Jason Brant's Blog, page 15

Day 38 – I Almost Killed The Hunger Series

During my rant against Facebook, I mentioned that my writing career took a huge hit a few years ago. When Facebook changed their policies, it destroyed my ability to reach my readers. The timing of that coincided with the start of a brand new series.

Until that point, I’d written Echoes, West of Hell, The Gate, and The Dark.

My sales grew with each book, but didn’t amount to a whole hell of a lot. That first year of publishing brought me a gross of $1800. That’s gross, not net. I had editing and cover expenses in there. And I purchased a laptop to write on. If I made any profit, it was slim. Especially when you consider how much work it took to release that many books in a short amount of time.

But then I released The Dark.

For some reason, that novel took off about a week after release. It pulled The Gate along with it. That big push convinced me that I could turn this writing thing into a career. My author page likes on Facebook jumped exponentially. I knew that whatever I released after that would sell much better than anything before it.

So I got cracking on a new idea I had that became Devoured.

In the middle of writing that book, Facebook neutered my reach. At the time, I didn’t know much that would crush me. I kept plugging  along on the book, developing a three-novel story arc in the process. The plan was to release the trio of books over six months, then laugh my way to the bank.

Yeah. That didn’t happen.

When Devoured hit the digital shelves it sold a whopping 16 copies the first day.

I was floored.

My biggest release yet, The Dark, had come out just a few months earlier. It had sold like gangbusters, at least to my standards. My career was taking off like a rocket. So what happened? None of my readers knew it had released. I didn’t know anything about Facebook advertising, no one did at that time, and I didn’t have a mailing list. I’d dropped a book onto Amazon and no one knew about it.

Sales were so dismal, worse than anything I’d released previously (including West of Hell, which I still can’t give away), that I knew I couldn’t waste the next six months finishing the trilogy. I didn’t want to leave the few people who’d read the book hanging though. While Devoured didn’t end in a cliffhanger, there were unresolved storylines that needed wrapped up.

I condensed the second and third books into one, Consumed. After releasing that, I moved on.

Except the damnedest thing happened – Consumed triggered some kind of algorithm on Amazon. Their system pushed the book. A lot. Sales took off. Because they were pimping Consumed on my behalf, Devoured was pulled out of book hell along with it. Both books were selling at a solid rate.

All of a sudden, I had a viable book series.

A book series that I’d just prematurely wrapped up. I didn’t have a storyline to continue for book 3. On top of that, I’d started a rewrite of Echoes, which I eventually released as Ash. That tanked when it released too, but that’s a story for another time. What fun!

Obviously, I came up with a story later that became Ravaged. The fifth and sixth books in the series will come out over the next few months. But I almost killed the entire thing because Facebook bent me over a barrel and bombed my book release. To be fair, I was the idiot who solely relied on a giant corporation to reach my readers.

So what did I take away from this? Facebook sucks. Books can find new life well after release. Don’t give up on a series until you’ve exhausted all your options. It’s hard to know when to abandon a writing project. Start a goddamn newsletter!

Today, I edited 2 more chapters in Decayed. Story ideas are percolating for book the untitled book 6. Can’t wait to start writing it next week.

See ya tomorrow.

The post Day 38 – I Almost Killed The Hunger Series appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 37 – What Should I Read Next?

Today was a trying day. I woke up early to get cracking on the book, only to have some house maintenance emergencies popup. Decayed has already become the second longest drafting process I’ve gone through. It’s ridiculous.

The work on the book will continue as soon as I get this post published, so I’m keeping this one short.

I’m always looking for new, interesting authors to try. Or old ones I haven’t checked out yet. Just in the past year or two, I’ve discovered Richard Laymon, so I’m slowly working my way through his catalog. The same with Jeff Strand.

My favorites are Stephen King (duh) and Blake Crouch. I’ll gobble up anything they publish.

What I want from you lot are some recommendations for new books I need to read. Give me suggestions for authors or novels, shorts, audiobooks, whatever. Hit me up with your recent favorites and I’ll check them out.

Right now, I’m reading Creature by the jackass Hunter Shea. He sucks. Next, I’m going to smash through Recursion by Blake Crouch. After that I’m looking for something different. Bring it on!

Today, I edited one chapter in Decayed. FML.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 36 – My Writing Style

Over the years, my style has developed into my own weird thing. The majority of it is intentional. I say the majority, because I tend to put pages down in sprints. Sometimes the word choice might not be something that I would have done if I’d thought about it more. I usually fix anything glaring during the second draft though, so I might not know what I’m talking about.

As usual.

Before I go any further, I’m not saying that my style is better than someone else’s. More than likely, it’s worse. But it’s all mine. Do whatever you prefer.

If you’ve read my work, then you know that I tend to use a lot of humor and action. That carries through most of my stuff. Some are lighter on one than the other, but both are usually present. Why humor and action?

Horror is my favorite genre. It’s 90% of what I read. Humor and horror go hand-in-hand. Ever go to a haunted attraction? You see people laughing and screaming. I try to model my books after that kind of feeling. Take the Asher Benson series as an example. They’re about heavy themes and subjects. Ash is beaten and tortured, feared and hated.

He sees and ‘hears’ things no one should.

I use humor in those books as a kind of pressure release. When Ash cracks wise in the middle of a fight, it eases the tension just enough to get a laugh out of the reader (hopefully). Then I ratchet the horror back up. It’s a balancing act that I’m constantly focusing on.

Works well for me.

Action is just as important. For most of my stuff, I like to have a propulsive momentum that builds throughout the story. I want everything to work toward a crescendo. Constantly building the action, raising the stakes, keeps that momentum going. This kind of writing isn’t for everyone. One of my upcoming books will deviate from this approach a lot. We’ll see how much it’ll piss off my readers. Fun times ahead.

Beyond the substance of my books, I also focus on the physical look of the words on the page. I use short sentences and paragraphs. When I’m reading, I find that my mind wanders during long paragraphs. The last thing I want is a reader skipping sections of my book because they’re getting bored.

And boredom is a big concern with younger generations. Books aren’t competing with only other books. Our work is vying for attention when someone could be watching Netflix or YouTube or reading Facebook. If I want someone using their Kindle to read my stuff, then I need to keep them locked in. A wandering mind might switch over to Twitter instead of finishing a chapter. Short, punchy sentences help.

I don’t use dollar words when a nickel word will suffice. I’m trying to entertain, not show the reader how yuuuge my vocabulary is. It’s not that I’m attempting to dumb down my work, but more that I don’t want overly complex sentences or words to pull the reader out of the story. I’m all about immersion. Having to check definitions is distracting. There are exceptions to this. When I’m describing something frightening or horrible, I like to use more complex language because it stands out. It’s a little mental trick.

Sentence fragments. Yeah, I use them. Quite a bit more than most authors.

Every English teacher I’ve ever had would probably suffer a stroke if they read one of my books. I use sentence fragments during action scenes or for specific descriptions. Because they feel like foreign objects to most readers, they tend to attract the eye. So if I want someone to focus on a particular sentence or sequence, I hit them with a few fragments. Combined with the change in word usage, sentence fragments can really pack a punch.

Some people hate them. I love ’em.

I’ll save my takes on characters and story structure for other posts.

Today, I edited 4 chapters in Decayed. This was my best day yet during the second draft. Getting close. I also posted the newest episode of Final Guys. Dig it!

 

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 35 – Got a Show Tonight

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for a new Final Guys episode. Please, save your applause. If you haven’t tuned in for the livestream yet, you really should. The chat is a lot of fun and we might respond to you during the show. We start at 8PM EST.

 

Tuesday is my busiest day of the week. On top of my usual writing schedule, and all the other stuff related to my writing business, I have the entire evening dedicated to Final Guys. It takes me about 30 minutes to set everything up. The ‘set’ is in my basement because the summer makes my office miserable to work in by the end of the day. I have a nice little theater space down there, which gives me a fun backdrop.

We talk for about an hour, plus some gibbering before and after the show.

It takes me another half an hour to edit, render, and upload the episode. Maybe a little longer, depending on how the show sounded that week. I have to update the Final Guys website, and my own, before I wrap everything up for the night.

I start the process at 7 and finish around 9:45.

Not too bad at all. It just makes for a long day every Tuesday. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, remember that it can be a time sink. Mine is down to a little under 3 hours a week and I’ve streamlined the process over the past two years.

On top of that, I’ve already worked on more of my novel and started editing a new episode of So Bad It’s Good. Look for that episode, on the insane movie Disco Godfather, to come out soon. That’ll be a fun one.

Today, I edited 2 more chapters of Decayed. That’s the same amount I’ve done the past few days, but these chapters were freaking long. Getting through them took a lot more time than I thought, but I’m rocking this book right now. So pumped to get it out there for everyone.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 34 – Series vs. Standalones

You’ve probably noticed that I mostly write in series. It’s not that I dislike standalone novels, I love ’em, but for the past few years I’ve focused on The Hunger and Asher Benson. There are two reasons for that.

The first is a creative one. I like the characters in both series and I wanted to see them on more adventures. The world I’ve built around them is ripe for tons of stories. Over time, I’m fleshing out some of those. It’s been a lot of fun.

This isn’t without its pitfalls, though. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep the stories from seeming too similar. The characters can tend to bleed into each other or go off in a direction I didn’t expect. Characters will die unexpectedly, I’m a pantser after all, and it screws up any plans I might have had for the next book.

Still, it’s fun writing about characters you love over 3 or more books. I’m starting book 6 in The Hunger next week. Pretty cool.

The second reason I switched to writing in series is financial.

Single novels are more difficult to advertise than a series. Let’s say I wanted to promote The Gate, The Dark, and West of Hell. To push those books, I have to buy advertising on all three. That’s a bit of a pain in the ass. Not impossible, by any means, but it’s more work.

If I want to promote Asher Benson? All I have to do is buy ads on ASH. The rest of the books get a bump from that over time. As readers finish the first book, a certain percentage go on to the next. I can predict, to a pretty accurate degree, how many readers will go from ASH to Madness.

The same applies for The Hunger.

And when I release a new book in the series I get a nice boost in sales on the earlier books. Dropping a novel can bring in some nice income from stuff I published years earlier.

Again, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Because only a certain percentage of readers make it through the entire series, I might not make as much money from the advertising. Pushing three single novels might pull in more cash. It’s more work too, so pick your poison.

I have found that I get more die hard readers from my series though. People who really love Lance and Cass will buy anything I put out in The Hunger. Someone who enjoyed The Dark? They might not bother with Asher Benson.

Another issue is that followers of one series might not jump to the next. While there are a lot of crossover readers from The Hunger to Asher Benson, and vice versa, more than you might guess don’t make the transition. Pick more of your preferred poison.

So what should you write? Whatever you makes you happy. For me, I make more money writing in a series that I love. That being said, after I release book 6 in The Hunger, I’m writing a standalone thriller that will hopefully release by the end of October. If that takes off, who knows what could be on the horizon.

Today, I edited 3 chapters in Decayed. They were long chapters, so I covered a lot of ground.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 33 – Another Accountability Day

Working around the house today. Kicking back tonight to watch Child’s Play for Final Guys this week. Not trying to kill myself on the book until tomorrow. I still managed to get some editing in though, just so I can keep the active streak alive. 33 days and counting of working on this novel.

What did you accomplish today? It’s Sunday, so we all wanna kick back and enjoy the weekend. But we feel better if we get at least something done before putting our feet up and grabbing a cold one. So what did you do?

Today, I edited two more chapters in Decayed. Now I’m going to clean up dog poop. Fun times.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 32 -Indie Publishing Info

Making this a short one today, because I have work to do and beer to consume. Still getting writing time in every single day. This makes 32 days in a row that I’ve written or edited on Decayed. Feels good.

If you’re interested in indie publishing your work like I do, or are just curious about the process, then I have a few sources you should check out.

J.A. Konrath’s blog. I think it used to be called A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, but I might be mistaken. Maybe I should skip the beer more often. Konrath’s blog was instrumental in getting me into the writing business. While I was wandering aimlessly through the waters of unemployment when I quit my government job several years ago, I stumbled upon Konrath. His early stuff on the site went into detail about his writing, promotion, publishing, and everything else. Even though some of the promotional info is dated, the theory behind most of it is still valid. There are hundreds of posts to read through. It looks like he recently resumed blogging after a long hiatus (that makes two of us), so I’m sure he’ll drop many more pearls of wisdom.

I can’t stress enough how valuable his site is, especially if you’re just getting started.

Joanna Penn runs a great website and podcast, The Creative Penn. She’s the shit. There are a lot of written guides and articles that will point you in the right direction. Her podcast is killer. The guests she gets know their stuff and always give out plenty of valuable info. When people ask me how to get started, her site is the first thing I direct them to.

Writer’s Cafe on Kboards is a great resource. There are a lot of authors on there who are very helpful. Many of them are on the bleeding edge of the genre when it comes to promotions. Watch out for a handful of asshole posters on there, however. The only time I’ve received negative review bombs happened when my name was mentioned on that board. I don’t post there for a reason.

Still an incredible wealth of information though.

David Gaughran knows his stuff. Go to his site. Buy his books. You’ll thank me later. He’s a true gem in the field.

Sterling and Stone, or whatever the hell they’re called now, have hundreds of podcast episodes that are worth your time. I used to listen to their Self-Publishing Podcast religiously. Their new one appears to be The Story Studio Podcast. Though I haven’t listened to it, I’m sure it’s worth your time. These guys have an unimaginable work ethic.

Armand Rosamilia’s podcast, Armcast Podcast, is chock full of great author guests. You might recognize someone who made an appearance on there. This one isn’t necessarily a great source of indie pubbing info, but you get to hear from a lot of different authors. Good stuff.

I’m sure I’ve missed a ton of good resources here. Let me know what I should check out.

Today, I edited two more chapters in Decayed. Finishing the book this week, come hell or high water.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 31 – Story Ideas

“Where do your ideas come from?”

I get this question a lot. The answer is… I don’t know. Sort of.

When I say  I don’t know, I mean that I don’t sit in a room and attempt to conjure interesting plots. Maybe other authors can pull ideas out of the ether, but I’m not one of them. I wish could it. That make things easier.

My weird stories come from interactions with the world around me. Sometimes I see an article on a website that sparks something in my mind. Maybe it’s a conversation with a friend or stranger that gets the ball rolling.

The Dark is a good example. I read an article years and years ago about the Large Hadron Collider creating miniature black holes. Some people thought the world would end from this. Others theorized we might discover parallel dimensions.

My warped mind wondered what would happen if something spilled out one of the black holes.

And The Dark was born.

Several weekends ago, while having a few cold ones at a local microbrewery, someone told me about a craft stand they’d opened in a store. As they went over the particulars of it, an idea popped in my head. I can’t tell you what it is yet, because I haven’t started the project. Can’t have someone stealing my plot before I have the chance to ruin it myself.

My short story, Clown, came from the craze of scary clown sightings a few years ago. Remember when people were freaking out because some dude threw on a suit and stood at an intersection? That’s prime material right there. I have more ideas in that same universe that I’m kicking around, so there might be more coming.

Sometimes I get an idea if someone asks me to contribute a story for an anthology. Dead Ringer, Lotion, and All I Want for Christmas started that way. Lotion kickstarted The Hunger. I’ll end up with at least six novels out of that sucker. Not bad for originating from a short for an anthology.

All I Want for Christmas was originally written for a charity anthology for children. It was rejected for being too scary.

I’m proud of that.

It was accepted in another anthology later on, so it was a win for everyone.

There you have it. I’m random, my ideas are all over the place, and I have no idea how things pop in my head. Good luck figuring any of this out.

Today, I edited two more chapters in Decayed. My pace is terrible. Gotta up my game. No more excuses.

See ya tomorrow.

 

 

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Final Guys #109 – The Ranger

 

We’re hiking through Shudder this week, checking out their exclusive horror film, THE RANGER. Described as a movie similar to Return of the Living Dead, does this indie flick from Jenn Wexler live up to those lofty expectations?

Our weekly horror reviews are Abducted in Plain Sight, Mercy Black, Deadpool 2, Black Mirror, The Dead Don’t Die, Destroy All Monsters, and Satanic.

Get free books and stories by signing up for Jason’s Newsletter or Hunter’s Shea’s Dark Hunter Newsletter.

The Final Guys: The Final Word in Horror–A horror podcast hosted by Jason Brant, Jack Campisi and Hunter Shea.

Also available on iTunes – Stitcher – Google Play – TuneIn

 

Web ► https://www.finalguys.com
Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/finalguys
Jason ► http://www.authorjasonbrant.com
Hunter ► http://www.huntershea.com
Monster ► http://www.themonstermen.net


Twitter ► @finalguys
Jack ► @backinjack
Jason ► @jason_brant
Hunter ► @huntershea1

*Anything rented or purchased through the links above gives a small percentage to Final Guys which helps pay for our beer and poor movie choices.

 

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Day 30 – Mailing List

Authors need a mailing list. Period. End of story. A few years ago, that wasn’t the case. Now? You gotta have one.

When I first started this writing adventure, I used social media to reach my readers when I had a new book release. Facebook was my biggest platform. I also blogged a lot in the early days. Funny how that’s come full circle.

When I blogged, using Blogger as my website, I funneled people to the posts using Facebook. It worked great. A lot of traffic found my site and it grew quickly. My sales followed.

But then Facebook started limiting the amount of people who could see my posts if I included a link.

My hits died.

The blog died.

Facebook killed it.

I switched over to using Facebook to communicate with my audience, instead of my site. That was a big mistake. Not long after that, Facebook began limiting all my posts, regardless of the content or links, unless I paid them money. Most people don’t know this is how Facebook operates their pages. When I make a post to my author page, which readers have willingly liked and followed, Facebook will only show it to about two or three percent of my audience.

That’s right. 98% of the people who follow me on Facebook never see what I post.

Unless I pay Facebook. First, they killed my blog, then they killed my reach on their own platform.

It’s fucking bullshit, but what can you do?

Well, you can start a mailing list. It’s not a replacement for social media, but it gives you a lot more control over who sees your content. The operation of a good mailing list is beyond this post, and beyond me if I’m being honest, but the main thing you need to take away from this post is that you need one.

No excuses. Go sign up for one now. Even if you only use it for new releases, you need one. It helps. When I say no excuses, I mean it. For years, I refused to create a newsletter because I never used them as a reader. That was stupid.

I’ve done a lot of moronic things that I’ll continue to blog about, so use my moronity (I’m coining this one) to your benefit. Don’t repeat my mistakes. When Facebook made their changes, it almost ruined my writing career. No exaggeration. I had to build my audience all over again from scratch. The work I’d put into their platform was wiped out in the blink of an eye. Moronity.

There are a lot of different companies you can use. Pick one. I use Mailchimp, though I might change that at some point. I haven’t had time to look into a new service yet. They’ve been great for me, but there are cheaper options out there for bigger lists. Mailchimp is free until you get more than 2000 subscribers on your newsletter.

In a later post, I’ll go into the best way to get people to sign up for your list. You can get a gist of what I’ve done by taking a gander here. It’s a simple idea, but takes a little bit of work. Once you get it done, you’ll be in good shape though. I have over 10k subscribers on my list. That’s a huge audience waiting for my new releases.

Facebook can kiss my ass.

Even though I’m going to share the link to this post over there as soon as I finish it. All of 30 people will see it. Woohoo.

Today, I edited a few more chapters in Decayed. I’m not going to post the exact amount of words I get through for the second draft from now, because it’s imprecise and doesn’t mean much. I delete a lot of words and add a bunch more during this process. Maybe I’ll start posting how many chapters I go through. That might make it a little easier to comprehend how far I’m getting in the book.

See ya tomorrow.

 

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