Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 84

Convergence and the Path to Publication IV: In the Wild

[Previous Path to Publication articles for Convergence: Part I, Part II, Part III]

A few months have passed since I last checked in here with the status of CONVERGENCE and its path to publication. The reason is simple – I published it!

Now that my novel is out in the wild, I thought I’d use this post to explore some of what’s happened since the novel went live on all major platforms toward the end of February. Some of this information has been scattered in previous posts and interviews, so this is a small attempt to collate a lot of that stuff into a single post.

First, though, a little bit of background. In October 2012, I submitted my book to Harper Voyager during their very rare, very brief open door digital submissions period. A few months later, I tossed my hat in the ring for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013, where I placed in the quarter finals and wound up with a glowing Publisher’s Weekly review.

I attempted to use this achievement to land an agent, initially intent on pursuing a more traditional path toward publication. Unfortunately, after many a query I only collected a small handful of rejections and was entirely ignored by the rest. As summer approached and Harper Voyager was still reviewing submissions, mine among them, I decided to begin exploring self-publishing options. I hired an editor and cover designer and polished the manuscript, giving it a pretty swift kick in the ass with lots of revisions.

December 2013 rolled around, and Harper Voyager promised to respond to all remaining authors regarding the status of their manuscript by the end of January 2014. I’d been patiently waiting for some word from them, and when their self-imposed deadline passed I decided to take full control and responsibility of my work and go all-in as an independent author-publisher.

CONVERGENCE released Feb. 21, 2014. For what it’s worth, I left my manuscript with Harper Voyager until late April, hoping to hear something — anything! — from them, but saw little point in continuing to wait. They’ve gone radio silent, near as I can tell, but it’s no longer of any matter to me and I formally withdrew my manuscript from the running (although I haven’t even received confirmation or acknowledgement that they actually did).

In the three months since it’s release, my book has earned a few solid reviews on Amazon, as well a very positive A+ review from Melissa The Book Lady over at Must Read Faster. It’s even built up a minor bit of traction on Goodreads and is making its way onto people’s to-read radar. I did a giveaway on LibraryThing and had over 50 people sign-up for an eBook copy (for the record, this is 50 more people than I had anticipated).

CONVERGENCE was also chosen as a Kobo Next featured title for Science Fiction & Fantasy reads, and was displayed in their weekly newsletter at the start of May. It rocketed up the charts pretty quickly in Canada, and netted me my first sales outside North America.

Screenshot courtesy of @KoboWritingLife

I’ve also hit some best-seller ranks in the cyberpunk and techno-thriller categories in Amazon’s UK and Australia stores, as well their US store multiple times.

Sales ranking in Amazon UK, May 16, 2014.

All of this, however, is not to say that CONVERGENCE is a raging blockbuster success. It isn’t. If it ever is, it likely won’t be for quite a while. These are minor, albeit wonderful, milestones that I hope will continue to accrue and grow over time.

Selling my own work has provided a modest bit of income and my writing is allowing me buy a tank of gas here and there. I think that for a first-time self-published author, that’s about the best you can expect. And the key to being a happy first-time self-published author is to have zero expectations.

Every month since CONVERGENCE released, I have fully expected to have zero sales. Then, when I do earn a sale, it’s a victory. And when those sales build into double-digits, well, it’s a freaking giant rush! Every single sale counts and means something. I’ve reached a new reader; I’ve given somebody new material to enjoy, and hopefully they’ll like it enough to post a positive review, visit this site often, join my mailing list, and check out my next book when it releases (more on that bit of news soon!).

My only regret is that I didn’t embark down this path sooner. It’s a common complaint among the indie author crowd, but only because it speaks to a larger truth. All that time spent querying for agents and waiting for replies, or letting so much time lapse that I flat-out gave up on receiving any reply whatsoever, feel like wasted months. My book wasn’t selling while it was sitting on my hard-drive, going nowhere. I was too busy waiting on others, and that’s never a good place to be.

Would an agent have been a validation? Yeah, sure. But being a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 contest was a validation. And the glowing Publisher’s Weekly review was a HUGE validation. Those two things combined were enough to get me thinking of self-publishing. The more I tried to go the traditional route, the further I was lured into going indie. Now that I’ve heard back from several readers and reviewers, I’ve gotten all the validation I really need.

That’s the second key component for me. I misinterpreted where on the spectrum, exactly, that my work needed to be validated. It turns out, I did not need validation from New York agents or executives in publishing houses. Those folks are just middle-men, a means to an end. By controlling my work and being able to deliver it directly to my customers, I’m hitting the truly necessary people in a quicker, more straight-forward manner, and that’s you, the reader. Readers are the number one priority. Writer’s don’t always need agents (with some exceptions, like negotiating film rights or foreign rights), but they do need readers. I don’t need validation from a bunch of suits in nice offices who weigh my work against their bottom line. I do need validation from my readers. And, right now, I have it, and that is beyond awesome. As I said during my IndieView interview, the ABNA, PW review, and, now, my readers are a much stronger endorsement of my authenticity as a writer than some New York power-broker would be. Conversely, how much validation would there be in having an agent and waiting a year or two or three for your book to release, or even having an agent but not a publishing house? It’s important, in that traditional path, not to put the cart before the horse and presume that the former automatically gets you the latter. By selling my work directly and having heard back from several readers directly, I feel like I’ve arrived as an author. I write, I make money from it, and, ergo, I am a writer. As the great Stan Lee once said, “‘Nuff said.”

Except for the matter of producing more work. I’ll be letting out some news later about what comes after CONVERGENCE, but I do recognize the importance of building up a body of work. That’s one of those things that can only happen with time, and each writer has a different pace and workload or lifeload to grapple with in order to produce. CONVERGENCE is selling, but it’s not breaking any records. And that is OK!

My advice to any other potential or current newbie indie authors out there – don’t focus too heavily on the now when it comes to your sales. Better authors than me have noted time and again that this writing gig is a long con. Build up your catalog of books and the sales will follow. CONVERGENCE is doing all right, but I bet it’ll be doing even better when I have three or four other books out there to draw in more readers, simply because I’ll be casting a wider net. I’m just one guy with one book. But when I’m one guy with ten books? Well, by then I’ll be ready to smack any fool in the face for calling me an ‘overnight success!’

(Not really.)

I haven’t sold millions or even thousands of books. But, I have sold – which a year ago seemed unfathomable. Even more unfathomable was selling my work to readers in foreign lands, and yet now I can say I’ve sold in Canada, Australia, Singapore, and the UK. I’ve even gotten highlighted on a few other blogs and Facebook groups, and did a couple interviews (check out the Press & Accolades here). And I did it independently of the traditional model; no agents or publishing houses needed.

To go back to that issue of validation for a moment – readers aside, there is no greater validation as a writer than producing a professional product and being able to control it whole-cloth from start to finish. Keep in mind that writing, ultimately, is a business. By hiring your editors, cover designers, and book formatter, you are in direct control of your book and have the final say on the end product. You are assembling your team with the end goal of achieving success and putting out material on par with the Big 5 publishers. But as an indie author, you have more control and more flexibility over how that end product is presented. Going the traditional route, you likely have zero say in how your book is designed and distributed. As an indie, you control distribution, you control art work and design, you control pricing. You decide your final sale price and control promotional efforts. If it sounds like a lot of work, well, yeah, it is. Like I said, it’s a business. And it is completely worth it. Do it properly and avoid cheaping out where you can, and indie publishing becomes one of those scenarios where the rewards outweigh the risks.

I knew all my life that I wanted to be a writer. While I got to dabble in journalism for a few years, I always wanted to be an author for as far back as I can remember. I had a goal of being published by the time I hit 35. Well, I did that.

My very first attempt at becoming a published author was in my twenties, and there was no other method beyond the query process. Whatever infantile form of self-publishing existed at the time was a joke and a non-starter. If anything, it was a brilliant way to ensure your work never got read by anybody. Thankfully, times and technology have changed drastically, and those changes have given creators and content producers greater control over their work.

Now, I can say with a certain degree of confidence that by the time I’m 36, I will have two novels to my name with more on the way. And to top it all off, to borrow from The Chairman of the Board, I did it my way.

 

CONVERGENCE is available for purchase as an eBook on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and other retailers, or as a print copy here.

A powerful talk from Hugh Herr, 7 years in the making

Originally posted on TED Blog:

Hugh Herr’s talk transfixed the audience at TED2014, and has now been viewed nearly 2 million times. So it might surprise some to know that his talk took nearly 7 years to happen. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“As you can see, my legs are bionic,” said Hugh Herr on the TED2014 stage. “The artificial part of my body is malleable, able to take on any form, any function, a blank slate through which to create structures that can extend beyond biological capability.”

Standing tall in a suit hemmed at his knees, Herr spoke eloquently about his work creating the next generation of bionic limbs. He demonstrated how his own worked as he spoke, moving gracefully around the red carpet. This talk—which ended with ballroom dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis performing for the first time since she lost her left leg in the Boston Marathon bombing—was one of the most-beloved of TED2014…

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Just a Few Things, But Mostly An Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

Not much to say today, but there are a few links worth sharing if you’re amenable.

Earlier this month, I took part in The Writing Process Blog Tour (henceforth renamed The Speculative Fiction Blog Hop, but original post remains the same here). After some further discussions amongst us blogger, Heidi Garrett began compiling a central archive site for these posts. In addition to our process posts, there’s also going to be some giveaways, excerpts, info on new releases – all good stuff, I assure you. So, go check out the Speculative Fiction Showcase. My tour post has been re-posted there, AND, as if that weren’t enough of a reason to check out this new site, you have a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card. You’ll also find some info on new eBooks from Heidi, Jennifer Ellison, Kevin Hardman, S. Elliot Brandis, and Jason Gurley.


Speaking of Elliot and Jason – I did a quick review of Elliot’s book, IRRADIATED, a few days ago and my thoughts on it are right over here. Feel free to skip the review and just go buy this book. If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic literature, you’re in good hands. And Jason has a new release coming up in June titled ELEANOR. Word has it, if you have not already joined his mailing list you should go do that immediately. Like now-now. Trust me. You’ll be in for a great surprise in the coming days. You’ll also get a free copy of his short story THE LAST RAIL-RIDER immediately. I read this one over the weekend, and it’s a fun, funky bit of post-apocalypse with a unique ending. I dug it.


Indie Author Land posted their 50 Self-Published Books Worth Reading guide. Although CONVERGENCE did not make their final cut, I’m humbled that my book got any votes at all. There’s some great suggestions in their list, though. And, while you’re there, check out the interview I did with them in April.

IRRADIATED: A Review

About IRRADIATED

A man thrust a baby into Jade’s hands. It trembled in her arms. The man had a message: escape from the tunnels and never return, her parents were already dead. Jade had a sister; she was irradiated.

Thirteen years later, her sister, Pearl, is coming of age. Rows of sucker-caps line her arms and hands. Her skin is coral pink. Each night, her dreams fill with visions of violence, depression, and fear.

On the surface, people have grown wild and dangerous. They scavenge, fight, and steal. Below, in the tunnels, they’re controlled by a ruthless leader and an army of beings known only as Shadows. When both groups come searching for Pearl, sensing the power her dreams may hold, only Jade can stand in the way.

About the Author

S. Elliot Brandis is the author of Irradiated, the first novel in a trilogy. He lives in Brisbane, Australia, and often sets his stories there, too. He loves hearing from readers, and can be found at many locations across the internet.
Web: http://selliotbrandis.com/

Facebook: http://facebook.com/selliotbrandis

Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/PsmMv

My Thoughts

S. Elliot Brandis is the type of writer that immediately makes me jealous of his style and strong authorial voice. He has a ridiculously strong command of prose and is utterly methodical in his deliberate word choice, using every word and turn of phrase for maximum impact. Descriptions are lively and on-point, and he’s able to crack up the evocative sense of place and nature to 11. He is, without fail, an awesome wordsmith.

IRRADIATED is the first book of an ambitious trilogy. The setting is post-apocalypse Brisbane. The city is a rotting husk, its buildings bearing grimy flood lines thanks to regular flooding. The sun itself is poison, its radiation bombarding the Earth.

As the novel opens, Pearl is thrust into her older sister’s arms as the two are forced to flee their underground home. Thirteen years later, the two live in the mountains, with their companions Simon and Josh, foraging for scraps and survival. Pearl is a pink-skinned youth, her skin puckered with sucker caps, like those of an octopus. She is irradiated, as is Josh, whose body bears deformities as well.

While on a trade run, Jade is warned that her sister is in danger. The girl has been having visions in her nightmares, and others have been dreaming about her in return. Jade races back to camp, but is too late. Pearl is missing.

Brandis has fashioned an interesting cross-blend of science fiction and spaghetti western. Although we don’t learn much about the history of the wastelands his characters inhabit (what was the nature of the apocalypse – nuclear warfare, climate change, or some other mysterious societal collapse?), it’s a minor caveat. We don’t need to know, really, and the characters and their place in this altered, unfriendly environment is enough to satisfy in situ.

His central heroine, Jade, is a strong, capable actor, as is Pearl. I don’t want to spoil much, but I will say there is a wonderfully defining moment when Pearl, being tortured by her captors, summons up a beautiful amount of courage and strength to call bullshit on the central villain’s motivations. The Queen has abducted Pearl, with designs on using her dream-visions, in an effort to rid the world of the irradiated. Pearl realizes she is a weapon more than anything else, and dismantles The Queen’s egotistical savior ramblings for the trite musings of hatred and prejudice that they truly are. It’s a brilliant scene.

Brandis is clearly in his element with the post-apocalyptic genre, and he nimbly maneuvers through the ruins of Brisbane. Like Jade, he knows this dangerous terrain well. The story itself recalls other apocalyptic greats, and shares many similar thematic resonances of works like THE STAND and SWAN SONG, as well as the recent PlayStation 3 video-game THE LAST OF US. The conflict between the tunnel-dwelling remnants of humanity, and their fear of the irradiated may remind readers of HG Well’s infamous morlocks, although Brandis gives them a run for their money with his frightening, and fascinating, Shadows. If you enjoyed any of these other similar works, IRRADIATED will fit comfortably in your reading list and is well worth the time.

The second book, DEGENERATED, is expected to release in July, with ABERRATED following in December.

Click Here To Buy This Book

NoiseTrade: Build Audience While Boosting Your Mailing List

Originally posted on David Gaughran:

What if I told you there was a cool new way to share your work with the world that could help you build audience, boost your mailing list, and make money at the same time?

Welcome to NoiseTrade.

The idea is simple. Authors can upload ebooks (and audiobooks) and NoiseTrade’s community of readers can download them for free – for as long as the author wants. There is a tip-jar, and you can suggest a figure, but it’s not compulsory.

So it’s pay what you want, but with a killer twist. In exchange for the download, the reader provides their email address to the author (in full knowledge they will be contacted in future).

In other words, it’s a smart way to boost your mailing list, with the possibility of making a little money on the side too.

NoiseTrade is quite well established in the indie music scene…

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China’s Floating City

I made a brief mention regarding seasteading in CONVERGENCE, and readers will get to pay a visit to one of these marvelous locales when EMERGENCE releases.

Much of this inspiration came by way of The Seasteading Institute, but now comes news of China’s plans to build a floating city. Check out the link below, via Dangerous Minds, for information on their initiative. Whether or not it actually comes to pass is pure conjecture, but the images do showcase some lovely design work and gives a you a brief glimpse at where some significant DRMR action will be taking place next year.

China’s plans for a floating city are breathtakingly futuristic, cool, possibly unworkable? | Dangerous Minds.

Recap Redux and Updates!

Since it’s been another eventful few weeks, I thought I’d round-up some of the recent news in this easy to digest post.

First off, my Thunderclap promotion is alive and kicking. It would mean a lot if I could rally your support, but time is limited, so please go check it out right here. If you elect to support, on May 31 Thunderclap will post a message on my behalf to your selected feeds that will help draw attention to my book, CONVERGENCE. And the more eyeballs I can get directed to my work, the better. Check out Thunderclap’s About and FAQ pages for more details on how this thing works, but the gist is that it’s kind of like Kickstarter, only absolutely no money is trading hands. The main form of currency here is entirely social media based, utilizing the power of crowd-speak to advertise a promotion.


This weekend, Motor City Comic Con returns to Novi, MI. Earlier this month I ran a brief promotion on Smashwords in honor of PenguiCon, which celebrated all things sci-fi & fantasy for a weekend, and am doing the same for my region’s Comic Con. So, go buy CONVERGENCE at Smashwords for only $1.99 using the code KS22D. Feel free to spread the news!


Earlier this month, my book was selected as a Kobo Next read in the SciFi & Fantasy category. This was a terrific honor that helped draw some much-needed attention my way, and earned me my first international sales in the UK, Australia, and Singapore. Canadian sales helped push my book into the best-seller rankings for the sci-fi subcategory of High Tech, and knocked CONVERGENCE up to #89 overall. Kobo will soon be implementing book reviews, so if you’ve read and enjoyed my book, please consider leaving an advanced review by clicking right here.

I think the Kobo Next promo helped push up some sales in other areas, and on Mother’s Day, CONVERGENCE once again hit the Top 100 on the Kindle sci-fi cyberpunk subcategory. This past week also saw my first sales on Amazon UK, with readers there helping to push CONVERGENCE into the Top 100 scifi > cyberpunk and mystery/thriller > technothriller reads, as well. So, thanks to all my new readers overseas – it’s quite a bit of a high to realize my book is going global!

UK readers helped push up my sales ranking this week, giving CONVERGENCE a significant bump in the Cyberpunk subcategory, and a boost in Technothrillers. Thank you to my readers across the pond!

CONVERGENCE also made a brief appearance this week over at Joel Friedlander’s e-Book Cover Design Awards, April 2014. Joel said of the cover: “Delivers a strong appeal to sci-fi lovers, expertly handled.”


Until May 23, I’ve got ten copies of CONVERGENCE up for grabs via a LibraryThing giveaway. Go enter for a chance to win a free copy by clicking here. Friendly tip – there’s a lot of books being given away, so if you don’t want to scroll through the entire listing, just do a search for my title.


I’m also happy to say that since launching this blog earlier this year, I’ve now gotten over 1,000 hits. Not a bad milestone!


And, finally, if you’re a regular around here, you may have noticed my first blog tour post last week regarding my writing process. This idea sprung up from a thread on the KBoards message board and Heidi Garret got a nice chunk of us spec-fic writers involved. Go check out what the other writer’s have posted thus far. On tap, we have Heidi, Cat Amesbury, Elle Chambers, and William D. Richards. This Monday, a couple more writer’s will be joining the tour, so be sure to check out Elle and Bill’s posts for links to those. And, if you’re on twitter, keep an eye on the #specficwritersunite tag that Elle started up so you can stay current on new posts.

KOBO REVIEWS COMING SOON!

Michael Patrick Hicks:

Kobo will be implementing a review system soon for the titles sold at their bookstore. If you’re a Kobo reader, or even just somebody who has read and enjoyed CONVERGENCE, please leave a review and rating. Quality reviews do help make a difference and can help sway potential readers.

I’m trying to round up some reviews for my book before this system goes live, so please submit your input at the following link. And, if you haven’t read my book yet, you can buy it through this very same page!

http://evocalize.com/consumer/detail/books/520e6ea22f18b/C-FDjn01T0mb_LsK_IWqOA?dc=na

Originally posted on Kobo Writing Life:

In the near future, Kobo will begin featuring book reviews!

Customers will be able to write reviews and choose star ratings for your titles and post them on the book page.

We want to give KWL authors the opportunity to begin collecting reviews for their titles before the feature goes live!

Here’s how: 

Click on this link: http://evocalize.com/consumer/business/520e6ea22f18b/search?term=Bella+Andre

Input your name in place of the author name in the link, separated by a +
If your author name includes initials, make sure you separate them by an extra + like this: http://evocalize.com/consumer/business/520e6ea22f18b/search?term=J+F+Penn 

Hit enter.  You should now see a page listing all your books. By clicking on a title, your readers can leave a review and they can also BUY from this page!

That’s it! You can use this Kobo Reviews link to collect as many reviews as you want.

You may notice that the page does not list every one…

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#StopTheSlowLane

As The Washington Post reported, today the FCC took steps toward ending net neutrality and allowing large corporations to move ahead with “fast lane” and “slow lane” services, meaning that if companies like Amazon and Netflix fork over the cash to internet providers like Comcast, they’ll be able to buy faster delivery of their content. In my opinion, this is a massive debacle that could irrevocably change the internet and force customers to pay even higher fees. It’s pure greed, plain and simple.

Please watch the following video and check out the link below. Then, go do your part to help protect the Internet.

Click here: #StopTheSlowLane

Sign the petition, via MoveOn.org.

Sign the petition at CREDO.

CONVERGENCE Cover Love

When I needed design work done for CONVERGENCE, I turned toward Streetlight Graphics and was really impressed with the results. Glendon Haddix did a superb job capturing the sci-fi elements of my story and turned out an intriguing piece of work.

This cover has earned me a fair amount of praise, and I owe it entirely to Glendon’s craftsmanship. The other day, his design work for CONVERGENCE popped up on e-Book Cover Design Awards for April 2014 (and, I’ve seen his name appear on that site more than once), after I submitted it for inclusion last month. It was nice to have Joel Friedlander, aka The Book Designer, approve with his assessment that the image “Delivers a strong appeal to sci-fi lovers, expertly handled.” Joel has a strong background in cover design and knows what works well, and what doesn’t, and I consider him to be a solid expert in the field. I’m certainly glad that he liked what he saw here!

Thankfully, the guts of the book have earned me some praise as well, and there’s been some strong reviews and ratings coming in on Amazon and Goodreads, in addition to the acclaim from Publisher’s Weekly during my foray in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 contest and the recent selection of CONVERGENCE as a Kobo Next featured title. I fully encourage you to check out the book, and you can find your etailer of choice right over here.