Scott Nicholson's Blog, page 18

Christopher Nolan and the Rewind Factor

I hated the movie Memento. I had to watch it, of course, because it was intelligentsia du jour back in those days. A movie should only require one viewing in order to "get it." To do otherwise is to cheat the viewer and is a sign of self-indulgent storytelling.

I merely disliked Inception, but of course couldn't confess it in a public forum because everybody either loves it or pretends to love it, because who wants to be that one dummy who doesn't "get it"? My take was, "Well, if it's a dream within a dream within a dream, why should I bother keeping track of which layer of dream we're in, because dreams aren't real?" It had cool visuals, but on a story level, I thought it was a real mess. For a mind-twisting story where reality itself was in doubt, I thought Shutter Island was far superior (Incidentally, Leonardo diCaprio is becoming one of my favorite actors, something I never dreamed I'd admit.)

When my Amazon editor contacted me about getting the rights to Liquid Fear, he said the plot had "a Christopher Nolan feel." I was horrified! In the novel, I had deliberately planted deception and unreliable narrators, and I knew it was risky. I knew I would immediately lose a certain slice of the book audience. But I wanted to do something challenging and reward those who like risks. DiCaprio is taking risks with his career, taking roles as an unpleasant and unlikable character (The Departed!) when he could have stayed the cuddly Titanic heartthrob--that's why I like him now. I would rather have taken risks than dole out disposable entertainment and sell lots of books.

I saw Nolan's first full-length film Following, a more stripped-down version of his twisting storytelling style, with a little of his signature nihilism. It's probably my favorite, although we watched The Dark Knight last night, and it only had a few "Huh, what's happening and/or whose side are they on?" moments.

The guy gives me a headache. But I keep coming back for more. And he's influencing a lot of storytellers. (I started Liquid Fear in 2006 so I am pretty sure Christopher Nolan didn't influence me. Yet.) I suppose there are worse things to be than the Christopher Nolan of psychological thrillers.

Time for me to revisit Memento and see if I'm any smarter these days.

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14 Rules for Pretending To Be a Dad

My 11-year-old daughter is hosting a couple of friends for the Ghost Train theme park, and I get to play chauffeur and chaperone. But I was also handed a list of rules on how to "pretend to be normal" so that I don't embarrass her, including not chauffeuring in my rusty Subaru or rustier truck.

1. Do not say howdy.
2. Do not wear sweatpants.
3. Drive Lexie's car.
4. Carry a cell phone at all times.
5. Do not say stupid stuff.
6. Act like a banker.
7. Do not make alien noises.
8. Do not fall asleep.
9. Do not wander around aimlessly.
10. Do not talk to my friends except saying stuff like "Did you have fun" or other 'normal' things to say.
11. Do not wear strange things from dumpsters.
12. Make small talk.
13. 'Organic' and 'natural' things are banned.
14. Only drive where we tell you to drive.

I can hardly wait!

Bad Blood: A vampire thriller by Scott Nicholson, J.R. Rain, and H.T. Night

My first literary menage a trois is now out: BAD BLOOD, a collaboration with bestselling authors J.R. Rain and H.T. Night.We alternated chapters on this vampire thriller, editing each other's work, and I am pleased with the blend of darkness, humor, romance, and action. I also got to research Mystical Mount Shasta, California, the land of the Lemurians. We're planning to continue the Spider series next year, if you like it well enough! Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and coming soon to other markets.

I've also released The Vampire Shortstop as a standalone short story, which won the international Writers of the Future award waaaay back in 1999. It's free at Smashwords, BN.Com , and other markets, and I hope Amazon matches it, too. It's currently 99 cents at Amazon, so please help by clicking the link on the book's page that says "Tell us about a lower price." It's probably my best story, so I not only want people to read it and try my other books, I just want them to share the feeling. It's the only one of my stories that I like to re-read, and it makes me misty-eyed every time.

I'm considering releasing a few standalone short stories this month. It feels like 99 cents is too much for one story, since many of my story collections are 99 cents, but other writers accept it as a standard. I am putting out some other content, too, continuing the age of experimentation. How do you feel about 99 cent short stories? Too expensive, or a fair price?

I hope your Halloween season is off to great start! Let monsters and mayhem rule! And candy...don't forget the candy.
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The Bitter End: Mark Chisnell

The End. It's a hell of a way to start anything – but the end is only secondary in importance to the beginning of a story. If the opening 'hook' is the thing that draws you in, and keeps you reading those early pages, then the end is the part that most readers are likely to remember.  Sometimes the story even starts with the end; Henning Mankell once commented that he's occasionally begun with a final scene and then written towards it. If it's good enough for the creator of Wallander, then it's good enough for me. I began my first novel with the climax.
The rest of the process of writing The Defector - all eight drafts of it - was figuring out who those people were and how they got there. But the question I'm really interested in here is not whether anyone should start writing a book from the final scene, rather; it's what do we, the reader, want from the end? The normal answer is that a good ending should make sense of all that went before, and in the words of the screenwriting guru William Froug; 'It is that which nothing need follow.'
Endings tend to come in two parts, starting with the climax that any good book has been working towards. In the thriller or mystery genre that I work in, this is almost invariably some sort of action scene; the classic version being one where the hero battles the villain and wins (happy ending) or loses (sad ending).
The climax is followed by the denouement, where the plot is resolved and the loose ends are tied up – this is the bit where sense is made of all that went before. In a mystery novel we obviously need to know who did it, but many people will also want to know how they did it, and why they did it. And maybe we need to know why the girlfriend helped or betrayed them, or why the best friend or mother protected or abandoned them...
It's a slippery slope and the classic storyteller's error is too much denouement, particularly when it comes via 'Basil Exposition'. This is the over-familiar scene where the police detective or private dick explains to a room (conveniently filled with everyone involved) all the various plot strands.
The upside of this sort of ending is that all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed. There's no frustration, no looking for more explanation where there is none. Unfortunately, there's no surer way to kill the emotional impact of a good climax than too much denouement, particularly if it comes with too much exposition. So for me the tricky part of Froug's 'that which nothing need follow' is figuring out precisely where that point lies.
I'm of a minimalist tendency – I like to be left with a few things to ponder. If I'm still thinking about a book a couple of days after finishing it, then to me that's the clearest indication that it was a good one. And that's unlikely if everything has been tidied up into a neat pile, and then wrapped in silver paper with bows on it.
In both of my own thrillers I set the main character a moral dilemma, presenting them with a decision, one that threatens the people that they most love. The hero spends much of my first two books trying to dodge or wriggle out of making the critical choices, but ultimately (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything for anyone here) there's no escape.
And once that final decision was made, then as far as I was concerned you could stick a fork in it - the book was done. The denouements in both books are short and to the point. I felt that there was little more to say – the central character's climactic choice said it all. Everything else flowed from there - but that's just me and it's not to everyone's taste, including my original editor at Random House. Oh, the battles we fought over the end of The Defector...
So, cryptic, explicative or somewhere in between, how do you like your books to end?
Links:
http://www.markchisnell.com/
The Defector:http://www.amazon.com/The-Defector-ebook/dp/B004NBZE76/ 
The Wrecking Crewhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Wrecking-Crew-ebook/dp/B004NEVYVI/

Kindle Fire and Netflix: A Match Made In Electroheaven?

As news of the Kindle Fire kicks around the Internet. I don't think I will be an early adopter, since I am not a touchscreen fan, but I am really interested in the Prime subscription, especially since Netflix has hit the skids. One of the rumors floaqtinga round is that Amazon will buy Netflix, at least the livestream half, which supposedly is one reason Netflix split into two divisions and separated its mail-order service.

Here are a few Kindle books and news sites I've discovered recently:
Kindle 3
Kindle Dark on Facebook
Kindle Surprise on Twitter

I am going to experiment with putting out a few individual short stories for Kindle. I've put out entire collections for 99 cents, and even novels for 99 cents, but many authors believe 99 cents is a good price for one story. I like giving people a lot for their money, but a dollar is a dollar. I am also going to be raising my novel prices in line with what Amazon decides to price the Liquid Fear books at for Dec. 20 release. So if you like bargain prices, you better grab me now while I am "el cheapo."

There is debate about whether 99 cent products lead to a sense of entitlement among consumers, or that they expect a low-priced product to be crap. I have noticed my cheaper books and freebies tend to attract more one-star reviews, which kind of blows my mind. While the work should be judged on its merits, I would never dream of slamming something I got for free--I would just quietly move it to the side and forget all about it.

Others believe higher prices make the reader value the product more, because they feel good about it and assign more worth and quality to it. There may be a psychological impulse at work, but I don't understand it, because I value a book I check out from the library just as much as I do one I paid $25 for in hardcover. At any rate, the customer is always right, and you are my customer, so I trust you to tell when my prices are too high--hopefully BEFORE you stop buying them!

Anyway, Amazon and Netflix--here's the second leap on that rumor. If Amazon is moving to a subscription model for books (which I would bet a house on) and are becoming a publisher, what's to stop them from developing their own movie production company? Nothing.

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Ebook subscription models? Book It

Big news bubbling about Amazon's moves for Christmas, including the new Kindle Fire tablet and possible $99 Kindles, as well as a Touch Kindle. I'd never own a touch screen of any kind because I don't like greasy smears on my screen, but others like them. And I am not a techie by any means, I just want what works at a low price and doesn't give me headaches. IreaderReview is one of my favorite places to follow such Kindle developments.

But for readers and writers, the real issue is: What does this mean for ebooks? I've been predicting for about a year that Amazon will soon be bundling books into a "Netflix" model, where you get all the books you can eat for one monthly fee. Amazon already has the model in place, and they just announced new additions to its Prime offering. It's never really been a device war in the long term--iPad and Kindle never were direct competitors for the ereading audience. Just ask any author who has access to their sales numbers (and don't believe what you hear from publishing companies, who are still desperately trying to spin their Apple agency pricing as a win). People reading on iPads are using the Kindle or Nook apps. Apple maybe has 2 percent of the book market. Probably less.

The cheap Kindle will pretty much lock up Amazon's crown as the content king. At least for five years, which is eons in the technological era. Look how many different devices have come out in just the last three years. Yet Amazon continues to be the content king, with at least 70 percent of the ebook market. (Again, if you look at publisher data, publishers will claim BN has about 27 percent of the market, but their data is incredibly skewed--don't forget these two are joined at the hip through the physical bookstores.) And Amazon is rapidly expanding its world markets.

BN's problem is the weight of those physical bookstores. It's difficult to promote the Nook while still paying lip service to paper books and investing resources in managing the bookstores where books are an ever-lower percentage of their floor space.  Kobo will be lucky to survive another year. Google is still freighted with its illegally scanned books, plus they don't really have a device out there. Sony will ride the Pottermore wave until those buyers realize they really don't have a very good bookstore selection after Harry Potter.

I don't know the pricing structure of the Prime books model. I only know it's coming. It's not only inevitable, I would be shocked if it didn't happen by next summer. Amazon has already been sending out feelers to publishers, and the Kindle library lending is a big step in mainstreaming ebooks. We still don't know how authors will be paid--presumably enough to keep writing, making less per book on a higher volume of sales. And Prime is a natural fit for rolling in advertising which means even lower prices for devices and ebooks.

Is it a win for everyone? It certainly is for Amazon. And I signed a book deal with Amazon, which is where I am putting my chips. What's funny is that BN was uniquely positioned to become a publisher a decade ago, and even put out a few books under its own imprint. And traditional  publishers never built ebook stores where they could control their own catalog and peddle their own subscriptions. Probably it was the shortsightedness of having to show investors a nice return every three months.

Bottom line looks like: cheaper, faster, more. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm holding on for one hell of a wild ride!
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Indie Publishing and the Bog of Eternal Stench

Conventional wisdom is not wise at all, especially in writing.

Think of every success you know, and think of how many of them are conventional. Any? If they are conventional, I can assure you that any success they have is fleeting, because the success came in a crowd (how many superstar horror writers emerged from the 1980s horror boom? Not many. Most of the stars were the ones who started it, and who were widely imitated, and they survived into the 1990s. The crowd of imitators didn't).

I see the same thing happening in indie publishing. A lot of writers saw "indie publishing" as one thing, a fixed process, a system that a couple of people made look easy. Well, maybe it was easy for them. That doesn't mean it would be easy for others.

There's a lot of indie panic right now because Amazon changed algorithms, or Amazon opened to the libraries, or the Kindle store now has one million titles, or...or whatever. If you expected everything to stay the same, and if you believed there was a "convention," and if you followed what seemed like conventional wisdom in a series of rapidly changing eras that were never fixed long enough to develop a convention, you lose. Simple as that.

In any mass extinction, the ones following the herd are the last to the dwindling resources. I don't say that because I see writing as a competitive blood sport. I am just saddened to see disillusionment built on unrealistic expectations. Writers are getting distressed and angry because they felt entitled to the pie, when three years ago they didn't even know a pie could be baked, much less what ingredients were required.

While some gurus preach ever-expanding markets and untold wealth in indie publishing, the reality is those days are probably already over. The easy money has been made. And the historic lesson of gurus is that they tend to go off with their Cadillacs and groupies to their luxury deserted island while the followers end up broke and feeling stupid.

I started moving away from the indie thing when I realized that indie is not a tribe. I thought it was, in the early days. While running Indie Books Blog, I featured hundreds of new books and new authors because of the energetic and exciting groundswell, as if we all were suddenly changing the world with our fresh voices. But there was no tribe at all, just tens of thousands of writers doing the best they could, often shouting over one another instead of combining into one voice. The outside world didn't really notice that much--readers were reading, traditional publishers went about their business, and the indie era keep slipping away beneath our feet.

Even a year ago, I realized that there was no way 300,000 writers could all earn a living, much less a fortune. I saw people projecting income over five years based on last month's sales. Yeah, okay... And I say that fully believing writers are not in competition--I believe we each must build our own ladders out of dreamstuff, and no one can knock us off our ladder but ourselves. And more good books create more prolific readers. Big wins.

But I quickly realized indie publishing was not one set thing, that it was going to spiral rapidly into unrecognizable shapes and detours and pitfalls. Indie publishing is like the Bog of Eternal Stench in the 80s fantasy movie The Labyrinth. Bluto has to call up the rocks to walk across the bog. Every step requires a new rock. With luck, you pass into the mysterious wilds on the other side, where other challenges will await. But some are going to step in it.

Because I saw my "advice" was unconventional, I quit giving advice. Nobody wanted to hear that we wouldn't all be rich and that the Golden Era of Indie Publishing could already be over. And, heck, I wouldn't have listened to my own advice, anyway. It's actually easier to do it than explain it. Far easier, and far more fun. I peddle dreams, and you should celebrate and pursue your own dreams.

I do believe, and have always said, that just as many writers would make a living as before the Indie Boom. And I believe half of those writers will be "new." In other words, traditional publishing stars would lose half their slots as readers select new favorites. There's a lot of luck involved in success, and we each have different measures of it. For me, it's to earn enough to sit here and type, with the occasional visit to the garden. For others, it's a yacht, or a traditional deal, or a position as a guru.

If indie publishing has truly peaked, I'd still say "Wow, I am so grateful I got to be there. That was one hell of a wild ride!" And you know what? We have just as many blank pages before us as we had before, waiting for us to fill them. Just don't step in the stench on the way.

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The Risks of Foreign Publishing

I've received a number of email inquiries from authors in the past, and a recent flurry of them, asking about foreign publishers who contact them about book rights. The tone of most authors is one of wariness--the traditional system is still so ingrained in the writing culture that anything outside the norm instantly seems suspicious. "What? A publisher WANTS me?" (what a sign about how the publishing field has changed, huh?)

I can't speak for anyone else's experience, and I don't want to be responsible for anyone else's decisions. Some people tolerate more risk than others. Some writers believe foreign rights are best dispensed through agents (yeah, good luck with that!) From where I am sitting, there are no rules or conventions, and if a publisher has a new proposal that may seem suspicious just because it's new, well, you might be paranoid, whereas I would be intrigued. Because this era demands newness.

Every agreement and partnership has a risk. The two deals I did with supposedly "legit" foreign publishers never earned me a dime. Other deals have been fine, even with tiny publishers. So there are no guarantees in this game, and there never have been.

But on any offer, there are really only two real risks, assuming you already realize the greatest risk is to do nothing.

1) The publisher wants to steal your work and basically pirate it for sale. To which I say, "Why in the world would someone bother contacting you if they were going to do that?" Digital files are easily downloaded for free in torrent streams all over the world. Anybody can steal your file at any time and do anything they want with it. Why would an unscrupulous person email you about your work when that's the most difficult way possible to steal your file? If they wanted to steal it, they would have already stolen it, and odds are you would never even know it was for sale.

2) You don't want anyone to have your financial information. This is a little more valid, but think of how many times a day you willingly give your financial information over to complete strangers: the check-out clerk, the waitress, the online business. If this concerns you, consider setting up a separate bank account just to receive publisher payments. If you are like most writers, it will never have any money in it to steal anyway.

I suppose you could say a third risk is you have your book tied up by a contract and if the "publisher" doesn't publish the book, then you won't be able to sell rights to another publisher in that market. But that's not a risk. Because if the publisher doesn't meet the contract, it's not a contract, is it?

That said, the real bottom-line question is, "What do you have to lose, and is what you have to lose more valuable than the possible gain?"

Don't ever do something because I would do it, or I did it once. Only do it if you would do it.

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The Risks of Publishing

I've received a number of email inquiries in the past, and a recent flurry of them, asking about foreign publishers who contact them about book rights. The tone of most inquiries generally is one of wariness--the traditional system is still so ingrained in the writing culture that anything outside the norm instantly seems suspicious (what a sign about how the publishing field has changed, huh?)

I can't speak for anyone else's experience, and I don't want to be responsible for anyone else's decisions. Some people tolerate more risk than others. Some writers believe foreign rights are best dispensed through agents (yeah, good luck with that!) From where I am sitting, there are no rules or conventions, and if a publisher has a new proposal that may seem suspicious just because it's new, well, you might be paranoid, whereas I would be intrigued. Because this era demands newness.

Every agreement and partnership has a risk. The two deals I did with supposedly "legit" foreign publishers never earned me a dime. Other deals have been fine, even with tiny publishers. So there are no guarantees in this game, and there never have been.

But on any offer, there are really only two real risks, assuming you already realize the greatest risk is always to do nothing.

1) The publisher wants to steal your work and basically pirate it for sale. To which I say, "Why in the world would someone bother contacting you if they were going to do that?" Digital files are easily downloaded for free in torrent streams all over the world. Anybody can steal your file at any time and do anything they want with it. Why would an unscrupulous person email you about your work when that's the most difficult way possible to steal your file? If they wanted to steal it, they would have already stolen it, and odds are you would never even know it was for sale.

2) You don't want anyone to have your financial information. This is a little more valid, but think of how many times a day you willingly give your financial information over to complete strangers: the check-out clerk, the waitress, the online business. If this concerns you, consider setting up a separate bank account just to receive publisher payments. If you are like most writers, it will never have any money in it to steal anyway.

That said, the real bottom-line question is, "What do you have to lose, and is what you have to lose more valuable than the possible gain?"

Don't ever do something because I would do it, or I did it once. Only do it if you would do it.

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Fiction and Book Translators Wanted

David Gaughran, author of Let's Get Digital, ran a post on my ideas for indie translators. I am actively seeking translators in any language, particularly Spanish, French, and German. Clearly ebooks are expanding across the globe and the former geographic limitations are meaningless, so I believe there's a great opening and opportunity for creative entrepreneurs.

Thanks to my wonderful German translator Christa Polkinhorn, we've spent more than a month in the German Top 100, and though some pricing problems caused Der Schadelring to be temporarily unpublished, I'm very pleased with the small but growing market. I can see that duplicated around the world--writers and translators earning a living from a number of small revenue streams instead of counting on the next big payday.

If you're interested in a 20 percent royalty for life, why not connect here in the comments section or email me at hauntedcomputerbooks AT yahoo.com? Happiness is a word in every language!
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