Saturday, June 30, 2012

I Hear a Banshee Floating Around

Well, I'm almost ready to load Banshee up for people to download.  I just need to set up a Dropbox account and upload.

Just to recap:  Banshee is the story of Jared Blackroot, son of David Blackroot, a disability-retired Heroe's Guild legend.  Unfortunately, there's bad blood between David and Boyd Pelcrow, father of Darvis Pelcrow, who has been making life in and out of school impossible for Jared.  What Darvis doesn't know, however, is that Jared actually is the "freak" he's been calling him since Jared's family moved to town, and he's not just a one-off weakling -- something Jared has kept secret from everyone except his family, and something he may finally show the world after the last beating Darvis and his toadies gave him.

This story comes with a content advisory -- the violence and language are graphic in places.  Also, a disclaimer is needed:  Much like The Justice Fiend in Subject 12, opinions stated by characters are not my own.  I feel the need to emphasize this as one reader was so turned off by the opening scene that she had to force herself to read the rest and part of it was the sentiments and epithets uttered by one of the characters.

Well, with that out of the way, I want to share my plans for this piece.  I'm going to offer it in epub/mobi/pdf formats for free download with no cover image via Dropbox for an unspecified (but at least the month of July) amount of time.  If I can find a cheap (under $10 -- I got paid $85 this month in royalties) cover I'll throw it on and put it up as a "donation" version on Smashwords for $.99 if I can stand to jump through the hoops I'll need to in order to get it formatted.  Why Smashwords and not Amazon?  Royalties.  The Grand Granger sold 40 copies this month, totaling $17.40 in royalties that I'll see in 2 months.  Smashwords offers a flat 75% royalty plan that means I'd see 2x per sale, even with a delivery charge.

If I can work through my ADD enough to finish the project, Banshee will be at Amazon, however, in an anthology of short stories.  I don't plan on spilling the beans on this one, though, as I don't want to get hopes up in case I run out of steam or interest in the project.  Suffice it to say there will be a direct tie-in to Subject 12.

As soon as I have Banshee converted and uploaded I'll edit this post to include the link and post about it on Twitter as well as in both the Subject 12 and my author's profile discussion forums on Amazon.

As always, feel free to comment or ask any questions here, on Twitter, or on Amazon.  I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Banshee Early Reader Results

I sent the smoothed-out rough draft of Banshee to be read and early feedback is less than positive.  I need to hear from more readers, but what I've heard so far is worse than early reviews of The Grand Granger.  As that was bad enough, this twist is rather discouraging.

Will post more as I know it.  Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Banshee

I finished the rough draft of Banshee tonight about 20 minutes ago.  It currently weighs in at over10,000 words and probably expand by as much as 20% by the time I'm done editing, so referring to this as a "short" story is perhaps an understatement.  Of course, the people I ask for opinions on it may make me cut quite a bit out.  We'll see.

I'm still planning on giving copies away, but I may have to make it a bit more limited in scope than originally planned.  The story grew in the telling until it was far bigger than what I'd set out to write, and I think it's better for it as well.

Details on everything will be posted later, as they're finalized.  The details I can give now are that the story is graphic both in violence and language:  To do otherwise wouldn't reflect the spirit of the Heroes' Guild/Subject 12 universe, and might deceive new readers (if there were any to get their hands on a copy) as to the nature of the beast.

Speaking of the nature of the beast, I'll try to address a few points in future blog entries that have come up in both reviews, conversations I've had with readers, and my own thoughts on the matter.  In the meantime, however, you can probably expect Banshee to be available before the 4th.  I'll let you all know as soon as I'm happy with what I've written and can share it.

Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Two Quick Notes

While I won't go so far as to say I'm cooking along in writing it, I will say that I'm progressing nicely with the short story I'm working on for you guys.  I figure I'm about 2/3 done and I like how the story is growing and going.

The $.99 experiment on Amazon isn't paying off, literally.  Maybe it's too soon after the free promotion to really tell, but while sales are up they're still not paying the difference yet.  I'll give it to the end of the month, though, just to see.

More updates as they come. 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Change in Pricing

I recently changed the price of The Grand Granger to $.99.  On a side note, I wish the cent sign were still in the standard compliment of keystrokes available, but I digress.

The reason for the change was simple -- my contract with Amazon to sell exclusively was up and I was sick of asking so much for something that, however enjoyable, felt overpriced at that price point.  Unfortunately, I also lost my 70% royalty option on it.  What that means is, instead of just over $2/sale, I'm now making 35 cents per sale.

This doesn't seem a like a lot because it isn't.  However, I didn't write The Grand Granger to get rich.  I wrote it for people to enjoy and to gain exposure for my other works.  I can't say it's worked fabulously to garner more attention to Subject 12, but over 300 people have downloaded it and, hopefully, read it.  Let's see if they come back for more.

On another note, free time is at such a premium for me lately that it's stressing me out.  That means (since I write in my free time, currently) I'm not writing as much as I would like.  I'm also keeping two or three projects going at once so I don't get too frustrated or bored, which also impacts my completion rate.

One of those projects will be a short story that will be available for free download.  I'm working on how best to distribute it, but it's still a weeks (at best) from completion. It's set in the Subject 12 universe and is about a teenager named Jared Blackroot.  His father, David, is a disability-retired Guild member who was quite respected before his injuries.  Unfortunately, there's bad blood between David and the father of Darvis Pelcrow, and Darvis has been making life impossible for Jared.  What Darvis doesn't know, however, is that Jared isn't just some one-off super, and Jared has had more than enough -- especially after the last beating Pelcrow and his toadies gave him.

I'll let everyone know when I'm finished.  Once again, thanks for reading!