R.A. Evans's Blog, page 9

AsylumLake.com Nominated for a Design Award

Many of you may not realize that this blog is not my only website.  While collecting rejection letters for my novel Asylum Lake I launched www.asylumlake.com. The site was designed by a dear friend and talented artist Wendy Mersman from Moon Designs here in West Michigan. She had faith in my and my story before I did.

I released a chapter a week for six weeks and saw an explosion of interest. People from as far away as South Africa and Japan started following the progress of Brady Tanner and his trustyed sidekick Gruff. At the end of the six weeks I received a flood of emails from people asking what happens now? Where's the book?

Of course, I hadn't thought that far ahead. I had a finished maniscript and no real plan to get it published. That's when more than 300 people – complete strangers from across the globe – placed orders and paid up-front so I could publish my tale. Every day new orders would come in and my Pay-Pal numbers would swell. Of course, i forgot to factor in shipping costs and eventually I broke even on those pre-orders, but just the fact that so many people had bought into my and my story was quite the rush.

Needless to say, the success I have achieved over the last year with Asylum Lake would never have been possible without that website.

If you get a chance, visit www.asylumlake.com and give me some feedback. It's not a big award it's been nominated for but the recognition of Wendy's hard work and my passion for Asylum lake is always apperciated.

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

Any day that I get to quote the immortal Mark Twain is a good day indeed. As of late I haven't been doing much quoting – of famous writers or anyone else for that matter;  I've hit a wall of sorts.

Over the last few months I've experienced the death of someone very close to me, unexpected delays in the release of my novel Grave Undertakings, and a roller coaster ride of peaks and valleys with my consulting business. It's all left me re-evaluating my priorities and trying to sort out where my dream of and passion for writing fits in.

In this search for balance I've relied heavily on a close friend and fellow author for support. I am certain this person will roll their eyes as they read this post. regardless, consider this my official thank you for the kick in the pants. You've helped me more than these simple words can express.

So in the words of the immortal rock band ACDC, I leave you with this upon my return to writing about things that go bump in the night – "I'm back in black"

The Great Debate: Print On Demand Services

A good friend and fellow author Belinda Frisch had the idea to compare POD (Print On Demand) services from an author's perspective.  Belinda, author Thomas Amo and I contributed our experiences with Create Space, Lulu, and the Espresso Book Machine, which is what I used.

We reviewed the following:

1. Formatting

2. Cover

3. Time/Cost

4. Pros/Cons

5. Overall Rating

We'll start with Belinda's review of Create Space (CS). It's quite possibly the most widely used POD service.

Create Space (CS):

1&2 Formatting/Cover Design

Formatting is easy if you use MS Word.

I favor standard format (1″ margins, 0.5 indent for first line, and converted double to single space for print) and that worked just fine.

Create Space offers a "guided" tour when you start a new project which includes everything  from paper and ink colors, cover, book interior, and ISBN assignment (which CS will do for free if you list them as the "distributor" of your novel. Choices include white/cream paper, full color/blank and white ink, and upload your own PDF cover (front, back, and spine) OR you can use one of CS's cover creators (which is what I did using a photo from our local spooky, old cemetery.) Tom had cover issues as he tried uploading a custom cover and said he never could get it to work right. Using the cover creator to do mine, I had no issues with style, color, or cover layout. It has been 100% consistent.

3. Time and Cost

In all, I probably formatted and uploaded in about thirty minutes including cover creation. I'm not a tech genius by any stretch, but I'm not tech illiterate either. Skill might play into this a bit, but it's mostly cut and paste if you use the formatting link (see book interior highlighted above.)

Cost is a little author-dependent. You can upgrade to a Pro Plan membership for $39.00 which increases your royalties and decreases your "author price" when you order copies. Print cost depends on the size of your novel and page count. Dead Spell, at 40K words, costs me $3.22/per copy on the Pro Plan. On the sales end, selling the print copies at $9.99 through Amazon, I get about $2.17 per copy. I honestly do not sell many prints, but they've been great for giveaways (advertising), contests, reviewers, and library sales which I'm just starting to get into.

4. Pros/Cons

Pros–easy formatting, author copy cost is low, and the finished product is nice looking.

Cons–limited CS cover creator options make the covers a bit more cookie-cutter and I hear custom covers are a nightmare. Library royalties are very low. About $0.79 per $9.99 sale. Proofs have to be ordered before you set a book to "live" under the old structure. This makes the first one take a week or so after you create the file to start printing them on demand. I know there is a new option for this where you can go live immediately. I am just not sure I'd trust it, especially if you do a custom cover.

5. Overall

I am pretty pleased with CS for the limited amount of prints that I sell/order. I like the tangibility of the print copy, but am not totally jazzed to have two different book covers. I'd give it 4/5 stars, cover issues being the reason it's not 5/5. Shipping is fast and the finished product has been consistent across 40 or 50 copies I've ordered to date.

Belinda's debut novel Dead Spell is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can learn more about Belinda at  http://belindaf.blogspot.com.

And now, author Thomas Amo's review of Create Space and Lulu:

Create Space (CS):

1&2 Formatting/Cover Design

I spent hours if not days on the CS website weighing the options of them vs Lulu. I read on their support boards from many other users, that if you stay within CS formatting templates, your publishing experience should come off without a hitch. I would say that is a 99% true statement. I downloaded their template for the book size I wanted based on my page numbers and it worked fairly easy. I had to make a few adjustments but it was pretty painless.

As Belinda stated, Create Space offers a "guided" tour when you start a new project which includes everything from paper and ink colors, cover, book interior, and ISBN assignment (which CS will do for free if you list them as the "distributor" of your novel. Choices include white/cream paper, full color/blank and white ink, and upload your own PDF cover (front, back, and spine) OR you can use one of CS's cover creators.  Belinda said she had great luck with this. I on the other hand had a custom cover. I had read from many others this became a nightmare for them, as the print version was never consistent. Because I had a custom cover the spine of my book was blank. The spine became a constant battle because if you had any changes and it required deleting pages or adding pages, it would alter the spine and you'd be adrift again. A guessing game if you will, since you had to order proofs to find out if it worked or not. (Nice way for CS to rack up some of your cash by forcing to purchase several proofs.) I understand you can ignore that now and go live. But if you have to pull it down and fix it…it's $25 to do a new version.  The first proof was pretty good. The cover was centered, and I got the cream paper and it was huge compared to my Lulu version which was lean. (I used white paper with Lulu). So I was happy with the cover, I just needed to fix some typos in the MS. I only changed the interior file, a word here and there, no big fixes. The new proof came and the cover had shifted.  What happened? I didn't do anything to that file. It should have remained the same. I was told all covers shift…so why didn't this happen on the first proof?  It never got straightened out. I've sold 17 copies thus far. Not very impressed. Shortly after my proofs and some press copies came, I began to notice the covers curling. The clear coating that covers the book image began to separate from the book. I had never seen this before ever with a book. This one an issue I read many folks complaining about. It was true, happened to all my books.

3. Time and Cost

CS is fine if you want a drop and drag template publisher. If you go outside the parameters be prepared to deal with product issues. It took me an evening to get it together, but weeks to try to resolve issues with CS, which were never resolved.

Cost. A Pro Plan membership for $39.00 is best purchased if you're going to spend any length of time with them. This increases your royalties and lowers your "author cost" It's a cheap way to go but the product did for me reflect what I paid for.

4. Pros/Cons

Pros– cost is low, and the finished product is nice looking if you use a template.

Cons–limited CS cover creator options make the covers a bit more cookie-cutter and I hear custom covers are a nightmare. Library royalties are very low. About $0.45 per $9.99 sale. Proofs have to be ordered before you set a book to "live" under the old structure. This makes the first one take a week or so after you create the file to start printing them on demand. I know there is a new option for this where you can go live immediately. I am just not sure I'd trust it, especially if you do a custom cover. (This was all Belinda's paragraph, I didn't dig this deep in regards to Library royalties etc.)

5. Overall

I am not happy with CS as I feel the quality of the product just didn't represent my book, as I had envisioned it. Perhaps this is on me too. Belinda had much better luck with them and is quite happy. Perhaps they have resolved those issues now. My final word for CS, is I won't be doing any further publishing with them.

LULU

1&2 Formatting/Cover Design

Like CS, Lulu also relies on template, cookie cutter type books. However they also are prepared for the custom needs publisher as well. Formatting is easy; they already have print size files ready for download and if you're writing in MS Word, it's copy and paste. Works well. I loaded my PDF into the book size template I wanted and had my book in moments. I just needed to make the proper adjustments. As for my custom cover, it fit and worked like a dream. I chose a blank cover template. This allowed me to make full use of front, spine and back.

I had my cover images ready and  dropped them in and the spine creator was easy and worked perfectly!

3. Time/Cost

Time was minimal in prepping everything and I had my book together in less than one hour.

There is no cost to publish with Lulu, unless your buying copies of your own book. Now you can pay for media/distribution channels and such, but you can easily put a book together and if you're happy with it, make it available pretty much instantly and are not charged for anything.  Price of your book is based on how many pages, print size and paper quality. I chose 5×5 8×5 on white paper.

Cream paper makes your production cost higher. The white pages are pretty easy to see through to the other side, admittedly that's a drawback, but not enough to make me or you, pay for the price of cream paper. I wanted to keep my book cost reasonable. $10.00, I realize I'm an unknown but if I like a book enough I will pay much more than that. You can spend a little or a lot, depends on how much you want Lulu to be involved.

4. Pros/Cons

Pros, Lulu is very user friendly and their product is nice quality, the book looks professional and printing is consistent every time. If there is a problem, it's going to be 99% your fault, not theirs.

The Cover Creator, Loved it!

Cons, Depending on what book size you choose, for example mine, Lulu does not ship from the USA. But that doesn't mean I can't, buy books and ship them overseas.

The white paper is only available in two print sizes. You are forced to buy cream paper for the most common used print edition ( 6×9 ).

5. Overall

I am 100% Satisfied with Lulu and I can say for certain, my next book will be a Lulu edition.

Tom's novel, the first in a series, An Apple for Zoe can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and from Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/authoramo

And finally, a different kind of POD. my own experience with the  Espresso Book Machine:

1&2 Formatting/Cover

The Espresso book machine is fairly easy. I, of course, cheated and had mine done professionally by a graphic artist because I wanted to pull in special fonts and chapter headings to intensify the spooky vibe of the story. The guidelines, however, are really straightforward and offer a variety of trim-sizes to choose from. I chose the 9×6 oversized paperback for Asylum Lake. At just over 72,000 words it made for a nice weight and feel.

The Espresso book machine really leaves the cover design up to the author. You can be as simplistic or as creative as your heart desires. The formatting instructions guidelines provide clear instructions. Again, my designer handled all of the heavy lifting. The four-color cover of Asylum Lake has received countless compliments and I believe it is one of the reasons my title has enjoyed so much success; it draws the reader in.

All in all the formatting seems very straightforward.

3. Time and Cost



Okay, this is where the Espresso Book Machine deviates from the competition. On the plus side, it takes me four minutes to have a copy of Asylum Lake printed. Yep, you heard me – four minutes! I can even watch it all. I've had several events at the independent book store that owns this Espresso machine and one of the most fascinating parts for the audience is to actually see the book printed, cut and bound right in front of their eyes. It's also local so I can pop in and get books whenever it's convenient.

As for costs, I have to pay $10 for each and every copy. At a cover price of $15 I'm still raking in a cool $5 profit on each sale, but I had to price Asylum Lake a bit higher than what I would have normally wanted to. There is also a $75 set-up charge for them to load the file. Add in the $115 I paid for my ISBN and you can see that I had to sell almost 40 copies before I even broke even.

4. Pros & Cons



You guessed it, the big con is the pricing. It's hard for me to compete against Create Space or Lulu authors who can list theirtitles at much lower prices. Still, I have yet to have anybody complain that they didn;t feel they were getting their money's worth.

The pros greatly outweigh that con. First off, it's local. I can pop in anytime I want and pick up copies or view proofs. Also, because an independent bookstore owns the machine I have the added value of having my books placed right on their shelves alongside the traditionally published books of King, Koontz and the other heavyweights. I've also been able to have in-store discussions and signings. Schuler Books owns five bookstores throughout Michigan so it's greatly increased myy exposure. I am featured prominently on their website and in their other marketing efforts.

5. Overall

I've looked long and hard at the other services and feel like I've built my brand through this relationship with the bookstore and their Espresso book machine and would hate to try to fix what isn't broken. That being said, I do wonder what my sales would look like if I could take that $15.00 price and whittle it down to $9.95.

Asylum Lake, can be purchased from Amazon, Smashwords, and you can get an autographed print through www.schulerbooks.com.

Asylum Lake under the spotlight for The Kalamazoo Gazette

It's always a pleasant suprise when unexpected media coverage falls across the pages of my novel Asylum Lake. Imagine my surpise when The Kalamazoo Gazette featured my dark tale in their self-published spotlight this week. You see, the city of Kalamazoo is home to the real Asylum Lake nature preserve and the ominous state hospital which happened to inspire the setting for my dark tale.

So if you haven't taken the plunge into Asylum Lake – what are you waiting for?  Check out this spotlight and add some chills to your summer.

Are you ready for Grave Undertakings?

I've stumbled across an interesting blog. It appears as though Brady Tanner, the intrepid former reporter best known for his paranormal invetsigation into Bedlam Falls' abandoned asylum, has been keeping a diary of sorts. Seems like an interesting read and may just include some secrets of what to ewxpect when he eventually finds the elusive Dr. Wesley Clovis. You can read his diary HERE.

CLICK HERE to dive into the mystery of Asylum Lake.

For a special preview of the upcoming sequel Grave Undertakings, CLICK HERE.

 

 

Grave Undertakings trailer revealed

Counting down the days until the release of the highly anticipated sequel to Asylum Lake. Finally, in Grave Undertakings, your questions will be answered and more dark secrets revealed. For those who have yet to dive into the mystery of Asylum Lake, there is still time. Simply CLICK HERE to begin your journey.

[image error]

Women can write horror, too: Guest post by author Melanie McCullough

I am the child of an avid horror fan so I was raised on it. I watched Cat's Eye when I was 7, graduated shortly thereafter to It (I still can't stand clowns, thank you very much Mr. King), and can vividly recall a scene in The Gate when a boy uses a Barbie toe to poke out the eyeball that has grown on his palm (I never looked at Malibu Barbie the same way again).  

These are the images that shaped my childhood. So, it came as no surprise to me when horror became one of my writing passions. But google "Top Ten Horror Writers" and these are the names that will appear time and time again — Stephen King, Dean Koontz, H.P. Lovecraft, John Saul, Jack Ketchum, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert McCammon. Noticing a trend?

It's no secret — the horror genre is dominated by men. Almost as if society is still operating under the impression that a woman venturing into the blood, the gore, and the suspense, would be much more likely to faint than to write truly terrifying fiction.

Terrence Rafferty stated the following in an article for the New York Times, "…for the most part, a woman's place in horror has been pretty well defined: she's the victim, seen occasionally and heard only when she screams".

Mr. Rafferty goes on to point out that the horror women write tends to be more psychological or paranormal than the bloody slasher fiction men write. While I don't think this is necessarily true, I do believe that what scares me and what scares men tends to be vastly different.

Most of us fear that which we cannot control. But men, by virtue of genetics alone have more control over a greater number of things than I do. For the most part they are bigger. They are stronger.

As a woman, I know to avoid dark alleyways in the city at night. I don't enter empty parking garages alone. I walk to my car, keys in hand, prepared to enter my vehicle quickly or to use my key to gouge out an attacker's eye.

I don't go camping at the lakeside camp where a little boy drowned while the counselors got it on in the woods nearby. And I don't leave the bar with the strange guy with the crazy eyes who wants me to get in the back of his van.

These things I can control, therefore I find a lot of the stories that focus on naive girls stumbling into those very situations that I avoid to be a little far-fetched.

This leaves me little choice but to venture into the paranormal or psychological to get my thrills.

My #1 fear is demonic possession. Call it a product of my Irish-Catholic guilt complex or simply call it insane, either way stories about demons will get me every time. It's something over which a person has very little control. If a demon wants to inhabit your body, take lewd photos and post them on Twitter what the hell are you going to do about it?

A close second would be ghost stories. Again, this is something I can't control. If ghosts exist then they are supposedly the trapped spirits of those who have died. And ghosts, from what I've read in fiction, can kill you. They can scrawl words into your skin or drive you insane.

The bottom line is, I'm female and I love horror. I read it. I write it. And I don't think I'm alone. I believe that there are a lot of women out there who write incredible horror fiction. And whether it's ghosts, demons, vampires, zombies, or just some psycho with mommy issues, and regardless of the fact that we're women, we want what every reader and/or writer of the genre desires — we just want to be scared.

About Melanie

Melanie McCullough is a novelist from Philadelphia, PA with a love of speculative fiction. When not reading or writing, she can be found spending time with her enormous family or cowering in a corner worrying that her geek is showing.

Dropping an "A-Bomb" on Writer's Block

I recently had occasion to do some…errr…research on writer's block. Yeah, research. That's what I was doing. Like a scientist.

I found lots of great ideas to get unstuck and wrote the best ones on index cards and tossed them in my desk drawer. Now, when I really need to nuke the hell out of my block, I reach into the drawer and pull out a random card. So far so good with this little trick so I thought I would share.

■Do something important that's very easy – Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward?

■Try freewriting – Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don't stop, no matter what. Keep writing, even if you know what you're typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it's writing. Which it is.

■Take a walk – Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about rainbows and unicorns. Breathe.

■Take a shower; change clothes – Give yourself a truly clean start.

■Write from a persona – Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn't you. Doesn't have to be a pirate or anything (although I do love a good pirate) — just try seeing your topic from someone else's perspective, style, and interest.

■Talk to Pinhead – I have a poster of Pinhead on my wall – you know, the charming chap from Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Sometimes when I get stuck I find it helpful to talk to him about what I'm trying to say.

■Get away from the computer; Write someplace new – If you've been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new.

■Quit beating yourself up – You can't create when you feel ass-whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes.

■Listen to new music – Try something instrumental and rhythmic that you've never heard before. Put it on repeat, then stop fiddling with iTunes until your draft is done.

■Write crap – Accept that your first draft will suck, and just go with it. Finish something.

■Unplug the router – The damn internet isn't helping you right now. Turn off the web and close every application you don't need. Consider creating a new user account on your computer with none of your familiar apps or configurations.

■Write the middle – Stop whining over a perfect lead, and write the next part or the part after that. Write your favorite part. Write the cover letter or email you'll send when it's done.

■Do one chore – Sweep the floor or take out the recycling. Try something lightly physical to remind you that you know how to do things.

■Make a pointless rule – You can't end sentences with words that begin with a vowel. Or you can't have more than one word over eight letters in any paragraph. Limits create focus and change your perspective.

■Work on the title – Quickly make up five distinctly different titles. Meditate on them. What bugs you about the one you like least?

■Write five words – Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.

Now that you know my secret to busting through writer's block I'd love to hear yours.

Still Begging for Sales

Yeah, this Indie Author has no shame. Asylum Lake has a 4.5 star rating with twenty reviews on Amazon – proof positive that it's a worthwhile read.  Readers from Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and Smashwords agree, too.  With the upcoming release of Grave Undertakings – the chilling sequel to Asylum Lake – now is the perfect time to dive into the mystery.  For less than a fancy cup of coffee you can read what The Lansing State Journal hails as "A taut tale liable to raise significant goosebumps." Trust me – summer is the perfect time for some chills.  Purchase Asylum Lake today and get the chills for free!

[image error]

BRIDGES, A TALE OF NIAGARA, by dk LeVick, is a journey worth taking

I write about things that go bump in the night – which means I usually read about those things, too. It's a topsy-turvy carousel of horror that doesn't leave much time to experience other genres. That's why I approached BRIDGES, A TALE OF NIAGARA by dk LeVick with trepidation. I didn't want the dark clutter in my mind to impose its will on his tale.  Sadly, it almost did. After several starts and stops, I found myself immersed in LeVick's story of adolescent adventure set against the backdrop of the beautifully dangerous Falls of Niagara.

BRIDGES is the tale of five boys who set off to conquer the Niagara gorge – a frozen bridge of ice where the falls run dangerous and deep beneath the icey surface. The story is reminiscent of Stephen King's classic short story THE BODY, made famous in the film STAND BY ME.  The boys' harrowing journey is one of self discovery as they bridge the divide between adolescence and manhood.  

BRIDGES, A TALE OF NIAGARA is a coming-of-age tale that left me reminiscing about my own boyhood journeys and the many "bridges" over which I have crossed to get to where I am today.  I can only imagine LeVick's own journey and how the surrounds have Niagara must have certainly played a role.