Dylan Malik Orchard's Blog, page 31

Crashed America – 8 Days

My musical count down to the release of Crashed America continues today with the Old Crow Medicine Show. I lucked out when I had the chance to hear these guys at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee and they were spectacular. In the midst of some venerable Old Country and some broadly shit New Country they stood out as a continuation of the toe tapping, banjo pickin’, moonshine drinkin’, beer bottle throwin’, clog dancin’, go a bit crazy with excitement, Bluegrass tradition which is much maligned by those who don’t know it and much loved by those who do.

If you ever get the chance to see them live I can’t recommend it enough, even if my own experience was only a few songs long at the end of the Opry radio show.

In more novel related news the paperback proof copy of Crashed America is on it’s way. Which means I’m cutting things incredibly fine for the release date of May 1st but fear, stress and panic have always been the best motivators so in an odd sort of way it’s all going according to plan. And on a side note the first site to list Crashed America for pre-order is Barnes & Noble so if the Nook is your thing click here and get your order in.

Crashed America – 9 Days

Because everyone likes a good old fashioned countdown and because I’m finally reaching the point where there’s no more fiddling to do with things I’ll be throwing out a new post every day until May 1st and Crashed America’s launch. As things stand everything is on course for both the ebook and paperback copies to be available on the day so feel free to start the anticipatory hand rubbing.

And to get you in the mood every day I’ll be sharing a song which fits the mood of the book, because music and writing are just about the two best things this species has ever conjured up. So here you go…

Crashed America – Sample Chapter

THE END IS NIGH! The wolf doth lie with the lamb, the dog doth play footsie with the cat and I have put in a serious 8 hours work without resorting to Twitter, Facebook or TV for distraction. Surely we stand on the brink of the end times? But when something ends something else must begin, even if that something is nothing. And in this case it’s anything but. Crashed America will be out on the 1st of May and, as a harbinger of doom, here’s a sample chapter to arouse your lustful urges.

You can also rush over to Smashwords where there’s a page setup for you to bookmark so at midnight on the 1st you can put your order in. Everyone else will after all and if you don’t then you’ll just be left out, shunned by society and chased out of town like the tasteless heathen you are.

Earl paused for a second to think. Jimmy paused to observe.

“Where’re we goin’?”

Earl ignored the question, partly because he wasn’t quite sure any more but largely because he rarely felt obliged to reply to his diminutive associate. Like the Oriental Masters of old he preferred to teach by demonstration, so he indifferently swung a flattened palm at his brother, catching him with a blow to the back of the head. Jimmy, after an initial moment of drunken swaying immediately forgot all about it, which an optimist would say was the entire point of the lesson.

The bigger man wasn’t lost, he couldn’t get lost, not around this neck of the literal woods. Born and raised here, he very definitely possessed the ‘Knowledge’ of the area but his goal was not a feature on the mental map he unwittingly followed; giant fire balls and the causes thereof were not phenomena which could be located by useful landmarks. To him, reasoning with that understanding was easy: the Weird Shit was lost, he wasn’t. He smiled at this.

Like Holmes at his most incisive he’d moved one step closer to the greater truth of the case; not only did this Weird Shit explode unexpectedly but now it was refusing to be found,. This made it even Weirder Shit. And once things passed a certain level of unusualness by his general standards Earl could be certain that the liquor elixir of Enlightenment was really kicking in and his day was bound to provide some revelation, much like that time he’d found the pick-up truck surrounded by dead people and full of cocaine, unusual and moonshine always offered a reward. Now the only task was to follow the signs which were bound to appear, like staggering half-dead Colombians, or weeping, bloodied men crawling through the swamp with leeches attached to them and a look of absolute confusion on their faces.

“Hello there,” said Earl.

“Wha’?” said Jimmy.

“Urghgh,” sobbed Joe, as he looked blearily upwards at his new acquaintances. Still lost in the midst of some world altering badness his higher brain was in no fit state to step into society. A barely audible voice did manage to mumble ‘Help!’ in a hopeful sort of tone but was soon silenced by the leading player in the saga of Joe, which felt that swearing, crying and feeling really shit were of far more practical concern than the arrival of external bodies on the scene. Especially when they were external bodies which would probably die before long, this being the apparent trend for all things in the world. It could be said that this was neither a particularly useful nor reasonable balance of power but as Earl would have attested, reality was not a reasonable thing, unless you possessed a very, very slanted view of it.

Angst and unhappiness established, Joe’s eyes returned to the bleary, teary squinting which had preceeded the new arrivals. He ceased crawling but the two standing men were moving closer. This was noticed on the peripheral of Joe’s consciousness but still failed to stir up any kind of real interest in the world beyond his own sense of feeling really shit. A kick to the face had some impact though; such things usually dragging a mind back to the more physical realms even if Joe’s lost soul had neither thought about nor sought such a thing, which made its arrival all that much more useful, in a strange kind of way. Given the blood loss, the life of idleness and the never having been hit by anything more offensive than a stray tennis ball to the shin at the age of seven Joe took a steel capped boot to the face in much the way you’d expect. He passed out, with neither a whimper nor a bang but with a slight splash.

Crashed America, gercha Crashed America here

Well, not quite but nearly. Picking up tips from the Big Book of Indie Publishing I’ll be sending out advance copies of Crashed America for review over the next few weeks. eBook only at this point and with the proviso that you’ll get it read and reviewed for a launch at the end of April – assuming that you have nothing but praise to offer of course. And this means reviews on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Goodreads and similar sites, where new authors especially need any edge they can get. If you’re an established reviewer or blogger you can expect a press release soon but feel free to get in touch if you’re eager. On the plus side for everyone else your copy will be free, your life will gain meaning and the Gods will smile down benevolently upon your contribution to the betterment of humanity.

Marketing when you’re Indie is a bit like flashing strangers in the park; nobody appreciates it, the only comments passed are likely to be complaining ones and you can’t help but feel guilty for doing it. But unlike flashing it is a necessary evil and for every Indie release you help out with a fairy gets its wings. Or a dog manages to look up, or a child in Africa dies or something along those lines. And above all you’ll gain my eternal gratitude, which is currently valued at around 13p on the open market.

To get your copy email me and let me know what format works for you (pdf, epub, mobi, doc, txt, copied out in crayon on the back of a street urchin, engraved in marble etc) and I’ll get it sent out. I’ll only be sending out a finite number of copies so get ‘em while they’re hot.

Crashed America is the story of one man,  one Messiah, a fistful of demonic creatures, a priest, a nun, some Hillbillies and the looming fall of civilization. Featuring a star-studded cast it’s been hailed as the first book to, you know, really *get* me, the literary equivalent of a couple of pints and some chips on the way home and the sort of experience that leaves a person convinced that they can fly.

When Joe sets off for those United States of America he has many plans, delicate dreams and delusions to be lived out against the background of the Americana ideal. Killing Jesus isn’t on the list but, as ever, life does its own thing. A mix between dark comedy, absurdity, explosions and the obligatory sex and drugs ‘Crashed America’ is my debut (full length) novel. Due for release in early May 2014.

Critics say:

‘I haven’t read it but it’s got a nice cover’ Kim Jong Un

‘Terrible, a massive waste of time’ The Author

‘It’s about the right length for a novel’ Google

‘And why do they end up having sex? I don’t get it.’ John Wayne 

‘This book made me kill my son. In a good way though’ Inmate #82763

‘This will be bigger than The Beatles, but they were quite short’ John Lennon’s Ghost

‘Arguably the greatest book called Crashed America ever, although I admit I haven’t read them all’ Vladimir Putin

‘I liked that one part with the guy doing the thing’ Barrack Obama

‘Blasphemous nonsense’ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

‘I loved it, and I bet Jesus would have too’ Fred Phelps

‘I bet we can sue over this’ Pope Francis

iCame, iSaw, iTunes

I once used a Ouiji board to get in touch with Steve Jobs and tell him that I thought his products were vastly overrated, his distribution system overly controlling and his company greedy and lawsuit happy. As an act of revenge he made me drop my Android phone and crack the screen, so basically fuck that guy. But as someone once said, times change, tough men don’t and having checked that I’m not a tough man I may have to adjust my thinking. Especially as Laikanist Times is now available via Apple’s ebook service. Download it now before the vengeful spirit of Steve Jobs decides to remove it! And then review it, in the hope of appeasing him.

Take a bite from the Apple

Indie AuthOrNot

Indie Author Pride is, apparently, quite a big thing at the moment. Presumably as a confidence bolstering reply to the vague suspicion some people have that it’s just a continuation of the old vanity publishing model an increasing number of writers seem to be waving the flag of D.I.Y. publishing in an attempt to build a coherent identity out of it. It’s a pitch for legitimacy which I’m wary of to be honest, even if I’m obviously definitely in the Indie realms.

Partially at least down to the youth of the movement there’s a swarm of predators lurking around scenting blood in the water which has a suspiciously similar tint to the dripping inadequacy of the old vanity publishing cliche. For a fistful of cash you can buy reviews, followers, sales, fortune and a modicum of fame. All well within the umbrella of self declared Indie Publishing supporters and advocats. Not having any money to spend I can’t testify to the efficiency of these sites and services but their existence certainly doesn’t suggest a vibrant Indie community to the casual passer by. Which is unfortunate because, from what I’ve seen, there is in fact a core of relatively enthusiastic and willing readers open to Indie authors and they’re both cynical enough to have a sense of quality and respectful enough to appreciate craft and talent when they find it.

I’m still a big believer in the Indie ideal. Like the music industry the publishing one has never been too good to the majority of the people doing the actual creative work (a few superstars aside). For a lot of the most talented people all the establishment has ever offered is a journeyman existence punctuated by the occasional bout of neglect or exploitation. That those people should take charge of their own work and receive the lion’s share of benefits from it just seems right. For that to happen with books takes more than just the writers, the distributors and the marketing conmen though, it takes a community of readers who can act as advocates for the work, arbiters of its quality and guardians of its ideals.

Musicians who operate outside of the big label system have long had this by virtue of the communal nature of music itself. To be successful in that world you have to go out and share the music. Scenes and genres flourish organically from gigging and a shared love for the work. Since Punk with it’s D.I.Y. ethic (and long before in non mainstream genres) that sense of ownership and respect on the behalf of the audience has existed and protected the legitimacy of the art itself. And if anything the advent of the digital age has extended that mentality even further.

There’s a huge array of blogs, sites, forums, magazines and webzines which cluster around the various genres and styles with audiences heavily invested in and loyal to what they consider their music. If you went around buying reviews in the hope of gaining their approval you would, I suspect, receive the metaphorical kicking you richly deserve. Meanwhile, where we do have a community, it’s largely tied to the Indie flag above all else. The label is all you need to be part of it and any actions, any success bought under that, is wordlessly accepted as part of the whole. Between that vagueness about legitimate methods and the lack of focused, thematic or genre based communities there’s such a glut of content left floating around that any hope of identity becomes lost.

For me, as a writer, it’s frustrating to say the least. Without making any claims for the (probably awesome) quality of my work I can attest that it’s a largely hollow pursuit to promote myself within this broad and all accepted Indie world. After all my work is seldom differentiated from that of the next person with their Romantic Vampire novel or the one after that with their darkly real account of civil war in the Congo. And that’s not to question the quality of either of those I stand next to but none of us benefit from the generic label that defines so much of our promotional efforts. Whether we’re good or not there’s next to no ‘scene’ to support our specific styles while there is a blooming industry in flogging validation and praise which goes a certain distance towards hamstringing us all.

In the long run, to truly flourish, this brave new world needs to reconstruct itself in line with the brave old one. As small publishers could, to a certain degree, carve out a sense of quality by focusing on certain genres or mentalities we need to find our own mechanisms for doing the same. And if the title of Indie is to mean anything more than being prey to the same self serving gimmickry as vanity publishing we need to reject, en masse, those who’re charging authors to replace the community that we genuinely need. No more paid reviews and no more marketing sites where money is all that counts. And when that’s done Indie Author Pride will be a thing worth waving the flag for.

I’ve been everywhere, man

Well, I’ve been to a lot of places at least but not as many as Laikanist Times is starting to go to. It’s now available for free on both Scribd and Barnes & Noble (as well as Smashwords and this site). Still waiting for Amazon to adjust the price to free and the only way to get them to speed the process up is to go to the book page and hit the option to ‘tell us about a lower price’ below the product info. Copy in the link to Smashwords and with any luck they’ll do their price match thing. A far from convenient workaround but such is the way of things. And if you could help out it’d be much appreciated.

Also much appreciated are reviews, whether they’re on Amazon, Goodreads, Smashwords, the back of a beer mat, a sleeping childs face – whenever, wherever it’s all good. Unless it’s bad of course, in which case screw you. Anyway, updates to follow when Amazon gets sorted.

Scribd

Barnes & Noble (Nook)

We wanna be free, free to read Laikanist Times…

 

It’s taken some time and it’s taken some thought and it’s taken a fair amount of procrastination and dithering but as of now Laikanist Times is permafree. To be read, shared and, erm, declared (?) by anyone who clicks ‘download’.

My initial plan was to put a token price on it, in an attempt to get an idea of how the whole spectrum of Indie publishing works. But after a few hundred downloads (on the free promo) I sat back and realised that having those few hundred people read (or at least have) my work was a big enough step to take in itself. Plus, unsurprisingly, getting people to part with their hard earned pennies for an unknown and unrated author smells like an impossible task, even before I started trying to do it. It also fuelled a shift in thinking from trying to sell a book, to trying to build something bigger than one thing. After all, Crashed America is already written and ready to go and there’s plenty more to come so for now I just want to share as much as I can with as many people as I can, rather than be a salesman faced with an almost vertical challenge. Which is no fun at all.

Anyway, to the good bit, I’ve added Laikanist Times to Smashwords where’s it’s already available for free download and in coming days that should extend to Nook, Kobo and any other site which pedals in literary genius. It’s also available for free on this site if you look over here.

And why should you download it? Because your life is at least 0.00152% worse for not doing so – and that could make all the difference. You only regret the things you didn’t do as they say, and wouldn’t it be a kicker to look up from your death bed, a bright white light hovering before you and think ‘damn, too late to grab that novella now’? Of course that’s a pretty ridiculous saying, especially if the things you do include taking a load of crack and whoring yourself out to truckers while losing your job and family all to pay for more of that sweet sweet rock. But I can 99% guarantee that reading Laikanist Times won’t leave you toothless, emaciated and on your knees servicing Billy Bob on his run out of Podunk, Ohio for five bucks on a rainy night. Just don’t hold me accountable for that remaining 1%.

P.S.

Due to Amazon having a beef with permafree books it’s still listed there at .99¢ – there is a workaround for this which relies on price matching from other sites and I will be getting it sorted as soon as their systems let me. Although if you have an account there and fancy pointing them towards the Smashwords page to help make them change their ways then please do so.

Laikanist Times – Soundtrack

Every story has a soundtrack, or should have. The best music is the stuff which is closest to writing, the tracks which set a scene, tell a story or transport you to another place. Not just by offering an emotional bump but by sending you out on the other side with the outside world looking like a different place.  That musicians can do that with an audience of thousands screaming before them has long made me view them with suspicion and no small amount of jealousy. Like the faith healers to the writers’ doctor they seem to get the same results quicker, louder and with more adulation even if we, of course, are the ones who’ll really cure the sick and heal the maimed. But envy for the ideal aside music is up there with booze when it comes to fuelling the craft bit of writing and whenever you look up from the story, finding yourself caught in a brief moment of lucidity it’s the sounds that can wrap you up and remind you of where you are and what you’re doing.

When I write anything I quickly develop an accompanying playlist to see me along the way. Some songs tell their own story, some just set the tone and others offer the release you need when you find yourself trapped in an inescapable thought or idea. And I figured I’d share some of them with y’all…

And of course Laikanist Times is available at your nearest Amazon website…

May you live in Laikanist Times

Well it’s been nearly a week since Laikanist Times hit the electronic book shelves. And inbetween sending out more promotional messages than an anti-social bastard like myself would ever want to, I’ve had a little time to kick back and reflect on the ordeal.

This was always an experiment, being the first time I’ve released anything other than short stories to the general public as well as my first tentative experience with Indie publishing. As with all good experimentation I threw myself into it with reckless abandon, dabbling with dangerous chemicals and high explosives on the assumption that nothing at all could possibly go wrong. And as can probably be expected, a few things did, which I’ll share here both as a reminder to myself and as a semi-cautionary tale to those in similar positions.

Before I do though I’d like to extend my thanks to everyone who’s downloaded, shared and been generally positive about Laikanist Times which despite my slightly inept campaign to push it has, seemingly, done quite well so far. Running the free promo to get things started I’ve obsessively been checking the download numbers and even though I lack any frame of reference for what actual success might look like they seem to be quite good. The relief of knowing that hundreds of people out there now have my work on their phones, tablets, PCs and minds is massive. It’s a very daunting thing to reveal your work and actually look for people to read it, especially compared to my usual method of just sticking it out there in some dark corner and pretending not to care. But the first victory for any aspirant writer is just knowing there’s some sort of audience out there seeing what you do and it feels good to have that one under my belt.

Anyway, back to the bad. Firstly clicking on Amazon’s exclusivity button was a mistake, presumably there are some benefits to be had from doing so (I certainly thought so when I did it) but for all the talk of the Kindle revolution it’s a big, bad world of electronic mediums out there. And whilst the Kindle app may be available on most  people are easily put off by not having the immediate freedom to grab something which will work for them by default. Which is the joy of hard copies really, despite the cost involved in releasing them books remain the most universal medium and while I  made a conscious choice not to bring one out for the novella I can’t help but lament the limiting effect not doing so has on any potential audience. Even without a physical book though having made myself available on platforms like the Nook and through my own site would have been a smart move and one I recommend to others rather than putting all your faith in Amazon, no matter how much of a megalith it may seem to be to Indie writers.

My next minor cock up was in fixating on the project, rather than myself. It’s no easy thing to fixate on yourself and your name, unless you’re the sort of person who likes that sort of thing and therefore not the sort of person anyone should want to be, but in promoting Laikanist Times as an almost separate entity I know I made a rookie mistake. It wouldn’t have taken much to negate, a few more links to this site, or my new Goodreads profile, a bit more digging for names on the mailing list – anything which could have anchored me with those who (hopefully) will be my future readers. But the gleeful release of having an actual thing to share kind of got the better of me and whilst I’m certainly glad it worked as it did I’m unhappily aware that  I’ll have to find those same people all over again when I release my next thing.

And as for that next thing, it’ll be Crashed America, the long awaited novel which I’ve threatened to release half a dozen times without ever taking that final step. Currently it’s been edited to completion, the cover art has been designed and all that’s really lacking is my final decision to go ahead with it. I won’t set a firm date just yet but allowing for a couple of months to play through the Laikanist Times experiment I’d say a summer release is looking likely.

For now though I’ve got to get back to telling everyone and their dog about Laikanist Times…

P.S. On a final note I’ll say another thing that I should have mentioned more often during the initial bout of promotion – if you like Laikanist Times share it and review it! Amazon reviews are, from what I’m told, a pretty major factor in keeping a book visible and successful and that’s what I really need to do. Plus blog mentions, Twitter mentions, graffiti on toilet walls, tattoos, firework displays, articles, mumbled conversations to strangers on street corners and any other form of spreading  the good word are massively appreciated. Indie writers rely pretty much solely on the good will of their readers because we sure as hell don’t have any money to get things done.