SODG Story Edits Finished

ByJohn Brown

Click to see edits

Wahooooooo!

I just turned in my final story edits to Stacy and David. The due date was November 1. The 3rd actually. The book clocks in around 177,000 words.

Wow. This last set of story edits led to some great changes. Not huge ones, but nice touches. I had to rewrite part of this battle scene, and man, oh, man I’m totally geeking out about it. We’ll see how it plays with readers.

What’s been interesting is seeing the types of things Stacy and David have commented on in the text. It’s as if they went through asking simple logic questions. Did they have enough time actually to do this? It makes no sense that person y wasn’t there. This thing isn’t fully explained.

And sure enough, the logic gaps were there.

So it wasn’t the interest level of the story they seemed to be editing for as much as the details that lead to clarity and belief. Of course, that those two things must be present for the interest to come. And this is not to say they didn’t focus on parts where interest flagged. There was one comment that forced me to cut my favorite dawg scene, a whole chapter’s worth. But the bulk of the comments were focused on the “logic” of the story.

Anyway, as of next Monday I think I’m officially into production. And back to book 2, which I’m 25,000 words into.

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  • NEWS: The Man is going all indie for the next little while

    ByJohn Brown

    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.

    IndieNYComparisonNYNumbers

    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.

    IndieNYComparisonIndieNumbers

     

    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.

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  • New business cards

    ByJohn Brown

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    John-Brown-Servant-Business-Card

    Curse

    John-Brown-Curse-Business-Card

    Raveler

    John-Brown-Raveler-Business-Card-Front

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    John-Brown-Raveler-Business-Card-Mockup

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    John-Brown-Bad-Penny-Business-Card-Mockup

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  • Servant of a Dark God: Coming October 13, 2009

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  • Vote for Servant of a Dark God, American Idol Style

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    The Legend Award

    I was informed today that Servant of a Dark God is on the Longlist for the David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy and the Morningstar Award for best fantasy debut. I believe this means the Rapture is close at hand, folks. Or maybe it just means Cthulhu has taken over the North Pole. In either event, Hunger, Sugar, Talen, Hogan, Nettle, Legs, River, the Mother (and the kick butt Hag’s Teeth) can win an award for general awesomeness. They can because voting is open to the public.

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    The nominees were submitted by editors working within a commercial genre fiction publisher (kind of like Hollywood week at American Idol). All the nominations are then put on the award’s Longlist.  The public then votes for their favorite on the list. The poll opened December 26, 2009. Voting on the Longlist will close March 31, 2010. You’ll notice it is indeed a looong list. But you don’t have to have read all the novels. You just vote.

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    1. View the list of Legend nominees here: http://gemmellaward.ning.com/page/legend-1
    2. Cast your vote by hovering over the Legend menu item as shown below; you’ll see a red Vote link; click it and select the book you want to vote forGemmellLegendAwardVoting
    3. View the list of Morningstar nominees here: http://gemmellaward.com/page/morningstar-1
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    Who is David Gemmell?

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    For those of you interested in LDS authors, nominate SERVANT for the Whitney

    Now that you’ve done your part to restore world order in the fantasy genre, if you’re interested in LDS authors/fiction, you can also nominate the Sugar, Talen, Hunger and the gang for The Whitney Award.

    This is an award for novels by LDS authors. It works in the opposite way of the Legend award. In this one, the public nominates novels by LDS authors they like. Then a “panel of industry professionals, including authors, publishers, bookstore owners, distributors, critics, and others” vote on the nominations. Of course, because I’m one of those Carrier Monkeys of Evil Mormons (a future post, folks), Servant of a Dark God is eligible.

    To nominate Servant of a Dark God go here: http://www.whitneyawards.com/nominations.php 

    Whew.  Be happy. I’ll keep you updated to let you know if SERVANT makes the short list for either of these.

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    SheepOnTheRoadSometimes the writing flows. And sometimes you get to the chapter you’ve sketched and realize you’re stuck until you get the sheep off the road.

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