Jason Brant's Blog, page 13

Day 56 – Rocking Book 6

Sleep has evaded me the past few days, so it has proven difficult to get moving early in the mornings. Since that’s when I’m most productive, I’ve struggled getting started.

But I’m still plopping my ass in the chair and getting words down. Hopefully they’re quality words. We’ll find out during the second draft.

It’s Tuesday, so it’s time for Final Guys. Tonight we’re reviewing the excellent and disturbing Midsommar. Gonna be a fun discussion.

I’ve got to set everything up for the show, so I don’t have much time for this post. I’ll have more for you tomorrow.

Today, I wrote 2528 words (roughly 10-12 pages) in the sixth book in The Hunger, bringing the total to 3908 (between 16-20 pages). Things are rolling now!

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 55 – Why I Don’t Do Interviews (Usually)

I almost always turn down interview requests. There are a couple of reasons for this, but mostly I don’t do them because they don’t generate sales. I’ve never read an interview with someone and then bought their book afterward. Ever. I’ve asked a lot of people if they have and the answer has universally been no.

Of course, I’m sure there’s someone who will say they have, and that’s great, honestly, but that is the exception, not the rule. Most blogs or author sites just don’t have the traffic necessary to make the interview worthwhile.

That’s not to say hitting the book-blog circuit doesn’t have its uses. When I first started out, I did a lot more interviews than I do now. It was a good way to build a presence online. Did it directly sell books? No. Did it get my name out there? Yes. When you’re first entering the business, that can have its use.

Maybe.

Your time might be better spent working on the next book. Dunno.

The other reason I turn down almost all interview requests, is because they’re fucking boring. I get asked the same ten questions over and over and over and over. If I’m being honest, this is what started me down this no interviews jag over the past few years. Most of the blogs I’ve been on have all asked me a series of generic questions.

They’re rarely about a particular book or character of mine. It’s usually something broad about writing or publishing and not anything specific. It’s uninteresting to me and I can only imagine that it’s uninteresting to the reader. I’ve actually requested more pointed, direct questions, been promised them, and then got the same ol’ crap.

I can’t explain how much I hate it. Every few months (sometimes years), I’ll dive back into the interview pool. After one or two, I give it up again.

So if you want to interview me, make it interesting. Convince me that this one will be different.

This doesn’t apply to podcasts to the same degree. Being able to speak to someone, to interact with them beyond an email or document, makes a big difference. The interview ends up being more personal, which helps a lot. The questions can often be similar in that medium, because people want to ask about Ash and sales figures and things of that nature. I don’t mind that as much though.

Make it interesting.

Today, I started book 6 in The Hunger series. No title yet, but I’ll probably have one in the next week or two. I wrote 1377 words (around 5 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

 

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Day 54 – Cover Design

Because I’m finished writing Decayed, I’ve moved into the publishing process. Right now, that entails cover design. Tonight, I’m looking through stock art at Deposit Photos. My cover artist has an account there, so I find images I like and send her links.

If I have a specific idea for a cover, I’ll tell her what I want and the two of us will comb through the stock art. That’s how we did the Asher Benson covers.

Sometimes I don’t have a clue what would make for a good cover. Rene, my cover artist, will come up with something. We’ll then tweak and pick at it until we land on something we’re both happy with. A great example of this was the cover of The Dark. I told her the gist of the story and we started spitballing. The first iteration of the cover was this:

We liked it, but wanted to tweak it more. I actually uploaded this to my Facebook page and asked readers what they liked and what they didn’t. A ton of great suggestions came in. Some people thought the guy was underwater, so we changed the colors. There’s something weird going on with his feet, so we fixed that. We also added some disintegration, which really sells it, I think. We finished with this:

Much better. The cover is actually a huge reason the book took off when it released. I had a representative of Kobo reach out about promoting the book too, because the cover caught his eye. All because we tinkered until we had something. You need good covers, people. It makes a huge difference.

For The Hunger books, we find stock art with the same blonde model. There are a ton of that woman, but most of them don’t apply to my books. Having her listening to headphones won’t quite get the tone of the books across. Once we find an image we’re happy with, we work on the background. Rene performs her Photoshop voodoo and we’ve got us a cover.

The original cover for Devoured is a different story. It was a premade by Rene that I bought off her before I even had a book. The same with Consumed. I wrote the books quite a bit after having the covers on hand. Probably not the smartest way to do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how many other books had used the same stock art Devoured had. This was the original:

I liked it. That’s why I bought it. Unfortunately, I saw this image popping up all over Amazon. Readers sent me emails and DMs telling me about them. I had to make a change. So we came up with this:

And then we were back in business. So now I’m going to sit on my couch and look at stock art for a few hours.

Though I said I was going to start book #6 today, I decided against it. Gave myself a day away from writing to relax and work on other things. I’m firing that baby up tomorrow.

See ya then.

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Day 53 – Finished

Decayed is finished. At least the writing part, anyway. The real work begins now. A lot of authors I know hate the publishing part of this whole process, but I enjoy most of it.

I’ve got everything down to a science at this point, so I can do things like paperback formatting in a matter of minutes. I’ll make posts for each step as I get to it. Right now, The Tall One is doing the first read through by someone other than myself. When she finishes that, I’ll fix everything she caught and send it off to the editor.

But while she’s reading, which will take a few days because I make a lot of mistakes, I’m going to start writing The Hunger #6. I haven’t come up with a title yet. Those usually hit me when I’m a decent way into the story and a word I use stands out. Though most of The Hunger titles have come from looking up synonyms for Devoured on thesaurus.com. No, I’m not kidding.

I’m so creative.

An anxious excitement has built in me for the past few weeks to get cracking on the sixth book. I’ve made some changes to my writing process to hopefully speed my production up. As I’ve mentioned before, the goal is to finish the first draft in thirty days. There are a few impediments to that, but we’re still operating without excuses.

Full speed ahead, baby.

So that’s it for today. I’m heading to a microbrewery to celebrate finishing this sucker. This book took a long time to get through. It’s also my longest work at 90k words. Devoured was around 72k words if I recall correctly. Let’s hope the sixth book isn’t 100k. I pay my editor by the word, so this could get really expensive!

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 52 – Draft 2 is Done!

I’m tired. It’s been a long couple of days  grinding on this book. I don’t know why, but spending several hours in a row on a book wears me out like nothing else. I feel better after running a 5k than I do after a marathon writing or editing session.

But the damn thing is done.

Normally, I’m finished after completing the second draft, but not this time. I have a few tiny notes I made that I need to fix. It’s nothing major – they’ll maybe take me an hour tomorrow morning. Then the book goes to The Tall One, she finds some stupid errors, and then it’s off to my editor!

Finally.

Tomorrow, after finishing this sucker up, I’m going to spend most of the day working around the house and editing SBIG. Sunday, I’m starting The Hunger book 6. The goal is to finish the first draft in a month. We’ll see if I get that done, because I’m going to Scares That Care for a weekend in August.

So that’s it for the day. Sorry for not having a more meaningful post, but I’m really grinding on this book right now.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 51 – Sooo Close

Not much of a post today, because I’ve spent a lot of time editing Decayed. I’ve finished five chapters and I’m still going. Gonna work on this sucker into the night, see how far I can get.

It should be finished tomorrow! Freaking finally. By Saturday, The Tall One will start her read through. It’ll be in my editor’s hands next week! So excited to get this on the market for everyone.

That’s all for now. See ya tomorrow!

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Day 50 – Book Signings

I rarely do book signings. There’s a simple reason for this… they don’t generate much money. In fact, they usually cost the author money.

At least if you’re at my level. I’m sure a Stephen King book tour generates huge sales and interest. Mine don’t. Most conventions require the author to pay for table space so we can hawk our wares. So the writer has to sell a certain amount of books just to break even.

That doesn’t happen most of the time.

To me, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’d rather spend my time doing something else. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t reasons to do a signing, however. Meeting up with a bunch of author friends to share space and have some drinks is a lot of fun. It doesn’t bring in money, but it’s still a good time.

Having a table at a local bookstore, for free, is a bit more enticing too. But only so much. You just give the store a cut of any sales you make. Sounds decent, right? It can be fun.

Or it can be a soul-sucking experience. If you’re sitting by the entrance of your favorite local spot and no one pays attention, that really sucks. Most people don’t give a crap that you’ve written a book. They’re there for the new Patterson, not some local douche who wrote a terrible book. Sometimes authors have to essentially panhandle by the door, just to move a handful of copies.

Not fun.

So I don’t do them.

Usually.

I do like the idea of having book release parties locally, where I can meet readers and have a good time. This isn’t something I’ve done before, but it’s an idea I’ve kicked around for a few years. It wouldn’t have to happen at a bookstore, necessarily. Could be cool to do at a brewery or bar or library. I dunno. Just something I think could be fun. Who knows what all we could do. Here’s a picture of The Tall One dressed like Cass at a book signing I did in Dallas, TX. Would be a blast to do something like this for book releases parties.

Anyway, that’s why you don’t see me posting about dates and locations for signings… I don’t do them. But I’m open to different ideas.

Today, I edited three chapters in Decayed. Soooo close. I also posted the new Final Guys episode. Give it a listen!

 

 

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 49 – Podcast Day

Today is a short one, because I’m spending the evening working on Final Guys. This week we’re reviewing Spider-Man: Far From Home. I’m also talking about an incredibly unique and excellent movie I stumbled across. Should be a fun one!

I had to to renew my PO box today with the Post Office. There are two reasons I have one. First, it’s required that I give a physical mailing address if I want to have a newsletter. It’s a stupid law meant to curb e-mail spam. Second, I occasionally get handwritten mail from readers, which I absolutely love to receive, so I like to have a different address for that. I don’t want to throw my home address out there if I don’t have to.

If you want to send me something (beer!), then use this address:

Jason Brant

P.O. Box 49

Abingdon, MD 21009

I also started a course that gets into the gritty details of BookBub advertising. When Decayed releases, I’m hoping to leverage some ads through BB to push the entire series. It’s a few hours long, so I’m spreading the studying time out through the week. Should be done in the next few days.

More editing work happened on SBIG. This episode is over 17 minutes so far, so it’s a lot of work to get this sucker done. Making good progress though.

I’m adjusting my series pricing on The Hunger in preparation for the release too. It’s not a ton of work, but I’m published at so many different places, that I have to make sure I get my numbers right. Particularly when dealing with Google. They like to screw with my book pricing, so I have to pay extra attention with them. I could probably write an entire post about the struggles of publishing with them.

And finally, I edited two more chapters in Decayed. I can’t wait to finish this thing so I can get cracking on book 6. So much work to do this year!

See ya tomorrow!

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Day 48 – ASH Flopped

I’ve mentioned this before, but I figured it was time to lay out the lurid details. ASH is a rewrite of the first piece of fiction I ever attempted, Echoes. Note that I didn’t say the first piece of fiction that I published, which it also was. I started writing in January. Echoes was published in early April.

It sucked. I was incredibly proud of it at the time, but it was pretty terrible.

Because I wanted to write more about Asher Benson, I knew I had to rewrite the whole damn thing. I couldn’t salvage any of Echoes. So I started from scratch and cranked out ASH. I was very excited to release the novel, because I planned to write multiple sequels. My cover artist whipped up some cool artwork based on a design idea I had. This was the original:

I loved it.

The book bombed at release. I mean, really bombed. Most of the readership I’d built had found me through The Dark and The Hunger, so I guess most of them didn’t want to try something else. I dunno. It bombed and I was bummed.

But I didn’t give up on it. I believed in the character and the over-the-top nature of the series. After finishing the third book in The Hunger, I decided to get going on the sequel to ASH, Madness. I knew I had to make changes or the series would die, so I got to work.

The first thing I had to do was change the cover. My designer came up with this:

This one has more commercial appeal. Much more, going by how many books it moved. Using big titles is something I’ve drifted toward over the past few years. Having large letters on the covers has helped because the vast majority of my books are sold online. When people browse Amazon or Apple on their phones or tablets, they’re glancing at thumbnails. Big letters grab the eye more than small details in the artwork.

Second, I changed the book description. I drummed up a punchy intro that details a few of the intense moments at the beginning of the story. This is what I started the description with:

9 AM EST: A senator shoots himself on national television.

10:32 AM EST: An entire floor of government agents leap to their death from their office building.

12:57 PM EST: All the police officers inside a station murder each other.

You can read the rest here, if you’re interested. It seemed to grab potential reader’s attention a lot better than the previous one.

The new cover and description increased the purchase rate of ASH by a large percentage. But it wasn’t enough if I wanted to get a whole series kickstarted after a shitty release. I figured I needed to move at least ten or twenty times as many copies as I was at the time, if I wanted to make Asher Benson viable. If the first in a series doesn’t sell a lot of copies, the sequels are doomed. Buy-through rates are a whole other post that I’ll get to at a later date.

Third, I made ASH permanently free, with links to Madness in the back.

The book exploded in popularity after that. It topped the free ‘bestseller’ lists on Amazon and Google for months and months. Madness, and the short story before it, The Perfect Crime, took off as well. And Asher Benson was given new life. I plan to release at least one more Asher book this year, and maybe as many as three. That’s probably wishful thinking, though.

So long story long… don’t give up on something too quickly. Just because a book failed at release doesn’t mean it can’t find an audience. Maybe it needs a new cover. Maybe a better description. Maybe it needs some targeted advertising. Perhaps a dash of black magic.

Echoes needed to be shitcanned.

ASH just took a little TLC and some creative elbow grease.

The first thing you need to do is be honest with yourself. Is it a solid story? How’s the writing? Does it have good characters? If you believe in it, honestly, then start tinkering. It might not be as dead as you think.

Today, I only edited a chapter and a half of Decayed, which is terrible. Some more SBIG editing happened. Hoping to release the new episode this week. The Tall One should be reading Decayed in the next two days.

See ya tomorrow.

 

 

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Day 47 – Just an Accountability Day

Today is one of those days where I just want to kick back and relax. But this is supposed to be a 365 day work adventure, so I still dragged my sorry ass through a chapter in Decayed. I also edited more on SBIG. We have some really funny episodes coming up.

What did you accomplish today?

See ya tomorrow.

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