Jason Brant's Blog, page 16

Day 29 – Taking a Day Off

Like the title says, I needed a day off. I woke up early, edited three chapters of Decayed, and then hit a wall. So, I took the rest of the day off.

I really don’t have a middle gear. Things are either rocking full blast, or I’m sitting on my ass. Finding a healthy balance between the two has never been something I could do. This blog has actually done a great job in moderating that, so far.

The best balance I’ve had in a long time, actually.

I’m liking it.

But I needed a day off. Kinda.

When do you drawl the line? When do you hit the point when you have to take a day?

Today, I edited a few chapters, but I’m not going to look at the word count. Just gonna chill.

See ya tomorrow.

The post Day 29 – Taking a Day Off appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 28 – When to Rewrite

Today was another busy one. Got up early to chip away at the second draft. Had a viewing to attend this afternoon. Watched The Ranger for the Final Guys livestream tonight. I’m typing up this blog as quickly as I can because the show starts soon. That’ll take the rest of the evening. Should finish everything around 10:30 tonight. Whew.

Before I hop on the podcast to talk about horror movies, I thought I would completely contradict what I said in yesterday’s post. Kind of.

Obviously, I’m a big fan of moving on to the next book. Don’t do a dozen drafts, don’t tinker and pick and tweak. Publish the damn thing and hop to the next. I’ve followed that advice for all my work, except one novella.

The first piece of fiction I ever attempted, and published, was a novella titled Echoes. It was the first appearance of Asher Benson. The book wasn’t good. It got some love, probably more than it deserved, but it was poorly done. How could it not be? It was my first book.

After publishing a few other things, I decided to revisit the world of Asher. I reread Echoes to get a feel for the characters, the pacing. Jesus H., it was bad. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I could write a sequel to that turkey.

But I really wanted to tinker in that universe again.

I rewrote it.

That book became ASH, a novel that has moved more copies than anything else I’ve done. It was a bomb at first, but the story of how I turned that series from a zero to a hero is for another post. Going back to a piece of fiction I’d already finished goes completely against what I touched on yesterday.

So, yeah. Hypocrite. I’d say this is different, but that’s what everyone says when they’re called out on something. I’ll just eat this one.

For those who are curious, I more than doubled the length of the original story. I added a few characters, some action scenes, and filled out the world. It’s still a shortish (is that a word?) novel at 63k words (maybe 250 pages? I can’t remember), but it was long enough that I could advertise it. Most decent places to advertise your work only want novels.

In doing so, I expanded the universe, gave myself room for sequels. And the writing wasn’t complete trash this time.

Does this mean you should go back and redo your first work? Hell, I don’t know. Why anyone even listens to me is a complete mystery.

I will say this though – being honest with yourself is key to a lot of this stuff. When I first released Echoes, I was damn proud of that book. Still am, because it got this whole dog and pony show on the road. After getting a few novels under my belt, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t up to snuff. If I wanted to release more in that world, I had to fix it.

And here we are. Feel free to never listen to any advice I ever give.

Now I’m off to Final Guys.

Today, I edited 4601 words in Decayed. At this pace, I’ll finish it sometime in the next decade.

See ya tomorrow.

The post Day 28 – When to Rewrite appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 27 – ‘Bad’ Writing

While working on the second draft of Decayed today, I reached a chapter that was poorly written. Bad word choices. Terrible sentences. The works. I spent a lot of time fixing it.

But here’s the thing – I’m not sure it was worth as much effort as I put into it.

I know, I know. Hear me out.

Authors are our own worst critics. We often think everything we write sucks.

Readers aren’t as critical when it comes to sentence structure and passive voice and all the other crap that sends writers into fits. Some readers care a lot, but I’ve found that the majority are more forgiving. They want a great story, engaging characters. If you repeat a word twice in a paragraph, they aren’t going to tar and feather you.

I agree with that sentiment.

Earlier this year, I read a book that was poorly written. Even though I recognized a ton of issues with the technical aspects of the novel, I kept reading. Why? Solid story, good characters. I could look past the rest. I bought the second book in the series.

Getting caught in the weeds can kill you as an author.

Going over a story thirty times to catch every little awkward sentence isn’t worth it. Not when you’re at my mid-tier level, anyway.

Hold on. Put the pitchforks away.

I’m speaking from a monetary point of view. If you’re trying to win awards or impress your peers, then tinker away. If you’re a huge bestseller making millions of dollars per book, then why are you even reading this blog? If you want to make money publishing your work as an indie author… well… speed kills. While you’re slogging through your sixth draft, I’m publishing another book. Guess which one will make more money? Of course, it’s possible that your book will blow up the sales charts while mine languishes. It could be a better story. Maybe you’re a better writer. The algorithm gods might have favored you.

All that is possible, maybe even probable. But if you’re writing in the lowly horror genre like I am, and you want to make money, then you have to release your work faster. It makes a huge difference. And to be honest, my readers are happier and more engaged when I get more books out there. The longer I go between releases, the worse my books do. When I bang out four to six novels a year, things start moving.

I wrote Ravaged in a month. Ruined took a lot longer. Did anyone ever mention a difference in the writing between the two? Not to me. I haven’t seen any reviews that talk about it. Now guess which one made me the most money. Guess which one has the most positive reviews.

Most of the authors reading this probably think I’m an idiot. I am. But for 90% of you out there, I’m correct about this. If you don’t have a massive following and you only release one book this year, I’d be willing to bet that it doesn’t move a lot of copies. But if you released six books in a year? Your odds will go up exponentially.

That’s assuming your stories are engaging and the characters are relatable.

I’m not saying you should release work that is full of typos and plot holes. I hire an editor, use several proof readers, and fix any problems sent my way. If you ever see a typo in one of my books, please tell me about it.

What I am saying is that your time is better spent working on a new novel than it is trying to flush out the last missing word in your manuscript. There is a point of diminishing returns. It doesn’t take long to hit it. If you could ask your biggest fan if they would want you to fix five typos in your current book, or release the next one, I bet we know what they would prefer. Most of the them, anyway.

So stop rewriting that short story you finished three years ago and publish the fucker. Move on to the next story. Your readers will be happier and so will you. And of course, this is all easier said than done. I didn’t ignore the chapter I just toiled through, but I won’t give it another pass either.

I have another book to write. When I finish that, I’ll struggle to find that same balance.

There is so much more to say about this, but I’ve blathered long enough. I’ll give a slightly different angle on this tomorrow.

Today, I edited 3582 words in Decayed. Still not going fast enough, but getting there. I also spent a few hours working on the next episode of So Bad It’s Good. It’ll be ridiculous when we finish it.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 26 – An Accountability Day

The in-laws were here this weekend, so my work time was limited. I still managed to get some editing in after they left today. Not much, but enough to keep pushing my novel forward. If I’m going to blog about dropping excuses from my life, I gotta make sure I get a little bit of work in each day. Mission accomplished so far.

Today is father’s day, so make sure to call yours. Or give your husband a hug. Say hi to your neighbor. Do something for someone, no matter how small. You’ll feel better for it.

Today, I managed to squeeze in enough editing time to get through 1446 words in Decayed. Going to kick some ass in this manuscript tomorrow. The second draft will be done this week!

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 25 – Reviews

The in-laws are visiting this weekend, so I’m spending time with them instead of working. Still managed to get a little bit of editing in. And this blog post. Only 340 more days to go.

So. Reviews.

An argument could be made that reviews are the lifeblood of an author’s business. I hate asking readers for them. I’m bad it. But it has to be done sometimes. If a book doesn’t have a sufficient number of reviews, I can’t purchase some forms of advertising for it. It’s a weird place to be, because I don’t want to bore my readers with the details of ads and average star rating and review counts, but it’s critically important to what I do.

So if you like an author’s work, drop them a review. It truly makes a huge difference for us. Once I have enough reviews on Amazon, for instance, with a sufficiently high rating, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for me.

And beyond that, I use reviews, along with sales, to gauge what I should work on next. If a book is selling well, but not generating enough positive feedback, then I consider moving on to something else. Any sequels I might write to a novel that isn’t getting a lot of high-star reviews probably won’t sell well. The readers aren’t interested enough in it.

Beyond sales and advertising and all that happy crappy, is the psychological factor or reading reviews. This can really screw with a lot of authors heads. Having someone absolutely eviscerate something you spent a year working on is tough, especially when you aren’t used to it.

The first review of Echoes, the now unavailable novella that started the Asher Benson series, was two stars.

That one bothered me. I’d never had someone rate and review a work of mine before, so having the first one shine a negative light on it was difficult. It doesn’t get any easier as your sales rise either. Instead of getting one or two bad reviews, you get dozens. Or hundreds.

As of this post, Ash has 1141 reviews on Amazon US alone. 80 of those are one or two stars. That’s for one book, in one country. Who knows how many Ash has across all stores in all countries.

That’s a lot of hate for someone experience.

So how do I deal with it? I’m hardened to it now. The bad reviews don’t bother me as long as they’re outnumbered by the good. My stuff isn’t for everyone, so I don’t expect each review to espouse the brilliance of my work. As long as the rating is high enough, usually over a four star average, I know that my core audience is digging it. I’m happy with that.

For other authors, dealing with it is a lot harder. I honestly know some writers who should avoid their reading their reviews at all. Easier said than done. Paying attention to the first few, to make sure one or two issues aren’t mentioned in each one, is a good practice. If everyone is spotting the same plot hole, you’re going to want to be aware of it. Beyond that, you might want to bow out of the review carnival.

But as bad as reading the rough reviews can be, the good ones make you feel like a million bucks. When I read someone mentioning how much something I worked on meant to them, it pulls at the ol’ heartstrings. It really is the best motivator to keep going.

I’ve rambled long enough. Leave a review for books you love. It helps.

Today, I edited 2583 words before the in-laws got here. Tomorrow will be another truncated work day, but I’ll return to the grind on Monday.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 24 – Kindle Unlimited

Why aren’t my books in Kindle Unlimited?

There are a couple of reasons, but the most important, at least to me, is that I don’t like my income being tied to one company. Amazon requires an author’s novel to be sold exclusively in their store to be enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.  I’m not a huge fan of exclusivity, though it can be financially rewarding.

Amazon occasionally makes sweeping changes that can crush an author’s business. They slashed the royalty rates at Audible (owned by Amazon, in case you didn’t know) a few years ago, for instance. I could make have made up to 90% on the sale of an audiobook before. Now? 40%.

Ouch.

They tinker with the payouts on Kindle Unlimited a lot. The amount they pay authors varies every month. If they wanted to, they could make another massive change at any moment that could destroy me.

So I like to spread my work around to other markets. It gives me a safety net. Amazon already has me by the balls with my audiobooks and paperbacks (more on that later), so I’m trying to protect my ebooks as best I can.

Another reason I distribute my books to Apple, Google, Kobo, B&N, and everywhere else that accepts me, is that I don’t want to abandon my readers. I’ve built up a decent audience in some of those stores and I don’t want to deny them the ability to read my new stuff. Google is my second biggest market. I want to keep publishing with them. My books have thousands of reviews there alone.

Could I make more money if I was in KU? Maybe. It’s hard to say, because I do so well in other places. One thing I can say for certain is that it would be a whole lot easier to publish new work. Every single time I want to change something in a book, I have to upload it to half a dozen places. It’s a pain in the ass. Want to change a price? Have fun with that.

There are ways around it, such as using distributors like Draft2Digital. They’re great. I use them to get into stores without their own publishing portal. Highly recommended. I mostly avoid Smashwords because they have stupid policies and an interface that makes me want to drive off a bridge. I probably won’t publish my new work through them. Both places take a cut of the royalties though, so that’s something to be considered.

Does any of this mean I would advise an author to stay away from Kindle Unlimited? Hell no. It might make sense for someone else. There is definitely money to be made there. It sure makes a ton of sense for power readers. They can act like a fat guy at the buffet and go to town.

None of this should be viewed as a slight against Amazon. That company literally changed my life. Without them, I wouldn’t be an author. Full stop. I’m not hating on them, just making decisions that are best for me.

If I could put my books in KU without being exclusive, I would.

But here we are.

Today was a slow one on the editing front. I only got through 3941 words in Decayed (about 10 pages). Normally, I take a week off after I finish the first draft before hopping into the second. I didn’t do that this time. It isn’t working that great, but I’m grinding through it. Gonna finish this damn thing next week, no matter what.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 23 – Pricing

Having control over the price of books is a big reason I prefer indie publishing. Because I get to keep the majority of my royalties, I can price my books lower than most publishers, giving me an advantage. It also allows me to put my work on sale or even free. Or raise the price. Whatever works.

I like the freedom of that.

When it comes to pricing my novels, you’ll see that the majority of them are priced at $3.99. There are a few simple reasons for that.

Because of the way most online retailers stagger their royalty rates, I have to price my books over $2.99 in order to get a 70% cut of the sale price. Anything less than that and I only get 35%.

So why not $2.99, if that’s the cut off? I did some tests early on with some of my books and found that the sales difference between the prices of $3-$4 was negligible. If I’m going to make an extra $0.70 per sale without a dip in volume, I would be stupid not to go with the higher price.

What about $5? I do see a drop off in sales when I go up another buck. It’s been a few years since I ran this little experiment, so the numbers would probably be different now, but I had somewhere around a 25% drop in sales when I hit $5. I do intend to revisit the $5 (or higher) price in the near future with a new book. I’m sure I’ll blog about it.

These prices only apply to full-length novels. I price novellas at $2.99. Short stories at $0.99.

Series are a different animal too. Right now, the first books in my series are permanently free, but that’s going to change soon. Free doesn’t work as well in the long term as it used to. I’m going to cycle those books from $0.99 through $3.99, with ads running on them, to see what works best.

I also have a few box sets out that are $6.99-$7.99, just to give me visibility in the higher price brackets. Once I have six books out in one series, I’m going to tinker around with creating a ‘series’ out of the sets, to see if running sales on the first ‘book’ with give a big push to the second. We’ll find out.

All this works well with the length of my work. If I was writing 700 page novels, I’d definitely price them higher. That’s too much work to sell for cheap. The problem would be making up for the lack of volume. That’s a nut I’ll work on cracking at some point.

Today, I worked through 6690 words in the second draft of Decayed, which puts me about a quarter of the way through it.

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 22 – More Edits and Podcasting

I’m still working on the second draft. Will be for a week or so, if I had to guess. The process is going a bit slower than I’d hoped, but that often happens as I go through my work.

One chapter was pretty bad and took quite a bit of massaging to get passable.

I’m hoping to pick up the slack tomorrow and Friday.

We had a bit of a snafu with the livestream for Final Guys last night. Sorry if you tried to tune in and found… nothing. I’ll get the issue figured out before next week. In the meantime, you can listen to the audio version of the podcast here.

 

I’m hoping to get around to some pricing changes, which I’ll explain in detail in a later post, Friday or Saturday. I’m taking Devoured off permafree and running some ads on it in the buildup to the release of Decayed. Like I said, I’ll explain it all when I start the process.

Today, I edited 4271 words in Decayed, bringing the total to 12160. Gotta pick up the pace.

See ya tomorrow.

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Final Guys #108 – The Perfection

 

The Final Guys have finally achieved perfection was we watch the Netflix original movie THE PERFECTION. Or have we? Netflix has a spotty track record at best when it comes to their original films. Does THE PERFECTION reach it’s namesake or do we have another subpar movie in an underachieving year.

Our weekly horror reviews are Murder by Decree, Butterfly Kisses, The Lost Boys, Attack Force, Wishmaster, Bad Dreams, and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

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

Or watch us on YouTube!

 

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 21 – Second Draft

I started the second draft today. This process goes a lot faster than my first, but it’s extremely draining for me. I end up putting in a lot more hours in an attempt to blast through it so I can publish this sucker.

It’s Tuesday, which means I record Final Guys. We go live on YouTube every Tuesday at 8 PM EST. You should join us! We talk about movies, books, and everything else. Lots of fun in the live chat with a bunch of weirdos.

I’ll post the audio version of the podcast in tomorrow’s blog.

Anyway, I’m keeping this one short because Tuesday is always a busy day for me.

Today, I edited 7887 words in Decayed (The Hunger #5).  During that process I added 58 words to the manuscript. Typically, I add a lot more than that, so I’m a little surprised at how little the book grew. We’ll see about the rest of it.

See ya tomorrow.

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