Michael Montoure's Blog, page 8

Pre-Order My New Book, “Permanent Damage!”

It’s finally here! Well, almost! My new collection of short stories, PERMANENT DAMAGE, is finished and will be available at Amazon on October 1st, 2012! I’m really excited about this one — I honestly think it’s my scariest, most well-written collection yet. I can’t wait to see what you think of it.

Want to get your hands on a copy now? Pre-order the book before October 1st and you can download a PDF copy of the uncorrected proof now, and I will send you a copy of the print edition and the finished e-book edition as soon as they’re available. Not cool enough? Did I mention that your name will be on a “Special Thanks” page in the book?

Just use the PayPal “Buy Now” link below. (You don’t have to have a PayPal account, just a credit or debit card.) Shipping is included in the price, but if you live in the Seattle area and would rather pick up a signed copy in person, I’ll be having a reading next month and will probably also be having a book-release party, so let me know if you’d rather do that instead. Thanks so much! Tell your friends!

“PERMANENT DAMAGE” PRE-ORDER: $20.00

 

Wednesday Writing Links for September 12, 2012

Everyone seemed to like last week’s post — at least, judging by the number of retweets the link received, you did — so all right, then. Looks like this is a thing we do here now. Let’s get to it.

Twitter Hashtags for Writers, Authors, and Self-Publishers | Self-Publishing Resources (I’m always on the lookout for the best hashtags — search keywords for Twitter, basically — to help reach a wider audience.)
Where Can You Promote Your Free Ebook? | Lindsay Buroker (Giving away free books is the best way to get reviews, but getting the word out can be a challenge.)
The Top Places To Submit Your Free Kindle Select Books By Jim Kukral | Book Marketing Strategies and Tips For Authors (Variations on a theme.)
Guest Post: How To Make a Chilling Book Trailer by RED RIBBONS author Louise Philips « Catherine, Caffeinated (I’ve got one of these coming soon, myself. Will post it here when it’s ready.)
Creating a Screensaver of Your Favorite Books. | The Passive Voice (This is a really neat idea, and maybe I’ll do this whenever I finally manage to get a great big flatscreen TV.)

On a more personal note, I’ve got a pretty exciting announcement coming tomorrow — I’ve contacted some of you about it directly already, and those of you who are subscribed to my newsletter will find out later this afternoon, but for the rest of you, watch this space. (Not literally. I mean, check back tomorrow. I mean, you can just sit there and keep hitting “refresh” if you want, but I think that’d be a little weird. I’m just saying.)

This week’s free story: “Puppets”

A nice, creepy little piece to get your weekend off to a bad start. Please share this link with your friends, and please leave me a review if you like it. Thanks!

Don’t have a Kindle? Get one here, or download a free Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet!

Puppets

A SHADOW MARKET STORY — Will makes a very good living selling animates — dolls and figures, spellbound with a spark that mimics life. He’s never been asked to track down the same doll twice before — but if he can’t, it will be the end of his career, and possibly his life ….

Free from September 7, 2012 through September 9, 2012!  Download now »

This short story originally appeared in the collection “SLICES,” available now.





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Wednesday Writing Links for September 5th, 2012

When I first started this blog, and when I was still writing my old blog, Ravenlike, my original emphasis was on finding great links about writing and then posting about them. I’ve kind of drifted away from doing that, as I’ve found my own voice here — partly because it’s hard to keep coming up with things to say about them beyond just, “Hey this is a really cool article, you should go take a look at it.”

I still keep finding links I want to share with you all, though, so I’m stealing a page from Jay Lake’s funny and informative Link Salad and just start doing these link-blogging compilation posts.

(To think of it another way, ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the point of the party where I have given up on my carefully-arranged trays of hors d’oeuvres and have just started tearing open bags of BBQ chips and just leaving the whole bag on whatever convenient flat surface has the fewest empty beer bottles in the way. Please to enjoy.)

13 Simple Steps to Formatting Your Ebook: Using Microsoft Word 2010 (Which I think is the wrong tool, honestly — it’s like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw — gut if you’re determined to do it, you could do worse than follow this guide.)
Why Self-Published Books Look Self-Published — The Book Designer (I’ve been guilty of leaving off catogory and price, myself’. Hmm.)
Wise, Ink. | The 7 Secret Weapons of Groundbreaking Indie Authors [Plus Infographic] (Nothing all that secret, but a good overview of the basics.)
Facebook for Authors: Understanding EdgeRank | BookBaby Blog (I wish I didn’t even have to think about Facebook, but I do.)
Guy Kawasaki: The Doctrine of Self-Publishing | Kirkus Book Blog Network | Kirkus Book Reviews (A nice outline of reasons to choose self-publishing over the traditional route.)
Why are there so few standalone books? | Children’s books | guardian.co.uk (That’s a damn fine question.)

Oh, I should mention — all of this week’s links are from posts I retweeted from @annerallen, @duolit, and @darairene, who are all worth your time to follow on the Twitters.

Why Are Writers Buying Fake Reviews When Getting Real Ones Is Just Not That Hard?

In the past week, there’s been a sudden tremendous uproar about authors getting fake reviews of their books posted to Amazon and other review sites. Some writers have been caught using pseudonyms to post glowing reviews of their own work, and even worse, using them to post negative reviews of books by their rivals. Other writers haven’t wanted to put in all the time and effort required to defraud people themselves, and have just paid people to write reviews.

(If your first reaction to that news is to smack your forehead and proclaim, “Why didn’t I think of that?” — then please just quietly close your browser window and walk away, because we’re not friends anymore, okay? Okay.)

I hear even John Locke, millionaire poster-boy for the self-publishing movement, has bought a ton of reviews, which, you know, kinda destroys any credibility he ever had, really.

Putting aside for a second how lousy and fraudulent this kind of behavior is, all I want to know is — why would you even do that when getting actual, legitimate reviews for your book is not exactly rocket science?

Speaking as someone who’s starting to get a decent number of really fantastic reviews for my books, let me lay out for you how it’s done:

Write a damn good book. Okay, yeah, that’s the hard part. But here’s the truth — if you’re not already confident that your book can stand on its own and garner good reviews without making them up or paying someone to say nice things, then you have no business publishing the damn book. You’re asking readers to spend their money and time on it, then it better be worth some good reviews on its own merits. If you don’t think it’s ready to be sent around the block without training wheels, then rewrite it until it is. Or throw it away and write a new one.

Send it out to book bloggers. Believe me, there are a ton of them out there, and yes, there are some that specialize in your genre, and yes, a large percentage of them will accept self-published work. If you don’t know how to find them, here, let me point you in the right direction. Once you find them, you ask them very nicely if they would please review your book. See, what you do is, you look for their posted submission guidelines, and then you follow them. Again, not really that challenging a concept.

Get ready to give away a ton of books. If you can afford to give away a few print editions, then you can do a giveaway on Goodreads. (And there’s no reason not to contact the entrants who didn’t win and offer them a free e-book instead.) Do an e-book giveaway on LibraryThing. Post a giveaway on your blog, and spread the word by joining a multi-author “blog hop” like the annual Coffin Hop Horror Web Tour. Let people know that you have a standing offer to send anyone a free e-book to review, any time, and all they have to do is ask. (Hint, hint.) Just get the word out there, get your book out there, and the reviews will start coming in.

That’s it. It’s easy. Yeah, this is all going to take time and effort, but this is a long game. There are no shortcuts — hell, if you’re a self-publisher, you’re already taking the biggest shortcut this industry’s ever seen. Slow down a little there, Tex.

Remember that aside from trying to move a few books off the shelves, you’re also trying to build a reputation, one that will follow you the rest of your career. Take some time and care with it; take the slower path, the one that doesn’t involve breaking Amazon’s terms of service, FTC Endorsement Guide rules, or, you know, your reader’s trust.

Typing With One Hand (No, Not Like That)

You might rememeber a few weeks back I was talking about some carpal-tunnel-like pain and numbness I was experiencing in my left hand, and how that led me to start trying Dragon NaturallySpeaking dictation software for text entry (or, as you might like to call it, “writing”).

It worked pretty well, and if that seems like something you might like, I’d recommend it. But I was finding it a little inconvenient — I like to work in coffee shops and libraries, and there’s no way I’m going to be yammering into a microphone somewhere like that.

So instead I’ve been typing with just my right hand. You ever try that? Go on, try it.

Slow, isn’t it? Your hand has to just keep moving back and forth too far over the keyboard. The layout just isn’t meant for it, obviously.

It turns out there is a keyboard layout designed for it — Dvorak for right hand. There’s nothing special I had to download to switch to it — it’s an option within Windows.

I didn’t really want to yank the keys off of my netbook and re-arrange them, so I went with the less drastic method of ordering these keyboard stickers. They weren’t super-expensive, they arrived quickly, they seem pretty durable, and they look good. Check it:

click to embiggen

The result? I’m trying it out right now — I’m writing this whole post with it. It’s actually pretty easy for me to switch, since I’ve always been a hunt-and-peck typist anyway (albeit a very fast one). I am having trouble getting used to where they’ve put the period key, and I seem to have some weird mental block about where the “G” is located. But otherwise, it seems fine.

So is this slower than typing on a standard keyboard with both hands? Oh, yeah. A lot. Mainly because I’m not used to it yet, I think. But despite my unfamiliarity, this already feels faster than one-handed typing on a regular layout. This is a promising start.

(My left hand is starting to feel better, by the way. But this will help give it the break it needs in the meantime.)

This week’s free story : “Lost Boy”

Here’s a strange little fairytale for you this week, one of my favorites. As always, please share this link with your friends, and please leave me a review if you like it. Thanks!

Don’t have a Kindle? Get one here, or download a free Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet!

Lost Boy

Andrew ran away to The Woods to be alone, to live however he wanted. Instead, he found the brother he’d never had, which was so much better than being alone — and so much more dangerous ….

Free from August 17, 2012 through August 19, 2012!  Download now »

This short story originally appeared in the collection “SLICES,” available now.





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“Zombies Don’t Run, Vampires Don’t Sparkle”

Oh, hey, look what I just found while I was doing a Google search for “Michael Montoure”1 — it’s the audio from one of the panels I was on at Crypticon back in May!   The panel was called “Zombies Can’t Run & Vampires Don’t Sparkle: The Psychology of Why We Argue Over What Fictional Things Can Or Can’t Do”, with myself, Derek M. Koch, Eloise J. Knapp, Jake Stratton, Chris Saint, and Steve Holetz. (That’s me on the right there, in my fetching Friday the 13th hockey jersey.)

The audio from the panel is included as part of an episode of a podcast called Mail Order Zombie. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole episode yet, but the audio from the panel starts at 54 minutes and 13 seconds in.

This was a damn entertaining panel to be on — everyone on it was sharp, witty, and passionate and well-informed about the genre. (And yes, I am humbly including myself in that description.) Thought-provoking and funny stuff.

Go give it a listen: Mail Order Zombie #186 – Dust, Don Coscarelli & another Crypitcon panel (plus music by H2Awesome!)

_______

1. What? Oh, come on, it’s not like you never Google yourself. There’s nothing wrong with it, so long as you do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

This week’s free story: The Thirteenth Boy

Please share with your friends, and consider leaving me a review if you like it, won’t you?

Don’t have a Kindle? Get one here, or download a free Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet!

The Thirteenth Boy

Johnny Lee Edwards has killed a dozen young men, and the papers are calling him a monster. If he has his way, Timothy will be the thirteenth — but Timothy has met monsters before ….

Free from August 10, 2012 through August 12, 2012!  Download now »

This short story originally appeared in the collection “SLICES,” available now.





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How to Brainstorm Ideas for Blog Posts

I apologize to any non-bloggers out there reading this, if this post seems a little too “inside baseball.” I haven’t talked much about blogging here on BLOODLETTERS, because I generally think blogging about blogging is too self-referential. (Of course, now I’m blogging about blogging about blogging, but let’s not get into that.) A fair number of the people who comment here have blogs of their own, so I thought this post might be useful to them. If this isn’t your cup of tea, I’m sorry, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about, I don’t know, haunted aquariums or something.

First off, let me admit this — I wrote this post because when I sat down to brainstorm a bunch of post ideas for BLOODLETTERS, a post about “how to brainstorm blog post ideas” was one of the first ideas that popped into my blank little head. (Either my subconscious was being overly literal, or it was being sarcastic.) But here’s the interesting thing — I decided to brainstorm ideas because I wanted to post something, but couldn’t think of anything. As soon as it was “just brainstorming,” though — in other words, as soon as I freed myself from the apparently overwhelming task of having to “actually” write a post, I could suddenly think of all kinds of things to write about. Funny how that works.

I created a new directory in my Dropbox folder, so that its contents would sync automatically between my laptop and my home PC. (If you’re not using Dropbox, you really should. I think it’s one of the best tools a writer can have. But that’s a post for another day. Oh, look, there’s another idea.) I called the folder “Blog Posts,” and I just started creating new text files in it — one new text file for each idea, using the topic of the blog post as the name of the file.

If I did have any ideas or notes or relevant URLs to contribute to one of these posts, I just opened the file, quickly jotted them down, and then closed the file again. Each one of these files then becomes an IOU to myself, a promissory note. And since all I’m doing for the most part is just creating blank files, it feels effortless. Try it and see what you think.

Okay, that’s great, Montoure, you’re thinking, but how do you come up with the actual ideas?

First of all, don’t try too hard. If you sit there, desperately trying to come up with a wonderful idea, the best idea, a post that will make you readers weep openly, you’re just going to find yourself staring at a blank screen. Give yourself permission to come up with any idea, no matter how ridiculous or trivial, act like you’re just playing, and soon enough you’ll find the good ideas are coming all by themselves.

Think about the things you always rant about to your friends. Imagine sitting down with your friends over coffee and talking to them about the kinds of things you talk about on your blog — in my case, horror movies, writing, the future of the printed book versus the e-book, and the rising dominance of self-publishing. (Either I happen to know a lot of people who are genuinely interested in these things, or I have some very indulgent friends.) There are probably certain topics that keep coming up in these conversations, certain points you keep making. Just turn them into blog posts.

Think about posts you’ve enjoyed on other blogs recently. If you’re a blogger, then I assume you probably read a number of blogs on topics similar to your own. I’m not suggesting you should just steal ideas from them wholesale, but do think about posts you’ve read that struck a spark in your brain. See what your own answers are to questions they raise.

Think about things you’ve already posted. Surely not every single one of your posts is your definitive final word on that particular subject. If you posted about some current news item or trend, that might be worth revisiting: have there been new developments you can talk about? If you posted your opinion about something, how about turning that idea around — for example, suppose you posted about your all-time favorite plot twists in movies. Well, why not post about your least favorite plot twists?

Pretend you’re reading the best blog ever. This last idea may seem kind of stupid, but it actually helped me generate some decent ideas. Suppose you found a great new blog whose author writes about the same topics you write about. Each post has you thinking, man, this is great advice, this is something I wish someone would’ve told me a long time ago, and so on. You don’t have to imagine it in any detail — just the headlines. Then write those down. And then, who knows — once you actually start writing those posts, maybe someday someone out there will be looking at your blog thinking, man, this is the best blog ever.