S.L. Rowland's Blog, page 8
July 10, 2018
An Open Letter to Amazon
I love writing books. I love sharing them with the world and receiving reviews and messages from people who have spent hours enjoying what comes out of my head. I’ve been doing it seriously for almost 2 years now and have learned so much in that time.
I thought I would finally be a full time writer this August. That was until amazon decided to start taking money from authors without proof or data. With only so much as ‘we see suspicious activity but that is all we can tell you.’ They can’t tell us what happened or how it happened. They can’t tell us how to prevent it. But just like clockwork, 10 days into the next month they adjust our payout. After we have spent a month funneling money into their ads based on the data they reported to us. So not only do they get the $1500 they cut from my earnings, they get the $800+ that I spent on their ads based on false reporting.
It’s not right and it’s not good business. If you can’t control people manipulating your system, which I’m not entirely sure occurred on my account based on my historical data, then you shouldn’t report earnings in real time. And you definitely shouldn’t adjust earnings the month after.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. Amazon is such a big piece of the pie that it would hurt my income to quit being exclusive. But I might just have to suck it up and put my books on other platforms.
May 24, 2018
Pangea Online Book Two: Magic and Mayhem available now!
The newest installment in the Pangea Online Series is available on Amazon.
Everything has a price. Pangea Online is no different.
After winning the Developer’s Tournament, Esil has a new life filled with opportunity. He’s the first person to test out their most innovative technology, full-immersion gameplay, in a brand new, unexplored gameworld. Magic and mayhem collide in ways he never thought possible and soon, he finds himself caught in a quest that may alter the course of the game for years to come.
As Esil experiences the grandeur of full-immersion and the line blurs between reality and the gameworld, the NPCs he meets feel more like friends than data. Tasked with defending a small town from dark forces, he must learn to protect its citizens from impending doom or risk losing them forever.
March 8, 2018
Pangea Online: Death and Axes Audiobook
I’m proud to announce that Pangea Online: Death and Axes is available in audiobook on Amazon, Audible and Itunes.
Produced by Soundbooth Theater Live! and Jeff Hays and narrated by the talented combo of Justin Thomas James and Laurie Catherine Winkel (who is also credited as the author at the moment. I promise I wrote it.).
You can find it here:
February 27, 2018
I’m now on Patreon!
I decided to take the leap and join the legion of authors on Patreon. If you love my work and want access to bonus content, early releases and signed paperbacks before anyone else, click the link and check it out.
February 20, 2018
Pangea Online Alternate Covers
I’ve officially passed the halfway mark of Pangea Online book 2. I’m keeping the name under wraps for now, but I thought it might be fun to show you some of the alternate cover designs we went through for Death and Axes.
Here was the initial sketch after I sent my cover designer a synopsis of the book. This was the first time I had seen a mock-up of my characters and I was completely blown away. I immediately said to proceed.
Then came a colorized version. I like it a lot, but several things stood out to me. First, Fenrir, the wolf, is black in the novel. I was worried it might clash with the dark tunnel, but I felt like it had to be corrected. I’m not a firm believer that the cover has to depict a scene from the book, but I do believe the characters should be as they are. Also, I wasn’t a fan of Esil’s face. He looked kind of like a neanderthal, and I wasn’t digging it. I also didn’t like the font. Most fantasy novels have a bit of a metallic or stone feel to them, so I wanted something more akin to that.
After taking my suggestions, this next version was very close to the final version. The color of the wolf was changed and Esil got a makeover based off of a combination of Jaime Lannister and Robert Pattinson (don’t tell anyone that). The font was getting better, but I thought it was a little too thin and the cover was starting to get wordy.
And here is the final version. I liked how the book number was hidden inside of the ‘O’ to free up space but also signify the series number. The thicker letters stand out more and even though they are a similar color to the cave, they remain noticeable.
November 29, 2017
September 4, 2017
On Writing
Have you ever wondered what goes on in the head of a writer? I came across this questionnaire that might give you a little insight into the process behind the writing. *Disclaimer: No two writers are created equal.
I got the idea for this post from Holly Evans at chaosfoxwriting.wordpress.com
Holly writes LGBT+ Urban Fantasy about tattoo magicians. It’s a pretty cool concept and I believe she has three books out in the series right now. Anyways, let’s get down to it.
How do you deal with self-doubt and the awful inner editor?
It’s hard. If you’ve read my previous post, you know that self-doubt is something I do struggle with, especially with my writing. Is it good enough? How are these people finding success when I’m not? There is always the question of what will other people think. I write for myself and tell the best story I know how, but at the same time I’m putting it out there for other people’s entertainment.
The hardest part for me is not comparing myself to others. Some days I am completely satisfied with my writing and my trajectory. Other days I feel like a complete fraud. I think it comes with the territory because there are so many writers out there that it is natural to compare yourself to them. I’ve gotten better a taking criticism, that’s for sure, but sometimes a comment or review will catch you off guard and those are the ones that sting for a few hours. In the end, though, you brush it off and write the next book.
Does writing energize or exhaust you?
Both. A good day of writing leaves me full of energy. It’s on those days I can write 3000 words and feel like I’m on top of the world. On a bad writing day, I might get out 300 words over the course of 5 hours and want to sit on the couch the rest of the night watching reruns of The Office.
If you could tell your younger writing self one thing, what would it be?
Don’t wait so long to take it seriously. If you want to be a writer, write. It’d have been a lot better to get all those crap words out at 21 than 27.
What would your writerly mascot or avatar be?
Hmmm. Maybe a bear. I write in spurts and when I’m working on a novel, I work on it almost every day, but when I send it off to the editor, I have a hard time writing anything else while I’m waiting for those edits back. I guess that is when I hibernate.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
I’ve got one in the pipeline at the moment and dozens of stories I’ve started and never finished, but I wouldn’t say any of them are half-finished. I have a lot that are maybe 5-10% finished, so if you need any free story ideas, hit me up.
Land of the Dogs was one of the ones that sat around unpublished for a long time. I still don’t know if I made the right decision by publishing it.
How many hours of the day do you write?
It depends, since I have another job. When I’m working on the first draft, I try to get an hour even on my busy days. When I have more time, I would say 3-5 is the average, depending on where I am in the story. Beginnings and endings go faster and I usually slosh about through the middle.
Do you read your book reviews?
Every single one of them. Sometimes to my own detriment. A good one can send me to the moon, but a bad one can drag me down for a day or two. It must be the desire to feel like my writing is good enough, but I can’t not read a review. Maybe when I have more books out, I’ll stop reading them, but for now, I read them all.
Even your’s, Glenn.
Does your family support your writing career?
Kind of hard to say. I don’t think anyone in my immediate family has bought a copy of my books. If they have, no one has mentioned it. My grandma was visibly impressed when I showed her the paperbacks of all my novels one time. I think she thought that I posted a few things on the internet, not that I wrote actual novels you could hold in your hands. I could probably go on and on about my family issues, but I’ll save it for my dog.
Do you use music when you write?
Absolutely not. I need quiet to write. Occasionally, if things are too loud, I’ll put on noise-canceling headphones and listen to thunderstorms.
Do I believe in writer’s block?
I don’t. I believe there are times when I don’t know where the story is going or when words are like pulling teeth, but at the end of the day, this is my job. I sit at the desk and fight for every word, even if I know I’ll go back and change it the next day. Progress is progress and not writing is not an option.
For me, writer’s block is a luxury I don’t have.
Do you base your characters on real people?
Not entirely, but sometimes snippets of people’s personality may find their way into a character. By and large, each character is their own person. They evolve over the course of a story and I don’t think that would be possible if they were just a cutout of another person.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for my next release. I’m waiting on my edits for Pangea Online: Death and Axes and I’m hoping to have it up for sale in 3-4 weeks.
August 19, 2017
May 8, 2017
Self-doubt, hard work, persistence
It’s been over a week since I published Land of the Dogs. The launch has gone better than I could have expected. I’ve sold lots of books and peaked at #4 in one of my categories for new releases. Reviews have started to come in and so far everything has been positive. People are signing up for my mailing list, ensuring I have a fanbase of readers for years to come as I publish more novels. But when things are going so well, it’s easy to forget everything that went into making this book a reality.
Land of the Dogs was three years in the making. Over those three years, there were so many emotions I have struggled with as I decided what to do with the novel. At first, I was elated. It’s no small feat to write a novel. I called myself a writer for years without having hardly anything to show for it, but once I had this book it felt like I had actually achieved something. Just in knowing that I could write one novel, it allowed me to believe that I could write more. I submitted the original version of LotD to agents and publishers, certain that they would pick it up, publish it, and I would become rich beyond my wildest dreams. This never happened. I received some two dozen rejection letters before I put Land of the Dogs away and started working on other projects. It was hard at the time, seeing something I had put so much work into so easily discarded by others. In the end, it made me a better writer.
I began to believe that this book was not ready, and in truth, it was not. I started writing another novel under a pen name. I published it. It found a modicum of success. I became a better writer. I wrote another novel under that pen name and my writing improved again. I continued to polish my craft, learning about storytelling and character development. As I continued publishing under a pen name, I knew that one day I wanted to publish under my own name. Through it all, Land of the Dogs would just not leave me. I went back in and reworked the first three chapters, knowing deep inside me that those were the reason readers wouldn’t invest in the story. I had to hook them on the first page. When I had written that first draft, I never would have noticed the weaknesses in my story. Time has that effect though. If you work hard at something, you begin to see it with new eyes. You can see beyond the words into the story itself. I think this goes for anything. If you want to be good at something, it takes practice. Some things are easier to practice than others. You might be able to take 10,000 jump shots in the time it takes me to write a novel, but that doesn’t mean one is greater than the other. Practice is practice. Hard work is hard work.
Anyways, I reworked the beginning and sent it off to more readers. I found more holes and tried to fix them. I began to feel better, but I still doubted. I wondered if the premise was too much. Could readers buy into both the time travel and the monsters? I debated making it suitable for Young Adult audiences. I thought about making the monsters into werewolves. I thought about changing so much just because I wasn’t sure what I had was good enough. I was scared to go forward and have my first novel flop in my face. I thought that maybe I should just write something new and never let Land of the Dogs see the light of day.
I’ve been lucky to have several people in my life who have given me good advice. They have also believed in me. My best friend told me that this was the story I needed to tell. I didn’t need to change it to fit someone else’s rulebook. The apocalypse would be a violent place and my story showcased both the good and bad it had to offer. Someone else said that if the story demanded it, then the readers could believe it. If I could tell it right, it wouldn’t matter. I mean, someone had made a generation believe that vampires sparkled for fuck’s sake. That was when I knew that I had to go forward with my story in it’s truest form, without worry of whether or not it was too adult, or too violent, or if certain scenes were too much. I went forward staying true to the story as best I could.
May 4, 2017
Mailing List Incentive- Free Stories!
Sign up for my mailing list at http://www.subscribepage.com/LandoftheDogs and you will receive a link to download 3 short stories from Land of the Dogs. Each of these short stories details the onset of the apocalypse in various areas of the country in the time Simon was gone.
By signing up for my mailing list, you will be the first to know about new releases, updates and have a chance to read advanced copies before anyone else.
Thanks for following along!
