February 26, 2011 in Blog
I meant to post this yesterday, but I got sidetracked (which doesn’t take much). In any case, tomorrow is the last day to leave a comment on The Sunday Book Review and be entered for a chance to win a copy of ALT.
This is probably the easiest way to get a copy. Seriously. All you need to do is leave a comment. Don’t be lazy – go comment and cross your fingers.
TK
February 25, 2011 in Blog
Book Chatter starts tonight at 11 PM EST. Go here around the start time.
Remember, you do not have to be a Ustream member to watch and listen, but if you want to take part in the chat and appear as anything other than “Guest,” you will have to create an account (which is free).
I hope you folks can make it so you can listen to how unprepared and nervous I am.
See you tonight,
TK
February 23, 2011 in Blog
Three things:
1) If you’ve always wanted a paperback copy of ALT to call your own, Foozago Books has a deal for you. They’re selling it for less than the cover price. That’s less than Amazon or B&N, or any other vendor I’m aware of at the moment. By purchasing from them, you’ll be supporting the little guy, and that’s never a bad thing.
2) I also have an interview with The Sunday Book Review. Leave a comment and you’ll be entered for a chance to win a copy of the book.
3) And I’m running a contest on deviantART, aimed at visual artists. The purpose is to take one of five scenes from ALT and recreate it in the visual style of your choosing. Prizes include signed copies (hardcover and paperback), deviantART subscriptions and T-shirts, and one of those very limited plushy Cretins. The deadline for entries is March 11th, so get to it!
Very busy these days.
More soon,
TK
February 13, 2011 in Blog
There’s a bit of a lull right now between books, and I’m trying to find other uses of my time. Promoting ALT is one, but if I did that 24/7, I’d lose my mind. I also have SPR to look after, a long reading list to work on, and–more importantly–I have other stories to write. This last item is the topic at hand.
I may regret doing this later, but it’s late and I’m feeling pretty good about it all, so I’ll commit to it now. Consider this a semi-official announcement of two projects. I’m doing this here so you all can hold me accountable if, in a year’s time, at least one of these projects is not finished. This is also my way of keeping me motivated. Sometimes I need to guilt myself into writing, and this is another way of doing it.
First up is a novella. It’s a story I’ve been struggling with for the better part of five years, as its origins are rooted in facts which I still have trouble reconciling. Initially, part of the problem I had with it (other than its personal side) was that I couldn’t figure out how it should be told. I thought it could be a novel, but then I wondered if I could sustain the narrative for 70k-80k words, and so I shelved it. A few nights ago I started thinking about it again, and then on Friday I opened my notebook and wrote the first scene. I’ve decided it’s allowed to be a novella. That’s a good size for it, I think. Oh, and the story? It’s about a friend I used to have who heard the voice of a god inside his head, and decided to leave his family and friends behind to join a cult. I wish that part was fiction. It isn’t. The rest of the story will be, though. It’s about how one man’s religion destroys the world, and it’s tentatively titled TO THE CENTER OF EDEN.
The second project is a collection of stories I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, tentatively titled THINGS I LEFT BEHIND. The concept of what this would be has evolved over the last couple of years. When I first started brainstorming, I imagined it as leaning more toward the memoir side of things (and some of its pieces could still be categorized as such), but some ideas I’ve had for it are either too personal, too abstract, or not interesting enough to suit its pages.
To date there are three memoir-like pieces written, but not much else, and in light of this fact I realized that I have a long list of titles and premises for stories I’ve been meaning to write. I also have a bunch of “finished” stories that either haven’t seen the light of day, or were published so long ago that their homes of publications have gone under. I used quotes there because a lot of them need to be revised, but that’s a different beast as the groundwork is already in place. So, I’ve decided to approach this thing like an album of sorts. I’m going to list out the titles and pick the best twelve. Those not written yet will have a single rule: they can’t be longer than 2k words. Any stories that either a) run too long, or b) can’t be edited down, will be sidelined for a separate collection.
And now, the lists:
Titles – Unwritten:
A Cynical Side of Sunshine
A Language of Names
The Dare
Girls From the Internet
Saving Granny From the Devil
The Center of the Universe is a Small Kentucky Town
The Pissed Off Writer’s Union
8-Bit Progression
Digital Human Management
Occupational Nomad
Growing Up Guilty
How to Sleep at Night When You Hate Everyone
Things I’ve Let Go, Things I Can’t Forgive
The Idea Salesman (Incomplete)
The Men in My Family
Titles – Written/To Be Revised:
Refrain of the Faceless Man
The Walk
Things I Left Behind
Cold Hands
Toothache
The Great Wall of Suburbia
Crude Sunlight
Dead Ohio Sky
Lilith
They Would Judge His Trespasses
Exponential Ruin
In These Fragile Spaces
Jeff & the Antichrist
Yikes. There’s a lot more there than I expected. Maybe two collections are in order after all. Given the potential lengths (Crude Sunlight is about 20k on its own), that may be the only way as far as print is concerned. Digitally, they could be combined into a single set, but that’s something I can think about later. For now, I have some writing to do.
There’s also TLM, which is with my editor right now. She’s shooting for an April deadline, but that isn’t set in stone (even if she refuses to acknowledge that). The book will require some extensive editing in regards to story arcs and resolution. I expected this. It took 19 months to write, and it’s only natural the later parts may not quite fit with the early parts. And, let’s face it, when I got to the end, I just wanted it to end. So, I’ll be fleshing out some scenes and removing others altogether.
I think that’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, folks.
TK
February 12, 2011 in Blog
Hey, folks. I’ll be one of the call-in guests on Book Chatter’s February 25th episode where I’ll be talking about ALT, my writing process, Self-Publishing Review, and whatever else they’d like to throw at me.
The show is hosted by Stacey Cochran, RJ Keller, and Zoe Winters. You do not need to create a Ustream account to join and listen, but you will need to sign up if you’d like to participate in the chat (sign-up is free). The show starts at 11 PM EST.
I hope to see some of you there!
TK
February 8, 2011 in Blog
I’d intended to write a different sort of post today (something I’ve been meaning to do for a week or so now) but something happened earlier which has left me slightly amused and more than a little perplexed. So, in times like these, I turn to my blog like most of the kids do these days, and air my grievances for all to see.
Right. As regular readers know, ALT is out now. I’ve made no secret of it. Like any author with a book for sale, I try to get the word out and keep the book in the public forum for as long as possible. Twitter is one of the ways I do this. Every day, usually in the morning, I’ll send out a tweet about ALT. Sometimes there’s a link to the website. Sometimes there’s a link to the book discussion. And sometimes there’s a link to the Amazon Kindle page (which is the lowest price point). I’ll probably switch things up soon so that it points to Smashwords, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Today, like every week day (I rarely send the ALT tweets on the weekends), I did what I usually do.
Then I went about my day. A couple of hours later, I started seeing retweets about some bookseller ranting about direct links to Amazon. For most of the day I thought I might have been a catalyst since our tweets sync on the time line, but it seems that isn’t so. Unless, of course, I’m an expert on bookselling (doubtful). In any case, I discovered earlier that this fellow had blocked me for reasons unknown, but which I suspect had to do with my direct link to ALT’s Amazon page.
To play devil’s advocate for a moment, I can understand his venom. Amazon is, to some extent, killing indie booksellers. Why drive across town to a store when you can order a book and have it delivered the next day? Or have it delivered wirelessly in seconds? The industry is changing, and it’s unfortunate that the Mom & Pop shops are feeling the worst of it.
But, as a publisher and an author, I can’t afford to have any illusions about where my sales are going to come from. Amazon is the biggest kid on the playground right now, with the biggest audience, and it’s just so damn easy to buy something from them. I fully expect 75% to 90% of ALT’s sales to come from Amazon. That’s a fact.
However, I’m not adverse to selling the book in other venues. It’s on B&N. It’s on Smashwords. It’s on iBooks and the Nook store. It’s in Powell’s. It’s soon going to be sold by Foozago. I’ll be updating the ALT site shortly to reflect these things. I support all of these – but I’ll support Amazon more, because more people are going to shop from Amazon than they will the others. I’m partial because I have to be.
Part of the guy’s tweets just seem like rants, like he’s been bottling it up for a while and just wanted to get it off his chest. That’s fine. Everyone should do that. But to say you’ll cut off orders because you saw an author linking directly to Amazon? And then block people (including potential customers) because they have a dissenting opinion? Fuck that. If he’s not happy about the current status quo, he should be spending his time brainstorming ways to trump Amazon rather than bitch about it on the internet. If he wants authors to start tweeting links directly to his shop rather than Amazon, he needs to give them a reason to.
Tomorrow I’m going to do my daily ALT tweet. It will probably be a link to Amazon. That’s the way it’s going to be for a while.
So there ends my own rant. A real post will probably follow tomorrow. Feel free to chime in with your own opinion. I won’t block or ban you if it’s contrary to my post. I’m not a dick like that.
TK
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