Michael A. Stackpole's Blog, page 10

My Fall Writing Classes

Back in college I was training to be a teacher, not a writer. Down through the years, I've gotten to be a good writer and I've been lucky enough to get to teach classes about writing. I do them all the time at Gencon. At Origins and DragonCon, I team up with Aaron Allston to teach classes. (Click on this link to see our class listing for DragonCon 2011.)

This fall, through Arizona State University's Piper Writer's Studio, I'll be teaching two four-week classes, which combine into one eight-week program. I am incredibly excited about these courses. I've been working on this course idea for over a year, looking for an opportunity to get committed students and work them through the program.

The goal is this: to go from word one to making money off the Internet in eight short weeks.

That's it: Eight weeks of two hour long sessions once a week, that will take you from beginning concept through developing the skills that will let you finish the story and edit it into professional shape, then provide you the tools to be able to offer that work for sale over the Internet and to promote your work. The classes will be combined lecture and lab, with the students getting to work with me to make their work the best they can. The class is severely limited in size, with plenty of time for interaction.

This is an opportunity like no other. I get dozens of requests weekly for me to read over stories and offer comments. My answer is always the same: I can't, unless there is a contract in place—like the contract for teaching a class like this. And, frankly, what I'd charge hourly for this sort of work isn't even close to what students will be paying to take the class. More importantly, if you've been reading this blog and have read my work, you know that I know the subject matter extremely well. And if you've taken any of my classes at conventions or other venues, you know I actually know how to teach the subject.

This is the place where I get to tell you that (cue cheesy voice over) hundreds of writers have paid far more to get much less. (voice over off) It's true. Heck, some of the folks offering classes on this subject matter have learned everything they know from me. I can count on the fingers of one hand the few I'd actually trust to take you on this same journey—which will cover both the writing side of the equation and the business side of the deal. I don't believe there's anyone who's taken one of my classes who doesn't feel they got more than their money's worth.

The other cool thing about this class is that I will work on a book at the same time, committing myself to the same journey each of the students will make. We'll push through all this together, so you get to see how things work—both for me, and for yourself. You'll discover what makes you comfortable as a writer, and how to stretch yourself and grow into areas where you're not so comfortable. It will be a bit more intensive than NaNoWriMo, and you'll come out of it a much more complete writer.

The only prerequisites for this class (aside from being able to be on campus for the sessions) are these: a belief that your writing is good enough to entertain others; a desire to make your writing the best it can be; and a willingness to embrace new methods and technologies that will come to dominate the emerging world of digital publishing. After eight weeks you'll come through not only a better writer, but a writer who is being paid for his work—an immediate return on your investment in this class.

I'm unbelievably excited about this opportunity. I know this class will succeed at kickstarting professional careers. I love teaching and especially love helping people succeed. The fact that we'll be doing things which traditional publishers say can't be done just makes it that much sweeter.

Please, join me at the Piper Writers Studio for what will be a life-changing experience. In eight weeks, you can attain your dreams.

My Conan Adventure: Part Four

In the theatre lobby it's pretty easy to spot the actors and then folks you think are actors. You see faces you recognize but can't place as being part of your life. Then it slowly dawns on you that you've seen them on TV or in movies. It felt like trying to reconcile vague memories of a dream with waking reality. The whole sense of dislocation is aided by the fact that I imagine actors to be physically large than they are—which makes sense when you have just finished seeing them projected twenty feet tall on the screen.

One of the first people I run into in the lobby is Fred Malmberg, and he's over the moon with the final film. I introduced Milynn and after we assure him that they did a great job with the film, Fred starts saying, "I was talking with Rose about your book…" Before he can finish the sentence, however, a bunch of folks come by to congratulate him.

At these events, Hollywood seems to function almost totally with 7-8 word stock phrases that have a ritualistic quality to them. It's all code. I heard folks say things like, "Bask in it, my friend, bask…" and "It's a winner, a winner…" What was even more fascinating was watching faces at the same time as the words were being spoken. Half the time body-language and facial expressions matched the words in meaning and tone. The other half, not at all.

Milynn later commented, "Welcome to LA, where no one says what they mean." It really did strike me as being very formal and ritualistic, like feudal Japan without seppuku. I got the sense that no one needed to kill themselves, others would be happy to do it for them. Still, no one could afford to be impolite because when the sun came up again, they'd be working with these same folks on new projects. I guess that's not 100% different from the way things get done in the rest of the world, but LA and Washington, DC have refined the ritual to high art. This is why, for those of us who can't fully appreciate the nuances, it all appears vapid and meaningless. Despite all that, however, business does get done.

Fred did manage to tear himself free to complete his story. He'd told Rose McGowan about what I'd done with her character in the novel and, after a moment's reflection, said she liked it. Okay, so that was a cool geek moment—not as cool as if she'd read the book and liked it, of course, but it still works.

Off to the after party we went. The party was being held at WP24, which is Wolfgang Puck's restaurant on the 24th floor of the Ritz-Carlton. Folks got packed like sardines into elevators and ushered upstairs. We surrendered our party passes. I let Milynn be my guide once inside. I followed her from room to room—she walking straight, me slipping sideways through the same openings in the crowd. We snagged some champagne midway through the journey and made it to the back room where we found Jordan, Dawn, Pete and Olivia at the Paradox table.

So, what is a Hollywood party like? In this dark, rectangular room with tall windows overlooking the city, various tables had been marked with placards reserving them for the stars and others who had worked on the film. People packed the room—pretty much like every other room party I've ever been to, save that they were much better dressed and, in comparison to the same party at a convention, much thinner and better looking. Air-kisses abounded, people circulated, hands got shaken and trays of appetizers made the rounds.

Actually, the food didn't really make it very far. Milynn was very good at spotting it and getting it moving in our direction. It was really good stuff: Beef on skewers with a Thai sauce, some tiny spring rolls with some mango in there, some chicken drumsticks in a thick sauce that I actually didn't try, and some chocolate thing with a gooey center that I could have gorged on and died happy.

Jay came over and repeated to me the story about Rose. He said he'd been just talking to her, so I said, "Oh, then can I meet her?" Jay smiled, turned and we were off. He found her quickly, she offered me her hand and said, "Rose." I shook it, introduced Milynn and then leaned in as Rose said that she'd been on Charmed for three years, had died numerous times and had been brought back to life, so her character Marique could easily come back for the next Conan film. I agreed that this was a very good point, we all smiled, and she was off.

That was another Hollywood style of conversation, and one I've had before. Miss McGowan was being very polite. She gave me a big smile because Jay felt it was important to introduce us. I fully understand and appreciate that, and admire how gracious she was.

I've noticed—and I've met my fair share of actors because of Star Wars®—that you generally have to meet celebrities three times before you actually begin to register. This is not a knock on actors. Professional athletes do it—heck, I even do it. I recently read a study that indicated that human beings are wired to only remember 150 individuals. After that, it's really tough without teaching yourself mnemonic tricks to recover names. It's not that the information isn't important, it's just that it gets overlaid so quickly with yet more information.

Oddly enough, I've found I can usually recall folks with more context. That's why, if you see me at a convention after we've met previously, and I ask you to "help me dial it in," I'm just asking for more information. I think human beings tend to file a lot of stuff away geographically—which makes sense, since that would be a survival trait—so understanding where and when is so important to putting stuff back together.

After that we circulated a bit. I met Sean Hood, the last script writer on the film. We exchanged greetings. When sequels get done—and I dearly hope they will—I'm sure Sean will be in the thick of things. I'm hoping I'll get the novelizations, of course, so I'll be working from his foundation again.

There was, in this vast room, a quiet corner where I took refuge for a bit before leaving. Curse of the writer, going from participant to observer. I watched everything, folks mixing, smiling, laughing; their body language and how they watched others. The sheer glamor of it was enticing, but the show was pure primate. For a moment for two Trick Molloy even slipped into my head, giving me color commentary that I'm sure I'll use in the future.

And then the clocks struck midnight and, as with all good faery-tales, it was time to turn into a pumpkin.

All in all, the Conan adventure was a wonderful time. It was great to get caught up with old friends and to make new ones. Milynn was a fantastic companion and guide for the evening. As we left, we got to say our goodbyes to everyone, and saw Fred on the way out. We thanked him, congratulated him again and, smiling, he said, "We'll talk soon."

So wonderfully Hollywood!

(Thus endeth this chronicle of my journey to the Land to the West. Just in time for you to hit a midnight premiere of Conan The Barbarian!)

_______________________

This series of posts about my Conan experience stems directly from my involvement with writing the novelization of the new movie. You can snag the book for your Kindle or as a physical copy just by clicking those links. The novelization expands on the movie, including original material, cut scenes and a lot of scenes shot from Marique's point of view.

If you like that, you might also want to try

Tricknomancy, my braided, urban noir fantasy novel. That's author for a serial story told through a number of shorter pieces that all come together as a novel. Think of it in terms of a television series. This is series one, consisting of seven episodes. The stories feature Trick Molloy, a magick-using, ex-cop who left the force because he was framed for being a dirty cop. He now works as a bouncer in a strip club, helping friends, solving murders and dealing with an insane family, most of whom would like to see him dead or worse. It's available for the Kindle, and for sale directly off my website for any epub compliant ereaders.

My Conan Adventure: Part Three

The invitation to the Conan the Barbarian world premiere included with it an invite to the "after party" and was for me and a "plus one." The second I got the invite I RSVPed and made hotel reservation. I talked to Jay at Gencon and found out what the dress code was. I had that covered—I do clean up nice when needed. I had to decide if I would fly or drive; and the answer to that would depend on the whole plus one thing.

The plus one dilemma combined a number of problems. The first is one of simple logistics: it required someone to be in Los Angeles for the event. Since I wasn't currently dating anyone (for reasons outlined in this essay), the obvious and easy choice vanished. My very first choice ran into a logistical problem: she had to be in New York while the event was in LA. My next choice also had a logistical problem: she was in London.

I write movie scripts with Brian Pulido; and he's spent a lot of time in Hollywood dealing with studios. I figured he could come along and might make some contacts at the party. Plus he likes fantasy movies and we could work on the trip, so it would all be good. Unfortunately Brian had a schedule he couldn't clear. This whole plus one thing was getting more difficult.

So I did what most folks do in these situations: I reached out to a friend. Jamie Chambers knows folks in Hollywood, so I put my dilemma in his capable hands. Jamie, who is a gentleman and needed to be handed my problem the way most of us need to be handed live explosives, said he'd handle it. I think he actually enjoyed torturing me with cryptic messages like "I have some promising leads," and "Your date will be AWESOME."

Jamie delivered, and in spades.

Enter Milynn Sarley, actress, writer, producer, who is drop-dead gorgeous; knows her way around movies, comics and SF, and can toss words like metatarsal into a sentence properly without batting one of those lovely eyelashes. More about Milynn in a bit. Suffice it to say, in this day and age of Google I learned as much about her after a couple keystrokes as I would have had we grown up in the same small New England town and the mavens had deigned it proper that we should meet.

The day of the premiere I arrive at the airport early and troop off to security. I get to the head of the line and after my ID is checked, another TSA agent pulls me aside for "additional screening." In this case I got my hands swabbed to check for explosives residue. I came up clean and got sent through a shorter line for metal detection. I breezed through there, got myself dressed again, then wandered off and got my boots shined. (It's Hollywood, scuffed boots won't do.)

The flight over to LA wasn't bad and the shuttle to the Ritz-Carlton got me there quickly and semi-accidentally. The driver didn't actually know where it was, but ran across it while looking for some other place to dump me. But it was all good and I checked in.

Two things marked the Ritz-Carlton as special (three counting the price…). First, I got asked if I had a "preference for a morning paper while I visited." I admit I stared rather stupidly at the woman as she asked. I just don't think of newspapers any more since I have apps for that. The idea that they'd have a selection and would try and suit me, well, that went back to an age of elegance.

The second thing was that you had to use a keycard to access the guest floors. Sure, I've seen that before, for some floors, on the club levels and such, but this was for all the guest floors. Of which there were only two, all the way at the top of the building. And the elevators were fast.

I get to my room. It looked like one of those model rooms set up for publicity shots. I still lust in my heart after the bathroom. I could have lived there. It has running water and a place to sit down, after all. And one of those big fluffy bathrobes of terrycloth so thick it can double as kevlar. And even if it couldn't stop a bullet, dying in one of those robes would still be an easy way to go. The room even had stationery and this complicated espresso machine and a flatscreen TV so big that if the movie theatre had had equipment problems, everyone could have just come back to the room and watched Conan on it.

The room reeked of elegance. I put my stuff away and timidly sat on the couch. I was pretty sure that if I wrinkled the bed, then turned my back, when I finally looked at it again, invisible house elves would have straightened it out. I knew I was only going to stay for a night, but really just wanted to move in forever.

As time ticked down to the movie premiere, I got dressed up and met Milynn in the Ritz's lobby. The woman really is breathtakingly gorgeous and has a wonderful smile. I could not have found a more entertaining companion. We headed over to the hotel next door, got drinks and something to nibble on. We took that opportunity to become acquainted. I confessed that I had no clue as to what to expect with the whole movie premiere thing and I was counting on her to be my native guide—a role she graciously accepted.

From there we headed over to the theatre. Serendipity intervened and we ran into Jordan and Dawn Weisman and Pete Fenlon and his wife Olivia Johnston. I'd seen Pete the week before at Gencon; and just missed Jordan and Dawn on a couple of occasions at the convention. I'd found four of the six people I knew at the event. We ventured off in search of the Will Call area so we could get our tickets.

So this is how these things set up. The Ritz was right across the street from the theatre and by noon trucks were out setting up the piping and drape, as well as the carpeting, for the stars at the premiere. By two PM (during a quick stroll around the place) I spotted autograph-seekers with boxes of photos. As we approached the theatre at 7:30, lights were up, crowds were behind barriers, and cameras were flashing away at the carpeted area. It was like watching automatic weapons-fire in a silent movie. The folks on the carpet were under siege.

It was a great place to be watching people—and watching people who were watching people. Heads craned, folks were trying to figure out if they knew someone; or if they should know someone. The movie stars were the obvious centers of attention and, sure, I felt a little giddy seeing folks I'd only seen on TV or in the movies—like Ron Perleman. And then there are the other folks, the ones who clearly are in "the business," whom everyone knows or wants to know. Watching all that byplay was fun and, yes, I was mentally taking notes.

So one thing Milynn taught me is that these premieres always go off late. We get into the theatre, get some water, and are urged to get into our seats. The clock ticks. Milynn and I were able to comprehensively discuss and deconstruct the most recent geek-philic films, and even have time to rate movie candy in order of preference. (Raisinets, she reasoned, had to be on the top because you could pretend they were good for you. That's her writer aspect—writers can rationalize anything.)

As she predicted, the movie which was to start at 8 actually starts at 8:30. The stars and producers and key contributors are introduced. Those named stand up, get cheered and wave, and that aspect of things was just a lot of playful fun. The movie—which they showed in REAL 3D—was the first I'd seen in 3D. I slipped on my glasses, lights dimmed, and the movie begins.

This is where the movie magic commences. The soundtrack and voice-over, the inclusions of the special effects, really kicked it a level above what I'd seen as a rough cut. Some scenes had been moved around, edited, expanded or clipped as needed. They did not shy from bloodshed, but also didn't feel the need to be splashing folks in the front rows with bloody special effects.

There was one point where what they can do in post-production really came home to me. In the rough cut and script, Conan and his allies raid a slave caravan. Great scene, and I wrote it pretty much as is in the novel—adding a few bits here and there to flesh it out. It takes place on this dusty coast road, with Conan attacking downhill, ready to drive the slavers into the sea. There was nothing but water from beach to horizon.

In post production, that expanse of ocean became a tiny bay. A CGI peninsula with a settlement appears across from the road. What had been an ambush of a caravan became a raid on a slaver encampment!

For a two hour movie, it moves pretty quickly and is packed with great action scenes. One of the most difficult things in doing the novel was trying to translate those into prose. It was really tough, and the choreography went past my ability to describe it at times. I was very happy that the film's editors took great pains to eliminate continuity errors from the script and even the rough cut. While there might still be some things in there for blooper reels, the final film version tightened up on that stuff very nicely.

Here's where I ought to insert a review of the movie, but I won't. I won't because I can't view it objectively. I saw a rough cut. I read versions of the script. I had the Dark Horse Comic script, and I wrote the novel. I'm most intimately involved in the novel, and the prose form is one in which I can inject a lot more stuff. I'm sure I was seeing a different film because I had memories that were keying off things I'd written, or scenes that had not made the final cut.

What I will say is this—I don't think fantasy film fans will be disappointed with Conan the Barbarian. This is a smarter, sharper Conan than from the earlier films. Jason Momoa definitely looks the part. It's a great cast of actors and they really respected the script and the genre. No one strolled through the film, eyes rolling. It's got action, adventure, romance, a fair amount of creepiness and weirdness which make it into a solid fantasy film. Compared to some other recent films, when I left the theatre after Conan, I wanted to see more, not see if I could get my money back.

And, mind you, I was not under the influence of popcorn when I saw the movie—an influence that always works to the film's advantage in my case.

So, the film ends and we leave the theatre. We're heading to the after party, and even before we leave the theatre, the Hollywood fun and games begin.

_______________________

This series of posts about my Conan experience stems directly from my involvement with writing the novelization of the new movie. You can snag the book for your Kindle or as a physical copy just by clicking those links. The novelization expands on the movie, including original material, cut scenes and a lot of scenes shot from Marique's point of view.

If you like that, you might also want to try

Once A Hero, which is generally considered to be my single best stand-alone novel. It's a fantasy that tells the story of Neal, a hero slain doing battle in a genocidal war to destroy the Reithrese. To save humanity, he abandons everything, including the chance to spend the rest of his days with the love of his life. And then, five centuries later, he's pulled back from the grave to undo something he did and, quite possibly, unleash a horror greater than any he'd known. It's full of action, adventure, romance, twists, turns and philosophical themes dealing with genocide and prejudice. Though I wrote it a long time ago, I was hitting on all cylinders when I wrote it. If it is the only book of mine that will survive the ravages of age, I'll be quite happy. It's available for the Kindle, and for sale directly off my website for any epub compliant ereaders.

My Conan Adventure: Part Two

Back in the late 1980s my novel writing career began with the publication of the novels I did for BattleTech. While working with FASA, I got to know Fred Malmberg of Target Games of Sweden. They had a project called Mutant Chronicles and asked if I would write a trilogy for them. My schedule didn't have that sort of space in it, but we worked out a deal where two other writers, William F. Wu and John-Allen Price, would join me in doing the trilogy. I helped set up the series of three books, letting them go first, then I tied it all together with the novel Dementia.

Over the next decade I lost track of Fred and Target Games. Then I got an email asking my availability for doing some Conan work. My schedule was locked up for a year at that point, so I was told they'd try back later. I didn't exactly know who "they" were, but in a year I learned that Fred Malmberg was heading up Paradox Entertainment, and they had the rights to Conan. They'd worked a deal with Penguin to produce novels set in Howard's Hyborean world, and had a dozen or so come out from Loren Coleman, Jeff Mariotte and J. Steven York.

During my career I'd had a number of readers approach me and say, "I liked [X book of mine], but never read any of your franchise work because, you know, I don't read those books." I'd always found that attitude a bit puzzling, since good authors are not that easy to find, and when I find an author I like, I want to read all of their stuff. Regardless, I made a decision that my fantasy work would only be in my own universes, so such readers could freely go there. When I made that decision, however, I carved out a couple of reservations, and one exception to that rule that I was willing to make was to write Conan.

Why? Howard, among others, was highly influential in how I work. I loved his stories and the ability to play in that world and give something back was an opportunity I wasn't going to walk away from. And it's not an about me thing, it's about writing the kind of story that Howard would have written, were he writing today. When I write in someone else's universe, using their iconic characters, my goal is to be true to their vision. I'm a steward of their property. It's not mine. I know that. I respect that. I just want to create the best adventure I can in that world, sharing with new readers the same thrill I felt when I first read Howard's work.

I'd just gotten a new agent when Fred got in touch about me writing for Conan. I was willing to do the job, but there were a couple things I wanted. The first was to be able to use Conan as a character. If I couldn't do that, I wasn't sure I saw the purpose of playing in that world. Second, since there was a movie coming up, I wanted a shot at doing the novelization. There were a couple other minor things on the contract front that we dealt with, and I'm pretty sure my agent was surprised at some of the points I pushed back on. As it was, Paradox was willing to give me the novelization, provided I committed to writing three novels for them. When the smoke cleared, I signed a contract in 2005 that included writing the novelization for the Conan movie.

Then Hollywood happened. Almost immediately I got sent a treatment for a script that would have been great to work on. It looked like that was going to be a done-deal, but the producer/director suddenly got a development deal with a studio and it went away. Options and deals got made and ran out. I think I got one other script before the deal was struck to do Conan the Barbarian in its present form. In March of 2010 they started shooting and I got sent a script which was 2/3rds of the final script. The rest was being worked on. Later I got a full script, and at Gencon in August 2010 I got to see stills from the movie. Very impressive.

The thing about my contract was that it was an "on call" contract—my wording for it, but it sounds good, so we'll use it. The deal was simple: at some point Paradox Entertainment would say "Go," and I'd have 60 days to deliver an 80,000 word manuscript. This, as you can imagine, made scheduling for 2010 a little tough—and there were points prior to that when I kept things clear just in case. Rolling on down into December 2010 I got the final script and was waiting—now having to put Of Limited Loyalty on hold to do the Conan book. Night Shade, understanding how good this deal would be for attracting readers, was quite gracious about the delay.

I'd heard, in September, that they had the first rough cut. Then they did some reshoots. Paradox was waiting for them to get a cut together so I could see the film, then I'd be free to write the novelization. I was a stickler on this point: without seeing the movie, I couldn't get a feel for the film's tone. So I waited.

Then, in January, Penguin announced that the novel would be published on 7 July, six weeks or so before the movie hit. This was great for the novel; but there was a problem—there was no novel. Moreover, the news that I was doing the novel hit the hardcore fan community like a hammer. On one website the forums had a long thread discussing which author should be "allowed" to write the novelization; and my name never appeared in that discussion. The reactions to the announcement were not positive, and generally along the line of, "Who is this clown and why is he writing the novel for our character?"

Luckily I'd encountered this before. Back when the Star Wars® X-wing novels were announced, a similar question was asked about me in old usenet threads. I recall reading one reply which was beautiful: "I read BattleTech novels. Our loss is your gain." While I had a couple of defenders on the Conan boards, I got savaged for a bunch of stuff on my website. People were determined to hate me and hate the book I'd not had the chance to write yet.

Time rolled into February and Penguin is getting a bit anxious—understandably so. Paradox arranged with the studio for a showing of the rough cut—that being the film without special effects shots, scenery or score. Lines of dialogue may not be in yet, and scenes can come and go. (In fact, a great scene that was in the rough cut and in the novel, didn't make it into the final movie—but I hope it will appear in the Director's Cut.) A screening got set for 10 February, but got canceled on 9 February. Then almost immediately rescheduled for 14 February.

14 February I flew over to LA where Jay Zetterberg of Paradox picked me up at the airport. We stopped at the Paradox office, then went over to the production company's office and, along with another writer, got to see the rough cut. I got a good sense of the movie and really liked what the actors brought to their roles. Specifically Ron Perleman and Rose McGowan really lit up the screen. Their performances made writing chapters from their points of view incredibly easy. And while a lack of special effects meant that some of the combat sequences showed actors ducking and dodging from things that just didn't exist, or had them acting in front of green screens, it all held together strongly.

After the movie, back in the Paradox offices, we agreed that I'd do a bit more than novelize the script. I'd get to add extra material into the book and take some liberties with scene order, to make the novel work. The primary reason for this was practical: I had to fill a novel with 80,000 words and a two-hour movie just doesn't have enough material to do that without an unforgivable amount of padding. Second, however, we wanted to counter criticisms about the story based on a leaked early version of the script which painted the whole story as a revenge story. Since that aspect of Conan's life had never existed in the Howard stories, the Howard fans were justifiably miffed that the movie was tossing it in there. (What they missed, alas, is that the movie has to stand on its own. While they're reading it into the entire Conan continuity, casual movie-goers want a complete story, and that theme helps tie it all together.) Adding material that puts that aspect into perspective within the Howard Canon was not difficult, and gave me things that tied the whole novel together.

On the 15th of February I was back home and did a scene by scene breakdown of the script. I added in all the extra material I needed, including scenes that were in the script but not in the movie, and perspective/reaction bits necessary to set up the novel. I also made an effort to inject more magick into the story. What a movie can do with special effects and sound effects, I have to spend a lot of words to accomplish. Luckily adding in extra scenes made that easy.

I started writing on 16 February and finished on 11 March, having written for 17 of those 23 days. My process was simple: get up, write a chapter, take a break during which I'd read a Howard story or portions thereof, write another chapter, take another break, read more Howard, write another chapter and end the day reading more Howard. I was constantly checking continuity, footnoting places where I deviated from the script or showing where I'd gotten the basis for a comment, and moving on. Not only did I use Howard's original stories, but I used the Dark Horse comics and essays written about Howard's work to provide justification for what I was doing. That was a technique I'd used previously to good effect with Lucasfilm, and it made continuity checking much easier here.

The book went off to Paradox and Penguin on the 12th of March. Inside a week it was back, and by 1 April I had finished the edits and returned everything to Penguin. Aside from a couple of minor points of clarification, all that the manuscript needed was the usual grammar clean up and we were good to go.

It should be noted here that I was in a very fortunate position. I only had to deal with Paradox, not the studios, when it came to approval. I've talked to lots of other writers who have nightmare stories about dealing with studios on similar projects. Filmmaking is a collaborative process, where writers, actors, directors, producers and cinematographers all combine their skills to create the movie. As a result, that culture feels a lot more free about suggesting additions and changes—a process completely alien to the culture of the solitary novelist.

The novel hit the stands on 7 July. I waited about two weeks, then peeked at the comment boards again, bracing for a negative reaction. As it was, the very worst comment I saw read something like this: "Well, it didn't suck as bad as I thought it would." I took that as high praise. Elsewhere, aside from comments of folks who are determined to hate the book and the movie simply because it isn't a Howard story written by Robert E. Howard, reactions have been good to great.

And then, in the tail end of July came my greatest challenge in the whole Conan adventure—well, save one that I'll deal with another time. I was invited to attend the Conan the Barbarian world premiere in Los Angeles. The invitation was for me "plus one."

I had to figure out who that plus one would be.

_______________________

This series of posts about my Conan experience stems directly from my involvement with writing the novelization of the new movie. You can snag the book for your Kindle or as a physical copy just by clicking those links. The novelization expands on the movie, including original material, cut scenes and a lot of scenes shot from Marique's point of view.

If you like that, you might also want to try

my digital original novel, In Hero Years… I'm Dead is available for the Kindle and in the epub format for all the other readers, including the Nook, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. (Imagine the Batman, Watchmen and Kick-Ass movies all rolled into one, as written by Dashiell Hammett, and you've pretty much got the idea of the book. Oh, and with some satire and political commentary slipped in for irony.)

My Conan Adventure: Part One

I have to start this adventure forty years ago, when I was thirteen. That's when I first discovered Conan. I have to start there because the boy in Vermont reading those books, falling in love with Belît, thrilling to the adventures of the Cimmerian, never would have believed it possible that he'd have written a Conan novel, much less attend the World Premiere of the film Conan The Barbarian in Los Angeles.

Because I grew up in Vermont, Los Angeles was only slightly closer to my existence than was Howard's Hyborean Age. It wasn't that I was ignorant of where LA was, I just didn't care. I knew I wanted to write, but back then it never really clicked for me that scripts had to be written. And novelizations of scripts, that was an almost unknown art. I guess it got done from time to time—technically the novel Thunderball is a novelization of the script—but all that was part of a process of which I was ignorant.

Conan was so much more real than LA. I hauled the Lancer paperbacks around with me, reading the stories whenever I had the chance. I distinctly recall sitting in a Freshman French class at Rice Memorial High School and having Sister Cecile Brassard pluck the paperback from on top of my pile of books. I'm 99% sure it was Conan the Buccaneer, with a great Frazetta cover. She turned it over, her face scrunched up, and she read aloud:

Epic Fantasy's Mightiest hero… in a demonic adventure at the edge of the world!

Emphasis on demonic with a side of withering disdain and giggles from girls. Mind you, at that point in my high school career, I believe I was all of 4'6" tall, and on the freshman football team simply because they didn't cut anyone from that squad and we still didn't have a full 22 kids for practice. There would have been more laughter, I think, save that a bunch of the guys in the class were on the team, so they had to back me just a little.

So my cheeks flushed. My ears burned. But day after day I went to that class with new Conan novels, or Doc Savage novels or Edgar Rice Burroughs novels right on top of a pile books that weighed about half as much as I did. If it wasn't against the rules to be reading such things, I wasn't going to back away from reading them; and if she'd demanded we read books in French, I would have found them in French. (And now it's very cool to have books translated into French and, thanks to Sister Cecile, I can actually make my way through them.)

From the start I loved Howard's writing. Sure, some folks decry it as purple or overwritten, but they can't deny the power of his words. If you read the Howard originals—and I have, many times—the sharp turns of phrase and the way Howard approached what he was writing really do point out how skillful he was. I think if one were to look at his body of work and project it forward—much as one might look at J. K. Rowlings work and how she grew as a writer during the Harry Potter novels—Howard would have grown into one of the best storytellers in America. Because of his short career and suicide, and a willingness to use adjectives more liberally than fellow suicide Ernest Hemingway, critics dismiss him curtly and unfairly.

Back then, when I was reading those stories, critical analysis was not something I could do. From Howard I got wonderful visions of an alien world so tantalizingly real that I hoped some archeologist would find evidence it existed. I got Conan for what Howard saw him as—not a de Campsian noble savage filled with honor, but a barbarian who found civilization puzzling, intriguing, amusing and something which he could accept or disdain with easy facility. Howard's Conan was not stupid—he could read many languages, he understood military tactics, strategic planning and learned politics among thieves, pirates and the crowned heads. He delighted in victory, accepted defeat, respected courage and despised weakness. He was truly the wolf at the edge of firelight—you didn't know if he was there to eat you, or to work with you to destroy the things lurking in the darkness.

And there were always things lurking in the darkness.

In later years, after having collected the comics and having joined the Robert E. Howard United Press Association (REHUPA)—thereby meeting many other hardcore Howard fans—I moved off into gaming and writing my own material. Still, Howard's influence remained with me. I reread the stories—something which is very rare for me to do. Bits and pieces of lines would appear in other books, in homage to Howard, so profoundly did I remember them.

And then, many years later, I got an email, asking me if I wanted to write stories about the Cimmerian.

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This series of posts about my Conan experience stems directly from my involvement with writing the novelization of the new movie. You can snag the book for your Kindle or as a physical copy just by clicking those links. The novelization expands on the movie, including original material, cut scenes and a lot of scenes shot from Marique's point of view.

If you like that, you might also want to try

Murderous Magick is a five-pack of short stories, including the only extant Talion short story, Shepherd and the short story, The Silver Knife. Also included are a weird-western set in the Deadlands universe, an even odder Holmes pastiche than The Silver Knife, and Looks are Deceiving, a new story in a brand new fantasy universe far more reminiscent of Robert E. Howard than The Lord of the Rings. It's available for the Kindle, and for sale directly off my website for any epub compliant ereaders.

Price isn't the point

Discussions have been raging for a while among self-published authors about ebooks and price points. They break down into three major schools:

The Buck Stops Here School. For these folks, 99 cents is the price point. They see a lot of sales of books at that price point, figuring that no one is going to blanche at spending a dollar and taking a chance on buying something that stinks. As one author boldly suggested, by pricing his stuff at .99, he forces others who price their books at $9.99 to prove their work is ten times better than his. To be sure, there are a lot of ebooks which get sold at .99 cents; though because that price is below the magick $2.99 price point, Amazon (and other retailers) only pay 35% of the price to the authors, instead of 70%.

The Three's a Lucky Number School. Here, the price point of choice is $2.99 for two reasons. First, as noted above $2.99 is the lowest price at which online retailers will return 70% of the revenue to authors. Second, and decidedly more dubious, is data from some poorly-constructed pricing research experiments what confirm, in the minds of some, that $2.99 is the perfect price to entice a reader to buy a novel. There are lots of folks who have sold novels at this price point and who are very happy with the results.

The My Stuff Is Worth More Than That School. The adherents of this school charge prices ranging from $5 up to a mass market's paperback price. I generally fall into this school, figuring that if I charge $1 an hour for reading entertainment (10,000 words taking the average reader roughly an hour to consume), I'm doing okay, and the charge is reasonable. If it's a long novel, I'll usually cap the price around $6, and even toss in bonus material. The price isn't unreasonable for the consumers, and the return is equitable for writers.

The debates can be pretty fierce. .99 centers point out that by having a low introductory price lots of readers can be enticed to sample. The Stuffy folks counter that while lots of folks eat hamburgers off the dollar menu, not all meat gets sold as ground beef. They charge what they see as a premium price for premium work. The folks in the middle think the other two schools are silly, since they've hit on the perfect price point, proven by science, and they have the screen caps of payouts to prove it.

But, as the title of this post indicates, price is not the point. At least, not the only point—it's a crucial variable, but not the only variable. Anyone who thinks that a particular price is the magick bullet that will turn them into the next J. K. Rowling is so completely out of touch with reality that they're not so much writers of fiction as they are correspondents embedded in some other world. To be fair, anyone who thinks that readers will buy no matter what the price is are equally insane. We have a name for them: traditional publishers.

It's important to bear a couple things in mind here. The first book to sell over a million units on the Kindle was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Kindle price point: $9.99. James Patterson broke into that club fairly soon after, and his books sell from between $7.99 to $14.99.

Given that data set as a counter-balance to the .99 centers; and acknowledging that authors in the same genre, offering similar work at the same prices can have wildly divergent sales numbers, let's pull prices out of the equation. What does this leave us with?

The immediate, knee jerk reaction is to dismiss high sales by well-known authors with the, "Well, they're established, so they already have an audience" argument. The problem with that dismissal is that it directs hopefuls away from look at how these authors got established. Since we know that some of the most popular authors in the digital self-publishing field, like Amanda Hocking, weren't even on the radar until they started selling ebooks, we have to ask how did they get established; and how do the already established authors maintain their presence in this new world? If that's not a pursuit, then new authors end up believing that 99 cents for a novel is the magick price, or that $2.99 is the magick price, and when they do nothing but adjust prices up and down, they'll get frustrated—rightfully so.

Another monster variable is genre. Romance outsells mystery/thrillers, and mystery/thrillers outsell SF and Fantasy—with huge gaps between them. I know of no pricing experiment that has tried to control for this variable. Heck, if you look at print books, Romance readers are willing to pay full price for a 50,000 novel; whereas an SF/Fantasy reader would get 2-4 times that much wordage for the same price. Could it be that some genre readers will be willing to pay more for books they like versus other genres? I don't doubt it, especially when we remember that the main comparison point for sales is not the price of other ebooks, but the price of the equivalent book in print. (That may change, but right now, that's the yardstick by which these things are measured.) As noted above, authors in the same genre will generate different sales profiles, so we shouldn't be surprised that authors in other genres do the same. In short, comparing my numbers to Hocking or Konrath might well be an exercise in futility.

Last November I brought out a digital original book, In Hero Years… I'm Dead. I brought it out in two editions. The basic is $5 and has just the novel in it. The Deluxe version has the novel, plus a long essay talking about what inspired the book and how it came to be written. My expectation for that experiment was that the Basic would outsell the Deluxe 2-to-1.

The reality? Through 9 months of sales, the Deluxe outsells the Basic 5-to-1. Now, I'd not point to this experiment as one that invalidates claims of greater sales at lower price points. I take two things from it. The first is that for most readers, 99 cents is nothing. Second, it strikes me that readers will pay more if they perceive greater value at the higher price point.

In August, I'll bring out another digital original, Perfectly Invisible. I'll do for this second book what I did for In Hero Years… I'm Dead:

1) I'll offer samples through my blog.

2) I'll do readings at conventions and via the net (through Second Life)

3) I'll distribute free copies to friends and reviewers, asking them to review, blog, tweet and otherwise help me to promote the book.

4) I'll do the same sort of distribution to podcasters and do interviews with them to get the word out.

5) I'll do ads at the bottom of blog posts (like the one you can scroll down to now) reminding you that the book is out.

6) On my to-do list is figuring out contests and other promotions for the book.

7) I'll also be turning out more content in the Homeland Security Services universe to support Perfectly Invisible. (I've not done that for IHY, yet.)

Some folks may figure that success at selling ebooks is like catching lightning in a bottle. Heck, I agree with that. But instead of having one bottle and chasing after thunderstorms, I'd rather create a bunch of bottles and hope the storms find them. Spreading out, doing some mysteries, or adding romance elements into work might just produce a few more of those bottles for catching lightning and move me outside a genre ghetto where I might find more readers.

The sad, sobering and yet hopeful truth about self-publishing is this: there's one magick formula. It is:

1) Produce content.

2) Promote content. (Producing more serial content is actually a promotional tool.)

3) Repeat steps 1 & 2.

It's that maddeningly simple. Worrying about price points that will do the work for you adds variables you don't need, can't really control, and blinds you to what you really need to be doing. You're a writer. Write. If you get good enough at it, folks will buy. That's the one inescapable truth of our business: Writers write. Everything else follows therefrom.

_______________________

Writing up this series of blog posts is cutting into my fiction writing time. If you're finding these posts useful, and haven't yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

My latest paper novel, At The Queen's Command, is available at book retailers everywhere.

My digital original novel, In Hero Years… I'm Dead is available for the Kindle and in the epub format for all the other readers, including the Nook, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. (Imagine the Batman, Watchmen and Kick-Ass movies all rolled into one, as written by Dashiell Hammett, and you've pretty much got the idea of the book. Oh, and with some satire and political commentary slipped in for irony.)

House Slaves beware: windows are closing.

Earlier this week I mentioned that books were being marketed more like magazines and less like novels. For those who are too young to understand what magazines are and why this is significant, it boils down to this. Magazines have no backlist sales: once the new issue comes out, the old one is gone and largely forgotten (except in dentists' offices, where they all go to die). Because of shrinking shelf space in stores, novels are getting less time to be on sale—they're being treated like magazines in that regard, with backlist sales moving to ebooks.

In my essay, I predicted that one result of this marketing shift would be publishers narrowing the window between hardcover publication and the publication of subsequent editions, like mass market paperbacks. The New York Times confirmed this is exactly what publishers are starting to do. The reasons for this are simple. The vast majority of books sell in the first four months, and then taper off. Since they won't be on the shelf much longer than that—if that long—there's no reason to delay the paperback edition, which provides another, similar sales spike.

What is all this going to mean to authors with traditional publishing deals, or anticipating getting same?

1) Lower advances. Publishers have less time to move your product through the stores, have less opportunities to see sales there, and have no idea what they're doing on ebook marketing. Their only choice is to cut your advances and face the prospect of owing you more money some time down the line.

2) As I noted in a previous post, except when a publisher has grossly underestimated the demand for a physical copy of a book, books will not be reprinted. It's not that a second printing might not sell, it's that there will be no slot on the shelves to sell it. While it might sell four or ten copies in a month for each store, a new book has a better chance of selling more copies each month. So, unless your book can keep up with new book sales, no way more copies are rolling off the presses.

3) Physical sales of series books will take a serious hit. Right now, with the year lag-time between books, we see a 30-60% drop in sales between books in a series. Now without the previous book in the series on the shelves to help drive interest to the new book, sales will tank. (And, face it, the sum and total of advertising most series books get is the printing of a preview chapter in the previous book in the set.) The only way to combat further erosion, is to speed up the publishing cycle, so…

4) Authors will be pushed to write faster, so the books can come out more quickly. A contract for a trilogy might have, in previous years, had deadlines extending out four years from the date of signing, with publication dates pushing out years beyond that. Not any more. If you can't grind the books out on time, on a regular basis, every 6-9 months, your career is done.

5) The boom-and-bust cycles for fad books will cycle more quickly, too. As bookstores devote vast sections shelf space to the fad of the month, they overload readers with options. Readers do not have unlimited budgets, so fad books will stall faster. Publishers, who will buy to a fad and sacrifice other spots in their line to accommodate it, will be stuck with inventory when that cycle busts. In the short term, folks who are not writing in that fad will find the slots for non-fad books very limited; then a period of fearful frenzy buying as publishers dump books without printing them, and try to buy to whatever they think will be the next fad. Here publishers will be badly hurt by their production lead time requirements, and authors who are slow will likewise suffer.

6) Physical books will go out of print faster, but the retention and publication of electronic books means it will be a good long time before you ever get the rights back to your books. Authors are going to have to take good, long looks at their contracts to see what other rights they can exploit to make a living off their work.

This is the part of the blog post where I'm supposed to point out that entrepreneurial self-publishing of digital editions of your work—avoiding traditional publishers and linking into the new digital age—will solve all of these problems. The fact is, it actually will. That's a bit of the message that will fall on deaf ears as far as House Slaves are concerned. All I can hope for them is that they read the above, check my reasoning, and then decide what they're going to do.

I should point out that despite my comments about the physical sales of series books being hurt, I think serial stories published digitally are the way to go. Humans have learned to understand stories in terms of series and serial content. Television and movies reinforce this storytelling model. Most folks reading this already write series, or have places in their work where they could add stories. Being able to write continuing stories that are exciting is going to be the golden talent in the digital age. Writing more quickly won't hurt, either, since building up an inventory is the only way to be sure folks will find something to buy when they decide they like your work. (And if you link to the next book in a cycle from within the book they're just finishing, you have an instant impulse buy.)

The narrowing of publication windows is a desperate attempt by traditional publishers to shore up a failing business model. It has to be seen for that, and writers need to react appropriately. Traditional publishers really don't know what they're doing, and you have to wonder, do you want them trying to figure their new model out using your work for experiments? I'll take a pass on that, thanks; and do a little extra work so my stories get the treatment and distribution they deserve.

_______________________

Writing up this series of blog posts is cutting into my fiction writing time. If you're finding these posts useful, and haven't yet gotten yet snagged my latest novels, please consider purchasing a book. Nice thing about the new age of publishing is that you become a Patron of the Arts, letting writers know what you'd like to see more of simply by voting with a credit card. (Authors charge less when they sell direct, so you save, we make more, and that frees us to write more.)

My latest paper novel, At The Queen's Command, is available at book retailers everywhere.

My digital original novel, In Hero Years… I'm Dead is available for the Kindle and in the epub format for all the other readers, including the Nook, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. (Imagine the Batman, Watchmen and Kick-Ass movies all rolled into one, as written by Dashiell Hammett, and you've pretty much got the idea of the book. Oh, and with some satire and political commentary slipped in for irony.)