L.T. Vargus's Blog, page 11

Fade to Black

My newest novel, which is part 1 in an epic 5 part series, is now available on Amazon! It will be at the special promotional price of $0.99 for the first month, after that it will be $2.99, so grab it while it’s hot off the presses! (Currently just the Kindle version is live, but the paperback should be up shortly.)

Part 2 in the series will launch later this week.

Fade to Black on Amazon.com
Fade to Black on Amazon.co.uk

Live. Die. Repeat.

Dying violent deaths over and over again totally blows. Loner Jeff Grobnagger has learned this the hard way. Every time he has a seizure, he dreams that a hooded man strangles and kills him. He runs. He fights. He hides. No matter what he does, his efforts end in a pretty bad case of death.

But when someone tries to kill him in real life, he realizes that what happens with the hooded man isn’t just a dream.

Who is the hooded man? And who tried to kill Grobnagger in real life? His quest for answers leads to a missing girl, cults obsessed with astral projection, an arcane puzzle sphere, an evil book, a buxom private detective named Louise and a mustached man named Glenn that makes ‘the best martini you’ve ever tasted.’

Yep. If it weren’t for all of the horrific deaths, Jeff Grobnagger would be having the time of his life.

Spoiler Alert: L.T. Vargus is two people.

L.T. Vargus has a new book coming out in less than a month, but there’s something you should know first.

See, the author L.T. Vargus is two people. Well, it was two people. Now it is one person. But let’s start at the beginning.

A writing team – a dynamic duo consisting of one woman and one man – toiled over the novel Casting Shadows Everywhere some time ago, releasing it in mid-2013. At the time it seemed wise to release the book under one name. The duo figured it would make branding and marketing simpler – promote one name, one blog, one twitter account, and so on, instead of two. As time passed, however, it became clear that there was no advantage to this strategy, and not only was there no advantage, it made blogging and tweeting and engaging with fans a little less personal, the point of view at times growing a little unclear.

So here were are. Division day. L.T. Vargus is about to split in two, but don’t worry. Like a nightcrawler, the two severed pieces will keep wriggling and be fine.

So now we have two authors instead of one: L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain. If you read Casting Shadows Everywhere or our tweets, blog posts, and interviews, you already know both of us. But now you will know both of us better.

We will continue to work together, and our next release will be out in about a month. The exact date and more details will be available soon.

Win a Signed Copy of Casting Shadows Everywhere!

Enter the giveaway on Goodreads for a chance to win one of five signed copies of the paperback edition of Casting Shadows Everywhere, which is also now available for sale on Amazon in addition to the e-book edition!

Enter here!

Why Being an Indie Author is Awesome Part 1: Control Over Your Own Content

Sometimes we worry too much about the way we’re “supposed to” do things instead of the way we’ll get the best results. If you ask most people how they think you’re “supposed to” get started as an author, they’d tell you that you’re “supposed to” send out queries, get signed by an agent, snag a publishing deal, get a sweet advance, and then sit back and get paid whilst becoming a household name. That’s how you’re supposed to do it, right? I say: Screw That. I’m sure there’s a certain amount of prestige that comes with the route of agents and contracts and cash advances (and I’ll get into the double edged sword of advances in a future installment), but there are more than enough bonuses that come with being an indie author to outweigh all of that.

Three years ago I wrote a comedy spec script and sent a bunch of queries to agents and managers in Hollywood. Somewhat to my surprise, several of them requested and read it. It was a crazy couple of months. One of the top agents at William Morris Endeavor said I was “really talented” and that he laughed out loud but this particular script was too dark and asked me to send him anything else I had. Another agent at UTA said that it was a “great read” but that the main character’s story arc didn’t show her changing enough. There were several other responses like that – “It’s good, but…”

 

I didn’t know what to think. On one hand almost everyone I had submitted to had rejected me by that point. On the other hand, two of the top 5 talent agencies in show business had given me a lot of praise and encouragement. Not bad considering they don’t even officially accept queries.

A few more rejections trickled in from smaller agencies and management firms. Then the unthinkable happened. Two managers said yes… sort of.

The first was technically not a manager. He was a younger guy working as the “literary coordinator” at a management firm. He said the script was deftly written with a great voice and great timing, and that he was going to pass it around the office to see if it could generate any excitement. I guess nobody else got excited. We exchanged emails for a couple months, but nothing came of it.

The second was a real manager, however, that had even produced a movie opening in 2800 theatres the following month. He emailed to set up a phone call.

The phone call is the big threshold you have to cross. When they call, it means you’re in, right? And I was kind of. We talked a while.

“You want to write big studio movies and make a lot of money, right?” he said.

“Yeah,”I said. Honestly, I wasn’t sure exactly what he was getting at but lots of money sounded pretty good. I am for that.

“You don’t want to write indie shit, do you?”

I said no because that was obviously what he wanted to hear. I was nervous. I like indie movies, though, so it seemed weird to rule those out entirely straight away. He finally got around to his main point. He said I needed to read this book about screenwriting that has a blueprint for how plot structure is executed. A beat sheet. A very precise beat sheet. Page one is the “opening image” beat. The last page is the “closing image” beat, which makes a reference to the opening image. You must hit the “fun and games” beats from pages 25 to 50. You must hit the “false high” at the midpoint of the movie on exactly page 55. You must hit the “all is lost” beat on exactly page 75. And so on.

He said after I read the book we would talk again about whether I was still interested. If so, we would work on script ideas together, and then after I churned a few “perfect” scripts, he and his people would coach me up on pitching things to executives at meetings. He said we would practice until I could flawlessly respond to anything an executive might ask or say. He talked about how you use your perfectly-conformed-to-the-beat-sheet scripts as writing samples to pitch a take on someone else’s idea to get big rewrite jobs for the studios.

My head swam. As I worked my way through the book in the following days, I realized that I didn’t want this. Not even a little bit. I didn’t want to churn out a by the numbers product. I didn’t want to collaborate with a manager at the idea stage. I didn’t want to pitch ideas to executives. I didn’t want to do rewrites for other people’s ideas to reconfigure them to conform to the beat sheet.

I pretty much wanted to stay home, write a story, have some people make that into a movie and be done with it. I realized at that point that books were the path to the freedom I wanted.

And publishing them independently would give me total control over every aspect. Did you know that traditionally published authors have no input on what the artwork on the cover of their book is? I can’t imagine spending months or even years writing and editing a manuscript and then handing it off to let someone I’ve never met make all of the decisions like that. Likely someone who’s never even read my book!

As an indie author, you have absolute control over your content, your artwork and branding, your marketing angle, and so on. No one can tell you to change your ending. No one gets to impose arbitrary deadlines. No one is choosing a cover you don’t like. And why should they? You’re the expert on your work. 

Casting Shadows Everywhere

Buy my first novel, Casting Shadows Everywhere: available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

In his own words, 15 year old Jake is a “huge pussy.” He flinches. Always. He’s too timid to make a move on Beth, the buxom girl of his dreams, and too busy getting face-slammed into lockers by bullies to do much else. He seeks the guidance of the biggest badass he knows, his cousin Nick.

Nick is a professional burglar and makes Jake his apprentice. They stalk suburban neighborhoods night after night, ransacking houses for jewelry and sweet valuables. Nick teaches Jake the finer points of breaking and entering along with his dark philosophy – that there is no right or wrong in the world, just a series of events that happen without meaning.

At first, adopting Nick’s callous worldview helps Jake get over his fears and confront his tormentors. But Jake unleashes an aggression in himself he never thought possible. And as he learns more about his cousin, he realizes that Nick’s crimes go way beyond burglary.

In the end, Jake must face not only the monster in his cousin but also the one in his own heart.

Now on Amazon

Buy my first novel Casting Shadows Everywhere on Amazon!

In his own words, 15 year old Jake is a “huge pussy.” He flinches. Always. He’s too timid to make a move on Beth, the buxom girl of his dreams, and too busy getting face-slammed into lockers by bullies to do much else. He seeks the guidance of the biggest badass he knows, his cousin Nick.

Nick is a professional burglar and makes Jake his apprentice. They stalk suburban neighborhoods night after night, ransacking houses for jewelry and sweet valuables. Nick teaches Jake the finer points of breaking and entering along with his dark philosophy – that there is no right or wrong in the world, just a series of events that happen without meaning.

At first, adopting Nick’s callous worldview helps Jake get over his fears and confront his tormentors. But Jake unleashes an aggression in himself he never thought possible. And as he learns more about his cousin, he realizes that Nick’s crimes go way beyond burglary.

In the end, Jake must face not only the monster in his cousin but also the one in his own heart.