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Mar 15 2012

Your Cover Art Sucks

This entry originally appeared on author and NEHW member, K. Allen Wood’s website.

Your Cover Art Sucks

by K. Allen Wood

Let’s talk about cover art.

There has been a self-publishing boom as of late. Once a surefire way to garner scorn from so-called professional writers, now even those dingleberries of the upper crust are self-publishing their work. With its rapidly growing popularity, there are those in the industry whom suggest there is a bubble…and that it’s about to burst. But I disagree. I think things are just getting started.

And that means more self-published books flooding the market.

There is an oft-used quote out there, which goes like this: “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

A few years ago, when I started Shock Totem, a well-known author told me that cover art “isn’t that important.” The argument being that it’s the content that matters more. It’s hard to argue with that. However, I think, in a certain regard cover art matters more. The expression “never judge a book by its cover” exists because everyone judges a book by its cover.

First impressions matter. That initial connection between cover art and potential reader is intimate, and it matters more than you and the masterpiece you think is a page turn away.

I won’t buy your book if the cover art sucks. I won’t download it for free. I won’t do more than laugh derisively like a too-cool uptowner and walk on. Haughtily.

I fully understand that the majority of writers doing this sort of thing are, to put it bluntly, bad writers; but many are quite good, in fact. And to them I say this: If you truly care about your work, seek out the work of professionals in areas where you are not King Dingaling. Dig deep. It doesn’t cost much.

In other words, don’t do this…

[ click any photo to enlarge ]

Above are four actual book covers not designed by a 4-year-old.

Trapped inside the social-media matrix, I am bombarded daily with similar fruits of so many would-be writers’ half-assed labor. You, as well, I imagine.

I see authors posting bad cover art all the time, constantly asking for opinions (which people freely give but which equates to little more than smoke up the ass), often readily admitting that he or she has little skill in Photoshop or design, of any sort.

Thus, I question: If you are that person, why the fuck are you creating cover art?

Mar 7 2012

Perfect Conditions

This entry came from NEHW member and author Bracken MacLeod’s website.

Perfect Conditions

by Bracken MacLeod

Recently Jonathan Franzen created quite a dust-up when he said that “the ‘impermanence’ of e-books is incompatible with enduring principles” (or something to that effect). I’ve already weighed in with my opinion of the Tastes Great/Less Filling debate when it comes to e-readers versus dead tree books and really am not interested in saying any more. However, Franzen did have something else to say which intrigued me enough to make further comment.

The acclaimed author … has said in the past that “it’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction”. He seals the ethernet port on his own computer to prevent him connecting to the internet while he writes, also removing the card so he is unable to play computer games and wearing noise-cancelling headphones to prevent distraction. [emphasis added] source

I admire the luxury of being able to drop out entirely and simply be in the work. In the past I had a similar attitude toward distraction. I used to only be able to create when conditions were just right (that’s what I told myself anyway). You get the idea–fussing about with ideal setting as a means of procrastination. Distractions outside (or inside) could derail me for minutes or hours. Not any more, however. I’m done with all that. And since I’ve gotten rid of the perfect setting nonsense I’ve been much more prolific.

I wish I could say that my rejection of the Goldilocks conditions (not too noisy, not too hot,1 just right) for creativity was borne of discipline and a desire to just sit down and do the work, no matter what. But if I am to be honest, it was my son’s doing. Since adding a baby (nearly a toddler) to my life, all I need to be creative is enough time to open Scrivener and start clacking keys (or outlining, or editing, or whatever). And that’s the last remaining luxury of the full-time parent/writer. Fuck feng shui! All I need is time.

At this moment, time seems ample compared to when I was lawyering, for instance. The kid sleeps a few hours a day (I know that’ll change, don’t bother commenting about it) and I work. The sounds of the city buses and the gas station outside don’t bother me (most of the time), I don’t need to find the perfect mood music–although it does help me with “flow”–and most of all, if I only get to write for ten or fifteen minutes at a time instead of several uninterrupted hours I still feel like that was a success. It’s unclear to me whether being a stay-at-home parent has fragmented my ability to focus or solidified it. All I know is that my first book took four years to write and my new one only took two and a half months.2

The change came easier than I expected mainly because I was forced into it. Now, the only precursor to work that I absolutely require is coffee. I still can’t write in a cafe, however. I’m too busy eavesdropping, listening for dialogue.

1 I like the cold. It feels like being alive, where sweltering heat just reminds me of being ill.

2 I attribute the improved quality of my work to taking classes at Grub Street in Boston as well as the fantastic help of my writing circle. The speed is all the boy, however.

Mar 3 2012

A Conversation with Author Jan Kozlowski

This entry appeared on author and NEHW member Kate Laity’s website.

Writer Wednesday: Jan Kozlowski

by Kate Laity

My pal and fellow Horror in Film and Literature lister, Jan Kozlowski, first fell in love with the horror genre in 1975 when the single drop of ruby blood on the engraved black cover of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot hypnotized her into buying it. She sold her first story, Psychological Bacchanal to the EWG E-zine in 1997. Her short story, Parts is Parts, won awards in both the International Writing Competition sponsored by DarkEcho’s E-zine and Quoth the Raven’s Bad Stephen King contest. Another short story, Stuff It, was sold to an independent film producer and went into production as a movie short called Sweet Goodbyes. Her short stories have appeared in: Remittance Girl’s A Slip of the Lip anthology, Lori Perkins’ Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance and Fangbangers: An Erotic Anthology of Fangs, Claws, Sex and Love.

She is extremely proud and excited to announce that her first novel, Die, You Bastard! Die! debuted February 7, as part of Lori Perkins’ new horror line, Ravenous Shadows, edited by the legendary John Skipp.

Q: What do you write on? Computer, pad o’ paper, battered Underwood? Give us a vivid picture.

I do the majority of my writing on my cherished MacBook Pro laptop. I tend to turn my MacBook on at 6:30 a.m. and don’t shut down until 9 p.m. or later most days [Ed: Hmmm, you can shut them down?]. If I either get stuck or get a jones to feel pen against paper, I’ll pull out my old white L&M Ambulance Company clipboard loaded with scrap paper and start scribbling. The board is a souvenir of my days as an urban EMT in Hartford, CT and I keep it around as a reminder of what I COULD be doing for a living.

Q: Do you listen to music while you write? Does it influence what you write?

I almost always listen to my local Dinosaur (Classic) Rock radio station when I’m working. Since Die, You Bastard! Die! is such an ultra violent story, I tried putting together a play list of heavier metal like Avenged Sevenfold (my granddaughter’s favorite band), Testament, Broken Hope, Disturbed, but I ended up distracted by the unfamiliar songs. Listening to the rock I grew up with in the 70’s like Bob Seger, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith, with a little Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Bon Jovi and Bacon Brothers thrown in via iTunes works best for me.

Q: Do you write in short bursts or carve out long periods of time to work? Is it a habit or a vice?

For me, writing is a business. I’ve been freelancing since I was about 12 and sold articles about raising tropical fish to my hometown newspaper. For the past 15 years or so I’ve run my own freelance writing shop doing all sorts of business and web related writing, editing and research work. Over the past two years, I’ve slowly been moving away from the business projects in order to focus on my horror fiction, but whether I’m writing fiction or non-fiction my work style is the same….commit to the project and write until the client, the editor or I’m happy with the finished product.

Q: What writer would you most want to read your work? What would you want to hear them say?

That’s already happened…on one of the drafts of Die, You Bastard! Die! I think I managed to gross out my editor, legendary Splatterpunk King, John Skipp! Now if I can, one day, pay Dean Koontz back for the creeps he gave me with his novel Whispers, I’ll die a happy writer.

Q: On the days where the writing doesn’t go so well, what other art or career do you fantasize about pursuing instead?

When I was a little girl my grandfather used to tell me stories about his adventures working for a funeral home during the pre-embalming fluid days. I always thought I would have loved working in mortuary sciences, but when I was going to school women weren’t exactly welcomed into the funeral services industry. Now that times have changed and we have a first class Mortuary Sciences degree program at our local college, I’ve always thought that would make a fabulous Plan B, even now at age 50+.

Q: What do you read? What do you re-read?

I try to read a little bit of everything. I get some great ideas from newspapers and magazines. I just discovered and am now devouring Mad Money Wall Street guru, Jim Cramer’s books. I try and read as much classic horror like Robert Bloch, M.R. James, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Edgar Allan Poe and J.N. Williamson as possible. I also try to keep up with who’s publishing today beyond Bestsellersaurus Rexes Stephen King and Dean Koontz. I’m a huge fan of Edward Lee, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Joe R. Landsdale, Jonathan Maberry, Elizabeth Massie, Yvonne Navarro, Weston Ochse, Monica O’Rourke, John Skipp and Andrew Vachss.

I rarely find time to re-read anything unless I’m researching a specific writing technique, like how Jonathan Maberry handled the fight scenes in his Pine Deep trilogy or how Dean Koontz ramped up to the reveal of the cockroaches in Whispers.

Q: Where did the idea for Die,You Bastard! Die! come from? Do you have a surefire way of sparking inspiration? And is that an awesome title or what?!

The idea for Die, You Bastard! Die! came out of a lovely dinner Ravenous Shadows publisher Lori Perkins and I had during the 2011 Northeast Writer’s Conference, known as NECON. Lori mentioned she was looking for a story about an adult child coming home to take care of her abusive parent and it matched up with a story I had been kicking around for years about a survivor of childhood sexual abuse coming home to deal with her past. After the conference I got home, wrote up the proposal, Skipp green-lighted it and we took off from there. I realize that’s not the way most writers get a book deal but it goes to prove that if you consistently put the hard work in, you WILL find yourself at the right place, at the right time with the right story.

Writing inspiration and story/character/plot ideas are everywhere if you’re open to them…and my motivation for being open to them usually is based on my memories of being paid $5 an hour to be projectile vomited on as an EMT or waitressing at Friendly’s for .60 below minimum wage.

John Skipp raves about this book:

Die, You Bastard! Die! is one hard-as-nails crime story indeed, with a crime at its core so heinous it boggles both mind and soul. That said, it is also a horror story, a mystery, and an insanely taut suspense thriller. Categories are funny like that.

But human monsters don’t get more humanly monstrous than Big Daddy. And it don’t get much rougher and tougher than Jan Kozlowski’s violently matter-of-fact, emotionally ass-kicking, downright incendiary son of a bitch.
I love this book, and stand behind it 100%. Hope it blows you away, as it did me. And has you coming back for more.

Drop by Jan’s blog or website and follow her on Twitter. Find her on Facebook and check out her Amazon author page. Thanks, Jan!

Feb 25 2012

Facebook 101

This funny take on learning about Facebook comes from the blog of  the Co-chair of the NEHW, Stacey Longo, which can be found on her website.

Facebook 101

by Stacey Longo

My sister finally gave in and joined Facebook this week, or, as she succinctly put it, “I’m drinking the Kool-Aid.” Tasteless Jim Jones reference notwithstanding, I was crazily excited to have my sister on Facebook—which is a little bit ridiculous, really, since we talk on the phone every day. But now I could talk to her online, too! And put up photos of shamrock shakes and tag her in them! Oh, the possibilities were endless! I spent two hours walking Kim through her first tentative Facebook steps. She navigated her way through the privacy settings, discovered how to leave her wall and successfully return to it later, and even gave the search bar a shot. “I can’t find O____ B_____,” she complained, trying to look up an old friend from high school as I sat with the phone propped up to my ear, tagging photos of her. “Don’t worry about it, she just found you,” I said, watching as O.B. ‘liked’ the picture of Kim I’d just put up and left a comment. Within moments, Kim had a friend request. “That’s a little scary,” she admitted. And it is. Which is why I’m offering these tips to my sister and the other 36 people in the world who are just now joining the Facebook nation:

1.  Remember that creepy guy from high school, the one who wore plastic vampire fangs to class and stared at you all day? Yup, he’s on Facebook too, and he’s about to send you a friend request so that he can finally confess to you that he was in love with you 30 years ago and that you are still just as beautiful today. Feel free to ignore his friend request.

2.  Remember your younger cousin, the one who set off firecrackers in the chicken coop and it caught on fire? He hasn’t changed. Ignore his friend request, too.

3.  People will tag random pictures of you. They do not care if you were thirty pounds heavier in that photo or had just had your hair done like Gene Simmons of KISS for a costume party. They also don’t care if your mother is on Facebook and will not find it as hilarious as your friends do to tag you in a picture of a bong shaped like Elvis’s head. You do have the power to un-tag yourself in those photos. Do it.

4.  Good news!  Your mother is not on Facebook. Yet.

5.  Some of your Facebook friends are quite vocal about their political views or feelings on social issues affecting our nation. Some of these people are, in fact, crazier than fruit bats. Choose your battles wisely. Sometimes it’s better to just bite your fingers instead of commenting.

6.  Yes, if you post something on someone’s page, all of their friends can read it. So if you want to tell your friend Jeanie that you still regret not marrying John Taylor of Duran Duran, send her a private message instead of posting it on her wall where your husband might see it.

7. Of course Duran Duran has their own Facebook page! You can only ‘like’ it once, though.

8. Don’t keep updating your status every five minutes. Honestly, nobody cares if you just found a great deal on toilet paper at Target. (Wait. How great of a deal was it?) Also, why do you want creepy vampire fang guy to know where you are at all times? Facebook can be a little scary for newbies. Personally, I’m thrilled to have my sister on there with me, mostly because my cousin Lori keeps ignoring my Farmville requests, and I want someone to play with me. Plus, it’s better that she figures Facebook out now…before her children do!

Feb 23 2012

The Atavist

This entry originally appeared on New England Horror Writers’ member, Paul Tremblay’s website.

The Atavist

by Paul Tremblay

Last month I saw journalist turned boutique publisher Evan Ratliff give a live talk/presentation of his impressive new venture,  The Atavist:

“The Atavist is a boutique publishing house producing original nonfiction stories for digital, mobile reading devices. We created a new genre of nonfiction, a digital form that lies in the space between long narrative magazine articles and traditional books and e-books.”

So, yeah, long form non-fiction published digitally. The hook (besides well-written, well-researched, thoughtful pieces) is–if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad–their unique digital platform. The multi-media that accompanies each piece truly enhances the stories. Embedded pop-ups include maps, personality histories, side bars, audio clips, images related to the story, video, and on and on. Watch the YouTube video below for a demo. It’s impressive stuff, and for the first time, I feel like I’m seeing digital reading taking full advantage of the medium’s possibilities. (The publisher app is free, then each story costs $2.99 ; you chose whether or not to purchase)

Thus far, I’ve read Lifted, a story about an elaborate government bank heist in Sweeden (the story includes, as it’s stunning prologue, actual surveillance footage from the break in–clips included in the YouTube clip below) and Baghdad Country Club (animated prologue included below), a story about a bar set up in the Green Zone during the height of the Iraq war.

Feb 8 2012

The Trouble with Genres

This entry originally appeared on New England Horror Writer member, Kasey Shoemaker’s website.

The Trouble with Genres

by Kasey Shoemaker

Genre is truly a tricky thing. This all-important label helps not only to identify a novel but also the book’s intended audience. Without it, a book and its author could suffer a serious identity crisis. And, it was honestly one of the aspects of marketing my book that I struggled with the most. I’d written the entire first draft without much thought to its specific genre. Then, when left with the task of pigeonholing it, I ungracefully stumbled into calling it paranormal fiction. At my first fiction conference, I was told under no uncertain terms was it paranormal fiction. I often wonder how educated that assessment was coming from a distracted literary agent who half listened to my one-minute pitch. Nevertheless, she said paranormal fiction immediately brings to mind the genre’s sister, paranormal romance, and unless it was heavy on the romance, I was better off calling it urban fantasy. From then on, that was my book’s label.

However, a label can make an enormous impact on a book. Suddenly, my fiction novel, written before it was categorized, had an already established audience and with it a collection of expectations. Janice Hardy’s post addresses these expectations: “What readers expect. Fantasy is all about other worlds that can’t exist, mixed with magic, mysticism, or supernatural elements. These are the  defining characteristics of the fantasy genre. Just like spy thrillers  have their own characteristics and reader expectation. There were  aspects of the spy thriller I wanted to incorporate into my fantasy  story, but at its heart, it’s all about the magic and the fantastical world. When a reader picks up a book in a genre, they want certain traits.  Picture your favorite band. Now imagine going to their concert and hearing them play a totally different type of music. Country instead of  rock, rap instead of jazz. Even if you like the new type of music, odds are you’d be pretty unhappy at the bait and switch. Genre helps readers find the types of books they want to read. It also helps bookstores know where to shelve books, and what to suggest to their customers. Ditto for libraries.”

The publishing industry considered it a hot but overly saturated market. Readers had one of three reactions: strong interest (because they were long-time fans), rejection (usually due to thinking it was bloody, scary, or too steeped in fantasy), or confusion (typically a result of never having heard the term urban fantasy). The first group continued to ask questions about the plot and setting, all the while growing more and more interested. For the middle group, I would typically explain that it was bloody without being gory, suspenseful rather than frightening, and a fantasy set in our contemporary world. And, for the latter group, I stupidly found myself eloquently explaining the term urban fantasy and its roots instead of explaining my book, which didn’t necessarily fit neatly into the category. I did that only a few times. However, people still have preconceived notions about it based on the label. I have fielded questions, such as “Does it have vampires?” (no), “Is it like Twilight?” (um, big no on that one). “Will my teenager like it?” (absolutely), “Will adults like it?” (yes, more than the teenagers).

Essentially, the genre label, meant to be helpful to the publishing industry, has proven confusing to the readers. Some expect it to fit nicely on the bookshelf next to other urban fantasies where a barely clothed, well-endowed woman with a steely expression sits splay-legged in a graveyard. No offense to the character on that book cover, but when my Gabrielle Gayle sets out to demolish were-witches, she does so with all her parts covered and protected. She’s beautiful and sexy, but she will leave the lipstick at home in favor of packing her daggers. But, I have accidentally found myself on my soapbox about the over sexualization of female heroes in fantasy. Back to my point, for months, I trolled the aisles of bookstores and pulled countless titles off the shelves falling under the urban fantasy umbrella, lined them up to look at their covers, and asked myself how, and even if, my novel fit in with these. It does, mostly, but it also fit in with other books, novels that are a part of another sub-genre, dark fantasy. Dark fantasy has closer ties to horror than urban fantasy does, and poor horror has its own battles to fight when it comes to audience presumptions. After only a few months as a member of the New England Horror Writers, I have already been to some events where audience reaction was either excitement or blunt rejection. At least people know what it is to be classified as horror, for the most part. But, horror seems to be even more polarizing than fantasy. People either can’t get enough of it or steer clear of it, buying the books for that odd friend or family member who likes “that kind of stuff.”

With more and more novels being ones that cross genres, affixing a book with one specific genre label seems to be more troublesome than clarifying. Publishing companies can’t get by without the hard and fast categories and will at times allow new ones to spring up because every book simply must have a place. They revel in the preconceived notions held by audiences because it makes marketing that much easier.

But, what about the writer?

What happens to the unpublished writer spending thousands of dollars on fiction conferences who hears time and again that one particular element, while brilliant, simply isn’t found in that specific genre? One writer could hear from an agent that his or her science fiction book has too much science and not enough character while another agent could tell him science fiction is supposed to be more about the concept and less about the characters, all based on expectations of the genre. What’s to keep that writer from hacking at his or her work removing the book’s most poignant and well-crafted pages only to replace them with elements that, for no better reason, exist simply because they fit better in the genre? How much should a writer mold the book to fit the genre? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? After all, books are created by writers while genres are made by publishing companies to classify books?

Another issue is that there are likely too many genres for readers and writers to be aware of them all. Below is a genre map from Book Country. Notice that dark fantasy isn’t included? That’s because it’s only recently been recognized as its own sub-genre.

And, there’s no fixed formula or set of criteria for a book to meet before it’s labeled. And, an additional side effect of genres is that they often don’t settle with just the book. The labels attach themselves to the writer as well, like mold. Novelists aren’t simply writers once they’ve written a genre book.  They’re fantasy writers, mystery writers, romance writers, etc, leaving one to wonder the following:

Do writers themselves also conform to a specific genre to satisfy expectations of the audience and the industry? And, what does this mean for writing as a craft?

Feb 7 2012

Another Notch in the Bedpost?

This entry originally appeared on New England Horror Writers’ member, K. Allen Wood’s website.

Another Notch in the Bedpost?

by K. Allen Wood

I’ve been contemplating—and worried about—writing this blog post for a long time now. My worry is a simple one: Will people be offended, take it the wrong way? I can’t answer that, but I hope not, because I’m compelled to discuss it.

So here goes…

I started a small-press horror publication in the fall of 2008. I enlisted the help of some online friends, we dubbed it Shock Totem, and in July of 2009 we published our first issue. (Most of you know this.) Ever since we published that debut issue, I’ve had one question constantly rattling around my head:

Does an author owe his support to the publications that publish his work?

That question pertains not only to me as a publisher but as a writer as well. Through four issues of Shock Totem, we have gotten some amazing support from authors we’ve published. But not all of them. Some hardly mentioned us at all, even when the issue containing their work came out. On a selfish level, I can’t help but find that disappointing. On a rational level, I understand that I have no idea why an author does what he does. There are things at play here that I am simply not privy to. I can dig that.

But back to the selfish side of things… As a publisher, I find myself leaning toward the notion that writers should be supporting those who publish their work. Because if the publisher is doing it right (relative to that particular publisher, of course), and if they’re a publication like Shock Totem where every issue is still in print and actively promoted, then the publication is fully and continually supporting the authors.

Back to the rational side of things… As a published author—hell, as a lifelong creative type—I completely understand that the muse commands one to look forward, to move forward, and create, create, create, to not waste time looking back. I also know how little time most artistic people have to actually focus on their art. So maybe some people simply don’t have the time. But that leads to the one thing I can’t rationalize…

When I finish a new story, I move onto a new one. But when I have a story published, I never move on. (All this can be applied, as well, to my musician days.) I can’t move forward and not look back in that regard. Because I want people to read my work! Do I owe it to that particular publication to support them, promote them? That’s debatable. But I sure as hell owe it to myself to support and promote my work! So I make the time.

And that is precisely what baffles me. (This does not take into account the fact that some authors publish bad stories best left forgotten from time to time.) Why do certain writers choose to not actively promote their work? Is a publication credit just another notch in the bedpost for these authors? As a publisher, sometimes it feels that way.

I have just three publication credits. The first was in 52 Stitches, Vol. 2. The publisher, Aaron Polson, essentially put Strange Publications to bed—at least for the time being—when this anthology was published. But this book is still available, and I promote the hell out of it…because I want people to read my work! “By the Firelight,” my story in this anthology, is a mere 457 words, but I still want people to read it. It doesn’t matter that the publication is inactive or perhaps permanently closed, because I like my story and, in my opinion, I owe it to myself to promote it.

My second published work, “Goddamn Electric,” was in The Zombie Feed, Vol. 1. I’ve sent out copies for review, I’ve posted about it here on this blog and on the Shock Totem blog. I will continue to do so as long as it’s available.

I’ve done the same thing, and will continue to do so, with Epitaphs: The Journal of New England Horror Writers, which contains my story “A Deep Kind of Cold.” In a certain, roundabout way, I’m promoting my work right now.

Which brings me to the revelation of things…

Since that first issue of Shock Totem came out in 2009, I’ve been asking myself should the author support the publisher? Again, the answer is debatable. But few would argue that an author shouldn’t promote his own work, right? And in promoting his own work, is that not, therefore, supporting the publisher? Is there a difference between promoting your own work and supporting the publisher?

I’m no longer sure you can have the former without the latter, but I know what I’m going to do. Always.

Editor’s Note:

Wood makes a lot of valid points. A creative person does look ahead, but to become well-known or even known, they need to promote their work. By authors’ promoting their stories, they are promoting the publisher of their work. How hard is it to write a Facebook status update or a tweet about your story being in an anthology, magazine, etc.

Wood promotes his magazine and any anthology his stories appear in. He does this through his website and his different twitter accounts. He also attends different conventions and fairs too. He will be at the NEHW tables at the Queen City Kamikaze Convention on Feb. 18 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Jan 5 2012

The Pros of Publishing Short Stories on Amazon

This entry originally appeared on NEHW member Mark Edward Hall’s website.

The Pros of Publishing Short Stories on Amazon

by Mark Edward Hall

I get asked a lot, mostly by newbies, how I can make money by publishing .99 cent Ebooks on Amazon. First, my .99 cent books are all short stories. I make .35 on a short story that would otherwise be lost in my computer forever. I have twelve of my shorts out there now with more to come and it actually amounts to a tidy bit of extra income each quarter. Most all of my shorts have been previously published, so anything I make on them now is a bonus and welcome extra income. By the way, I also publish these same stories on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.

All my novel-length works are 2.99 or above. On Amazon you receive 70% of anything priced above 2.99. On a 2.99 Ebook I receive 2.05. Not too bad when you consider that the stuff I have with a publisher (three books to be exact) only nets me 17.5% of list. The publisher likes to word it as 40% of net, which doesn’t sound too bad when you sign the contract, but in reality it figures to just about 17.5% of the purchase price.

I’m not here to trumpet the virtues of independent publishing over legacy publishing, although I might do that in a future post. Writers have to make up their own minds about what’s best for them. I only know what works best for me. I have two new novels coming early next year and I can tell you this, they will both be independent books. I hire my own editor, commission the cover art from some very good artists, and I’m pretty good at doing the formatting. (Better than my publisher actually) So when you take into consideration the profit difference between doing it yourself and putting it in the hands of a publisher it seems like a no-brainer to me. I wish I’d thought that way years ago.

By the way, I also offer some of those same .99 cent short stories as a collection entitled, Servants of Darkness, for $2.99. Readers who want to sample my work can buy a .99 cent short and if they like what they read they can buy an entire collection for 2.99. In this digital age I think writers are nuts if they don’t use every opportunity available to them.

Also, I am in the process of offering all of those same short stories on my website for free. Yes, you heard me right, FREE! If someone wants to save the .99 cent kindle fee and doesn’t mind reading on the computer, they can read my short stories without paying anything. Maybe I’m nuts but I believe it’s the right thing to do.

But to answer the original question: How can you make money by publishing .99 cent Ebooks on Amazon? Just ask John Locke. If you’re a writer and you haven’t yet heard of John Locke, then you’ve been living under a rock. John Locke writes the Donovan Creed book series and he prices all his novel-length books at .99 cents. He sold a million of them in five months and they’re selling at the rate of one every seventeen seconds.

In summary I think the future is very bright for those writers who have the courage to be creative.

———

Mark Edward Hall has worked at a variety of professions including hunting and fishing guide, owner of a recording studio, singer/songwriter in a multitude of rock n’ roll bands. He has also worked in the aerospace industry on a variety of projects including the space shuttle and the Viking Project, the first Mars lander, of which the project manager was one of his idols: Carl Sagan. He went to grammar school in Durham, Maine with Stephen King, and in the 1990s decided to get serious with his own desire to write fiction. His first short story, Bug Shot was published in 1995. His critically acclaimed supernatural thriller, The Lost Village was published in 2003. Since then he has published five books and more than fifty short stories. His new novel, a thriller entitled Apocalypse Island is due out in early 2012.

Jan 3 2012

Interview: Joining Trent Zelazny on the Dark Side of Fiction

This interview originally appeared on NEHW member Erin Underwood’s blog.

Interview: Joining Trent Zelazny on the Dark Side of Fiction

by Erin Underwood

You might have seen him around. His name is Zelazny. Trent Zelazny. If you read dark fiction he’s someone you want to know, or more to the point, he’s a writer that you want to read. Some people write from the heart, but Trent Zelazny leaves his blood on the page, creating fiction that feels like you’re living an experience while tucked safely in your own cozy home. He is definitely making his mark, writing some terrific pieces–most of which have just been published this year.

Perhaps one of the most impressive things about Trent Zelazny is his ability to keep moving despite the obstacles thrown in his path. Troubles aside, Trent had continued to produce some excellent heart pounding stories that are likely to worm their way into your “To Be Read” pile until you’ve got nothing left from him to read–at which point you will join the rest of us who are waiting for more. Luckily, he’s agreed to give Underwords an interview so that we have a little something to tide us over for now.

~

Drummer. Writer. Movie buff. How would you describe that guy people call Trent Zelazny?

Reserved. A bit neurotic. Still healing. My life has taken a lot of twists and turns. 2009 and 2010 were both pretty much one big downward spiral, filled with alcohol and the death of my fiancée, bouncing aimlessly around Florida, staying in flophouses and some nights on the street. Thankfully, with the help of family and friends, I was able to pull out of it. The 2011, the new Model T is a vast improvement, though it still clinks and clanks when it runs.

What can readers expect when they pick up your newest publication Destination Unknown?

Hopefully a story with characters they can relate to. Hopefully it’s exciting to them, too. A far-fetched scenario but one that, I think, is quite plausible, even moreso possible. To me it asks the question: Can you stick together if you’ve already fallen apart?

What literary (or other) influences have been the most powerful on your development as a writer?

Horror was the big one at the start. Matheson, Bloch, King, Koontz. Over time this evolved into crime and mystery, especially the old pulps from the 40s and 50s, and Film Noir. And not to come off as pretentious, but you have to sound pretentious when you use the word, existentialism, especially Sartre and Kierkegaard. The best mentor I’ve had is Jane Lindskold. I seriously doubt I’d be as far along as I am without her. I’ve kind of let that friendship slip away, and deeply regret that, knowing it’s mostly my doing.

Your fiction is a mixture of horror, noir, crime, and comedy in varying degrees. As a writer or reader, what attracts you most to this combination of literary genres?

It would be more as a reader than a writer, I think. They are typically my favorite things to read, so I guess it would make sense that they’re the things that come through most when I write. Dave Barry and Donald Westlake can make me laugh so hard that I practically wet my pants. Joe Lansdale has the mind-boggling talent to frighten you, make you cringe, and laugh out loud, all at the same time. I also really love heavy drama. Judith Guest’s Ordinary People was and is a personal favorite, as is the movie. I’d love to be able to write something like that one day.

You’ve worked with a variety of the darker genres, but haven’t touched much on the fantastic. Since fantasy and horror often go hand in hand, do you think you’ll explore this combination of these genres?

I have a little. When I was younger I wrote a lot of fantasy and some science fiction. As time went on, however, I found that, overall, I just wasn’t very good at it. I think, with my father being who he was, I kind of thought that that’s what I was supposed to be doing. I have fantastical elements in pieces, usually dark. The book I’m working on now has a big supernatural subplot, and I have a sort of fantastical story coming out in the anthology Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. I try to let the story tell me what it is. Often not, but at times it waves its arms and says, “Hey, there’s some fantasy in this one.”

What story or scene has been the most challenging for you to write or pushed you the furthest outside of your comfort zone?

The book I’m working on has done that a good amount. Fractal Despondency would likely be the biggest so far, I think. Semi-autobiographical. My fiancée had only been dead four or five months when I wrote it.

[sample chapter of Fractal Despondency]

If you had one chance to ask anyone (alive or dead/real or fictional) one question, what question would you ask? Why that question?

At the moment of this interview, it would probably be Kierkegaard. I’d wanna ask him why the hell he had to say “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Because it is one of the truest things I’ve ever heard and, to me, it’s not an all-together pleasant thought.

In an interview with Darrel Schweitzer for Fantasy Magazine in which you were answering a question about your father’s (award winning author Roger Zelazny) influence on your writing, you said, “He gave advice and helped with certain must-knows, but he always encouraged individuality.” Looking back, how has that encouragement helped to shape your fiction into what it is today?

Well, it almost contradicts what I said above about feeling like writing fantasy was what I should be doing. Last thing he ever wanted was to turn anyone into a literary clone of himself. I have an older brother and a younger sister—I’m the Jan Brady. Whatever any of us took interest in, he encouraged. He encouraged my music, my writing, my drawing. Anything I seemed to take a real interest in. He wasn’t a cheerleader, but an encourager. I’m pretty sure he did that with my brother and sister as well. When he saw that I was gravitating more and more towards writing, we’d sit in his office and talk about it. He rattled off a few things that every writer should probably read (Shakespeare, for example) but otherwise told me more about fundamentals. He used favorite books of his as examples (Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, which is an amazing book, comes to mind), but he never told me I had to read them. He wanted me to find my own way.

In another interview that you did with Gabrielle Faust, part of your advice to new writers was not to be afraid to write something unpublishable. Why do you think this is so important?

This is often where writer’s block comes in, I think. Not that the words won’t come, but more a fear that the words will be bad, or wrong, and this will somehow, in some way, confirm that you don’t have what it takes. That you’re not a real writer. I still write stories that are beyond help. Am I let down when I finish? Yes. Am I glad that I wrote it? Yes. It’s a little like blowing your nose, clearing the gunk and crap out so you can breathe, and sometimes you’re really stuffed up. You may have to go through an entire box of tissues, but eventually you’ll breathe better, and you’ll be glad you got rid of all that snot.

Within the last year you have published a solid stream of fiction. What are you working on next?

    • Destination Unknown – print & e-book (Dec 2011)
    • “Snow Blind” in Stupefying Stories – e-book (Dec 2011)
    • A Crack in Melancholy Time – e-book (Sept 2011)
    • Shadowboxer – e-book (Aug 2011)
    • To Sleep Gently – e-book (Aug 2011),
    • A story in Kizuna [Fiction for Japan] – print & e-book (Aug 2011)
    • Fractal Despondency – e-book (Apr 2011), print (Jun 2011)
    • The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories – print (Aug 2010)

Currently working on a new novel, as well as a short novelette for a shared world anthology, and a project I’m not allowed to discuss (tease, I know). I’m sure a short story or two will pop up soon enough. With 2009-2010 being what they were, I was at least blessed this year with a bit more publishing success.

~

Trent Zelazny is the author of Destination Unknown, To Sleep Gently, Fractal Despondency, Shadowboxer, The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories, and A Crack in Melancholy Time. He was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has lived in California, Oregon, Arizona, and Florida. He currently roams throughout the country aimlessly. He also loves basketball. You can visit Trent on Facebook, Twitter, and on his website.

Jan 2 2012

Author Promotes His Book and Some Blogs

Author Promotes His Book and Some Blogs

by Jason Harris

The New Year is here. Have you started doing your New Year’s resolution or has it already fallen to the wayside? If you are still struggling with staying with your resolution then here is a link to an article on the Tipb website mentioning a few apps like Evernote and Weight Watchers mobile to help with those resolutions.

If you are looking for blogs to follow as one of your resolutions, NEHW member Rob Watts has a few suggestions of blogs to follow in an entry on his site. One of those suggestions is this site. I do thank him for the mention.

Recently, Watts was on the Sci-fi Saturday Night program discussing his book Huldufolk, Iceland, Cedar Grove and his Traffic Lights Soundtrack album.

His novel, Huldufolk, is a horror story set in both Iceland and Massachusetts and was published by Ocean View Press. According to the program’s website, Watts is also “a musician and songwriter for The Traffic Lights, an Icelandic Trance band whose music is integral to the book.”

You can download the podcast here: http://www.scifisaturdaynight.com/?p=5273.

Watts has also written album reviews and conducted interviews with musicians which can be found on the Ocean View Press website.