Jason Brant's Blog, page 18

Day 11 – Paperback vs Ebook vs Audiobook (girth)

I had to sneak girth into the title because it makes my wife laugh.

Piggybacking off yesterday’s post about the length of books in regards to production, I thought I should mention my observations across differing formats. This is based solely on sales of my books, not my personal reading or writing preference.

My longer paperbacks generally sell better. That makes sense when you think about buying habits. Why purchase a 300 page novel for $15 when you can have a 700 page doorstop for roughly the same price? Because I don’t sell a lot of copies in dead trees, compared to the other formats, this isn’t a big deal for me. If my books were in more bookstores, this could be more of an issue. Hard to say without any real data.

I also said generally, because some of my thicker books are parts of series, so they don’t make for a great comparison to my standalone work. I need more singles out there to get a complete picture. Hopefully, I’ll have more info by the end of the year.

Ebooks don’t have the same purchaser bias when it comes to length. The Dark is my bestselling standalone and it’s my second shortest novel. Without having to pass the eye test for girth (heh), or the weight-in-hand feeling, in the same way a paperback does, ebooks allow for a lot more variations in length. I make the majority of my money in ebooks, so writing for this medium makes the most sense for me.

Having said that, I also make a decent chunk of change from audiobooks. I pull in way, way more money from Audible than I do from paperbacks. The audio market is booming right now.

My longer audiobooks sell way more than my short ones. Because Audible is a subscription service, which gives members a credit to use on any audiobook of their choosing, it makes sense for people to gravitate to a lengthy one. If you get one book a month with your membership, why would you pick a 5 hour production, when you could get a 15 hour one instead? I know that I look at length quite a bit when deciding on what I want to listen to. It seems to bear out in my sales.

That creates a bit of a conundrum when deciding how long my work should be. Writing shorter novels makes more sense for me in ebooks, but less so in audio. I have found that the drop off in sales tapers when my books get to the 7-8 hour range. Once I hit that length, they can sell well. Under that and it’s more of a crap shoot. Some stuff can do well, but it’s definitely harder to do.

Boxed sets in audio present something interesting. I’m going to see how well the first three books in The Hunger do in audio shortly. The length will be around 21 or 22 hours, so it should be enticing for people to spend their Audible credits on. We shall see.

Short stories don’t sell enough to be worthwhile. I love shorts, don’t get me wrong. Some of mine have moved a decent amount of units.

Selling them for $0.99 doesn’t generate the kind of revenue I need to make them an important piece of my business. I still write them, because I enjoy it, but it’s pretty hard to make a living selling short stories.

Today, I wrote 1177 words (roughly 4-5 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 73755 (a little more than 300 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 10 – Book and Chapter Length

Busy, busy day, so I don’t have much time to write this blog. Brian asked a question in the comments of a recent post about the optimal length of a chapter. Obviously, that depends on the author, the story, pacing, and a myriad of other things.

That got me thinking about writing style and book length and all that jazz.

Personally, I like fast-paced books. That should be pretty apparent if you’ve read my stuff. What makes a story move along is the question. A lot of action helps. Duh. Punchy dialogue is good. Short chapters seem to make a big difference too.

When reading a novel, I feel like I’m flying through it if I’m crunching through chapters. Even though I know the length of two different books might be the same, I have a skewed perception of my reading speed because of the shortened chapters.

I’ve found the same holds true for sentences and paragraphs. Because I like a quicker reading style, I write the same way. In my second drafts, I actually go back through and simplify some of my language. Using a dollar word when a nickel word will do is no-go for me. If I can squeeze a page worth of description and dialogue down to a short paragraph, I will.

Flowery prose is something else I avoid. I want the reader enthralled with the story, not trying to decipher what in the hell I’m trying to say. When I do use it, there is a specific reason, such as an intense or gory scene that I want to stand out. Changing the wording around a bit can create an unnerving emphasis.

This is just for me, of course. What works across various genres changes too. I don’t read literary fiction, romance, etc.

I change the style up through different series, too. The Asher Benson books have very short chapters. The Hunger uses chapters about twice as long on average. Some of that has to do with pacing, some with the difference between first and third person perspectives. It seems to work for the different stories, though.

As for book length, my novels range from 300-350 pages. Some are less, some are more, but that’s the average. A lot of that has to do with the way I unravel stories. I blast through all three acts using cliffhangers and character deaths, making 300 pages about as far as I like to go before things get too repetitive.

The cost/benefit ratio is important to me, too. I could spend a year writing a 1000 page book. But how much do I charge for it? Three times as much as an Asher Benson book? Will it sell at all if it’s priced at $9.99 vs the $3.99 I typically charge? I doubt it. I could write three books in the same amount of time, charge more in total, and make a bigger chunk of change. Getting several books out makes readers happy, too.

In summation… I write 300 page novels, with consumable prose, short chapters, and lots of action. And it pays the bills. I haven’t had a real job in 7 years now.

Anyway, this is a very surface level discussion about a deep subject. But I’m out of time. I didn’t even get into whether readers are more likely to take a chance on a new author if the book is long or short. There’s a whole discussion about the differences in sales between novels of differing length in regards to ebooks vs. paperbacks vs. audio. And there’s a big difference, believe me. We’ll jump into that as I’m going through the publishing process with Decayed.

Let me know what you prefer as a reader or as an author. Girthy novels? Short stories? Novellas? Does it differ between genres? Between paper and audio?

Today, I wrote 1444 words (roughly 6-8 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 72578 (in the neighborhood of 300 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

The post Day 10 – Book and Chapter Length appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 9 – Writing Speed

I always fall into this weird, variable writing speed with each book. The first twenty thousand words or so, roughly a quarter of the novel, fly by. Characters are blossoming, the early action scenes are rolling, and I’m pumping out a lot of work in a short period of time. I can hit 4-6k words a day during this time.

Then I reach the 20k mark and hit a freaking wall.

The progress doesn’t stop, but it sure as hell slows down.

I’m guessing this is because I’m a pantser, and once I’m approaching the end of the first act, I have to start thinking things through a bit. More time is spent wandering around my neighborhood like a weird vagabond as I ponder what comes next. This spell lasts for at least a week, or a lot longer, depending on how much I’m slacking, until I get in the neighborhood of 30k.

That’s when I bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.

From there, I can usually fly through the rest of the book. Until the end. As I get to 70k or so, when I have somewhere between 10 and 50 pages left, my pace slows to a crawl. It’s the same as before, where I’m working things out in my head. I’m trying to craft an exciting ending and I don’t want to rush it. I’m thinking it has to be a panster thing.

I’m curious if this happens to others, particularly plotters, or if this is just some weird snag I get caught on.

It’s happening to me right now with Decayed. My pace is way down as I’m struggling through the final battle of the book. Mayhem is going down in the story, but I’m just plodding along, barely getting 1k in a day. Even still, the book will be finished in a week or less, which is great.

I just wish I could blast through these two speed bumps I always get to.

For the authors out there… what are you sticking points? Does it happen while writing, outlining, or both? Also, what’s the fastest you’ve ever finished a novel? My best is when I completed the first draft of Ravaged in 30 days. Second draft took 3 more. I don’t do a third.

Today, I wrote 1226 words (roughly 5-6 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 71134 (somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 8 – Cover Art for The Hunger

Today is one of those days I want to call a mulligan and wait for tomorrow. A lot of stuff came up that kept me from doing all the writing I had planned. Fortunately for me, I just blogged about not having excuses. I don’t want to be that guy, so I had to slog through at least a thousand words. Mission accomplished.

Beyond that, I’ve started the process of getting cover art for Decayed. Because I’m now five books into the series, plus an omnibus edition, I’m handling the creation of these covers a bit differently than I normally do.

When I have a new book coming, I give my cover artist (the incredible Rene Folsom) a rough idea of what I’m looking for. She does the rest.

Cover art is something I don’t think most indie authors have a handle on.

First of all, don’t make your own covers. Terrible idea. I’m sure some of you will bring up the two authors you know who successfully do it. That’s fine. There are exceptions to every rule. Just know that you probably aren’t that exception. Save some money and hire an artist. Your cover is your first form of advertising, so spend some money on it. You’ll be better off.

When a cover artist flaked out on me at the last second a few years ago, I had to come up with my own for The Gate. I used the Papyrus font for the cover. Might as well have thrown Comic Sans on there. I had no idea that was a big faux pas.

My attempt:

Rene’s 30 second fix of my crap:

Even though she didn’t change much of the image, my sales jumped. It makes a big difference.

Learn from my dumbassery.

Once you find a good cover artist, don’t hit them with a bunch of weird requests. Every brick in the house on your cover doesn’t need to have a special symbolism relating to your story. The point of the cover is to sell the book. Everything else is secondary.

That’s assuming sales are your goal. If you want a cool piece of art for your bookshelf, then have it.

But if the goal is to sell books…

Remember, most of your sales, at least as indie author, come from people looking at a thumbnail of your cover. They can’t see the special braids in the secondary character’s hair in the background, behind the symbolic house. You want to catch the reader’s eye, then hook them with your description. Keep the thumbnail in mind when working over ideas.

Anyway, for The Hunger series, we have some pretty obvious branding happening. One of the main characters, Cass, adorns all the covers. Why? Because hot models sell books. That’s it. Were you looking for something deeper from me? Have you read my work?

The problem with using the same model for all your covers is the limited amount of stock art to work with. We’re running out of relevant images of the model to use. And we still have at least three more covers to come up with.

So I spent quite a bit of time today looking at photos to send to Rene so she can manipulate them into something awesome. I think I’ve got what we need. She’ll work her magic and we’ll be good to go.

As for the branding, that’s something I strive for across each series, but also throughout my entire body of work. My name appears the same on each book. I try to use large lettering and bright colors that pop, even when the image is small. It seems to work.

Today, I wrote 1002 words (roughly 4-5 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 69908 (around 300 pages).

During my first week of blogging, I put down 13553 words (in the neighborhood of 60 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

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Final Guys #106 – Brightburn

 

This week we’re taking a trip to Brightburn to discuss what would happen if Superman, err, some completely unrelated kid, went to the dark side. Does a nasty take on the superhero genre hold strong or is it a pale comparison to the Marvel juggernaut (bitch)?

Our weekly horror reviews are The Predator, Halloween (2018), The Prodigy, Wolf Guy, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, Blade, and season finale of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs.

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 7 – Final Guys

As some of you might know, I have a weekly horror podcast called Final Guys. I get together with Hunter Shea and Jack Campisi of Monster Men infamy every Tuesday night to talk about the latest (or classic or crap) and greatest horror movies, shows, and books. We have a weekly main feature we review, which is usually a new release, along with a list of the media we consumed that week.

How does this tie into my writing career? Well, it does, and it doesn’t.

It does, because I read and watch a lot of thrillers and horror. A lot. Staying current with what is going on in my field helps me know what works and what doesn’t. I usually don’t write to trends, but sometimes I get inspired from things I see and read. And let’s be honest – I love this stuff. Movies and books are a huge part of my life.

The two knuckleheads I chat with each week are also horror obsessed, so they’re a great outlet for me. Between the three of us, we’re able to curate a ton of media each week, which hopefully makes it worthwhile for the listener. Final Guys gives me a place to talk about the stuff I love, and is a resource for others. That’s the goal, anyway. We also shit on each other a lot, so at least there are laughs to be had. Here’s this week’s episode:

 

Does it help my writing business? It does. I know for a fact that quite a few of our listeners buy my books when they release. It works as a decent advertising source for my stuff. We don’t charge for ads on the show yet, so we aren’t making direct cash from it. But we might in the future. When we start pulling in ad revenue, or maybe Patreon, that will be another income source for me. Or maybe it’ll just stay as a fun way to advertise my other stuff. We’ll see.

I just started listing the episodes on my website. They used to appear only on the Final Guys site, but putting them here gives my readers yet another piece of entertainment they can consume after they finishing reading my stupid blog posts.

Before you ask about my other podcast, Drinking with Jason, I’ll stop you. That’s a story for another day. The show isn’t dead, but on a hiatus until I have time to retool and relaunch it.

The work required to start a podcast is significant. I have the process down to a science now, but it still takes me a few hours a week. Good thing I like doing it. To host the mp3 files, I use Libsyn. They have some solid stat tracking and make it easy to embed the files pretty much anywhere. We meet on a Hangout On Air that I start through YouTube each week. We use a Hangout because it auto switches the camera when we speak. That saves me editing time. I record, and broadcast, the Hangout using OBS Studio, which allows me to add the intro and outro music on the fly. That saves me more editing time.

OBS broadcasts the show live to YouTube. Going live saves me from having to edit and upload each episode. When the show is done, my work on YouTube is finished. It’s just the audio portion I have to do. Going live also allows us to have a fun chat room going while we’re talking during the livestream. We have some great regulars each week, so hop in and talk movies with us. We’re live every Tuesday at 8 PM EST.

Hmm. Somehow this turned into a technical post about a horror podcast. I’ll stop while I’m behind.

Today, I wrote 1658 words (roughly 7-9 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 68906 (between 270 and 300 pages).

See ya tomorrow.

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Day 6 – Lance and Cass

Because I’m getting close to finishing the fifth book in The Hunger series, I thought it might be fun to talk about the genesis of the two main characters.

The idea of a depressed man rediscovering himself during the apocalypse was an extension of what I was going through at the time. I was a digital forensic analyst for the federal government for around six years. There were a lot of truly horrible cases I was involved with that changed me. The job crushed my soul. I was so miserable that I quit without another gig lined up. There were vague plans about running my own IT company, but those dissipated in a hurry. I spent six months doing next to nothing before I discovered the Kindle revolution and decided to become a writer. I was thirty. A great, young age to write fiction for the first time.

Even though all I did was sit on my ass for half a year, I felt like myself for the first time in half a decade. I could breathe. During the apocalypse of my career, I found who I was again.

Enter Lance.

Now, that’s about as far as the similarities between Lance and I go. He’s a smart ass, for sure, but he doesn’t hold a candle to me. The rest of his personality was fleshed out as I wrote the first few chapters. One of the main character traits I wanted to maintain for the first few books was that Lance was absolutely not an alpha male.

I’d read too many zombie novels at the time that were full of Seals and Delta Force hard cases. Writing about amazing, perfect, killing machines fawned over by the other characters wasn’t something that interested me. Having Lance be a weaker main character was a risk, but one I’m glad I took. A few reviewers didn’t like it, and I get that, but the twist opened the door for someone else.

Enter Cass.

I fucking love bad ass female characters. Even in the Asher Benson series, which is chock full of macho dude bros throwing fists and shooting guns, I had to get a tough woman in there in Bree Manning.

While it’s true that I based some of Cass around my wife, it probably isn’t what you expect. Cass is full of piss and vinegar all the time. For some reason, The Tall One seems to think I got that stuff from her. The Tall One is sweet and kind. The opposite of Cass. But, they both play the piano, shoot guns, kick ass athletically, and are fiercely loyal.

Basically, I took all the character traits that are under the hood from my wife. The violence and quips and fuck you attitude on the surface are conjured out of my booze-addled brain.

As much as I wanted Lance to harden through the books, I needed Cass to soften. She was extreme at the start. Still was by book three, but I wanted a few cracks to appear in the veneer. I actually had to toughen her up a bit during book three, because The Tall One said she was becoming a wuss.

Well, it’s a holiday and I have a BBQ in the early afternoon, so I need to stop rambling.

Today, I wrote 1706 words (roughly 7-9 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 67248 (somewhere between 260 and 300 pages).

See ya tomorrow!

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Day 5 – No More Excuses

Some days are harder than others. Like everyone else, some mornings I wake up and don’t want to do a damn thing. Today was one of those. I sat down to write three different times and barely got a word out. Creatively, it just wasn’t happening.

Normally, I would have packed it in and tried again tomorrow. But I have a daily blog now with people watching me. Can’t be a slacker anymore. Here’s the thing though – this is how I was when I first started out. When I had the hunger to be a successful author.

That’s the funny thing about success sometimes… it can hamper that hunger. Somewhere along the way I lost some of that drive. Not that I don’t like to write, I do, but when I didn’t have my ass to the fire anymore, I didn’t feel the need to go out and kick ass every single day.

And I’m not the only one. You would be shocked to know how many authors, or aspiring authors, have messaged me over the years with a laundry lists of reasons why they can’t get writing time in. I’ve read them all. 99% are bullshit. My excuses are 100% bullshit.

Tired at the end of the day? Suck it up and get a few hundred words down. Last book didn’t sell? Write another one. Laptop died? Grab a pen. Job is crushing your soul? Get more words down so you can quit. There are a million excuses not to write, but there’s only one way to finish books.

You gotta sit your ass down and write.

I can already tell what comments I’m gonna get here and on social media… a ton of reasons why you don’t have time do it. They’re mostly crap. Mine are too. Days like today happen more often than I’d like, but guess what happened this afternoon? The fourth time I sat down to write, the pages finally started filling. If you want to make a living as an author, you have to treat it like a job. Even if you already have one. Or two.

It can be done. Shit, if I can do it, you can. I’m a moron. Odds are, you’re a better writer than I am. You can make it happen.

Just 500 words a day will get you two 300 page novels a year. You can write that many on your phone while you’re sitting on the toilet. Just don’t let anyone else use your phone after that.

So let’s throw all our excuses out the window and embrace the grind. If you want to be an author, you gotta write.

You can do it.

And no, I didn’t write this about you. This is about me. But if the shoe fits…

What did I do for my writing business today, even though I struggled to get anything down? I wrote 1377 words (roughly 5-7 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 65542 (somewhere between 260 and 300 pages).

I also added the latest episode of the Final Guys podcast to my website. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you should give it a try. We recommend (or not) 8-10 movies, books, and TV shows every week. We have a lot of laughs too.

Speaking of Final Guys, I also added a great book review to the website for the anthology for Chiral Mad 4 (M4D): An Anthology of Collaborations. We have some great contributors over there who write movie and book reviews for us. W.S. Bradford, a fantastic author, wrote this one. We have an incredible community of people you would get along with. Come on over.

This afternoon, for the upcoming episode, I went to see Brightburn. I know, I know… my life is so hard.

I also cobbled together this blog, which is now over 600 words. See ya tomorrow.

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Final Guys #105 – I Trapped the Devil

 

This week we went back to indie horror with I TRAPPED THE DEVIL. Does this little flick hold us captive or are we all dying to escape from it? I have no idea what else to say here. There isn’t a whole lot going on in this one.

Our weekly horror reviews are Death House, How the Devil Got His Horns, The Suckling, Escape Room, Overlord, The Thing (2011), Game of Thrones, The Last Drive-In, Creature by Hunter Shea, and House of Penance.

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.

 

The post Final Guys #105 – I Trapped the Devil appeared first on Jason Brant.

Day 4 – The Political Author

Time for my first Brant Rant of the series. I can’t stand political authors/actors/musicians/etc. on social media. That shit drives me nuts. I’m sure some of you love it, particularly if you agree with the artist, but I hate it. All of it. Doesn’t matter if I agree with them or not.

I never, ever post political crap online.

Back during the 2016 election, when everyone was losing their goddamn minds on Facebook and Twitter, someone asked me why I don’t talk about politics. There are a few reasons, but I’ll narrow it down to the most pertinent.

First, I don’t want to segment my audience. If I start going off about the political issue du jour, half the people who follow me will love it. The other half will think I’m a moron. They might stop following me, or not, but why risk it? Honestly, I’d be willing to bet that I might see a small boost in sales at the beginning because of a bunch of likes, shares, retweets, and everything else. But what happens when the other half gets sick of it? I’m not popular enough to take that chance.

Second, and more importantly, I can’t stand the way artists use their platform to preach to people. It really, truly annoys me. Stephen King has changed my life. Literally. If I hadn’t discovered his work, there is a zero percent chance I would be an author. I don’t follow Stephen King on social media because of his constant political blather. The guy is my hero and I don’t follow him. That sucks.

When my plumber comes over to fix my dishwasher, I don’t want him to start in on me about politics. The same applies for authors. Just because someone has a bigger megaphone doesn’t mean they need to be listened to. I don’t want to be preached to from either end of the spectrum. And I refuse to do that to my audience.

Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone cares what any of us has to say about politics anyway. Just because we can cobble together a book, doesn’t mean you should listen to my musings about the Federal Reserve. I’d rather enjoy talking to my readers about good books or movies. Let’s talk about killer concerts.

A fun side effect of not talking politics is that reviewers often misinterpret the meaning of your books. The reviews for Ash are hilarious. Some people accuse me of being a right-wing war monger. Others are convinced I hate the military and that I’m promoting socialism. I wouldn’t get some of these gems if I loved ranting about the outrage of the day on Twitter every evening.

/Brant Rant

Now for the good stuff. Today I wrote 2049 words (I swear these totals aren’t this close on purpose) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 64165.

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