S.A. Mulraney's Blog, page 10

I Remember 9/11

September 11, 2001 was one month to the day after my wedding day. We sailed out of NY harbor on 8/12/01 and took pictures of the towers on a cloudy, drizzly day. I couldn’t fathom that they would be gone a month later and our lives would be changed forever.

Anyone who was old enough to remember, knows exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers in New York City. I had just walked into the office, barely nine months into my first desk job. A coworker stuck her head out of her cube and told me the news. “Really?” My reaction was one of innocent disbelief. “A small plane?” That made sense to me. A small plane getting lost or disabled and hitting a tower. That made sense. Not an airliner… and certainly not an airliner hijacked by religious zealots. “No, an airliner.”

By the time I logged onto my computer, Flight 175 had crashed into the South tower at 9:03 AM. The Internet slowed to a crawl (remember, this was 2001), but for some reason, my computer is able to refresh images on MSNBC.com. It’s one of the few media feeds we are able to get. A crowd develops in the confines of my small cube. We chatter about the events. At 9:43, flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. “We’re under attack!” someone says. It’s a statement that sounds absurd, but appears more and more real as the minutes tick by.

We discover that a coworker’s sister works in the North Tower. She cannot be reached by phone.

At 10:05 AM, the unthinkable happens. I refreshed my internet feed to see a new picture of the South Tower coming down in a cloud of dust and smoke. “No way it totally collapsed,” says a coworker. “No way the whole thing came down. The top probably just fell off.” If only that were true.

At 10:10 AM, Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania.

At 10:28 AM, the second tower collapses.

The coworker’s sister would not survive the day.

Around 1 PM, my company announces that employees may go home at their discretion. I leave immediately. I want to see my wife. I want to go home and feel safe again.

At the time, we lived in an efficiency and were so broke, we didn’t have cable. When my wife got home, we sat in her car and listened to the radio at intervals before going to bed. I stayed home the next day and listened to the radio on and off. We went grocery shopping that night. Living in Northwestern NJ at the time, we were in the direct path of flights coming into the East coast. You were used to seeing planes in the sky. That night, the sky was empty and unsettling. It was as quiet as I have ever known it.

The following weeks were quietly chaotic. I worked in a haze as I dealt with my own feelings about the tragedy. Being so close, the stories of loss and close calls were numerous. “I was supposed to be in the North Tower that morning, but I was running late.” “I lost my uncle.” “There were dozens of cars at the train station left behind by commuters who hadn’t made it back that day.”

A week later, my boss (a woman in her late 70s at the time) makes a point of declaring she doesn’t know what the fuss is about. “More people were killed at Pearl Harbor.” I’m 26 at the time. I have no argument. Now, I would say, “But Pearl Harbor wasn’t in our back yard. And that was a war with clearly defined sides. And there was a military objective behind that attack.” And someone who knows anything could probably come up with a dozen other arguments against that statement. But, that was the defence she had chosen to put up. Otherwise, you had to admit that it had scared the hell out of you. Which it had.

Whether you like to believe it or not, the events of 9/11 changed everyone. It became this generation’s Pearl Harbor, in a war few can define. The experience has made me who I am today, for good or bad. I hope that my son will never have to see an event transpire like that one. I hope he can grow up in a more tolerant world that isn’t driven by greed and power. But, that’s wishful thinking.

At this point, I have the urge to run off into a diatribe about money being the root of all evil, which means I should probably just stop while I’m ahead. A peaceful Patriot Day to you all.

Event times referenced from: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/

Differing Opportunities

We met up with some old friends this last weekend. Late in the day, I found myself having a conversation with someone I didn’t remember sharing much of a past with. We’d moved in very different circles in high school, but we’d shared the commonality of singing in the boy’s choir group. He brought it up with some fondness and waxed reminiscent of days when the ladies of the larger choir basked in our jocular glow. He said all this with a wink and nudge as if I must have had a similar experience to the one he described. Imagine his surprise when I contradicted his assumption. “Well, it was happening. You just didn’t let it happen,” he said. Not being one to argue (have I ever mentioned that I’m awefully passive-aggressive?), I simply nodded and breathed a sigh of relief when the waitress interrupted to take our order.

But I couldn’t forget the moment. This insinuation that life was happening around me and, if I had just taken the leap, I would have had the same experience, is an awful thing to consider. Had I really been that blind? It wouldn’t surprise me entirely. I led a very sheltered childhood and was prone to conservatism. But, as someone who was always looking for inclusion in the right crowd (and often not finding it), it’s hard for me to believe it was right under my nose all along.

I didn’t date in high school. This is a statement that has surprised more than one person in my life. “Seriously? You didn’t date?” It’s not like it was an active choice! Tall, skinny, red-haired, geeky, self conscious to a fault. It was a poor combination. Looking back now, I also went through periods of depression and suffered situational anxiety. Heck, I didn’t kiss a girl until I was 19. Then I married the next girl I kissed and she’s still a pretty damn good kisser. But I digress.

None of us like to miss out. But, there’s missing out on a free lunch, or that 50% off sale at Target, and there’s missing out on life. Not everyone has the same opportunities, whether it is in life or love or money. Each situation, no matter how similar, is unique. Have I missed opportunities in lfe? Sure, we all have, but, in my eyes, this wasn’t one of them. Yes, I was in the same place and time and situation as you, but I wasn’t blind to something. It just didn’t happen to me that way and that’s just how life is sometimes.

Tally Up Twitter Tuesday – 9/09

It was a quiet couple of weeks for new content. I did a really poor job of getting out tweets that weren’t about me and my writing. Shame on me! This week’s roundup of what I think are some of the best links I’ve shared over on Twitter:

27 Places to Get a Book Tour (and the Top Ten)  via @selfpubreview 

Publishing Advice I’d Give My Younger Self  via @jakonrath 

4 Ways Authors Can Rock on Twitter  via @CaballoFrances 

You can get these tweets first hand by following me over on Twitter! :-D

What’s in a (Book) Name?

You know that feeling when you stumble across the name of your book and it’s like a light has gone off and you’re all like, “This is the most amazing title of a book ever!” You’ve had that feeling, right? Then you’ve probably also had the feeling you get when you search for that title on Amazon (or elsewhere)and, lo and behold, there are 5 other books with the same title, including a naughty one with nurses. D’oh!

Well, I know how you feel. My experience was a little different, but it still gave me that feeling of having been beaten to the punch. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with books sharing a title, so long as it doesn’t included trademarked terms (eg, Star Wars, Captain America). I mean, plug any single-word title (Redemption, Unforgiven, Ashes) into Amazon and you’re likely to come up with several dozen options.

Anywho, when I was crafting my suspense/thriller trilogy, I had settled on Multiples of Six as the first book and Divisible by Six as the second. But, when I started thinking about book #3, I had no clue what to use. I ran through the gamut of math terms… Propensity of Six, Magnitude of Six, Quotient of Six… before landing on Power of Six. That was it. It was awesome and I couldn’t find a book with the same title… until that fall. I was walking through my local Barnes & Noble and there before me was the latest by Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six. Whomp whomp!

Ah well, worse things have happened. I don’t plan on using the word “The” in my title, so I’m safe, I guess. ;-)

How about you? Ever come up with/use a title that’s already been used? Let us know in the comments and thanks for stopping by!

Plot Party!

This past weekend, I was exposed to a new writing treat! My writer friend, Nisha Sharma, hosted a plot party. Having never been to one, I was definitely curious to see what it had to offer.

So, what is a plot party? Simply put, it’s a party in which you talk about a problem or sticking point in your plot and hash it out with other writers. Here’s, generally, how it goes.

1. You get 5 minutes to explain your plot and the problem you’re having.

2. The group has 10 minutes to throw out any and all possible solutions to the problem. While you, the author, can respond, the idea is to be as open as possible to any and all ideas.

3. You can respond and talk for an additional 5 minutes about what the group has discussed.

4. The current speaker randomly draws the next speaker, and repeat!

I recommend sticking as close as you can to the timelines. As we all know, writers love to talk writing and things can sometimes get carried away. The 9 of us got our time to talk and were done in about 3 hours, with a couple of breaks.

This was a lot of fun. It was fascinating to see where other folks took my plot. For me, what was most amusing was how many times someone would say something and I’d be like, “Oh, that’s already in there.” That’s not to say that I didn’t get good ideas, because I did. I felt like many of the other authors who attended were able to move past the sticking point in their stories. A lot of good ideas were generated.

So, if you’re looking for a good reason to get together with your writing friends, why not throw a plot party? It’s a great way to get the creative juices flowing and it can be supremely rewarding for your writing and that of your friends.

Have you thrown a plot party? Or, do you have other group writing activities you partake in? Please share your experiences in the comments section and thanks for stopping by!

Only 12 hours left on my giveaway!

Over 1100 people have signed up for a chance to win a signed copy of Danny Dirks and the Heir of Pendragon, but there’s only 12 hours left in the giveaway. Head on over to Goodreads and sign up if you haven’t already. :-D

BookBub Postmortem

Now that the dust has settled from this week’s Multiples of Six (by Andy Rane) BookBub promotion, it’s time to look at some of the numbers, not only in terms of sales, but reviews and other intangibles.

Book Sales

Before this week, Multiples had languished around #400,000 in the Amazon store, with the occasional sale coming once or twice a month. Divisible had a little more consistency as past readers would discover it. But, it was still only 4 or 5 copies a month at best. On 9/1, Multiples went free (normally $3.49) and Divisible went on a Kindle Countdown sale at $1.99 (normally $2.99).

                            Multiples (KU/KOLL borrows)            Divisible (KU/KOLL borrows)

September 1      404                                                             9

September 2     47,294 (9)                                                409 (2)

September 3     9,044 (9)                                                   114 (13)

September 4     3,083 (15)                                                 78 (10)

September 5*   61 (18)                                                        37 (16)

5-day total        59,825 (51)                                                647 (41)

*Free ended early morning of September 5, so sales on this day were back to full price for Multiples.

Now, on top of this, I’d kind of forgotten about the audiobook for Multiples. The numbers haven’t fully caught up, but as of this writing, I added 143 audiobook sales as well. A pleasant side effect.

Divisible climbed as high as the upper #200s on Amazon on 9/2. It’s still hanging strong in the lower #1000s and is still in the top 15 of its sub-categories (Thriller/Assassinations, Spies & Politics/Assassinations, and Spies & Politics/Political). Multiples had a nice little boost of paid sales when it came off of free and I always expect half of those to be returned as I think someone clicked “Buy” thinking it was still free. But, it’s in the mid #2000s now and in the top 20 of its sub-categories (Thrillers/Assassinations, Spies & Politics/Assassinations, and Thrillers/Conspiracies). Hopefully, hanging around the top 25 of a few of the Thriller categories will help keep it going for a little while. We’ll see.

Reviews

At the beginning of this little venture, Multiples had stood at 21 reviews, the last of which came 13 months ago. This, despite having given away thousands of copies in 2012. As I write this, I’ve added 10 reviews (8 five-star, 1 four-star, and 1 one-star). Even more special to me are the three new reviews for Divisible, which had been out for 9 months, sold ~100 copies, and had no reviews (2 five-star and 1 four-star).

Intangibles

Traffic to my website has certainly increased during the week. Lots of searches for this crazy Andy Rane guy and his writing. ;-) Also saw a bump in newsletter subscribers, which is nice. And, lastly, the big question has been about book 3 to close the trilogy out. Well, this rush has sparked the flames of that story once more and I’m going to start focusing my efforts on completing that novel.

In the end, this wasn’t just a boost in visibility, but a bit of a boost to my own ego. I have no delusions of being an amazing writer. I just want to tell entertaining stories. This was a reminder that, despite how I feel sometimes, I seem to be doing an ok job. :-)

Thanks for the support and I hope my fellow indie authors find this information valuable!

Foul Language

I recently received a 1-star review of my suspense/thriller, Multiples of Six, because there’s “foul language” on the first page. It created some discussion in the comments section of the review about whether it was legitimate for someone to review a book after only reading one page. Especially when they could have previewed the book without buying it (though it was free this week) and discovered the same thing. I’m not here to discuss that and I don’t wish to condone any sort of retaliation against the reviewer (though, judging by her other reviews, her main purpose is to point out foul language in books). Honestly, I’m a bit tickled by the review. That kinda thing makes me laugh and a part of me is sorta glad it’s there (besides, I’ve racked up eight 5-star reviews of the same book this week). What I’m really interested in discussing is the use of colorful language in writing and why I believe it’s necessary in certain circumstances.

I write my adult fiction under a pen name (Andy Rane) for a reason. I don’t want my YA readers reading that content. It’s not meant for kids. It’s not particularly violent. It’s not gory either. But, a few of the characters use rough language. Why? Because that’s a reality of life. Ever worked in a factory? I did. I learned a lot of colorful adjective combinations during my brief stint. Now, I’ve spent most of my career working in offices, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the language cleans itself up. Sure, it’s not factory speak, but it’s not uncommon, in my workplace at least, to hear an occasional f-bomb dropped in a meeting. We’re all adults.

What I didn’t learn on the factory floor, or at the construction site, or in the high school gym locker, or… you name it, I learned from my father-in-law. A Vietnam vet, his use of profanity is legendary. He drops a dirty “C” like it’s nobody’s business (a word, even in fiction, I’m loathe to use). Now, if you happen to live in a world where no one swears, good for you. I can tell you that it probably means they’re doing it behind your back. Either way, I don’t write stories about that world. In my YA stories, I certainly keep it pretty clean. There are no f-bombs allowed, but damn, dammit, crap, and maybe even an occasional bastard are fair game. In my adult fiction, I like my characters to feel as real as possible and, at least in my world, real people swear. Some real people love to swear and so do some of my characters.

I know you have an opinion on this subject! Feel free to let me know in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by!

Amazon Releases Utility for Creating Illustrated Children’s Books

From Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing yesterday:

Starting today, you can use Kindle Kids’ Book Creator to create illustrated children’s books for Kindle, taking advantage of features like text pop-ups. Here’s how to get started:

1. Download the tool, and you can convert individual illustrations into interactive books for both Kindle devices and free reading apps.

2. Once your book is ready, export the file and upload it to KDP.

3. Set the book category, age range, and grade range to help customers find the right books for their kids.

Want to learn how to prepare, publish, and promote illustrated and chapter books for children? Check out the new KDP Kids for more information.

So, while folks have been publishing children’s picture books through KDP since the program began, the hurdles to getting there were significant. Now, the path should at least be a little more streamlined.

What do you think? Something you’ll use?

Wow… BookBub… Wow

That’s pretty much all I can say. As you might have seen yesterday, I ran a BookBub ad for book #1 in my suspense thriller series (Multiples of Six by Andy Rane). The first book was released back in 2011 and did reasonably well over the years (~1200 actual sales). But, being a slow writer, I saw little to no response when I released book #2 in the series, nearly 2.5 years later. I then went on a run of failed BookBub submissions. I’d gone down the free road with Multiples in the past. I’d probably given away just over 20k copies of that book prior to yesterday. So, in my mind, it only made sense to run a sale promotion instead of a free promotion. I wanted my $0.99, darn it! Well, it wasn’t to be, and after countless rejections, I finally asked for a free run. Apparently, I just had to say the magic word (free!) and that would’ve gotten me in long ago (kidding, but it kinda felt like that). Finally, the BookBub folks relented and let me into the pool.

I decided to add an incentive to buy book #2 in the series by lowering that book’s price, in a Kindle Countdown Sale, from $2.99 to $1.99. The joy of the Countdown is that you still get your regular royalty rate, even if your sale price is less than $2.99. So, I would make $1.39 on each copy of the sequel that sold. This was going to be how I recouped the BookBub fee (US$250 for a free thriller). That meant I would need to sell ~180 copies to break even.

I’m a closet optimist. I wear the pessimists mask in public, but I’ve always got high hopes, no matter what. But even I was leaning toward pessimism on this one. I thought the exposure would be good, but I held out no hopes of getting some of the kinds of numbers that romance authors see on a regular basis (a 40k free run is very common for romance, from what I’ve seen). I’m happy to say that my fears were alleviated by midday on Tuesday. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

In preparation for this week, I had notified several sites of my book going free (Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, to name a few). So, I was pleased when I cleared 400 copies of Multiples on Monday alone, with 11 sales of Divisible. Eleven down, 169 to go! Not sure where they came from, as I couldn’t find a major site listing my book, but it was a nice start and pushed me up to just over #1000 in the free store by late Monday. My expectations at that point were at least to get into the Top 100 Free list on Amazon. Knowing BookBub’s past successes, I thought I could get that far.

Then I woke up Tuesday morning to a surprise. At 7:24, Multiples was already at #610 on the Free list. I watched the numbers climb slowly during the morning, despite telling myself I wouldn’t keep checking. What can I say? I’m weak. I was really waiting to see what happened when I got the suspense/thriller email from them. It arrived around the same time it normally does, at least for me; ~11:45 AM. That was when things got crazy. Like, stupid crazy.

It was so torrid for a while that the rankings couldn’t catching up. Two hours after I’d received my email, I’d crossed the 20,000 unit mark. Amazon was still saying it was ranked higher than it should have been. I left the house and my KDP dashboard behind for a while in the afternoon. If it was this crazy during the afternoon, what would happen as evening approached? When I returned, I saw what I could have only hoped to see.

Multiples was the #1 free book in the entire Kindle Store. No categories to get in the way. Just #1 overall. It’s 11:08 PM Tuesday evening as I write this bit. I have given away 44,718 copies of Multiples of Six, and sold 379 copies of its sequel, Divisible by Six. It’s now 11:38, and I’m entering this into WordPress. In the half hour that’s elapsed, the numbers are now 45,190 and 382. 472 books in 30 minutes. And that’s slowing down! Oh yeah, and I made my ad fee back… and then some. ;-)

As I polish up this post on Wednesday morning, the ride isn’t quite done, but we’re on that slow coast back into the station. Tuesday’s grand total for book #1, according to Amazon, was 47,295. I’m not sure where their cutoff for the day is, but I’m guessing 12 AM PT. Today, I’ve added another 1641 copies in the wee hours, giving me a 60 hour total of 49,343. Oof! Book #2 fared well overnight and reached 409 units sold on Tuesday. Another 16 have sold this morning, giving me a 60-hour total of 434. Multiplied by $1.39 = ~$603. Not bank-breaking by any means, but not too shabby either.

Multiples of Six is still #1 on the free list as I post this. Later, however, someone else’s book will appear on BookBub and more than likely push me out of the way. Sure, I’ll get some play for a few days. My sale lasts until the 5th on both books. But the rocket to the top is over. Looking at Monday’s BookBub freebie, Jackpot by Susan Fleet, it’s still at #14 on the Free list. I’ll have to see where I stand in 24 hours. For now, though, I’m just excited to see how long the tail end lasts. At this point, it’s not unrealistic to expect over 55k total giveaways, possibly more. The ‘Bub turned out to be everything I had imagined it could be. Now, as my wife said, “Guess you’d better get your ass in gear on book #3, huh?” Yes dear!

If you’ve got any questions about my experience with BookBub, I hope you’ll ask them in the comments below. No secrets here! Or, if you’ve had experience yourself, please feel free to share! Thanks for stopping by. :-)