It's Friday! And Here's a Manifesto

And this is my third post of the week. What's the world coming to? I'm thinking twice a week is a more reasonable posting schedule for me right now, but this makes three nonetheless.

Since I've been so embarrassingly introspective of late, I figured I'd take a moment and give an update on how my indie publishing life has been going.

It's funny really, as I have thought of A Dead God's Wrath and it's companion (unreleased) stories as something I hope to always release as something self published. I still have dreams of having novels and stories that are released the the old-time, traditional publishers, but I figure that can (and it has) take years, if ever.

So, I throw up A Dead God's Wrath well over a year ago. I don't go crazy with self promotion, I kind of throw it up and forget about it. After a few months of okay sales numbers it more or less disappears from the world's radar. It sells a copy or so every month, and that's about it.

A year passes and I realized that my long planned follow up isn't ready. In fact, it's taking way too long. I realize I have a story from an old anthology that I contributed to that I have all the rights to and I decide to put it up as, I don't know, a thing for people to read to remember that I'm still alive.

I re-read it as I'm putting it up and I don't like it nearly as well as I should have. I remember thinking it was great when I wrote it, now it seems very rushed, like I'm jamming too many things into too short a space. Things that I should have really expanded on are mentioned in a few lines and then the story moves on.

It really feels like a mess.

And yet, I do still kinda like it. Even with those things. So I put it up anyway - I try to the Amazon exclusive thing and make it free.... give away a few hundred typo ridden copies before I realize what I've put up, and then make the necessary changes just in time for it to revert to the lowest possible sale price on Amazon. At which time I forget about it and start thinking of other things.

60 days later Amazon sends me a letter telling me they are sending me money. Not a lot of money, but enough to go to the movies with - and buy some popcorn. Then I take a peek and see that I've sold many more copies of War Angel since they sent me my last wad of cash. It's earned enough to go to the movies again, and take my wife out with me.

It's small, a pittance really, but with no marketing, no push, aside from that initial surge that some blogger friends provided (a bigger deal than I'm making that out to be, thank you all), and I get a small feeling of gratitude that it's not getting returned en masse ether. People aren't reviewing in droves, but they're at least checking it out.

Thank you nameless internet people, thank you. Thank you blogger friends who read it, especially those of you that read it not because it sounded interesting, but because you knew me and wanted to support me. I'm really appreciative.

I toast you all,

Sigh Time

LOTS OF STUFF on the plate for this week so I may be scarce around the interwebs.

I DID FIND this amazing youtube channel with all these concept painting tutorials... it's one of the greatest things I've ever stumbled across. I watched a ton of them.


THERE WAS A NEW review for A Dead God's Wrath over the weekend. It's funny, as I've done no promotion whatsoever and despite all that almost no one has read it. Wait, that's not very funny, is it?

Still, the review was somewhat mixed, they commented that the plot was predictable and my prose was tedious  - while still being riddled with errors. But I really, really appreciate the review as it was. It was someone that wasn't worried about hurting my feelings and wasn't being mean spirited - they just found the story less than exceptional. They pointed out why they didn't think the story worked and I really appreciate them taking the time to read and be honest. I hope the next story I release will be better.

And I do plan on putting something else out within the month. I hope that this story is more compelling than the last. I'll post more about that soon though.

Also, someone on Goodreads rated A Dead God's Wrath over the weekend as well, except they didn't give it a review.

It was one of those dreaded one-star ratings everyone dreads. Sigh. I suppose I'd rather not read what they had to say about it. At least so far they haven't put that rating up anywhere else besides Goodreads, so I appreciate them not flaunting their dislike publicly.

ANDREW LEON has made the second installment of his serialized novel available today. You can get it for free if you hurry up. It's an Amazon exclusive. Hurry up and get it by clicking.... HERE

FINALLY, MY FANTASY FOOTBALL draft was this weekend. It's pretty sad when halfway through the second round of the draft I realized I'd made a horrible mistake and my season is ruined. But I'll enjoy being the underdog in almost every game.

I'll get 'em next year.

Happy Monday people.

The Juggler

Yep, that's me. I managed to get a lot done this weekend around the house, and I do mean a lot. Still, not as much as I wanted to otherwise. I decided I'm not writing another damn word of fiction until I get some art related projects done for some other folks. Weeknights tend to go poorly for me in that regard, but I'm going to give it a shot this week.

I did sit down this weekend and play some more with that 3D software I got a few months ago. That has a ridiculous learning curve, I clearly have no idea what I'm doing. However, I did do something book cover wise - er, for myself.

This is the version I've had around since August

My novelette, A Dead God's Wrath, was released last August and I've never been too thrilled with the cover I did for it. I had in mind do do several installments in the same universe, and wanted the covers to all be riffs on a theme. I haven't come up with a theme, per se, but I did think the cover didn't do me any favors. I mean, it isn't bad, it just doesn't make me shout from the rooftops.

So, I have decided that I need a new cover for myself. I do realize that a lot of other folks are waiting on me to do stuff for them, and I am on a short timeline, but this is sort of an exercise, getting out of writing mode and into artsy mode.

So, I came up with the image below and am thinking of putting it up as a replacement for the existing cover on the novelette.

I wouldn't get mad if I got some advice.

A super special edition collector's cover maybe?

The man on the cover is the 3D model I made. I think he's passable enough as real except for the way his arm bends as he holds the gun, that gives away the illusion some. If I work on it enough I'll get better. I actually blended the model with regular digital painting stuff. Doing that is a cheat, because rendering hats and clothes take time and skill that I don't have. So yes, I rendered a naked man, and painted clothes on him.

But, I think I can see the potential in doing stuff with the 3D software. Once rendered, they can look pretty cool.

Anyway, should I make the change? Or keep working on it? I am a bit worried that no one would have a clue about the Science fiction elements of the story based on this cover. It might give the wrong impression.

Page Views and Dead Gods

Blogging is a most curious thing. I have often thought of conducting some experiments to see if my chosen topics generate a difference in the popularity of a post. If I correlated popularity of a post to comments received I’d think that talking about my pets were my most popular. If the past is any indicator, then I would think that would make that a good topic for every post I ever do going forward.

On the other hand, if page views are my indicator, then I see something else. The most popular post I’ve ever done, which predates any crusading for followers or anything else I’ve ever participated in in hopes of gaining additional viewers for the blog, is nothing more than a YouTube video. (click to see) which is, admittedly, extremely awesome.

Weird. Also interesting to note I’ve never gotten a single comment on that post.

So, I’ve tinkered about and tried to notice things I do that turn folks off – I think my book reviews/reports have been less than stellar, as they seem to generate less interest than most anything else. My complaining about how much everything sucks seems to get a few views. I find the whole process mystifying. I’ve not learned anything. I think my next goal will be to spend a couple of weeks and post at different times, different days, and differing frequencies, just to see if anything stands out.

Of course that means I would have to get blogger to start posting my stuff when I tell it to. I mean, the scheduling feature is nice, but it would be a much more powerful tool if it actually posted the damn thing when I scheduled it, I think I would be a much happier camper if that were the case. I know, keep dreaming.

And then I wonder, what’s the point? By any objective standard I’m a pretty lousy blogger. I mean, my posts aren’t as well narratively pleasing as Andrew’s, I’m not as sociable as Alex (seriously, do you visit every blog on the internet?), I don’t rant as powerfully, or often, as Rogue, and I certainly don’t talk about anything compelling at all. Hell, I usually can’t be bothered to visit here sometimes, I don’t know why I would think anyone else would want to.

But then I remember, I’m doing this in support of my writing, ah, building a platform, you know synergy, cross media marketing, fan base stuff. Whatever. In fact, I caught myself the other day thinking that I should start a podcast. Then I thought. Maybe I should actually have something for someone to read. You know, since that’s the point.

So, I’m proud to announce that I’ve put up a short story on Kindle. Wait. Did I say proud? that's a strong word. I'll say I'm nervous enough about missing out on something that I went ahead and did it. I'll do Smashwords, B&N and all that later I suppose, but I'm lazy, and stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to get the formatting right. It also sucked because I intended to include a bunch of sketches and character notes, but, in what I'm sure is only the universe mocking me, having all that included at the end in a "extras" section screwed up the formatting for the whole story. Stupid computers. I can't even put a larger version of the cover that I worked so hard on into the book, so all anyone can see is that stupid little thumbnail. Dammit.

Regardless, I'll put up a link to it soon on one of the sidebars, and you may have noticed that I changed my background here into something blindingly tacky and in your face, you know, to promote myself. I'll leave it up for a week or so and switch it back to something a bit less... confrontational.

And the more I think about it, I really probably should have done one more full edit of that manuscript before I put it out there. Oh well, too late.

With that said, here's the link.

So, whatever. Give me money. Or don't. I have tentative plans to put something else out in the next month or so, when I do I'll probably drop the price of this one to free. Assuming of course, that I can.

No stock photos for me. All from scratch baby! Er, don't ask about the guns though.