R.J. Crayton's Blog, page 10

Sometimes you need to fly!

Random geese photo. I didn’t think to take out my phone and snap a pic. Source: Pixabay

I was recently in my car driving down a six lane road (three lanes in each direction), when I had to slow to stop

There were several geese crossing the road. At least a dozen of them. It was kind of cute, and as I  watched them  waddling across the road ever so slowly and thought that I’d really like to get to my destination, I rolled down my window and called out to the geese, “You know, you guys can fly.”

It didn’t help. They didn’t flap their wings and soar across the road at an elevation that didn’t stop traffic. However, the situation did cause me to think. These geese, even though they didn’t know it, have a lot in common with people. Sometimes, we’ve got a talent inside of us that we just fail to use, even though it would be immensely helpful.

So, today, I thought I’d encourage everyone to remember they can fly. Well, not literally of course (because you can’t; not without an airplane or a glider or some other man-made device assisting you). But figuratively. Don’t get in a rut of doing things one way and forget about the multitude of other ways you have to tackle your problems. You’ve got mad skillz (as they used to say), so trot all of them out when you need to. You’ve got that awesome, big, wrinkly brain of yours. Use it to figure out if you need to break out your figurative wings, or if walking across the road is actually the best option.

Fly high today!

Source: Pixabay

It’s Live! It’s Live! Concealed Available on Amazon Today

Concealed is available on Amazon. It’s 99 cents through Saturday and free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

It’s release day for Concealed. The first book in my newest three-part series is available today and I’m all giddy.

To celebrate the release, Concealed will be on sale for 99 cent for the first few days. So, if you want to grab it now. It’s available from Amazon and can be borrowed by Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

I’m  going to celebrate today, because tomorrow I’ve got to get back to work. Exposed is coming out in just three weeks, and I’ve got to finish up the final book of the series, Contained this week. I’m trying a new process this year, where I write and release much more quickly. So, here’s to that.

If there’s anyone you think would like Concealed, please spread the word. I’d love for people to pick up the book early while it’s on sale. The first four chapters are available on Wattpad, for anyone who’d like a sneak peek.

Here is the blurb for Concealed:

They said it was extremely hard to get.

They said it wasn’t airborne.

They said there was nothing to fear.

They were wrong.

Seventeen-year-old Elaan Woodson was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. She got one of the few spots in the subterranean protection unit designed to keep select scientists, military officials and their families safe from the deadly virus ravaging the world above.

But, how lucky are you really when the people in charge and those you love keep secrets from you? While Elaan has heard that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, she’s beginning to think otherwise. And she should…

(This is part one of the series. The story continues in book two, Exposed, which is available for pre-order.)

 

Self-Publishing Sunday: Baby Got Back Matter!

Since I’ve got a new book coming out tomorrow, I thought today’s post would tackle one of the least fun parts of self-publishing: updating back matter.

Back matter is exactly what it sounds like — all the matter at the back of your book. It usually includes your author bio, mailing list sign-up forms, book club questions and the “Also by this author” section. When you’re first starting out, that Also by section is really easy. But once you publish a few books, it becomes cumbersome.

I just updated the Also By section for all my other books. It took a minute for me to get my stuff together. Because I had fewer books, I used to just do it a little more haphazardly. However, I recently started including thumbnail book covers with the book descriptions in the Also By section (in thumbnail size; so I don’t jack up the Kindle delivery fee too much). Because of this, I had to figure out the best way to update this back matter for all the books. Since I think I have a good system, I thought I’d share it. It’s simple. Not anywhere near brain surgery, so prepare not to be amazed.

Here it is: Create a file called back matter. Then, put all your back matter descriptions (pics, too) in it. It was that simple. If you distribute on Amazon AND other vendors, you’ll need a couple of files. I use a distributor to send to other vendors, so I actually created two back matter files. One is called BackmatterZonMAY2016 (see, I date it, so I can know its the most recent one). The other is called BackmatterD2D2016.

Why two files? Links. All the text and images are the same, but the Amazon back matter file includes links to the Amazon purchase page. Because I use D2D to distribute to the other vendors, I link to my website book pages in that file. This is because the same D2D file will go to the other three vendors (Apple, Kobo and Barnes & Noble). Someone in a group I’m in mentioned, you could set up a new book for each vendor in order to do custom links, but then you’ve got to update three different files each time you publish a new book. This is worth it when you sell a lot on each of the other vendors. So far, I haven’t sold enough at the other sites (compared to Amazon) to make me want to put in that kind of time. But, I could. And I would if I thought the return was worth it.

Screenshot of my Also By section MSWord Document.

And that’s it. Once I got the two files set up, I simply opened all the Word versions of my fiction (Life First, Second Life, Third Life: Taken, Four Mothers and Almost Perfect [my free short story]). I’d navigate to the Also By section, delete the old one and replace it with the new one. Then I’d delete the current title from the list. So, if I just dumped the updated back matter in Life First, the very first book in the Also By section would be Life First. Well, the person is reading Life First, and they don’t need that in the Also By section, so I delete it. When I go to Second Life, I leave the Life First description, but delete Second Life, and so on.

Making sure all the links worked, and updating all the back matter and uploading the new files to  all the sites actually took me an entire afternoon (ugh). But, I think it will work a bit quicker now that I have the system down.  And of course, reader will have an accurate look at what else I’ve been doing (or am about to do — because Exposed is due out in June, I actually included it in the updated back matter. Umm, no, I don’t want to do that again next month).

Updating the back matter is a tedious, but necessary evil. Do you have any back matter hacks?

The Power of Memory in Your Story

“Memories light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored memories of the way we were”

-The Way We Were

Memories are interesting. They’re our own little personal home videos of what’s happened in our life. Except, unlike home videos, memories aren’t accurate. They’re influenced by our desires, our mood, our feelings about the situation, and even suggestion. It’s the reason eye-witness testimony, while often the most powerful, is also often the most wrong.

The other day, my son and I had the following conversation:

Him: Remember that time I choked on the bacon.

Me: No

Him: Yeah, I was choking on it and you said, “Dude, either spit it out or die.”

Now, this never happened. Yes, the conversation happened. However, the incident he described did not happen. At no time while my child was choking (on bacon or anything else) did I say, “either spit it out or die.” I’m not entirely sure how he came up with this memory. I just know it is not true. There are some instances when I let my children know, “I don’t have time for this crap right now.” But, choking is not one of those times.

We don’t have video cameras in our house recording our every move, so I don’t have definitive proof that this memory is wrong. And my son insists he’s right. I don’t disagree that he got something stuck in his throat at one point in time. He may have had a moment where he couldn’t breathe because of it. But whatever happened was so quick and minute that it slipped everyone else’s memory. Only, as brief as it was, it was traumatic to him at the time. I clearly didn’t notice just how traumatic it was and his brain has morphed my lack of acknowledgment of his trauma into a callous statement in his memory. “Dude, either spit it out or die.” As if I could have cared less one way or the other, so long as he picked an option and went with it.

But that’s memory for you. It’s influenced as much as by what happened as how we felt about people’s reactions to it. When I was little, about 6, we traveled across country in a station wagon, hauling a pop-up trailer, which we used to sleep in at various camp sites. Our trip culminated at Disneyland, and at the time (as unbelievable as this sounds right now), there was a campground right next to Disneyland. You could camp or set up a trailer and be very near the park. We stayed there. And for years, I remembered  my parents left me alone there and I was so, so sad.  I’d woken up inside the trailer and everyone was gone, and I went outside and watched the people at Disneyland, riding/having fun on the tall rides (a roller coaster and Ferris wheel type thing, in my memory).

Of course, my mother denies abandoning me at a trailer park outside of Disneyland (yeah alright!).  Now, I have very vivid emotions attached to this memory. Feeling very lonely and abandoned. But, my mom is like, “No, we left you with Herman.” And this may very well be true, because I don’t even remember anything else about this day, except a few minutes of it, though I know they were gone for hours. Herman is my older brother (by 8.5 years). My younger brother, Jamaal, was two at the time of the incident, and my parents left because he was sick and they’d taken him to the emergency room (no urgent care back in 1982). I suspect my brother went out to play with some of the other kids, because there was a playground there while. I woke up and he was gone, so I felt completely alone. I left the trailer because I wanted to see if anyone was out there. When I saw the car was gone, I was upset, and looked up and saw all the people having fun on the rides. So, then, I was even more unhappy. But at that point, I had to presume they’d come back. I mean, who would permanently leave behind the awesomeness that was me? But, then, I sat stewing in that trailer building memories that, too this day, are flawed.

I think recognizing that memories are flawed is a good thing for personal interactions and a great thing for storytelling. So, when you’re telling stories, you can get a lot of conflict out of memories.

Is It Better to Meet Expectations or Keep It Real?

Medieval weaponry. Source: Pixabay

I recently participated in career day at my children’s school. The parents who were speaking all arrived at school around 9 am and got treated to coffee and bagels for a bit before we had to be in the classes (at 9:30), so I ended up talking to Casey, one of the other parents. Casey had a black canvas bag about five feet long and maybe 18 inches wide. I asked him what was in the bag and he told me “swords and medieval weaponry.”  Perking up, I leaned in and started to find out more about Casey. He is a “fight director,” which means he  choreographs fight scenes for local theaters.

His weapons are specially made and have no sharp edges, and his job is to teach actors to fight in a way that looks good on the stage. So, what does my encounter with Casey have to do with anything? Well, for one, it meant I disappointed one class greatly because I followed Casey and I had no swords.

But, I mentioned to Casey that I was having trouble figuring out how to write fight scenes, but that I bet he’d be good at it because his would real. To this, Casey responded, “Real fighting is boring. Nobody wants to see that. You have to make it look like what people expect.”

I found this infinitely interesting, because, as an author, you struggle to make things authentic. When I asked for an example, he mentioned a production where the actors were doing one more take even though they’d done the scene multiple times. People were tired, and one actor hit another actor in the head accidentally. The injured actor simply stopped. Just stopped where they were and touched their hand to the injured spot. It took a minute for everyone else to realize what happened.

“When you’re injured you close your body off,” Casey told me. You try to protect yourself. Yet, that looks horrible on stage. The audience can’t see. So, when you ACT injured, you throw your hands akimbo, sway your body exaggeratedly, stagger backwards and all sorts of drama that you would never do in a regular fight. In a real fight, your instincts tell your body  to protect itself,  so throwing your hands out and facing your opponent so they’ve got easy access to your entire body is not what you’re going to do. But on a stage, yeah, you kinda need to do that so the audience can see.

Also, when acting out a fight, moves must be telegraphed. On a stage, where there’s no rewind, the audience has to be looking in the right place or they’ll miss it. So, actors telegraph moves with looks or exaggerated motions. That way the audience gets a clue and pays attention at the right spot on the stage. In real life, you wouldn’t want to do that.

And of course, in real life, fights are fast and chaotic and you might not catch everything. On stage, it needs to feel fast and frenetic, but not actually be so fast and frenetic that the audience can’t follow.

Given our chat, I thought today I’d briefly touch on when to leave reality out and go with expectations. Casey made really important points. Something doesn’t have to be real, so much as it has to appear real (in terms of the audience expectations). I think that’s true for choreography as well as writing. We all know that in reality people have to poop and pee, brush and floss their teeth, and even clean their ears of wax. But, rarely do these events make it into our books. Why? Because it’s boring and generally not relevant to the story. No one would read a book about characters who experienced a real day. I mean, you barely want to check  go through the hundreds of crapmail messages (I’m sorry, I meant to say “important email”) you have on Monday morning. Why on earth would you want to read about it?

The same can be said for dialogue. Realistic dialogue might be boring out of its mind. Many of the things said in the course of a conversation lack oomph. But, when there are conversations in books, we want them to sound realistic, but primarily include the juicy bits. The parts that make us more interested in the story.

Now, I think everyone needs to ground their book in its own reality (whether it be the contemporary world, historical world or the magical world of Hogwarts).  But, we need to balance that with entertainment and helping our audience connect with the book.

So are there certain areas of writing where you find realism overrated?

Me on TV? Egads, but yes.

Happy Saturday to you.  I thought I’d write a quick post to mention my appearance on the television show On the Books. It’s a local program in the DC Metropolitan area. It’s taped in Bowie, MD, and hosted by the wonderful Norman Constantine.

I appeared and I did alright. Norm and I talked books and self-publishing. If you’d like to check it out, the video is below.  Or you can link direct to it here.

Cover Reveal: Exposed

Today, I thought I’d reveal the cover of the second book in my Virus series, Exposed.

I really like the way the cover turned out, because the cover designer and I had a true mismatch early on in the process. We talked about colors and textures and she sent me some samples patterns that she was thinking of working with, and nothing wowed me. She said, “Let me just show you what I’m thinking.” And while I’d liked the ideas of brown and green in a color scheme, I didn’t feel like a connection with the motifs she sent. When she sent the first cover suggestion, I didn’t like it. Not because it was badly designed, but just because it didn’t really seem to fit with what I wanted or the concealed cover. At that point,  I remember going through the sample colors/textures she’d initially sent (she calls them vision boards) to see if anything caught my eye the second time. Something that would work better.

Thankfully, she’s designed covers long enough to know it was best to just scrap that whole idea, rather than try to tweak it. She suggested we start over, and asked if burnt wood, or an image branded onto the page would work. I LOVED that idea. So, this cover was born. And I am so happy with it. I think it really fits in with the first book. Placing them side by side, they clearly belong together, and are part of a continuum, which I really like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mentioned yesterday that Concealed wasn’t selected for Kindle Scout, so I’ll be publishing the book on May 23. Exposed will be published June 14.  I’ll put Concealed up for pre-order this week.

 

Kindle Scout Results

I just wanted to thank everyone who voted for Concealed for a Kindle Scout submission. Unfortunately, the book was not selected for Kindle Press publication.

I got word last  night, and those of you who voted will likely receive an email from Kindle Scout in the next day or so letting you know the book wasn’t selected. However, I will publish the book later this month.  So, here’s the publication schedule for the virus series:

Book 1 – Concealed will publish May 23

Book 2 – Exposed will publish June 14

Book 3 – (Title Forthcoming) will publish Aug. 3

There’s a slightly larger gap between books two and three of the series because I’ll be publishing an unrelated book in July (Scented, but I’ll talk more about that in a couple of weeks). But, by summer’s end, the entire series will be available. While the book is ready for publication, I’m going to be sending out a few more Advanced Review copies of book one and scheduling some first week New Release advertising. So, pushing the release date to May 23 gives me some time to set that up.

Thanks again for your votes and your encouragement. I look forward to releasing Concealed into the world next month. I’ll set up the pre-order for the book early next week. Also, check back here on Sunday, as I’ll be revealing the cover for book two of the virus series.

 

Self-Publishing Sunday – Pushing Yourself

Happy Sunday to you!

This week, I thought I’d talk about the concept of pushing yourself. In self-publishing, as in traditional publishing, the key to earning is publishing a lot. Traditional publishers don’t have just one author and one book. Self publishers can’t make money by producing only one book.

But, as self-publishers, time is at a premium and it has to be used wisely and productively. I think it’s easy to get into a habit of simply putting out what you’re able, rather than to really push the limits and do more. Certainly, you don’t want to put out so much so quickly that it’s of poor quality, but sometimes we can do so much more than we are doing.

Writing a book, an entire book, is an amazing accomplishment.  If you’ve done so, you deserve a pat on the back. It takes follow-through and stick-to-it to get it accomplished. But, once the book is published, for a career, there need to be more. Otherwise you’re no more than a one-hit wonder.

So, this week, I challenge you to explore your limits. This week ask yourself:

What does my perfect publishing schedule look like?

What’s stopping me from getting there?

What can I do to get closer to my goal?

Then, it’s time to push. It’s time to push the limits of what you’re doing and go a little bit further. You don’t have to move from writing 500 words a day to 2,000 if you’re not ready. But, what about 1,250? Can you give it a try?

For me, my rabbit hole seems to be editing. I’m pretty decent with daily word count when I’m working on a story. But after I finish the first draft, it takes months to get it published. I seem to really stall in the editing phase. For me, I’m going to push myself when it comes to editing.

At the beginning of the year, I decided to try to eschew daily word counts some months in favor of taking time to edit. However, that’s just made my editing woes worse, not better. So, I’ve decided to push my limits. I’m not going to try to write a specific word count. I’m just going to write for set time each day, so I can get some word count. But, I’m also going to forge ahead on the editing. I’m going to set daily editing limits, push those limits to get my work into decent shape. And I’m going to stick to it.

My hope is that pushing this limit will make me more productive this year. If I can keep on top of editing, I should meet my goals of publishing five books this year. Three are completely written, with two in various stages of my editing. One is partially written, and the other hasn’t been started yet (so, yeah, from scratch in less than six months; but it’s totally doable, I think. At least if I push myself to the limit).

Now, I’m not suggesting you burn yourself out. But, I think we need to push a little  harder before we can figure out our hard limit. Let’s make a little magic happen, folks.

What Publishers can Learn from Batman v. Superman

I saw an interesting article the other day on the Batman v. Superman film, which came out on Good Friday and which industry insiders are calling a failure, because it costs so much to make ($400 million, including marketing) and only grossed about $800 million in box office dollars (this is Gross, not net; so theater owners get a piece of this).

The article says that Warner Bros, having gotten burned by putting so much cash into one film, has decided it wants to make fewer films, rather than more. I know, you’ve got that “What you talking about Willis?” face, too. (If you’re not old enough to remember watching Different Strokes, find a YouTube clip, laugh and then come back to this article).

Frankly, that’s a bad place to be, and I hope those in publishing don’t start implementing the same lessons. Go big or go home may be a fun catchphrase, but as a business model, it tends not to work. We don’t put our eggs all in one basket. And certainly not in publishing, an industry that makes money by having lots of products to offer its readers.

I find the lesson they’re taking from the movie so strange, because I actually saw the movie and I think there are much better lessons to take from the film. Ones that can apply to self-publishers, traditional publishers or movie makers.

Your story has to make sense on its face. When I heard about this film last year, my first reaction was, I don’t understand. To me, it didn’t make any sense. First off, Batman and Superman are both good guys (Yes, the bat has some aggression issues and is called the Dark Knight for a reason, but he’s basically anti bad guy, and about protecting hardworking honest citizens). So, for me, I was like, why would they be fighting. That sounds bad. I don’t want two good guys to fight each other. Second, it didn’t make sense to me, because of, ummm, physics. In what universe does this battle last any longer than it takes Superman’s laser vision to heat the Bat’s Kevlar to a temperature of crispy Bruce Wayne.  Yes, Kryptonite is the answer. But, then we go back to the original question. Why? Interestingly, Marvel is doing its Captain America: Civil War, which pits good guys against good guys and I’m all in. Why? Because I’ve spent the last few years watching these guys build a rapport with each other. They basically get along, but have some differences in opinions. And now, those difference seem to have boiled over. My question is why? On its face, it makes sense. Tony Stark and Captain America have always differed on how to do things. Now, they’re about to rumble in the jungle, and I want all the gory details. Perhaps if they’d given us some Bat-Supes interaction earlier, we’d immediately say, that makes sense.
Don’t bait and switch. If you haven’t seen the film, and don’t want spoilers, look away (SCROLL DOWN. NOW). But, essentially the film spends two hours trying to gin up reasons why these guys don’t like each other and want to fight (and they don’t do that great of a job with the reasons). And then, at the two-hour mark, Batman realizes he and Superman’s mothers are each named Martha and decides to drop the grudge. The bat literally takes his Kryptonite sword and drops it to the ground. They then team up with Wonder Woman for complete awesomeness. Are you kidding me? Batman and Superman team up is a movie I would watch on its face. You would have had to tell me nothing else. I love super heroes. I like seeing them work together. Let’s watch that. Yet, you bill it as a fight movie, and then they barely fight and instead decide to team up. That leaves a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.
 Do give fans the characters they love. If your project — be it a book, a movie, or a comic strip–is about characters the fans love, then give them the characters they love. They shouldn’t have huge personality shifts or do something out of character just for shock value or to gin up false angst. Batman and Superman work well together. They’re both dude who absolutely abhor bullies, and want to put them down before they hurt good people.
Do team up. OK, We have two characters we love. They should team up. In fact, the

These three team up is a movie I would’ve been psyched to see. It’s the movie that happened at the end, so why not bill it that way?

best part of Batman v. Superman was when the three of them teamed with Wonder Woman for some total kicka**ery at the end. It was awesome. And Wonder Woman is so amazing (I guess that’s why she’s an Amazon), that I will one hundred percent see her movie. I don’t even care what it’s about. Gal Gadot was the real deal as Wonder Woman. Teaming up works. If there are characters we love, let them join forces for the greater good. There’s no need to manufacture conflict within, when there’s so much external conflict. (Notice I said “manufacture conflict.” If there’s natural conflict/angst, that’s one thing. But stuff that has little justification and is just there to make it so character A & B have a reason to fight, is not good).
Tease Me, Please. In addition to Wonder Woman, the thing that worked really well about the BvS was the teasers included. They teased three of their upcoming spin-off films, showing us The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg (being tinkered with by his father, played by Joe Morton of Scandal). The teasers they included were fairly short, but they were super exciting. I was like, I want to see those. When are they coming out. So, if you can, tease, tease, tease.  Fans love it when you let them know more good stuff is coming their way.