Why All the Facelifting?

Some people out in the world wide web may have noticed some new clothes on old books, including a name change for my novel, Loathsome, Dark, and Deep. Yes, I took it to the courthouse, filled out the appropriate paperwork, and now it has a new name: The Forest of Ruined Men. Why? It's a bit more marketable. I think.

Okay. I'm not a marketing genius. I'm not even a writing genius, but I write. And revise. And write some more. And re--well, you gather the general idea. What I know is this: since coming back to writing, all my earnings are going to charity. I used to drop a fair bit in the community pot before, but now all of it--all my sales, Smashwords earnings, KDP sales, etc., goes to help the uninsured of Douglas County receive health care.

This reluctant salesman finds it a whole helluva lot easier to ask folks to spend money if I know that money is going to do something positive. The nickels and dimes for which I begged before mean little to me, but my chosen beneficiary, Health Care Access, can do so much good with my money. Why Health Care Access? Why health care for the uninsured? I thought everyone had insurance now?

No.

Health Care Access does good work here at home. It's a cause in which I believe--and it makes it so much easier to spend time and energy selling books. My nickels and dimes can become diabetes treatment for someone without insurance or the resources to purchase it. My nickels and dimes mean early cancer detection so someone can qualify for state aid and treatment. I believe we have a duty to help everyone access quality health care, and I'm starting in my hometown.

So yes. This is what I'm doing.

And here's more of what I've done to help what I'm doing:

It's like they're a happy family now... a series even... and guess what? I'm laying groundwork for a third "Sons of Chaos" novella. It's going to be a cold one.

And you know what? I'd love it if you bought an ebook or read anything I've written--but sending some love to Health Care Access is beautiful, too, and you don't even need an e-reader.

2013 Taught Me These Things

Hello, 2014. You've been around for a little over a week now, and I wanted to give you a proper greeting. So, hi. You're going to be a good year. I know it.

As I say hello to 2014, it's only fitting to say one last goodbye to 2013. It was a very good year--and one which taught me a few things:

1. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And by Santa Claus I mean a woman with whom I am madly in love. We married in July and care for a half-dozen kids in our home. And--AND I am very happy. Yes, it can happen like this. It does every day.

2. I can still write. I've had to shake away some rust (some of my work hasn't been my best), but the desire is there--not the feverish drive it once was, but that came from managing demons as much as desire to tell stories. Now, I have the desire, but the demons are not snapping at my heals. This is a better seat from which to write.

You can read the first published piece I penned after my hiatus at Weirdyear. It's a bit of flash I call "Doubt"--and I'd be thrilled it you'd give it a read. 

3. Even while I spent more than a year on hiatus, books and stories continued to sell via Smashwords and Amazon. Upon returning, I've found Amazon a much more crowded landscape than ever. My sales through Smashwords and its affiliates were roughly flat. Considering I spent zero time promoting my writing for the majority of 2013, I find that quite interesting. I actually broke down my numbers (which weren't record breaking in any way), and found a few interesting tidbits. My top five paid sellers* were as follows:

A Feast of Flesh: Tales of Zombies, Monsters, and Demons	141
Violent Ends: Horror Stories	120
Thirteen Shadows: Ghost Stories	76
The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories	74
Write Hard: Prompts, Prods, and Pep-Talks for Writers	26

Some books sold very litte--only 4 copies of The House Eaters for example. Was it the presence of words like "horror stories" or "ghost stories" or the goldmine "zombies" in the titles of the others? Was it price? None of these numbers will break records, but I like to think about data. Freebies "sold" many more copies, but I didn't include them here. For those keeping score at home, Write Hard was my bestseller for Kindle via Amazon.com, but not all of my books were available for Kindle during 2013. 

4. I missed shouting at the universe via this blog, Twitter, and the Interweb^TM in general.

5. I have much more to say before I take the big dirt nap. Years and years of stories to tell. Will you listen?

My 2014 goals are forthcoming. Really.

I promise.

*for the past two years, I've donated every dime of my net Smashwords earnings to local and international charities. No writer's work is paid what it is "worth" but I can make my work worth more in terms of education, food, and healthcare in the right hands.  Heifer International and Health Care Access are two of my favorites.

I'm Cheap

Part of resurrecting my writing "career" involves resurrecting my writing to be read. Now that we live in a world of digital words, I've never understood why anyone would take good stories away from potential readers.

These Darkened Streets back in digital "print"

Note I said good stories. I've trunked plenty of my tales, including some which have seen print. Even though they were published once, I might not want to claim them as one of my current stable of quality tales.

Way back on March 26, 2012, I wrote this post which explains how many of my collections and stories were wrested away from readers. I'm working to make them available again. And here's the thing--as I republish, I republish at the lowest price point I can. I don't mind 99 cents if it means a reader will take a chance and pick up my stories. This writing thing isn't solely about making money (although compensation is nice); it is about telling stories.

When I started focusing on the money, I started to lose my love for the process. The universe set me right.

I've recently returned Darker Matter: Stories of Strange Futures, These Darkened Streets, The Undead: 13 Stories, and Loathsome, Dark and Deep to the digital world.

Darker Matter back in digital "print"

You can find them at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere electronic words are exchanged.

So yes, I'm cheap. I'm cheap and ready to tell you a story.

Anatomy of a Murder (and Resurrection)

...is a damn good movie. But I'm talking about one of my books.

I killed We are the Monsters last week. It was a hard choice to make because it had already received one nice 5-star rating at Amazon.

I planned on changing the cover (and I do like the new cover much better than the old), but I wouldn't have needed to kill the book without the digital rights management (DRM) debacle.

See, I accidentally selected "enable DRM" when I first published the book. (Don't know what DRM is? Read this.) I don't believe DRM is good for authors. The debate rages on, of course, but in my opinion, it hurts.

If I want people to read my stories (which I've decided is goal #1), why would I put roadblocks in their way? Some writers get all kerfluffled about pirates giving away their books. I say go for it--as long as you don't start selling those pirated books under a different name. Just give me credit, and we're good. Go ahead. Steal my books. Give them away. Grow my audience.

The only way to free We are the Monsters from the DRM monster was to kill it and publish it again from scratch. So I did. It has a brand new, completely linked table of contents, new cover art, and freedom from DRM. None of my other books have DRM, either. It just doesn't make much sense.

And you can download it at Smashwords for free (for the time being). The Amazon Kindle edition is only 99 cents.

How do you feel about DRM? Piracy?

(And if you've read We are the Monsters, I'd love to hear what you think--good or bad. Amazon reviews are a writer's friend.)

It's Alive! (The House Eaters)

What he said. And by "It" I mean The House Eaters and by "Alive" I mean back in print.

Available through Createspace now for $6.99.

(Amazon and other retailers will take a few days to update).

Of course, you can still pick up a $0.99 ebook for Kindle, at Smashwords, or through Barnes & Noble for the Nook.

Redundancy and Self-Promotion: Now with Coupons!

*Bottom Feeders (print) is good to go. Check the bottom of the post.*

Twitter. Forums. Facebook. This blog.

I've kicked up a little extra self-promotion of late, and, like many authors, fear I've talked about my "stuff" too much. But have I? Who knows. I hope you, dear readers, will tell me if I'm being a boar. Really.

What I do know is that, when marketing, one must put something in front of potential buyers for them to know about it. Most buyers must see a product several times before they purchase. I haven't mentioned Violent Ends on the blog yet, but I am now. Yes, it's another e-book endeavor, but this time I'm pricing it $1.99 (after much soul-searching and self-debate). Of course, the coupon code WY56K will score 50% off at Smashwords. Violent Ends is also available for Kindle at Amazon.com. This is part of the big experiment. This is about planting seeds rather than leaving them in their little paper pouches (see Monday's post).

These are some of the most...well, violent of my stories. Three of them are brand new/never published before including "The Hustle", a story originally slated for an ill-fated anthology. I hope you enjoy.

The Bottom Feeders is ready to purchase in print (at least through Createspace--Amazon will take a few days to list the book). I've put a fairly reasonable tag of $7.99 on the dead tree edition. Of course, you can buy a copy directly from Createspace with a 15% off code: 7Y2MQK7E. Here's the site: https://www.createspace.com/3588544

Thanks for your support. Now go hug a writer.

WIP Wednesday: The Lost Afterword

I dipped my toes in self-publishing (or Indie if it suits you) last April with The Bottom Feeders. Since then, between the free edition, Kindle, and Smashwords, well over 200 readers have picked up the book. Much has changed in the world of self-publishing in the last year. To mark The Bottom Feeders anniversary, I'm prepping it for print.

I've written a little afterword for The Bottom Feeders (print), and here she is:

As part of my day job, I tell my students (high school juniors and seniors) never to apologize for their writing. A nervous sixteen-year-old often sputters and us, afraid to show his or her work to the class.

Get over it, I say.

No excuses. No apologies.

I won't make any excuses for The Bottom Feeders. No apologies, either. These stories have their fair share of blemishes and errata. An earlier electronic edition contained several formatting errors. The prose in unwieldy at times, but its mine. All of it. The Bottom Feeders represents the best of my early work. These stories have life and memory. "Everything in its Place" was my first commissioned sale. "The Bottom Feeders" marked the time I juggled the balance between my past and the fictional universe I was creating. "Tesoro's Magic Bullet" will always be a reminder of the struggle: a story accepted to a market which I'd tried to break into a dozen times before getting it right.

Along the way, I found my voice. I hope you can hear something of the small-town Kansas kid with much love for vintage EC comics, Saturday morning cartoons, and Boris Karloff's staggering monster.

I'll keep telling stories.

Thanks for reading them.

(And, of course you can still get the electronic edition for Kindle or other formats at Smashwords for only 99 cents.)

Mad Scientist at Work

After all this schtuff about e-book pricing, I thought I'd run a totally non-scientific experiment:

The buyer can set the price for We are the Monsters when downloaded from Smashwords.

I don't have to run a scientific experiment to act like a scientist, so here's my hypothesis: I won't sell enough copies via Smashwords for accurate data. But you can read the first 50% for free.

(Mwhahahahaha...)

WIP Wednesday: Four Projects of the Apocalypse

Since this is a blog about writing (for the most part), I'll start with my latest WIP...the now-desperate-for-a-title YA ghosty-type story. I've only just begun in earnest, adding at least 1K words a day for the past few. The flip flop between brother and sister's POV (all 3rd person, of course) is making for an interesting narrative with nice parallel stories. I'm pleased.

An excerpt (from Phoebe's storyline):

Lunch in the cafeteria was hell. Phoebe gathered her brown bag from her locker, shut it gently, and slunk through the bustling corridors toward the auditorium. No one would be there between fourth and fifth period. The auditorium had been her secret, her hiding place, her sanctuary...

I've had a number of older stories I'm pretty pleased with, so, as most of you know by now (via Twitter, etc.), I put together an ebook collection. The free version of The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories includes ten previously published pulpy-horror tales. I wanted to release a Kindle edition, and since I can't offer a free version there, I added four stories, including two previously unpublished. I can't have people paying for the same thing they'd receive for free elsewhere. Because we live in an era of choice, I'm offering the "bonus edition" via Smashwords for 99 cents. If you like pulpy-horror tales, please give it a look. I consider this an experiment in 21st century storytelling. I'll let you know how it works out...



And I'm reading, of course. I took a break from Darkness because a used copy of Michael Moorcock's The Black Corridor landed in my mailbox the other day. I picked up the book after reading a mention of it in The Book of Lists: Horror under "the ten best sci-fi horror novels". I can't say I'm disappointed 50 pages in...more to come. The Black Corridor is out of print (the only copy I could find was via Half.com, but it was a quite affordable book club edition). Courting Morpheus also landed in the ol' mailbox on Monday, and I'm salivating for a crack at that. One book at a time, dear Aaron.

Finally, Barry Napier's chapbook, The Final Study of Cooper M. Reid, is available for preorder at Strange Publications. Strange will only produce 26 hand-lettered copies, all signed by the author (guess I should get him those signature sheets, huh?), and the price is too affordable to miss. As with all Strange chapbooks, it includes two previously published stories by Mr. Napier. You can also purchase a "subscription" to the first three chapbooks in the series for a considerable discount.