ebooks – Page 6 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

First Radio interview and other such stuff

Dude, check it out–my first radio interview just went live on the Dungeon Crawler’s Radio website!

I met these guys at CONduit last month, where they had a booth and were recording all sorts of authors and artist. They were way cool when I talked with them, and when they found out I was a writer invited me on!

Hehe, considering how many big name authors they have on their show, I think I totally bombed–but it was still awesome. The guys who run the show were really great, too; it was a ton of fun hanging out with them. So thanks, guys, for having me on!

In other news, I just uploaded Genesis Earth to Smashwords, and I think it’s already live. So for all those of you who want to get it from somewhere other than Amazon, it’s now available! I’m still working through all the formatting kinks, so if you buy it and find some errors, let me know and I’ll send you a fixed copy.

Also, the cool thing about Smashwords is that you can generate coupon codes and even give the book away for free. What I’m hoping to do is print up a few business cards with the code for a free book, then distribute them at conventions like Worldcon. Hehe, imagine walking up to an editor and being like “hey, want my book? Here you go!” Or even just dropping off a stack at the freebies table; I think it could be an awesome way to get exposure.

Man, there’s so much exciting stuff going on! This is a great time to be a writer.

On the writing front, I’m making excellent progress on my current WIP (work in progress), Desert Stars. I’ve read through all the feedback from my first readers, and have a ton of fantastic ideas for how to make this story really shine. I revised through about 2.1k words this morning before work, and I’m hoping to do at least two and a half chapters before this weekend.

Also, a couple days ago at work, I was trawling through tvtropes (one of the advantages of doing data entry is that you can afford to feed the addiction, hehe), and I had a SUPER awesome idea for the next book in the Gaia Nova series.

Since Bringing Stella Home is basically the Mongol conquests set in space, the big story to conclude that arc would be the battle of Ayn Jalut, where the Mongols suffered their first decisive defeat. I did a little bit of setup for that in Into the Nebulous Deep, with the remnants of the Gaian Empire gathering at New Rigel.

Well, here’s what I’m thinking: I’ll bring back Danica’s team of mercenaries from Bringing Stella Home, make Roman a viewpoint character, and have Rina from Desert Stars join up with them as a quiet little girl in black who seems painfully shy, but is actually a deadly effective assassin whose weapon of choice is a bowcaster.

Oh yeah, I think this has some crazy awesome potential.

In any case, I should probably get to bed so I can get up early and write tomorrow. I hope to finish Desert Stars 3.0 by July 10th, and even though it’s going to take a lot of work, I think I can make it happen.

And after that…well, things just keep getting more and more awesome. I love writing!

Ebook update

As many of you know, I epublished my first novel two weeks ago, and three short stories a few months before that. How has it been going?

First, let me point out that I have another guest post out as part of the Genesis Earth blog tour, this one on my friend Gamila’s blog. Gamila reviews YA and LDS fiction, and is a big proponent of clean reads. For my post, I wrote about the place of LDS writers in science fiction and fantasy and the unique things we have to offer these genres. Fun stuff; you should check it out.

So now that that’s out of the way, how do the numbers look for my epublishing venture? Not bad, actually. In two weeks, I’ve sold twenty copies of Genesis Earth and gotten two five star reviews on Amazon, only one of which was from someone I know. Not bad–I’m looking to get at least $50 from Amazon come September, which should be very nice.

The short stories have not sold nearly as well, however. Part of it probably has to do with the fact that I’m not a super stellar short story writer, but another part probably has to do with the lack of promotion. The review of “From the Ice Incarnate” by Red Adept Reviews did lead to a few extra sales for all my stories, but only about half a dozen or so. Nothing spectacular.

Part of it also has to do with the sampling system, I think. With ebooks, you can download a free sample (usually the first 10% of the text) and decide whether you want to buy it or not. For Genesis Earth, that amounts to the first three chapters and then some; for the short stories, maybe a couple of paragraphs and that’s it.

So what’s the takeaway? I think that novels work out much better as ebooks than short stories. For one, you can justify charging more for them (I haven’t seen anyone selling short stories for more than $.99), and thus get the higher royalty rate. For another, they work much better with the sampling system; readers are much more likely to get hooked on the first 10% of a novel than the first 10% of a short story. And lastly, I’d say that you need to figure out some kind of way to promote yourself and get your work out there. Still working on that.

All in all, not too bad. But here’s the really cool part (and I mean really cool): at my current cost of living, I estimate that I need to sell only 15 ebooks per day to break even financially. At a consistent average of 25 books per day, I could justify quitting my “day job” (150% of all monthly expenses).

How is that exciting? Well, get this: starting out the gate with very little platform or exposure, I’m averaging a little over 1 ebook sale per day. If I could boost that up to 3 sales per day for 5 books, I’d be breaking even. At 5 sales per day for 5 $2.99 books (~800 total ebook sales per month), I’ll be making a living.

See why I’m excited?

My goal now is to get up to 5 full length novels / novellas out before the end of the year. Believe it or not, that’s very achievable.

First, I’ll be epublishing Bringing Stella Home sometime this summer, hopefully in time for worldcon. Shortly thereafter, I hope to publish Sholplan as a $.99 novella.

My current WIP is the third draft of Desert Stars, and I bet I can have that ready before Christmas. While I’ll put the whole thing out as its own novel, I like Emma’s idea of splitting it into two books as well. I’ll probably title them Dome and Desert and Sand and Stars, and make the first one available for free just to get more exposure.

And at some point in between all that, I’ll finish compiling all my travel journals from the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad and put that out as its own work. That one should be fun, and a good way to experiment with in-text photos and illustrations.

That’s my plan. The more I put my work out there, the better my chances at making it big. And even if I don’t, if I have enough titles out and they all sell more or less consistently, I can still leverage that to make a full-time living. And that’s my dream.

So yeah, I’m extremely excited.

Are ebooks there yet? My response to Wired

I just read an interesting article on Wired putting forth five reasons why ebooks aren’t yet better than print books. I find it mildly interesting that Publisher’s Weekly linked the article on Twitter; the more things change, the more that people in traditional publishing seem to plug their ears and pretend like it isn’t happening. However, I disagree with the article’s reasons, and here’s why:

1) “An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it.”

The solution? Writers need to write better books–and because of the pressure that this problem exerts, I believe they will. If print publishing resists the ebook revolution long enough, well-established indie authors might well develop a reputation for better written, more engaging page turners than traditionally published authors.

2) “You can’t keep your books all in one place.”

I’m not plugged into the tech world, but I imagine that this problem will be solved rather quickly once readers start complaining. This is a tech problem, and the tech industry is far better at change and innovation than traditional publishing.

3) “Notes in the margins help you think.”

I don’t mean to put down any of my friends who do this, but…seriously? How many of you write in the margins as you read? It’s probably more of an issue with literary fiction, but with science fiction and fantasy, most of us read for story, and the best books are the ones we finish at a breathless sprint at 4:00 am the next morning. When it comes to the genres I write in, I think this is a non-issue.

4) “E-books are positioned as disposable, but aren’t priced that way.“

This one is my favorite. Sure, traditional publishers are overpricing their ebooks, but that just opens the door for hordes of indie authors (like me) to undercut them and earn more on their own than they would if they took a traditional publishing deal. In addition, all the longtime professional authors I know are doing everything they can to jump ship, which is only going to bring about the crash of the traditional publishing model all the sooner.

In all honesty, I hope that traditional publishers continue to overprice their ebooks as long as they can. The more they tick off readers with bloated prices, the greater an advantage my books will have over theirs. And the more readers buy indie, the more money goes to supporting authors, as opposed to overpaid corporate officers and ridiculously expensive New York rents.

5) “E-books can’t be used for interior design.“

Two responses: 1) how many people do you see these days with CD racks in their living rooms, and 2) why do you think people still buy vinyl?

When the iPod came around, people didn’t let this argument stop them from switching their collections to mp3 and boxing up all their CDs. When a new technology arrives that is demonstrably superior to the old, culture adapts to fit around it.

At the same time, I have no doubt that print books will continue to exist. People still ride the California Zephyr even though we have airlines, and they still buy vinyl even though we have mp3s. It may well be that the half-dozen collectible leather-bound hardcovers you own in the age of ebooks will say more about you than the hundred or so secondhand paperbacks you have on your shelf now.

Genesis Earth is now live!

That’s right! Genesis Earth, my first epublished novel, is now available on Amazon for $2.99. Check it out, post a review, tell your friends!

I decided to price it at $2.99 for a few reasons:

First, that’s the lowest price at which Amazon allows a 70% royalty rate. When you buy the book, I get $2.05, which is a very nice royalty even for a traditionally published book. A lot of readers like to know that their money is going to support the author, rather than the people exploiting the author, and that’s only really possible at this price point. I might drop the price to $.99 at some point in the future, but only for a short period of time for a special promotion.

Second, there’s the question of value perception. I don’t want people to think that my book is worth less than a cheeseburger at McDonalds. Sure, I might get more buyers if I price it lower, but I don’t want to attract people who will buy it and never read it; I want to attract people who will read it, love it, and buy all my other stuff–and I plan to put out a lot more work before the end of the year!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I fully believe that this book is worth that much. It’s worth at least that much. Granted, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I’d gladly give it away for free (and what an awesome world that would be!), but even so, if you’re a person who enjoys thoughtful, character driven science fiction, I’m confident that you’ll come away from Genesis Earth feeling satisfied.

So yeah, Genesis Earth is finally up! Buy it, read it, blog it, tweet it, facebook link it, start format…er, yeah, you get the picture. Wheee!!

I’m going to start guest blogging on a bunch of other blogs, but don’t worry, I’ll keep this blog updated as well. I also need to get back into writing my next novel, so I’d better do that now. See you around!

AHHH! It’s uploaded!

That’s right; just a few minutes ago, I uploaded Genesis Earth to the Amazon Kindle store. It’ll take about 24 hours to show up on the site, at which point the entire universe will implode and we’ll all become robots fighting for survival in an artificial reality. So get ready!

That beautiful image on the left is the cover, by the way. Pretty awesome, neh? It turned out even better than I was hoping it would.

Genesis Earth is my first epublished novel, and as such, I feel happy, nervous, excited, and ecstatic about it all at the same time. The short stories were one thing, but this–this is the real deal. This is me jumping in with both feet and not looking back.

It’s been a long and arduous road to publication, and I want to thank all of you who have been a part of it. I plan on sending out a free copy to all of my first readers as a thank you gift; if for some reason I miss you, please let me know and I’ll get that sent out to you.

Finally, if you still want to get in on the blog tour, let me know and I’ll sign you up. I’m not going to set up a strict schedule, but I’ll probably do three or four blogs a week, so either send me a topic to blog about or a set of interview questions, and I’ll get back to you as promptly as I can.

Man, this is exciting! I’m sure that the road ahead won’t be easy, but at least things are now in motion. This awesome novel has sat on my flash drive for far too long–time to put it out for people to discover. It might take months for it to find its natural readership, but I’m confident that it eventually will.

Expect a post in the next 24 hours with more details. Until then, prepare yourselves!

“…and I am doing my best to leave traditional publishing behind.” –Tracy Hickman

Those were Tracy Hickman’s exact words today at CONduit.

He said it as part of his introductory remarks at his first panel, “To Cliche Or Not To Cliche,” and reiterated it on all of the panels he was on for the rest of the day.

For those of you who don’t know, Tracy Hickman has built a career spanning over thirty years, and has 56 novels still in print. He is an incredibly successful and prolific author. What’s more, he is quite possibly the most humble and sincere person at the convention: extremely approachable, and very accommodating towards his fans. He is an amazing man, and I hope to have a career like his someday.

He’s not the only big name author talking about epublishing either. I heard this secondhand so it’s not admissible in court, but L.E. Modesitt apparently had a lot to say about Kristine Katherin Rusch‘s recent blog posts concerning the disturbing changes in traditional publishing. Rusch is one of the voices at the epicenter of the indie publishing movement, along with her husband Dean Wesley Smith.

The initial shock wave of the ebook revolution has hit Utah, and people all over CONduit are talking about it. In fact, I think I spent more time today in the hall talking about ebooks than I did attending panels.

You have no idea how invigorated this makes me feel. I’ve been going around signing up bloggers for my Genesis Earth blog tour, and the sense of ownership I feel for my career is thrilling. On my way back to Provo, I made a connection between two ideas for my current work-in-progress, and I literally screamed for two minutes straight. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited to be a writer.

In his last panel of the day, Tracy Hickman closed with the following bold statement: if you master the art of story structure, have the dedication to work hard, and are willing to do what it takes to learn your craft, you will not only write a successful book, you will build a successful career in this world of new media.

That, my friends, is exactly where I want to be.

Stoked for CONduit and a sneak peek

CONduit starts tomorrow in Salt Lake City, and I am so stoked!

This will be my third year in a row, and it looks like all the usuals are going to be there: Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Tracy and Laura Hickman–in other words, a whole bunch of awesome people. It’s gonna be fun!

As usual, I’ll be recording all the panels I attend. Shoot me an email if you want the mp3s. I’ll also try to give a report on this blog, though it might be a bit sparse.

This year, I’m hoping mainly to get the ball rolling for the ebook release of my novel Genesis Earth. Local cons are great for networking with other writers, and hopefully I can get a few more people to sign up on the blog tour I’m trying to get started.

If you’re a blogger / blogging writer and you’d like to participate, here’s how it works: you give me either a topic for a blog post or a list of interview-type questions. I’ll write it up post and send it to you, along with the cover image for Genesis Earth. In the post, you include the image and a link to amazon where people can find the novel. When the post goes live, I’ll mention it here and put up a link so my readers can find it.

You get a free guest post, I get publicity for my book, and we both cross pollinate readers and build our blog audience. Win-win-win all around.

So yeah, shoot me an email if you want to participate. Genre-wise, Genesis Earth is a YA science fiction romance; basically, it’s a coming-of-age love story with starships, wormholes, and first contact. If you think your blog readers would be into that kind of thing, I’d be more than happy to put you on the tour list!

Finally, I have some eye candy for you: my cover artist, Hideyoshi, just sent me the final proof and it looks pretty friggin sweet. Check it out:

Aaahh! I’m so stoked to get this book out!

First review and an announcement

So shortly after I joined the Kindle Boards, Michelle from Red Adept Reviews contacted me for a blog interview to go along with a review she was doing for “From the Ice Incarnate.” The review and interview were posted over the weekend; you can find them here.

The review is generally positive, though I think the criticism is pretty fair; I’m much better at writing novels than writing short stories. It was a pleasant surprise, however, to have a reviewer come to me, and to come so quickly. I honestly wasn’t expecting that, so thanks!

“From the Ice Incarnate” is based on a scene from my novel Genesis Earth, which I will be epublishing very soon. I just got the initial sketches from the cover artist I selected, and they look really good! The only other holdup is my copy editor, and he should be finished by Wednesday, so hopefully the novel will be out in a week or so.

In order to spread the word, I’d like to put together a blog tour. If you have a blog and would like me to write a guest post, that would be awesome! Just email me with a subject to discuss, or a list of interview questions, and I’ll let you know when I can fit you in. I’ll also post a link on this site, so my readers here can find your blog.

So anyhow, that’s what’s going on here. I’m very excited to get Genesis Earth out, and also that my work is starting to get some attention. Hopefully, that will continue to build; in the meantime, I’ll keep on doing what I always do: write.

Back in Mass

Mass = Massachusetts = “back east,” for all you unwashed Utahans!

My sister’s wedding is this weekend, so I’m back at my parents’ place helping them get everything set up. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow, but I’ve got my netbook and will probably get a couple good hours of writing in.

I managed to write a bit on the plane today, but not as much as I was hoping. My goal is still to finish Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 by May 14th; I’ve got about 15k-20k left to go, and since I’m taking the next few weeks off to work on writing projects, I shouldn’t have any problems meeting that deadline.

Yesterday, I took the unedited manuscript of Genesis Earth and formatted it nice and pretty so my friend Laura could read it on her Kindle, and…man, it looks like a real book! There’s something about seeing your work in the actual form that people are going to read it in that is just…well, for lack of a better word, magical. It’s definitely motivated me to get GE up quickly, as well as Journey to Jordan. More on that in the next few days and weeks to come.

It’s getting late out here and I’d better get some sleep, but before I do, I want to put a plug in for my new favorite webcomic, The Zombie Hunters. Ross Wolfe, Quark’s renowned zombie expert, introduced me to the comic a couple months ago, and I have been totally hooked ever since.

The comic is set in our world after the zombie apocalypse, where a band of five thousand survivors struggles to rebuild civilization on an island that was previously the site of a major research campus. The zombie plague has a dormant phase, where the infected can live normal lives, but turn into zombies when they die.

The infected live in segregated barracks as second class citizens, but teams of them regularly venture out into the wastelands to salvage supplies from the zombie-infested ruins. The comic basically centers around one of these teams of zombie hunters; their struggles and challenges, their relationships with each other, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

The storytelling is fantastic, the characters are engaging and real, the post-apocalyptic setting dark, gritty, and yet totally immersive and frighteningly believable–man, it’s just awesome. And the longer it runs, the better it gets! I can’t wait to find out how Charlie the half-life fits in with his ability to communicate with the zombies, or to get the full backstory with Jenny and Milo. And I love the banter between Jenny and Sammie, her alcoholic sociopath best friend.

Right now, though, the main storyline is on hold while the author works through some business problems, but the short story is absolutely fantastic. I love her fantastic use of point of view–how she gets into the little boy’s head and shows the apocalypse unfold from his perspective. And the kid’s grisly end…man, zombies are even freakier when you never see their faces! I wouldn’t be surprised if I have nightmares tonight about it–I have in the past. Crazy awesome zombie nightmares, heh.

As a side note, may I point out what may quite possibly be the perfect weapon for the zombie apocalypse, the AA-12 shotgun. All it needs is a bayonet and like a bajillion clips of ammo. A must-have for any zombie contingency plan.

But yeah, let me just say I am in awe of The Zombie Hunters. Awesome, awesome story–every time it updates, I get immersed again in the post-apocalyptic world, and it is amazing. If I ever end up writing a zombie apocalypse story (which will probably involve starships and space travel in some fashion), I would be tickled if it’s even half as good as this excellent webcomic.

Why I am not afraid of the Noise

One of the biggest concerns for writers considering indie publishing is the fear of being drowned out by “the Noise”–all the obnoxious crap that will inevitably pile up because everyone thinks they can write a book. After all, if anyone can self publish, anyone WILL self publish, including all the hordes of terrible, terrible writers. In such an environment, how will anyone find you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and reading a lot of author blogs to hear their take on this issue. While I was afraid of the Noise at first, I’m not that worried about it anymore. Here’s why:

1) The Noise has always existed.

The Noise is not a new problem. Anyone with a printer and/or internet access can submit their stuff to agents and editors–and they do. It’s called the “slushpile.”

Under the old system, good stories would never find their audience unless they got picked up by one of a handful of editors. Problem is, this creates a huge bottleneck that only amplifies the Noise, making it even harder to get noticed. Editors outsourced the slushpile to agents, but this only made it worse, like adding an extra level of bureaucracy to an already inefficient system.

The way I see it, if I’m going to have to fight the Noise one way or another, I would rather have direct access to my potential readership than be forced to submit to an overworked editor who doesn’t have time to give my work fair consideration.

2) Epublishing gives books more time to find their audience.

Traditional publishing works on the “produce” model, where new books have only a few months on bookstore shelves before they’re pulled to make room for something new. In sf&f, it’s more like a couple years for paperbacks, but it’s still the same thing.

If your book doesn’t find its audience in those first few months–and therefore doesn’t sell very well–it’s considered a failure. With epublishing, though, there’s unlimited shelf space, and that means the book will ALWAYS be available. It might not sell for the first few months, but that’s okay–it has as much time to find its audience as it needs.

I believe that given enough time, the good stuff always rises to the top of the heap. I would rather follow the model that gives me that time, rather than gamble on the arbitrary timetable established by the traditional publishing establishment.

3) The revolution is social.

At LTUE this year, Tracy Hickman astutely pointed out that bookselling is no longer about creating artificial marketing hype so much as making a direct and personal connection with the reader. With modern social networking platforms, writers can connect directly with their audience in a meaningful, peer to peer manner, expanding their readership naturally.

If we still had to rely on old, top-down marketing models, the Noise would certainly be a problem. But with social networking, the audience is becoming much more interconnected, revolutionizing word of mouth and making it easier for writers and readers to connect than ever before.

4) Success comes at a much lower threshold.

For my purposes here, I’ll define “success” as making a full time living as a writer (>$20k/yr, though that will probably change when I’m married).

Under the old model, a $20k advance for a new writer like myself would be quite good, especially in my genre. However, that money would get paid out over the course of several years, and I probably wouldn’t get a contract for another book until after the first book proved itself.

But the $20k is really just an advance against royalties, and the royalty rates run pretty low (<12% hardback, <8% paperback). At those rates, I probably wouldn’t start to make a full time living until my devoted readership (those who buy my books in hardcover) numbered at least between 5,000 and 10,000. And even then, my publisher might still drop me.

Under the current indie publishing model, though, the author gets a 70% cut. That means that I could significantly undercut traditionally published books in price and still make more money per book. A $5 ebook earns as much at 70% as a $25 hardback at a 14% royalty rate, and will probably find its audience a lot faster because of the lower price. With paperbacks, the difference is even more stark.

An audience of 5,000 is a drop in the bucket compared with the population of all readers. The Noise might keep me from reaching everyone, but I don’t need to reach everyone to make a living–just a few thousand.

5) Transformational growth will greatly expand the market.

Right now, we seem to be on the verge of transformational growth in the publishing industry. With epublishing, not only are avid readers buying more books, but more people are becoming avid readers. This means that now, more than ever, publishing is NOT a zero sub game.

Sure, the Noise will get louder as more people self publish–but that Noise will also be spread out across a much larger market. Even if my piece of the pie gets smaller, the pie itself is getting much, much larger, and that’s good news for everyone.

I have other reasons for not fearing the Noise, but these are the biggest ones. Promotion is still a major question in my mind, but for now I’d rather get back to writing. After all, that’s what I do–I’m a writer.