QA with Wren Emerson! (Part 1)

I forgot how warm it gets in Georgia. It’s been a while since I was back, but oh, how the humidity embraced me like an old friend. You know, one of those old friends with no concept of personal space.  l missed the thunderstorms. Wow. Lightning for days. But hey, I’m not here to discuss the weather, am I? No ma’am. I’m here to have a chat with my new favorite internet sensation, author Wren Emerson.

She was kind enough to tear herself away from writing (though I’m pretty sure she tweeted several times while I wasn’t paying attention, but that doesn’t really count) to sit down with me across a pair of oh-my-god-delicious nachos at Nacho Mama’s in downtown Augusta. She tossed them back with a coke, but since I had nowhere else to be, I ordered up a margarita. I would’ve gone with the Guinness, but the Margarita won the coin toss.

Once the noms slow to a steady enough rhythm, we make small talk. Seth Green dominates the early parts of the conversation.

She admits to finding a strong connection to Janeane Garofalo’s character in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, which breaks the ice almost instantly. “I AM the under-appreciated friend with the snarky sense of humor,” she says evenly. I find it impossible to argue the point, because I am already a fan of both Wren and Janeane. This is going to be a nice chat.

The conversation also touches briefly on music, where I learn that she began her music collection by picking up “Regulators” by Warren G and “Crazy Sexy Cool” by TLC. I try to get her to show off her TLC dance moves, but she gives me a look that chills my spine and I politely withdraw the request. Damn this margarita.

Her youth found her in Kansas – the sort of Midwest environment which can be an undeniably fertile ground for the creative sorts of people. Nothing like tornadoes and being landlocked to make you seek out other worlds, I suppose. What, specifically, did it teach her? “I would say that I learned a lot about loyalty and being true to your roots. I'm still friends with a lot of the people I went to school with. If I ever made it "Twilight big", I really don't think that would change anything. I'm married to a man that I've known since I was 13. Even if I forgot my humility, he'd be there to ground me and remind me that I'm still the same gawky, awkward girl inside that I was in middle school.”

And in Wren’s case, family also played a major part in setting her on the path to writing.  “I remember my maternal grandmother reading nursery rhymes from my set of Childcraft books while I acted them out,” she recalls. “Old Mother Hubbard was a favorite. That crazy dog was always up to some shenanigans.” 

So how did you transfer from reading stories to actually telling them? Did you always want to be a writer?

She laughed at that, so I braced myself for an epic journey. I wasn’t disappointed.

“At different points in early childhood I have wanted to be president, a professional football player, and a science teacher. Around 6th grade I finally figured out that I wanted to be an author. I started writing stories (awful) and wrote articles for a family newspaper (moderately bad). Around high school I started to carry around a spiral bound notebook and constantly worked on a high fantasy story that was heavily influenced by the Dragonlance series and my involvement in table top RPGs.”

Me: Ah, yes, Dragonlance. I was always in camp Tasslehoff, personally. (I pause here and consider getting my full geek on, but I show restraint.) So, literary-wise, what happened next?

Wren: “When I was about 12 years old I got my hands on a copy of Stephen King's It. I don't think my family even realized what I was reading. I spent all summer reading and rereading it. It captured my imagination in a way that other books hadn't. I think it was the fact that for half the book the main protagonists were my age, but it wasn't written in a way that made the kids seem stupid, which most of the stuff I was reading that was geared to YA did.

“It was that connection to the characters that made me want to do that myself. I'm not saying I'm the next Stephen King, but I hope that I've been successful in writing a book with a YA protagonist that doesn't make the teens reading it feel as though I'm talking down to them.”

 Me: That’s incredibly important, I agree! I could always tell when authors weren’t taking me seriously as a reader. Ugh. Annoying. (as an aside, I still can't finish "It". I'm such a wuss with that book.) So where are you at now in your resolve? How do you feel about where you’re at as an author?

Wren: I view writing as an activity that's both personally fulfilling, but also a viable career. I've luckily never been a position where I've had to compromise my artistic urges due external pressure. I went directly into indie publishing so I've never had anyone tell me that what I'm doing is wrong and I should change it all. The things I want to write are commercially viable so it's not a choice between my art and my mortgage either. I'm very fortunate.

Me: There’s definitely a tradeoff about being the first one to land on an alien planet like self-publishing. It’s still pretty early in its development, so most people are still working out what works and what doesn’t. Hats off to you at figuring it out so soon!  So, how do you get yourself ready to write? 

Wren: I make very elaborate outlines before I start any long work of fiction. With short stories I will write several paragraphs of summary, but with a novel I have a scene by scene background of every single event that needs to happen and since I write in series, I also know what's coming up in future books too.

Once I have my outline (which I make based on notes that I create using a software for Mac called Curio), I start writing. I have a set in stone word goal for every day and I use a spreadsheet to make sure that I'm keeping on track. I've been writing lately in a program called MacJournal. It's been great for short stories so we'll see how it holds up to writing a novel.

And that's my process. Pretty simple, really. I always listen to music while I write. I don't really hear it, but I can't seem to write without it.

Me: Oh, I’m the same way - gotta have a playlist going, or my brain just doesn’t know what to do. How often do you write; how long do you usually spend at a time? 

Wren: I try to write every day, but I don't always make my goal. If I could improve only one aspect of my writing it would be my self discipline. You can pick up everything else you need to know with enough practice.

When I write I set a timer and work in blocks of 50 minutes. When the timer goes off, I take a 10 minute break and that's when I get to check Facebook or answer emails. Ideally, because I think of writing as my job, I try to spend at least 5 hours a day on writing. Eventually, I'd like to work my way up to spending a full 8 hours a day.

Me: And that’s where it does truly become a full-time job, but it’s like they say, you find a way to get paid at what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.  What's your favorite genre to write in - if you have a favorite one, that is?

Wren: Right now I'm really drawn to paranormal/urban fantasy concepts. I'm very much a dreamer. I want to live in a world where magic exists and the man you love might surprise you one day by turning into a wolf. Even in the horror I've been writing there is an element of the fantastic. I have a short list of projects to tackle in the upcoming months and every single one of them has a supernatural spin on them.

Me: Now, one thing I noticed about you, your books tend to span multiple genres - do you find this to be a natural part of your storytelling process, or is it by design?

Wren: I get these really compelling ideas for stories. I can't limit it to just one kind of idea so I write whatever speaks to me at the moment. That's why I love the short story format. I can explore ideas that I normally wouldn't want to work with because there's not much risk. I'm only committed for a few days as opposed to months spent working on a novel.

Me: I can totally appreciate the way you seem to approach your writing; it’s hard not to admire someone for grabbing the stories they want to tell and just making it work under their own steam. And speaking of that sort of DIY approach to publishing, your books are currently published through Lakehouse Press. Could you talk about how that came about? 

Wren: Lakehouse Press is a venture that my friend Courtney Cole and I started last year when we were both publishing our debut titles. At this point it's just a two man operation, but we've discussed the idea of setting up some sort of structure for helping other new indies who would rather have someone else tackle the business end of things so they can focus on writing.

Me: Very nice. So, there you are, creating a press and putting out your first novel. Let's talk about "I Wish" - - when did that story begin for you? Where did the inspiration come from, and how long did you spend developing and writing it? 

Wren: I feel like I could say writing I Wish took 2 years or that it took 2 weeks and both are true. The original idea was something I started playing with a couple of years ago. It's based on my paternal grandmother. She was very much the matriarch of our family. She was a hard woman. I never doubted that she loved me, but she was not a milk and cookies kind of lady.

It wasn't a stretch to imagine what would happen if you got a whole town full of ladies like grandma together. Of course, they are heavily fictionalized versions of grandma. I swear, she's actually a really sweet lady once you get to know her.

When I heard about indie publishing I decided right then I'd finally found a reason to give up my excuses. I was going to write a novel, dammit, and I knew I already have a great idea. I hadn't done anything with it beyond the world building. So I spent a week populating my town with characters, determining the "rules" of the world and the magic they use there, and writing an outline. I was so enthused that it's all I thought about from the minute I woke up until I went to sleep (usually hours after I went to bed because my brain just wouldn't shut down).

When I started writing I Wish, I had a word goal that I met every day. And I wrote every single day, even weekends. I finished it around 2 weeks. I think it was 16 days, but I'd have to check my blog to be sure. Of course, it was less than 50k words and I later went in and added 12k more words, but the core of that story was done in days. This is why I'm such a huge fan of working from an outline. Once you've determined the story, it becomes a matter of putting words on the page.

Me: Wow! That’s pretty impressive! Please tell my readers a little something about the book, beyond the description over on Amazon and the Lakehouse Press website.

Wren: I Wish is Thistle Nettlebottom's story. It's told in first person point of view with a generous helping of snark and sarcasm. She feels like the only sane girl in one strange situation after another. She grows up on the road with a dysfunctional family unit: her emotionally detached mother, her cold (and oftentimes cruel) grandmother, and Shep, who is part body guard, part personal driver.

They go to a town named Desire where she's evidently from, but she has no memories of it. The people there are weird. The women seem to hate her on sight and the men are all a little too eager to get to know her. She thinks her life is wrecked when her grandmother tells her that they are going to stick around, but that's nothing compared to how she feels when she finds out that she, like everyone else in Desire, is an actual broomstick-riding,  cat-having, drop-a-house-on-her-head, genuine witch. That's a bad day for anyone, but add in a tough choice between sweet and sexy Evan or dark and broody Ben and the fact that someone wants her dead and you can understand why Thistle is rethinking her wish to finally have a place to settle down.

Me: It's been online for close to a year, now, and seems to be doing very well - - what are your plans for a follow-up novel?

Wren: I Wish is the first book in the Witches of Desire trilogy. Book 2, Your Word is My Bond has an anticipated release date of April 2012 and Book 3, Reality Bender, is scheduled for June or July.

Me: Can’t wait! What are your other projects in the works?

Wren: I have been working on a series of short stories that delve into the backstories of some of my favorite characters from the WoD universe. Those will be coming out in the coming weeks. I have plans to write a series of short stories about a "zombie" apocalypse that is heavily inspired by the movie 28 Days Later and the comic book series Crossed, but there are no plans to expand that past short stories at this time. As for novel length works? I have plans for a new urban fantasy series based in the world I used in the Witches of Desire books. I'd like to see that ready around August of 2012, but no promises.

Me: You had me at Zombies. We’ll talk about that when the recorder’s off, yes?

Wren: *smiles conspiratorially*

The interior of Nacho Mama’s started getting a bit crazy about this time – small wonder why this place is so popular, I can’t even remember eating my nachos, and yet they’re GONE – so we decide to wander over to the Metro, which Wren assures me is a pretty cool coffee shop. I can never turn down cool coffee shops, so I’m in. This also gives me a chance to turn off the recorder so Wren and I can talk about zombies. And I know you wish you got to hear all of that, but you’re going to have to wait.

To be continued!

The Great Debate

Okay, I should probably post a little explanation, here.

Self Pub v. Trad Pub.

Good lord, it's a bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot? Like something out of Braveheart or Mad Max or some such. So let me, pray, clarify something here, with a delightful series of numbered bullet points. Or is that bulleted number points? Eh. Whatever.

1) I, yes, am a self-published author.
2) I have many friends who are both self-published and traditionally published authors.
3) I do not hate traditional publishing Publishers.
4) I do not hate Literary Agents.
5) I do not hate money.
6) I do not live at home with my parents. (I don't really know why I have to clarify this, but, hey, might as well)

I really tend to be somewhere around the moderate middle in this big debate - really, I tend to go with whichever side is not trying to insist that their opinion is the only one that matters. The truth is, there's a big bold brave new world in publishing, and what used to work CAN work, but it's no longer the ONLY way it can work. There are more ways to publish effectively, which means there are more authors publishing. That means more books, end of story. This means that there are more good books and more bad books. But also, because there are so many more books, I recognize that this means each individual book may just get less people buying them. I hereby acknowledge that this can be scary.

But publishing companies don't seem to be acknowledging this effectively. Raising prices on books is the second-most antiquated form of trying to boost revenue, and it's rarely effective. In fact, behind the number one most antiquated form of trying to boost revenue (layoffs), it's really pretty much the OPPOSITE of boosting your revenue.

And if you don't think this is a real thing, have you already forgotten the problem with CDs? You know, CDs, those small plastic discs that used to be how you bought music? Or maybe you forgot about DAT tapes?  cassette tapes? Records? 8-tracks? Wax tubes? Betamax? Laser disc? Oh, and you know I could go on and on, here. Don't make me whip out my mad crazy video game historical knowledge. I'll do it, I will.

My point there is that technology affects change. It creates it. Inspires it. Look at how you're READING MY WORDS. I just wrote these, moments ago, by pushing a bunch of buttons on a plastic keypad THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY FROM YOU, and there you are, reading it. ON A COMPUTER. Or a cell phone. Or an iPad. Whatever. The point is, this sort of thing, while now commonplace for our children, was science fiction when we were children, and yet here it is. With that ability to communicate, opportunities arise for us to produce and create in ways that had been previously unavailable. With those opportunities, change happens. It simply does. Can't shove the genie back in the bottle. Stop trying.

And, look, my favorite analogy to all of this is the arrival of the automobile. Did people just stop riding horses forever? No. A lot of people did, yes. But that's because the world expanded as our reach grew. Some people moved with it, some didn't. Does this mean horse riding is bad? Of course not. I myself LOVE horses. But if I'm going to the store, I'm going to take my car, because I can't fit that many groceries into a saddlebag.

Change is good. Opportunities are good. Options are fantastic. But we need to stop using a lot of words like "right" and "wrong", because those just become too argumentative to be helpful. Also, people need to just chill out on trying to make this sweeping declaratives and stop using words like "best" and "worst" and "only" and "always" and "never." Many ways to get there, folks. What might work for one might not work for another. It's chaos theory. Look into it. Trust me.

Look, I understand that chaos is scary stuff. It's uncertain, and that casts a lot of things into doubt - in times like this, a lot of people will cling to the only things they know and close their eyes, cursing the darkness. I'm just trying to say, cool off a bit, take a breath, take a pill or watch some reruns or play some video games or whatever it is you need to do to relax and slow your roll. It's gonna be fine, you'll see.

So, say it with me: It's going to be all right.

Because it will. Totes.

Moving Right Along

Putting the finishing touches on "Lost", the first part of a series of stories I and a co-author friend of mine will be launching over the course of the year, culminating next year in a related novel. Kind of an exciting project, and very much looking forward to it.

It seems like more and more of my time is spent now on various elements of the writing business - it really is rapidly shaking off the "gosh, I'd sure like to write" aspects (the word "Aspiring" has already long since lacked application) into a full-fledged "this is what I do"-ness. One of the reasons I'd originally begun keeping this blog was to track this process, and it really has turned into one of those things where I can pause, look back over my shoulder and truly mark how far I've come. I find it especially helpful when I don't otherwise perceive forward movement.

But I've been coming to realize that it's not so much that it feels - from time to time - like I'm not moving so much as it's the industry that doesn't move. At least, not very quickly nor well.

This point may have been driven home after watching the movie "Moneyball" last night, which is as much about modern American Corporate America as it is about baseball. Maybe more. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but if you haven't seen it you really SHOULD see it, and I don't want to give you an excuse not to. So please suffice it to say that that at about 5 minutes in, I saw it as a very applicable metaphor for the publishing industry.

And then, this morning, while this thought was still buzzing about my thinking matter, I stumbled across a series of comments referring to the "literary gatekeeper" role of agencies and publishing houses. For those of you who may not be terribly familiar with this concept of Literary Gatekeeping, it's really little more than the belief that the current publishing industry is designed in such a way as to protect readers from being subjected to crap.  A noble concept, to be sure, regardless of its hubris.

Although, as a proud self-publisher, I am grateful for the people who also proudly bear the mantle of Literary Gatekeeper. No, truly.

See, not too long ago, people truly believed that unless you were published by a large industrial and corporate publishing house, then clearly you were a failed, imperfect and at best mediocre author writer. "You're not published? Oh, then you must not be any good," was the general expression. "Because if you were any good, then someone would have published you."

I'm not sure how many of those people are fluent in logical reasoning, but that falls right in line with the idea that "if all apples are fruit, then all fruit is an apple." It just doesn't equate, no matter how thin you slice it. No, not even all published books are brilliant, so you can't even equate those two criteria. "All published books are published." There. That's a statement you can bank on, I'm certain.

So let's erode away that failed premise. If not all published books are good and not all good books are published, then where's the literary gatekeeping? Really, it looks a lot more like a wall than a gate; and, frankly, with as much money as gets processed in that big industrial machine, sure. Guard it. Secure it. Keep your properties safe. If you want to publish an author, do it. It's fine. I hold no ill will against that process, nor do I from nearly any corporate behemoth. 

But at the same time, if you're going to go with a large company, there does exist a trade off, and it's not a necessary evil, no matter what people might have you believe. Let's start with the first part of that statement: there is a trade off for signing with a large publisher. And you may be okay with that. You do get a lot with the deal - marketing, covers, publishing schedule, access to editors and bookstores otherwise mostly beyond your reach, so on and so on. No, you may get an advance on your royalties, but this is going to be drawn back out of whatever royalties you eventually receive. But for many people, the validation of being carried by a major publisher is enough of a reward, so I can certainly see the allure. But be honest with yourself, here: you do give up a lot as well by turning your manuscript over to a publishing company.

And let's pause right there for a moment.

I know it's really a popular sentiment to presume that publishing companies are in this game solely for the maintenance of our cultural heritage, to ensure nothing but the pure and honest works of art to make their way out into the public mindset. And don't make that face. Yes, I'm sure there are individuals in the business who do possess that state of mind. HOWEVER. Corporations - in spite of how their legal rights seem wont to define them - are not people, and have no soul (and I won't believe they are until Texas executes one), thus have no desire to develop, maintain and protect the fragile seed of America's artistic integrity. No, corporations are designed to make money for their shareholders. Precisely that, and no more. Anything else they may by accident do is accidental or peripheral or geniune serendipity.

So for a corporation to sign an author - well, it has less to do with Artistic Gatekeeping, and more to do with Financial Planning. Any gatekeeping that generates actual quality of art.... well, I'd be more inclined to suspect that it's more a happy afterthought.  Or were you going to argue that no sub-par books get published by the Industrial Publishing Complex?

No, seriously. Make that argument so I can google for 30 seconds and get you a list of crap in a slip cover tall enough to choke the New York City skyline. Or, I can just remind you about this.

Do I believe corporations are evil? No, I don't. But I also don't believe that they're good, either. Again, they're merely corporations, they're not people, and I think I already engage in sufficently inappropriate anthropomorphization, thank you very much.

What I'd really like to see is for the mass of signed authors, agents, editors and publishers stop attempting to demonize, diminish or ridicule self-publishers. This is a big enough sandbox for many people to play in, and I think it's long since time everyone stopped trying to engage in the preemptory book burning that has been going on for so long. If people don't like a book, it won't sell. If people like a book, it will.

And this is one place where I think capitalism works nicely in that if you were a writer and you publish a book and no one ever guys it, after a while you're going to stop writing books. At least, that's the general rule here.

Or is the concern that, with so many books, the real quality books won't be discovered? That they'll be outshined by the mass and clutter which exists in the book-buying world? Is the fear that all those polished gems will remain dormant - undiscovered, unseen, unread - while so much rubbish and mediocrity blinds the almighty consumer optical nerve?

I'd like to say for the record that this is not so much a problem. It's the information age, and we're no longer so rigidly beholden to the Dewey Decimal system; now we get along fine with keyword searches, and so forth. We can look up a book in a dozen different ways, most of which don't even need us to know the book's title nor the name of its author.

Furthermore, there's an increasingly large number of the population who is unplugging from brick and mortar stores and are desentizied to the present marketing cacophony - - so clearly, as authors (or musicians, or whatever it is you do for a living), you need to find new ways to reach out.

I had a few thousand people pick up my books last month. I haven't spent a dime on marketing. I did my own books, and aside from hiring out for a solid editing process, did the rest of the book myself. Writing, design, covers, formatting, uploading, site maintenance and so on. I wrote on this blog, I tweeted, I facebooked. And people read my books. People liked them. People bought more. It's not rocket science, it's not the Wizard of Oz, it's not human sacrifice or deals for my eternal soul.

Oh, I sent a few queries out in the past; had some great response from most of the people I sent queries to, and the average response was "I loved the book, I loved the characters and your writing style, but I just don't know much about your genre, nor how exactly to pitch this..." Now, sure, a rejection is a rejection, but as rejections go, that isn't so painful. It's actually quite complimentary. But in the end, I realized that, yes, my first book series is a bit cross-genriffic. Is it sci fi? Yes. Fantasy? Yes also. Steampunk? Sure, a bit. Young Adult? Mostly. Grownup? That too. Female main protagonist, but not a substantial romantic interest. Anime-inspired. Oh, the list goes on. Yes, I knew it was a long shot - it doesn't fit neatly into any one genre, but works as well across several. So, in a brick-and-mortar store, where bookshelf real estate is the coin of the realm, where would they put my books? You can't very well put them on 4 or 5 different sections, so that's a problem.

But Brick and Mortar stores are no longer the pinacle of publishing nirvana. Not when there are stores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble who will have space for every single book ever written, with room to spare.

So it's a different landscape, and because it's a different landscape, a new approach has to be considered when looking to scale that mountain. In fact, there are about as many new approaches - all with relative degrees of success (all of which are, of course, dependent upon the writer and their own particular aspirations) - many of which can be found in a variety of levels of maturity.

It's a new world, folks. And I'm almost sorry for the people who are on those large and powerful ships, chugging across the ocean blue at full throttle with a rudder the size of a postage stamp, thinking that the past will always determine the future... Because they honestly believe that. And, yes, maybe the Titanic reference was a bit below the belt, but I do think it's functionally accurate.

Seriously, "literary gatekeepers"? Just stop. Honestly, you're embarassing yourselves.

* sigh *

Okay, as the title say, moving right along. I've got more to work on, and I've ranted enough for one day. Thanks for bearing along with the tirade.

Thoughts?

Oh, and while you're here...

Papa needs to pay the bills, here. If you get a chance (and you haven't already picked up a copy of it), please take a moment to hop over to Amazon and download a free copy of my first novel, "Reaper's Return".

Yes, it's a full novel. 60k words.

Steampunk. Science Fiction. Fantasy. "What if Death wore an adorable black dress?"

Everyone in Oldtown had heard talk of the Reapers. Even though nobody had seen one in years, everyone whispered the tales: flying from rooftop to rooftop, stealing the souls of the unwary, letting their undead beasts hunt through the streets for any member of the community too reckless or fearless to heed the nightly curfew ... mysterious and terrifying, most feared to even mention them by name, lest they appear and gather your spirit away.


For 11-year-old Romany, her greatest fears were less about the mythological Reapers and more about surviving a miserable life inside of Oldtown's solitary orphanage. Her stark white hair made her an obvious target for the bullies, and the cruel nickname of "Ratgirl" had followed her for years. But if Rom thought her troubles were behind her, being struck dead by a bolt of lightning would only open the door to an entire life of new ones.

First on the list? Finding out that she herself...is a Reaper.

------------------------
 
February 13th and 14th, I'm running a free promotion through Amazon - - the first ebook is absolutely free. Yes, the rest are for actual sale, but there are 5 of them, all part of a great epic adventure through a neo-victorian, anime-inspired landscape. My little valentine's gift to you, my lovelies.
 
Hope you enjoy - - feel free to leave a comment here or leave a review on Amazon. Thank you!

Two Kinds of People

Okay, I confess. I really have a soft spot in my heart for puns and simple jokes. There's just something elegant and quaint about them, like dressing a frog up in a tux and having him sing "Hello my baby, hello my darling..."

God, I love that cartoon.

Anyway.

The ones that I've been recently trying to explain to my 11 year old daughter are the "how many (insert social context here) does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Which also has led into the "there are X kinds of people..." jokes.

Such as, "there are three kinds of people; those who understand math, and those who don't." Or, "there are 10 kinds of people; those who understand binary and those who don't", or (my favorite) "there are two kinds of people, those who procrastinate and..."

One of the conversations I see going on a lot lately is about people who self-publish. I know, I talk about this a lot, and I really do try to talk about other things - I promise - but this is kind of a red-letter topic, so here we are.

The biggest challenge with self-publishing, I think, is that first word: Self. In the trad-pub world (term used to describe the current corporate industry of publishing, not intended to imply that this is the way things have always been done), authors get paid a nifty chunk of money ("nifty chunk" being used here loosely, of course) to do little more than write, make suggested corrections, lather rinse repeat. It's a nice chance to focus on one's work, I suppose.

On the other side of things, we have this renewed breed of authors who are once again doing it all themselves, just like it was back in the day. Write, oversee edits, design covers, manage the marketing aspects, start to finish, top to bottom managing of their authorial franchise.

I think this is the part that really kind of terrifies most authors. There's something kind of comforting and reassuring about having a lot of the day to day details cared for, with a small sacrifice of control, to have a publishing house run the show, shake the hands, make the deals, put your books on the shelves, and so forth. And perhaps some day I might look into that as an option as well, I can't really rule anything out.

But even if you're an author who's been picked up by a publisher, one still needs to be aware of how the whole process works. I see a lot of writers who lose the one-to-one contact with their reader base (obviously not easy to do when one sells thousands of copies of their books every month), but many of these are picking up that slack by attending conventions, using "the twitter" and "the facebook", and drawing that gap closer to closed.

If you're a writer and you haven't gone to conventions; haven't sat down at a table and talked with complete strangers about your books; haven't submitted the occasional manuscript for review or query... well, please do this. Don't delay. Put your work out there and get a couple critical responses, get a bad review, get rejected. Don't fear that.

You need to learn how to accept that not everyone is going to love your work. It's subjective. It's the nature of art, sometimes there are people who aren't going to like it as much as you do. And the process of coming to terms with that very thing is....well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's absolutely ESSENTIAL to being able to do what you do for very long at all.

Otherwise - and I'm probably going to get hate email for saying this - if you don't want to get rejected, the only way to really avoid it is to never put your work - or yourself - out there at all. Just stay home, do your thing and don't let anyone know you do it. Because the moment you try and take one step on the lowest rung of the ladder that leads towards your success, there are going to be a thousand people trying to pull you back. Maybe they don't like or get it; maybe your stuff needs more work. Sometimes, they'll try and knock you down for no other reason than that you're trying to get up.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Taking the first step is the first step. Taking 101 attempts to discover the light bulb still results in a light bulb, not just 100 ways to not invent a light bulb.

Really, there's just one kind of successful person: the one who isn't so afraid to fail that they never try in the first place.

Cheating on my Characters for Fun and Profit

For the past few months, I've been in the process of transitioning myself - body, mind and soul - from the series I've spent the previous 2 years writing and developing to a new pair of series of books. It's been in many ways an substantial challenge mostly in ways I'd never expected.

Some of the transitional elements are mechanical - creating new musical soundscapes for the hyperbaric writing chamber, developing out character bibles, and marching out the structural needs of the projects (note to self: I'm overdue on that whole location scouting time, by the way!) - and also establishing something of an autonomous marketing campaign for the books, which is also turning out to be one of the larger and more complex endeavors thus far.

For example, due to the books' tonal comparisons to the Hunger Games books, I'm expecting a few crossover marketing announcements, that sort of thing. I had a recent conversation with a good friend of mine in regards to this whole new world of entrepreneurial authorship, and compared it to a story I'd heard from a man who'd grown up in Wales as a Welsh-Irish lad.

He told me it's a difficult thing to grow up Welsh/Irish - - because the welsh blood wants to make music and make love, while the Irish blood wants to get drunk and beat the shite out of people. "If you want my advice," he said, "stick with the Welsh." (Which, I agree, is great advice. Though, sometimes, getting drunk is fun too.)

But the greatest challenge is going back and forth between the rebellious author side that just wants to be left alone with his storytelling, and the marketing douchebag side that recognizes the need to make this functional and monetized. Do I want to write good books? Totally. Would I like to do this full time, without a "day job"? Absolutely.

The big question then becomes how to do this all without getting my peanut butter in my chocolate - - - or to do so in a way which truly becomes a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Optimist that I am, I've always suspected that this sort of balance was not only possible, but, to a certain degree, essential. Now, bear with me a moment, here.

Some of you are authors as well - either professionally or as hobbyists - and may consider the thought of mixing business and pleasure as a form of creative prostitution. Love and Money. And I suppose there's a bit of that present, yes. But here's the thing. There's that old chestnut about how if you find a way to get paid for doing the thing you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Remember that?

Well, in order for that to happen, one of two things needs to occur, assuming we happen to hit the perfect storm in our writing in that we just somehow write the very sort of manuscript that an agent or editor or publisher is just screaming, barking mad for and it somehow falls magically into their hands (and oh don't we know how that just happens ALL THE TIME) - either we have to massage our writing towards that which is currently selling well, or we have to be willing to wait until that which we write is selling well.

Functionally, those are the only two real options.

HOWEVER, there is a third option which weaves its way around those two. Which is, essentially, learning how to market yourself effectively and in so doing, CREATE the market or affiliate those people who are your prospective readers to your work.

In other words, either wait for the mountain to come to Mohammed, or take Mohammed to the mountain.

Unless you're a corporate-published author - and even if you are - I'm talking to you. If you want to find success in this - or, really, any - endeavor, you have to confront the reality that you're not just a writer, you're also an entrepreneur. This is your business. This, right here. In fact, whatever it is you do, that's what you do, right? So take it seriously. Live it. Embrace it.

A dear friend of mine once reassured me, "you are not your job", to which I add a caveat - "you are only the job you choose to do."

Me, I do many things, but above all, I'm a storyteller. And in this case, I'm an author. It's a fun and liberating thing to say that. Hoo ah.

But as I was saying at the beginning, I'm cheating on my characters. I spent two+ years with them, and now I'm spending time with all new characters. It seems like it should be pretty straightforward, but I keep feeling this strange guilt associated with the process of series adoption. I'm supposing I'm not the first to feel this way - this could explain why Robert Jordan kept getting further and further from ending the Wheel of Time books, for example. But also, the books sold. Why kill the golden goose, right?

Well, fear not. The Chronicles of Aesirium were just the starting point for my adventures in Aerthos. I've got another two trilogies set up, plus I'm still writing short stories and will probably be putting out an anthology of all the stories early next year - so keep following and I'll keep you posted.

But these new stories are a delight as well. The books thus far have really taught me volumes about how I want to tell stories, and hopefully you'll see those lessons learned in the books that will start making their way out onto your ereaders soon.

The first one to be launched will be the first in a series of stories that take place in a very familiar world called Uphoria. The first story, "Lost", should be up quite soon, in fact, with additional stories coming out once or twice a month, all leading up to a full novel to be launched in 2013 called "Dust."

And later this year, I'll be launching the Emissary Files books, starting with book one, "The Old Bones". This series is going to be a contemporary paranormal series, not entirely for the faint of heart. I'm excited about this series for many reasons, not the least of which is because I'll be able to make all those shameless pop culture references that I was forbidden from attempting in the Steampunk series.  

I do love the characters I write about, though. In spite of a certain bit of meta-awareness that I think an author really should try to at least keep in the back of their minds, the characters are who they are because they wanted to be that way. And they taught me as much I hope I taught them, and for that, they shall always be close to my heart, even if I never visit another story about them.

For now, though, I suppose I need to let them live their lives a little while without me. But don't worry, Rom, Kari, Cousins, Favo, Mulligan and the rest of you....I'll be back with you before you know it.

Until then, let's say hello to Takeshi "Talk" Watanabe and make him feel at home. Trust me, he's gonna need all the support he can get. It's a scary world out there, and he just got dragged into it, kicking and screaming.

And if you think I'm not speaking literally there, you clearly haven't read enough of my books.

Talk to you soon!

The Universe Loves a Good Punch Line

Life's a glorious thing, isn't it? Always keeps you on your toes, always has one surprise left around the next corner, and most of the time it's even more amazing than you expected.

An important lesson was re-framed for me recently, one of the essential nature of keeping onesself squarely balanced between confidence, experience and aspirations. Also known as "don't ever think you're too much cooler than you actually are."

What it boils down to, basically, is this: before you go around spouting wisdom, be sure you know your audience. Because chances are, they're wiser or more experienced than you are. It's just the odds of the game, really. I usually know this lesson pretty well, so it's always amusing when I get reminded. Yikes.

And, on that note, I resume my daily duties; there are stories to tell, books to publish, and progress to be made.

OH. And before I go. Any of you who plan to be in the Seattle area at the end of March, I'll be manning a table with the other writers of Talaria Press at the Emerald City ComiCon. Also, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes will be attending. (that's Jay and Silent Bob, for the folks who don't already know)

So, you know, it might be an entertaining weekend. :)

First Step: A New Identity

It was recently pointed out to me that I now get to add a new identifier to my name: Amazon Best Selling Author. At this moment, "Reaper's Return" is sitting at #8 on the children's Science Fiction and Fantasy list, #16 in the overall Fantasy list, and #371 overall. I have to keep looking at that in a desperate effort to make it sink in. Two years ago, I was just barely a published author, and now... this? Okay, so I have more than 7 books published at present, fine. And the numbers are bumped enthusiastically due to the current promotion I have on Reaper's Return, so I can't just totally lose my mind over this. A truer test will be to see how much of this translates into the rest of the series getting picked up, and I acknowledge that, even as I grin and Snoopy Dance, that numbers are only numbers and not the entire story. Regardless, I'm really grinning.

I've pushed the Amazon promotion out through midnight tonight, and I'll probably relaunch it later as well to see if I can maintain a bit of the momentum across the entire series.

But that's all maintenance stuff, and not the big thing that really struck me as interesting this morning.

It occurred to me as particularly interesting how we both shape and are shaped by our identities. We all pass through those during our lives - defining ourselves (or being defined, depending on how much control we have over the process) as children, siblings, friends, lovers, enemies, et cetera. Student, Teacher, Leader, Follower, Visionary, Victim - there are so many hats to wear, and we don't even always have the choice of whether or not to wear them.

I've gone through a lot of those through my life: from the Nerdy Little Freshman to The Freak in my junior year of high school, a Missionary, Musician, Husband, Father, Author, and so forth. Some of the roles we wear come with some pretty heavy specificity, some come with badges, and many become a matter more of perspective than any sort of official designation.

But lest I totally drown in rhetoric, the thing on my mind today is that I have this new identity, now. Part of the challenge in the present publishing climate is that there persists a sort of stigma with regards to being "self-published." In many circles, self published equal unpublished. I listened to one publisher a scant year ago compare self published authors to overweight twenty-somethings banging out fan fiction on a beat up computer in their parents' basement. You may be shocked to know that I'm pretty much quoting him on that, too. I didn't believe his assessment then, and I don't believe it now. Are there examples of that? Oh, I'm sure there are. I'm also equally certain that there are some financially successful authors who fit that same general description. Ripe fruit can grow wild in untilled soil.

I've seen a lot of the complaints levied against the self-published set: lack of editing is the most common one, however. Overall, I've seen so many folks who dwell in the midst of the status quo defend their own roles as Guardians of the Consumer, and I think that might be a bit of an overplay as well.

But really I think it comes back to a misconception that stems from the current publishing process' adoption of the term "traditional publishing."

Traditional? Really? I can't help but think folks have neglected their history classes when I hear that term bandied about.

Traditionally, books were manually printed on a press, usually by the author himself, and then taken around and sold - usually, again, by the author himself. Before that, they were hand-written.

The current process of agents, distributors, chain retail stores and publishing corporations are a much more recent process, just through the past 120 years or so. Granted, we've constructed some other, fairly elaborate traditions in that same time frame, so what's one more contrived entity between friends? And if you can't think of any offhand, we did just go through a holiday season that's rife with a plethora of fabricated "traditions". Like, why does Santa wear red? Google it if you don't already know, you probably wouldn't believe me if you didn't look into the background of that yourself.

Are you a writer? Do you want to be an author? Then publish. Do your best to make the book as good as you can make it; get it edited (an extra pair of qualified eyes never hurts!), and get it out there for people to check it out. Will everyone love it? No, of course not. Will everyone hate it? Of course not! Will you make thousands of dollars and be able to retire? Well, probably not, no, let's be realistic. Not everyone can have a #1 book, it's just the way of things. But neither should that be our goal - it's not something anyone can truly control. What you CAN control is whether or not you write a book, whether or not you decide to get it published, and what you decide to do about it if you do publish.

In the paraphrased words of a dream version of Jim Morrison, the only thing stopping you is the stopping.

And, like all journeys, it all starts with a first step - in the spirit of "fake it til you make it," the starting point as I see it is to define (or in some cases, redefine) yourself. What are you? Who are you? What are you doing? What have you done?

Seriously, take a moment and figure that out. Knowing that simple detail can and often will affect your course through the wackiness of life. Certainly, not knowing it can definitely affect you, but rarely in a good way.

And if you don't have the answers to any of those questions, take the time to answer them. And if you don't have definitive answers, that's okay. When it doubt, make something up. Who do you want to be? What do you want to do?

And, yes, it really is that simple.

So, if you haven't done this, or you haven't even thought about this before, take a moment to figure out who you are. What you are. What you're doing. What you want to do and who you want to be. And if one of those is "be a writer", "write books", and that sort of thing, then congratulations! And if it's, really, anything else.... Congratulations!

Cos in the end, what you are, specifically, doesn't matter so much as that you are.

My day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRwsTyUPIYE

How are you today, my lovelies?

Reaper's Return Amazon promotion!

The special from Amazon is - for a very limited time - expanded to all Amazon customers! For the next 24 hours, you can purchase a copy of the first book in the Chronicles of Aesirium, "Reaper's Return", for the amazing price of FREE.

Seriously. Go. Check it out. Pick it up. You'll be glad you did! And, for that matter, so will I. :)

Doomsday

CNN is talking right now about how the Doomsday clock is presently only five minutes from midnight.

Hasn't anyone over there read the Watchmen comic? Sheesh.

Brand New!

Okay, it probably says something about me that I don't want to admit by the fact that it's more than a week into the new year (2012 - I need to get used to writing that, don't I?) before I actually blog about the new year. That's like getting a birthmark when you're 17.

But in my defense, it's been a grand and utterly, nonsensically, spectacularly crazy year already. Wee daughter's (okay, no longer quite so wee) birthday aside, it's been a packing up and moving on kind of year so far. Like 2011 was a 12 month frat party, but now the parents are pulling up into the driveway and if we don't get the empty bong pulled out of the fireplace and pick up the 3,491 red plastic party cups, my brother and I are gonna be grounded for a month.

And Mom, Dad? If you're reading this, I swear to god that never happened.

So, as I was saying before I literally interrupted myself, 2012 is going to be a lot of fun, if the past 9 days are any indication. Let's take an assessment:

The entire Chronicles of Aesirium are published and available online in first edition copies. Check.
Paperback and ebook: Check check. Oh, and before I go on, if you're an Amazon Prime member, you really ought to hop on over there and pick up a copy of book one: Reaper's Return. It's Free. Yes, seriously. Freebies. You go on over, click it and start the download while we finish up here. It's cool, I'll wait.

In fact, between them, the pair of "Middle Age" books and some other anthologies penned under a different author name, I'm now sitting at over a dozen books. That was more than my really generous goal for 2011.

My day job is my day job, and I've signed a code of conduct agreement indicating that I cannot say anything bad regarding my employer. It is a point of some interest that I don't consider the fact that I SIGNED A CODE OF CONDUCT AGREEMENT INDICATING THAT I CANNOT SAY ANYTHING BAD REGARDING MY EMPLOYER a bad thing. I'm weird, whatcha gonna do.But then again, I don't have anything really bad to say about them. They're a big company, they do big company things, it's hardly newsworthy. Besides, they put up with my shenanigans, and that alone should warrant a second look at that whole Nobel Peace Prize thing.

I did a few public appearances last year, did some interviews (in and out), and really fell in love with so many of my fellow steampunkers. It's just a great bunch of industrial and loveable freaks of nature. My kind of peeps. I have a few more things set up this year, such as having a table at the Emerald City ComiCon in the end of March. I'd love it if you could show up. It's right here in downtown Seattle, and I'll be there with the best Editor in this section of the known universe, as well as my two fellow authors from Talaria Press. Oh, the fun that will be had! Can you dig it, poppet?

But that's not all! I'm working on some Really Fun Things, many of which are going to have to remain somewhat secretish until they're coming up on my publishing deadline. But the hints I can give you about the two main projects are that one involves happy thoughts, and the other has truck with demons in the pacific northwest.

Oh, and I've been doing a lot of hobnobbing with Amazon - cos, you know, I'm, like, awesome or something - but seriously, I'm taking this whole process of being an entrepreneur much more seriously. Because, really, one must.

So on that stream, I'm going to start posting observations I've had about the self-pub world - ebooks and the printed medium. There will likely be examples of the music industry thrown in as well (because oh have I got some tales for you!), and, if we're both lucky, there might even be some teeny kernels of wisdom to take away from it. In fact, I'll guarantee it.


Okay, no, I can't guarantee anything.  But it'll be fun. Feel free to toss me questions if you have them; I see no reason why I need to yammer off into your vision holes without taking the occasional question from the audience.

Audience?

Yes, I just called you an audience. Applause is totally optional. Just saying.


Okay, that's quite enough out of my fingertips for one evening. Thanks for checking in with me, and I'll see ya 'round the campfire, boys and girls.

Storytelling

Years of routine have built into my subconsciousness a tendency towards reflection this season. I'm not really alone in this, I understand. But having a child definitely raises the stakes, and each year is a bit more...interesting.

I try to steer clear of too much elaboration on religion (author's note: if you think this is a strange statement to make, you should hear how much I talk about it when I'm not typing about it!), but rather than addressing December as a loosely-affiliated series of secular celebrations, I'd rather use my actual words.

Religion is a complex beast. It and all its accoutrements are so easily misinterpreted, depending on where you come from, what you believe in, and how you believe in it. Not only is it impossible to swing a dead cat without smacking someone in their religious indignation, but then you've got PETA on your case for swinging the dead cat around in the first place. I suppose one day I might chance putting my own views down on paper - there's always that next series of books, for example - but for now, please understand that I might be deliberately vague on that sort of thing.

But in the raising of my child, my wife and I have decided to give our daughter as broad and global an understanding of faith as possible. There will come points in life where she will more specifically decide upon her belief system, and we'll be as supportive of those choices - if not moreso - than we have been thus far. It's been a process of teaching and encouraging self-examination, followed by support for her ability to understand for herself exactly what she believes in, coupled with sharing our own beliefs.

So it was a bit disconcerting a few weeks back when I made a reference to Noah and the Ark, and she looked at me with confusion. "Is that from a comic book or from Star Wars?" she asked.

Yikes.

We realized that in my efforts to keep her religious exposure open, we'd actually not taught her any bible stories. But I should have noticed that - there were signs. Like that one time she read off the television the words "Jayses Krest" (Jesus Christ) and asked me what that meant.  Okay, yes, she's ten. And I probably should have talked to her about that sooner, but yes.

December 2011 has thus become "the month we explore the bible." Starting with Genesis and going chronologically, we're going through the stories therein. Later this week, we'll be arriving in the new testament, and we'll wrap the month out with talking about other December traditions, from a variety of cultures. If this goes well, we've talked about exploring other cultures and philosophies in a month-by-month basis throughout 2012.

See, she has talked to me about wanting to write stories, too. Comic books, manga, short stories, etc. And regardless of what you may individually feel about the bible, what they all boil down to - all matters of faith aside - is that they're all stories. And not just any stories, but tales which hold a significant place within our cultural collective awareness. It's one thing to acknowledge that she doesn't see Star Wars the same way as I do. I saw it when I was seven years old, and it rewired my brain. It didn't have nearly the same impact on her as it did on me, and that's okay, too. But in order to tell stories, you also have to KNOW stories. A firm understanding of the cultural origins of your audience is essential; the same words, legends and imagery is crucial for an open structure of communication. Even if she doesn't grow up to be a writer, she should be familiar with all these stories, no matter how she feels about them.

Not for the first time, I'm really excited to see what kind of adult she grows into. And not for the first time, I'm terrified of not doing enough.

I'm pretty sure it won't be the last time for either one, either.

Reaper's Return: The Pitch

As a followup to my previous post, a few folks have already asked me what I came up with a new, revised, shiny, happy new pitch.

Well, the short answer is that there are still several in the can. The shortest pitch? The 'elevator pitch'? The full monty? Well, don't make that face. I'm talking metaphor, here. This remains an essentially family show, after all.

My pitches have heretofore been a bit broad; I tended to pitch the entire series, which in hindsight is really a silly thought.

Try, for example, to pitch "Lost". The simplest thing - "a plane crashes on a tropical island. Weirdness ensues" - doesn't quite cover it. But neither does "Oceanic flight 814 crashes on an island that moves through time and space, giving all the survivors an opportunity to move on from the mistakes and laspes in judgment of their lives before, during, after and sideways from crashing on the island. There is a powerful electromagnet which powers the island and must be maintained by a guy with a cool accent who has to press 8 14 15 23 42 and I think I'm missing a number there but you see the numbers all throughout the series so it shouldn't be too hard to fix that in post, but there's this one great episode where a temporal physicist who is kind of crazy and played by the fantastic Jeremy Davies.... oh, but I digress..."

Or, another example I was thinking of.... how do you suppose M Night Shyamalan pitched "The Sixth Sense"? Because just saying "it's about a kid who can see dead people" isn't quite enough. And "it's about a kid who can see dead people, and the psychatrist who is trying to help him" is closer, but still kind of lacks a bit of the punch. But "it's about a kid who can see dead people, and the psychiatrist who is trying to help him... who is ALSO DEAD." is much better.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the Sixth Sense, sorry for the spoiler. And, also, welcome to the 21st century.

So anyway. Here's the latest presentation.


What if Death wore a pretty black dress?


Everyone in Oldtown had heard talk of the Reapers. Even though nobody had seen one in years, everyone whispered the tales: flying from rooftop to rooftop, stealing the souls of the unwary, letting their undead beasts hunt through the streets for any member of the community too reckless or fearless to heed the nightly curfew ... mysterious and terrifying, most feared to even mention them by name, lest they appear and gather your spirit away.


For 11-year-old Romany, her greatest fears were less about the mythological Reapers and more about surviving a miserable life inside of Oldtown's solitary orphanage. Her stark white hair made her an obvious target for the bullies, and the cruel nickname of "Ratgirl" had followed her for years. But if Rom thought her troubles were behind her, being struck dead by a bolt of lightning would only open the door to an entire life of new ones.


First on the list? Finding out that she herself...is a Reaper.


....aaannnnndddd.... Scene!


Thoughts? Comments? Feedback? Love to hear your ideas.


Reaper's Return, the first book in the 6-volume Young Adult Steampunk series "Chronicles of Aesirium", is available through Smashwords, Amazon (eBook and Paperback), Barnes & Noble (eBook and Paperback) and now on iTunes, too!

Pitch Imperfect

Ah, my lovelies, I am a bad blogger. I mean, certainly, I've been busy with good reason, but more about that in a moment.

Was invited to a special thing last night that I couldn't really talk much about until afterwards - CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing held a really fun event which they called "Pitch 2.0". A fair subtitle might have been "Talking Yourself Up in the New Age of Publishing." About 100+ people were in attendance (I'm terrible at judging official counts of crowds, by the way. As far as I can tell, once there's more than 25 people, I need someone else to give me numbers. Just saying, don't ask me to be the advance scout for your invading armies, I'll never provide accurate intel on the enemy troop count.), most of which were indie authors working with CS and KDP for the self-publishing (present or future) of their books.

It was held up in the SAAM (the Seattle Asian Art Museum), which I will be returning to soon as one of the locations for my next series. I had some time to kill prior to the event, so I got the chance to peruse. Very peaceful. I hung out and did some reading on my new Kindle Fire (This is not abject product placement, I bought it myself and LOVE IT. Do not judge me.) while I waited and watched the crowd gather.

After they let us all in, we got some tasty noms and milled about. I took a few minutes to people watch. I love the strange way a room filled with relative strangers will eventually begin to coagulate. Little snippets of conversation weave their way through the audible haze and I had to stop myself from smiling like a loon. I really do love people. I don't even know why I own a TV, I should just go hang around groups of strangers and that would be all I'd need. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm literally just fascinated by people I do not know. Almost as much as I'm fascinated by those I DO know. I'm a weird person. Good thing you like me, or you'd probably try to have me committed.

After our free range time, we found ourselves - quite by magic - in one of the SAAM's lower auditoriums and got to meet our hosts for the evening's event. We had a rousing little intro (and thank you, Thom, for NOT doing the "I can't hear you!" follow up to asking if we're all having a good night. That can be easily overdone. Just saying. Maybe next time?) which led into a panel led by Jeff Ayers. Joel Friedlander, Jason Black and the brilliant Alan Rinzler headed up the panel. I have serious hair and scarf envy for Alan. I feel perfectly comfortable in that confession.

So now we began the meat of the night: Pitch 2.0.

This whole event began quickly feeling like an echo of my subconscious. It was like a dream I had where I'd left a really brutal and torturous party by fleeing into an alternate dimension in which everyone had cool goatees and ... er. Wait, that's the wrong dream. What I MEANT to say was that it was that they were saying all the things I've been enjoying about the self-publishing paradyme shift over the past couple of years in which I've been exploring it.

One of them mentioned the sense self-published authors had not too far back where they felt as if they needed to somehow gloss over the fact of their self-publishedness for fear of being treated like self-indulgent and delusionally frolicking lepers. I'm going to pause a moment to reflect upon the image I just conjured up there.

Hmmm.

Okay, moving on.

They also talked about the key logic behind making a pitch - then and now. Before, a pitch was all about talking to an agent, a publisher. "Please buy my manuscript. Please? Pretty please?" Always, with a sense of begging them from a position of inferiority. As if they alone governed our destiny. You know, laying it out there like that... it just makes me want to stir up a revolution. The RIAA made me annoyed enough, but... okay, putting the pitchfork (heh. See what I did there?) down and going back on topic.

Nowadays, though, the pitch is a far broader tool for authors. Thanks to social media (The Rule: Be Present), a more observable level of access between readers and writers, and the more expidited turnaround time for publication, it just makes sense to have a better feel for one's books. As authors, it's essential now to have that skill to discuss your work with the people who may - unbelievable, I know! - just happen to decide to pick up a copy of your book and give it a read. I remember a musician I worked with many years back who confided in me that he loved playing live, but hated the crowds. "Sometimes, they applaud loud enough, but when they don't, I just hate them." I asked him if they'd ever found a proper diagnosis for his condition.

Because, honestly, what the what?

If you don't like talking to people, then tell you what. Accept the process of Pitching 1.0. Keep writing, and keep submitting your books up to publishers, and that's fine. Perhaps you'll be picked up by an agent or a publisher, and that's all well and good. But, me? Well, I love the whole talking to people part. So much fun. And maybe since I haven't set out to write the Great American Novel. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's a great goal, but I know myself well enough to remain delightfully unclouded by the tendrils of self-delusion. I like to write enjoyable (and occasionally thought-provoking) fiction, and I'm fine with that. Presently, the part I enjoy most is introducing people to my books (oh, and speaking of which.... Ta Da!) and talking with other authors about their books. It's really a pretty amazing time to be an artist in general, isn't it? No, it's okay, you can dance that jig now that you were thinking about.

Oh, so after their panel, we had about an hour with Jon Fine from Amazon. Solid chap, that man. Made some great observations and challenging declarations about the democratization of publishing. Sometimes, I feel like perhaps I'm too jaded from so many years dwelling deep in the bowels of corporate America, but I keep forgetting how many forward-thinking corporations there really ARE out there. And, no, I don't believe they're purely altruistic. I suspect they realize that right now is a very good time to get on the side of the middle class majority, or, in this case, get all the THOUSANDS of independent authors already working with Amazon squarely on their side. Smart business sense. Something the RIAA really should have learned. (okay, I'll stop peeing on that corpse now.)

After Jon's message, we broke up and practiced pitching with a fwe editors who volunteered their time to come hang out and offer feedback.

I'm typically pretty comfortable in my delivery, but to be perfectly honest the idea of pitching one's book to a person who will instantly offer positive and nega - - er, I mean constructive - - criticism in front of a small group of peers.... well, it kind of felt like having your mother in law show up in the bedroom and provide a running commentary.

"Oh, dear, your father isn't like that with me at all, he's far more tender and... okay, I don't understand what you're doing with that there. I think it will work better if you move your hips like this..."

* shiver *

Okay, maybe not like that, but it was certainly one of more jarring experiences I've had since college. And I think perhaps that's why I appreciated the evening so much. Ideas for improving my pitches rushed the stage. It was intoxicating.

And on that note, I need to get back to work. What with six books - - did I mention that "The Crook and the Blade" is now available? Too much self-promotion? Hmm? Heh. - - being out, I'm only taking a few moments for my Snoopy Dance before I get back to managing the marketing and continue to prep for the next few books on my plate.

Oh, and have you jumped over to Smashwords lately? Book one, Reaper's Return, is still there and remains a free ebook download.

What if Death wore a pretty black dress?

He Blinded Me With Science: An Interview with Peter A. Smalley

I sat down with Peter over a couple pints of Mac and Jack in the historic and eye candilicious Charlie’s Bar and Grill in lovely downtown Seattle. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect setting for conversations about Steampunk fiction if I’d tried – and if you’re ever in the Puget Sound, you really have to swing by. (I’d also like to point out that even though this blog has not been sponsored by the lovely people at Charlie’s, I would totally not be opposed to singing praises on your behalf. Just saying.)

We’re both dressed casually, quite taken with the idea of discussing the wheres and whyfores of the contemporary publishing industry, right here in plain sight. Oh, if only the other patrons knew!

The drinks are about halfway gone when we decide to make the interview a formality. 

Ren: So tell me, Peter – how’d this all get started for you, this whole writing aspect? Did you always want to be a writer?

Peter: Does anyone really decide to be a writer?  I think, more often, it's merely the choice of whether or not to actually write down the stories and characters that are already cluttering up one's head.  The tales are already there; developing the craft and letting others into your mental sandbox is a step of tremendous vulnerability requiring an equal amount of self-confidence.  I've always been a writer.  It's only been in the last few years that I began taking the steps that would lead to sharing my writing with others.

Ren: Well spoken, sir. So that was the first big dream, then? (Peter shakes his head, a mischievous smile peeking through his graying beard) No? Well, what was the first big wish?

Peter: A chemist, circa third grade.

Ren: (blinks) Wow, really? Like mad scientist chemist?

Peter: (I can tell he’s humoring me, here, because we both know my joke isn’t that funny. This is what friendship is all about.) I make sure the food you buy in the store won’t make you sick.

Ren: Okay, I officially promise to never tease you about being a chemist ever again. So, chemistry aside, what opened up the realms of writerdom to you? Was there a moment you decided, “yes, this is what I’m going to also do.”

Peter: The first time I read The Hobbit to myself (age 6).

Ren: Very good pull! That one always made a better impact on me than Tolkien’s other books. I read them later, sure, but the Hobbit? I do love me some clever riddles. Were there other books that dropped you in the deep end of the pool?

Peter:  I was a voracious reader for most of my youth, but I really cut my teeth on epic fantasy: Tolkien, Stephen Donaldson, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Katherine Kurtz, Ursula LeGuin, Steven Brust, Glen Cook, and Neal Stephenson. [The most recent one I’ve read is] Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" series of books is a fantastic character study in a rich scifi setting.  Highly recommended.  Also, go read anything you can get your hands on by Dan Abnett.  

Ren: *sighs deeply* I’ll add them to my kindle. (also, Amazon, just saying, if you’re looking for some casual product placement, I’m totally your man) Assuming you get more time to read, what’s next on your list?

Peter: I’m currently reading Antigone's Fall by R.K. MacPherson.  He writes with grit and an eye for detail that brings his setting a sharp-edged realism, but it is the mile-wide flaws in his characters that make the story truly gripping.

Ren: Excellent! I’m sure my readers will love the extra plugs there, but now let’s talk about your own books. Tell me about "The Burning Times" and "Grimme." What inspired the concept, and what made you want to write it? Give my readers your personal background on the story, and what it is about these books that made you so passionate about them?

Peter: After a crossroads of a conversation with Holly Black at a convention in 2008, I determined that I needed to write a Young Adult Fantasy novel incorporating both traditional myths and fairy tales with an element of "punk" - be that Steampunk or, to coin a term, Fairypunk.  The punk part of that neologism challenged me to re-imagine some of Western literature's roots in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, building in a streak of social tension - and even revolution - often implied in the tradition of Western literature.  That led in turn to a speculative fiction take on how history might have been different if Rome had fallen not to internal strife and aggressive Germanic tribes, but to a plague of dragons, and it all spiraled out after that imaginative lightning-strike.  The part that really fascinates me is the application of real-world conflicts - say, the genocides in Croatia, Rwanda and the Sudan - to a mythic setting like the Corolarian Kingdoms.  In that setting I can explore them in a way that not only allows young adult readers to understand their tragedy, but also the impact they can have on later generations.  It is important to me to communicate the idea that our world is interconnected, and everything has the potential to affect everything else.  Grimme takes that idea and personalizes it.  I'm very happy with the results.

The Burning Times was actually written after the manuscript for Grimme was complete and in revision.  I wanted a shorter piece to introduce some of the historical aspects of both the main characters and the age of conflict whose repercussions would come home to roost later in Grimme.  Interestingly, I have had a number of readers ask for more stories from the time period of The Burning Times, and I plan at least one more full-length work to satisfy those demands.

Ren: Who's your favorite character? What inspires you to write him or her? 

Peter: I love all my characters, especially the villains (villains need love too!) and, surprisingly, the bit-part characters who exist for only a few paragraphs before fading back into the tapestry of the novel.  When it comes to the main characters it really is a very close call, but Maximilien is probably my favorite (as opposed to my favorite to write - that would be Marja).  Maximilien is the bridge character for the piece, combining elements of opposing camps to become a conduit between them.  He is a wonderful blend of ingenuity, determination, sensitivity, and possibility.  I also think of him as the quieter of the two brothers, which makes him the natural one to feel sympathetic towards.

Ren: True, the over-the-top ones almost write themselves, but I completely agree that it’s the quiet ones that always get to you. So, going forward, any more books planned in the Europas Cycle? If so, can we have a teaser?

Peter: Of course!  I foresee at least two sequels to Grimme and one more full-length work set in the time period of The Burning Times.  As a teaser, imagine what might happen when Maximilien and Sora attempt to navigate the political jungle of the fractured city-states Adriatica and Tyrrhenia in search of clues to the whereabouts of Baron von Grimme, while Victor, Marja and Jonas investigate the unexplained disappearance of an entire village of good Gothic folk.  What could these two threads, separated by half a continent, have to do with each other?  Find out in the next volume of The Europas Cycle!

Ren: Oh, that’s just mean. But I did ask for a teaser, so I guess it serves me right - - I’m really looking forward to the next book! And speaking of the next book, those of us who got to see you at the recent Steamcon 3 got to see your latest project, 20,001. What led to the 20,001 Steampunk Odyssey anthology? Any more anthologies planned?

Peter: It actually began quite simply.  Kindling Press wanted to begin highlighting great new writing talent and to publish a volume of short works.  I was, and am, utterly in love with Steampunk - which, as you know, has had a co-evolution with self-publishing that is far from coincidental.  We looked at the literature and the state of the genre and decided the stars were right for a volume springing from the Jules Verne work Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.  It was the theme of this year's Steamcon, which would also be a good release date.  What could be better?  As it turned out, an extra month or two would have made for a less crazy editing pace, but the eight short stories and two novellas that make up 20,001 turned out extremely well, and we're very proud of its success - as well as our own success in finding and highlighting some great new writers in the genre.  And yes, we are already planning our next anthology!  This time, we're leaving ourselves a bit more time, both for submissions and for editing, but our goal remains finding and highlighting great new authors while providing cutting-edge fiction to readers at a very modest price.

 Ren: Which leads me right to my next question. What with all the buzz these days about people shifting to self-publishing, epublishing and indie presses, what's the history behind Kindling Press? Who is working with you on that? What are your next plans?

Peter: Jason Vanhee and I founded Kindling Press in the late Spring of 2011 as a way to create an ebook imprint that readers could come to identify not just with us, but with quality writing.  It's amazing to think it's already done so much in such a short time!  Jason is a wonderful writer and a really stellar editor - by which I mean he pulls absolutely no punches when he sees something that could be better in plot, character or style.  He also has great awareness of the fiction market, and ties to bookstores and printing facilities that have been critical for us.  With my contacts and strengths in marketing and SEO - not to mention some rudimentary website expertise - we complement each others strengths and have managed to get this sometimes ungainly epublishing / writer's collective off the ground and into the air!  We're still growing fast, but we are both writers first and foremost so the growth of Kindling Press is slower than it might otherwise be while we pursue our individual writing as well.  We plan to add several more writers to the collective going forward, however, and this should help us maintain our growth while allowing more time for personal writing pursuits.  Future directions include our next anthology - look for a call for submissions soon! - and appearances at Northwest science fiction / writing conventions such as Orycon, Rustycon, Norwescon, and more yet to be announced.

Ren: Okay, unfortunately, my time's coming to an end, just like my pint. I’ve got time for just one last question, then: Who’d win in a fight – the Six Million Dollar Man or the Fall Guy?

Peter: Ummm… MacGuyver.

Ren: Oooooh. Good one. Thanks for the beer and the time, sir - - and best of luck going forward!

Peter A. Smalley can be hunted down and tracked for his pelt, but would kindly appreciate it if you all would stop doing that, as he’s only got the one. More specifically, you should track down his books through the Kindling Press website, and support your indie authors. Seriously. Go now.