Renée Harrell's Blog, page 16

When she said she felt like crying...

_ …Kate Hawkings caught our attention. She'd posted her emotions on her blog site and it gave us pause enough that we wandered through the site. The crying thing? It was one of those mid-day surges that everyone experiences now and then but the kind everyone pretends they never experience. Then we saw KH doing her very first video blog and it was charmingly awkward. It was exactly the kind of thing we'd try to do except, when she was done, we liked her even better.
 
If we ever do a vlog, when it's complete, people will want to hunt us for sport.

Turns out, she's always had a gift for writing ("I was once told that if my chosen career didn't work out, I could make a living writing sympathy cards. I still don't know if that was a good or bad thing") and decided to write the stories she wanted to read. She says, "I love girls with a kick-ass attitude, whether they can actually kick ass or not…although my girls generally can."

Would a kick-ass girl actually tell other people she felt like crying? We're guessing, yes, they would, 'cause Kate is fairly kick-ass herself. "I trained as a strength and conditioning couch," she tell us, "studying exercise and nutrition at the University. When I decided to pursue self-publishing, I thought it would be the best option for me. I like the idea of doing everything myself and succeeding (or failing) because of my own efforts."

Succeeding on your own exemplifies kick-assery, even if it's worlds apart from our philosophy. Frankly, if you and you want to do everything necessary to make us a big success, we'd appreciate it.  We'll stay at home and watch The Real Housewives.

Half of our writing team wanted to ask a couple of the standard 'I'm interviewing a writer' kind of questions, while the other one of us could have cared less but he got overruled. Happily, Kate answered the questions, anyway.  "The best thing about writing is, I finally have an outlet for all the crazy stuff going on in my head," she said. "The worst thing? No matter how much work you put into it, no matter how many people tell you your work is good, there's still that nagging voice at the back of your mind that tells you your writing is awful. You have to learn how to block the little gremlins out but sometimes they manage to sneak through."

Her favorite writers? "I love Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series, Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy and Black Swan series, Harry Potter, Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series (although Mockingjay made me want to throw the book across the room) and David Gemmell's White Wolf." Any novels that she disliked? "I prefer not to call them out.  If I enjoy reading something I'll usually mention what I enjoy but, if I don't like something, I'll pretend I've never read it."

But what about Frankenstein, P.I.? Did she love our electronic novelette  or did she really, really love our e-novelette? "I really enjoyed Frankenstein," she told us. No, no, different book, we said.  "What was the title again?" she asked.

It's Frankenstein, P.I., we repeated."Why…" she said, her voice going all weird and wonky, "I don't think I've ever read it."
 
Kate Hawkins' The Sphinx Project comes out in February, 2012. The novel's blurb reads like this:Not many people can say their entire existence has been one big lab experiment: poked and prodded by scientists, genetically modified to be the best and endure the worst, subjected to daily tests and trials that would kill a normal human. All Michaela wants is her own life, to be able to go to school, flirt with boys, maybe eat ice cream now and then. So when the chance to escape finally comes, Michaela and her sister grab it, taking their friends with them.

But they weren't the only ones to find their way out of those labs. Following close behind are another breed of creature, one that doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, who exist only to feed their own hunger. The appearance of a strange boy who seems too much like them to be a coincidence makes things even more confusing. But as the world begins to literally fall apart around them, Michaela must accept his help, especially when she could lose the very thing she holds dearest: her sister.

So the New Year is nearly upon us and...

...there's one thing you can count on: the really lazy bloggers will use the date to post their New Year's resolutions.
 
Before you start to panic because we are, by any definition, really lazy bloggers, you're right to suspect we're going to share our 2012 resolutions right this very minute. If you care to sprint for the exit door, know it's directly past the tiger pit and through a fairly large nest of brown recluse spiders.
 
On the other hand, we're not going to repeat the same promises of past years. Every year, we swear we'll lose weight. (This year, both of us did. Funny what medical maladies will force upon you.) We promise to exercise more frequently. (This year, both of us did. Funny what fear will force upon you.) We promise to spend less/save more. (That SO did not happen.)
 
It could just be the Castello di Gabbiano Chianti 2010 talkin' but, this time 'round, we're making only one promise. A single, rather difficult, resolution. This year, we write a sequel to one of our other projects.
 
No big deal, right? It shouldn't be but it is. It's comforting to know other writers struggle with this same issue. In 1983, Stephen King said he was planning a sequel to Salem's Lot. (It's Harrell's favorite King novel. How he wishes there was a sequel in the works.) But don't run down to the bookstore just yet. SK still hasn't come up with the goods.
 
For us, too, it's a challenge. In an interview about Something Wicked, we said we were plotting the Wicked sequel (Something Evil). To date, all we have is an outline. When the paperback version of Aly's Luck wrapped, we discussed Syr's World. Instead, we penned Frankenstein, P.I. While we can't claim to get fan mail -- all we have is you and you and you're not fans, you're comrades -- we have had a few strong requests to see The Preacher's Son (the sequel to The Atheist's Daughter) sooner rather than later...but, so far, it's looking later rather than sooner.
 
So, for 2012, our one wish is to write a sequel, any sequel, to one of our earlier stories. It's a shame, though, that Salem's Lot isn't available for a follow-up tale. We have some wonderful ideas....

The day after Christmas and, frankly...

...we're not ready for the holiday to end. Oh, there's madness swirling around us -- here, where a lawsuit claims the public can't tell the difference between a #1 bestselling book series and a line of barely-there comic books...and here, where a lovely writer suddenly finds herself unemployed -- but we don't want to discuss such things. Not today.
 
Y'see, it's the day after Christmas and we're still on holiday. Better yet, like Scrooge, we're going to continue to hold Christmas in our hearts. Unlike Scrooge, it's for today only but, hey, we're not fictional characters. So, while we hope your day was happy, you should know our celebration isn't yet over. And we plan to pretend like it's 12/25 all over again.
 
Drinking: Eggnog, of course.
 
Watching: A Christmas Carol. Wikipedia says there's been at least 28 filmed versions of the piece but our favorite (and the one we're watching) is the 1984 TV version starring George C. Scott.
 
Best. Scrooge. Ever.
 
Listening: A Very Scary Solstice, a bizarre little CD from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. The HPLHS called it, " a delightful yet hideous combining of over-commercialized holiday tunes and the unspeakable horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos", and it includes such songs as Silent Night, Blasphemous Night, Away in a Madhouse, and I saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth. It is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds.
 
Now, back to bed for us!

We went cheap on you...

...Dodgson, or at least we tried to go cheap. Things didn't quite work hope as we'd hoped. "Don't get cheap on me, Dodgson" is a line we love from Jurassic Park. The movie, not the book, 'cause the book didn't have any lines quite so cool.
 
See, we managed to get a jingle for our ebook, Frankenstein, P.I. (as ridiculous a story as you're likely to read this year) and we got it on the cheap. Never mind how. We have our methods. Even at a quick 30-seconds, the Frankie jingle needed a little something to go with it so we thought, as we have thought before: "No one cares about book trailers! Let's make one to go along with our jingle!"

 You're right, this does not display good business sense. Neither, by the way, does being a writer.
 
Since there are several do-it-yourself, free animation services on the web, we thought we'd create a do-it-ourselves book trailer. We dabbled at three different spots: Xtranormal, which offered some cute animations but wanted cash up front for just about any use; Animasher, which seemed the least interested in our wallet but produced a seizure-inducing spot (not that we blame the Animasher group. We just lack skills in this regard); and Go!Animate, our favorite of the group, which slips its corporate hand ever-so-slowly into your pocket and fishes out a few quarters at a time. Go!Animate even lets you build your own character -- the first one is free -- and, so, we offer to you, above, our cartoon version of Frankie, P.I.
 
Cartoon Frankie can walk, stroll, dance, but we couldn't get him to synch to our lyrics. What are the lyrics, you ask? Here goes:
 
Frankenstein, P.I.

Keep your cops and private dicks
There's one Eye who makes the bad guys sick
It's Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
P.I.

Born of thunder
And of lightning
Not too bright
And mighty frightening
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
P.I!
 
If you'd like to actually hear the jingle you crazy thing you, hit the sideways triangle below...and enjoy!

The year's end is rushing upon us...

...so we thought we'd wrap 2011 up by doing a solid for somebody else. (We first heard the phrase, "You do me a solid, I'll do you a solid" in Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital, a show we watch faithfully. We realize we're probably the sole members of the Kingdom Hospital fan base but, as Woody Allen famously said, "The heart wants what it wants." We like the solid terminology but we're not sure if we've ever used it before.) So we e-went to Kiva and made a $25 loan.
 
Yeah, yeah, we know. You'd think we'd drop at least a C-note but we're writers and $25 represents more than all of the royalties we've made so far on Bill Shakespeare's Next Big Mistake. Although, like you, we're surprised we've made ANY royalties off of a teleplay, even if it's our favorite teleplay.
 
Our quarter C-note went to Ayush Tsendsuren (above), a 38 year old tailor. She lives with her husband and kids in the slum district of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and, working hard, started her own tailoring shop. Recently, her sewing machine broke.
 
Her only sewing machine. Without this piece of equipment, she's out of business. So she asked for a loan, Kiva stepped up, Credit Mongol stepped up, even we stepped up. Now, Ayush is shopping for "a high quality sewing machine, perhaps a Western brand" and we hope she gets a good one.

Next time we're in Mongolia, we're swinging by her shop.
 
Side note about nothin': We just saw another of S. King's t.v. projects, Bag of Bones and, from the ratings, a few other people did, too. The show was a little slow, sure, but bolstered by strong performances by all...until the last twenty minutes or so of the piece, when the entire thing went Z-grade. Honestly, we like cheese but this thing was a block of Velveeta and well past its sell date....

It's gonna be a cold day in Hell...

…before we sign a contract with some publishers. We're not interested in the outfit that demands a seven year deal (they want seven years for their electronic not-the-same-name-but-pretty-much-the-same-company subdivision, too). You'll not see us knock on the door of the groups who keep all rights as long as your book is in print; not when they count e-publishing as "in print", too, so they'll just hold your novel forever, thank you.
 
The thing on the left is one of our power meters. It's been COLD out here, too.

Nope, those publishers are not for us.

But there's one, very successful, publisher who makes our skin crawl. If you've swung past their website, you'll wonder why. Their line-up includes celebrities, Hollywood scriptwriters, even a Pulitzer Prize winner if the website is to be believed, and why shouldn't it be? They say they've got 50,000 authors under their banner and it's probably true.

The only reason we talk about 'em today is because we recently met one of their writers. We'll call this writer, "Aly", which isn't her real name. Aly is about 30-years old, well-spoken, and was working a bookstore when we met her. Aly's very bright and the bookstore is her part-time gig. She earns the better part of her paycheck as an English professor. When she told us she'd had two books published, we were impressed. On the way home, Renée said, "Let's hope the publisher isn't PublishAmerica." Then we laughed, 'cause we knew Aly was intelligent enough to know better.

We shouldn't have laughed.

Look, it's possible Aly knew all about PA when she signed the contract. PA did the gruntwork, packaging her novels, providing attractive cover art, and putting the books up for sale. We can't speak for their editing -- Kevin Yarbrough wrote 30 pages, sent in a manuscript that repeated the same 30 pages over and over again, and PA published this embarrassment as a book; and several members of the SFWA famously sent in a purposefully horrible novel, Atlanta Nights, written over a weekend and filled with awfulness, which PA also published  – but Aly can tell people she's a published author. She received an advance (for us little fish, the advance is usually $1). And if her books are a bit more expensive than expected -- $29.95 for a paperback – well, Mom probably bought a few copies, anyway.

We just think there are so many better ways to go. Other folks agree with us, too, offering their thoughts here and here and here and here. If Aly did her research, knew what others thought, understood the game going in...then that's fine. Best of luck to her.
 
Somehow, we don't think that's the case.

The thing about self-published books is...

...it ain't so easy, selling self-published books. Not that it's much better if you're traditionally-published; according to Publisher's Weekly (07/17/06), the average traditionally-published American book sells about 500 copies. And that was in 2006. The trad-pub numbers have dropped since then.
 
Not knowing any better, in 2010 we offered our self-pubbed short story set, After Things Went Bad, to the world. Turned out, the world didn't care.We weren't sure how we should promote the the thing and, so, we pretty much didn't bother. Oh, we mentioned it here and on a writer's forum (where we sold one copy. Thanks, Manuel!) but then we grew tired of talking about ourselves. Pretty hard to believe, eh? So there ATWB sat, unknown and unwanted, until we discovered Sift Reviews.
 
Sift Reviews was almost as new as we were, back then. The Sift crowd had created a website dedicated to reviewing self-published/independent science fiction and fantasy stories so we knocked on their door. Sarah, one of the editors there, said she'd give our work a gander. When she was done gandering, Bad had collected a five star review. Sift's first five star review.
 
Following their kind words, a few people noticed and our mini-collection started selling a few copies. If The Atheist's Daughter hadn't come along, it would still be our #1-with-a-bullet sales leader.
 
Since that time, the Siftians have chugged right along and they've recently posted their 100th review. In celebration of this achievement, they decided to do a "Best of Sift" set of interviews with all of their five star authors. Happily, we're included in the mix. 
 
Now, you might think we'd have been the first people they interviewed -- following a chronological pattern -- or, maybe, the last people interviewed -- if they wanted to do a reverse chronological thing -- but, alas, no. We thought maybe they'd go alphabetical by title, or alphabetical by author, but, again, not so.
 
We finally figured it out. The Sift Group is thinking way outside the box. They're posting the very best of their best on Sundays. The next-to-the best on Mondays. And so on.As it happens, our interview is being posted today and you'll find it here. If you care to drop by, we hope you'll like it.

Not every idea is a winner...

_ …but some ideas are just so stupid you need to embrace the madness. We've been trying and trying and trying to ignore our latest story idea but we finally succumbed to the insanity.
We wrote Frankenstein, P.I. as a prose piece.
 
When we wanted a story with a sexy girl in it, we remembered Frankie. We'd played with this project, once upon a time, but didn't know where to go with it. There just weren't too many options available for longer-than-short fiction but not-a-novel Frankenstein stories. It's a new world out there in the electronic jungle, though, so we pulled out the tale, realized it needed a great deal of polishing, and started polishing it. A few weeks later, with ALL kinds of changes, we had our first electronic chapbook.
 
What really made us happy? We actually think it works.
 
Like most works of fiction, FPI all started with What If? In this case, we thought to ourselves, "What if Frankenstein's monster decided to become a private detective?" We're not talking about Mary Shelley's creation, not at all. Her version of the monster is intelligent, caring, and well-spoken. Nope, we wanted a growling, brain dead, green-skinned, flesh-craving monster who, for some reason, fancied himself as Magnum, P.I.  

But we also wanted the idea told from the first person perspective because so many of our favorite detective novels are presented in that fashion. Since Frankie lacks "a single functioning brain cell" and grunts instead of talks, we gave him a female sidekick. Friday is gorgeous and corrupt, views Charlie's Angels as her personal televised guidebook on crime-solving, and values beauty more than a bit too much. She's smarter than her boss, but barely, and respects his detecting skills...which don't exist.

Finally, we have our heroes share a building with the world's most fantastic detective (sorry: the World's Most Fantastic Detective™), added in a series of murders, mixed well, and had a wonderful time. Even priced at under a buck, will anyone else buy the story? Eh, who knows? Even if not, we loved writing it.
 
Oh, and one more thing. We have a theme song for the story and, if we can figure out how to post it here, we'll be sharing that, soon.

When you're pondering what to buy us...

_ …this holiday season, we'd like to offer a suggestion. You've always been so generous. Books are a good idea. E-books, printed books, graphic novels, even kids tales (we loved the Unfortunate Series series. And an alarmingly large number of other 'children's stories').  But, this year, there are a couple of novels we don't want to see under the tree.

Yep, we're talking about Stephen King's 11/22/63 and Dean Koontz' 77 Shadow Street.

We've been fans of both authors for a long time. We think King will be read and discussed for the next, say, hundred years or so. Maybe longer. So why aren't we interested in the newest effort by this literary master? It's so damn LONG. It rings in at 849 pages and – sorry, Steve – we're guessing it could have lost 100 pages and we'd have enjoyed it more. King's Under the Dome was good but, whittled judiciously, it would have been better. We're not saying that Steve  doesn't still see an editor's red pencil now and again but we doubt the pencil is as sharp as when he started in the game.

So that's the Kingster.  But what's wrong with 77 Shadow Street? Maybe nothing. It could be a stunning hit and Koontz could entrance us again, as he did with Lightning and Midnight. We'd be so happy if this was the case. Unfortunately, we think DK's best years are behind him. We understand if you disagree and we may be wrong but we keep seeing the same elements in his latest works. Again and again, there are marvelous, often beautiful, intelligent and successfulgood guys, marvelous, beautiful and intelligent life partners, marvelous, beautiful and intelligent pets (dogs), and pathologically evil villains. There aren't many Brady Bunch'ers in his stories – he favors small family groups – and we don't remember seeing any good but slacker liberal atheists in his novels of the last two decades (Dean wears his faith, and his conservatism, fairly openly). We'd be okay with all of that if the novels remained as interesting and intelligently plotted as his previous winners. For our money, that hasn't happened lately.
 
Mostly, we're not buying 77SS because of the last DK novel we read. The title of that tome? Relentless.
 
Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! Even though Relentless came out in 2009, if you're still planning to read it, STOP NOW. Otherwise, we may give away a few surprises you might like to discover by yourself.

In Relentless, the lead character is a bestselling writer named Cubby Greenwich, and Cubby leads a sweet life. Every book he's written has been a bestseller. His wife, Penny, is gorgeous and a hotshot writer/ illustrator of kids books. They have one child, Milo, and Milo is six years old and beyond brilliant. (Which you might expect of a child who, at birth, arrived smiling and humming a tune. Seriously.) Completing the family unit, the Greenwich trio "rescue a doggy", an Australian shepherd mix called Lassie. Unlike our mutts, Lassie is wonderfully well-behaved and instinctively knows not to bark for any superfluous reasons. So, yeah, life is swell…until Cubby gets a bad book review.

"Filled with fascinating, eccentric, lovable characters, Relentless is aptly named" -- The Novel Bookworm

The searing review comes from Shearman Waxx, and he's the senior critic for the nation's premier literary critic. That's not saying much 'cause Waxx doesn't actually read the books he reviews. He reads and reviews the novels off of their publicity letters. In Cubby's case, Waxx goes a little further. He sneaks into the writer's house, tasers Cubby and Penny, then burns down their house.

When Waxx doesn't like a writer, he really doesn't like that writer.

"Part mystery/thriller, part horror and part science fiction, this book delivers" -- Kentucky Literacy Examiner

Like all of the other premier literary critics, Mr. Waxx is also a sociopathic serial killer in league with the government. Angered to distraction because Cubby isn't a member of the intellectual elite -- we're not kidding -- he will go to any lengths to destroy his enemy. And, because he has the full resources of the federal treasury at his fingertips, he's fairly certain he'll succeed.
 
"This is an exquisite crafting of the thrilling, the unexplainable, and the personal" -- Library Journal

But Cubby & Co. have a few tricks up their respective sleeves. Six year old Milo has managed to create a quantum electrodynamic salt shaker, capable of altering the time-space continuum. Plus, Lassie the dog has mastered teleportation -- again, not kidding -- so it's not such an incredible surprise when good triumphs over evil.
 
"God-awful" -- Esquire
 
Since we didn't love Relentless (and, before that, failed to properly admire Your Heart Belongs to Me), we're skipping Dino this year. But if he ever returns to form, you'll let us know, won't you?

It's easy to talk about book sales...

...when your book sales are impressive. It gets a little tougher when you're making just enough coin to equal minimum wage in, say, Bhutan. Yes, you and you are Bhutan experts but for the new visitors to the Blog-O-Rama, the ones foolishly hoping to find a review of Ghost in the Invisible Bikini , know that beginning wage-earners in Bhutan expect to collect 100 Bhutanese ngultrum each or, roughly, $1.92 US at the current exchange rate.

Want the truth? Most self-published writers hope to make the Bhutanese day rate but they don't care to share this info with the rest of us. (We're not talking about the hotshots in the biz. Joe Konrath, John Locke, and Amanda Hocking have truckloads of readers and they provide sales updates frequently. Good for them, and may their successes continue to grow. But it doesn't take a bucket of courage to say, "Made SO MUCH money this month. Must buy new wheelbarrow to carry my doubloons to the bank.") So we're always interested when a not-Locke comes along and shares their personal self-publishing sales figures.

Someone such as Michele Lee. No, not the singer/dancer/actress that Harrell thought was a major hottie in The Love Bug. This is a different hottie with a similar but differently-spelled first name. On her website, M.L. discussed her experience when she self-pubbed a set of "equestrian-themed erotic romances" under her pen name, M. Lush (like us, she openly shares her real name. Unlike us, she's smart enough to use different names for different story genres). The stories are short (12-15K)…or, almost exactly the same length as our upcoming December publication. She sells them cheap, at $.99 US or 51.58 ngultrum, exactly the same price we'll be asking for our mystery. Private Lessons has a hot woman on the cover – a key marketing ingredient in our plan to movie copies of our-to-be-novella – and it's the first in a series – just like our newest effort.

Most importantly, Michele's not so much into doing major self-promotion. As she writes, "I'm positive my sales would be better if I was self promoting better, if I was more established/well known as a writer, and if I went around on self publishing boards begging people to buy my book or promising to buy their book if they bought mine. But I wanted a more honest idea of how things sold without spin/self promo/bullshit."

Since we plan to do exactly as little promotion as possible for our Private Investigator story -- if you're not one of the four people who wander past MarsNeedsWriters, you're not going to see anything -- we were pleased to see her series of graphs, clearly illustrating her sales numbers. You can see it, too, right here.

M.L. isn't doing badly, truly, she just isn't in clover. As you'll see on her own site, her upcoming UF novel won't be an indie affair, it's launching from Koehler-Hintz Publishers (their Violet Ivy Press line)…and we hope she'll share her experience with them, too.