Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 51

State of Writing

Pitched books Saturday at the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Festival. I did pretty decent, I think. I also managed to edit a couple chapters and finish all but the last page or two of John in the John which I will finish this week, officially putting it in the can. I hope to focus on editing The Kakos Realm: Rise of the Dragon Impervious so that I can get an editor onto it and start pitching it more heavily. I’m reluctant to try very hard to sell TKR: Grinden Proselyte without the second installment ready to go. I wrote them as one story, originally, and it really makes the story more appealing to have a followup with the guarantee of a second installment right away… I’d like to have TKR:RotDI ready for edits in November.

Also, my imagination is killing me! I’ve got another YA book loosely sketched. Whenever I take a road trip it seems I mentally stumble onto a setup for a great story.

10 Important Things When Pitching Books at Conventions, Festivals, Trade Shows, etc.

I have some experience in sales and did a lot of pitch-work for a company and ran a company’s booth at all of our conventions back when I used to work in real estate. I thought I’d shar…

Source: 10 Important Things When Pitching Books at Conventions, Festivals, Trade Shows, etc.

Big League Advice-o-mercial

I occasionally like peruse the backlog of spam and junk messages in my junk email folder for overlooked nuggets. I almost always find something I like from a select group of content providers (a new book or piece of advice from different services, etc… I just don’t have the wherewithal to look at each and every one of them.) I’ve posted a few reactionary thoughts to some graphic quotes put out by Goodreads in a blatant ad targeting indie authors.

This advice is so good. It’s a state of mind for successful writers (I know that “successful” is a pretty loaded definition.) Too many indies write and release but they never repeat the process. Like fishing, don’t expect that your first catch will necessarily be your biggest… You’ll never catch something bigger until you recast your line. It’s okay to feel unsatisfied on the shore, just keep fishing until you’re ready to reel in the next one.

One “super-fan” who will share your stories with everyone they meet and bang your drum for you is worth ten blind/random sales on Amazon. Never underestimate the power and reach of other people who want you to succeed.

It’s easy to get frustrated as a writer. “Oh, you’re an author? I write books too. I’ve been working on my XYZ epic for seven years now…” blah blah blah. None of those people matter–only you do: by that I mean that they are irrelevant to your story. You don’t control them or their writing; you only control you and yours. I’m pretty certain that people who want their stories shared will find a way to do that–it’s what they live for. Some people live to tell stories, others tell stories to live.

 

Review: Inevitable Ascension

Violina and Lux come alive through the pages of Inevitable Ascension. The world McAllister has created feels mostly original and the characters certainly step off of the stage (some in all their odd-glory). Her world is one-part steampunk-Judge Dread and one part Mad Max with just a note of Dan Brown as the girls encounter the Kza conspiracy. There is much to like in the story (it arguably gets better as you read—the first couple chapters felt as if it embraced a few too many tropes, but the characters really into their own by chapter five).

If I have any gripes at all it would be that it could have used a little more world-building.  Like, not much, just a couple sentences more in the first few chapters to help set the stage. Most writers (often including myself) overdo the scenery and descriptions, and McAllister does a masterful job—but little things bugged me (it seemed low-tech at first with hand-crossbows but then there are pistols and lasers later… it’s not that you can’t have both, and her world certainly does. I really didn’t care for the cover, either, but whatever that’s just me. None of those very minor and specific gripes detract from the content of the story itself and it still deserves all 5 stars.

I enjoy a good story with strong female leads, especially sci-fi stories (typically they are weighted slightly male-heavy for a variety of reasons) except when those stories are intentionally pushing a strong feminist agenda. Sometimes a strong woman is just a strong woman (no need to turn them into a propaganda machine). Lux and Violina have a certain rebellious spirit as they hop from one plight to another and Inevitable Ascension is a worthy read.

State of Writing

It was a rough week for me. I dropped the ball and could barely write over the weekend due to both time constraints and some injuries while trail cutting out in the woods (nearly lost an eye and my hands were so cut up I could hardly type) plus I lost a couple hours to a forced windows update that interrupted me (thanks Bill Gates). I did reflect, however, that the whole reason I set goals each week is so that I can hit them… soooo many weeks in the past I would’ve sat on my butt instead of putting words on paper. I missed it this week, but I ought to recover and hit last weeks marks this week (but I’m not gonna commit to any more this week).

Free Graphics Resource for Authors

Many Indies operate on a shoestring. I’m one of them. If I can learn a skill and do something without having to pay for it, then I will absolutely learn to do that thing. Online graphics, coverart, banners, etc. are imaging skills that can be handy for writers working on nickels and dimes.

I stumbled on a very basic resource over at Indies Unlimited that I thought I would share. There are many other things I would write about each and my list would be longer–but if you need somewhere to start, this is a good beginning point and it lists a couple of great resources right off the bat (Canva and Pixabay).

Check out the short article here: http://www.indiesunlimited.com/free-graphics-resources-for-authors/

Review Thieves & Wizards by Jaxon Reed

I had the opportunity to review Thieves & Wizards by Jaxon Reed as an ARC (I received this for free in exchange for a review). The first page confused me—but that was my fault… I wasn’t really paying attention. I reread it with more than just passing attention and I was hooked. The realm Reed creates is full of magic and intrigue and a hierarchy of wizards and kingdoms in accordance with colors/jewels. While some of it felt derivative (Greystone is obviously the realms Gandalf stand-in) there is a comfortable feeling of many other works (LotR, Eragon, Shannara, etc.) featuring magic and the writing is tight and high-quality so the mythopoeia (even if it draws on the author’s favorite peers) absorbs the reader rather than alienates him or her. Thieves & Wizards is a quality read and I can recommend it without hesitation for readers 5th grade through adults.

What I liked: the early hooks and way the magic permeates the realm. also, the writing quality.

What I didn’t care for: the cover is kind of meh… also, the book blurb is super weak… it doesn’t mention a single main character and is very broad and vague (both no-nos according to every expert out there…this is probably why I was already glazed over when I read the prologue). Hopefully readers look past that and pick up the book anyway: the doorway and exterior might be unassuming, but inside of the house is superb.

State of Writing

I slumped this week. I think I remember writing a devo piece for JitJ, but can’t be certain. I was away on a four day work event. I thought I would write a bunch. I did not. Bus rides are not conducive to creativity (or comfort)… I did get a bunch of editing done, however. So that’s something. I’m a few chapters deed on TKR:2 and I worked some of my promos, did some reading for tomorrows book review, new cover design for WYPL (Ingram version with a new ISBN so that bookstores can carry me on their shelves and have returnability not offered with Createspace), setup a book event at Barnes&Nobles in St. Paul, queried an agent, and I also tweaked and played with my ad campaigns on Amazon and got Why Your Pastor Left selling pretty well, in fact.

When I write down all those other little things that I did/do and don’t even talk about it begins to sound impressive. We’ll see about this week (personal goals are to finish John in the John, edit 3 chapters in TKR:2, get WYPL listed with Ingram, and submit JitJ to a manuscript service–just to gauge my experience which I’m sure I will blog about).

How do I get my Christian Book listed on CBD (Christian Book Distributors)?

If you don’t know about CBD.com, it’s basically the Amazon.com specific to explicitly Christian entertainment media and gifts—kinda like the biggest Christian bookstore you’ve ever been to but in an online and catalogue format. If you’re an indie or self-published author of ECPA or CBA style titles you would certainly want to be available through those markets, right? So how do you get into their catalogue?

I contacted them. Got very little. Contacted again with much more specific questions—got very little data, and then tracked down some info, called them and got to the bottom of it because their site had some misinformation (or at least some very misleading/poorly written info)—that’s some real hard-hitting investigative journalism there. (pats self on back).

While there is a statement on the CBD site which seems to say that you can get carried by their distribution system if you are self-published, their online FAQ states: “Unfortunately, we are not able to accept unsolicited product queries, proposals, or manuscripts. We simply cannot accommodate the numerous requests we receive and we do not review any materials sent to us; but we’d be happy to suggest other resources for assistance.” (I do believe that it was my multiple communications that made them put this statement up as it was added after all of my questions).

Here’s what I found: it’s not impossible to get in to the CBD catalogue, but it’s not easy, either. They are very reluctant to give any info on how you can get in. Under a page they promote about “self-publishing” and “want to see your book on CBD?” you get redirected to a pay-for manuscript hosting service. It seemed like a back door into their catalogue, since I couldn’t find any info on how to get in outside being published by a big CBA traditional house. It was a dead end, though. The link focuses on getting a publishing contract through one of the big traditional houses.

In trying to discern if it was even possible to get in as an indie I remembered that I had purchased an indie book via CBD several years ago—that indie house had offered me a contract (but is also a bit of an author-mill: they focused on making money from author services, not on the publisher’s cut of the book sales) and I wanted a sense of their quality. Armed with that knowledge I’d asked CBD for a list of publishers they purchase from… and they refused to give that saying the list was too big (I can understand that… there may also be some confidentiality concerns on their part, though it’s not like I’m I’m wikileaks of anything.

I scoured the internet and did find one publisher who mentioned that they could get authors in to the CBD catalogue: Bookbaby. (I’m familiar as my old rockband used their music service arm to produce our cds). Bookbaby did speculate during our phone call that the reason they handle a large volume of Christian indie authors is that they market their ability to harness the power of christianbook.com (CBD’s site).

Since they wouldn’t give me a list from their purchasing department at CBD, I manually searched for book publishers in their system. I looked for titles by Bookbaby, Tate, Xulon, Westbow (part of Harper Collins), Xlibris, Creation House, Crossbooks (part of B&H), Outskirts Press, Castle Gate Press, and even Createspace. I found a very limited number of titles from each of the above.

Something they told me at Bookbaby (the polite customer service rep on the phone went to his supervisor to get me some info) is that the exact nature of their relationship with CBD is confidential and as such he can’t divulge certain things. I was interested in specifically what the parameters for title selection might be, but that was something that they simply could not share with me. They also couldn’t speak to their procedures regarding authors (I wanted to know if they would automatically pitch a new Christian title to CBD or if the author had to specifically request as much.)

I contacted Createspace in order to see if there was some special process to get a book in. Createspace had no info for me and so I suspect there is another avenue (some inside relationship those authors had with someone in CBD’s Buying Dept.) I contacted some of the authors directly who are listed in the CBD catalogue and received no answer. As I looked more and more into it, I also began to wonder if there might be something else that factors into it such as book producer (perhaps those Createspace writers also opted into using Ingramspark for expanded distribution—but more on that in future blogs). After a few weeks of emails, phone calls, and research I’ve come to all dead ends.

To answer my title question (How do I get in CBD as an Indie) the answer really is, “You can’t.” The bottom line is that indies must be published by a company that has a relationship with CBD’s buyers—and you must specifically ask them to make a pitch to CBD, and their buying parameters are written on the backside of the Krusty Krab’s Krabby Patty Secret Formula, so we may never know. If you want to be carried in CBD you must specifically ask your indie publishers to pursue that as a distribution avenue. It sounds like the path is narrow and the parameters are murky, but at least we know that it is an option.

State of Writing

I’m keeping on track… wrote some devo pieces (and recorded some for radio broadcast, locally). I’ll finish that entire book over this next weekend in all likelihood. I also sold almost ten books at a small, local craft festival. I’d never actually heard someone say “I prefer mysteries” until Saturday; maybe I need to get out more, but almost everybody I talked to about genres were mystery/crime readers (so I steered them to Piano of the Damned, which would be up their alley.) I did work to refine my pitch/proposal for John in the John. I plan to start talking to agents soon.