Yup. Interior formatted and finished. 
As soon as we put together the cover, I will announce to the early bird sale for my newsletter subscribers.
Now, do you remember the illustration to the side? Back in April I told you to look at it and see if you could find the issue. I will now direct you to Talen’s leg. Click on the image to see it full size. In a post this week, I will explain just what this is all about.
If you enjoyed Bad Penny, you can nominate Frank, Sam, Carmen, and the gang to be considered for The Whitney Award.
Here’s how it works. The public nominates novels they like by LDS authors. A panel of judges reads through all the nominations and selects no more than 5 finalists for each genre. Then a “panel of industry professionals, including authors, publishers, bookstore owners, distributors, critics, and others” vote on the nominations. The winners get some good PR and exposure. It’s not Oprah, but getting the word out is critical, and every bit helps.
To tell the judges to consider BAD PENNY go here: Whitney Nominations. You have until December 31st.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.
Four days ago I was on my hands and knees in the garden, muttering, “My ring. Where is it? Where is it!”
I could have been Bilbo out there among the tomatoes. I could have been Gollum—though I’d have to endure a long, worm-filled diet to play that role convincingly.
I’ve been married thirty-six years to a good woman. You’d think a wedding ring is just a ring.
But it isn’t.
Someone memed me Boromir holding up the ring on a chain and saying, “It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.”
And I thought, how true! It makes me wonder if Tolkien ever lost his wedding ring.
For two days I searched the ground where I’d lost it—a long hedge of tomatoes and the sagebrush hill behind where I’d tossed split fruit. For two nights I went to bed feeling the absence on my hand, as if something vital had been taken from me.
Then, with the help of a Garrett ACE 250 metal detector I rented from a fine establishment in Logan, Utah, I found it.
It was just lying there in the open in a spot I’d checked half a dozen times. The detector beeped. And there it was.
My precious. My precious, precious reminder of thirty-six years with my admirable wife and our four wonderful daughters. It feels so good to have it back on my finger.
How strange that so many memories are wrapped up in so small a thing. It almost demands a new story about a magic ring. In fact, the experience might just influence the ending of ASSASSIN. That’s how writing works sometimes—life drops the ideas right in your tomato patch.
Speaking of ASSASSIN, it is coming along nicely. Ferran and company just turned a major corner with the help of a spunky kid in the city. And there’s an exciting scene coming up where all heck is about to break loose.
On another note, many of you have asked about GLORY, the fourth book in the Dark God series. It’s next in the queue. I’ll write that climax as soon as I finish ASSASSIN. I already have an opening, a rough outline, and plenty of notes—dogmen, dreadmen, Glories—the works. It’s coming, and I think the revelation of what’s really happening will surprise you.
Finally, I’m not dead yet, nor am I the fount of all wisdom, but I can say this: spend time with those you love, laugh with them, go on adventures. Because one day you’ll lose your ring—or some other small token bound up with all of it—and know exactly how precious those memories are.
Peace out, my fellow dreadmen and fell maidens.
I have finished the rewrite of act 3.
In my last update, I said that I’d written almost 50k words, but Word was counting everything in the document I was working in. I really only had 36k words at that time. The material now totals 50,000 words. A pretty hefty chunk that I’ve broken into eleven chapters.
If you recall my process, I’m basically at the end of step 7. Next week I will start my line edits. The week after that I hope to make the copy edits. I know I’ll do those more quickly than I did it the last time because Geoffery Kidd wrote me back in December and shared a wonderful way to quickly find typos and unclosed quotes that should help speed the process this time. His tips won’t take care of everything, of course, but every bit counts. Once I complete the copy edits, we’ll be almost to the finish line.
After a cancerous death, I appeared on Writing Excuses this week to groan and hold forth with the guys on writing second novels and second books in a series.
During the podcast I talked about my practice of debriefing after every writing project. A reader just asked what that was, and so I thought I’d explain it here.
The debrief is a simple thing. I learned it back when I worked as a business consultant. It always provides great insights. Sometimes it provides massive insights. The principle is to pull back and look at the big picture every once in a while. So here’s what I do. When I finish a project, I sit down and simply list out what I struggled with, what went well, and anything I learned. I list out things I’d do again that worked particularly well and things I’d do differently. This might be about craft or process. Sometimes I might take some time to reflect on the nature of story and read a favorite book about the craft or perform a story analysis on another movie or book. Then I write up my insights in a form that I can read later and know what the heck I’m talking about. This can take a few hours or a few days. This last debrief after draft 3 of CURSE coincided with my preparation for a day-long workshop I had agreed to give on story, and so the insights came thick and fast. I recommend the practice highly.
Just got back from a wonderful trip with Larry Correia down to Phoenix. We did 2 signings and hit 23 bookstores in 1.5 days. Our new zipcode map GPS method rocks! Have three interesting things to report.
First, we have a great time at The Poisoned Pen, an independent bookstore in Scottsdale. Lori and the other two guys whose names I forgot (doh!) were wonderful hosts. We talked about our books, fielded questions, and then signed. Had a great time. A lot of laughing and good stories shared. If you’re ever in their area, you should stop by and check out the store.
It was also nice meeting Valerie Moore, a reader I met on Twitter, who makes her own beads. Cool thing is–she’s doing a new design inspired by the book called “The Grove.” Can’t wait to see what it looks like.
I also need to comment on Mysterious Galaxy, the store we went to in San Diego. Patrick and his crew were also wonderful hosts. This is also the first bookstore I’ve been into dedicated to science fiction and fantasy. The folks who showed up were hard core fans. We loved it. I hope I get to go back again and again.
BTW, anyone wanting to pick up signed copies can get them at either place while they last. I believe both stores do a lot of mail business as well.
Another comment along these lines. We noticed a dramatic difference between stores. Larry and I both agreed that the Barnes & Noble (Bookstar, which is a B&N store as well) and the independent stores (Poisoned Pen, Mysterious Galaxy) consistently showed the best customer service. They also consistently showed the most business sense. Kudos to them.
Second, Larry had a bunch of gun owner friends show up to the signing and then invite us out to dinner the next night. We had a great time. Polite, good-natured, and fun. Of course, a number of them were carrying concealed weapons. And I’ll tell you what–never felt safer in my life. Now, I know some people are going to say, hey, that’s just an accident waiting to happen and if any bad dudes show up you’re just more likely to get shot or have the gun stolen.
Um.
No.
These guys don’t just carry weapons. These guys live and breathe weapons. They customize guns. They shoot them and train with them in competitions. These guys know guns like I know my keyboard. I wish I could have remembered all their names–Chris, Hiram, Mark, the dude with the Hooters wife, and the other dude who drives for an armored truck company (and wears a kilt!), and about five others.
Thanks to Chris for a great dinner at Famous Dave’s!
I wish I could post pictures. I promised myself I take a camera on this trip. Dang it. Denver. I shall document Denver.
Finally, I have to write about a guy in the Mesa Barnes & Noble where we were holding our informal signing. We were in the cafe. My great sister had brought rum cake muffins and everyone who came was eating them and talking. One of them asked me how I got the idea. So I told them the cow story and about the idea of humans being ranched for their souls. And just after I finished this a guy who had been reading behind us, a B&N customer, stands up and says, “Your book it true! Your book is true!” He had a beard and was all bug-eyed.
At first I thought he was joking.
Nope.
He said lizard men were ranching humans and I needed to read book xyz by author abc. Later he told my sister that the Bible showed they’ve interbred with humans and are taking our souls.
Lizard men… and all this time I thought it was the socialists that were going to get us.
Larry and I had talked earlier in the day about the demographics of our audiences. His audience was easy–red-state conservatives, military folks, & gun nuts. I expressed my trouble finding an easily identifiable demographic tag for my readers. But now I know–I got the crazies. 😛
After discussions with my agent and a few others, I’ve decided NOT to shop BAD PENNY to New York publishers. In fact, I’ve decided I’m not going to be shopping anything to NY for the next 12 – 18 months.
My agent was certainly willing to take the property out, but given the average expected advance for thrillers ($15-20k per book; maybe up to $100k for three books) and the terms that NY currently wants, I thought that it might be worth it to try to build something on my own.
I do not hold the illusions some do about indie publishing (I probably hold others). For example, I know quite a few authors who have published indie and are selling very low numbers each month–single digits and teens. Of course, I know others, a smaller portion, who are selling just fine.
But then what’s the bar? How many copies do I have to sell on my own over a three to five year period to match what NY can do for me via brick and mortar?
Let’s look at that from a revenue and a unit perspective.
The average advance for a fantasy, according to Tobias Buckell’s survey, is about $7,000 for a new author. $12,000 for an established author. We saw the numbers I gathered for thrillers above.
So lets see how many copies I’d have to sell indie style to earn as much as I’d get in an advance from New York. Why not select a higher number? Well, my understanding is that most books don’t earn out their advance. That doesn’t mean the publisher doesn’t make money; just that a publisher’s profit isn’t dependent on an author earning out.
So what are the numbers? Well, here are the numbers for NY. Down the first column you’ll see the different formats. Across the rows you’ll see how many units I’d have to sell to make the advance specified at the top. And how many units I’d have to sell if I wanted to spread the total over three years.
Okay, and here’s what I’d have to sell if I went indie to make the same numbers. I put in the trade paperback format for both 600 and 400 pages because that’s about how big SERVANT and BAD PENNY are going to be.
What does this tell me?
It tells me I have to sell a heck of a lot more units with NY at a much higher price than I do indie. It tells me that a $5,000 advance is not even close to being worth the control I lose with NY. And if it’s true that most books don’t earn out, then it tells me the units that are being sold by NY on the average book.
Back in 2009 I shared this: How Many Copies Do Average Authors Sell? This was from an editor at Tor Books. Seems like my numbers are in the ball park.
It’s true that NY could get me into brick and mortar stores. But if the book gets shelved spine out in the back, how many people will discover it?
It’s true that NY produces some spectacular hits. I looked at the USA Today bestseller list yesterday and it appears only about 10% of the books there this week are indies. But I can’t bank on becoming a NY wonder. The vast majority of NY published books DON’T make the bestseller lists.
Finally, even if I sold BAD PENNY today, it still wouldn’t hit shelves for probably 12-18 months from now. And then it would only stay on the shelves for 12-18 weeks. Going indie, I will have it up by September. And it will stay. For years and years and years.
There’s no guarantee of success either way. But the indie numbers look good to me. We’ll see how it goes.
