrites I had to put in to make A Pius Man intelligible. It had gone from being the last in a series with people the reader should be moderately familiar with, to a first book published.

For example, Maureen McGrail and Sean AP Ryan had met in a comedy-thriller called It Was Only On Stun.  In A Pius Man, we only know that McGrail dislikes working with Ryan, and we can only imagine why.



Now, you're going to find out.  Yes, I am going to publish my first novel, It Was Only On Stun, through a company called Lulu.com.  Here's hoping all goes well.  I have to do a few things first, like layout design.  And I've got two different versions of the book, which means two different openings.



And, in case you're wondering, yes, I will be writing under an alias. Konecsni isn't easy to spread by word of mouth, now is it?



While I am tempted to list this book with a subtitle of A Novel of A Pius Man, I don't think I have quite that many fans.



In short, this is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end.  But we hope, pray God, that this is the end of the beginning.



And now, a flap copy (what you see on the back of the book) of It was only on stun!

When security specialist Sean A.P. Ryan agrees to protect actress Mira Nikolic at a Science Fiction convention, he thinks it can't be all bad. It's only a three-day weekend with some colorful characters in costumes.

But Sean is hardly prepared for what awaits him; the costumes, the fanboys, the freaks and geeks are only the beginning. There are actors with attitude problems, writers with rabies, and how do you spot an assassin when everyone is wearing a mask?

This doesn't even account for the real threats. When his client left Europe, she had been a figure of peace in a region that didn't want it. Now that she's an international celebrity, factions from the old country see her as the start of a reunion tour, with guns. Not only that, but she is being stalked by Middle Earth's Most Wanted Elven Assassin; he thinks that the actress is actually an Elven princess, and will do anything to prove it to her, including murder.

And what is that body doing in the middle of the vendor's floor with a sword-cane through his chest?

Blog in review, March / April 2012

First, February knocked me out.  The whole month sucked, and you can probably guess why.



Then in March, I started getting pulled down -- first with bouts of depression, then I was busy with video games, girlfriends, and a new job.  And since then, let's face it, I haven't been that great at keeping to schedule. So, sorry about that.



I started March with a character generation chart, for those people who want an easy way to create characters.  WARNING: characters make develop minds of their own in short order.  To follow up on that, there is a more advanced version with the psychology of characters, with real psychology, if you don't consider that an oxymoron.

In April, I had an interview with Karina Fabian about her new book Live and Let Fly, which I also reviewed.



And, I made a quick study of Writer's Block.  And, to go along with it, I explained my current situation in getting published: it's situation normal.



In music, I posted a blog for Simple Gifts ... just go with it. It works.  And, if you don't know Loreena McKinnett ... have a sample, I can recommend her work.  We also had a return to the awesome Lindsay Stirling, and her tribute to Skyrim.



But what about the Catholic Writer's Guild conference? That was covered in March!  Well, that was so self contained, I did that as a separate entry.



Be well, all.

Good news, bad news, and publishing.

So, this is going to be one of those days where there's a lot of good news, bad news.



Good news: I'm keeping up a good pace on my Examiner articles: both as the Catholic reviewer, and the self defense Examiner.



Bad news: so, I don't exactly have a buffer of blogs for this week. My bad.



Good news: I HAVE AN EDITOR WHO WANTS TO SEND MY BOOK TO THEIR PUBLISHER!!!!



Bad news: this book of mine they want is not A Pius Man, and I do not have an agent for it.



Good news: this publisher doesn't need agents!



Bad news: they're not open again to submissions until March 1..... Bugger.



Good news: time to edit. Quickly.



Now, it's been a very, very, very long while since we've done the post explaining how things work in the publishing business.



This is the way things usually work:

Agents represent the author.
Their mission: sell your book to a publisher for the highest possible value. 
Agents act as a filtering mechanism for editors. If an author comes with his own agent, he has passed the first line of defense. There has to be something marketable about the book, otherwise, a good agent wouldn't be bothered with it. An agent would certainly not touch a first time author's book with a ten foot pole unless it was pretty darn good. Consider it this way—the agent only gets approximately 10% of what the author does, and an unknown author (barring a celebrity) has no selling value by themselves. The book had better be good.

And the editors need the filter. Editors have agents pitching manuscripts at them constantly. There are some stories about editors having a seven course meal for lunch, and with each new course came a new agent, and each agent has multiple books to pitch. 

Editors work for the publisher, and goes over the manuscript with a fine tooth comb. They are generally the people who are the feelers for the book. The agents have to cultivate contacts, pitch the book to editors, convincing them to at least look at it.

And then, editors have to sort through all of the suggested manuscripts pitched in order to select those that would actually be read. Then an editor has to read all of them. Usually, these are samples of fifty pages and a synopsis, but that's still a lot when you consider their already busy life.

And these editors, after sorting through what projects they think will sell, then have to pitch it up the chain of command. 

The publisher is the one that buys the book from you. That's where the money comes from, that's how the book is distributed. Before writers even sell a single copy, payments are first made with advances.

Advances are made by the publisher, and tend to be broken up into three parts: signing with the publisher, the arrival of the first draft; prompt delivery of the final draft. 

Simple, right? The author pitches to an agent. The agent pitches the book to an editor in a publishing company. The editor pitches the book to the company s/he works for. The publisher sells the book to you, the audience. The agent doesn't make money until the author does. The publisher doesn't make money until the books fly off the shelves. 

Or, mathematically....

Agent -->Editor

Editor --> Publisher

Publisher --> the reading populace.

$--> The Reading Populace --> Publisher --> You.

In this case, I skipped step one.

We'll see how this other book goes.  Here's hoping

Bonus blog. Pimping for our friends Tuesday: Masks

Constant readers of this blog will have noticed several posts that link back to the Masks blog. 



News items and essays she dealt with have inspired a few blog entries, and even a few stories .... my story "God Hates ... Superman?" is actually stolen from her original blog title of the same name. 



Masks has appeared all over the blog, including: “So, you want to be a writer?” and Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion, and others.



Madam Hendershot inspired Writer's Rules For Villains; and The Masks Blog beat up on Fred Phelps before this blog did.



Masks also made a brief appearance in one of the first stories on this page, Boys of the Old Brigade.



Now, what the hell is Masks?



Masks is a novel series written by Rebekah Hendershot, who has been a friend of this blog and its supporting pages since day one.  Seriously, she provided the first comment on the entire blog.



Masks is, essentially, what would happen if you had someone who wanted to seriously write an original novel about superheroes.  She's it.  Unlike some novels, like Soon, I Will Be Invincible, or other novelists who spend more time making fun of the genre than actually enjoying it, Rebekah is having fun with it.  Imagine if Jim Butcher wanted to write an original comic book, you get Masks. 



Masks also tries to make superheroes "real"-- rule one, NO SPANDEX.  



It's a book written for those people who want something more edifying than Twilight, and without a retarded fanbase... Rebekah is far too polite to beat up on Twitards. Obviously, I don't have that problem.



Her premise:  Something killed off the superheroes of Los Angeles.  And it's still there.  Cue Dracula theme. 



Now, the only thing standing between the civilians of LA and supervillains is .... a sixteen-year-old girl with a snark function permanently set to "kill."  When she sees a "real" hero from out of town try to assassinate a second-rate villain right in front of her, she rides to the rescue -- and is now a target.  She has allies ... after a fashion.  She's aided by a screwed up Tim Drake meets Winter Soldier, she has a demon coyote who's stalking her, and a cowboy grim reaper seems to have an interest in her as well.



And that's the first sixty pages.



There's a love story in there as well, but I can only cover so much.



Over the last year or so, she has supported gamers, comic books, and Young Adult fiction that men can read (YA fiction that isn't Twilight.)



When you check out her blog ... and what are you still doing here reading mine? .... you might notice some common themes between her blog and this one.  A lot of writers are similiarly warped. We're weird that way. 



Like all good comic books, she's on the forefront of writing.  She has managed to take all the right things and blend them together, throwing in science fiction and magic in a way that I haven't seen since David Weber's "Hell's Gate" series, or even his recent novel "Out of the Dark."  And Lord knows that any fantasy elements in Masks is about ten times better than any fantasy used in Star Wars recently.



One day, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden will come up against a mad scientist, and it'll look a lot a Masks novel.  Or, Butcher, or even Laurell K. Hamilton, will try to write something that is a solid mystery, and it may be as good as the Agatha Christie-like Zephyr Street.



All in all, it's a fun ride.  If you have the time, you might want to get on. And buckle up.

YouTube videos, and “So, you want to be a writer?” (Apologies to Dr. Who.)

Everyone here has been promised a video of the hour-long spotlight on J. Michael Straczynski, where JMS gets to talk for an hour about strange and various topics.







However, due to a massive lightning storm that interfered with my YouTube upload, followed by the inability of both YouTube and Facebook to accept any uploads, that particular post will be delayed.







So, a little filler while the various video websites get their act together. Now I get to regale you with tales of, um, hmm … Wait a moment, I can fake this one …







Yeah, nothing interesting is coming …







So, you want to be a writer?







Maybe not, but keep reading, you might be entertained.







The first rule that many people tell you in creative writing is “Write what you know.”







I'm going to tell you that this is the last thing you should do.







No one wants to read about your family drama. Do you think that Vince Flynn is actually a terrorist hunter? Or that Rebekah Hendershot is a superhero? Or that Bob Kane dressed up as a giant bat? Or that Stephen King is a demonic clown?







Okay, demonic clown is redundant …







Saying “write what you know” is as ridiculous as suggesting that I am either: an athletic mercenary with enough weapons to take Latin America / a soccer-playing Vatican Secret Service agent / or a commando priest.







I would recommend, generally, that you write what you read. Unfortunately, your writing will probably suck at first. Keep writing. It will still suck. Do it again. Repeat until you no longer suck. Trust me, I speak from experience. And from the experience of Timothy Zahn, John Ringo, and several other authors who discovered how to write the hard way –by writing.







That would lead to an obvious follow up: read. No, Vince Flynn is not an assassin, nor Hendershot a masked superhero, nor am I any of the above.







However, we all do research.







For A Pius Man, I read easily a dozen books worth of material. We will not include all of the various and sundry newspaper articles and websites and lectures that I had to go through to collect information on weaponry that I've never held, and tactics I've never had drilled into me, and places I've never been. And we can ignore the fight scenes I had to rewrite after taking 18 months of self defense training.







Third: sure, you can use your own experience. If it's relevant, if it fits, if it's part of a character. If you're writing romantic elements, it might be nice if you've been in love. If you've fired a gun, describe its feel, its weight, the sound it makes when it fires. If you're a colorful personality who made homemade explosives for grammar school science projects, use it. I don't necessarily recommend testing out the Anarchist's Cookbook—merely reading it will suffice.







Experience is good. Relevant experience is better.







People talk to me. In my life, I have known seven rape victims. I once wrote a affidavit for a woman who was the plaything of a sexual sadist from age 8-22. I have dated a bisexual bipolar wiccan nymphomaniac (long story), a bi-Latina Catholic nymphomaniac (even longer story), and I have listened to more people with more kinks than I have ever wanted to learn about. I am a walking confessional and therapy couch rolled into one.







Would I put any of this into a novel? Very little. I have yet to write a graphic sex scene in any book. My only torture sequence involved our villain describing, in one paragraph, what he would be doing over the course of several hours. No details were present in any of them. The closest I have ever come to a sex scene was so vague, someone had to ask me to clarify the details. .







Though I do have at least one character who walks into a room, tries to read, and people confess everything in the universe to him …







Fourth: Don't go into writing unless you need to.







No one with an ounce of sense will go into professional writing unless there was nothing else for them.







I don't mean in terms of education, personal mental / physical / socio-economic limitations, or anything like that. I mean you are compelled to write professionally. You lay in bed in the middle of the night and keep a notebook close at hand so you can write down ideas before you forget them. Or you start writing a simple amusing fact and you suddenly fill the page with an outline for a novel. Writing is your drug. Your addiction. Your neurotic, uncontrollable compulsion. You would go insane otherwise … Or merely more insane.







Writing is not for the faint of heart. You are essentially playing chicken with your entire life. Even the publish on demand route is a crap-shoot. You may be picked up by someone bigger, you may not be. We hear the stories of those who have published online and have been chosen by Random House. I have trouble doing the math on how many others there are who don't go anywhere.







If you do have the occasion to fall into writing, if you have the compulsion to write every day, no matter what, then here's my last suggestion: Don't stop. If you need to write for a living, then do it. Write in your notebook during a lunch hour, write a page or two each day. Keep writing, and don't stop. Don't turn your back on your goal. Don't even blink. Blink, and you're dead.







Good luck.

DragonCon 2010, Day 2, Part 1.

Dragoncon 2010 report, day 2, part 1



Continued here: DragonCon, Day 2, Part II, The Day the Con Blew Up.

And here: DragonCon Report, Day 3: All Butcher, All Day



And here: DragonCon, 2010, Day 4. Peter David and Will Smith