New Release: Dances With Werewolves, Part 2

And now, we finish up Dances with Werewolves,** just in time for Halloween.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED SERIES LOVE AT FIRST BITE....

Secret Service Agent Wayne Williams is dead. But he has to keep busy somehow. When a coven of witches reports a threat to the President of the United States, it's the sort of threat that must be investigated. But it sounds like a vacation for Wayne.

When the witches start to die, and his consultant seems to be magic, it's time for him to get nasty.

CIA Assassin Catherine Miler is on a mission to kill Baron Samedi," a Prime Minister sacrificing American Tourists. When she chases him down to America, things start to get ... hairy.

Author Matthew Kovach is looking for his own version of Derry Maine. What he finds is the "Community of the old time religion."

All three are about to find themselves embroiled in San Francisco pagans, want to be vampires, pharmaceutical zombies, and New Orleans.

And all three have to survive their consultants on this case -- the Kraft Brothers.

This one has shootouts in the Muir woods, car chases in San Francisco, gun battles in New Orleans, Chicago and New York. They have satanists with horn and fang implants, drugged out zombies, witches, mad gunmen, and for the first time in my books, all three Kraft brothers -- Merle, Dalf, and Tal.

I enjoyed writing this one. There was a ton of madcap action, a lot of insanity, and just plain fun.

If you've picked up part one already, you can get part 2 right here.  

And if you haven't, you can get part one here while you're at it.

Just so you'll have something to read when you're done with Too Secret Service and Dances, then you'll want to stop by the current kickstarter....

Also, if you're interested in starting your Christmas shopping early (EG: I'm done already) then you might want to shop for some good books at a solid price.


**According to new, stupid rules on Amazon, I have to inform you that the links to my book give me a little bit of extra cash for you buying the book from my referral link. all links on my blog are like that.

On the Death of Barnes and Noble (And TradPub)

The NY Times have decided that Barnes and Noble is in dire straights, and need to be saved. Obviously, the way to do that is to blame Amazon and their terrible strongarm tactics, lowballing prices, making them cheaper and easier for people to buy and read books....

The NY Times is, of course, full of crap, as usual.

Look, fellas, let's break this down nice and easy-like, okay?

Traditional Publishing is kept afloat by Barnes and Noble, who are the only brick and mortar store really left in the business.

Barnes and Noble is on the rocks because TradPub is making pricing demands that the market will not sustain. Hardcovers used to be under $25 within the last twenty years. Now they're easily over and above that, some reaching $30 and above. We won't even go into the Kindle prices where the e-book is more expensive than the hardcover (see the early release of John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire).

Then you go to Amazon, and discover $15 hardcovers. Because Amazon wants to sell books. Shocking, isn't it?

Barnes and Noble could easily correct this by playing hardball with TradPub, or by being more open to indie authors and small press publishers -- Silver Empire or Superversive come to mind. But the boat has sailed on both of these. B&N has been so crappy to indie authors that they'd have to issue a personal invite to have me come play with them.

As for TradPub ... they could easily fix all of their problems. But these seem more bound to tradition than the Catholic church or the military put together. I could tell you four things that would save TradPub this minute.

1) MOVE OUT OF NEW YORK.
Okay, at least Manhattan

As much as I love my city, we have the highest taxes of anywhere else on the planet... okay, California seems dead set on beating our record, but Manhattan has killer property taxes, murderous property rates, and the cost of existing adds more to overhead than I want to contemplate.  If they moved almost anywhere else in the country, they could slash costs and thus slash prices.

2) CHANGE THE TECHNOLOGY
Move into the 21st century

This goes hand in hand with leaving Manhattan. Do you know why TradPub was in New York City? Because they needed industrial presses to make the books. To make THAT profitable, they needed to print thousands upon thousands of books, because the larger the order, the lower the price is per unit. (If I order a copy of my novel, it's $25. If I order 20,000, it's $1 per copy, around those lines).

Leave New York City, get a publish on demand printer, and make the books in house.

Alternately, TradPub, in conjunction with Barnes and Noble, puts a POD printer in every store, making the brick and mortar shop a place where B&N will make the novel for you in the store while you wait. This takes a larger burden off of the publisher, and puts it on Barnes and Noble, but it's still cheaper than a lot of the crap they have to go through

3) NO ADVANCES. ROYALTIES ONLY
(And stop taking the lion's share)

Look, a lot of publishers take a bath on advances. Don't even ask how many are worth the cost of the advance. Seriously, don't. There was even a Guardian article that discussed that the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as well as Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was sued for part of the advance to come back. And these were both books that were made into films. So think about that a moment. Even big books that have a lot of press behind them don't necessarily make back the money paid out in the advance.

It really makes you look hard at that Scalzi payout from a few years ago, doesn't it?

If you look at most authors when they discuss royalty payments, you quickly realize that TradPub pays out one or two dollars for every copy of a novel sold. I think it's why James Patterson has become an industry -- if he's making a dollar for every book sold, it pays to have thousands of copies of a new book out every month.

The only people I know of who care about royalty payouts for their authors is Baen. They even talk with Amazon about raising e-book prices (only to $7, on the outside) in order to get a cut they can pay their authors.

So hey, TradPub, stop shilling out the big bucks for an investment you'll never make money on, and stop pillaging the royalties, and maybe you'll at least break even, maybe keep your head above water. What do you say?


4) NO AGENDAS
Work with us, people

Sigh. Another good reason to leave New York City is to escape the prejudices of the city. Let's face it, the disdain for "flyover country" you see in Manhattan isn't good for selling books anywhere between the coasts of America. And moving into ... anywhere between California and New York would screen out a lot of the employees who couldn't dare think about living anywhere else. Heck, even a move to Long Island would be better. Queens. Staten Island. Pick something. (Trust me, everything that Manhattan thinks about "flyover country," they think about the "outer boroughs.")

In short: stop with political agendas. Or, heck, be open to other lines of political thought. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a right-winger to get into TradPub. Nick Cole told us that story on my radio show, and he wasn't even that big into politics. Two of the bigger right-leaning authors I can think of started in small press (Tom Clancy, Annapolis University Press) and self publishing (Vince Flynn), or politically neutral (Brad Thor didn't start by being overly political. His first villains were the Swiss). Jason Matthews is politically neutral, mostly because he dislikes politicians in general.

Last time I checked, Baen works with everyone, and they're doing fine. You want the commie Eric Flint? The ... I don't even know what Michael Z Williamson is. Let's call him Libertarian. Ringo and Zahn, who are at least right-ish. I don't even know what David Drake is. Left winger Ryk Spoor.



These are things I've come with off the top of my head. At random. In no particular order. I'm sure this list is only a fraction of what Barnes and Noble and TradPub could do. But the ship is sinking, and there aren't enough coffee shops in the world to stuff into their stores to make Barnes and Noble ultimately profitable in the long run. I used to have four Barnes and Noble within easy drive of my home. I now have two.

TradPub needs to shape up, and thus save Barnes and Noble. Because the two of them are in a symbiotic relationship, and when one dies, the other will either have to adapt overnight, or die right alongside the first... and what we've seen of both of them shows that they won't.

TradPub will not leave Manhattan because they've become a bunch of elitists who wouldn't move to Queens, to heck with Ohio.

TradPub won't change the technology because that would require doing Something Different. The horror.

Much the same with advances and royalties. Like the politicians they vote for, they think that pumping out crap and slapping a higher price on it will somehow result in the same number of people buying the higher price, and thus result in higher revenue. Nope. Higher prices means that we're not going to buy the book, Ciao.

And TradPub going politically neutral? BWHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA

No.

And since TradPub won't change, Barnes and Nobles can't change. Everything TradPub does to jack up their prices only causes Barnes and Nobles to suffer. When the host dies, so does the symbiote.


Support indie books, buy a set of the Pius Trilogy today. It's something to read by the firelight of watching TradPub burn.

Taxes for Writers Part 2, by Kal Spriggs

I told you there would be a part two. You might want to look at yesterday's post just to keep up.

~DF

In my last bit on taxes, I went into what I've learned as far as tax deductions. Now comes the less fun parts.

Writers, God(s) help us, are considered self employed. This has a number of effects upon the money we earn and the taxes we have to pay. As far as the US tax system and the IRS, being self employed puts most of the burden upon the writer.

There's three types of tax that all US Citizens pay. There's Social Security, Medicare, and then income tax. Normally, you only have to pay a net 7.65 percent of your income to social security and medicare. The problem is, your employer is paying the other 7.65 percent. As a writer, your employer is you (regardless of whether you publish with a big company or not, they push the onus of paying that to you), so you have to pay all 15.3% as the self employment tax. Now then there is income tax on top of this. What's nice about being a writer is that your deductions come from both areas, because your income is what is left over from your earnings after your expenses. In case you didn't notice, right off the bat you're in around a 30% tax bracket. This is pretty painful if you're writing with no other income. It is especially painful when you are supposed to pay your taxes quarterly, or face fines from the IRS, and you may not receive your royalties until months after the quarter (trust me, it's happening to me now, it hurts, I'm paying taxes on income I still haven't received, which comes from my savings...) Bringing those taxes down a bit you have the things I listed in the previous tax article, which is why keeping track of all that is essential to making sure you keep a little bit of that hard earned money.

Your royalties from book sales are income, much like a contractor. That's how you should report it and that's how you should take deductions. You report your income from 1099-MISC's, which acts much like your W2 from a normal job. The exception, as stated above, is that you have to pay the full self-employment tax rate.

One caution: most publishers and publishing platforms don't do automatic withholding. So you'll need to balance your income between your normal job and writing. The last thing you want at the end of the year is to file your taxes and learn that you owe more money to the IRS. (It sucks). On the other hand, you want to avoid paying too much early on, so monitoring your sales and adjusting your payment to the IRS throughout the year is the best tactic.

This is important because if you are a professional author, this is your income. You've probably spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of hours writing, honing, and perfecting your craft. You've earned that income, you can't avoid paying the taxes on it, but you can make sure that you only pay as much as necessary.

To make things more complicated, if you are buying covers or other services (Audiobook narration or editing, for instance) of over $500/year to a single person you have to file a 1099-MISC for that person's income... and they have to pay taxes on it. Filing a 1099-MISC isn't hard, you can get the form from the IRS and do it yourself or you can use Turbo-Tax's 1099-MISC form. To make matters slightly more complicated, you only do a 1099-MISC when paying in cash or check. When you do a payment through a bank or a platform like PayPal, you have to do a 1099-K, because the bank tracks and reports the payment to the IRS. The annoying part is that you need the person's Social Security Number in order to report it.

The good news is that since these payments are business expenditures, you get to deduct them from your income. If you aren't otherwise tracking your earnings and budget throughout the year, you can quickly see if some things are paying for themselves. If, for instance, you spent $3000 for audiobook narration, $500 on a cover, and another $1000 on professional editing but only earned out $2000 from your book sales, you might want to reevaluate your expenditures.

One other thing. Because writing is a business, I highly recommend setting up a separate "writing" checking (and possibly savings) account for this. Not only does it show to the IRS your intent of making this work, but it also makes it far easier to track your payments and income as well as your expenses. Not only should you keep your receipts and document your expenses, but you should also monitor your income from book sales, track how your books trend up (or down). These things will help you as a professional, especially as you learn what works and what doesn't.

As a disclaimer, I am not a tax professional, I'm heavily reliant upon the things I've learned from writing conferences (where they have tax panels) as well as using programs like TurboTax and even going to some tax professionals. Also, this is just an overview, more to get you thinking in the right direction than anything else.

Here's some other links you may find helpful

Taxes for Writers

Tax Advice for Writers

Help me require Kal's tax advice by buying -- or reviewing -- the Love at First Bite series.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

... Is probably the F train.

I'm only five Sundays away from taking a long, well-deserved nap.

Follow me around the calendar please.

This Tuesday, I will be trying for a Book bomb of Set to Kill.

The reviews are respectable enough, bagging me a 4.9 thus far on Amazon.

Yeah. I'll take it. It's not bad considering that the first book took forever to get even a handful of reviews.


January, the 15th: the podcast as a round table with Jagi, Josh Young, and a few other people, who I don't know about yet.

January 22nd: The podcast is currently empty right now. I may be able to just relax and prerecord a monologue or something.

January 29: I have Brian Niemeier on the show to join me in the second hour as part of MY BOOK LAUNCH PARTY for Live and Let Bite. Okay, I'm doing the launch party in the first hour, and Brian comes on after. Because I can only listen to myself talk for only so long before I want to shut off the volume. Brian will save me from myself. Then I'll continue the book launch party on Facebook.

January 30th: the book comes out.

February 1-12. Promotion

February 12: A Valentine's Day post with Dawn Witzke.

And then, dear reader .... I take a nap.

A long nap.

Because I've been locked into PR mode since October, when Sad Puppies Bite Back came out.

I.

Hate.

Promotion.

For the most part, I've been working 16-hour days. Rewriting two volumes of an epic space opera. Then doing a proper release for Live and Let Bite. Then getting ready to PR it.

Then, I'm going to give up. I'm not even going to do the radio show. Matt Bowman, Jagi Wright, and perhaps a third person will take over.

The blog may not shut down, but I may post more mustic blog. Or just fewer blog.

I'm going to bed now.

Anyway, if you liked what you read and want to click on a book, try one of the below

And if you've read these, a review would be nice. Thanks.

 

Kindle Bites Sad Puppies Back

Yes, that was the most awkward title I've ever constructed. I think I went a bridge too far, then blew it up.

Anyway, Sad Puppies Bite Back released this week. The sales are a pleasant surprise.

However, something happened this time that is new in my experience: Kindle didn't like me.

If you've already purchased it, then you might have seen some bits and pieces and problems crop up. There are duplicated words, even duplicated paragraphs, artifacts within the text, including random formatting issues. Most of these problems came from nowhere. I hadn't seen them in the publisher preview, nor were they in the document I used.

It's bizarre.

Now, I've heard multiple suggestions on what might have happened, from hackers to puppy kickers, to "Kindle does that." I suppose that after a dozen Kindle books released, having ONE that goes screwy isn't that bad.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I scrubbed the document, cleared the formatting and reset it, replaced all of the spaces (yes, the spaces, don't ask), and I did everything but change the punctuation. I have one person who will not like how the apostrophes look. But I'm not changing them this week.

By the way, if you're worried about the Kindle edition, I'm double checking the print copy, making certain that's clear, and move along.

Now, I've gotten one or two complaints about SPBB.  Why? Well, I had someone tell me that it made Vox look like a Sad Puppy, not a Rabid Puppy.  Which is odd, considering he's unleashing an elder god on WorldCon, and the Sad crowd drive it off, to the cry of "Next time, Sad Puppies! Next tttttiiiiiiiiimmmmeeee!!!!!!" Honestly, I gave him lines from Doctor Klaw. Do I have to make him Satan?

No matter. I suspect there are people on the Puppy Kicker side who would think that Vox as Satan is actually too NICE.

Also this week was a pleasant surprise. Peter Grant, who I SWATted, advertised SPBB on his blog.

I did not see that coming. At all.

Keep in mind, I've never met Mister Grant. I saw him once at a panel at LibertyCon ... a panel that had really comfy chairs, and I fell asleep.

So, this has been a strange week.

But, SPBB is up, it's live, and the Kindle should be cleared up and ready to read. The paperback edition is being processed to make certain that it is as perfect as I can make it. And all is right in the world. For now.

And in other news? Surprisingly enough, no one has complained about SPBB. So, win.

So, apologies to those people who got SPBB and had problems with it. They should be fixed. And if you haven't bought it yet, it should be good to go already. Enjoy.

#SadPuppies Bite Back and Pricing

Yes, I know I announced this in the past blog, but I spent half that blog justifying that I was going to publish it at all. So, I figure my duty now is to,

1) explain what the Hell Sad Puppies Bite Back is, for those of you who don't know, and

2) probably explain the pricing.

Sad Puppies Bite Back was one of my fever dream moments, only this one was successful. It was one of those ideas where I didn't know exactly where the ideas came from, or what the hell I was thinking, or even why it happened in in the first place? It's sort of like how I wrote It Was Only on Stun! (if that doesn't explain the book, nothing does).

Anyway, I had been looking at the Sad Puppies, and how they all decided to make fun of how evil they had been portrayed. You know, they're all evil racists and sexists, even though two are Portuguese, three are women, one's married to an Afro-American woman ... you know, what evil racist sexists do. That's why, if you look down the Sad Puppy backers, you have "Sarah Hoyt, Evil Yet Beautiful Space Princess" (Yes, as a proper name), Larry Correia has adopted the moniker as the International Lord of Hate. Etc.

So, adopting names for themselves made fun of themselves, as well as the ones who have deemed them evil.

To be honest, I have no idea how many were self-named, and how many just sort of ... happened (or how many originated with John C. Wright having fun with it all). For some reason, ever since I heard about the death threats on the Puppies, I wondered when Larry Correia or Brad would be SWATted.

All I could think of was, well, what would happen?

For those people who are not familiar with the concept of SWATting, it's the practice where someone calls 911, insisting that the target has a gun, is violent and actively threatening to shoot people, in the hopes that the SWAT team knocks down someone's door and possibly gets them killed. Fun, huh? This has been a tactic that's come up in the last year. I was going to call this SWATing Sad Puppies originally, but I can't see that title going over well.

This thing became so popular, I needed to put together its own tab on the blog. Seriously, look at the top of the page. Literally, this was something that started out as a throwaway blog, and became OVER FIFTEEN PARTS LONG.

Yes. Insane.

[For those people who have no idea what Sad Puppies is, there are two versions.  One is on the blog here, filled with snark and sarcasm, etc.  If you want something more balanced and sane, click here.]

It started out as a bit of insanity that just spiraled. Sort of like how the rest of my writing career started.

If you want samples, links to the samples are in the Sad Puppies tab above. Yes, for those of you who wanted this published, you have your wish, but I'm also not going to leave free samples.

For those of you who are wondering, YES, THERE IS NEW CONTENT. THERE IS AT LEAST ONE NEW SWATTING. I say at least because I honestly don't remember right now... it's late and I'm tired. There's also a reorder for chronology, edits for continuity and new events, introductions to establish context. There is also a SWATting of Brian Niemeier, as well as an epilogue for the David Truesdale incident.

Anyway, Sad Puppies Bite Back is available on Amazon as a paperback and as a Kindle copy. Enjoy.

Now, it's also short-ish, and costs $4.99 as a Kindle, and $9.99 as a paperback. It's expensive for a Kindle, and Cheap for a paperback.

The Kindle price is ... not my idea. It was suggested by Kindle Direct Publishing. I have no idea why. They suggested my thrillers be $2.99, but a parody satire should be $4.99. I have no flipping idea why. I will not complain -- for the moment -- because it gets me $3.46 a copy. I usually get $2 for Kindle. At best.

On the other hand, the $9.99 price on the trade paperback is cheap because: 1) it has fewer pages, 2) this price point gets me ... $3.34 from Amazon.com. Which is less than what I usually make per paperback novel, but I wouldn't make it $15, and making it $11 and change just so I make an extra buck would be awkward. Not to mention stupid.

So, if you wonder what the heck I'm doing? I'm following advice from Amazon about how to price Amazon books. Otherwise, I'm just winging it. Which is standard operating procedure around her.

Anyway, enjoy the book. 

COMING SOON: For All their Wars are Merry

I know I had suggested it would be this Sunday that would feature it, but it's more likely that next Sunday (I hope) will have "For All Their Wars Are Merry: An Examination of Irish Rebel Songs" coming to Amazon.com in Kindle and Paperback.

I'm actually rather proud of this one. Most of the legwork was done over the course of years, before I even started doing the actual paper. Why? Because, well, as I've mentioned before, I have had occasion to go to the Great Irish Fair on Coney Island. And I've had occasion to pick up a CD or two.

And maybe, just maybe, you could conclude from my name that I'm a wee bit Irish somewhere in there, can't ye?

Ahem.

Anyway, as I pointed out last week, there are some entertaining songs along the way, and I think you'll at least like the appendix if nothing else. And, yes, I do have an appendix filled to the brim with songs. Why? Because context helps, I think.

Again, this sudden shift to nonfiction has been brought on by my impatience. You might remember me saying that Castalia House will be getting back to me in about, perhaps, a month, now that Vox Day gave my submissions priority. What that actually translates to in terms of speed is anyone's guess. I submitted four books. I don't know if they're going to be rejected as a package deal, or individually. Then again, as Honor at Stake is already published, and the most likely project to be rejected, you would have think I would have heard about that one first. Perhaps they're looking over all of the Love at First Bite novels just to see if they want the whole set or not. Which would make sense.

But, yeah, I am seriously unable to just sit still and do nothing while I wait for Castalia House.

And yes, I say "Nothing," even though I'm going to be doing the King Arthur anthology, I did Pius History this week, I'm doing For All Their Wars Are Merry this week, I'm working with someone on making a proposal on Snarky Theology 101, on the 21st (maybe the 28th), I'm going to rerelease The Complete Pius Trilogy as .... The Complete Pius Trilogy on Kindle for $9.99.  Yes, that's probably something I should have done two years ago, but ... yeah. That'll happen.

So, yeah, I'm working like a maniac because I am anxious as hell, waiting for everything to happen.

But this is my month of history and nonfiction.

And if you have no idea what I'm going to be doing for For All Their Wars are Merry, there's a bit of a hint here.

If you don't understand what's going on in the song ... that's the point of For All Their Wars are Merry. I fell into this for so long, I couldn't help but footnote Kirkpatrick, Black, and Gilmore.

And if you can't understand the lyrics as sung here ... that's what the appendix is for.

But yeah, I wound up going through the history in the songs, the types of songs, historical allusions in the songs, and everything but the exact history of the songs by time period ... and that last, I probably would have done in a PhD dissertation expansion on that, but I felt that would have been nitpicking at that point. And require more music than actual history.

But, yeah, I first pounded out For All Their Wars are Merry in January of 2004, over the course of three weeks. It was then refined and retooled over the course of several months, before culminating in an actual thesis.

We don't even go into the alternate songs I used for compare and contrast -- the songs of the mafia. Yes, you didn't think that the IRA were the only people who sold these songs, do you?

And, yes, for those people who are about to say that Islamofascist terrorists have songs too ... I can find Mafia and IRA songs on Amazon. I couldn't find Songs of the PLO or Hamas ... and if someone wants to correct me, please just post ONE link. And please, if you're going to correct me, make sure that someone else hasn't already.

Anyway, if you haven't already, you might want to pick up Honor at Stake. 

Preferably before the sequel comes out.

Castalia House Update

For those of you who remember, on May 6, Set to Kill was sent to Castalia House to be published by the Supreme Dark Lord Vox Day.

As the Injustice Gamer told me, what had been a one month turnaround was been retasked for a three month turnaround.

As of this Saturday, three months will have passed.

Normal people would assume that's a rejection, right? I have, of course, already planned for a rejection. That's why I already have a cover. I've offered some Advanced Review Copies to certain parties who will remain unnamed.

Heck, I even started planning for rejection on the Love at First Bite series, which I submitted in June.

.... And then I got a letter from Vox Day.

See, since I'm a neurotic bugger who likes to cover all of my bases, I sent two emails asking for confirmation that they at least got the submissions (I had also sent my Love at First Bite series a month after Set to Kill).

With the first one, I didn't hear back. This wouldn't be news. Name me a publisher that acknowledges every random writer who sends in a request for "Hi, have you read my book yet?"  Unheard of. Imagine Tor doing that. Or Baen.

And I figured, with the deadline approaching, it was game over. I said as much in my Facebook group.

One member of said group is L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright. At her behest, I send the second letter in on the 27th.

Hello. This is my second attempt to at least conform that Castalia House at least received the submission "Set to Kill", if not "Honor at Stake," "Murphy's Law of Vampires," and "Live and Let Bite." Madam Wright suggested I contact you to confirm the receipt of these submissions. 

Thank you. 

Nothing. Dead silence.

Then, on Saturday the 30th, I got

Hello,

We do not have these and can confirm we never received them. 

Thank you,

Vox

Blink.

Well, that's something you don't see every day. The owner and editor in chief sending in a letter, personally, to some random schlub who asked how the submission was going.

I thanked him very kindly, and went on to prepare to self publish everything. Waiting another 3 months was not something I looked forward to.

It was suggested by a few people that I ask if something to be done about this. Give Castalia another shot at it.

All I could think is Really? There are no publishing houses with a backlog (ie: most of them) that is going to expedite the books for some random idiot online. Vox was on the radio show for a few minutes, literally before he went to bed, and he cited my blog once, so .... Not going to happen.

Yes, as much as it pains me to say it, I'm just not that big a deal within the Sad Puppies world, and I don't think I exist in the Rabid Puppies world ... if I do exist, someone please tell me.

Anyway, in the spirit of "You don't ask, you don't get," I sent a reply letter at 10:30 am EST.

Mr. Day,

I am going to presume that there is no way to expidite the three month turnaround process that you have described on your blog.

Is there a way to figure out what the glitch was that prevented the books from bring submitted back in May?

And notice, I misspelled expedite. I blame my smartphone. Which is less than brilliant, obviously.

And, notice, I didn't even ask about actually doing anything. I just figured there would be nothing to do. But it was a way to continue the conversation because, well, I really wanted to know what the bleep went wrong her. Is it because I used AOL?  Can't be that, he got the second submission confirmation letter. Did I go to spam? Something went wrong somewhere.

Also note that I'm not saying that Castalia House screwed up. I'm not blaming them for anything. At all. These. Things. HAPPEN. Period. End sentence.

Two hours later, I got another reply.

Send it in again and I'll send it directly to the submissions editor with instructions for priority review.

May I say, I did not see that one coming. The neurons come to a dead stop and ponder exactly what just happened. Seriously, did the editor in chief personally arrange to have my books fast-tracked? Who does that?

Vox Day, apparently.

Keep in mind, I did not expect anything to come of the exchange aside from confirming that I was just out of luck. The SOP of most businesses state that, well, rules are rules, and if something happens, well, what can you do.

Then there was this. Huh.

Obviously, I took him up on his offer. Why? Because when the editor of a publishing house makes you an offer like that, you say YES.

Now, what does fast track mean? Perhaps it means that it takes one or two months instead of three (keep in mind, I did just drop four books on these people).

Keep in mind, they are well within their rights to tell me to toss everything from Honor at Stake onward. Remember, not only was Honor self published, it was published by another company first. Normally, that would make it doubly tainted in the publishing industry -- it would also taint publishing any sequel.

Obviously, I can't really tell which way Castalia House can jump though.

But, to be fair, the whole set of books could be rejected tomorrow, and they would be perfectly within their rights to.

So, what does the publishing schedule look like then? Well, that depends.

Obviously, I can make no plans if they like Set to Kill. If they do, then I ask them about Sad Puppies Bite Back and see if they want to run the risk of publishing it whole and entire, or if they'd want to modify it to be Tearful Puppies Bite Back, as I discussed in June.

If they like everything I sent them...my next of kin can figure out what to do next, because I'll drop dead from shock.

On the other hand....

Assuming that "priority review" shaves a month or two off the submission. Let's say I get a rejection by the end of August. I can click the button, and publish at least two out of three books. I may stagger them out a few weeks, just in case. Either way, a rejection at this stage will not impact my books that badly.

By the way, for those of you who wonder why I have almost never commented about Vox, or anything he said, or what he's like, it's because my major impression about him has been set by his book The Irrational Atheist, which, frankly, is one of the better books I've ever read on countering the anti-theist crowd. I keep it on the shelf with Dan Dennett and Chris Hitchens, and see if they explode like matter / anti-matter.

And, obviously, I have no ability to predict what he's going to do.

Anyway, I'm going to start killing time by releasing a nonfiction work. And more on that next week.

A hint? Okay. Have I ever mentioned how I did work on songs of the IRA in college?

Heh heh heh.

LibertyCon Ahoy, Castalia House Updates, Dragons

So, I'm off to LibertyCon. By the time this posts, I will either be on the plane, or getting on the plane, or something like that. Depends on whether or not the airplane decides to screw around with me or not.

While I'm away, please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. By the time I get back, there will only be two weeks remaining. Clear here to nominate, or click here for my suggested nominees. I will be banging the drum on this from now until the 25th. If you're not there yet, get your bloody act together.

Also, according to Vox Day's blog, Castalia House now has a three month turnaround policy. I submitted Set to Kill in May, so expect word on it by the end of July. Perhaps the start of August.

Right now, I'm armed with 70 pounds of books, and a suitcase to carry them all around in.  Right now, my deepest desire is to break even on all of this.

Be well, all. With luck, the plane won't crash.

And if it does ... well, you'll figure it out soon enough.

Awaiting the Castalia House Axe

As you recall, I've submitted Set To Kill, sequel to It was Only on Stun!, to Castalia House, owned by the dread and Supreme Dark Lord himself, Vox Day.

Castalia House guarantees a one-month response time on submissions. I presume they mean 30 business days. Why? Because if we go by strictly a month, then technically, they're two days late, but I'm not going to hold them to it. After all, a one month turnaround is borderline miraculous in the publishing industry. Unless you have speed reading as a superpower.

But in any event, I prefer my rejections quick and to the point.

Yes, I presume that there will be a rejection. Sure, more people voted for me in Sad Puppies 4 than anyone short of John C Wright, but it's not like that translates into "good enough for Castalia." Lord knows that no reasonable publisher wants my stuff. Heck, I'm happy I even had 25 fans willing to burn votes on me in SP4.

But I'm not John C. Wright. I'm not Tom Kratman. Heck, I'm not even Larry Correia or John Ringo. Lord knows that Baen hasn't wanted any of my stuff. I know, I asked. Also, they have an 18 month turnaround time on submissions, and I am so very tired of having to wait. After all, sharks move forward, or die. I either move forward, or work myself into a breakdown because I'm trying to produce more and faster, or pace around the place, because that, of course, will make things happen faster, right?

Obviously not, but if I dwell too much on what happens next, I go crazy.

In short, I prefer not having a breakdown, thank you.

Besides, if you keep moving, they can't get you.

Can you tell that I'm a little tightly wound? You know, sort of like a cheap watch. Don't worry, I'll live. Though if Castalia takes me, I might die from shock.

Pardon me, I have to get Set to Kill ready to launch, just in case. And one or two other projects.

Honor at Stake returns from the grave

So, item 1) remember how I mentioned that I had to do something with Honor at Stake, since the publisher gave me the rights back?  Yeah.

I got them back.

I went out to Mount Olivet cemetary -- if you read the book, you know why-- and I took some photos.

Which Dawn Witzke turned into this ....

From this.




And of course, we had to work with a PDF file with errors in them ... which meant we had to convert it into a document, input the corrections, send it to PDF, then upload....

Which of course became idiotic, so I inputted corrections, formatted it as a document, and made it PDF ....

Which may or may not be published as a paperback by the time this blog releases.

But for now, here's Kindle. Enjoy.

Also this week, I visited Geek Gab.




We had fun with cow products. Heh.

Anyway, I'm going to see if I can put the finishing touches on getting Honor at Stake up and running, and keeping all of the reviews, and we'll be off.

Honor At Stake, the Book that will not Die

Honor At Stake was pulled from Amazon this week. But don't worry, it's going to come back.

To start with, My work with Damnation / Eternal, / Caliburn press is done. That's it. Game over. Why? In part, I don't know. It was a bit of an accident.

I did ask to have my books back. I was expecting at least a conversation. I would have said that they might want to keep Honor at Stake, perhaps the Matthew Kovach novel Summer Death Camp, and we'd work on it from there.

But, nope. I asked, they removed everything from the servers, and gone so fast, it made my head spin.

And, of course, I couldn't even get my original file. So the ARC PDF had to be made into a document, the corrections had to be re-imputed, everything with Damnation / Caliburn had to be ripped out, then turned back into a PDF.

So, yeah, this has been fun.

For the record, the upcoming schedule looks like this.

Sometime in the next 24 hours, I will be submitting the entire Love at First Bite series thus far to Castalia House.  Yes, surprise, I finally have a name to the series. It's only been on my computer for 10 years, and published for 9 months. But whatever, right?

Anyway. Why am I dropping everything on Castalia House? Because I hadn't thought that I might make it anywhere with this series. And now that I have, I might actually like someone like a publisher to help me out with it.  But, I'm not waiting for them. Why? Because, simply put, Honor At Stake has already been picked up by one publishing company. It's been published. It's out there. If Castalia has a problem with it being published already, nothing will change that -- including self publishing it via Createspace.

Also, I'm assuming rejection. Why? Because if I plan for ONLY success, Murphy's law dictates that it's going to screw me over. But, if I have everything ready to go when I'm rejected, then I might have a shot.

Yes, welcome to the inside of my brain. It's dark in there.

Now, Set to Kill, if it's rejected, will be rejected in the next week or so. So as it's coming back to me, Love at First Bite #1-3 will be headed in their direction.  They have a guaranteed one month turn around time on books. So by the time I have Set to Kill up and running with no problems, I should have confirmation that Love at First Bite is rejected, and I'm ready to hit publish on book two.

So, the schedule, barring acceptance by Castalia, looks like this....

Honor At Stake, first week in June.
Tearful Puppies Bite Back and Set to Kill, second or third week in June.
Murphy's Law of Vampires, First or second week in July.
Live and Let Bite, probably September.or so.

Obviously, there are a number of factors that go along with this. Castalia, is, of course, the big factor here. if they decide they want the books, it may take months for them to be available.

So if you want them fast, hope Castalia doesn't want them. If you want them done well, you're probably going to have to wait.

Another thing to worry about is the art. The cover art for Honor at Stake is being put together over a series of days. I spent all day yesterday taking photos at Mount Olivet cemetery in Maspeth, just to get something that could be used for the cover.

So yeah, this is going to be fun. The art can be done in record time, but that depends on if my artist has other things to do. Unlike me, she has a life. I just have my books.

Yup. I'm Pathetic. I just have my novels. Oh well.

Look at it this way, next year, I'll at least have three novels to be considered next year for Sad Puppies. Perhaps even Rabid Puppies, if Castalia likes me.

Who knows? Though at this minute, who cares? I need a nap.  Sorry to cut this one short, but damn, I'm tired.

Be well, all, and God bless.

HONOR AT STAKE, COMING SEPT 1

Yup, that's the announcement. My vampire novel, Honor At Stake,  is coming out on September first of this year.  And I'm doing another announcement on The Catholic Geek this Sunday, but whatever.

If you don't remember this book, I don't blame you. I haven't talked about it all that often. It's the vampire novel with Catholic philosophy and metaphysics, jammed together with every traditional myth about vampires, for an interesting little mash-up.

Oh,  here's one of the better parts of being an author with, of all things, a real publishing house.

I have a to-order cover.

I love that tag line. I really do.  Funny enough, they added the ellipses there, though editorial policy in the editing of the books is to have a small fatwa on them. It works for me.

I'm actually kind of happy that they chose this one.  Because it wasn't number one.  I had put in several.

1: One is a heartless, merciless killer. The other's a vampire.
2: Vampires in New York? They came to the wrong town.
3: Welcome to New York City, where vampires don't sparkle. They burn.
4: There are certain parts of Brooklyn vampires should not invade. 

5: And you thought Brooklyn was only dangerous at night.

They picked #3. That tells you that I have so found the right people.

This is more or less the finished cover. All-in-all, I'm really happy with this.  At a later date, I'll start working on a post that will show you the evolution of this cover, but for now, I'm going to just smile and say "oohh, shiny."

About Honor At Stake.

As a freshman in college, Amanda Colt knows few people, and wants to know fewer still. She enjoys fencing, and prefers to face a challenge every once in a while. She is beautiful, and smart, and possibly the most interesting person on campus … and most people stop after the first adjective.

Then she finds Marco Catalano in her fencing class. He is tall, not unattractive, and he is very, very intense. With a mind like a computer and manners of a medieval knight, he scares most people. Except Amanda.

She lives in a nice apartment in the mid-70s, on Manhattan's Upper East side, and has an impressive array of weapons collected by her family over the past century. 

He lives in a brownstone in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and runs two street gangs. 

They never see each other in daylight. 

They don't want to date each other 

And they both have secrets, for they are both monsters.

As the two of them draw closer, they each have to find the line between how much they can trust each other, and how much they can care for each other. For each one carries a secret that can destroy the other. One is a dark, monstrous fiend who enjoys killing, and the other's a vampire. 

But they must come to grips with their personal drama soon, because a darkness is rising. Bodies are turning up all over New York, and an army of vampires is closing in on all sides. They have only one hope. 

Each other.

Yes, yes, I'm told the opening may be too wordy, and I might be talking about too many little details along the way. 

Oh yes, and Come now, Declan, another dark, dangerous character, isn't Sean Ryan enough?  Sean is a strange, strange man who really enjoys his job, but unless you actively annoy him, he doesn't go out of his way to harm anybody.  He's the sane one.

So, what's next? Does this book cover herald a new era in which the blog shuts down?  Nope.

Announcement: PUBLISHED!!!!

I wrote  A Pius Man in 2004. Thinking I wanted a real job to fall back on, I went for a PhD in history, tinkering with the novel on occasion along the way. At the end of 2006, I discovered that I was screwed on the PhD angle, and my books were my fallback.

Since then, A Pius Man has outlasted two agents, and even the professor who originally inspired it. It brought me a great new friend, and then I lost several.

And, apparently, someone else thinks it's a good book.

It's even been compared to The Avengers.

So, after nine years ....

Watch the video. Please. I was up until 4 a.m. making it. I'm going back to bed now. When you're done, please follow the links below.







And, thank you all.  It's been a very, very long road.

Now, let's go out there, and make it a bestseller.


A Pius Man comes in paperback:  http://tinyurl.com/co5b7ry
Or kindle: http://tinyurl.com/ca485zu

Hitting the big leagues -- being interviewed at Fortnight of ... Mustard?

Today, I"m going to be a little bit lazy.  I'm going to let someone else do the work for me.....

Sort of.

I'm actually interviewed over at A Fortnight of Mustard (yes, seriously.) and at Catholic Once Again.

It's always nice to deal with someone who likes my books. :)

Anyway, enjoy the interviews.

Promotions Update: Read the Book for Free

Yes, you can read It Was Only On Stun!, the prequel to A Pius Man, for free....

But you don't think it's that easy, do you?  Of course not.

Let's talk talk promos.

As I've mentioned previously, Amazon.com allows me five promo days for people to read my book whenever and wherever they like.

But only as long as it's on a Kindle.

So, I've expanded the dates.  Anyone can read my novel, It Was Only On Stun!, from September 2-6.

Why those dates?  Because I'm going to be dropping these fliers all over the place at DragonCon (okay, it's slight hyperbole; I'll be dropping a ton of these fliers on the tables with all the other promotions).  I don't see anyone stopping their fun at DragonCon to read my book. However, I can see them downloading a free book so they can read it on the plane ride home.

And if you don't like the flier, this is only a first draft. I've been a little busy lately.

Twelve days to DragonCon.

Pricing, royalties, and "It Was Only On Stun!"

Before I begin, I should probably mention: Declan Finn has an Amazon.com author page. And two five star reviews.  Go me. :)

So, now that I've published the book, the one question I've gotten has been: "So, how much money do you make from this?" Alternately phrased as "What way of selling makes the most money for you?"

Well, that's a funny story.

First of all, you may have noticed my above links. I have different tabs for different pages -- in particular, Amazon.com and Createspace. Why is that? Here's the reason.

My book is $14.95. No matter where you see it, it's $14.95. In Great Britain, it's £9.55 ... which is $14.95, as of this writing. In Europe, €11.88. How much of that do I get? Depends on where people buy it.

If people buy an Amazon.com paperback, I get $5.22. If people buy it on Kindle (at the price of $9.99), I get between $3 and $7 (it's a long story, I either get 30% or 70%, depending on multiple factors). The same goes for the equivalent exchange rate in the UK and Europe.

If people buy at my original publishing website, Createspace, I make more money ... a whole $8.21 per book. It doesn't seem very impressive, but trust me, when you start selling a few dozen copies, that extra three dollars adds up quickly.

And here comes the reason why the publishing companies are in trouble, comparatively -- I am allowed "Expanded Distribution," which means my books are available at brick and mortar locations, such as bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, other online retailers, that sort of thing.

However, that way, I only make $2.23. Why? Think about it -- there are logistics involved, transportation fees, the inherent risks of not selling every last copy that a brick and mortar bookstore buys, making up for the money lost in the books that didn't sell, that sort of thing.

And people wonder why some authors, like Barry Eisler and Terry Goodkind, have gone to publishing on Kindle. Keep in mind, they have name recognition and they are their own franchise. I just have friends, family, and you, gentle readers.

In short, in an ideal world, to make close to six figures, I would need to sell 10,000 copies via Createspace, 20,000 copies via Amazon.com, or 50,000 copies at brick and mortar bookstores.

As of this date, I've sold 18 books, and made $120. I don't think I've been this happy in a long time. No, it's not much, but I worked for every last penny.

In my quest to be published, I have worked within the system, and relied upon the people in it in order to reach the end goal. Through no fault of their own, these people could not get me published. And, because of that, I have been reluctant to rely on anyone besides myself and God Himself.

As the old Bill Cosby routine with Noah's Ark concludes, "It's just you and me, Lord."

Well, now I'm relying on myself, and God, and you, dear reader. Enjoy.

Forget Sparta. I! AM! PUBLISHED!!!!!

I waited three hundred posts just so I can use that headline. Really....

...

Okay. No, not really. It just turned out that way.

But it's true. I'm published.  It Was Only On Stun! is available on Amazon.com.  Buy it here, now.  And you can also buy a kindle copy, right here. And a schedule for a virtual book tour, and maybe even a real life book tour, will be forthcoming .....

But I'm going to take a moment here.

I'm not sure you know what this means to me.

It's been fourteen years.

Two million words. Dozens of rewrites. Entire novels spiked. Two agents. A dead economy, "the end of publishing," and every negative thing about the business of publishing you've ever read in The New York Times.

There have been bridges burned with people whom I have deeply loved. There are people that I owe this to who are no longer talking to me. People who cared just enough to encourage me, but not enough to stay. There have been people I, admittedly, drove away while I was being driven insane by the thorns of this world.

It's been a long road, with a lot of work. I want to thank all of you who stayed around to read what I've had to say.

And, of course, there are specific people who have stuck with me that I need to thank, like: Jason Bieber, Karina Fabian, Kelly Garcia, Ester Lamm, Matthew "Funtime" Pryce, Allan and Annie Yoskowitz, Ann Margaret Lewis, various and sundry people from the Catholic Writer's Organization (Ellen Gable Hrkach, Jacqueline Vickers, Ann Seeton, and, of course, Walter Staples (who can now compare writer's notes with The Great Author). And, of course, there is my family, including my sister Margaret, who helped me with her editing services of Just Write! Ink (on Facebook).

I owe all of you. And I only hope I remembered you all in the acknowledgments. It's all been kind of a blur, so if I missed you, my aim will improve next time around.

Hopefully, you'll like It Was Only On Stun! to a ridiculous degree. You'll want to gift copies to all your friends, and insist that they do the same. Unlikely, but I've been living on hope and Red Bull for so long, I'm shooting for Mars (because the moon is just not ambitious enough). It's also a fairly kick-ass action, mystery, and comedy.

And, if by some chance you don't like it, well, I've got a dozen more books, each with a different flavor and style. The next book will be A Pius Man.  One way or another, it will be published.  Will it be by Amazon.com? Maybe. If that's the case, I'm going to have to find a way to pay Matt for his cover art.

Winston Churchill (everything interesting said in World War II is attributed to him), after the battle of El Alamein, said, "This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end.  This is, pray God, the end of the beginning."

This is my beginning.

Thank God.

And thank you, too.

But, enough sentiment: here's a fun video with epic music, and weapons.




By the way, while this is an aside -- I also have a new website. Enjoy, all.

Cover Art, Graphics, and Slowly Going Blind.

Sorry for not posting on Wednesday, I was busy blinding myself.

No, I'm not kidding.

So, you know that It Was Only On Stun! will be self published. And, I gotta tell you, I didn't particularly like everything that was offered to me, in terms of cover options at the self publishing places I'm looking at -- Amazon.com, and Lulu.com.

So, I decided to try it myself.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "John -- or is it Declan now? -- we've seen your artwork.  Your Vatican ninjas were a bit of a joke. Why do this to yourself again?"

Well, because I'm stubborn, and because this should have been simple.

Let's start with what I showed you already.

Now, this photo on the right is what I originally had up.  There are a few problems with it.  The quality isn't that good when you look at it up close, the blood spatter on the badge isn't that good, and the "Junior" has become unneccessary.

"Junior" by the way, is because my father had his own company called "Declan Finn Associates," a little side gig for resume building and interview preparation.  Anyway, that's where the Junior came from.

Then my father said I could drop the Junior.

Did I mention that I love him dearly?

Anyway, so there was that.

So, what's the next step, you ask?  Well, there had been an option on Amazon.com that gave you a banner-type display for your title and author name.  It looked kind of nice, actually. Also, someone suggested that they liked one of the earlier "flair button" image that said, "Good Morning, I see the Assassins have failed."

And, so, I started to build that with the Amazon cover generator.

Unfortunately, it didn't want to work for me.  The image I had was always getting cut off from the cover layout that Amazon had. It was a pain in the ass.

So, I built that myself.  While it looks nice, can you see the problem?

It now looks like I have two titles to the book.

Oh joy.  Shoot me now.

So, once again, back to the drawing board.

I knew I had to go back to the original thoughts on the matter. I knew the assassins comment had to go. The blood covered badge seemed to offend no one, and it's part of the convention, called C-Con in the book.

So, that's good, right? Perfect?  I copied a "Hello, my name is" badge from offline, then slapped it on, morphing it a little, and presto, done.

Not quite.  You see, Amazon's cover creator requires 300 pixels per inch. I had 96 PPI.

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Ahem.  Anyway.  So, back to the drawing board.

So, I had to go back to the beginning on the badge.  The image I had stolen from online hadn't been that high definition to start with, and I didn't like the blood spatter.

I made my own badge, from scratch, and tinkered with some blood spatter online. I had to adjust it later, in the image itself later on, but aside from that, it seemed to work.

After that, it was easy.  Start with red background.  Add black circle, white letters, past the badge over it, and we're done.

Then what do we do with the author name?  Simple white lettering?  Black on red?  Orange on red?  Seriously, what would make it easily distinguished from everything else? What would be bright enough to leap out and grab someone's attention if this were on a screen, or a bookshelf?

Enter Clive Cussler.  He's been an author I've read since I was a kid.  His Dirk Pitt novels were very much straightforward adventure stories, and he's been a bestselling author since, well, forever.  I remember he once mentioned how he was in advertising and insisted on four-color covers, so that it would be eye-catching.

So, I cheated.

Do you see something somewhat similar between the Flood Tide cover, and mine for It Was Only On Stun!  

I literally took the color from the title graphics, and used it to ink my own title.

And then there was the back cover, which I had to jury rig multiple times because I had to put text in with margins I couldn't see, and I had to account for a bar code I didn't have yet.

Not to mention, I hated the lower cases in the author name.

So, then it ended up like this.

And then there was the author picture.  A friend of mine told me I had a great Facebook photo, but it wasn't professional.  So, I had to fix that with freeware called Photofiltre.

So, at the end of the day, what does the full cover look like?

It looks something like this.

So, what do you all think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Leave a comment below, and tell me what your opinion is.

We're getting close, people. Almost there.... We're so close, the next blog entry is number 300. I want to hold off until next week. I hope to have an announcement then.

What announcement? Well, the title I want is "Forget Sparta: I! AM! PUBLIIIIIIISHED!"

Let's see if Amazon can keep up with my ambition.

So, until next week, all.