Yesterday I announced the new website where you can read my pulpy horror novelette Through the Guts of a Beggar for free. Well, it's funny how things work out sometimes. I was talking to David B. Silva about him posting an announcement on Hellnotes about the new site, and we got to talking and as it turns out he was slated to appear in the same volume of Tooth & Claw as my novelette. In fact, the story in question -- "New to the Neighborhood" -- was still in a file on his computer, having not been published anywhere yet. So what did I propose? Quite simply to include his story along with my e-book, a kind of bonus if you will. So for a limited time Dave Silva's "New to the Neighborhood" is included in the Kindle version of the e-book for just 99 cents until the end of the month, when the price will go up to $1.99. (Fun fact: Dave won the Bram Stoker Award for his short story "The Calling" in 1991, back when there wasn't Twitter and Facebook and message boards for people to constantly spam you about their stories and beg for votes.)
Through The Guts Of A Beggar Redux
About two years ago I had the idea to release a novella I'd written in high school online. Yes, e-books and e-readers existed then, but they certainly weren't as big of a deal as they are now. At the time I thought making a website with a decent layout for the chapters would be beneficial in a marketing standpoint, and so I found the right template and theme and went about making it work. I even had the idea to offer a PDF of the novella for those willing to donate 99 cents. Of course, not too long afterward the whole e-book thing really kicked off, and e-readers started to become as common as cell phones (well, okay, maybe not quite that common ... yet). I made the novella available as an e-book and pretty much left it at that. But you know, the strange thing is the original website still gets traffic. Sometimes a lot of traffic. It's been linked to maybe three or four places that specialize in free online fiction. Every once in a while someone will leave a comment at the site, which then in turns reminds me that the site is still there. I'd since taken off that donate-99-cents-for-a-PDF button but decided to add some links to the e-book. And since then, I've seen that people have been checking out those links. Have they been buying? Not all of them. But at least it's there. Sort of like a billboard, in a way.
That's the trick with self-promotion (something I'll talk more about later in the week): it's never really done. Sure, some authors are lucky and all they have to do is write a book or story and publish it and their readers do the work for them, linking to it on Twitter and Facebook or reviewing it on Amazon or whatever. And then you have others who aren't so fortunate and who have to bust a hump (is that even the right term?) to get people to even acknowledge that their work exists.
Anyway, so I was thinking about my online novella and how it was still attracting readers and I wondered if there were any other stories I could do that with and then I thought that if I did find the right story it would all come down to whether or not I could find the right template and theme and so late one night last week I started playing around and found a template and theme I thought was perfect and spent about two hours creating this.
And that, really, is about it. So if you've always wanted to read Through the Guts of a Beggar but didn't want to a) spend the outrageous price of 99 cents or b) pay with a Tweet or Facebook post for a PDF, then here's your chance to read the original novelette for free. And if you do read it and happen to enjoy it, feel free to pass the link on to someone else you think might enjoy it too. Gracias.
Running With Blake Crouch
Thriller writer and Hint Fiction contributor Blake Crouch is one of those doing quite well in self-publishing his e-books. He co-authored Serial and Draculas with Joe Konrath (as well as F. Paul Wilson and Jeff Strand), and has released his thrillers Desert Places and Locked Doors (which were originally published by St. Martin's Press) as e-books. Now his latest e-book, Run, is available.
Picture this: A landscape of American genocide...
5 D A Y S A G O
A rash of bizarre murders swept the country…
Senseless. Brutal. Seemingly unconnected.
A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike.
A mass of school shootings.
Prison riots of unprecedented brutality.
Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.
4 D A Y S A G O
The murders increased ten-fold…
3 D A Y S A G O
The President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace…
2 D A Y S A G O
The killers began to mobilize…
Y E S T E R D A Y
All the power went out…
T O N I G H T
They’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.
Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more.
You only have time to….
R U N
* * * *
There's an interesting story behind this e-book and so I asked Blake a few questions and here are his answers.
RS: The last we talked, you had signed with a new agent who was shopping your new novel around -- the one you're now self-publishing. With all the success you've recently had with your e-books, what is it about major publishers that appeals to you?
BC: I guess it’s that old ingrained dream that dies hard ... a major publisher releasing your book and doing everything right. When publishers do it right, there is no better way to reach the masses and break out. And they certainly have the ability to do that when they set their mind to it. I’m still holding out for that scenario, only my definition of “holding out” no longer entails sitting on my best work while it’s on submission.
RS: How long was this new novel being shopped around before you decided to make it available yourself? Were there any offers? How does your agent feel about you self-publishing this new novel while he's still shopping it around?
BC: About four months. We got very close with a couple of dream editors that might have produced the dream scenario above, but it’s just a brutal market out there right now. My agent was behind my decision. We consulted and he knows what I’ve been doing on the e-book front, saw it as a smart move.
RS: What do you think major publishers need to do to hold on to their authors? As the Authors Guild recently showed, the current 25% royalty on e-books is a major loss for authors, a major gain for publishers. Do you think that royalty will ever near 50%?
BC: Stop being so goddamn greedy. Unless you’re receiving a massive advance, the 25% royalty rate, in light of the fact that e-books are fast becoming the preferred way to read, is a slap in the face and hugely unfair. Authors are the content provider.
RS: What kind of advance and terms would a publisher need to offer you to sway you to sign away your e-rights?
BC: (smiles) You think I’m going to bid against myself in public, Rob?
RS: Run's original title was American Genocide. Usually titles are changed because of publishers' marketing departments and a variety of other reasons, but as you are publishing this yourself you have final approval on everything, including the title. What made you decide to change it?
BC: I always had a suspicion that American Genocide was a bit of a downer for a title. I shared this with my agent and he suggested The Run ... I looked at the product description again and realized that it flowed right into the perfect title ... Run.
And there you have it. Run is available on Kindle, Nook, and all other formats at Smashwords for the very affordable price of $2.99.
P.S. Another great novel with the title Run is by Douglas E. Winter, a thriller about gunrunning in Washington, D.C. and New York published originally by Knopf. The book has since gone out of print, but if you do happen to find it, definitely check it out.
When iPads Attack
In honor of yesterday's announcement of the iPad 2 (looks pretty sweet, doesn't it?), I must remind you what will happen if we give too much control to these electronic devices.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDU9An5aPLc
On Frustration
Okay, I'll admit it: I'm frustrated.
This shouldn't be surprising -- a lot of writers are sharing my frustration recently -- but this is my blog so I figure I should tell you how I'm feeling. I'm cynical by nature and always expect the worse but there's still a small part of me that is always hoping for the best. The part of me that kept writing novel after novel, that eventually signed with an agent, that eventually left that agent and then eventually signed with a new one. That part of me that didn't let the continuous rejections get me down, knowing that each novel was good but just wasn't right for the publishers for various reasons. Always so close until the day the whole Hint Fiction thing happened and I sort of found a secret backdoor into the publishing world. Hell, I wasn't going to say no, so I stepped inside, thinking that this was it, that the next book was definitely going to sell this time.
And, who knows, maybe it will. My agent is currently reading the revision on a new thriller, and he tells me he's liking it. Which means that in the next few weeks, if all goes well, he will be taking it out to publishers. And my feelings toward this? I'm not totally sure. Every day that passes I feel less and less comfortable with the idea of signing all the rights to a novel away. Because before, what was the main thing publishers offered? A way to get into bookstores, to reach readers. But bookstores -- at least the major chains -- are fading away (publishers are even looking elsewhere to try to sell books). And even if they weren't, the average shelf-life of a book is, what, two months? After that the only way readers can find your work is by ordering it from, say, Amazon. And of course they can always buy the e-book version (like from, say, Amazon), which would earn me, by industry standards, only 25% royalties ... and that's not after everyone (like the agent) takes their share.
I've never been opposed to self-publishing; I just didn't see it as a viable option. After all, the main thing -- distribution -- just wasn't there. But now it is.
I've been with two agents who have shopped two novels each -- novels that, in one way or another, received very kind words from editors. One editor at Doubleday said she loved the book ... but just didn't feel it was right for the line. And so on and so forth.
Such is life.
The response from each agent after the novels had made their rounds was always the same: We can always revisit them later once you get a book deal.
But at this point, I figure, why wait? I know the books are good enough. And right now they're doing nothing more than collecting dust on my hard drive, so ... again, why wait?
What's so frustrating is I feel like I've finally made it to the threshold of publishing, right to the place I've always wanted to be ... but it's starting to slip away. The entire business model is shifting right before my eyes. It's a good time and a bad time to be a writer, depending on your point of view. Does this mean I have forsaken traditional publishing? Well, there's a funny story to that.
Last fall I applied to three MFA programs. I only applied to three because the two I really wanted to attend didn't require GREs and I had just assumed -- yes, yes, I know the saying -- that all creative writing MFAs didn't require GREs. Boy how I was wrong. But anyway, I applied and have just been waiting and waiting until today when I received a phone call from one of the schools telling me I have been accepted into the program and that they would like to consider me for a TA position. Next week I interview for the position, and hopefully all will go well. Long story short, if I do continue with a program and eventually graduate with a MFA in creative writing and I want to teach writing at a university, it's in my best interest to be published by a major publisher. Sure, I have the Hint Fiction anthology under my belt, but an actual novel is more ideal. Thing is, though, it's making more and more sense not to publish with a major publisher.
See my frustration?
Am I against possibly selling my work to major publishers? Not completely. I'll let my agent go out with this new book and we'll see what's what. Maybe there will be an incredible jaw-dropping offer. Maybe there will be a small insulting offer. Maybe there will be no offer at all. So for now I'm keeping my cynical fingers crossed and hoping for the best. But I'm also taking charge in a few different ways, like releasing those novels that I've been sitting on for years with the idea of "revisiting them later." I've already released four e-books -- the most recent Spooky Nook in case you didn't know (plus *cough cough* there's a contest) -- and the next one, a full-fledged novel, is soon on its way. In fact, here's the finalized cover.
