Michael David Matula's Blog: Author Michael Matula, page 7

Featured Book of the Week:

The book of the week, where I'll be featuring fun and interesting books from around the web.  Here's the first one I've selected.  Like zombies?  Well, then I have the book for you:

The Dead Civil War by Kenneth W. Cain 


“With his novel, The Dead Civil War, Kenneth W. Cain has put his finger on the pulse of a nation at war with itself.  Born of political ennui and hand-wringing frustration, this book is a chilling glimpse into an America on the ropes.  Tough and honest, The Dead Civil War has got some serious teeth to it.  Think Patrick Henry goes to Zombieland, because that’s what Cain has in store for you!” – Joe McKinney, author of MUTATED and INHERITANCE

A struggle for power arises in the United States and leaves the world in desolation. Strange creatures arise from the ash of battle and travel in packs. What is left of humanity gathers in small groups, trying to outlast the terror they know as reality. Of these, a fractured couple rediscovers each other and they must face the truth of Allen’s secretive past. They must confront the man who played his hand to make this all happen. Will America learn from its mistakes?

The 12 Steps of Self-Publishing. Step 1: Deciding Whether to Self-Publish.

I've just self-published my first ebook, and it's now live on Amazon for 99 cents.  It's the noir story I referred to in one of the previous Stories of the Week, and is titled Even the Pretty Ones.  Deciding to go forward on my own wasn't an easy choice, and I've resisted the urge to self-publish for quite a while now. 

One of the main reasons for my hesitancy was my unfamiliarity with how the system works.  Basically, I don't know an "epub" from a tavern. 

It turns out, the process was both easier than I thought, and much more difficult.  In this series of blog posts, I'll go through my experience step by step, in case others are considering a self-pub crawl, but are as intimidated by it as I was. 



Step 1: Denial... Oh, wait.  That's for something else.  I meant to say, Step 1: Deciding Whether to Self-Publish. 

I'm always quite slow to adapt to technology (I still have a flip phone, for instance), but even I had to admit that the publishing model isn't quite like it used to be.  I don't expect I'll suddenly flip out and start self-publishing all of my stories and every book I write, but it's definitely a viable option these days.  I used to think there was a stigma associated with self-published books, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.  It could be due to the "50 Shades of Grey" phenomenon, or it could just be because that's the direction the industry is headed in. 

There are still benefits to the old model, though.  It's pretty nice when an editor thinks enough of your book or your story to want to share it with their readers.  It's not only a decent ego boost, but it's also something you can put in a list of credentials for the next time you submit to a publisher or an agent. 

And it's also nice not to have to do all the promotion yourself. 

Frankly, though, even if you get published by a traditional publisher, the author is still expected to do the lion's share of the promotional legwork.  Particularly if you're not represented by one of the big boys. 

As for the main reason I chose to self-publish Even the Pretty Ones: well, I was tired of searching for noir magazines to submit to.  Most of the noir markets I found seemed to have either dried up or weren't currently accepting submissions.  The ones who were accepting often wanted stories that were the wrong word count (places that pay by the word seem to like stories with very low word counts...) or they only offered a token payment. 

So I figured, what do I have to lose by putting the story out myself?  Plus, it would give me a chance to test out the self-publishing waters. 

Those waters have always looked rather murky and daunting from where I've been standing, but maybe that's simply because I hadn't yet dipped my toe into the sea.


Stay tuned for Step 2, which I'll be posting in the next few days. 

Stories of the Week for August 7, 2013

Much like buddy cop movies and boy bands, Stories of the Week is back. 

Not a ton of story news to report this week.  I've gotten a bit sidetracked from the environmental horror story I started last week.  I'm over 2500 words into it, and nearing the ending, but it seems I've gone and started another project.  As if I don't have enough  projects in the works already, I decided I needed one more on my plate.  This time, a Middle Grade novel.

For the new book, I was toying with an idea of writing a spoof about a wizard called Harriet Porter, who attends a school called Toadhorns...but then I remembered that I'm deathly afraid of lawyers.  So I decided to scrap the idea and work on something completely different, but still in the realm of magic.  It's partly inspired by one of the concepts in Neil Gaiman's brilliant Stardust, and partly inspired by apartheid. 

Only the first page has been written, but I'm already finding the main character to be quite fun to write.  She's got a bit of moxie, this one. 




Once again, the weather's pleasant here, so no "Beat the Heat" tip.  Instead, I thought I'd try out something different:

"Movie of the Week."  The Good Night, starring Martin Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Simon Pegg.  An incredibly slow first twenty minutes, during which I wondered what I'd gotten myself into, but I kind of loved this movie once it got going.  It deals with one man's attempts to descend into his dreams instead of facing up to reality.  But can he find the satisfaction he's looking for, or is he only pushing away what really matters most?




More news and nonsense next week, when I should have my nature story completed. 

Adventures in Streamlining

I've been reading a book on blog design (“Blog Design for Dummies," fittingly enough.  I still don't understand most of what it's talking about, though, which makes me think I may need a book called “Blog Design for People Who Were Born Yesterday.”)

One of the main things it talks about is making your blog easier to navigate.  It mentions the "three clicks rule," where you don't want to make your readers click more than three times to get to the info they're looking for.  To that end, I've made a few changes to the blog format:
1: I took most of the links out of the sidebar and added them to their own page on the site. Aside from lessening the clutter, the links now have spiffy new pictures attached to them.  Well, some of the pictures are spiffy, anyway.  Others will need to be replaced with higher-res images. 
2: I added the Amazon Slideshow Widget to the blog, to make it easier for readers to get to my novel.  It was surprisingly quick to set up.  You simply choose the books you'd like to add, choose the style, colors and sizes (I went with basic black), then paste the code they give you into your blog.
3: I streamlined the Labels menu, so people can find topics that might interest them (like the game show interview I did with author Jaclyn Aurore.).  First, I changed it to the cloud format, so the labels with the most posts attached are easier to see.  Then, I went through and deleted some of the clutter labels.  For instance, I had the label "synopsis" for one of my posts, which seems a little silly, now that I actually think about it. 

4: I tweaked the "About the Author" page to make it a bit cleaner.  Now that the site is somewhat easier to navigate, I didn't feel the need to include quite as much junk there. 

I'm still learning as I go, but so far, I'm quite happy with the changes. 

Adventures in Streamlining: Blogging for Beginners

I've been reading a book on blog design (“Blog Design for Dummies," fittingly enough.  I still don't understand most of what it's talking about, though, which makes me think I may need a book called “Blog Design for People Who Were Born Yesterday.”)

One of the main things it talks about is making your blog easier to navigate.  It mentions the "three clicks rule," where you don't want to make your readers click more than three times to get to the info they're looking for.  To that end, I've made a few changes to the blog format:

1: I took most of the links out of the sidebar and added them to their own page on the site. Aside from lessening the clutter, the links now have spiffy new pictures attached to them.  Well, some of the pictures are spiffy, anyway.  Others will need to be replaced with higher-res images. 
2: I added the Amazon Slideshow Widget to the blog, to make it easier for readers to get to my novel.  It was surprisingly quick to set up.  You simply choose the books you'd like to add, choose the style, colors and sizes (I went with basic black), then paste the code they give you into your blog.
3: I streamlined the Labels menu, so people can find topics that might interest them (like the game show interview I did with author Jaclyn Aurore.).  First, I changed it to the cloud format, so the labels with the most posts attached are easier to see.  Then, I went through and deleted some of the clutter labels.  For instance, I had the label "synopsis" for one of my posts, which seems a little silly, now that I actually think about it. 

4: I tweaked the "About the Author" page to make it a bit cleaner.  Now that the site is somewhat easier to navigate, I didn't feel the need to include quite as much junk there. 

I'm still learning as I go, but so far, I'm quite happy with the changes. 

Ten Minute Flash Fiction Experiment: Door to Door

Here's a little flash fiction experiment of mine, inspired by a recent encounter with a door-to-door salesman that left me scratching my head.  I was going to mention it in a quick tweet ( @michaeldmatula ), but I decided to give myself ten minutes to write it out as a mini story instead. 

Hope you enjoy it.


A pair of crisp knocks. Low voices outside my window, carrying on a conversation. Not wanting to be bothered, I wait ten seconds, expecting them to go away on their own.  I hear the voices again. I stop writing, toss on a more presentable shirt and go answer the door. Two men are standing on the porch. Squarish types. One's middle-aged. They're both wearing button-up shirts. Ties.

I leave the screen door shut. No point getting too chummy.
A pamphlet is shoved towards the screen. The man on the left says some words I don't bother to commit to memory. I'm already preparing to say, “No thanks.”
The other man then utters a phrase that manages to stick to my brain like newsprint on Silly Putty. “We're going door to door, asking people, 'How long would you like to live?'”
I'm speechless for a moment. It sounds more like a threat than a conversation starter. “No thanks,” I end up saying, my powers of speech returning. “I'm not interested.”

I let the door close.
I wonder what the hell that was all about.

Stories of the Week for July 31, 2013

The photo for this week is courtesy of my visitor--a praying mantis, methinks--who was kind enough to pose for a few pictures on my screen door the other day.  I got the camera as close as possible in the hopes it would look like a scene from an old monster movie.  I think this one would be called "The Day the Mantis Ate Chicago."

No tip to Beat the Heat this week, as it's been quite pleasant where I am.  The Heat has been Beaten for now, at least in my neck of the woods. 

Speaking of woods, I've started a new story this week after seeing a call for submissions for an upcoming anthology.  The theme is environmental horror.  At first, all I could think of was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (which I haven't seen, but I haven't exactly heard great things about it.), but I put my old thinking cap on and came up with an idea that I really like.  It deals with the delicate balance of nature, and how important predators are to maintaining that balance. 

I'm only about 600 words in, having started it last night (it's supposed to be between 3,000-5,000 words when complete), so I can't say too much else yet. 

It's kind of refreshing to write a story about nature, though, as my first novel took place in purgatory (not a ton of nature there), and a lot of my other stories tend to take place in urban environments or within residential buildings, with an occasional apocalyptic wasteland tossed in for good measure. 



I guess you could say I'm "branching" out as a writer... 



Anyway, more to come next week, hopefully without the terrible puns. 

Stories of the Week for June 24, 2013

This week's tip to Beat the Heat (sponsored by Try Not To Burn, now in refreshing Cherry flavor):

I've started to write exclusively in the bathtub, where it's nice and cool.  Sure, I'm no longer fully human, and am now a rather distressing human/prune hybrid creature, but at least I'm not all sweaty anymore.  I'd call that a win. 

Actual writing update:

I've written up a Prologue for Try Not To Burn Book 2: Second Chances (tentative title).  It opens similarly to the first book, as we hear the audio from a news report.  In Book 1, the news report was intended to show how Brandon could still hear the television from his hospital bed, and that he was subconsciously hearing about the events leading to his death as it occurred.

I originally had a different Prologue for Book 1, but I ended up replacing it with what's now in the book.  The original was from Victor Rellik's POV and showed his origins as a killer.  Since Rellik doesn't feature too heavily in the first book, it didn't quite make sense to show an entire chapter from his perspective.  It also didn't represent the overall tone of the book, and was much too dark of an introduction. 

It made much more sense to me to get to the main character as quickly as possible, since I didn't want readers thinking that the entire book would be about Rellik.  His chapter was intended to be inhuman and horrifying, while Brandon's journey is much more human and hopeful.  Brand is trying to redeem his sins and become a better man, while Rellik is rooted in what he is, with no hope of salvation. 


Oh, and I also managed to complete the noir story this week.  And by that, I mean I finished it late last night, after I remembered I'd said I would have it completed by this update.  The killer was a wily one, but I was able to track him or her down. 

I also dusted off an old flash fiction horror story that I had lying around, revised a rather clunky section in the beginning, and sent it off to a contest.  I really like this one, as it deals with a new, spindly creature that doesn't feel quite like anything I've seen before.  I'm hoping it will see the light of day soon, as I'm really interested to see what people think of the story. 


That's the end of this week's update.  Tune in next week for updates on my newest story, plus a photo of the giant green insect I found on my screen door. 

Stories of the Week for July 18, 2013

I'm thinking of starting a new weekly feature on the blog, where I update how some of my stories or books are progressing, maybe post a sample now and then, and generally natter on about some nonsense. 

And post random pictures of cats or iguanas or something.  I'm still working out the details.  In the meantime, feel free to send me cat or iguana photos at michaeldavidmatula@hotmail.com and I may include them in a future update, unless I come to my senses before then.  

Oh, and since it's summer time, I might include a tip or two on how to "beat the heat," as they say.  (I prefer the phrase Try Not To Burn, myself...) 

Tip #1: frozen treats are your friend.  I thought I was going to die the other day after jogging under the sweltering sun.  But I got home, enjoyed a cool, refreshing Snapple Sorbet Bar (did I mention I would try to use these updates to get advertising?), and no longer felt like death had her hand clamped on my spine. 

Actual Writing Update:
For this week, one of the things I've been working on is a noir story.  With detectives, chain smoking, dames, and all the fixings.  It's my first attempt at a story like this, so I'm hoping I'm doing all right with it, and that it's still in the homage territory, and hasn't yet dipped into full cliche mode.  I'd wanted to get the story finished sometime last week, since a fellow writer in a facebook group I'm in sent out a call for submissions there, but the story wasn't cooperating with me.  In other words, I still didn't know who the killer was. 

I expect to have it finished by the next edition of Stories of the Week, or Nattering Nonsense, or whatever I end up calling this.

Printer's Row Lit Fest

This last weekend in downtown Chicago, I had the chance to hang out with a bunch of my fellow Post Mortem Press authors, including Cynthia Pelayo, Brian Dobbins, and Christian Larsen.  It was my first time at an event like this, and it was great meeting everyone and chatting with some of the festival goers who were kind enough to stop by.  And the four of us were each interviewed for Authors Showcase (Chicago Cable Channel 25), which is a TV show that promotes new authors and new books.  There was an issue with the audio for my interview (the event got pretty loud sometimes), but thankfully, they stopped by again on Sunday and re-did the interview with me.  I'm hoping I did okay on it, as it was all a bit of a blur for me after the camera went on. 






I also spent the first two hours on Sunday at the Chicago Writers Association tent, and got to meet fellow Chicago author Victoria Noe, along with Dan Burns, the head of Windy City Reviews.  Here's the picture I took before the day began:


Oh, and here's a couple of the other pictures I took on Sunday, as I walked to the event from the train station.