Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 89

Dead Right, ep II

They pulled up to a security gate. Wenton looked around and Dell suddenly felt a wave of guilt crash down on him. He wasn't sure he was about to do the right thing, but it was honestly the best idea he could come up with.

The driver handed over some paperwork to the security guard. Dell heard him speak, but couldn't make out the words, then a voice squawked over his radio. He handed the paperwork back to the driver and the window rolled up.

"Have a safe one," the guard said and the gate lifted. They pulled inside, the tires of the limo giving a staccato rap as they passed over speed bumps. Dell looked over the half dozen or so cars in the parking lot, looking for Nibor's BMW. There it was. He relaxed just a tiny bit. They parked on the far end, the limo spreading across two parking spaces.

The driver cut the engine and got out. Wenton reached for his door.

"Hold on a sec." Dell pushed his brother's hand away. "Enjoy the full experience." He eyed the glass still half full in Wenton's hand. "Kill that." He put the jack and coke up to his lips and turned it upside down and was just swallowing the last of it when the door opened.

Dell turned his knees to the door and looked back at his brother. "After you."

Wenton's brother always knew how to pique a guy's interest. Anyone else and he would have bailed long before now. But the limo had been impressive and the way Dell set it up had been hard to turn down.

He climbed past him on his hands and knees past Dell and out the limo. Wenton didn't know why he that. Maybe that was how he'd gotten out of cars when they were kids and it just stuck. He thought to ponder it later, knowing he would probably forget about it in the next sixty seconds. Dell swatted him on the ass and he looked back at his brother who had a, 'Hey, I had no choice but to do that,' look on his face.

"Come with me," Dell had said back at the apartment. "I want to take you somewhere." He'd looked his brother up and down, not certain if he was joking or not before going back to the dishes. He knew Dell had gotten a fancy new job with the mayor's office a few months back, but didn't know what he did.

"What, now?" he asked putting a wine glass in the cabinet above the sink.

"Daddy, can I have that cup? My sippy cup?" He'd turned to Todd.

"No, Toddy, you're too big for those. You're a big boy now."

"But you have one." He pointed and Wenton looked.

"Where?"

"Right there." Wenton picked up his coffee mug, drying upside down in the dish rack.

"No, son. This is a coffee mug. I drink my coffee out of here."

Dell laughed. "I think he's got you, man."

"What do you mean?"

"How does Daddy drink out of there, Toddy? He sips, right?" Todd nodded. "See? Kid's smart."

Wenton opened his mouth to explain how it was different, but found himself unable to come up with anything. His son had been right and wrong. He reached up and grabbed the sippy cup down and handed it to Todd. So many things in his life could be summed up in so many words over the last year-and-a-half. Right and wrong. Two opposing ideals co-existing in a weird, quasi-harmony.

Rebooting "Dead Right"

I'll be rebooting my story "Dead Right" on my blog starting at midnight tonight.  I had a couple things going on and had to put the brakes on it, but I can write this up until NaNoWriMo when I have something else planned.  Stay tuned!

Dead Right

"Okay, so you got me here," his brother said. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," Dell said. "You'll see." He knew there was no way he could get Wenton here without a degree of subterfuge. He filled the other half of the glass with diet Coke and passed it over.

"Here, have a little somethin'."

Wenton took a sip from the glass and made a face like he'd just licked the underside of a turd.

"Gah—you put any Coke in this?" Dell flashed a smile to avoid answering the question. Wenton took another sip and he knew his brother would finish it. He'd always been respectful that way. It was weird.

"So where we going?" he asked again after a few minutes.

"Place I wanna show you." Dell looked out the window of the limo, trying to stretch the time. "It's sort of a surprise."

Dell desperately wanted to get his brother's life on track. He was the younger brother, but for as long as Dell could remember—way back to fourth grade, at least—he'd been self-sufficient. Dell never could say it out loud, but his brother was smarter than him. He'd just known how to do things that Dell didn't until he'd seen his brother do them. Wenton had kept him out of trouble after they were orphaned and the neighborhood kids picked on them. He was in debt to his brother.

Now Dell felt like he could pay a little of that back.

"Surprise, huh?" Wenton mumbled. "You're not taking me to an intervention, are you? Because I could stop shootin' H whenever I want."

Dell choked out a laugh. Wenton was always joking like that. At least he hoped he was joking this time.

"We got you calendared for an intervention next Thursday." Shit. Dell hated working in the mayor's office had gotten him using words like 'calendared'. It had never been him, but now it was like this whole other personality he'd had to adapt for work was infiltrating who he really was.

He watched the street. They passed several people milling about, maybe prostitutes, maybe drug dealers, maybe homeless, certainly at least a few of them were dead. He really did feel something for them, but he wondered if he was the right person for the job the mayor wanted done. Dell sighed.

"You're doing it again." He looked at his brother and made a face. "I asked where you were taking me and you looked out the window. You're stalling." They hadn't seen each other for a few months and it was so easy to forget there was another human being who knew him as well as he knew himself despite all the layers of bullshit he dressed himself in. He stole another glance out the window, not sure what street they were on until they passed a sign. Almost there.

"Really. Can't tell you. But you'll know everything soon enough. For real."

"Okay."

And just like that he knew it was okay. There wasn't another person in the world he could have been this circumspect with who would have trusted him like this. The truth of it was, had he told his brother what they were about to see he would probably slug him and jump out the limo the first opportunity he got, bad neighborhood or no. And Wenton would be absolutely right to do so.

How I Published My Own Novel

I'll give you the steps as I know them, but by no means are they the only way to go about it. For my first novel, The Ghost Toucher, I submitted my completed manuscript (which I had redrafted) to publishers looking for books in my genre. I found them through a website called duotrope. It's a tremendous free resource for connecting writers with publishers. I sent my novel to 3 or 4 publishers and 2 of them got back with me in short order. In fact, the publisher I eventually went with, was so enthusiastic about my story he asked to have exclusive reading writes within 2 weeks of getting it from me and I had a signed contract in about a month's time. That's not necessarily typical; I've been rejected numerous times for short stories.

 

After signing the contract, I asked him what I should be doing next and he told me to start my own website and begin blogging. That was for promotional purposes. I don't know if a large publisher would ask the same thing. With a small publisher comes a smaller budget when it comes to promotion. You will play an important part in the legwork for getting the word out about your daughter's book. I had a couple interviews with small newspapers, submitted my book for book reviews, and secured an interview on Fox 2 (just found out they don't do them anymore unless it's for a major publication or well-known author).

 

Now for my current novella, Fleshbags, I decided to become my own publisher. This is extremely easy to do—the biggest concern you should have if is your daughter's manuscript is up to snuff. In addition to you reading it, I would recommend having someone completely independent with a keen eye to give it a once over (if she can handle an honest critique, that is). I've actually been able to improve things I've written based on critiques of my work. But after you know you have a manuscript that's a winner the second half of your work begins. First, you need to find a cover artist. My publisher for my first novel already had someone he worked with and for my second, it was someone I found through Facebook.

 

Somewhere at this stage you should begin collecting reviewers. I recommend a basic Google search to find forums and blogs in your daughter's genre to find reviewers. If you're brave enough, contact a few national magazines like Publishers Weekly. The big boys will ask for a significant lead time, three months or so, before the book is published. And that's if they'll actually review it. I sent Fleshbags to them and never heard back.

 

But set a soft release date for all the small guys you send to, asking them to have their reviews done by then. The only places I published my novel were Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. Smashwords can distribute to several estores, including Sony, the iTunes store, Diesel, and Kobo, amongst a few others. But by far, Kindle is the biggest. It's also the easiest to use. You don't have to worry about acquiring an ISBN for any of them, they will assign their own numbers if you like. Smashwords is the most particular and you will have to educate yourself on how they want your book formatted in order to get it distributed to all their channels. I recommend using this format for Barnes and Noble and Amazon just to save yourself a little time and headache.

 

Once you've followed all the steps for each respective website to electronically publish there is an initial lag time before your book will appear for purchase. Smashwords, depending on how many other eBooks are waiting to upload, could have availability in as little time as a few minutes time. But that's for their website only. For premium distribution it could take significantly longer and you may need to make several revisions to get your eBook formatted the right way. But once that is done your book should be transferred through all their channels and depending on which particular eBook distributor it could be available for purchase through those respective websites in as little time as a day or two, but most will take about a week. Amazon and Barnes and Noble take about a day or so before your book shows available for purchase.

 

Warning, Smashwords will be your distributor for all the websites they distribute to. Don't panic, they're not stealing anything. But every time Sony sells a digital copy of your book, Smashwords will collect the money and once you reach $10 (I believe) in your SW account they will pay you. Set up all bank account information and payments will be transferred to you on whatever schedule they have (I don't remember off-hand). You can buy an ISBN (if you want) through them or through RR Bowker, but again, it isn't necessary. I don't remember the payment schedule for Barnes and Noble, either, but for Amazon, they pay 60 days after the close of the month in which you reached $10 in sales.

 

I can't really suggest how much you should charge for an eBook (the artist really should make the determination on the value of his or her work so long as they drank a full glass of being realistic first), but so long as you apprise yourself of the cost of other books of similar length are, you should be fine. There are even websites that can help you with this.

 

I hope I've answered all your questions. But by all means, send me another email with anything else and I'll try to answer if I can.

500 Posts!

I just saw I reached 500 posts the other day.  Congratulations to me!

Flint Horror Con

I'm going to be signing my remaining copies of The Ghost Toucher at the Flint Horror Con October 29th.  To anyone who hasn't gotten a signed copy, now is the time to order one from me because I don't expect to have anymore October 30th.  But you can always show up to the convention and get a signature from me.

I Completely Forgot I Have a Forum

And it's crowded with SPAM!  I have to figure out what to do with it. 

YA Novels

I've recently become interested in writing a Young Adult novel.  I'm seeing them across all genres and my favorite author has written a trilogy of them with my favorite character.  So I combed through the ideas I have in my head and there was one really basic premise that when I thought about it, could really benefit by having an minus 18 lead character.  I've even plotted a couple pages of it.

I can't reveal much beyond that except that it is tentatively titled 'Cold'.

Interview with JE Taylor

Did an interview with JE Taylor a little while back.  Here it is...

http://jetaylor75.blogspot.com/2011/0...

Interview with my Alma Mater

I did an interview at my alma mater, Oakland University.  Patrick Cymbalski kind of stumbled into radio.  He actually is majoring in French and has studied abroad.  But here's the interview we did:

http://www.mediafire.com/?k2bt38ii8rkv4gg