Matt Heppe's Blog, page 9
February 12, 2012
The Good, The Bad, and the Exciting
The Good:
One of the best things about being a writer is hearing positive feedback from readers. A couple of readers have gone above and beyond and have really worked to promote Eternal Knight. One of these readers is Jahin Ahmed. He recently contacted me to let me know that he wrote a blog review of Eternal Knight. He's a young book reviewer and I think he deserves a lot of credit it for his efforts. And I appreciate the great review!
The Bad:
I've received my first bad (two star) review on Amazon. It had to happen at some point in time. The urge, of course, is to defend your work. You want to point out how wrong the reviewer was and to explain to readers of the review just how good your work is. This, of course, is the last thing in the world you should do. It does not end well for the author. What do you do? You just have to accept it. It is part of writing. No book survives unscathed. Take pleasure in the good reviews and drive on.
The Exciting:
I have entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Five thousand writers entered the contest. The first round consists of a 300 word pitch. This is actually the round I most dread. Taking a 115,000 word novel and turning it into a 300 word pitch is a brutal task. The one thousand survivors of round one will then be judged on the first 5,000 words of their novels. After that, the following two rounds are judged on the complete manuscript. Odds of winning are long, but even surviving a few round and bring your novel a lot of attention. And if you win, first prize is a publishing contract with Penguin.
Winners of the first round are announced on February 24th. I'll give you a shout if I made it.
One of the best things about being a writer is hearing positive feedback from readers. A couple of readers have gone above and beyond and have really worked to promote Eternal Knight. One of these readers is Jahin Ahmed. He recently contacted me to let me know that he wrote a blog review of Eternal Knight. He's a young book reviewer and I think he deserves a lot of credit it for his efforts. And I appreciate the great review!
The Bad:
I've received my first bad (two star) review on Amazon. It had to happen at some point in time. The urge, of course, is to defend your work. You want to point out how wrong the reviewer was and to explain to readers of the review just how good your work is. This, of course, is the last thing in the world you should do. It does not end well for the author. What do you do? You just have to accept it. It is part of writing. No book survives unscathed. Take pleasure in the good reviews and drive on.
The Exciting:
I have entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Five thousand writers entered the contest. The first round consists of a 300 word pitch. This is actually the round I most dread. Taking a 115,000 word novel and turning it into a 300 word pitch is a brutal task. The one thousand survivors of round one will then be judged on the first 5,000 words of their novels. After that, the following two rounds are judged on the complete manuscript. Odds of winning are long, but even surviving a few round and bring your novel a lot of attention. And if you win, first prize is a publishing contract with Penguin.
Winners of the first round are announced on February 24th. I'll give you a shout if I made it.
January 12, 2012
500!
Eternal Knight hit the big 5-0-0!
My last sales update (October) had EK at 415 books sold. I knew 500 was in striking distance. November saw 41 more sales, pushing the total up to 456. December added 43, bringing EK to 499.
Happy New Year! Number 500 sold just a couple of days after the hangovers wore off.
No, I'm not quitting my job to write full time. 500 (mostly $.99) books won't take me that far. What does it mean? In practical terms, not much. However, it is a really cool milestone. Sure, I'm thousands of sales away from publishers or agents taking any notice of me. But each sale brings me closer to those readers who are the super-promoters. The readers, who when they like something, really go out of their way to tell EVERYONE they know about it. I've had a few of them so far and they are wonderful. Maybe I'll hit that critical mass of super-promoters and Eternal Knight will take off. Fingers crossed.
Reviews are still strong, ratings are still good, and everyone I know (and some who I don't) keep offering encouragement. A thank you to everyone who has supported my efforts so far. I haven't made much money so far, but all of the positive feedback has made the entire effort more than worth it.
Thank you !
Matt
My last sales update (October) had EK at 415 books sold. I knew 500 was in striking distance. November saw 41 more sales, pushing the total up to 456. December added 43, bringing EK to 499.
Happy New Year! Number 500 sold just a couple of days after the hangovers wore off.
No, I'm not quitting my job to write full time. 500 (mostly $.99) books won't take me that far. What does it mean? In practical terms, not much. However, it is a really cool milestone. Sure, I'm thousands of sales away from publishers or agents taking any notice of me. But each sale brings me closer to those readers who are the super-promoters. The readers, who when they like something, really go out of their way to tell EVERYONE they know about it. I've had a few of them so far and they are wonderful. Maybe I'll hit that critical mass of super-promoters and Eternal Knight will take off. Fingers crossed.
Reviews are still strong, ratings are still good, and everyone I know (and some who I don't) keep offering encouragement. A thank you to everyone who has supported my efforts so far. I haven't made much money so far, but all of the positive feedback has made the entire effort more than worth it.
Thank you !
Matt
December 19, 2011
EK: Workaday Reads' Best Self-Published Novel of the Year
WOW! I just found out that Sarah at Workaday Reads named Eternal Knight as best self-published novel of the year! I've said it before, but nothing beats hearing nice things said about something you created. I'd like to thank Sarah for the honor. Workaday Reads is a wonderful blog. Go take a look!
I know I've been a bad blogger lately. The real world, work, life, family, etc... I have plenty of excuses. I'll just let you know that things are going well and I'll try to be a better blogger in the new year. More importantly, I'll be a better writer in the new year.
I'm so psyched about Sarah's selection that I'm going to give away a free, signed copy of Eternal Knight. Due to postage costs, I'm only making it available to residents of the USA. However, if you are international, I'll give you an ebook copy if you would still like to enter.
All you have to do to enter is to make a comment on this blog post. I'll choose the winner on December 26th.
All my best,
Matt
I know I've been a bad blogger lately. The real world, work, life, family, etc... I have plenty of excuses. I'll just let you know that things are going well and I'll try to be a better blogger in the new year. More importantly, I'll be a better writer in the new year.
I'm so psyched about Sarah's selection that I'm going to give away a free, signed copy of Eternal Knight. Due to postage costs, I'm only making it available to residents of the USA. However, if you are international, I'll give you an ebook copy if you would still like to enter.
All you have to do to enter is to make a comment on this blog post. I'll choose the winner on December 26th.
All my best,
Matt
November 30, 2011
Argh! The guilt!
Not writing. Not a word in weeks. It is not writer's block. It is just not writing.
A good friend of mine is an author. When I spoke with him about how I longed for solid periods of writing time he laughed. "You have to make time to write. And you have to write every spare chance you get. Even if it is just twenty minutes."
I know he is right, but it is so hard to do. A spare twenty minutes is so easily filled with some (any) other activity than writing.
Writing a novel means climbing a mountain of 100,000 words. When I wrote Eternal Knight I climbed that mountain at a pace of several thousand words per day. In fact, I climbed up and down every crag of that mountain multiple times and ended up with 250,000 words. Too much climbing!
A while back I wrote a post about writing 1,000 words a day. The mountain of my next novel would be climbed in 100 writing days (plus editing and revising time, of course). That didn't seem so bad. But I couldn't hit 1,000 words. I couldn't hit 500. And the mountain kept getting taller.
It isn't that the book is getting longer... I still have it planned for 100,000 words. It is just that the fewer the words I write per day, the longer it will take to hit 100,000. And the longer the final goal is from being achieved, the harder it is to motivate myself to write.
I must break this cycle. The book will not get done at all if I don't put pen on paper. My life is different from when I wrote Eternal Knight. I need to accept that fact, adjust, and get to work.
A good friend of mine is an author. When I spoke with him about how I longed for solid periods of writing time he laughed. "You have to make time to write. And you have to write every spare chance you get. Even if it is just twenty minutes."
I know he is right, but it is so hard to do. A spare twenty minutes is so easily filled with some (any) other activity than writing.
Writing a novel means climbing a mountain of 100,000 words. When I wrote Eternal Knight I climbed that mountain at a pace of several thousand words per day. In fact, I climbed up and down every crag of that mountain multiple times and ended up with 250,000 words. Too much climbing!
A while back I wrote a post about writing 1,000 words a day. The mountain of my next novel would be climbed in 100 writing days (plus editing and revising time, of course). That didn't seem so bad. But I couldn't hit 1,000 words. I couldn't hit 500. And the mountain kept getting taller.
It isn't that the book is getting longer... I still have it planned for 100,000 words. It is just that the fewer the words I write per day, the longer it will take to hit 100,000. And the longer the final goal is from being achieved, the harder it is to motivate myself to write.
I must break this cycle. The book will not get done at all if I don't put pen on paper. My life is different from when I wrote Eternal Knight. I need to accept that fact, adjust, and get to work.
November 13, 2011
October Numbers
The real world has been occupying a lot of my time recently. With the end of the first quarter I found myself with a ton of grading and lesson planning needing to be done.
I'm just popping by to report my October Numbers:
October (September, August, July, June, May)
6 (5, 12, 38, 60, 125) Paperbacks sold in person.
3 (3, 5, 12, 6, 28) Paperbacks sold on Amazon
47 (16, 8, 3, 5, 15) Kindle ebooks
1 (1, 0, 0, 0, 1) Smashwords ebooks
1 (0, 0, 1, 0, 4) Apple ebooks
0 (0, 0, 2, 5, 2) Nook ebooks
Total October Sales: 58
Total sales since release: 415
When I published Eternal Knight six months ago a friend asked me how many books I hoped to sell.
"A gazillion," I replied. "But five hundred would be cool."
It looks like I'll hit that five hundred mark sometime around the turn of the year. Two things really have me feeling good: 1) the continued positive feedback I am getting from readers. I cannot say enough how rewarding it is to hear nice things said about your book. 2) $.99 ebooks are the way to go. You don't make much money, but it sure gets the book into a lot of hands. The new price definitely caused the Kindle numbers to pop.
Have a good one. I'm going to go grade some tests. And then mow the lawn/leaves. (Mowing leaves sure beats raking them.)
I'm just popping by to report my October Numbers:
October (September, August, July, June, May)
6 (5, 12, 38, 60, 125) Paperbacks sold in person.
3 (3, 5, 12, 6, 28) Paperbacks sold on Amazon
47 (16, 8, 3, 5, 15) Kindle ebooks
1 (1, 0, 0, 0, 1) Smashwords ebooks
1 (0, 0, 1, 0, 4) Apple ebooks
0 (0, 0, 2, 5, 2) Nook ebooks
Total October Sales: 58
Total sales since release: 415
When I published Eternal Knight six months ago a friend asked me how many books I hoped to sell.
"A gazillion," I replied. "But five hundred would be cool."
It looks like I'll hit that five hundred mark sometime around the turn of the year. Two things really have me feeling good: 1) the continued positive feedback I am getting from readers. I cannot say enough how rewarding it is to hear nice things said about your book. 2) $.99 ebooks are the way to go. You don't make much money, but it sure gets the book into a lot of hands. The new price definitely caused the Kindle numbers to pop.
Have a good one. I'm going to go grade some tests. And then mow the lawn/leaves. (Mowing leaves sure beats raking them.)
November 2, 2011
Hey! I'm on TV
This year the Wissahickon High School TV Club started a new project. They created a book chat TV program. And I'm the host!
Each episode is half an hour long and consists of three segments. It shows on our local access cable channel on a rotating basis. So far we have filmed three episodes, and will probably do ten total for the year. Jessica Brasch, the TV Club sponsor has some contacts in the publishing world and is using them to bring in authors.
My job is the fun part. I get to interview the authors on camera. Let me make this perfectly clear to you, I am totally unqualified for the job. I have no on-camera experience at all. The interviewing part is no problem... it is the teleprompters and the switching back and forth from camera to camera to guest that is the tough part.
After three interviews I am getting more comfortable, but I am definitely still a rookie. I ended the second episode (ridiculously) abruptly. Ugh. I don't know what kind of editing magic will fix it.
Here is the first episode. I can't tell you if it is any good because I haven't watched it. If I watch it I will just beat myself up over ever mistake I made. And I'm sure there are many. In the fist episode Shelleah Jackson and I interview each other. Shelleah Jackson is a student-author in our school. Enjoy! (I hope)
WissLit Episode One
Each episode is half an hour long and consists of three segments. It shows on our local access cable channel on a rotating basis. So far we have filmed three episodes, and will probably do ten total for the year. Jessica Brasch, the TV Club sponsor has some contacts in the publishing world and is using them to bring in authors.
My job is the fun part. I get to interview the authors on camera. Let me make this perfectly clear to you, I am totally unqualified for the job. I have no on-camera experience at all. The interviewing part is no problem... it is the teleprompters and the switching back and forth from camera to camera to guest that is the tough part.
After three interviews I am getting more comfortable, but I am definitely still a rookie. I ended the second episode (ridiculously) abruptly. Ugh. I don't know what kind of editing magic will fix it.
Here is the first episode. I can't tell you if it is any good because I haven't watched it. If I watch it I will just beat myself up over ever mistake I made. And I'm sure there are many. In the fist episode Shelleah Jackson and I interview each other. Shelleah Jackson is a student-author in our school. Enjoy! (I hope)
WissLit Episode One
October 14, 2011
Book Review: Loki
God of Mischief. Father of Lies. Harbinger of Destruction. Exiled and tortured by the gods, Loki swears vengeance. He will summon the mighty Fenris Wolf and the legendary Midgard Serpent, and they will lead an army of giants and all the dead in Niflheim. Brimming with the power of the most destructive being in the Nine Worlds, he will not rest till Asgard is in ashes and all the gods are dead under his heel. -Amazon.com book description
Mike Vasich's novel, Loki, was frustratingly close to being excellent. The writing was terrific. The research and world building were first class. The action scenes were well choreographed and truly exciting. So what's not to like?
Loki is the story of the Norse gods, their battles with the giants, and the coming battle of Ragnorak. Reading the cover, I was expecting the god Loki to be the protagonist of the novel. I thought I was going to get a retelling of Norse mythology from Loki's perspective. That quickly proved not to be the case. The story is told from many points of view. The positive aspect of this is that the reader gets the whole story - you are always where you need to be in order to learn about what is going on. Unfortunately, I never became attached to one particular character. I had nobody to root for in this dramatic battle between Loki, the Norse gods, and the giants. I found myself not caring about who would win. I never had a reason to root for one side or the other. Instead of reading like a novel, it was more a narrative retelling of Norse mythology.
As such, it was terrific. The gods are distinct characters, each with their own personalities, powers, likes, and dislikes. I know a little bit about Norse mythology. It was great to see the stories I knew from my youth come alive in a fully realized way. If you have any interest in Norse mythology, Loki is a must-read.
I have one major recommendation if you want to read the novel as a novel and not as a retelling of Norse mythology. Every so often in the book the author has written out Norse prophesy. (You can identify these sections because they are in italics. They also make up a small percentage of the book's length.) The prophesy sections are then followed by a chapter or two of narrative. Do not read the prophesies! They give away all of the major events of the following chapters. Seriously, my recommendation is to skip the italicized sections. They destroy all of the tension in the following chapters. The book is far more exciting without them! Rant over.
If you read Loki without reading the italicized sections it will read much more like a novel. An exciting novel with an impossible-to-beat climax.
Mike Vasich is a talented writer. I highly enjoyed Loki and look forward to reading more of the author's work.
I give Loki four stars (if you skip the italicized sections).
October 6, 2011
September Numbers
I was walking out of school the other day and a student walked up to me and told me how much she liked Eternal Knight. I had never met her before. I don't have the words to tell you how great that felt.
But that's not the point of this blog entry. I'm just stopping by to let you know how September went. It started of with a bang - a book club was hitting Kindle up for their copies and we were off to the races. Unfortunately, the second half of the month slowed down.
September (August, July, June, May)
5 (12, 38, 60, 125) Paperbacks sold in person.
3 (5, 12, 6, 28) Paperbacks sold on Amazon
16 (8, 3, 5, 15) Kindle ebooks
1 (0, 0, 0, 1) Smashwords ebooks
0 (0, 1, 0, 4) Apple ebooks
0 (0, 2, 5, 2) Nook ebooks
The $.99 pricing model seems to be paying off in October. Ten Kindle sales (and a couple of Smashwords sales) in the first six days of the month. We'll see if the pace keeps up.
Don't forget about the Goodreads Eternal Knight giveaway. There are only a few days left to enter. Click the link to the right to enter.
Have a great one!
But that's not the point of this blog entry. I'm just stopping by to let you know how September went. It started of with a bang - a book club was hitting Kindle up for their copies and we were off to the races. Unfortunately, the second half of the month slowed down.
September (August, July, June, May)
5 (12, 38, 60, 125) Paperbacks sold in person.
3 (5, 12, 6, 28) Paperbacks sold on Amazon
16 (8, 3, 5, 15) Kindle ebooks
1 (0, 0, 0, 1) Smashwords ebooks
0 (0, 1, 0, 4) Apple ebooks
0 (0, 2, 5, 2) Nook ebooks
The $.99 pricing model seems to be paying off in October. Ten Kindle sales (and a couple of Smashwords sales) in the first six days of the month. We'll see if the pace keeps up.
Don't forget about the Goodreads Eternal Knight giveaway. There are only a few days left to enter. Click the link to the right to enter.
Have a great one!
September 28, 2011
Eternal Knight on Sale
Eternal Knight is on sale as an ebook for 99 cents. The new price is already in effect on Amazon and Smashwords. It should be in place on Barnes and Noble and Apple very soon.
The 99 cent sale price will expire on November 1st. At that time I'll hold a Goodreads Author Q&A session that will last for one week.
I'd also like to remind you of the Goodreads Eternal Knight giveaway going on right now. There are three signed copies of Eternal Knight up for grabs. All you have to do to enter is to click the button to the right of the page!
Spread the word!
All my best,
Matt
The 99 cent sale price will expire on November 1st. At that time I'll hold a Goodreads Author Q&A session that will last for one week.
I'd also like to remind you of the Goodreads Eternal Knight giveaway going on right now. There are three signed copies of Eternal Knight up for grabs. All you have to do to enter is to click the button to the right of the page!
Spread the word!
All my best,
Matt
September 22, 2011
Book Club, Giveaway, and Great Review
Book Club
I went to my second book club meeting as a guest author last night. What a wonderful time! It reconfirmed that meeting with readers is the best part of being an author. We spent a good bit of time talking about how Eternal Knight was written and what it is like to go through the self-publishing process. It was also nice to spend some time talking about other authors and books (like The Hunger Games and Twilight) and our likes and dislikes.
One topic that came up was how The Hunger Games could affect Eternal Knight. Like The Hunger Games, Eternal Knight features a strong female protagonist who shoulders the burden of responsibility for the well being of her family. Katniss and Hadde are both strong-willed and both happen to be excellent archers. Could the huge success of The Hunger Games (both the novel and the forthcoming movie) have a halo effect on Eternal Knight? Will Katniss fans become Hadde fans?
Many thanks to Ree McGinley for inviting me into her home and introducing me to her book club friends!
Giveaway
I'm giving away three free, signed copies of Eternal Knight on Goodreads. The contest is free and very easy to enter. Just click the button on the right of the screen. Go ahead and sign up!
I'm trying to make Goodreads a bigger part of my promotional efforts. The site is a haven for bibliophiles.
Great Review
Eternal Knight just received a terrific review from Sarah at Workaday Reads. I've probably mentioned this before, but despite the fact that Eternal Knight isn't exactly raking in the dough, it gives me incredible satisfaction when I hear that somebody loves (or even just likes) my creation.
Still having fun. I could definitely do this for a living!
