Donald J. Bingle's Blog
April 10, 2020
Newsletter Links Replacing Blog Posts
For a number of years I've been posting blog entries here and on Goodreads. About six months ago, though, I started putting out a monthly newsletter with articles, updates on my work-in-progress, book reviews, promotions, and news about upcoming releases, conventions, and presentations, etc. Rather than duplicate the same information over multiple platforms, I've decided to simply archive links to my newsletter here as they are published, so you can check them out at will. And, if you want to get my newsletter by email as soon as it is available, just go here to sign up.
https://www.donaldjbingle.com/newslet...
Here's the archive. Sure, some of the links will get old and no longer work and many of the promos will be concluded if you look at old issues, but I still think there is some content you might like. You can also still search my old blogs here and on Goodreads. They go back much further.
April 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/45N5RWjti...
March 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/81N30WZ2K...
February 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/3fN0YXgk7...
January 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/caM_5yylZ...
December 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/e4MxIf9gK...
Happy Thanksgiving Edition: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/c5Mwj-6FE...
November 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/37MvJRGTK...
Special Celebrate Jean Rabe Edition: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/07MuIksRY...
October 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/f2MsEB-Ee...
September 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/d2Mr0p8kn...
Aloha!
Don
Collage
https://www.donaldjbingle.com/newslet...
Here's the archive. Sure, some of the links will get old and no longer work and many of the promos will be concluded if you look at old issues, but I still think there is some content you might like. You can also still search my old blogs here and on Goodreads. They go back much further.
April 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/45N5RWjti...
March 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/81N30WZ2K...
February 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/3fN0YXgk7...
January 2020 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/caM_5yylZ...
December 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/e4MxIf9gK...
Happy Thanksgiving Edition: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/c5Mwj-6FE...
November 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/37MvJRGTK...
Special Celebrate Jean Rabe Edition: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/07MuIksRY...
October 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/f2MsEB-Ee...
September 2019 Newsletter: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/d2Mr0p8kn...
Aloha!
Don
Collage
December 10, 2019
STORYORIGINAPP: A NEW TOOL FOR AUTHORS
If you've been getting my newsletter (subscribe at https://www.donaldjbingle.com/newslet...) , you've no doubt noticed the various graphics with links to group promotions by various authors--generally grouped around some genre or calendar theme. Those promotions are put together by authors who belong to StoryOriginApp.com. I found it when I was looking for ways to build my newsletter list and signed up (it's free) because I thought it would help me build the number of newsletter subscribers and would allow me to put some of my books in the various promotions and help build my sales and, almost more importantly, my number of reviews.
While features are still be added, the site already lets authors do a number of things, including:
1. Create a Reader Magnet. This lets you post a link to a short story, writing sample, or even a book, which allows people who sign up for your newsletter to get a taste of your writing for free. They get some free writing; you get a new newsletter subscriber.
2. Find Reviewers for Your Book. This lets you post your book--new or old--for reviewers. But you are not just putting your product out there for anyone and everyone to grab for free. If a potential reviewer is interested in your book based on the cover and a blurb, they ask to review it. You then get to check out the reviewers by looking at their other reviews (on Amazon, Goodreads, or a number of other sites) and if you think they are a responsible reviewer, you can approve them to get the book. If they don't have a history of posting reviews or their reviews are for other genres or otherwise inappropriate, you hit the button to ignore their request.
3. Find Reviewers for Your Audiobook: This is the same kind of service as mentioned above, but instead you can give out copies of your freebie codes from Audible.com, with the same type of review and approve or ignore approach. There's no guarantee that these reviews (or those for your ebook) will be favorable--you're just giving a copy to someone who intends to give an honest review.
4. Creating and Joining Promotional Campaigns: There's a master list of various campaigns that are being put together and a simple form to fill out if you want to submit one of your books to the promo. The creator can say yea or nay based on whether they think your submission matches the theme, tone, and criteria of the promo. Some are promos targeting reviewers, but most are targeting readers. Different promos not only have different themes (romance, scifi, horror, etc.), but different criteria (freebies, Kindle Unlimited, 99 cent books, books under $5, or whatever). Once the promo commences, all of the participating authors mention the promo in their newsletters and social media and people click to see the offerings and, if interested, click through to get your book via your link (including affiliate codes if you like) to Amazon, Nook, or wherever. Unlike some other group promo sites, not all of these promos are give-aways, so you can actually get a few sales this way.
5. You can also do "swaps" with other authors who have books in the same genre as you. You each post an indication of the size of your newsletter list and the date you will be sending the next issue. If they have a book that is appropriate, they can provide you the same information about their list. You don't swap lists; you each put a blurb and cover photo of the other's book in your newsletter to introduce them to your subscribers. Your subscribers click through or don't as they wish.
6. The site also keeps an easily downloadable list of people who have subscribed to your newsletter through StoryOriginApp, which you can combine with your own lists when sending out your newsletter. It also helps provide certain statistical info about how many people open your newsletter and how many click on various links--I haven't done much with that info so far, but it sounds cool.
StoryOriginApp is in beta testing now, so everything is free to those helping out. And the creator is very responsive to suggestions and problems, which is very cool.
Check it out. www.StoryOriginApp.com
Aloha,
Don
****************
Shopping for Christmas? Use my Amazon Afflilate Link. Just go to my website at www.donaldjbingle.com, click on the link to Amazon and shop to your heart's content.
While features are still be added, the site already lets authors do a number of things, including:
1. Create a Reader Magnet. This lets you post a link to a short story, writing sample, or even a book, which allows people who sign up for your newsletter to get a taste of your writing for free. They get some free writing; you get a new newsletter subscriber.
2. Find Reviewers for Your Book. This lets you post your book--new or old--for reviewers. But you are not just putting your product out there for anyone and everyone to grab for free. If a potential reviewer is interested in your book based on the cover and a blurb, they ask to review it. You then get to check out the reviewers by looking at their other reviews (on Amazon, Goodreads, or a number of other sites) and if you think they are a responsible reviewer, you can approve them to get the book. If they don't have a history of posting reviews or their reviews are for other genres or otherwise inappropriate, you hit the button to ignore their request.
3. Find Reviewers for Your Audiobook: This is the same kind of service as mentioned above, but instead you can give out copies of your freebie codes from Audible.com, with the same type of review and approve or ignore approach. There's no guarantee that these reviews (or those for your ebook) will be favorable--you're just giving a copy to someone who intends to give an honest review.
4. Creating and Joining Promotional Campaigns: There's a master list of various campaigns that are being put together and a simple form to fill out if you want to submit one of your books to the promo. The creator can say yea or nay based on whether they think your submission matches the theme, tone, and criteria of the promo. Some are promos targeting reviewers, but most are targeting readers. Different promos not only have different themes (romance, scifi, horror, etc.), but different criteria (freebies, Kindle Unlimited, 99 cent books, books under $5, or whatever). Once the promo commences, all of the participating authors mention the promo in their newsletters and social media and people click to see the offerings and, if interested, click through to get your book via your link (including affiliate codes if you like) to Amazon, Nook, or wherever. Unlike some other group promo sites, not all of these promos are give-aways, so you can actually get a few sales this way.
5. You can also do "swaps" with other authors who have books in the same genre as you. You each post an indication of the size of your newsletter list and the date you will be sending the next issue. If they have a book that is appropriate, they can provide you the same information about their list. You don't swap lists; you each put a blurb and cover photo of the other's book in your newsletter to introduce them to your subscribers. Your subscribers click through or don't as they wish.
6. The site also keeps an easily downloadable list of people who have subscribed to your newsletter through StoryOriginApp, which you can combine with your own lists when sending out your newsletter. It also helps provide certain statistical info about how many people open your newsletter and how many click on various links--I haven't done much with that info so far, but it sounds cool.
StoryOriginApp is in beta testing now, so everything is free to those helping out. And the creator is very responsive to suggestions and problems, which is very cool.
Check it out. www.StoryOriginApp.com
Aloha,
Don
****************
Shopping for Christmas? Use my Amazon Afflilate Link. Just go to my website at www.donaldjbingle.com, click on the link to Amazon and shop to your heart's content.
October 30, 2019
Jean Rabe, The Best Friend a Writer Could Ever Have
Recently, Jean Rabe (my co-author for The Love-Haight Case Files) won the 2019 Soon-to-be-Famous Illinois Author competition for her book, The Bone Shroud. So I thought I'd make a special edition of my newsletter and my blog all about Jean.
JEAN RABE MADE A WRITER OUT OF A GAMER
During the last couple of decades in the preceding century, I played a lot of roleplaying games, especially classic-style RPGA Network tournaments at places like GenCon, Origins, Winter Fantasy, Spring Revel, Glathricon, and Contact. I also ran games like Chill, Paranoia, and Top Secret for others. Eventually, I started writing tournaments and submitting them for sanctioning to the RPGA, where Jean was Network Coordinator. Jean was very encouraging of my writing, both for the RPGA tournaments, and for various contests to write monsters or magic items or whatnot for the RPGA clubs' competition. Those led to me writing (with my wife, Linda) some articles for Polyhedron Magazine (which Jean edited for the RPGA), as well as connecting with West End, for some work on Paranoia, and with Mayfair, for some work on Chill 2nd edition. I also wrote materials for Timemaster, a game which my company bought the rights to when Pacesetter went bankrupt.
Back at TSR (which, of course, owned and ran the RPGA), Jean got me a gig re-writing monsters for the Fiend Folio (and writing a couple new ones). That, in turn, led to a chance to write an adventure (Beneath the Twisted Tower) for the Forgotten Realms Boxed Set and work on Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels Boxed Set and the Battle of the Bones portion of Elminster's Ecologies.
Eventually, I tried my hand at a short story about two guys talking about aliens and religion while they played a game of chess. I sent it to Jean shortly before GenCon. When I saw her there, she said she had liked it and because Margaret Weis was about to close submissions on an anthology on Elementals, she'd changed the aliens to elementals, fussed with the ending, and submitted it. Gotta say, I found that to be a pretty cheeky thing to do, but Margaret accepted it. Jean also pushed me to submit a story to the BattleTech magazine she was editing.
Then came the story that really impacted my short story career--not because it was my best ever, though I still like it--but because of the deadline involved. Jean called me at my day job to let me know there was a Civil War anthology being put out through Tekno Books (which packaged anthologies for DAW) and she had planned to submit, but couldn't, so if I submitted a story in the next three days, it had an enhanced chance of success because they would be short a story. I told Jean I didn't really know anything more than average about the Civil War. Jean mentioned that she had heard one of the editors was going to be a woman, so if I wrote about women in the Civil War, my chances would be even better. I told Jean I knew nothing about women in the Civil War, but promised to see if I could think of something. I decided women liked horses and wrote about horses in the Civil War. I turned it in a couple days later and sold it
From there, I fell into a run of short story success. I was not nearly famous enough to get invited to DAW anthologies, but Jean (and soon other editors at Tekno, like John Helfers) found out I could write fast and clean to subject and word count specifications. I got requests for last minute stories in various anthologies in a plethora of genres about subjects I never would have written about otherwise. Look at my writing resume' and you will see Jean Rabe and John Helfers and Margaret Weis (and people they mentioned me to) edited most of my work early in my career. Heck, I even got invited to write a Transformers story because Helfers told the editor I could write a fighting robots story fast.
After doing a Dragonlance tie-in story, then a Dragonlance tie-in novella, I also was selected to pitch (and was selected to write) a Dragonlance novel on a very, very short deadline, but ended up turning it down--that's a whole story. Jean was there to reassure me that I wasn't crazy to do so and that the folks at TSR respected my decision.
Jean also kept pushing me. That's how I came to write my first book. Jean convinced me to attend World Horror Con in 2002 and called to urge me to sign up for one of the pitch sessions with a science fiction editor. I told her I had nothing to pitch. The screenplay I had wouldn't work, because these were New York book guys, not Hollywood types, and the event description said not to pitch short stories. She insisted it was good practice and I should pitch anyway, so I wrote up a pitch sheet based on an old story idea set in a world with a fair amount of backstory. When I finished the pitch, the editor asked me if the book was done. I said it wasn't started, but I had a copy of a novella he could look at to see I knew how to write. He said he would read it on the plane, then asked if I could send him three chapters of the proposed book. I, of course, said I would. Since I didn't know if he expected those chapters in a few days, I started writing and eventually sent him the whole of Forced Conversion. After sitting on it more than a year, he ended up passing, but my contacts through Jean paid off again when John Helfers agreed to read my book and quickly connected me up with Five Star.
The story goes on, with Jean not only encouraging me, but sending gigs my way. A novella she convinced me to do in a world she created ended up as part of The Love-Haight Case Files, a novel we co-authored and have turned into a screenplay for a potential television series. Jean got me involved with The GenCon Writers' Symposium and Origins Game Fair Library, where I made many, many more writing and editing contacts. And just recently, she suggested me for a tie-in novella in a new fantasy game world which will be crowdfunding in a few months.
Yes, I know this piece seems like it is all about my career, but it is really all about a career that Jean Rabe not only made possible, but continues to foster at every single opportunity.
And, the thing is, I am far from the only writer who can say this. So, on behalf of all of us, thanks, Jean.
JEAN'S WRITING CAREER SO FAR
Jean was a bona fide newspaper journalist, covering everything from City Council meetings to the crime beat and even a major plane crash. (Later on, she even did a true crime book, When the Husband is the Suspect, with F. Lee Bailey) When she was hired by TSR to head the RPGA Network, she not only edited tournaments and Polyhedron Magazine, she edited the GenCon pre-registration booklet and various published source materials, as well as writing her own game materials, adventures, and stories. She's been a tireless editor who improved content and kept to a tight production schedule for various magazines, from MechForce Quarterly to the SFWA's Bulletin to Galaxy's Edge and many, many more.
She's also run major writing programs, including the GenCon Writers' Symposium and Origins Game Fair Library.
She's written more than you probably know, because she has ghostwritten adventure novels and ghost-edited anthologies which don't acknowledge her work and has co-authored books where she has definitely had the laboring oar. Some of this is just the nature of writing for hire, but some of this is because, as nice as Jean is to everyone, not everyone treats her as well as she deserves. Told she was not famous enough to be on the cover as editing a high-profile hardcover anthology, a major publisher instead substituted a completely unknown pen name. She's been stiffed on royalties and treated badly by small and large publishing organizations over the years.
Despite all of this, she remains upbeat and constantly seeks new challenges, including switching over in recent years from fantasy tales to writing mysteries, including The Bone Shroud and her Piper Blackwell mysteries: The Dead of Winter, The Dead of Night, and The Dead of Summer. I like to think our paranormal fantasy horror mystery thriller The Love-Haight Case Files helped her make the transition to mystery novels.
Jean's written so many books, she doesn't even bother to list her many, many published short stories on her website. Just take a look at this list of books:
The Dead of Summer, Boone Street Press
The Bone Shroud, Boone Street Press
The Dead of Night, Boone Street Press
The Dead of Winter, Boone Street Press
Shadows Down Under, Catalyst
Pockets of Darkness, Wordfire
The Cauldron, with Gene DeWeese, Wordfire
The Love-Haight Case Files, with Donald J. Bingle, Wordfire
River of Nightmares, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Sunken Pyramid, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
City of Swords, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Phantom Prospect, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Submerged, as Jordan Gray, Gold Eagle
Eternal Journey, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Dragon Mage, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Goblin Nation, book three of the Stonetellers, Wizards of the Coast
When the Husband is the Suspect, with F. Lee Bailey, TOR Books
Death March, book two of the Stonetellers from Wizards of the Coast
Fenzig’s Fortune, Five Star Books
The Rebellion, book one of the Stonetellers, Wizards of the Coast
The Finest Creation, trilogy–book one, Boon Street Press
The Finest Choice, trilogy–book two, Boone Street Press
The Finest Challenge, trilogy-book three, Boone Street Press
A Taste of Magic, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Aftershock, with John Helfers, Roc
Return to Quag Keep, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Lake of Death, Dragonlance, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Redemption, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Betrayal, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Downfall, Wizards of the Coast
The Silver Stair, Bridges of Time Series, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Eve of the Maelstrom, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Day of the Tempest, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Dawning of a New Age, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Maquesta Kar-Thon, coauthor, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Night of the Tiger, fantasy-horror young-adult, TSR Books
Secret of the Djinn, Arabian fantasy young-adult, TSR Books
Along with being a USA Today Best-Selling Author, Jean has won three Silver Falchion Awards and the 2019 Soon-to-be-Famous Illinois Author Award. You can read her blog and sign up for her newsletter at www.jeanrabe.com.
It's easy to be a friend to Jean, because Jean is a friend to every writer, every reader, and every person she meets
Aloha.
Donald J. Bingle
Writer on Demand TM
JEAN RABE MADE A WRITER OUT OF A GAMER
During the last couple of decades in the preceding century, I played a lot of roleplaying games, especially classic-style RPGA Network tournaments at places like GenCon, Origins, Winter Fantasy, Spring Revel, Glathricon, and Contact. I also ran games like Chill, Paranoia, and Top Secret for others. Eventually, I started writing tournaments and submitting them for sanctioning to the RPGA, where Jean was Network Coordinator. Jean was very encouraging of my writing, both for the RPGA tournaments, and for various contests to write monsters or magic items or whatnot for the RPGA clubs' competition. Those led to me writing (with my wife, Linda) some articles for Polyhedron Magazine (which Jean edited for the RPGA), as well as connecting with West End, for some work on Paranoia, and with Mayfair, for some work on Chill 2nd edition. I also wrote materials for Timemaster, a game which my company bought the rights to when Pacesetter went bankrupt.
Back at TSR (which, of course, owned and ran the RPGA), Jean got me a gig re-writing monsters for the Fiend Folio (and writing a couple new ones). That, in turn, led to a chance to write an adventure (Beneath the Twisted Tower) for the Forgotten Realms Boxed Set and work on Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels Boxed Set and the Battle of the Bones portion of Elminster's Ecologies.
Eventually, I tried my hand at a short story about two guys talking about aliens and religion while they played a game of chess. I sent it to Jean shortly before GenCon. When I saw her there, she said she had liked it and because Margaret Weis was about to close submissions on an anthology on Elementals, she'd changed the aliens to elementals, fussed with the ending, and submitted it. Gotta say, I found that to be a pretty cheeky thing to do, but Margaret accepted it. Jean also pushed me to submit a story to the BattleTech magazine she was editing.
Then came the story that really impacted my short story career--not because it was my best ever, though I still like it--but because of the deadline involved. Jean called me at my day job to let me know there was a Civil War anthology being put out through Tekno Books (which packaged anthologies for DAW) and she had planned to submit, but couldn't, so if I submitted a story in the next three days, it had an enhanced chance of success because they would be short a story. I told Jean I didn't really know anything more than average about the Civil War. Jean mentioned that she had heard one of the editors was going to be a woman, so if I wrote about women in the Civil War, my chances would be even better. I told Jean I knew nothing about women in the Civil War, but promised to see if I could think of something. I decided women liked horses and wrote about horses in the Civil War. I turned it in a couple days later and sold it
From there, I fell into a run of short story success. I was not nearly famous enough to get invited to DAW anthologies, but Jean (and soon other editors at Tekno, like John Helfers) found out I could write fast and clean to subject and word count specifications. I got requests for last minute stories in various anthologies in a plethora of genres about subjects I never would have written about otherwise. Look at my writing resume' and you will see Jean Rabe and John Helfers and Margaret Weis (and people they mentioned me to) edited most of my work early in my career. Heck, I even got invited to write a Transformers story because Helfers told the editor I could write a fighting robots story fast.
After doing a Dragonlance tie-in story, then a Dragonlance tie-in novella, I also was selected to pitch (and was selected to write) a Dragonlance novel on a very, very short deadline, but ended up turning it down--that's a whole story. Jean was there to reassure me that I wasn't crazy to do so and that the folks at TSR respected my decision.
Jean also kept pushing me. That's how I came to write my first book. Jean convinced me to attend World Horror Con in 2002 and called to urge me to sign up for one of the pitch sessions with a science fiction editor. I told her I had nothing to pitch. The screenplay I had wouldn't work, because these were New York book guys, not Hollywood types, and the event description said not to pitch short stories. She insisted it was good practice and I should pitch anyway, so I wrote up a pitch sheet based on an old story idea set in a world with a fair amount of backstory. When I finished the pitch, the editor asked me if the book was done. I said it wasn't started, but I had a copy of a novella he could look at to see I knew how to write. He said he would read it on the plane, then asked if I could send him three chapters of the proposed book. I, of course, said I would. Since I didn't know if he expected those chapters in a few days, I started writing and eventually sent him the whole of Forced Conversion. After sitting on it more than a year, he ended up passing, but my contacts through Jean paid off again when John Helfers agreed to read my book and quickly connected me up with Five Star.
The story goes on, with Jean not only encouraging me, but sending gigs my way. A novella she convinced me to do in a world she created ended up as part of The Love-Haight Case Files, a novel we co-authored and have turned into a screenplay for a potential television series. Jean got me involved with The GenCon Writers' Symposium and Origins Game Fair Library, where I made many, many more writing and editing contacts. And just recently, she suggested me for a tie-in novella in a new fantasy game world which will be crowdfunding in a few months.
Yes, I know this piece seems like it is all about my career, but it is really all about a career that Jean Rabe not only made possible, but continues to foster at every single opportunity.
And, the thing is, I am far from the only writer who can say this. So, on behalf of all of us, thanks, Jean.
JEAN'S WRITING CAREER SO FAR
Jean was a bona fide newspaper journalist, covering everything from City Council meetings to the crime beat and even a major plane crash. (Later on, she even did a true crime book, When the Husband is the Suspect, with F. Lee Bailey) When she was hired by TSR to head the RPGA Network, she not only edited tournaments and Polyhedron Magazine, she edited the GenCon pre-registration booklet and various published source materials, as well as writing her own game materials, adventures, and stories. She's been a tireless editor who improved content and kept to a tight production schedule for various magazines, from MechForce Quarterly to the SFWA's Bulletin to Galaxy's Edge and many, many more.
She's also run major writing programs, including the GenCon Writers' Symposium and Origins Game Fair Library.
She's written more than you probably know, because she has ghostwritten adventure novels and ghost-edited anthologies which don't acknowledge her work and has co-authored books where she has definitely had the laboring oar. Some of this is just the nature of writing for hire, but some of this is because, as nice as Jean is to everyone, not everyone treats her as well as she deserves. Told she was not famous enough to be on the cover as editing a high-profile hardcover anthology, a major publisher instead substituted a completely unknown pen name. She's been stiffed on royalties and treated badly by small and large publishing organizations over the years.
Despite all of this, she remains upbeat and constantly seeks new challenges, including switching over in recent years from fantasy tales to writing mysteries, including The Bone Shroud and her Piper Blackwell mysteries: The Dead of Winter, The Dead of Night, and The Dead of Summer. I like to think our paranormal fantasy horror mystery thriller The Love-Haight Case Files helped her make the transition to mystery novels.
Jean's written so many books, she doesn't even bother to list her many, many published short stories on her website. Just take a look at this list of books:
The Dead of Summer, Boone Street Press
The Bone Shroud, Boone Street Press
The Dead of Night, Boone Street Press
The Dead of Winter, Boone Street Press
Shadows Down Under, Catalyst
Pockets of Darkness, Wordfire
The Cauldron, with Gene DeWeese, Wordfire
The Love-Haight Case Files, with Donald J. Bingle, Wordfire
River of Nightmares, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Sunken Pyramid, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
City of Swords, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Phantom Prospect, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Submerged, as Jordan Gray, Gold Eagle
Eternal Journey, Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle
Dragon Mage, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Goblin Nation, book three of the Stonetellers, Wizards of the Coast
When the Husband is the Suspect, with F. Lee Bailey, TOR Books
Death March, book two of the Stonetellers from Wizards of the Coast
Fenzig’s Fortune, Five Star Books
The Rebellion, book one of the Stonetellers, Wizards of the Coast
The Finest Creation, trilogy–book one, Boon Street Press
The Finest Choice, trilogy–book two, Boone Street Press
The Finest Challenge, trilogy-book three, Boone Street Press
A Taste of Magic, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Aftershock, with John Helfers, Roc
Return to Quag Keep, with Andre Norton, TOR Books
Lake of Death, Dragonlance, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Redemption, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Betrayal, Wizards of the Coast
Dhamon: Downfall, Wizards of the Coast
The Silver Stair, Bridges of Time Series, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Eve of the Maelstrom, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Day of the Tempest, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Dawning of a New Age, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Maquesta Kar-Thon, coauthor, Dragonlance, TSR Books
Night of the Tiger, fantasy-horror young-adult, TSR Books
Secret of the Djinn, Arabian fantasy young-adult, TSR Books
Along with being a USA Today Best-Selling Author, Jean has won three Silver Falchion Awards and the 2019 Soon-to-be-Famous Illinois Author Award. You can read her blog and sign up for her newsletter at www.jeanrabe.com.
It's easy to be a friend to Jean, because Jean is a friend to every writer, every reader, and every person she meets
Aloha.
Donald J. Bingle
Writer on Demand TM
September 9, 2019
New Story News; New Promo News; New Newsletter News; New Audible Contest News
After a bit of a lull, the last few weeks have been busy with writerly things. I just sent off a new story to an anthology open call, I've submitted a tie-in novella I'm writing for a new fantasy roleplaying world being crowdfunded soon, and I've just had a story published in Mystery Weekly Magazine (available in print or e-magazine) at https://amzn.to/2zOp0T6. My story, Mutatis Mutandis, takes place in Colorado, near where I used to live. I've also got a few other stories in circulation at various publishers and anthologies in hopes of finding homes, as well as a couple stories which have found homes, but are waiting for their spot in the publication queue.
I've also started doing a few promos through a website called StoryOriginApp. The website lets authors swap mailing lists, create magnet pages to try to increase their mailing lists, post books looking for reviews, and connect with each other for bundled promotions. The promos are kind of like the promos for BundleRabbit or StoryBundle, but instead of buying a bundle of books, you can go to the promo page and click through to buy only the books you want to get. So far, I've run discounted prices for Frame Shop in the Kill You in September promo (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/SX4BUzX), Familiar Spirits in the Countdown to Halloween Book Fair (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/uNuMSoA), and Tales of an Altered Past Powered by Romance, Horror, and Steam in the Time Benders promo (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/njsoBtQ). Even if you already have my stuff, you should check out the other cool books and stories in these promotional bundles.
One of the things these new promotional opportunities have made clear to me is that authors really should generate a newsletter and create mailing lists to contact their core readers (I balk at calling my readers a "fan base") and to share with other authors participating in a cross-promotion. Accordingly, I've started ... just started ... trying to figure out how to create a newsletter on Wix.com, the company that I used to create my webpage. (I looked at Mailerlite, but it doesn't seem to integrate well with my website and expressed a dislike for Aol.com email addresses--yes, I know having an aol address makes me old, but I've NEVER had to change my email address over the decades.) I'll be dropping this blog into the first such newsletter. As things go along, I hope my newsletters will have more than I can put here on my blog. Here's the handy opt-in form to click to indicate you want to subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.donaldjbingle.com/newslet.... Don't worry, if you ever get an email or newsletter from me or a cross-promoting author you don't want to get, there will be a handy unsubscribe link at the bottom of the page--it's the law.
And, for those of you who have diligently read all the way down to here, I've got a contest going. The first ten, yes ten, people who comment on this blog on Goodreads OR who sign up for my newsletter on my website will get a free code for the Audible version of Net Impact, the first book in my Dick Thornby Spy Thriller series. Of course, reviews are always welcomed, even encouraged.
That's it for now. Back to fussing with my website at www.donaldjbingle.com and trying to figure out ways to get more reviews and sales. Being an author ain't all just making stuff up, you know.
Aloha,
Don
Donald J. Bingle, Writer on Demand TM
I've also started doing a few promos through a website called StoryOriginApp. The website lets authors swap mailing lists, create magnet pages to try to increase their mailing lists, post books looking for reviews, and connect with each other for bundled promotions. The promos are kind of like the promos for BundleRabbit or StoryBundle, but instead of buying a bundle of books, you can go to the promo page and click through to buy only the books you want to get. So far, I've run discounted prices for Frame Shop in the Kill You in September promo (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/SX4BUzX), Familiar Spirits in the Countdown to Halloween Book Fair (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/uNuMSoA), and Tales of an Altered Past Powered by Romance, Horror, and Steam in the Time Benders promo (https://storyoriginapp.com/to/njsoBtQ). Even if you already have my stuff, you should check out the other cool books and stories in these promotional bundles.
One of the things these new promotional opportunities have made clear to me is that authors really should generate a newsletter and create mailing lists to contact their core readers (I balk at calling my readers a "fan base") and to share with other authors participating in a cross-promotion. Accordingly, I've started ... just started ... trying to figure out how to create a newsletter on Wix.com, the company that I used to create my webpage. (I looked at Mailerlite, but it doesn't seem to integrate well with my website and expressed a dislike for Aol.com email addresses--yes, I know having an aol address makes me old, but I've NEVER had to change my email address over the decades.) I'll be dropping this blog into the first such newsletter. As things go along, I hope my newsletters will have more than I can put here on my blog. Here's the handy opt-in form to click to indicate you want to subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.donaldjbingle.com/newslet.... Don't worry, if you ever get an email or newsletter from me or a cross-promoting author you don't want to get, there will be a handy unsubscribe link at the bottom of the page--it's the law.
And, for those of you who have diligently read all the way down to here, I've got a contest going. The first ten, yes ten, people who comment on this blog on Goodreads OR who sign up for my newsletter on my website will get a free code for the Audible version of Net Impact, the first book in my Dick Thornby Spy Thriller series. Of course, reviews are always welcomed, even encouraged.
That's it for now. Back to fussing with my website at www.donaldjbingle.com and trying to figure out ways to get more reviews and sales. Being an author ain't all just making stuff up, you know.
Aloha,
Don
Donald J. Bingle, Writer on Demand TM
August 21, 2018
New Contest! Plus, Advice and Support from Fellow Writers
In my last blog, I covered blog tours as one way of authors promoting a new book release. And, yes, there was a contest connected with that blog tour, which I'm happy to say was won by Victoria A.
Another way authors can promoted their books is by working together with other authors. Some of my blog tour stops--Gail Martin, Jean Rabe, Christine Verstraete-were at the blogs of authors I've known for some time. We help each other out not just by forwarding, sharing (sharing is always better than liking), retweeting, and liking social media posts, but also by providing advice and recommendations about such things as providers, cover artists, and various websites and contests. We also sometimes share bits of our books or our cover text we would like another person's opinion on. Sometimes you just don't have the time to go to your writers' group about something or you need the expertise of someone with a bit more first-hand knowledge about the business of writing.
I've also had the good fortune of meeting a bunch of writers through writers conferences and conventions which I've attended or for which I've been a panelist. This includes the fine people and the GenCon Writer's Symposium, the Origins Game Fair Library, and Killer Nashville. These people are uniformly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. They also provide a social and support structure that can be invaluable to the fairly lonely life a writer can have. And they can be good resources when looking to fill an anthology or find someone to provide a stretch goal for a Kickstarter funding. Writers' groups can also do the same types of things, though the level of actual expertise of writers in your local group can vary considerably.
Internet groups can be helpful and supportive, too. Authors can band together for promotions (lowering ad and contest costs), provide cross-promotional social media support, and provide tips for worthwhile and not-so-worthwhile opportunities. Recently I've connected with the fine folks at Felony Fiction for this kind of thing. They have pages where you can find thrillers and mysteries that involve crime or espionage. They also run contests which supporting authors can join, in order to help find readers or boost their Amazon, Goodreads, or BookBub followers and the like. Here's their latest contest for a $100 Amazon gift certificate: https://www.felonyfiction.com/amazon-... . You can get extra entries by following me on BookBub, where I occasionally recommend books or run special promotions. Check it out. If you like thrillers and mysteries, there are plenty of new and best-selling authors included in their slate.
Always happy to hear from you about the blog or my books. Especially happy to get reviews of my books on Amazon, Goodreads, BN.com, Kobo, or your favorite book blog or website.
Aloha!
Don
Another way authors can promoted their books is by working together with other authors. Some of my blog tour stops--Gail Martin, Jean Rabe, Christine Verstraete-were at the blogs of authors I've known for some time. We help each other out not just by forwarding, sharing (sharing is always better than liking), retweeting, and liking social media posts, but also by providing advice and recommendations about such things as providers, cover artists, and various websites and contests. We also sometimes share bits of our books or our cover text we would like another person's opinion on. Sometimes you just don't have the time to go to your writers' group about something or you need the expertise of someone with a bit more first-hand knowledge about the business of writing.
I've also had the good fortune of meeting a bunch of writers through writers conferences and conventions which I've attended or for which I've been a panelist. This includes the fine people and the GenCon Writer's Symposium, the Origins Game Fair Library, and Killer Nashville. These people are uniformly friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. They also provide a social and support structure that can be invaluable to the fairly lonely life a writer can have. And they can be good resources when looking to fill an anthology or find someone to provide a stretch goal for a Kickstarter funding. Writers' groups can also do the same types of things, though the level of actual expertise of writers in your local group can vary considerably.
Internet groups can be helpful and supportive, too. Authors can band together for promotions (lowering ad and contest costs), provide cross-promotional social media support, and provide tips for worthwhile and not-so-worthwhile opportunities. Recently I've connected with the fine folks at Felony Fiction for this kind of thing. They have pages where you can find thrillers and mysteries that involve crime or espionage. They also run contests which supporting authors can join, in order to help find readers or boost their Amazon, Goodreads, or BookBub followers and the like. Here's their latest contest for a $100 Amazon gift certificate: https://www.felonyfiction.com/amazon-... . You can get extra entries by following me on BookBub, where I occasionally recommend books or run special promotions. Check it out. If you like thrillers and mysteries, there are plenty of new and best-selling authors included in their slate.
Always happy to hear from you about the blog or my books. Especially happy to get reviews of my books on Amazon, Goodreads, BN.com, Kobo, or your favorite book blog or website.
Aloha!
Don
July 24, 2018
What's a Blog Tour?
Writers not only need to write their books, they need to promote their books. Sure, letting the world know of a new book through your social media connections is a start--you can post about a new release on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, Instagram, Goodreads, your personal blog, and more, but even people who are way more active on social media than I am only have a personal social media presence that reaches so far. And while it is great if your family, friends, acquaintances, and even friends of friends get your new book or at least help promote it with a like, a share (SHARES are much more helpful than likes, by the way), or a retweet, you really want to reach strangers, hopefully without spending big bucks for advertising.
Enter the blog tour. What's that? Blog tours are the social media equivalent of the old-fashioned book tour, where you and your latest book are promoted at a variety of sites over a limited amount of time. But, instead of traveling around the country doing readings and answering questions at bookstores (older readers may still remember those quaint places), a group of bloggers post interviews, Q & As, excerpts, and reviews about you and your latest book in rapid succession (generally one a day) over a period of several weeks, introducing their blog readership (which may overlap, but is NOT the same as your social media reach) to you and your book, with links to your website and book sales locations.
The bloggers may be fellow authors, book review sites, FB sites about the genre of writing that matches up to your latest release, or whatever. Thus, the social media reach of information about you and your book expands dramatically. Not only that, but the focus of the post can be tailored to the individual blog's focus. Local interest, a specific type of adventure, the tech involved in the plot, the writing habits which helped you produce the book, the locations which appear in the book, or whatever. You see, each blog post is different. The blogger conducts their own interview, the excerpts from the promoted book vary, and the reviews are unique.
One key to making a blog tour successful in boosting your sales is that they occur in rapid succession, so buyers from all of these different social media pools go to the book sales sites and buy your book in rapid succession, rather that having the sales spread out over months. The algorithms for Amazon and other sellers key off of rapid (or at least regular) sales over a short period of time. That can boost your sales rank, which can mean that your book gets listed higher on bestseller compilations or is picked by the mysterious workings of the algorithm to be promoted by the book seller to people completely unconnected to you, your blog, or any of the blogs on the blog tour. That lets you reach strangers who are looking for the type of book you have written.
So, how do you arrange a blog tour? If you are well-connected with other blogs or authors (maybe you've hosted other authors on your own blog), you might be able to put something together yourself, but many, many blog tours are put together by people who do that as a business. In my case, I used Let's Talk! Promotions (www.ltpromos.com) because it was recommended to me by Jean Rabe.
Mindy at LTP connected with some of her regular bloggers and some I had previously dealt with and coordinated a bunch of blogs over a two week period, gathered a variety of excerpts from my book for them, sent the book to those wanting review copies, and coordinated interview questions or topics for guest blogs by me, then put together a blog site and promoted the tour, which kicks off today. You can find the tour page here: http://www.ltpromos.com/2018/07/20/do... (There's currently a glitch with the first link, to Gail Martin's blog, but that should get fixed sometime soon.)
Blog tours also often have small contests connected with them in order to encourage bloggers and readers to promote the blog they've read on their own social media and to tune in to the rest of the blogs on the tour--hopefully increasing the chances that they or others will buy the promoted title(s).
By happenstance, I also got interviewed by another blog in connection with a story of mine being published by Gallery of Curiosities. I prioritized responding to that interview request, so it would also appear within the parameters of the blog tour timing. You can find it here: https://stevenrsouthard.com/author-in...
And, of course, I put together this blog about blog tours to not only educate my fellow writers about what they are, but to promote the blog tour and my latest book. What's the blog tour all about? It's about my latest spy thriller, Wet Work, and the release of the first book in that series, Net Impact. But then, if you regularly read my blog, you probably already know that. And, you probably already know that reviews are not just welcomed, but encouraged.
If you have questions or comments about blog tours or my experience with them, you can leave a comment here or contact me through my website at www.donaldjbingle.com or at orphyte@aol.com.
Hope you enjoy the tour!
Aloha!
Don
Donald J. Bingle, Writer on Demand TM
Enter the blog tour. What's that? Blog tours are the social media equivalent of the old-fashioned book tour, where you and your latest book are promoted at a variety of sites over a limited amount of time. But, instead of traveling around the country doing readings and answering questions at bookstores (older readers may still remember those quaint places), a group of bloggers post interviews, Q & As, excerpts, and reviews about you and your latest book in rapid succession (generally one a day) over a period of several weeks, introducing their blog readership (which may overlap, but is NOT the same as your social media reach) to you and your book, with links to your website and book sales locations.
The bloggers may be fellow authors, book review sites, FB sites about the genre of writing that matches up to your latest release, or whatever. Thus, the social media reach of information about you and your book expands dramatically. Not only that, but the focus of the post can be tailored to the individual blog's focus. Local interest, a specific type of adventure, the tech involved in the plot, the writing habits which helped you produce the book, the locations which appear in the book, or whatever. You see, each blog post is different. The blogger conducts their own interview, the excerpts from the promoted book vary, and the reviews are unique.
One key to making a blog tour successful in boosting your sales is that they occur in rapid succession, so buyers from all of these different social media pools go to the book sales sites and buy your book in rapid succession, rather that having the sales spread out over months. The algorithms for Amazon and other sellers key off of rapid (or at least regular) sales over a short period of time. That can boost your sales rank, which can mean that your book gets listed higher on bestseller compilations or is picked by the mysterious workings of the algorithm to be promoted by the book seller to people completely unconnected to you, your blog, or any of the blogs on the blog tour. That lets you reach strangers who are looking for the type of book you have written.
So, how do you arrange a blog tour? If you are well-connected with other blogs or authors (maybe you've hosted other authors on your own blog), you might be able to put something together yourself, but many, many blog tours are put together by people who do that as a business. In my case, I used Let's Talk! Promotions (www.ltpromos.com) because it was recommended to me by Jean Rabe.
Mindy at LTP connected with some of her regular bloggers and some I had previously dealt with and coordinated a bunch of blogs over a two week period, gathered a variety of excerpts from my book for them, sent the book to those wanting review copies, and coordinated interview questions or topics for guest blogs by me, then put together a blog site and promoted the tour, which kicks off today. You can find the tour page here: http://www.ltpromos.com/2018/07/20/do... (There's currently a glitch with the first link, to Gail Martin's blog, but that should get fixed sometime soon.)
Blog tours also often have small contests connected with them in order to encourage bloggers and readers to promote the blog they've read on their own social media and to tune in to the rest of the blogs on the tour--hopefully increasing the chances that they or others will buy the promoted title(s).
By happenstance, I also got interviewed by another blog in connection with a story of mine being published by Gallery of Curiosities. I prioritized responding to that interview request, so it would also appear within the parameters of the blog tour timing. You can find it here: https://stevenrsouthard.com/author-in...
And, of course, I put together this blog about blog tours to not only educate my fellow writers about what they are, but to promote the blog tour and my latest book. What's the blog tour all about? It's about my latest spy thriller, Wet Work, and the release of the first book in that series, Net Impact. But then, if you regularly read my blog, you probably already know that. And, you probably already know that reviews are not just welcomed, but encouraged.
If you have questions or comments about blog tours or my experience with them, you can leave a comment here or contact me through my website at www.donaldjbingle.com or at orphyte@aol.com.
Hope you enjoy the tour!
Aloha!
Don
Donald J. Bingle, Writer on Demand TM
June 11, 2018
Release Date for Wet Work
Today is the official release date for Wet Work, my latest Dick Thornby Thriller. It is also the re-release date for the first Dick Thornby tale, Net Impact (now with a snazzy new cover).
So, for those of you who don't like to bother with Kickstarters or pre-orders, you can now get both titles in ebook format or print the regular way on Amazon, bn.com, and Kobo. Heck, Net Impact even has an audio version (though I am still working on getting them to update the cover). Links follow:
Net Impact, Amazon: http://a.co/beSzrUf
Net Impact, Nook, bn.com: https://read.barnesandnoble.com/book/...
Net Impact, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/net-...
Net Impact, Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Ne...
Wet Work, Amazon: http://a.co/1qni4lH
Wet Work, Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wet-...
Wet Work, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wet-...
Wet Work, PRINT: http://a.co/2il1eWS
For those of you who have already gotten and read their book(s), thanks so much. Reviews are welcomed on the site of your favorite bookseller or on Facebook, Goodreads, or your favorite blog.
Aloha,
Don
Writer on Demand TM
www.donaldjbingle.com
So, for those of you who don't like to bother with Kickstarters or pre-orders, you can now get both titles in ebook format or print the regular way on Amazon, bn.com, and Kobo. Heck, Net Impact even has an audio version (though I am still working on getting them to update the cover). Links follow:
Net Impact, Amazon: http://a.co/beSzrUf
Net Impact, Nook, bn.com: https://read.barnesandnoble.com/book/...
Net Impact, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/net-...
Net Impact, Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Ne...
Wet Work, Amazon: http://a.co/1qni4lH
Wet Work, Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wet-...
Wet Work, Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wet-...
Wet Work, PRINT: http://a.co/2il1eWS
For those of you who have already gotten and read their book(s), thanks so much. Reviews are welcomed on the site of your favorite bookseller or on Facebook, Goodreads, or your favorite blog.
Aloha,
Don
Writer on Demand TM
www.donaldjbingle.com
May 6, 2018
I Was First In Line For GenCon Event Registration
For those of you obsessing today over the queue for event registration for GenCon 51, going beserk over the minutes that have gone by without complete satisfaction, please do remember there was a time (yes, in those distant dark years before computers were everywhere) when GenCon's pre-registration booklet was sent out by mail. Worse yet, it was bulk mail, which meant wide variability on when different people in different places would get it. Worst, your registration (with check for fees) had to be sent in by mail (don't get me started on the fiasco of fax submission).
That meant that when you got the bulk mail pre-registration form, you immediately started planning your schedule (I always started by creating a grid of RPGA events, semis, and finals because that is what I did every day eight to noon, noon to four, four to eight, and eight to midnight). No key word searches--just read the booklet and write things down. Make up a schedule, write it on the form (complete with event number), calculate your fees, write a check, make out an envelope, stamp it, then rush to the post office to get it in the mail as soon as possible.
One year I was out of town on business when the booklet came in, so my wife called me at the hotel that evening and we worked out our schedules on the phone for a couple hours so she could send things in first thing the next morning.
Though nerve-wracking, this process was generally effective in getting me the events I wanted ... until the unthinkable happened. You see, one year the folks at TSR got the forms back from all of the compulsive types on the first possible reply date, opened them, cashed all the checks, then lost/discarded/fireballed? the forms without processing them. I knew there was trouble when I saw my check had been cashed but I was mailed no tickets. Frantic calls trying to fix the situation did nothing to help. And so, I arrived at the University of Wisconsin Parkside the Wednesday afternoon before GenCon with no tickets. By the time I got there in the afternoon, the line for onsite event registration was already mammoth and it would not open until 8 a.m. on Thursday. Sure, it was a friendly crowd (except when the guy with bagpipes played for too long in one spot) and many, many gamers I know met lifelong friends in that line, but that line would not get me the games I wanted. Worse yet, the entire onsite process was pretty much a disaster in those days.
You see, they would put up these giant pegboards with pegs on them. Each peg would have the pre-printed tickets for a given event hung on the peg (one-hole punch). In the room with the pegboards, there would also be a giant blackboard at the side with a list of sold out events listed by event number only. People would be let into the room ten or twelve at a time and would submit lists of six or so events to runners, who would then go look on the peg boards for the events and grab tickets, which could then be purchased near the exit. You had five minutes in the room, then were shuffled out with whatever you had managed to snag. There was a lot of pressure to get your first ask correct, because there was little time to figure out and ask for any replacement for a sold out ticket.
Worse yet, since there were many single run, non-sanctioned events which were not in the pre-registration booklet, you had to do this on the fly once you got the onsite registration booklet, which they didn't give you until you got in the door and were in the last thirty feet of the line before you got shuffled in to make your selections. No pressure, no pressure at all.
That wasn't going to work for me. No way, no how. But, what to do? Well, my brother, Rich, and I (probably Linda, too) wandered around the building at Parkside trying to get in so we could make our plea about lost forms to someone with authority. It being a large public building, we eventually got inside. In the course of our wanderings, we managed to snag a couple of the onsite registration booklets. SCORE! After plotting out our events, we then found some crazy busy TSR functionary and made our plea for special treatment because of the lost forms. No go, but they had lots of work which needed to be done before morning, so we struck a deal. We would carry product into the dealers' room and sort tickets for the pegboards ALL NIGHT for the privilege of getting to walk up to the table for on-site event registration right before they opened the door to the public.
That's how I got to be first (or maybe second, behind Rich) in line for event registration at GenCon thirty-five or so years ago. We worked all night and they were continuing to work us without respite as the sun rose. In fact, they would have continued to work us for a number of more hours, except at five minutes to eight, we just stopped what we were doing and walked up to the table for event registration with our lists in hand. The people in line outside the glass doors were not exactly happy we did so, since they'd been there for the better part of a day and night, but they hadn't been carrying boxes and sorting tickets. Heck, they might have even gotten some sleep.
So, when you pressed the button on your computer today for event registration for GenCon 51 and had to wait thirty, forty, or even more minutes for the computer to tell you what events you got, after doing your wish list with keyword sorting at a relaxing pace over the last several weeks, don't expect too much sympathy from me. First, I was there right along with you--I got only 4 of my 11 events after having hit the submit key within a second of it becoming active. But, more importantly, even though I spend more time writing than gaming now (www.donaldjbingle.com), I've been there with you for close to forty years and I have old, single-hole punched, pegboard tickets to prove it.
Donald J. Bingle
RPGA# 19722
P.S. You can pre-order my latest spy thriller, Wet Work, on Amazon at http://a.co/a1DBWjr .
That meant that when you got the bulk mail pre-registration form, you immediately started planning your schedule (I always started by creating a grid of RPGA events, semis, and finals because that is what I did every day eight to noon, noon to four, four to eight, and eight to midnight). No key word searches--just read the booklet and write things down. Make up a schedule, write it on the form (complete with event number), calculate your fees, write a check, make out an envelope, stamp it, then rush to the post office to get it in the mail as soon as possible.
One year I was out of town on business when the booklet came in, so my wife called me at the hotel that evening and we worked out our schedules on the phone for a couple hours so she could send things in first thing the next morning.
Though nerve-wracking, this process was generally effective in getting me the events I wanted ... until the unthinkable happened. You see, one year the folks at TSR got the forms back from all of the compulsive types on the first possible reply date, opened them, cashed all the checks, then lost/discarded/fireballed? the forms without processing them. I knew there was trouble when I saw my check had been cashed but I was mailed no tickets. Frantic calls trying to fix the situation did nothing to help. And so, I arrived at the University of Wisconsin Parkside the Wednesday afternoon before GenCon with no tickets. By the time I got there in the afternoon, the line for onsite event registration was already mammoth and it would not open until 8 a.m. on Thursday. Sure, it was a friendly crowd (except when the guy with bagpipes played for too long in one spot) and many, many gamers I know met lifelong friends in that line, but that line would not get me the games I wanted. Worse yet, the entire onsite process was pretty much a disaster in those days.
You see, they would put up these giant pegboards with pegs on them. Each peg would have the pre-printed tickets for a given event hung on the peg (one-hole punch). In the room with the pegboards, there would also be a giant blackboard at the side with a list of sold out events listed by event number only. People would be let into the room ten or twelve at a time and would submit lists of six or so events to runners, who would then go look on the peg boards for the events and grab tickets, which could then be purchased near the exit. You had five minutes in the room, then were shuffled out with whatever you had managed to snag. There was a lot of pressure to get your first ask correct, because there was little time to figure out and ask for any replacement for a sold out ticket.
Worse yet, since there were many single run, non-sanctioned events which were not in the pre-registration booklet, you had to do this on the fly once you got the onsite registration booklet, which they didn't give you until you got in the door and were in the last thirty feet of the line before you got shuffled in to make your selections. No pressure, no pressure at all.
That wasn't going to work for me. No way, no how. But, what to do? Well, my brother, Rich, and I (probably Linda, too) wandered around the building at Parkside trying to get in so we could make our plea about lost forms to someone with authority. It being a large public building, we eventually got inside. In the course of our wanderings, we managed to snag a couple of the onsite registration booklets. SCORE! After plotting out our events, we then found some crazy busy TSR functionary and made our plea for special treatment because of the lost forms. No go, but they had lots of work which needed to be done before morning, so we struck a deal. We would carry product into the dealers' room and sort tickets for the pegboards ALL NIGHT for the privilege of getting to walk up to the table for on-site event registration right before they opened the door to the public.
That's how I got to be first (or maybe second, behind Rich) in line for event registration at GenCon thirty-five or so years ago. We worked all night and they were continuing to work us without respite as the sun rose. In fact, they would have continued to work us for a number of more hours, except at five minutes to eight, we just stopped what we were doing and walked up to the table for event registration with our lists in hand. The people in line outside the glass doors were not exactly happy we did so, since they'd been there for the better part of a day and night, but they hadn't been carrying boxes and sorting tickets. Heck, they might have even gotten some sleep.
So, when you pressed the button on your computer today for event registration for GenCon 51 and had to wait thirty, forty, or even more minutes for the computer to tell you what events you got, after doing your wish list with keyword sorting at a relaxing pace over the last several weeks, don't expect too much sympathy from me. First, I was there right along with you--I got only 4 of my 11 events after having hit the submit key within a second of it becoming active. But, more importantly, even though I spend more time writing than gaming now (www.donaldjbingle.com), I've been there with you for close to forty years and I have old, single-hole punched, pegboard tickets to prove it.
Donald J. Bingle
RPGA# 19722
P.S. You can pre-order my latest spy thriller, Wet Work, on Amazon at http://a.co/a1DBWjr .
April 14, 2018
My First Brush With Hollywood
Most of you who know me know that I played a lot of table-top roleplaying game tournaments during the last twenty years of the last century. Not just the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons (mostly AD&D, 2nd Ed.), but Boot Hill, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Timemaster, Chill, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, and many, many more. Depending on how you count things, I played 460 (sometimes multi-round) RPGA tournaments in about sixty different game systems and settings and was the world's top-ranked player of classic RPG tournaments for fifteen years. This included playing many spy roleplaying adventures, like Top Secret and James Bond.
Around thirty years ago, my brother Rich and I wrote a James Bond spoof adventure for the RPGA. The actual writing occurred on the heels of watching all seventeen James Bond movies then existing in a marathon back-to-back video binge starting one Friday evening and ending a few minutes before midnight on Sunday (necessitating a quick dash to the Blockbuster to avoid late fees).
While watching, we filled out questionnaires on each of the movies, keeping track of things like most bullets fired without reloading and stupidest gadget (the heroin flavored banana on a shelf in Q's lab was my favorite of the latter). Our adventure included an opening action sequence, title credits, mission briefing, and selection of gadgets before getting down to the serious business of a preposterous plot, unnecessary parade, and secret villain's lair. The plot involved the various incarnations of 007 being sent to find the Queen’s kidnapped dog.
We had a fun time writing the scenario and running it at GenCon and a few other places, but then set it aside. Oh, sure, we tried to peddle it to Victory Games, the folks who put out the James Bond Roleplaying Game, but were told that "the James Bond Roleplaying Game is a serious game system." (This, from the people who put out an RPG with five-step seduction rules.) Victory Games had no intention of putting out any modules not based on the movies (you know, adventures where the players wouldn't already know the plot). They suggested submitting it to Tales of the Floating Vagabond, but that was a rejection, too.
I always thought the adventure would make a good screenplay, but didn’t really know what to do with it (this was pre-Austin Powers days), so sat on the notion for several years until I saw Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. My “eureka” moment came when I realized the adventure could be turned into an Ace Ventura sequel. I wrote it up (formatting it without buying screenplay formatting software—a mistake that resulted in much tedium), naming it “For Queen and Queenie.”
I did my research, locating Jim Carrey’s agent’s name (there is a phone number at SAG which will get you contact information for actors’ agents). Knowing better than to fall for the amateur trap of sending off an unsolicited manuscript, I sent off a query letter to the agent. Sure, Ace Ventura 2 had just come out, but I just took that as confirmation that the franchise was open to sequels.
Imagine my surprise and delight a few days later when I got a call from Jim Carrey’s agent’s assistant du jour asking if I could send in the full screenplay for review. I said “Yes.” (No duh!) A quick trip to FedEx and my script was off to Hollywood, as requested. Then I waited. And I waited some more.
Now, I know not to harass people who are reviewing my writing—they generally don’t have the time to put up with anxious writers and unwanted contact is a sign of an amateur. But, after six weeks I called and got the agent’s latest assistant du jour, told him I didn’t want to be a pest, but wanted to know the status of the review of my screenplay. He consulted his notes/computer (who can tell over the phone?) and informed me that my screenplay had been forwarded on to Jim Carrey’s manager for consideration and that they’d be getting back to me one way or the other.
I was ecstatic. What could be cooler than finding out your screenplay had been forwarded by a big agent at one of Hollywood’s biggest agencies to a world-famous actor’s manager? I’ll tell you what. Finding that out the day before you go to your high school reunion, so when people ask you what's new you can say “My screenplay just got sent by Jim Carrey's agent to his manager for consideration.” Worth the effort of writing the screenplay just to say that.
Then six weeks more went by. I called the agent again and got yet another new assistant du jour. Asked the same question I’d asked the last time around and, after a few moments of paper shuffling (or keyboard tapping), got the same response. But, this time I was ready for a follow-up question. “So, let me make sure I understand this correctly,” I said. “This means that someone—most likely a reader—read my screenplay and liked it well enough to recommend it to [famous agent], who then either read it or a summary of it and liked it well enough to send it on to Jim Carrey’s agent for Jim Carrey to consider. Right?”
There was a brief moment of silence that stretched to eternity. “Yes,” came the reply. “But you need to understand something. Jim Carrey’s agent is notoriously slow. We will get back to you, one way or the other, but it could be a while.”
So, I waited some more. About a month or so later, I saw that Jim Carrey was supposed to be on The Tonight Show, so I tuned in. After some opening jovialities, Jay Leno says “So, I understand you’re between projects. What do you do with your time?”
Jim: “Well, I'm supposed to be reading. My manager sent over a big pile of screenplays for me to read.” He makes a motion indicating a stack about three feet high. I imagine my screenplay two feet from the top. “But I hate reading screenplays, so mostly I just goof off.”
I’m still waiting for them to get back to me. Unfortunately for me, Jim's career went another direction. Oh, I dusted off the screenplay at some point and genericized it (taking out the Ace Ventura catchphrases, names, and mannerisms), but then Austin Powers came out, and, well, I knew I had missed my shot.
Two more things.
First, this blog often contains writing tips and you may be wondering about what tips are included in this posting. Well, besides the advice about how to deal with agents and screenplay formatting, let’s talk for just a moment about suspense. What was the title to this blog? My First Brush With Hollywood. That implies more than one, so I have set you up, gentle reader, to wonder about what the second one might be. That will hopefully make you anticipate my next blog and maybe even check in to see when it might be posted.
Second, nothing is wasted when you write. Sure, you may never use the awful prose you generate for some discarded project, but that doesn’t mean you don’t learn something about what constitutes awful prose. Or you could have used some artful turn of phrase or come up with a clever plot point or character attribute or somesuch in the midst of the awful prose that will help you later on. Not only did I learn to always use screenplay formatting software when writing a screenplay, I thought long and hard about what made a good Bond movie and a good Ace Ventura movie in the course of this writing project. That’s education that came into play when I was first asked to write the spy thriller that became Net Impact, which in turn led to writing my latest spy novel, Wet Work.
Everything now comes full circle in the current Kickstarter to publish Wet Work, because one of the cool rewards you can get for backing is for me to run you and up to five of your friends in the original James Bond spoof roleplaying adventure I wrote with my brother Rich almost thirty years ago. One lucky backer has already snagged a session. But, there’s one more session left. Check it out, along with all the other details of my Kickstarter, at http://kck.st/2GP08ja. Then, you can decide how much my Bond RPG spoof has influenced my spy thriller novels. One clue, there are no heroin flavored bananas in my books.
Sorry, Q.
Aloha,
Don
Around thirty years ago, my brother Rich and I wrote a James Bond spoof adventure for the RPGA. The actual writing occurred on the heels of watching all seventeen James Bond movies then existing in a marathon back-to-back video binge starting one Friday evening and ending a few minutes before midnight on Sunday (necessitating a quick dash to the Blockbuster to avoid late fees).
While watching, we filled out questionnaires on each of the movies, keeping track of things like most bullets fired without reloading and stupidest gadget (the heroin flavored banana on a shelf in Q's lab was my favorite of the latter). Our adventure included an opening action sequence, title credits, mission briefing, and selection of gadgets before getting down to the serious business of a preposterous plot, unnecessary parade, and secret villain's lair. The plot involved the various incarnations of 007 being sent to find the Queen’s kidnapped dog.
We had a fun time writing the scenario and running it at GenCon and a few other places, but then set it aside. Oh, sure, we tried to peddle it to Victory Games, the folks who put out the James Bond Roleplaying Game, but were told that "the James Bond Roleplaying Game is a serious game system." (This, from the people who put out an RPG with five-step seduction rules.) Victory Games had no intention of putting out any modules not based on the movies (you know, adventures where the players wouldn't already know the plot). They suggested submitting it to Tales of the Floating Vagabond, but that was a rejection, too.
I always thought the adventure would make a good screenplay, but didn’t really know what to do with it (this was pre-Austin Powers days), so sat on the notion for several years until I saw Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. My “eureka” moment came when I realized the adventure could be turned into an Ace Ventura sequel. I wrote it up (formatting it without buying screenplay formatting software—a mistake that resulted in much tedium), naming it “For Queen and Queenie.”
I did my research, locating Jim Carrey’s agent’s name (there is a phone number at SAG which will get you contact information for actors’ agents). Knowing better than to fall for the amateur trap of sending off an unsolicited manuscript, I sent off a query letter to the agent. Sure, Ace Ventura 2 had just come out, but I just took that as confirmation that the franchise was open to sequels.
Imagine my surprise and delight a few days later when I got a call from Jim Carrey’s agent’s assistant du jour asking if I could send in the full screenplay for review. I said “Yes.” (No duh!) A quick trip to FedEx and my script was off to Hollywood, as requested. Then I waited. And I waited some more.
Now, I know not to harass people who are reviewing my writing—they generally don’t have the time to put up with anxious writers and unwanted contact is a sign of an amateur. But, after six weeks I called and got the agent’s latest assistant du jour, told him I didn’t want to be a pest, but wanted to know the status of the review of my screenplay. He consulted his notes/computer (who can tell over the phone?) and informed me that my screenplay had been forwarded on to Jim Carrey’s manager for consideration and that they’d be getting back to me one way or the other.
I was ecstatic. What could be cooler than finding out your screenplay had been forwarded by a big agent at one of Hollywood’s biggest agencies to a world-famous actor’s manager? I’ll tell you what. Finding that out the day before you go to your high school reunion, so when people ask you what's new you can say “My screenplay just got sent by Jim Carrey's agent to his manager for consideration.” Worth the effort of writing the screenplay just to say that.
Then six weeks more went by. I called the agent again and got yet another new assistant du jour. Asked the same question I’d asked the last time around and, after a few moments of paper shuffling (or keyboard tapping), got the same response. But, this time I was ready for a follow-up question. “So, let me make sure I understand this correctly,” I said. “This means that someone—most likely a reader—read my screenplay and liked it well enough to recommend it to [famous agent], who then either read it or a summary of it and liked it well enough to send it on to Jim Carrey’s agent for Jim Carrey to consider. Right?”
There was a brief moment of silence that stretched to eternity. “Yes,” came the reply. “But you need to understand something. Jim Carrey’s agent is notoriously slow. We will get back to you, one way or the other, but it could be a while.”
So, I waited some more. About a month or so later, I saw that Jim Carrey was supposed to be on The Tonight Show, so I tuned in. After some opening jovialities, Jay Leno says “So, I understand you’re between projects. What do you do with your time?”
Jim: “Well, I'm supposed to be reading. My manager sent over a big pile of screenplays for me to read.” He makes a motion indicating a stack about three feet high. I imagine my screenplay two feet from the top. “But I hate reading screenplays, so mostly I just goof off.”
I’m still waiting for them to get back to me. Unfortunately for me, Jim's career went another direction. Oh, I dusted off the screenplay at some point and genericized it (taking out the Ace Ventura catchphrases, names, and mannerisms), but then Austin Powers came out, and, well, I knew I had missed my shot.
Two more things.
First, this blog often contains writing tips and you may be wondering about what tips are included in this posting. Well, besides the advice about how to deal with agents and screenplay formatting, let’s talk for just a moment about suspense. What was the title to this blog? My First Brush With Hollywood. That implies more than one, so I have set you up, gentle reader, to wonder about what the second one might be. That will hopefully make you anticipate my next blog and maybe even check in to see when it might be posted.
Second, nothing is wasted when you write. Sure, you may never use the awful prose you generate for some discarded project, but that doesn’t mean you don’t learn something about what constitutes awful prose. Or you could have used some artful turn of phrase or come up with a clever plot point or character attribute or somesuch in the midst of the awful prose that will help you later on. Not only did I learn to always use screenplay formatting software when writing a screenplay, I thought long and hard about what made a good Bond movie and a good Ace Ventura movie in the course of this writing project. That’s education that came into play when I was first asked to write the spy thriller that became Net Impact, which in turn led to writing my latest spy novel, Wet Work.
Everything now comes full circle in the current Kickstarter to publish Wet Work, because one of the cool rewards you can get for backing is for me to run you and up to five of your friends in the original James Bond spoof roleplaying adventure I wrote with my brother Rich almost thirty years ago. One lucky backer has already snagged a session. But, there’s one more session left. Check it out, along with all the other details of my Kickstarter, at http://kck.st/2GP08ja. Then, you can decide how much my Bond RPG spoof has influenced my spy thriller novels. One clue, there are no heroin flavored bananas in my books.
Sorry, Q.
Aloha,
Don
April 4, 2018
New Kickstarter Launched
Launched the Kickstarter yesterday for my new spy thriller, Wet Work, and the re-release of Net Impact, the first in the Dick Thornby Thriller series. Got some great early bird pricing and plenty of stretch goals, including books from Kelly Swails and Buck Hanno. Not going to repeat the pitch here because I'd much rather you clicked through to the site and took a look. That way, you can pledge on the spot and hit the handy icons near the top which let you share the Kickstarter with your friends and fellow readers.
The book is already written; the funding goal is already halfway to being met after just one day. Pledge with confidence.
http://kck.st/2Edrc6p
Aloha!
Don
The book is already written; the funding goal is already halfway to being met after just one day. Pledge with confidence.
http://kck.st/2Edrc6p
Aloha!
Don
