Talking to Myself

So now that you’ve indie published your first book on Amazon, how do you feel? Completely overwhelmed with the positive response. The goal for sales was 50, and in the first week, I saw 54 books sold. What’s amazing is that half of the sales were actual books. Some books were even being sold outside of my immediate or secondary reach. To be successful, it can’t just be about friends, family, and friends of family. All of the sales made me ecstatic, but those other sales moved things to another level.

So what happens now, and what are your next goals? Well, obviously, the next goal is triple digits. Inevitably, every author wants his or her work to grow to a point where it takes on a life of its own and he or she wakes up to new sales consistently. Inevitably, it would also be nice as Eureka in Flames joins additional published works so that it and they receive interest that I know they would deserve from mediums outside of the independent realm. To have my books read as a series would show just how valuable they are to people.

What do you mean by this “independent realm?” Obviously, every author sees a book as a film. I did write Eureka and the beginning of the as yet unnamed Wendigo book with the intention that they could be made into a movie, but I wrote the main books of the Blackrock Canyon series (Dead Mouths and Intersections) with a feel of a Walking Dead TV series in mind. I would love to see the characters visualized and expressed from my prose. While the subject matter and the language do get intense, I would prefer it to stay within PG13 or R, where it feels like some younger people might be OKed to see it with their parents, though it couldn’t be watered down beneath that. That said, I don’t ever want it to become a gratuitous violence thing like Saw or nudity for the sake of women baring their butts and chests just because like some of what Game of Thrones felt that it had to be. I know some people really dig on that show, but for me, I think I would have liked it better as a high school kid.

That seems to be a bold line in the sand for a book and a potential barrier to some fans who carve those things. Yeah, perhaps it is, but the rules of Aristotle’s Poetics that discuss focusing on the scene at hand and not deliberately shocking readers, thus detracting them from the scene with unnecessary nipples and orifices or grossing them out with blood, covers all of this. Things that don’t have to be there seem anathema.

But this doesn’t mean that these things aren’t there, does it? Of course not. There is actually one really horrific death in Dead Mouths Part 2, where a character is brutally murdered. However, it’s done off screen, much like Oedipus gouging out his eyes. The result of the action is seen, and the reader knows what happened because he or she witnesses a bandaged victim – not a knife wielding self-abusive act. To witness a murder up close or a bloody act like that would be too much. For me, it was the hardest thing to write because I had to imagine it and put it on the paper. I hated creating it in the same way that I hate watching terrorist actions in movies. We need to see them to make a villain that can be hated in that way, but to see innocent life lost in violent ways or even to witness a bad person killed in evil ways by darker forces can be too much.

What purpose did this murder serve, if I can ask without giving the plot away? It made a certain lesser character evil and moved said person up to the Major Leagues in later books.

How does killing characters make you feel? Well, if it’s Officer 1, it’s no big deal. Just like in 24, if they don’t give an officer helping Jack Bauer a name, you know he’s meat. In Eureka, there are people that shuffle off, and they have names. This isn’t a bad thing since a reader has to be able to believe that Tony Lucas, David Robinson, “Wolf” Owens, Harvey Greer, Chuck Jones, and Suzie Heilman can all die even though they’re the book’s core six. Granted, it’s nice to get the Walking Dead’s “If Glen dies, we riot” feel, but when they have to bring a dead character back / not give him an official send off on Talking Dead to create a sense of immortality, it’s too much to believe that a main character has a chance to die off unless it’s a very special episode.

But those characters are part of Dead Mouths, so you’ve had 15 months with them. You feel more personally toward them than Eureka’s characters, don’t you? Yes and no. While I wrote the first story (Eureka) quickly, I did it with the experience of Dead Mouths pretty much behind me. In that book, Henriette and Chuck were both meant to be quick exits, but somehow, I grew attached to what could be their greater purposes. Thus, they were saved from a quick exit and given life blood because I just couldn’t kill them off at that point. Thus, they became some of my “six characters in search of an author.” The same could be said for Suzie, Chico Gutierrez, Benson Villaneuva, and Sean “Big Dig” Caruthers. All of them were non-essential / one-off points in the plot or just a series of adjectives and extras, but now Intersections relies on them and their history to advance Blackrock.

And that’s how Eureka in Flames came to be. Yeah, even The Demon Hunters of Dodge County were a throw-away line in the story that shined out with potential in one of the final reviews. Making them into a team of phonies that have to play it real begged to be written. When I came up with a way to connect it to Blackrock Canyon, it just seemed like, “You gotta do this, dude.” And I did, knocking it all out in about a month…  maybe a little over it. This allowed me to go back into the final edits of Blackrock with more color to them than if I did things otherwise. For this, I’m glad I got too overwhelmed and read with the Blackrock drafts during my revisions after adding “reality” the story.

A short one-off book is what you went into Dead Mouths thinking, too, right? Yeah. I would have knocked that out in a couple months, 250 pages, and done. Then, I had about 400 pages in 8.5x11 Word formatting, which turns out almost twice as long in 6x9, so I had to split the book in half to make it manageable and affordable. What’s more, the story took on a life of its own, and it’s now an expanding universe. Keeping it as one book would be a $30-40 paperback, even with the affordable Amazon / Create Space prices.

So why $2.99 with Kindle? Why not go cheaper to attract fans and reviews? That was the original plan, and if I could have made 70% at $1.99, I would have, but they were taking 65% at that price point. I couldn’t have my publisher make more than me. That seemed wrong. I’ll accept cost for credit cards, advertising, and delivery platform, but that’s it.

How much do you make on an $8.99 book? I get $2 and change for penny candy, which I can’t complain about at all. The reader gets a beautifully printed book, and both the printer and the writer get cash. Once again, for Amazon’s platform, I have no gripes on this at all. They’re top notch.

So you like the print job? If I could, I’d marry it, but it’s a book and I’m married, so yeah. In all seriousness, holding the book for the first time was a humbling thrill. It was more beautiful than I ever realized it could be.

How about the first autograph? I was even more humbled, and it was hard to write a lot, but what I did write was done with sincere appreciation and respect.

Are autographs important to you? Giving my fans back the respect that they have for me is important. If someone wants an autograph or a picture, I’m there for it. I’m not so huge that I can’t accommodate a crowd or in need of bodyguards to keep overzealous fans away. I don’t ever want to be that guy, even if I ink a seven-figure HBO / Warner Brothers deal. Some people are afraid to lose the intimacy, and they try to stay indie when they should go big, even if they have to listen to the haters cry “sell out.” For instance, I think of the first wave of Neutral Milk Hotel reunion shows. They sold hundreds of thousands of discs to adoring fans plus introductions via “illegal” downloads, and people loved those discs, especially Aeroplane over the Sea. It was disappointing when they played shoeboxes and sold out show quickly like that when they should have been doing 2-5,000 person places. Then they did a proper tour at venues, and I saw them twice, which was incredible, especially at Ommegang Brewery. That was my favorite show ever, and I’ve seen a lot of shows. If I ever get lots of fans, I’d like to still be able to accommodate for them for book readings the like. Being generous to those who drop cash for us shouldn’t be a chore that comes for a price like with some people. I think of the money I paid for a picture with Carlos Mencia. Funny guy, and I know money is a good thing, but at some point, where does it end? The same can be said for ridiculous prices to pose with sports stars. I get if it’s for a signed ball or bat, but $50 because someone had a minor role on a championship team for the sake of a “complete” ball? That’s business, not love of the game and the fans.

So how long is this universe that you spoke of a few questions ago? If I had to guess, Eureka, the 2 parts of Dead Mouths, the untitled wendigo story, and Intersections have things written for them. There is a stand-alone book entitled The Last Day of Hunting Season, which connects back to Blackrock as well. The next book after that is A Lot of People Die, and then there’s One More Death, which are both names of songs by Passionate Chaos, which is Benson Villaneuva’s band. That’s eight, but I could easily do a lot more. I would expect at least one more other than that, which is much more than the original trilogy, even when Dead Mouths was all one book.

In Eureka in Flames, you had characters who you envisioned as real people, I guess as guidelines for who could play what if it ever got to that point. Who were these people? Margaret was Elizabeth Saint. 

Lee was Zak Bagans. 

Steve was Chadwick Boseman. 

Yadier Molina represents Gilly well, with his tattoos and tough guy look. 

Allison also needed a tough ol’ gal, and I thought of Jamie Lee Curtis for that. 

As for Ernie, I thought he would be played well by Nick Groff..

As for the other Ghosts of Shepherdstown guy, Bill Hartley, I guess could be a good cameraman, but I had no role for him in this book. 

Kevin Spacey would have done well as Tim. He just seems to represent the perfect evil asshole – in a good way.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? Thank you for checking out my book. If you haven’t already done so, you can buy it at the link listed. Previews are available here. My Facebook page is here. Finally, my regular website is here. Please share the word. It’s how indie writers get known.