R.B. Landeck's Blog

January 28, 2020

The Labyrinth of Book Promotions: Writing is only the beginning...

In the old days you sent in your manuscript to publishing houses specializing in your type of work (or simply sent it to every publisher you could find) and hoped for the best. The upside: if your book was accepted you would not only find yourself in the esteemed company of formally published authors, but the publisher would do most of the heavy lifting in terms of marketing. Fast forward to the world of e-publishing or, to be exact, indie e-publishing and you, the author, are the one with the headache of how to break into the market. I read somewhere that an indie-published book is released every 10 seconds. Crazy stuff. Of course we all believe our work is worthy of proper publishing and of a readership proportionate to the effort that went into the product. But with that kind of competition, that's not very likely, unless by some miracle your book grows legs and stampedes through the charts. Those miracles do happen, but I dare say they have less to do with the quality and much more with how prolific you are as an author: social media, book sites, blog posts, marketing submissions, YouTube channels, newspapers, bookstores, radio stations...the list goes on. It's tiring trying to sell yourself! If you are like me, I am better at writing than I am at talking about myself. It's not something that comes natural and even at social events I am usually the guy that mostly listens. So once I release a book, the promotions aspect rises in front of me like Mount Everest: imposing and virtually insurmountable (at my fitness level anyway). Where am I going with this? Well, whenever you pick up one of my books or read my updates, rest assured that I not only deeply and sincerely appreciate it, but that you are shrinking that mountain for me, one bit at a time. Because at the end of the day it's all about you, the reader, and if I can see my promotion efforts are having some level of success, it gives me the confidence that just maybe I might be doing something right. And that, my friends, can never be a bad thing, especially when it get you more of what you want to read in the process.

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Published on January 28, 2020 06:16

To kill or not to kill...An author's dilemma!

Writing a series or even just a single horror novel, inevitably the question arises what to do with your characters. Someone, somewhere along the way, has to die, right? But who? And how many characters can you introduce, before readers suspect they were just brought on board to be fodder for whatever is decimating people throughout the story? Some people suggest killing off protagonists for shock value, but I am not sure I agree with the sentiment. Main characters, to some extent, are like the glue that holds the plot line together. They offer continuity and the comfort of the known in a genre that otherwise very much depends on uncertainty for both atmosphere and suspense. Plus, if you are like me, you have put at least some effort into a character's background, painted them with attributes befitting the latter, and in the course of your story-telling gotten to know them like family. So whose demise would you bring about, not just to further your story, but to make room for, pardon the pun, fresh blood? Now, writing the third part of my Dead Hemisphere series, Thanatos Bound, I encounter the conundrum on a daily basis. Who will buy the farm in the end? Well, you are going to have to find out for yourself once the book is released. For now, even I don't have the answer!

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Published on January 28, 2020 02:24

January 27, 2020

Writing...pleasure and pain rolled into one!

DEAD HEMISPHERE is my third book, but none other has challenged me like this one. Ok, I essentially wrote close to a thousand pages this time - enough for part I and II - but still, making the leap from non-fiction to full-fledged story-telling is something else entirely. I won't go into all the ins and outs of plot and character development here, nor will I dive into aspects like story arcs and topical research into all manner of things, just to ensure everything makes sense and there is at least a minimum of depth (I can only hope I have achieved that). Writing fiction has been immensely entertaining; a real pleasure, actually. The characters accompanied me throughout the process and there were nights where that little notebook next to my bed worked overtime as ideas flowed while I was sleeplessly staring at the ceiling. Writing fiction is kind of like having your own head cinema. You control the plot, you control the characters, their emotions, triumphs and tribulations. It's a free all access pass to a wonderful world that is limited only by your imagination. You wake up in the morning and ask yourself "What should I do to character X today?" and you go to bed at night, thinking about your cast waiting in limbo, suspended somewhere in that realm of thought until you type the next lines and set them free to move on in whatever direction you have in mind for them. So much for the pleasure... The pain, as many indie-authors will attest - is when you have all these great ideas dying to burst forth onto the pile of blank pages....only for your day-job to hold you back for weeks on end. The pain, as many of you co-writers will have experienced already - is also in the rewrites, rewrites, rewrites...because what made sense in your head when you put it on paper the first time, makes absolutely none when you read it weeks down the road. For most of us this means reading your own book until you can virtually recite its contents. In other words, you had your wish, your story has been realized, but now you have to read it over and over again, at least if you don't want to look like a Schmuck when its finally released. The pain is also actually releasing it: You write your heart out and put your soul into a book, only to stand before the mountain that is self-publishing. I had done it twice before, but competing with the fiction market, and the horror genre to boot, is a whole different dimension of hurt. The fact that you are reading these lines means I have done something right along the way, so I thank you for visiting and the encouragement your readership brings. I am about to embark on the next pain and pleasure cruise...part III of Dead Hemisphere, optimistically scheduled for release later this year. In the meantime I have two movie projects and a new media channel, not to mention the usual deployments (something has to keep the lights on for now), so let's see how it goes. Meanwhile I encourage you to pick up a copy of Dead Hemisphere and give it a whirl. And if you like it even just a little, this old indie author would appreciate your review on Amazon. And if you don't....well, as my mother used to say: "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." ;-) Thanks again and happy reading. To once again use the grandfather of zombies George A. Romero's quote: "Stay Scared!"

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Published on January 27, 2020 05:51