Justin Bell's Blog, page 3

It’s a dog’s life – Part 02

The lingering thought about those first several days of bringing Maxwell home was just how small and soft he was.  One of the reasons why my wife’s family had latched onto Bichons was because they have hair, not fur, and so they don’t shed.  In those early days, he was soft and pretty much fit in the palm of my hand.

If there was one word I could use to describe Maxwell as a puppy, it would be enthusiastic.  He loved everything.  Exploring the entire house, inside and out, crawling under furniture, he approached every new experience with a near insanity, and we loved it.

But soon we had to learn to try and tamper that insanity, because Maxwell was about to have a sibling.

Not a canine one, though…

Our first child was born less than two years after bringing Max home and it took some time for him to adjust, for sure.  He couldn’t quite figure out what this new thing was or how it ended up in his house, but he was gentle and inquisitive as all puppies are.

Another interesting start to Maxwell’s life was that we started taking him to my wife’s parents for doggy day care, and my wife’s parents owned a particularly large and friendly Rottweiler.

Little Maxwell, an eight pound Bichon (they’re NOT POODLES) began mirroring some of the 80 pound Rottweiler’s behavior.  He was 80 pounds of tough guy in an 8 pound, furry package and at the beginning it was hilarious.  Amazingly, though, when it came to the new baby he was as gentle as a feather, and he put up with a lot.

A much more tolerable older brother than a human, I’d wager.

But more changes were coming for us, and for Max…a move to a new house and the impending arrival of a second sibling certainly made things even more interesting.

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It’s a dog’s life – Part 01

I never had a dog growing up.  Cats like crazy, for sure, but never a dog.  My aunt and uncle had a golden retriever that was pretty much the greatest animal I ever laid eyes on and I always said ‘when I get a dog, it’s going to be a golden”.

So I’m recently married, and the first, most critical decision we have to make– we’re getting a dog.

“Great!” I say.  “I’ve always wanted a Golden Retriever!”

She shakes her head.  See, her family had a Bichon Frise for the past seven years, and she’d fallen in love.

“Wait?  A Bichon Frise?  So…like…a poodle?”

“Bichon Frises are NOT poodles.”

Okay then.  That’s when I started those infamous mental calculations that new husbands make (and seasoned husbands as well)…  is this worth the ‘fight’?  A dog is a dog, right?  I had no real affinity for goldens other than loving one when I was a kid.  There’s no reason I couldn’t love this dog, too.

Bichon Frise it was.  We traveled to a pet store sixty miles away and were introduced…  in retrospect we both would have much rather rescued a dog, but we were young and innocent.  And this son of a gun jumped right out of the crowd of crawling puppies and ran his ass right over to us.  The only Bichon in the group and he immediately came to us.  How could we say no?

And I had to admit, the little bugger was cute.  Yeah, I kind of fell in love.

Our life with Maxwell, the Bichon Frise had begun.

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The trilogy is complete – Book 3 Tipping Point is a reality!

It’s been a little over ten years since the initial kernel of an idea of a genetically engineered werewolf military commando first started digging into the back of my mind.  Ironically, it was my interest in G.I. Joe that initially fostered the concept, as their early 21st Century “Valor Vs. Venom” toy line took the concept of genetically modifying soldiers with animal DNA and created a whole subset of action figures from that fun concept.

I say ‘ironically’ because I’ve spent the majority of my free time over the past few years digging into my Operation: Harvest universe, and in many ways have side-stepped my interest in G.I. Joe as a result.  So while G.I. Joe was the fuel for my creative fire, it’s probably suffered the most as a result.

Anyone who is a fan of G.I. Joe (as many of my friends are) you’ll find some immediate similarities between the Real American Hero mythology and the Operation: Harvest storyline.  But Operation: Harvest is very much its own thing as well.

And it’s officially finished.

It’s still a little hard to believe.  Telling the story of William Strickland, Tina Bates, James Worthy and Gary Irizarry has been something I’ve been driven to do for over a decade, and now that it’s finished, I feel a great sense of accomplishment.  But funny enough, I feel an intense motivation and drive to keep telling more stories.  In a way, Operation: Harvest has changed my life, but as always, it seems that G.I. Joe remains at the core there, another aspect of my forty-plus years that’s defined by four inch plastic army men.

Operation: Harvest is officially done, and book three is available on Amazon, as well as the full boxed set trilogy.  I’m thrilled with the end result and I greatly hope readers are as well, but I’m celebrating the success by diving into new books and new worlds and continuing to tell stories.

Lao Tzu said “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”, and I feel like my first thousand mile journey is over.  Time to take that one step towards the next.

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Inspiration in strange places – Kong: Skull Island

I’ve written about where I find my inspiration before, and have been pretty clear that without Captain America: The Winter Soldier, my second novel Loose Strands would be a considerably different work.

As I think back to when I wrote that and what other films and television shows I’ve seen since, I don’t think anything has inspired me in the same way as that film, which still stands atop the mighty mountain of Marvel films as my all-time favorite.

Well, last night I managed to make my way to a budget showing of Kong: Skull Island.  To be honest, my expectations were very low.  Beyond the aforementioned Marvel Studios films I don’t go out of my way to see mainstream films very often, and while Kong looked interesting to be sure, I never thought I’d find it particularly inspiring.

As a funny aside, now that the Marvel Studios stable has grown to such crazy lengths it seems like each film released is a “Six Degrees of Marvel Cinematic Universe” mini-game.  Hell, Kong featured Nick Fury, Loki, and the soon to be Captain Marvel all in one film…not to mention Roger Dooley from Agent Carter.  Twelve year old me never could have dreamed of such a world.

At any rate, I’ve been battling internally with development of a new novel that I’m not quite sure will be a series or just a one-off.  And wouldn’t you know it, exactly two hours after I started to watch Skull Island, I felt compelled to dash to my computer and start getting ideas put together.  I’m not entirely sure why, Skull Island wasn’t a fantastic film, but it was very entertaining, and just seemed to have a certain spirit that I enjoy.  Real world military mixed with somewhat other-worldly creatures…the kind of thing like Alien, Predator, and the always awesome Cohesion Press work that I always seem to fall in love with.

I thought Kong himself was presented surprisingly well and they managed to make him both a deadly villain and a protagonist of sorts that the audience can feel sympathetic towards, all in the span of a two hour film.  There was a surprising amount of creature on creature violence which was executed fantastically as well.

At any rate, even though characters throughout the film make exceptionally baffling decisions that completely take the viewer out of the narrative, the action set pieces and flow of the film were captivating, and by the time it was over, I had this clear vision in my head of this novel I’ve been fighting with for a few months now.  I can’t explain it, but there it is.

If you’re a writer who has been trying to work through some ideas involving strange creatures going head to head with a platoon of military operatives, check out Kong.  It might just give you that spark that you’re looking for.

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Tools of the Trade – StoryShop.io

So in a private conversation with a fellow author over the past couple of days, he directed me towards a new service from Sterling & Stone, the folks behind the Self Publishing Podcast.  This new application is called StoryShop and I have to admit, I’m intrigued.

While the cost is a bit out of my budget ($99 per year, which honestly is pretty damn affordable, just not a necessary spend for me at this point) this seems like an intriguing toolkit for writers who want a little more organization to their world building.  There is no interface at this point to actually write your novel (but supposedly that’s coming), however there is quite a bit of nice depth for building your world, exploring your characters, and putting together an outline that might make finalizing your novel considerably less daunting.

I currently do all of this within Scrivener, and I’ve found a process that works well for me there, but Scrivener is a local app and using it outside of my laptop is either impossible or challenging at the least.  StoryShop is accessible via a web browser anywhere from any device theoretically.

If you’ve tried this tool, let me know.  I’ll admit, I’m curious, though not really prepared to completely overhaul the way I’m doing it now.  After all, my current process has allowed for over 200,000 words written already in 2017 and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

 

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Fun new pulp anthology featuring yours truly and many others live on Amazon now!

I will fully admit this did not feel much in my wheelhouse when it was pitched to me, but it ended up being a ton of fun.

If you like pulp fiction or even just some fun and heart-filled science fiction, you’re going to want to check out Saucy Robot Stories.  I had the ultimate pleasure of working with Jim Beard and a number of other great authors and it was a real blast.

It’s live on Amazon now in Kindle format, and will be available in print format shortly, so go grab a copy and enjoy, I think you’ll really love it!

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The time is here! Operation: Harvest Book 3 – Tipping Point coming April 11th!

It seems like it’s been a long time coming (and it has… at least five years from first draft writing and ten years from brain dumping) but the Operation: Harvest trilogy is one step closer to completion!

April 11th is a day to circle on your calendar!  That’s the day that Operation: Harvest Book 3 – Tipping Point will hit Amazon.com.  It will be available via Kindle format and in Paperback, and will be Amazon exclusive, at least for the first 90 days.

Folks – I am extremely proud of this world I’ve built and feel extremely privileged with everyone who has taken time out of their busy lives to read the words that I’ve written.  To date my debut novel The Fog of Dreams has been downloaded nearly 7,000 times, which seems insane.

So while this wraps up a very exciting (and exhausting) time in my life, I’m not sitting back!  I have two more novels already written and in first draft form, and other work brewing as well.  Operation: Harvest was a first step and certainly not the last.

Keep your eyes peeled, much more great stuff to come, and if you want to get caught up (or hell, if you just want to support my future work), pick up the first two novels right now!

The Fog of Dreams (2nd Edition)
Loose Strands

Also you can show your support by joining the World of Wolf’s Head where you’ll get some exciting free content and an early peek behind the scenes at what goes into writing these books.

Enjoy the ride and thanks again.

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How do you quantify success as a self published author?

I hope in reading these words you’re not expecting some world-bending enlightenment on my part.  Because brothers and sisters, I don’t have it.

As an American, I’ve been raised to believe that ultimately success = dollars.  To be considered “successful” it means to earn money doing a job (hopefully something you enjoy) enough so that you can survive.

Is that really success?

As I look back over the past few months, I couldn’t be happier with the way my 2017 has started from a self-publishing perspective.  Well… that’s a lie.  I could be happier, but I can hardly complain.

Throughout the first quarter of the year, I’ve been redoubling my efforts on that horrific part of independent publishing… “marketing”.  Ew, right?

You know, the more I get into it, the less ‘ewww’ I find it.  I find it actually quite fascinating and immensely rewarding.

Starting this year I began studying the Self Publishing Formula, courtesy of independent publishing juggernaut Mark Dawson, and it’s been an incredible experience.  Borrowing from some of his strategy, I’ve worked towards building a “brand” and creating reader magnets that might help draw more eyes to my books.  I may be a little biased, but I think I’m a pretty damned good author.  I enjoy my own work.  But people won’t read it if they don’t know it exists, right?

So I developed a plan of promotion, price drops and give aways that really propelled my first novel The Fog of Dreams.

Only one hitch…  in order to propel it, I had to give it away.

So, something that I’m happy with, that I consider an incredible success gave me a whopping zero dollars and zero cents.  How does that work?

How it works is my novel broke Amazon’s Top 100 Free list, and landed on #1 in the Military Thrillers, CyberThrillers, and Werewolf categories.  How it works is over the period of a couple of weeks, my first novel ended up being downloaded by nearly 6,000 people an audience that previous to that promotional process didn’t even know I existed.

As a result of those 6,000 downloads, I’ve been selling some copies of Book #2 (not many, but some) and most importantly, I’ve been building a ready made audience who will (hopefully) be excited when I announce the release of Book #3 in the coming month.

Success!

Money in my pocket?  Eh, maybe $100 this year if I’m lucky.  But, still… success.

The most important part of this success story is that it motivated me in ways that I haven’t felt motivated in a while.  It motivated me to the point that I wrote a follow up G.I. Joe novella (already published) and wrote a brand new thriller novel (which is waiting for editing) and I’m now almost 15,000 words deep in another brand new thriller novel.  It comes in waves.  I’m writing like crazy and feeling a lot more confident about my ability to find an audience, thanks to what I’ve learned and what I’ve tried.

I just did my taxes.  Last year it COST me almost $1,000 to be a self publisher (after royalties, etc…).  My goal at this point is to maybe break even.  Maybe, just maybe make enough off my books to edit and develop covers for future books.  Maybe have a business model that ends up being self-fulfilling instead of self-defeating.

Is that success?

Yeah, I think it is.

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Latest G.I. Joe Novella – Nerves of Stone available on Amazon. com NOW

While I’m punching through editing and still developing my next novel, I took some time to put together a brand new G.I. Joe novella for Kindle Worlds!

When a new G.I. Joe recruit goes missing, G.I. Joe calls in the Wolf Squad!

A COBRA secret facility in Alaska is the target of Wolf Squad reconnaissance, but they quickly realize they are outnumbered and outgunned and call in some reinforcements.

It becomes an all out battle of G.I. Joe vs. COBRA… allegiances are questioned…secrets are revealed… and a deadly outbreak is on the horizon!

Your favorite 2016 G.I. Joe and COBRA characters come to life in this action-packed G.I. Joe novella from the mind of Justin Bell

Available right now through Amazon Kindle Worlds it’s a short, but captivating action novella featuring some old favorites side by side with thrilling new characters. Check out on Amazon.com now!

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My writing year in review – 2016

Isn’t this how these blogs work at the beginning of 2017?  You look back over the past twelve months to see what went well, what didn’t go well and set some goals for the coming year.  That feels like the right thing to do.

From a personal standpoint, 2016 was somewhat challenging.  I lost a very close relative early in the year quite unexpectedly, ended up changing jobs and had an exceptionally busy year for my day job, leaving not quite as much time for writing as I would have liked.

That being said, I did manage to publish a 2nd Edition of my first novel, as well as a second novel, and I sold my first ever writing work to a fantastic horror/military anthology by Cohesion Press.  All three of these things feel like great accomplishments, and I’m very proud of them.

With the actual published work I’m also extremely happy to say I completed the initial draft of my third novel, which is going through the revision stages now with a planned release in early 2017!

Along with this, I also published a G.I. Joe novella for Kindle Worlds alongside some great collaborators and I wrote and submitted for almost a dozen other short story collections.  For being as busy as I was I did a hell of a lot of writing, and it feels great.

What I didn’t do was a hell of a lot of selling.

Listen, I write because I love to write.  There is no feeling quite as good as putting “The End” on a finished manuscript, and now that I’ve been involved in that process over the past two years, I can’t imagine life without it.  That being said, self-publishing is not an inexpensive endeavor, and I’ll need to find a balance between producing work and selling work pretty shortly.

To that end, as I’ve mentioned previously I have been taking Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing 101 course and am trying to implement some of his marketing recommendations.  I’m starting to see some soft dividends already, so here’s to hoping that I do just as much writing in 2017, but maybe actually let it pay for itself somewhere down the road.

Hope you’ll all be there with me on this exciting road towards a better tomorrow.

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