The Long, Dark Tea Time

[with thanks to Douglas Adams]

From a blogging perspective, I think that's what November is, the long, dark tea time. For one thing, it is so dark. Getting up at 5:30 a.m. is never fun, but it's even worse in the dark times of the year when it's still pitch black an hour later when the rest of the family starts getting up and even still dark at 7:00. No, I'm not having tea, but maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea? I don't really know. Hmm... maybe, I'll have to try morning tea to see if that helps me get through the mornings.

Of course, that doesn't really have anything to do with blogging.

And I don't really like tea.

November is the long dark for blogging because of NaNo. At least, I'm pretty sure it is. If I was NaNoing, I know I wouldn't have any time for any kind of blogging. Or eating. Probably sleeping, too, except for what would happen actually on my keyboard when my head would crash to the table from trying to pound out 1700 words a day. I do know that I saw a dip in blogging activity last November, so I fully expect that to happen again. Still, that may not be all bad. Fewer blogs being posted on will give me more time to do my own writing as opposed to keeping up with blog stuff, so the fact that everyone else is bent furiously over their keyboards may not be a bad thing.

Of course, the drop in page views does make a blogger uncomfortable. You know, other bloggers. That kind of thing doesn't affect me at all. Nope, not me!
heh

Speaking of being in a dark place, Tib finds himself in a dark place with the release of Part 8 of Shadow Spinner. And let me just say, there is no tea involved.

"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark" is available today, Monday, November 5 for FREE! It will also be available Tuesday, November 6 for FREE! As an added bonus, "Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow" will also be available on Monday for FREE! As a double added bonus, I'm throwing in "Part Three: The Bedroom" for FREE! also! Look at that, three FREE! chapters all on the same day. Go check out what kind of long dark Tib has gotten himself stuck in.
And click the "like" button!

Speaking of Tib, you should pop over to ~*~Whatever~*~... today. I'm being featured over there and answering a rather unusual question. Go check it out! The whole thing is something called "pimp my blog"... I'm not really sure if I'm the pimped or the pimper. Is that a thing? Anyway... Click the link and take a read.

Now, this part has nothing to do with the long dark except in how it can seem like such a long dark time when you're first starting out in writing. The struggle to write at all (especially for all of you NaNoers out there), the struggle to find an audience, the struggle to keep going when it feels like no one is listening. The long dark struggle. But, really, this has nothing to do with that. In my effort to highlight older posts from when this blog had virtually no readership, I'm bringing up this old thing: The Dream vs the World. Go check it out. And don't forget, just because it's an old post doesn't mean you can't still comment on it.

One other note:
I have a special project I've been working on. I'm hoping to have it out before the end of the month as it is somewhat seasonal. Okay, it's completely seasonal. Stay tuned for more!

Come Back Monday (This is not (quite) a post)

Yeah, all I'm here to say is come back on Monday. And tell all of your friends to come back on Monday, too. Part Seven of Shadow Spinner will be coming out next week, and it's far enough into the series that I'm sure there are some people not picking up the new parts because they don't have the old parts, so, on Monday, I'll be making parts 1-5 FREE! again. This is a one day thing, so, especially if you don't have one or more of those early parts, make sure you pop in.

Also, I'll be talking about Douglas Adams. You can't lose with Douglas Adams, you know.

Just as a visual reminder, on Monday, you'll have the chance to get

for FREE!
Also

and

and

for FREE!
And, yes, there is a reason I put all of those up there like that. If you can figure out why (the first person to tell me only), I'll let you have one of these

for FREE!
Oh, yeah, there will also be one of these

on Monday for, you guessed it, FREE!

See you all on Monday, and, remember, bring your friends!

Have Some Milk with Your Serial

Today is the release of part 4 of Shadow Spinner

"Part Four: The Cop" is available for the Kindle for FREE! Monday, Sept. 10 -11! Go get it now for FREE! Also, just to be nice, "Part Three: The Bedroom" will also be FREE! Monday only. Go grab them now and, remember, click the "like" button and come back later and leave a review. It would be a great help! Thanks!

And, now, on to other things... sort of...

I started this whole serial release of Shadow Spinner as a bit of an experiment. While I'm not quite ready to reveal the details of said experiment (I still need a few more releases to figure out what I'm seeing as results), I will give you some background on the whole serial thing and part of what lead up to my decision to do a serial release.

Marketing is my bane. I hate it. It's something I wish I didn't have to spend my time on, because it takes away from time I could be, oh, working on actual writing like on Brother's Keeper, because, yes, now that school has started, I have several kids a week (at least) asking me when it's coming out. Of course, I'm trying to finish Shadow Spinner first (okay, I am going to finish Spinner first), but they don't care so much about that because they just want the sequel to The House on the Corner. Then there's the part where I'm pretty sure I would have finished Spinner already if I didn't have to spend time doing marketing stuff.

All of that to say that one of the things I've seen kind of over and over again in doing marketing research is that serializations are BAD! Bad in the same way that adverbs are BAD, and not you or anyone else should ever ever ever release a novel in a serial format. It made me wonder WHY.

I mean, why not do it? There is a long tradition of authors releasing their novels in a serial format. Charles Dickens did it. He even used it to get audience reaction to his stories so that he could make tweaks to stuff before the book was finally released as a book. Heck, the whole end of Great Expectations changed between the serial release and the final book release. All of Isaac Asimov's early stuff was released serially. The whole Foundation Trilogy (when it was still a trilogy) was released that way as well as all of his early robot stuff (which turned into I, Robot).

Sure, it's not done so much today, but, really, why not do it?

So here's something about me that you might not know... or, maybe, you've managed to figure it out, I don't know. Anyway... Telling me that something is wrong or bad for no other reason than that it is wrong or bad is a pretty good way to get me to try doing it. Or, at least, to take a closer look at it to see why you're saying that. You need to have a good reason for what you're saying is what I'm getting at here. In a like manner, telling me "this is just how it's done" and so you should do it this way, too, is a good way to make me look at other options. Give me reasons not dogma.

[I just have to throw in here that my first, great Magic deck was built because someone said a deck couldn't be built around the Kird Ape. I became feared in tournaments because of that deck. Yeah, I know that's completely off topic: I blame Michael Offutt for bringing up Magic: The Gathering on his blog recently.]

At any rate, that question wouldn't leave me alone, "Why not do serializations?" I couldn't find any good reason not to, so I decided to try it out.

Which brings me to my point:

It appears that Amazon Publishing is setting up some deals for some serializations under a new imprint they're going to be starting up just for that purpose. First, I didn't realize that Amazon had its own publishing imprints, but they do (several, actually, including one for sci-fi), and, now, they want to add a new one just for serialized novels. They're looking at it as the "logical next step" in publishing, evidently, because people like things in smaller bites, and like them in forms that work on  their portable devices.

It looks like I'm not the only one to ignore the whole "don't do serializations" thing. And this is why you should ignore the whole "no adverbs" thing, too. People just like to say NO for no other reason than saying it. And you can't get good reasons as to why not, because they don't have any; they just know that other people said NO, and that's good enough for them.

I don't know how this whole serial release thing is going to work out in the end, but I'm glad, now, that I'm doing it. Not that I wasn't glad before, but, see, I'm not jumping on any bandwagon here. Not that there will be a bandwagon, but, if there is, I was here first!

Just sayin'...

Damn It, Jim...

Today, I am guest posting over on Still Writing...
You should drop by to see what the title of this post is all about.

"Part Three: The Bedroom" is still available for FREE! through the end of today. So far, it has peaked at #37 on the contemporary fantasy list and is currently at #38.
Interestingly enough, "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" made it back up to #73 on that list yesterday while it was also free.

That's all for today. Come back tomorrow for "Guns and Adverbs Part 2."

The Bedroom without the Window

Today is the day for the next Shadow Spinner release!

"Part Three: The Bedroom" will be available as a FREE! download Monday, August 27 and Tuesday, August 28. Don't miss out!
As an added bonus, I'm making "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" FREE! for today only. Pick up your FREE! copies, and, if you need it, go back and pick up "Part One: The Tunnel." Sorry, it's not free this time, but Amazon won't let me get away with it as much as I'd like to. If I could, I'd just make all of these free all the time, but Amazon seems to think that 5 days of FREE! out of every 90 is enough. Unfortunately, these are only for the Kindle, but there is a FREE Kindle app for whatever device you might need it for, so you should be covered.
Also, don't forget about "The Evil That Men Do." It serves as a prequel or a prologue or whatever you want to call it to Shadow Spinner, and it's only $0.99.

"Part Four: The Cop" has a planned FREE! release on September 10.

And I have to say it even though there hasn't been a lot of follow through with this (as in almost none), if you go pick any of these up, please click the "like" button and, then, come back after you've read them and leave a rating and review. It would be a big help. Thanks!

Something funny happened on  the way to the bank...

Okay, so I wasn't really going to the bank. And it's probably not all that funny to anyone but me, but, still... I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I lost part of the title for this week's Shadow Spinner release. Yeah... I'm not sure how that happened. The actual title is "The Bedroom Window," but, when I made the list of titles out for The Amazing Rusty Webb (I think he should change his name to that! It's so pseudo Spider-Man!), I listed part three as simply "The Bedroom," so that's, now, what it is. At least, that's what it is until I release Shadow Spinner as a complete book. Maybe, it will get changed back. I haven't decided yet.

As I mentioned last Friday, The House on the Corner: First Person Edition is a year old! There was also a contest... a contest that didn't really get any responses. Not that there weren't any comments, but no said, "hey, I want a free copy." So even though I said I would announce a winner today, I'll have to think about the whole thing. If anyone wants to make a case, today, as to why you need a free copy, please do that, and I'll add that in to the thought process.

Celebrating One Year!

Wow, I know I'm not always the best at keeping track of time, but I almost let this slip past me. The House on the Corner: First Person Edition is officially one year old today! And I almost forgot. No, I almost didn't even think about it. It's not like I was thinking about it and, then, forgot; I wasn't thinking about it at all, but it got brought to my attention. But, anyway...

There it is... One year of House! Well, sort of, but that's another story. Looking at the cover, I'm inspired to once again thank the amazing Rusty Webb for his work on it. I was seriously at a complete loss as to what I was going to do as far as the cover went before I met Rusty, and I can't thank him enough for the awesome job he did. A job which completely surpassed any and all expectations I ever had.

I'd also like to thank each and every one of you that has taken the time to read my book and, especially, thank those of you that have written a review and/or left a rating for it. Those review things are gold for an author, so I appreciate the time it took you, whether it was 5 minutes or 6 hours, to do that for me.

I thought about running a contest, but, really, I couldn't think of anything that seemed extremely interesting. I mean, contest participation, at least when I've done them, has always been a little less than I could hope for. But, still... one year... so I decided to let the last year be the contest, and, in light of that, I'm awarding Briane Pagel the "Biggest Fan" award. Briane has been, by far, the most supportive (adult) person I know of my book and, actually, of all of my projects. He has relentlessly posted about  them and given them out as prizes in his own contests and all sorts of things. I wish I had a cool little blog stamp or something for that, but I'm no good with those things and didn't think of all of this in time to ask someone else (>cough< Rusty) to do it. Since I don't have a cool blog stamp for you, Briane, I suppose you will have to settle for a signed copy of House. I hope that works for you.

Okay, so, well, I lied. I will have a contest, but the prize won't be as cool as what Briane got. I'll hand out some e-copies of House to one or more people, but you have to earn them. The copy can be for you, or it can be a gift for someone else (as long as the someone else has an email address). All you have to do is tell me, in the comment section, why it is I should give you a copy. Or your friend. Be persuasive. Assuming at least one person leaves a response, I'll give away at least one copy. I might hand out more if I get more than one particularly persuasive comment. The only thing I'd ask is that you leave a review after you read it.
I'll announce winners on Monday.

[EDIT: Okay, Briane says I should offer the signed copy up as a prize (because he doesn't like those stuffy, old "real" books and prefers those that you can't actually hold in your hands), so I will. The 1st winner will have an option between a signed physical copy or an e-copy, if that is preferred. Thanks!]

Thank you all for being around the old blog over the past year and more, for reading this stuff I throw out into... well, whatever this is, and supporting all this stuff I've been working on.
Speaking of which, make sure you come back Monday for the free promotion for "Part Three: The Bedroom"!