C.J. Carella's Blog: C.J. Carella's Casa Del Geek, page 7
April 3, 2014
Online Q&A
Will be doing a Q&A thanks to the kind folks at RPG.net, tonight (April 3) at 8 pm ET.
You can join up at http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat
You can join up at http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat
March 16, 2014
New Olympus is Out
Well, it took a lot longer than I expected, but New Olympus is finally out on Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J195GH8) with the print edition coming soon.
Now I'll be devoting my energy to finishing Doomsday Duet. I'll admit I've missed playing around with Christine and Mark and the rest of the wacky gang.
Now I'll be devoting my energy to finishing Doomsday Duet. I'll admit I've missed playing around with Christine and Mark and the rest of the wacky gang.
February 4, 2014
Plans for 2014
Finishing up New Olympus, which turned into a bigger pain in the butt than I expected. I've never had trouble with short stories before, but this time it's taken a lot longer than I expected to put them together, especially the ones where I had to integrate backer created characters into them (it was a neat idea for the Kickstarter campaign but I kinda screwed up the implementation. Mea culpa).
After that's done, I'll be turning to Doomsday Duet. One complaint I've been hearing from many readers is that Armageddon Girl had too many POV characters. I may have been overly ambitious there. I'm considering narrowing the focus of the novel and writing a parallel novel dealing with the stories that are part of the plot but not directly related to the Christine Dark story line. That novel would not be part of the New Olympus arc but would fill in readers on stuff that would happen "offstage" during the events described in Doomsday Duet and The Apocalypse Dance.
I'd love to hear any input (either in comments or e-mail) about this idea. It would mean a lot less (one-third to one half fewer) POV characters in the two follow-up novels, and a fourth novel that would be "optional" for readers. It would follow the deeds of Chastity Baal, Artemis and Swift, and a few others not directly involved in Christine's adventures. Opinions and comments are welcome.
After that's done, I'll be turning to Doomsday Duet. One complaint I've been hearing from many readers is that Armageddon Girl had too many POV characters. I may have been overly ambitious there. I'm considering narrowing the focus of the novel and writing a parallel novel dealing with the stories that are part of the plot but not directly related to the Christine Dark story line. That novel would not be part of the New Olympus arc but would fill in readers on stuff that would happen "offstage" during the events described in Doomsday Duet and The Apocalypse Dance.
I'd love to hear any input (either in comments or e-mail) about this idea. It would mean a lot less (one-third to one half fewer) POV characters in the two follow-up novels, and a fourth novel that would be "optional" for readers. It would follow the deeds of Chastity Baal, Artemis and Swift, and a few others not directly involved in Christine's adventures. Opinions and comments are welcome.
January 16, 2014
New Olympus
The companion book to Armageddon Girl is almost done. This isn't a sequel (that's Doomsday Duet, which will hopefully be out in the next 2 months or so), but a collection of short stories and essays set in Earth Alpha, the alternate universe where superhuman beings have changed Earth's history. One of the stories, "The Red Baron's Last Flight" is available on my website at this link:
http://www.cjcarella.com/fiction/the_...
New Olympus is a bit of a hybrid book: in addition to the short stories it has a section written in the style of a traditional role-playing game sourcebook, describing the setting of the stories, with bits on its history, society and technology. An appendix adds more gaming information. The purpose for those essays is to help gamers who might want to adapt the setting to their favorite tabletop RPGs, and to provide more information to non-gamers who are interested in the world-building aspect of the New Olympus Saga (my somewhat pretentious name for the series of novels beginning with Armageddon Girl).
I guess it's a case of "once a game writer, always a game writer."
http://www.cjcarella.com/fiction/the_...
New Olympus is a bit of a hybrid book: in addition to the short stories it has a section written in the style of a traditional role-playing game sourcebook, describing the setting of the stories, with bits on its history, society and technology. An appendix adds more gaming information. The purpose for those essays is to help gamers who might want to adapt the setting to their favorite tabletop RPGs, and to provide more information to non-gamers who are interested in the world-building aspect of the New Olympus Saga (my somewhat pretentious name for the series of novels beginning with Armageddon Girl).
I guess it's a case of "once a game writer, always a game writer."
January 8, 2014
Musings on Self-Publishing Vs. Mainstream, Part 2
So here I am, exactly eight months after I got my rejection form letter from Unnamed Publisher X. Armageddon Girl is out (the companion book is coming soon, I promise y'all). I published the book on Kindle on November 17, 2013.
Let me start with the blog entry by Wendy Higgins that sparked this article: http://www.wendyhigginswrites.com/201...
I am incredibly grateful to Ms. Higgins for talking about money - it's so hard to find out what to expect out there and her candor is highly appreciated. Her first book for a $10,000 advance, which after taxes, the two years' wait for publication and earning-out royalties, agent's fees, etc, turned out to be a net $3,000 a year. Subsequent books earned significantly higher advances. Royalty-wise, she is getting slightly over $0.60 a book ($0.51 after agent fees) - she needed to sell 17,000 copies to recoup the advance).
So this is where I am on Armageddon Girl. I launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance publication costs. It raised $5,000. After paying the artists, editors, fulfillment costs, operating expenses and so on, I netted around $1,000, which I guess it counts as an advance (except I don't have to pay it off against royalties). On Kindle e-sales, I make about $2.25-2.45 per copy sold (or loaned out through Amazon Prime) . I've sold a couple hundred copies in the first 30 days, and sales have been climbing steadily via word of mouth and a couple ad campaigns here and there (still haven't spent the full advertising budget).
If sales peter out after a few weeks, then I'll make a couple thousand bucks and turn out to be an idiot not to wait for a mainstream publisher to pick up the book. If sales remain steady or pick up, I'll do a sight better than $3K a year, especially if the follow up books (New Olympus and Doomsday Duet, both due for release this year) do as well.
Does that make self-publishing better than mainstream? Nope, even if my novel continues to sell as well or better as it has in its first couple of months (which remains a big unknown). Mainstream publishing offers editing, marketing, an entire infrastructure dedicated to help authors sell their work. I had to pay for an editor (and said editor fell asleep on the job, necessitating me to do additional proofreading at the last minute), did the cover art myself (and it shows), and will have to spend a good deal of time and energy doing marketing (although this is true of mainstream authors as well - publishers are delegating a lot of that stuff to the authors themselves nowadays).
One big difference is time: as soon as Doomsday Duet is written, edited and laid out, I can click a few links and the book will be available for sale on Amazon. No need to wait 2-3 years to see the book come out. As I'm getting older, time's winged chariot makes its presence painfully obvious. I would like to have Doomsday Duet and The Apocalypse Dance (the third book in the series, which will conclude the first story arc in the New Olympus Saga) done in 2014. And with self-publishing, the only thing stopping me from realizing that vision is me.
So, all in all, I don't regret my decision. I may not make as much money, but the books will come out when I want and how I want, which is probably arrogant of me, but I'm at a cantankerous "rage against the dying of the light" stage of my life, got a chariot on my arse and books to write.
tl;dr - Jury's still out as to whether I did the right thing going selfie instead of mainstreamy. Hell, it's likely a weird alt-hist superhero genre-bender was never going to make it in the mainstream unless you're Brandon Sanderson or the like (i.e., someone which much greater writing chops than moi). Alea Iacta Est.
Let me start with the blog entry by Wendy Higgins that sparked this article: http://www.wendyhigginswrites.com/201...
I am incredibly grateful to Ms. Higgins for talking about money - it's so hard to find out what to expect out there and her candor is highly appreciated. Her first book for a $10,000 advance, which after taxes, the two years' wait for publication and earning-out royalties, agent's fees, etc, turned out to be a net $3,000 a year. Subsequent books earned significantly higher advances. Royalty-wise, she is getting slightly over $0.60 a book ($0.51 after agent fees) - she needed to sell 17,000 copies to recoup the advance).
So this is where I am on Armageddon Girl. I launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance publication costs. It raised $5,000. After paying the artists, editors, fulfillment costs, operating expenses and so on, I netted around $1,000, which I guess it counts as an advance (except I don't have to pay it off against royalties). On Kindle e-sales, I make about $2.25-2.45 per copy sold (or loaned out through Amazon Prime) . I've sold a couple hundred copies in the first 30 days, and sales have been climbing steadily via word of mouth and a couple ad campaigns here and there (still haven't spent the full advertising budget).
If sales peter out after a few weeks, then I'll make a couple thousand bucks and turn out to be an idiot not to wait for a mainstream publisher to pick up the book. If sales remain steady or pick up, I'll do a sight better than $3K a year, especially if the follow up books (New Olympus and Doomsday Duet, both due for release this year) do as well.
Does that make self-publishing better than mainstream? Nope, even if my novel continues to sell as well or better as it has in its first couple of months (which remains a big unknown). Mainstream publishing offers editing, marketing, an entire infrastructure dedicated to help authors sell their work. I had to pay for an editor (and said editor fell asleep on the job, necessitating me to do additional proofreading at the last minute), did the cover art myself (and it shows), and will have to spend a good deal of time and energy doing marketing (although this is true of mainstream authors as well - publishers are delegating a lot of that stuff to the authors themselves nowadays).
One big difference is time: as soon as Doomsday Duet is written, edited and laid out, I can click a few links and the book will be available for sale on Amazon. No need to wait 2-3 years to see the book come out. As I'm getting older, time's winged chariot makes its presence painfully obvious. I would like to have Doomsday Duet and The Apocalypse Dance (the third book in the series, which will conclude the first story arc in the New Olympus Saga) done in 2014. And with self-publishing, the only thing stopping me from realizing that vision is me.
So, all in all, I don't regret my decision. I may not make as much money, but the books will come out when I want and how I want, which is probably arrogant of me, but I'm at a cantankerous "rage against the dying of the light" stage of my life, got a chariot on my arse and books to write.
tl;dr - Jury's still out as to whether I did the right thing going selfie instead of mainstreamy. Hell, it's likely a weird alt-hist superhero genre-bender was never going to make it in the mainstream unless you're Brandon Sanderson or the like (i.e., someone which much greater writing chops than moi). Alea Iacta Est.
Musings on Self-Publishing Vs. Mainstream, Part 1
I just read a very honest and insightful Blog post by Wendy Higgins ( http://www.wendyhigginswrites.com/201...) about her experiences and earnings as a published author via the mainstream press. On the same day, I read a review of Armageddon Girl by my good friend Bill Reich (http://www.amazon.com/review/R6WB8MOD...) where he mentions that I pretty much gave up on mainstream publishing after a single rejection letter. All this got me to thinking about my decisions about my first novel and about self-publishing versus mainstream publishing.
I started my writing career (back in the early 1990s) in the tabletop RPG industry. I was lucky enough to get a few breaks and got published fairly quickly. The money was never great but it was often good: I made $7-9,000 in a couple of books, although most RPGs netted me something around $2,000-3,000 or less within the first year of publication and maybe an equivalent amount in dribs and drabs over the ensuing years. I managed to make a living writing full-time, but it was never much of a living, except for a brief stint working as a full-time employee for an RPG publisher. Eventually, I went to work in a different industry for a lot more money.
The writing bug never left me, though. After many (many many) false starts, I finally finished a novel, thanks to assorted sources of inspiration (ranging from the web-show The Guild to overdosing on Richard Kadrey books and old Watchmen comics). I dutifully bought a copy of the Writer's Market and checked my options vis a vis mainstream publishing. The few places that would look at genre fiction overwhelmingly demanded agented submissions, which I didn't (and still don't) have. The few that didn't were dominated by e-publishers that didn't seem much better than self-publishing, places with a 9-12 month response time, and one publisher with a rapid (3 month) turnaround time.
I sent that publisher my manuscript ($50 between printing and mailing fees), waited my 3 months, and on the 87th day got a form letter rejecting the manuscript. At that point, my choices were to go with the 9-12 month publisher, which meant I wouldn't get an answer until sometime in 2014, try the smaller publishers that allow for simultaneous submissions (but don't offer much of an advance, if any, and mostly e-publish their books), or go for self-publishing.
I was impatient. I was also arrogant enough to think the book was good enough to be published. I also had some measure of name recognition via my RPG work, which I thought I might parlay into some sales. So I went for it.
tl;dr - I was greedy and impatient, and went for self-publishing. Part 2 describes how well (or not) I've done so far.
I started my writing career (back in the early 1990s) in the tabletop RPG industry. I was lucky enough to get a few breaks and got published fairly quickly. The money was never great but it was often good: I made $7-9,000 in a couple of books, although most RPGs netted me something around $2,000-3,000 or less within the first year of publication and maybe an equivalent amount in dribs and drabs over the ensuing years. I managed to make a living writing full-time, but it was never much of a living, except for a brief stint working as a full-time employee for an RPG publisher. Eventually, I went to work in a different industry for a lot more money.
The writing bug never left me, though. After many (many many) false starts, I finally finished a novel, thanks to assorted sources of inspiration (ranging from the web-show The Guild to overdosing on Richard Kadrey books and old Watchmen comics). I dutifully bought a copy of the Writer's Market and checked my options vis a vis mainstream publishing. The few places that would look at genre fiction overwhelmingly demanded agented submissions, which I didn't (and still don't) have. The few that didn't were dominated by e-publishers that didn't seem much better than self-publishing, places with a 9-12 month response time, and one publisher with a rapid (3 month) turnaround time.
I sent that publisher my manuscript ($50 between printing and mailing fees), waited my 3 months, and on the 87th day got a form letter rejecting the manuscript. At that point, my choices were to go with the 9-12 month publisher, which meant I wouldn't get an answer until sometime in 2014, try the smaller publishers that allow for simultaneous submissions (but don't offer much of an advance, if any, and mostly e-publish their books), or go for self-publishing.
I was impatient. I was also arrogant enough to think the book was good enough to be published. I also had some measure of name recognition via my RPG work, which I thought I might parlay into some sales. So I went for it.
tl;dr - I was greedy and impatient, and went for self-publishing. Part 2 describes how well (or not) I've done so far.
December 28, 2013
New Year's Resolutions
At around this time last year, I finished my first novel and resolved to have it published. For a change, that resolution came to pass. Yes, I kinda cheated by publishing it myself. And no, I'm still nowhere near supporting myself through writing (something I managed to do back in the '90s). But what the heck, it's a start.
So, for 2014, my resolutions are: to finish the two sequels to Armageddon Girl (Doomsday Duet and Apocalypse Dance) and to get started on something different (I have a few ideas), and maybe try to get it published via the mainstream press; to not let myself sink back into the morass of depression I was in back in 2012 (and which made a comeback at times this year); to not let other people's negativity derail me; and to live a little more - I find myself spending much too much time merely existing.
Happy New Year Everybody!
So, for 2014, my resolutions are: to finish the two sequels to Armageddon Girl (Doomsday Duet and Apocalypse Dance) and to get started on something different (I have a few ideas), and maybe try to get it published via the mainstream press; to not let myself sink back into the morass of depression I was in back in 2012 (and which made a comeback at times this year); to not let other people's negativity derail me; and to live a little more - I find myself spending much too much time merely existing.
Happy New Year Everybody!
December 5, 2013
Trade Paperback of Armageddon Girl On Sale Now
The trade paperback edition of the novel is available for sale via Createspace.com. The book will be on Amazon.com by next week. Thus concludes the first chapter of this experiment. We'll see how it goes.
https://www.createspace.com/4289963
https://www.createspace.com/4289963
November 17, 2013
Armageddon Girl Is Out on Kindle!
The Armageddon Girl E-Book is out and available for sale on Amazon.com. Here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Girl...
The print version will be available soon (end of November or early December).
I have also updated the sample chapters on my website. You can read them at:
http://cjcarella.com/fiction/chapters...
http://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Girl...
The print version will be available soon (end of November or early December).
I have also updated the sample chapters on my website. You can read them at:
http://cjcarella.com/fiction/chapters...
August 30, 2013
We Made It!
The Kickstarter for Armageddon Girl reached its initial goal today. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who helped make this happen.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...
C.J. Carella's Casa Del Geek
Writer and game designer C.J. Carella (WitchCraft, The Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, etc) muses on various subjects and shares news about ongoing and future projects.
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