Jason Halstead's Blog, page 23

Cheap and Easy?

My secret to selling books has never been a secret. I keep the prices low and I make it as easy as possible for people to buy them. There’s no trick to setting the price low so I won’t bother going into detail there, but I will offer up some suggestions for writers wondering how to make it easier for people to get their books.

There are multiple ways to draw attention to your books. Sadly, there are also multiple people who use these ways. Thus your book might be out there and available, but it’s just one book floating amongst a few thousand others. Having great cover art will help, provided it’s followed by a catchy blurb and some other tools to help reinforce that it’s worth buying (e.g. some good reviews).

Amazon’s various lists help make your book visible to people, but like I said, your book may be one of a thousand on said list. Sure, if you can get on a top 100 list you’ll go further with it, but how do you get there in the first place? Well thanks for asking!

The obvious answer is to write a damn good book. That, combined with good editing, is first and foremost. Then comes the cover, blurb, and reviews. Somewhere along the way you need to also maximize the amount of people that can get to your book and the ease with which they can get there. This is where having a website and using social media can come in handy.

I’ve got a Twitter account that’s creeping up on 18,000 followers. Some of those are even real people and not Twitter spam bots trying to convince me that a free iPad will be delivered by a teenage transsexual if I just retweet their posts. Yes, can be a little scary at times on social media.

The point is that Twitter has helped me over the last couple of years. Not immensely, but it has definitely helped. Not so much in sales as in being able to meet and communicate with people. I met most of my editors through Twitter and I’ve had a lot of conversations with fans. I’ve also helped out fellow writers and been helped in return. I think it’s a great tool and I highly recommend it. Plus I can keep fans abreast of special deals or new books via Twitter, as well as promote my blog and website(s).

Facebook? Sure! It’s another tool for keeping in touch with readers and notifying them of what’s going on. Not a huge sales force, if at all, but great for disseminating information.

Google Plus? I have a profile but I do nothing with it. Shame on me? Maybe – I’ve found it to be awkward to use and just not worth it. LinkedIn is similar, although slightly more friendly. It seems to cater to a different type of crowd than what I’m after though so I don’t get too caught up in it.

Now we’re down to my website and my blog. Hey, you’re reading it now! It must be working, right? Well sort of. It works for reaching out and posting my thoughts and helping other writers. It doesn’t do a heck of a lot for book sales though, even though I do my best to pimp my books on here every chance I get. I’d offer an example of the book pimping that would seem a little shallow, even for me.

So that takes me to other ways of making it easy to find my books. That brings up the beauty of ebooks. An ebook is an interactive document, to a certain degree. Links contained in that document are therefore live and useful. If somebody reads a book and likes it and is considering looking for more books by me, why not make it easy for them and put the links in each and every book I publish?

The tricky part is keeping them up to date. That requires uploading new versions frequently. It’s a pain but trust me, it’s worth it. I have no doubt that putting the links at the beginning of a book to other books in the series of the one the reader is reading has helped me out. I also put links to all of my books in the back of each book. Maybe it’s a pain keeping them updated but I’m certain it helps. As a reader I know I’m happy to have links at hand instead of having to look something up. Especially since at any moment my doorbell might ring with a free iPad and distract me from the book I was supposed to look up.

That’s it. Really. I try to find as many places and ways as possible to make my books available. Sometimes I even work with other writers to swap links in their books, although this is uncommon, at best. Between that and offering free books to readers to get them interested (and provide them with links once they’re interested), I’ve built up my small kingdom. More of a barony, really, but I have aspirations! I’ve got 32 books for sale right now and by early April I hope to have 2 more available (my 6th space fantasy book: Voidhawk – The Edge of Forever, and a boxed set called Blades of Leander that contains Child of Fate, Victim of Fate, and Silver Dragon). In May I hope to release Vitalis: Provenance, the third full length novel in the science fiction series, taking me up to 35 published titles. All of them with links to other books in them to make it easy for readers to grab more of my books!

 To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

How to Read a Book While Blindfolded

It’s one of the many tricks my readers will soon be able to master, thanks to my books being turned into Audiobooks. I have four of them in the works right now, Wanted, Dark Earth, Child of Fate, and lastly The Lost Girls. All of them the first books in a series, which bodes well provided the sales are decent enough to justify converting the remaining books into audio as well.

But my readers won’t be the only ones benefitting from this process. I’m learning a lot too! Not just about the audiobook creation process but about my own writing. I’ll use Dark Earth for my first example – while listening to the narration of it by the superbly talented producer I noted how there were parts were the story dragged a little. Duly noted, I can use that knowledge in future books to keep things moving faster. The flow was there, it was just a slow paragraph or two that delved into the character’s past.

Example #2 comes from someone that I’m extraordinarily excited to be working with on The Lost Girls. I won’t release their name until the project is finished and the audiobook is available, but I will say that this individual has had several movie roles and co-starred in multiple television shows, including both Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU. This person helped me to take my books from being just a series of images in my head and words on paper to something real. And helped me figure out where things just didn’t make sense and needed to be fixed. That sort of education is invaluable for making sure future books are even better.

Case in point, I’ll be using the lessons learned on my current project, Vitalis: Provenance. So far I’m weaving together a biologist with ulterior motives anxious to get her hands on some samples from Vitalis and a transport ship’s crew that is dealing with the horror of having one of their member infected with something special from Vitalis – except they don’t realize it’s happened quite yet. Muahahaha.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

 

Ever Wanted a Threesome?

How’s that for a catchy title? Of course I’m taking about my Wanted trilogy – what were you thinking?

Anyhow, all 3 of the Wanted series books (Wanted, Ice Princess, and Bounty)  are now available in a digital boxed set called, wait for it, the Wanted Trilogy. Catchy, isn’t it?

There’s nothing new in this if you’ve got all 3 of the other books. But if you don’t then check it out, it’s cheaper than buying them individually and saves you a little hassle when you’re sorting through books on your Kindle. Now, without further delay, here’s the blurb and the cover. Oh, one final note, it’s only available on Amazon (and the international Amazon sites).

WANTED

Sergeant First Class Carl Waters left the army behind before the bomb went off in L.A. He lived off the grid, avoiding the fallout from the bombs and the Burnout Fever that ravaged the world. With the occasional trespasser to keep his skills sharp, life was smooth and settled and exactly how he wanted it.

All that changed when three stragglers showed up that he didn’t have the heart to turn away. Two children led by a shepherd who had lost her own way, Carl felt the sins of his past had finally come calling. Especially when it turned out the children had their own demons in pursuit.

On the run once again, they must survive the North American badlands, an enemy with unlimited resources, and each other. Ultimately it will come down to Carl to decide just how much he is willing to sacrifice for the safety of his charges.

ICE PRINCESS

Tanya Kurkova is still wanted. This time her father has sent a new hunter after her to make sure the technology used to rebuild won’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. This time hunter has the same technology plus years of experience and unlimited resources.

What he doesn’t have is a clear memory of the last year of his life. The answers to his questions lie in the desolate wilderness of southeastern Utah.

For Tanya once escape becomes impossible only one option remains: revenge.

BOUNTY

The U.S. government has reclaimed the abandoned western states but the law remains the province of whoever has the biggest gun. Life was good, if boring, for retired special forces operator Carl Waters and his wife Jessie until she received an offer to reprise her acting career and star in a new role. When a hired gun tries to kill Jessie on the set of her new movie they discover that their newfound fame is not the blessing they’d hoped for.

Carl has to defend his family from the loose ends of their old lives. That, or avenge them.

Amazon

Amazon UK

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

Just a Little Saturday Test Blog

I don’t have a lot to say this morning, I’m just doing some work on my blog and Triberr (a tool for sharing my blog to other interested parties). Changing blog hosts and dealing with Triberr’s recent server crash had complicated my life a little, but I’m working through said complications.

I do have some exciting news on the writing front though. Voidhawk – The Edge of Forever is in the hands of the editor and I already have cover art ready to go! Hope to launch it in very early April. I’ve also started in on my next would-be bestseller, Vitalis: Provenance.

Regarding the next Vitalis book I think it’s extra important that I point out I wasn’t sure which book I was going to work on next. I shared this with the people I send my newsletter out to and encouraged feedback. One reader who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent suggested Vitalis and even tossed out some ideas of things he’d like to see. It just so turned out that John and I shared some thoughts and ideas for the series and it fired up my creative juices. Now I’m on chapter 3 and I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff planned out for it.

My point is that never be afraid to send feedback to me or any other writer. Sure, there may be some pricks out there but it might also end up turning you into a part of something.

Now back to my regularly scheduled testing.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

The Art of Sales

I checked and, unfortunately, Sun Tzu wasn’t available to write this post. Darn shame too, since I’m fumbling my way through trying one thing after another to get people to buy my books. Ultimately I’ve found that quality matters most. If the story is good and the book is solid grammatically it slowly gets recognized over time. And by slowly I mean glacial.

The problem is that there’s a lot of competition out there. Amazon does a great job of making things available and displaying them to would-be readers. The problem is that there are a lot of other books out there and Amazon’s ranking system is based on sales. If you sell a lot of books then you’ll be seen more often because of their system. Similar to an old fashioned brick and mortar book store, but yet it’s also different.

Walk into a Barnes and Noble store and you’ll see the big name books displayed prominently. Every single time. Walk in and buy the latest Patterson book and then head in tomorrow and that same book is on the same display. Buy that book via Amazon and then log back in a week later and Amazon knows you bought that book already. It shows you something else related to it instead. That’s cool. Buy enough books and you’ll eventually start seeing books from less known authors that are in the same genre.

They have other lists and rankings as well. I don’t pretend to understand them, since they change often and without warning. I approve of that changing though since it helps to keep people from gaming the system. Ultimately the best books usually rise to the top and aren’t influenced by the self-serving corruption rampant in the publishing industry.

Having your book seen only does so much though, the book needs to be appealing as well. Great cover art is a must. Follow that up with a good blurb and you’re almost there. Price can make a difference as well, especially if you’re lesser known and qualify more as an impulse buy than as a must-read. I believe I fall into that category, although to be fair I’ve seen increasing comments and received feedback from readers telling me that they were blown away by my stories or that I’m their favorite author. That’s pretty cool, I have to admit.

My wife bought a new book last night – and I confess I already forget the name and author of it (shame on me, but it’s a 50 Shades knock-off). She paid $7.99 for it. $7.99!  You’re looking at me and saying, “So? That’s cheap.” And I’m shaking my head and foaming a the mouth. It’s extortion! It’s abusive! My most expensive book is Vitalis at $5.99 and that’s an omnibus of 7 novellas. The sequel to Vitalis is Vitalis: Resurrection and it’s only $3.99 and the next book in the series I’m about to start will be priced similarly.

But still she bought it. She even told me it makes her mildly ill to pay that for a book when mine are so much cheaper. So why don’t I raise my prices? Many reasons, one of which is because I want more people to read my books so I price them lower. I admit that I’m not a big name in the business, so I need the lower price points. But there’s more to it than just maximizing sales, there’s also my conscience. Yes, I have one. I take it out and shine it up from time to time. I can’t charge ridiculous amounts of money for my books because I know how hard it is to earn the money in the first place. In our troubled economy every penny counts. And besides that, if my books are half the cost of what somebody else charges then a reader can buy two of mine and enjoy themselves twice as long!

In the interest of full disclosure I am putting together “boxed sets” of a couple of trilogies in the very near future that I may charge more for as well, but those will be three books for a decent price that is designed to save people money.

That’s the majority of the secret to my success. I’ve got several books out and I keep writing at a frantic pace. Books in a series seem to sell better than stand alone books, especially if you can start the series with a loss leader (making the first book free or at a considerable discount).

What about reviews and paying for marketing / promotion / advertising? Yeah, what about it. I sell thousands of books a month and receive less than 1% of those purchases back as a review. I’d LOVE to have more of them (so please please please write shining reviews for my books if you purchase them), but so far there aren’t very many. They come with time, but that doesn’t help when trying to launch a new one.

As for paid promotion I have tried quite a few things over the past few years and I’m very unhappy to report that not a single damn one was worth it. My biggest failure had to be the $3,000 I shelled out for a 3 month promo campaign for Vitalis. It resulted in absolutely no increase in book sales. I know it’s a good book (or at least I’ve had more than just family and friends tell me as much), so that really leads me to believe paying for promotion is a bad idea. At least I can show it on my taxes as a write off.

At the suggestion of Joe Konrath I looked into a service called bookbub.com. They have a mailing letter they send out with notifications of free or drastically discounted books. Their prices are very reasonable and Mr. Konrath swears by them as being one of the few advertisements he’s willing to pay for. I figured I’d give it a shot and lined up a serious discount for book 1 in my Blades of Leander series, Child of Fate. They looked into my book and said it didn’t meet their requirements, but encouraged me to try again later.

I was crushed – that’s a damn good book! How could they shoot me down for listing it in their newsletter? I double checked the requirements and found the one area that might have caused me to fumble – Child of Fate only has two reviews on it, a 5 star and a 3 star. They want lots of reviews.

Since I’ve never bought any reviews and the book hasn’t sold thousands of copies yet to earn the

So, with that information dump in your lap the take away is to keep on writing, get a good editor, get a better proofreader, and get a rock star for a cover artist. Those are the things that have worked for me. The only things, in fact.

Oh sure, there are other tips and tricks that I use to help make it easier for people to find my books and buy them, but that’s a topic for another day and another blog post!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

The Thing Nobody Wants to Talk About

Kind of like Voldemort’s name – nobody is supposed to speak it out loud. I’m talking about the gorilla in the room that everyone is pretending doesn’t exist. I’m talking about the thing that we all want to talk about so badly, but everyone seems to be afraid to do it. I’m talking about selling books.

I’m fed up with it. What horrible thing is going to happen if you pipe up and report your sales? Is it going to doom your books to a superstitious whirlpool of anonymity? Are you afraid people are going to find out that you sell too many books so they won’t buy anymore of yours? All I can say is get a grip.

I have 31 books available right now, with the release of Soul Mates earlier this week. Of those 3 are freebies (Wanted, Dark Earth, and Voidhawk). For the months of January and February I averaged a little over $200 per book. Now that’s misleading because I have some books that might bring in $20 – $40 a month (Human Nature, Sex Sells, Bound, Voices, and my 7 Vitalis novellas) and a precious few that are much higher (Child of Fate, Victim of Fate, Silver Dragon, Ice Princess, and Bounty). In the middle ground I can usually count on my Voidhawk series to pull in anywhere from $200 – $800 per book, totaling $1500 – $2500 for the 5 book series. My Lost Girls series puts in a good fight too, although I really think it’s a better series than the sales indicate. Anyhow, I float between $700 – $1000 a month on those four books for the first two months of the 2013.        

Having said all that, 2013 is starting out a hell of a lot better than 2012 did. The question is why? The answer is, “Beats me!” I haven’t done anything in 2013 that I didn’t do in 2012, other than having more books available. I try to publish a book a month, and that can be pretty daunting what with having a full time day job and a family. I’d love to go the James Patterson route and find some co-authors to work with, but I’m probably a long ways away from being cool enough for that yet.

Writing a book a month can be done though, the trick is in finding the right people to help. My wife helps me with the audiobook creation process we just began, for example. I have an extremely talented cover artist by the name of Willsin Rowe. Last I heard Willsin wasn’t taking on any new clients but there are plenty of other talented artists out there aching for some work. I also have a small army of editors at my beck and call to point out the stupid mistakes I make when my eyelids are so heavy that I can’t even see what my fingers are putting on the computer screen (yes, that happens, especially with this miserable time change).

Do I do any promotion or marketing? Not really. I infrequently harass my Twitter followers, but no more often than a randomly selected book tweet every couple of hours. I keep my Facebook and web site updated regularly. And I blog. 2 – 3 posts a week is my goal, usually about my writing or trying to help out other writers who are feeling overwhelmed.

My goal is to make writing my day job and I’m very dedicated to making that happen as soon as I can – in a responsible manner. To that end I’ve been even more mystified by what’s happening in March for me, but even if the cause for the effect is unknown, it’s worth mentioning.

March started off with a whopping 142 books being sold on the first day for me. For some reason the first day of each month is always good, but then it typically drops off. It hasn’t been 142 books good since April of 2012 though. So I was excited. Solid numbers kept coming in as they days passed. I sold over 100 books each day for a week, then they dipped into the 80s. As a caveat, these numbers are a combination of Amazon US and Amazon UK sales. I move small quantities in Germany and Canada and also make some sales on Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. Amazon is where the money is though, so it gets most of my focus.

So after a “low” selling weekend that had my bubble bursting they jumped back up to 116, 141, and 121. In the past weekends were better selling days than weekdays, so that deepened the mystery for me. To continue reducing things to pure numbers I’m averaging 113 books a day right now for the month of March. Great, but what’s that mean? I’m not really sure, to be honest. Oh, I’ve got my forecasts and calculations but until the month is over  I’m not willing to take anything to the bank. Suffice to say it could be a very good thing.

Most of you are probably staring at that number with wide eyes and open mouths. I know I used to. Who am I kidding, I still do! Keep in mind that’s the royalty share I get from Amazon, but the deals I’ve worked out with my editors and cover artist means I turn around and give them a cut of that. I’m not complaining, they’ve worked hard and deserve it. From the beginning I shared my desire to help them and myself achieve a sustainable level of income from writing (and editing and being artistic). Then there’s taxes chewing into it as well – those I will complain about!

Now there’s a chance that you see $6k a month and make a rude noise. Chump change, you’re thinking. To you I say, “Bite me.” If sales keep up at and continue to rise it will make March the first month where my writing income has exceeded the income from my day job. Gross, not net. That’s pretty damn exciting – but is it sustainable?

To reach my long term goal of writing being the day job I need to sustain sales at or above that level. Right now I’m not throwing the cargo door open and jumping out of the plane because my parachute isn’t secured. At this point I don’t even have a parachute, in fact! I’ve got a lot of bills to pay down first, most of it in the form of paying off education for my day job that in hindsight wasn’t necessary. Ah well, it’s nice having multiple degrees if only for bragging rights.

Now if only I could figure out what happened that made my book sales increase. Is it a seasonal thing or is it something else? It’s almost impossible to get any other writers to own up to what their numbers are. Joe Konrath is like a lighthouse on a rocky shore for sharing his trials and tribulations. Sadly, I only recently started reading his blog and found the merit of many of his ideas.

Over the months and years I’ve shared my attempts to advertise and be a successful writer. I’m no expert and I’ve got a long ways to go, but in some coming posts I’ll try to put together some tips and tricks that I’ve used, as well as things that didn’t work. Hindsight is a powerful tool, and hopefully one that will help people who are starting to write or trying to decide if they want to write make some progress. It is hard work, but if you’ve got the right mindset it’s definitely worth it.

Now I need to go and find some wood to knock on, salt to toss around, and maybe even a few chickens to bleed to make sure my numbers don’t plummet!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

Soul Mates

How cheesy, right? Love at first sight and all that romantic nonsense. I’m a guy, damn it! I want guns and boobs and explosions! Lucky for me, “Soul Mates” turned out to be a book title that is not what you might have thought it was.

Soul Mates is the title I’ve selected for the third book in my Dark Earth series. It’s a not-uncommon theme in my Dark Earth books, discussing magical links based on emotions between various characters. Personally I’m all for good emotional development, relationships, and occasional conflict. In this case it’s definitely a conflicted relationship.

One of the main characters is a witch. Sure, she can be feisty and unpleasant to be around, but I’m talking about the kind that brews potions and turns people into frogs. No broomsticks or flying monkeys, but we can’t have everything. Anyhow, she’s been coerced by her Lord (a Dark Earth equivalent to a king) into casting a spell that makes them soulmates. In this case that doesn’t mean they share any particular fondness for one another, it means they’re spirits are linked so they can see each other and know where each is. They can feel strong emotions from the other person and even have limited communication. The witch in question is doing everything in her power to limit this communication.

Why? Because her Lord is a prick. A royal prick, if you’ll pardon the expression. He’s trying to bang her apprentice. He’s screwing her sister. When the witch is around he uses and abuses her and publicly humiliates her. He’s the kind of guy that make Prince Machiavelli look like he played powder-puff football.

And she’s got it bad for another guy who may or may not even be alive anymore. How messed up is that? Add in the conflict of creating an illegal rift between their world (the Dark Earth) and ours (the New World or Otherworld) so he can send his armies through to broaden his realm and it’s a book full of conflict, intrigue, and opportunity. Now if only the witch can figure out how to get help from former enemies to try and work around the curse of being soulmates with a psychopath, maybe the day won’t end in a bloody ruin.

Oh, and yes, there are guns, boobs, and explosions in the book. Not many, I confess, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point that out.

Stephanie is a witch. Not the catty steal-your-boyfriend kind of witch either. She can feel a person’s hopes and fears and burn the blood in their veins. Or at least that’s what her Mistress says she should be able to do. Mostly she summons breezes to blow piles of leaves around.

And that’s a problem. With her ruler planning a war to take over her old home, The United States of America, she’s got to come up with a way to stop him and save herself and her Mistress in the process. It’s a tall order for a high school dropout that’s screwed up every choice she’s ever made.

Amazon

Amazon UK

Barnes and Noble (coming soon)

iTunes (coming soon)

Kobo

Smashwords

Sony (coming soon)

Createspace (print) (coming soon)

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

Picking a Favorite Child

I answered some interview questions recently that posed a difficult question. I was asked to pick a favorite character of mine from one of my books. I came up with a response easily enough but it involved not one but many characters. I’m not unique in that regards, many writers will do something like that. The problem isn’t with the answer but with the question. Choosing a favorite character is like choosing a favorite part of ourselves. Or worse yet, picking one of my children and deciding I like that on more than the other one.

That got me thinking about the similarities between children and characters. Or at least in writing or raising them. My children can be obnoxiously inquisitive, just like every other child out there. They’re curious and want to know the why, what, when, how, where, etc. of everything. They want to know what happens if they fall in the mud and why they can’t set up the kiddy pool in the winter. They want to know why I’d rather gnaw my own leg off than play a game of Go Fish.

My characters in my books aren’t quite as demanding, but that makes it easier to treat them like they’re not important. From a writer standpoint, that’s a bad thing. I consider myself a very open minded person and I like to think I encourage myself every day to be a little more open minded. I do this by reminding myself to treat my characters like my children. No, I don’t threaten time outs or take away their favorite toys when they misbehave. I try to put myself in their shoes.

From a child’s perspective it makes them happy when I can push aside how I feel at being interrupted for the umpteenth time while trying to finish writing to answer the latest childhood conundrum. Admittedly, it may take me a few interruptions before I can capture that moment. With characters the process isn’t all that different. I find that only when I remember they should have dreams, wants, and needs can I do them the justice they deserve.

And that’s the simple secret to creating believable and fun characters. They have to be real. They have to have strengths and weaknesses. They have to offset what they’re good at with areas where they are flawed, perhaps even horribly flawed. When someone can write a review and pick some traits of a character that they can’t stand I know I’ve done a good job with that character. I made him or her stand out. I made them memorable. After all, we remember the people that we enjoyed the most and the people that irritated us the most. In some cases those people can be one and the same, so why should a character in a book be any less real?

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

 

A Twisted Writer or Twists For a Writer?

Once you’ve tried saying the title of this article three times fast be warned that I had no premonition or forewarning for this blog post. While that may not be uncommon, this time I’m writing it seconds after I did something that shocked the socks off me.

I’m hard at work on Voidhawk – The Edge of Forever, and after some questions, complications, and confusion early on I’m happy to say it’s flying past now. Or perhaps sailing would be a better word. Whatever the case, this story is doing great and improving with every page. I’ve got a plan and I know what’s going on, the problem (if there’s a problem), is all the little things that keep cropping up in between. Details that turn into major tangents or supporting stories / characters, dialogue that pops out and changes the way I had a scene planned out, or maybe a major twist that leaves even me shocked.

How is it possible? I wrote the darn thing, how can I be surprised? Well I’m not sure but I wrote something into the book with the plans of having it make sense and figuring it out later on. A plot device, so to speak, that would allow me to accomplish a sub-plot I wanted without having to focus too much time on it. Turns out the subplot wasn’t going to take second billing without a fight.

The twist that came out of my fingers still has me stunned. It was not what I had planned but it happened and I don’t think I can take it back. As a writer and a reader I think it’s terrible and awesome at the same time. As a person who likes to think of himself as sane and rational, I’m a little concerned that I can be taken so by surprise by myself.

I’ve always known my characters aren’t real. Sure, I say that they speak to me and they feel like memories of real people I’ve met, but I know better, right? Things can’t happen because a figment of my imagination says it happened, can it? Hmm, that line of paranoia might make for an interesting story all by itself!

Okay, all crazy talk aside this Voidhawk book is going to be incredible. And I hope it’s as exciting and shocking for fans of the series as it just was for me! I’ve got five more chapters to go and the rough draft will be finished.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

 

The Voices Told Me To!

First off a public service announcement – wrap your kids in bubble wrap and spray them down with Lysol on a daily basis. Germs spread at preschools, schools, daycares, and other such venues are horrible things. Especially when an unsuspecting 4 year old returns from a birthday party and infects the entire house with a nasty flu bug. Wiped my house out this week and prevented me from going to work one day and killed 3 planned workouts. The only good thing is that even though it hit us like a full loaded semi-truck it was a hit and run, it was gone within 36 hours.

And in spite of being miserable I still managed 7,300 words between the two days my illness spanned and finalized the third deal for having some of my stories turned into audio books. And that brings me around to the voices.

My friend and business partner, J.E. Taylor, got into audio books a little bit before I did. A few months, but she’s seen some moderate success with them and encouraged me to give them a shout. I’ve had a few readers that have expressed similar interest in hearing audio versions of my books, whether that’s due to age or disability. So at last I looked into it and found out it looks like it’s not as scary as I once thought.

I’ve met three producers (narrators) thus far, one for each of my initial audio books. Each one seems as good or better than the last and the first one knocked my socks off. I’ve been surprised and amazed with each performance and after a conference call with one of them last night I came away feeling extremely pleased with how things were progressing. Oh sure, we just started this, but I’ve got  a great feeling about it.

Which books am I talking about? Wanted, Dark Earth, and Child of Fate. Last night’s call was over Child of Fate, and even though it might be presumptuous of us, the producer and I are already looking ahead to books 2 and 3 in the series (and beyond, even though I haven’t written those books yet). The same can be said of Wanted. Dark Earth, reluctantly, will need a different producer for books 2 and 3 – the man doing the reading is very good, the problem is that Devil’s Advocate and Soul Mates are told from a woman’s point of view.

There was something else that was very satisfying to me in this process. How it works is I put out a blurb for the book and chum the waters with info on why somebody should be interested in producing it, then I upload a sample of text for the producer to read and send back to me as an audition. Upon listening to these auditions I was amazed not only at how well the producers handled the text but also at how good the words sounded. They flowed nicely and really delivered the impact I wanted them too.

As a writer I’m very close to my product. My art. That prevents me from seeing it objectively. It also makes me very critical of my own work. I hate editing my own writing even though I try my best to do at least one thorough self-edit of every book in addition to having third party editors / proofreaders go over them. I expect to find mistakes and to find problems that scream my weaknesses as a writer. Creating audio books out of my stories means I’m going to have to listen to them and I’ll hear all these areas I fall short in. Sure, my book sales have been great over the past 14 or 15 months now and just keep getting better and better but sooner or later the truth has to come out, right? Eventually people will stop taking pity on me and the 4 and 5 star reviews will go away.

Does it sound crazy? Maybe, but not in my head. It’s a fear that I suspect every writer or artist lives with. The fear that we’re not good enough and soon enough people will wake up and realize it. Hearing my books being read out loud gave me a big confidence boost and pushed me firmly away from feeling that way. Maybe it’s silly but reading reviews and fan mail has only taken me so far. Hearing the words and feeling the impact of them gave me a boost and made me feel that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m not faking it. I really am a writer.

You’d think that after writing and publishing 30 books and helping others with their own stories I’d know this by now.  Maybe I did, but there’s knowing and there’s feeling. Now I’m feeling it. So with that in mind I guess it’s time to get back to working on the next great story! My current production effort is geared toward Voidhawk – The Edge of Forever. I’m still targeting a mid – late April release date for it. Soul Mates, the third book in my Dark Earth series, should be available sometime next week.

The audio books of Wanted, Dark Earth, and Child of Fate are tentatively scheduled for early to mid May release on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .