Bryan Cassiday's Blog, page 30

New Cover for the “Zombie Necropolis” Audiobook

Here’s the first look at the new cover for Bryan Cassiday’s audiobook version of Zombie Necropolis. The audiobook will be available in the summer.

Is Self-publishing out of the Cellar Yet?

Self-publishing has always carried a stigma to it.  After all, it’s not much different than vanity publishing, which still has a stigma attached to it.  The idea is, the self-published book couldn’t find a publisher to print it in New York, so the writer turned to self-publishing.  In other words, the book wasn’t good enough to find a publisher.  Therefore, the self-published book is inferior to a book published by a regular publisher.

Self-publishing a book is also a difficult way to make a profit.  The writer doesn’t receive the advance that publishers pay writers.  What the self-published writer does get is royalties from the sales of his books.  These royalties are usually much higher than the royalties earned by an author contracted by a major publisher.  However, though his royalties are usually higher, the self-published writer’s sales are almost inevitably lower.

If you’re starting out as a self-published writer, it’s hard to establish any kind of fan base. Readers of your books tend to be few and far between.  Nobody has ever heard of you. Somehow you have to make a name for yourself–and that isn’t easy, especially when you don’t have a major New York publisher backing you.  A New York publishing house’s logo on your book’s cover acts as an imprimatur to its quality, thus enticing readers to buy the book.

If a writer already has a fan base, self-publishing would seem like a viable option.  Your royalties would be higher, and you already have an established fan base.  Not only that, you would own all rights to your self-published books.  Why more brand-name authors aren’t opting for self-publishing remains a mystery.

If more brand-name authors do, in fact, choose to self-publish, it will work wonders toward lifting self-publishing out of the cellar.  That being said, self-publishing has more of a cachet today than it did, say, twenty years ago, thanks to the advances in technology, namely the computer and the Internet.  Whether it be true or not, the fact is, the general consensus today holds that self-published writers aren’t as good as writers contracted to traditional publishers, specifically New York publishers.

“Zombie Necropolis” Audiobook

The audiobook for Bryan Cassiday’s zombie apocalypse thriller Zombie Necropolis is now in production.

Zombie Necropolis to be an Audiobook

Bryan Cassiday’s zombie apocalypse book Zombie Necropolis is being made into an audiobook.  Mike Venditti has been contracted to produce and narrate it.  When completed, it will be available on Amazon and at iTunes.

 

 

Zombies Storm Broadway

Even Broadway isn’t safe from zombies these days.

The Just Kidding Theater Company’s production of Living Dead in Denmark, written by Qui Nguyen, is about zombies.  Women from Shakespeare’s plays are resurrected to fight zombies that are led by Zombie Lord.

More proof that the zombie apocalypse isn’t leaving the literary scene any time soon.

Barnes and Noble’s Nook Press

I recently transferred my e-books that were on Barnes and Noble’s Pub It over to B&N’s Nook Press.  I don’t see much difference between the two formats at this point.  There is one difference.  You can sell your e-book in the United Kingdom now.  In order to do that, you have to state that you own the world rights to your e-book.  I don’t believe you could sell your e-book in the UK in Pub It.

Nook Press, unlike Amazon’s Kindle Select, is not exclusive.  I.e., if you sign up with Nook Press, they don’t forbid you from selling your e-book at any other Web site.  If you enroll in Amazon’s Kindle Select, you have to agree not to sell your e-book anywhere else other than at Amazon.

I don’t find Nook Press any easier to use than Pub It.  So far I haven’t uploaded a new document.  Therefore, I don’t know if the Nook Press conversions of documents are any better than Pub It’s.

I don’t see any reason to delay in transferring your e-books from Pub It to Nook Press. After all, now you call sell your e-bo0ks in the UK.  You could always do that at Amazon, by the way, and sell them in Germany, France, and several other countries, as well.  Not that you’re going to get a lot of sales in Germany and France, since they don’t read many books written in English in those countries.

Barnes and Noble Introduces Nook Press

Barnes and Noble’s Pub It Web site is now changing its name to Nook Press.  I don’t know why Barnes and Noble is making the change.  I never had any problem using Pub It.  In fact, I found it easier to use than Amazon’s Kindle publishing service.

Another author told me Barnes and Noble has invented Nook Press in order to make it exclusive (like Kindle Select), so that the users of the format won’t be able to sell their digital works anywhere else except at Barnes and Noble.

Kindle Select makes it optional for authors to choose their exclusive service.  If Nook Press is going to copy Kindle Select, I hope they make the exclusionary rule optional as well.  I have read the contract for Nook Press and it says it’s a nonexclusive contract.

The royalty structure of Nook Press is supposed to stay the same as Pub It’s.

Authors will be able to share their drafts on Nook Press’s Web site so that others can read them and comment.  This capability on Nook Press reminds me of HarperCollins’s Authonomy Web site, which allows editorial comments to be posted by readers of authors’ manuscripts.

In any case, if you signed up with Pub It, you won’t be able to stay with them.  Nook Press is taking their place.  Either you’ll have to sign up with Nook Press or opt out of self-publishing your digital works at Barnes and Noble, which begs an interesting question. Will you still be able to sell your Smashwords e-books on Barnes and Noble?

 

 

 

What does Amazon’s Acquisition of Goodreads Mean?

Now that Amazon is going to acquire the reading site Goodreads, it can’t be a good thing for Barnes and Noble.  The links to buy Barnes and Noble books were prominently featured on Goodreads.  The Amazon links not so much.  I’m sure that will change soon.

I’m wondering if Barnes and Noble will be allowed to post any of their links on Goodreads after Amazon takes over.  The Goodreads site also has links to other sites that sell books, such as Booksamillion.  Will these links be posted anymore?

Members of Goodreads probably won’t like it if the site becomes merely a shill for Amazon.  For this reason, it would be a good idea for Amazon to continue to allow other booksellers to post their links on the Goodreads site so as to avoid having Goodreads look like a giant advertisement for Amazon.

Self-pubbed digital writers should make out well no matter how things play out at Goodreads. Amazon still offers the best rates of 70 percent for its self-pubbed digital writers, and if these writers make more sales at Amazon on account of Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads, I can’t imagine any writers complaining.

“Kill Ratio” Available Now for Preorder!

The fourth Chad Halverson zombie apocalypse book Kill Ratio is now available for preorder at Amazon. The book will be released July 9, 2013.

The insanity of the zombie apocalypse is in full swing.

CIA black ops agent Chad Halverson decides to head to Washington, DC, to find out if anyone is still in charge as the nation teeters on the brink of collapse and succumbs to the plague, even though he knows someone in the government is trying to kill him.

Halverson and fellow refugees Victoria Brady, Blackfoot Chogan, and Emma Lawson become trapped in Las Vegas by General Quantrill, who runs the strip with an iron hand.

Meanwhile, in the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia, President Cole must decide whether to start nuking his own country in order to save it from the zombies.

Raves for Bryan Cassiday’s Chad Halverson zombie book Sanctuary in Steel:

“Cassiday blends thoughtful suspense and pulse-pounding terror to deliver a novel with both bite and creeping dread.”–David Dunwoody, author of Empire and The Harvest Cycle

“Written with the epic scope of World War Z and infused with the gritty spook works derring-do of a Robert Ludlum spy thriller, Sanctuary in Steel is full of zombie mayhem through and through.”–Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Dead City

 

 

Zombie Flash Fiction by Bryan Cassiday

“Turning”

by

Bryan Cassiday

I know that I am different from everyone else.  I know that I can never sleep, dream, feel anything for anyone.

The only thing I feel is hunger, a gnawing hunger that never dies, hunger that consumes me as well as every living thing I eat and the blood I drink from their pumping hearts.

 

Copyright 2013 by Bryan Cassiday