Putting Novellas In Packages...

At some point in the next few months, I'm going to put out a new novella "Son of Grendel," which is set in the world of my novel Battle for the Wastelands roughly a year or so before the book begins. The cover has already been completed by artist Matt Cowdery, who did the cover for Battle and the upcoming sequel.

However, in order to get 70% royalties on Amazon, one has to charge $2.99 or more per book. That's easy to justify with a full novel, but harder with a shorter work. A 70% royalty on a $2.99 e-book is $2.10 or so, but 35% royalty on a $1.99 e-book is $0.70. That's no way to make money. And if I've got a quality cover and had the formatting done professionally, that's a lot of costs to cover even at a higher royalty before I make a profit.

Consequently, although I'm going to release "Son of Grendel" as a standalone since most of the work has already been done (I just need to do writing group revisions, perhaps add a couple new scenes, and then have it formatted for e-book), future novellas set in the worlds of Battle or The Thing in the Woods will be released in packages of three.

(I've got to give credit to Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, and Chuck Wendig for the concept--they released three novellas in a package called Three Slices.)

Not only can putting three novellas together into something approximately novel-length justify charging a novel-equivalent price, but I can print the book to sell at conventions. That's how I make most of my writing money anyway, so having more to sell is always a plus.

I even have ideas for what the first three-novella package will look like. It'll be entitled Warriors: Three Novellas of the Wastelands or something to that effect and will feature the following stories:

*I'd lead with "Son of Grendel," since it would be the first one published. Falki Grendelsson, heir to the first lord of the Northlands, is sent on a counterinsurgency mission and things don't go according to plan.

*Next comes "Ruled in Rage," which is approximately a fifth written right now. It's Grendel's origin story--how he adopts the name, how he meets his right hand Alexander Matthews, and how he begins to walk the trail of blood that will someday make him the ruler of the known world. Although he's in his teens, we'll see a lot of the traits that mark him in middle age--his cunning, his lechery, etc. The title is an allusion to Beowulf, which is heavily tied into the Wastelands' series overarching plot.

*The third novella is tentatively titled "A Valkyrie Is Born," but that's probably going to change. The Valkyries are part of Norse mythology and thus more associated with Grendel and his Sejeran (Norse) allies, plus the title is a bit on the long side. This is a story of Alyssa Carson, Andrew's love interest from the first book, and her family's...grotesque...encounter with the cannibalistic Flesh-Eating Legion after the fall of the Merrills.

*Alternatively, the third novella could be "A Creature of the Fall." This one takes place over a decade before Battle and will feature Alonzo Merrill in his very early teens and his serious-minded elder brother John. There will be battle with the Flesh-Eaters, a great big hint as to what happened to end the Old World, and perhaps the dirigible bombing of the Flesh-Eater capital that gives their overlord Jasper Clark such a massive grudge against the Merrills.

Given the potential for some of these stories to grow into full novels (most likely to happen with "Ruled"), having different options for the third novella is always a good idea. I could make a package of four--two stories from the villains and two from the heroes--but that'd risk it getting too long. Realistically I'd probably save "Creature" for a future installment, especially since including an Alyssa story would prevent the collection from being a boys' club and I want to foreshadow the reason for the Fall closer to the final book.

Tinkering With Novella Price Points

Last year thanks to my regular listening to The Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast, I became acquainted with Lindsay Buroker, in particular the Kindle Worlds program for her Fallen Empire science fiction universe. I helped codify/solidify some of the background material for the primary series and the next-generation spinoff A Sky Full of Stars and wrote two military-SF novellas set during the rebellion. Those were Ten Davids, Two Goliaths and Discovery and Flight, the latter of which is explicitly tied in with her short story "Remnants." I even put together the TVTropes page.

I was planning on writing more novellas, including a straight-up zombie story (a biological weapon that gets out of control) and a Starseer story inspired by the Star Wars Darth Maul fan film Apprentice. However, Amazon shut down the Kindle Worlds program, even though based on the royalties I was getting it seemed to be doing pretty well. Fortunately Ms. Buroker let me re-publish the novellas via KDP and other KW authors are doing the same.

Of course, as an independent writer, I'm responsible for all the decisions, including how to price it. Initially I priced both novellas at $2.99 in order to get 70% royalties, but in the original KW program novellas were $1.99. In addition, many more successful authors price their novellas at $1.99--Marko Kloos' novella Measures of Absolution is $1.99, while Delilah S. Dawson's Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance is $1.99. James R. Tuck's Deacon Chalk novellas are only available in audio now, but I believe they were $1.99 in e-book as well. Some novellas are priced even less.

I did make some sales at the higher price point, but I would obviously like to make more even if that means a 35% royalty instead of a 70% one. Three sales at $1.99 generates a little over the same royalties as one sale at $2.99, so if I quadruple my sales, I'm ahead. The fact I've created an Amazon AMS ad for Ten Davids, Two Goliaths will surely help.

To that end, I have set the price for both novellas to $1.99. If this proves successful, I'll leave them there. If not, back to $2.99 they go. I'll give it a week. If you come across this blog post after October 7, 2018 and the price is $1.99, you'll know that reducing the price did increase the quantity demanded.

LITTLE PEOPLE, BIG GUNS, My Third Original Novel, Is Done

This is a little late, but here's some good news. My third original novel Little People, Big Guns is now finished.

It's actually been finished for a couple weeks now, but I wanted to run the last three chapters through the writing group, go through a backlog of older critiques I'd set aside due to real-life obligations, review the comments from a friend who'd read the whole thing in a couple days (it's around 28,000 words, which technically makes it a novella), and then finally give the whole thing a once-over before I sent it out. I've got a contact at a small bizarro press whom I'd pitched an earlier version of the story to at the World Horror Conference 2015, so I sent it his way and hoped for the best.

Okay, maybe I should actually describe the plot. A few years ago I read a news story claiming TV chef Gordon Ramsay's dwarf porn star double was found dead in a badger den. It turns out the story might not actually be true, but at that point the earliest version of the story, entitled "Badgers vs. Midgets," was born. Basically a little person (a whole lot people with the condition actually consider "midget" a slur) is killed by a predatory badger, the local law enforcement declines to investigate, and so the local little persons take matters into their own hands.

Unfortunately, as I learned from the gentleman at the pitch session, that would only work as the first act. What happens next? Fortunately I was quick-thinking and spun out a plot involving militant animal-rights activists and a bear-sized super-badger. As my writing-group cohort Katherine Mankiller would put it, "peak silliness" has been achieved. I spent the last year and a half banging it out and now it's in someone else's hands.

And although the story seems tasteless and exploitative, it's actually much more thoughtful. LPBG touches on issues like the abortion of fetuses with dwarfism, mobility issues little people face, people rubbing little persons' heads for good luck (Tyrion Lannister has something to say about that), etc.

And that might make it an awkward fit. It's too farcical for a book seriously exploring the issues people with this condition face, but it might be too thoughtful for straight-up exploitation. I might well have to independently publish it like I did with a bunch of my short stories. There aren't very many publishers of bizarro fiction (which is the literary equivalent of a cult movie--think Bigfoot Crank Stomp or Shatnerquest), so I might exhaust those fairly quickly. I'm going to pitch it Thursday through #Pitmad, but that hasn't gotten me a lot of luck with more mainstream fare.

And if it does get published, either from a small press or as an Amazon original, it'll probably be under a pseudonym. I want the "Matthew W. Quinn brand" associated with more highbrow content like The Thing in the Woods (a teen horror novel that ultimately becomes a tale of interstellar war--think Down The Bright Way with monsters), Bloody Talons (an oral history of an alien invasion a la World War Z), and Battle for the Wastelands (post-apocalyptic steampunk Western--think Dark Tower meets Game of Thrones). A lowbrow exploitation farce, even one with a heart, doesn't really fit.

(A lot of writers have different pseudonyms for different brands. Delilah S. Dawson's fantasy-western Shadow novels Wake of Vultures and Conspiracy of Ravens go out under Lila Bowen, while James R. Tuck's Lovecraftian Red Right Hand is published under Levi Black and Bryan Cohen's Cinderella Dreams of Fire is published under Casey Lane.)

And the planned sequel, should this one take off, gets even more farcical. It involves a hidden community of little people called the Shire under threat from a master criminal code-named Santa Claus who kidnaps members of the community to force them to work in a mine. And his muscle is a blue-eyed white-furred Bigfoot. Nope, not classy at all.

I'll keep you all posted once I get more information.

The Writing Plan for the Coming Year-ish

In a little over a week, I will start a new job--in fact, an entire new career--putting an end to years of graduate school and part-time freelancing. This will drastically cut into my time for personal writing projects, blogging, etc.

This means that you will be seeing a lot fewer blog posts, movie reviews, etc. here. I will continue being part of Myopia: Defend Your Childhood, but I won't be reviewing every movie we watch like I've been doing. I will also write posts linking to the podcast The Geekly Oddcast put on by The Brothers Herman, but since Geekly Oddcast records on weeknights, I'll probably be doing that less often than Myopia. I will have less time for my personal writing projects, so there will fewer updates on those.

Speaking of my personal writing projects, here is the plan for some of them.

*I intend to finish two additional stories featuring my supervillain protagonist Andrew Patel and release them as a four-story electronic collection Consequences that will also include the first story ("Übermensch")and the second "Needs Must." I have partially written both, with more progress made on the fourth story (which will ultimately tie Patel with the world of my Lovecraftian novel The Thing in the Woods) than on the third. This will be my top personal writing priority aside from selling my completed novels Battle for the Wastelands and Thing.

Here's the cover, which my regular artist Alex Claw made awhile back, to whet your appetite:

I will also be working on a novella entitled "Fairmont," which will take place just over three years before the events of my novel Battle for the Wastelands. My fellow writers James R. Tuck and Delilah S. Dawson both secured book deals that saw the release of novellas for e-readers alongside more conventional print books, while Marko Kloos self-published the short story "Lucky Thirteen"and the novella "Measures of Absolution" alongside Terms of Enlistmentand kept them online even when he got a traditional book deal for Terms. Regardless of whether I go traditional or independent with Wastelands, "Fairmont" would be an excellent way to whet readers' appetites for Battle, much like how "That Thing At the Zoo" preceded Blood and Bullets.My completed novella "Son of Grendel" can come afterward, much like "Spider's Lullaby" came after Blood and Bullets and before Blood and Silver.

I have received some good comments from agents and publishers on The Thing in the Woods (but no bites yet--you'll find out when that happens), so I don't foresee tinkering with the manuscript too much. Depending on how things go with that I might resume work on the sequel The Atlanta Incursion or resume work on the third project I'm holding close to the chest at the moment. I've let that one fall by the wayside due to graduate-school responsibilities, but I've been told by fellow members of my writing group that this project plays to my strengths (world-building and journalistic writing) and, owing to the nature of the project, it's something I could finish more quickly than a conventional narrative novel.

If You Like What You're Getting, Buy Amazon Products Through Me

The World According to Quinn has been active since early 2010. So far I have blogged on many topics including science, politics, books, movies, and my personal writing ambitions. I have gotten more than 150,000 hits and hosted guest blog posts by interesting people like James R. Tuck, Delilah S. Dawson, Christopher Nuttall, and Sean C.W. Korsgaard. Thank you all for your patronage over the years.

However, so far I haven't made any money on the blog. On paper I've made some money via Google AdSense, but I won't get paid until I hit $100 and at the current rate, it will be years before that happens. I'm not asking you to go clicking on ads if you're not interested in at least finding out more about the product that appears--that's called click fraud and that's a crime.

However, I am suggesting you take a look at my Amazon links. If you see any links to books, movies, etc. on my blog and there's an odd space after the end of each link, those links will take you to the product's Amazon page that has my Amazon Associates' ID in the URL. If you buy the product, I'll get a percentage. Not only that--and this is the important part--if you go from that page to other Amazon products and buy those, I'll still get paid a commission. Apparently I've sold three Finish Powerball Tabs Dishwasher Detergent Tablets, Fresh Scent, 60 Count and one third party copy of Adrift on the Sea of Rains despite never actually linking to either them in addition to the one copy of Lines of Departure that I definitely did. I won't actually get paid for those until I clear a $10 threshold, but clearing that is much easier than clearing $100 one.

Thanks to this awesome YouTube video, I've learned how to install Amazon-generated widgets on Blogger. I've installed a link to my short story collection Flashing Steel Flashing Fire as well as a carousel of products you can see on the upper right. I'll regularly swap out that one with carousels of other products, depending on what's hot right now and what I'm reading or watching. Since I've gotten plenty of clicks and some sales over the years due to links-in-text and a new Chrome gadget that makes creating these links easier, those aren't not going anywhere.

Thank you for your help and readership over the years.

THING IN THE WOODS First-Ish Draft is Done

This announcement is a week or so late, but here it comes. The first draft of my "teen Lovecraftian horror novel" The Thing In The Woods is finished.

The story began when I was hanging around the Borders in East Cobb when I was in high school or college. I was reading a Call of Cthulhu role-playing game manual and came across the concept of one of those isolated small towns where Lovecraft depicted evil things afoot being suburbanized. The phrase they used was "supernatural Love Canal." What began as a short story turned into a novel (in terms of concept, as I actually hadn't written very much), a novel I neglected to focus on other projects like Battle for the Wastelands.

However, I eventually realized this was another project I could write fairly quickly, since I wouldn't need to do as much research as I would for other projects. As of last March, only 1,517 words had been written. By the time the summer writing challenge with my friends Nick and Lauren began, only 6,000 words had been written. Now it's 46,000 words long. I call it a "first-ish" draft because I typically write one or two chapters at a time, print and revise them, submit to writing group(s), and then revise based on their comment. The last two chapters, which one of my groups will consider on 12/29, would technically be at the "second draft" (or a "Cherie Priest first draft" because she considers an unrevised-but-just-finished project to be "draft zero"), but earlier parts will have been revised twice or more.

Then things will get a bit tricky. Many agents will not represent and many publishers will not publish a work that's this short. There are some presses that will, but oftentimes they will only put them out as eBooks, not as print books. Although the eBook market is rapidly growing and threatens to obliterate mass-market paperbacks, no print editions mean no book signings. That's a very good way to generate publicity and thus further book sales (I've covered a bunch in my years as a journalist--see here, here, here, and most recently on page 10 here). If book signings are not an option, I'm not sure how I'd do my bit to promote the book.

Fortunately, I've got ideas for at least three more scenes I can add that flesh out the book's female lead (she's a relative newcomer to the story and I fear it shows) and provide one last POV for the novel's (human) villain that's thematically fitting. Hopefully I can get it to 50,000 words. Then I can bring the completed novel before my other writing group (and some interested friends) and once I revise based on their opinion, it'll be ready to be shopped around. I'm thinking this will be done by the end of first quarter 2014, although graduate school could be a problem.

Fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

EDIT 8/20/17: The Thing in the Woods has since been sold to a small press and is now available on Amazon. Enjoy!

Notes from DragonCon 2013 Part One

Sorry for the big gap in blog posts. I have recently started graduate school and between that, freelance work, and my own writing projects, that's bit into my blogging time considerably.

So here are some notes I took from DragonCon 2013:

*At a branding panel with artist John Picacio, he said art directors are the ones who generally hire artists. To become a successful freelance artist, he recommends building relationships with publishers but also be a member of the fan community via things like attending conventions.

*Many independent authors want book covers but offer too little money. He's turned them down for this reason, but suggested that second rights to an artistic work can be sold for much cheaper.

*Those interested in finding good fantasy art should check out Spectrum or visit DeviantArt. One DA artist has done the covers for several of my Kindle stories, so I've already taken that advice into account.

*At a pulp panel featuring my writer friends James R. Tuck and Delilah S. Dawson, I learned the ideal word count for pulp publisher Airship 27 is 60,000 words. That's what I'm shooting for with The Thing In The Woods, although I fear it might come up short. James has advised me to send Battle for the Wastelands to pulp publishers and once I hear back from some biggies I've already sent it to, I'll take his advice.

*With pulp, there's less need for a back-story.

*Later books in a series can feature a Dramatis Personae that's a recap without being a recap.

*Audible.com is a good place to have your books recorded for audio purposes. I might give that a try with my e-books.

*Nazi rocket planes were fueled by red foaming nitric acid and 100% hydrogen peroxide, both of which will dissolve anything. When mishaps occurred and the chemicals spilled into cockpits, pilots would literally melt. This happened at least once.

*John Ringo is apparently popular in Europe. His father-in-law, a minister in Lithuania, name-dropped Ringo and doubled the number of people at his church services. Meanwhile, either Ringo himself or a friend of his (I can't remember clearly) encountered some German women who were big fans.

*Romantic fiction in Germany is apparently very BDSM/dominance-heavy. Dawson and Ringo discussed the reaction to their books in more-puritanical America and according to Ringo, his Paladin of Shadows novels fit right in but Dawson's steampunk vampire romance is very tame. Ringo's account of the reaction of his mother (and her book club) to Ghost, the first Paladin novel, was hilarious. If you've ever heard of the Internet meme "Oh John Ringo No," it's about the series. Here you go.

*Pyr Books' "Toxic City" novels taking place in a London quarantined due to the use of chemical/biological weapons are being adapted for a television series. However, it's being set in Los Angeles. Given how the first book is London Eye, I'm wondering what they're going to call the series. "Toxic City," according to one of the Pyr panelists, seems like a good bet.

June Writing Contest Results

My writing contest with Nick, Lauren Patrick, and Sean Korsgaard continues. This past month hasn't been particularly productive. I've only written 5,056 words (give or take some new words written during the editing process I didn't track well), which puts me ahead of Lauren (who had RL obligations) but dramatically behind Nick (who totally stomped everybody with 25,000).

Although I spent a lot of the month revising Battle for the Wastelands for the coming #Pitchmas novel-pitching sessions, excuses buy no yams. Looking at my spreadsheet, I didn't do any writing at all for over half the days in the month and most of those days weren't spent marking up the Battle manuscript or working for my freelance clients. I need to get in the habit of writing every day, even if it's only a little. My writer friends James R. Tuck and Delilah S. Dawson are productivity masters (creating first drafts in only a few months, with far more responsibilities than I have) and I would do well to emulate them.

So here's what I did accomplish:

*Battle for the Wastelands manuscript is now fully marked and I've edited the first three chapters. The goal is to get to 100,000 words or less to make it more salable. I did get a nibble from a small press during a previous pitching session that ultimately lead to a rejection, but I did get some useful feedback. The same with an agent rejection that arrived during the same timeframe. I'm optimistic for #Pitchmas. :)

*I've written close to 2,000 words for the sixth Wastelands novel, tentatively entitled Consolidation. Much of this was scenes I've previously written and filed away for later, including villain Falki Grendelsson brooding on the state of race relations in his truncated empire and Catalina Merrill cowing a would-be rapist with a revolver, but a lot of it is new material pertaining to how my development of Catalina's character.

*Written a good bit of material (approximately 3,000 words) for The Thing In The Woods, including much of the fifth chapter where the monster shows up again for the first time since the prologue and a scene taking place in the town library that brings in the American Civil War. I will be bringing the first four chapters before my Lawrenceville group this coming Sunday and the prologue (which the Lawrenceville people have already critiqued) before my Kennesaw group Saturday. All this critiquing and rewriting slows the process down and jeopardizes my plan to have the first draft finished by the time grad school starts in August, but the more finished and polished the early chapters are, the less continuity editing I'll need to do later.

So here's to a better, more productive July.

Writing Contest Update and Summer Goals

These last few days I haven't been able to get any work done on my personal writing projects due to paid writing obligations, leaving my current word count for May at 14,000 words. This will give Nick, who has more time commitments than I do but can write the same amount if not more material when he does have time, a good shot at catching up. Hopefully I won't need to buy him lunch this month, although later in the summer it's looking more likely.

(That being said, I've got a week left and my most severe deadlines have passed, so it's back in the saddle again...)

However, regardless of who wins the contest this month or overall, I'm thinking of setting two goals for the summer.

1. Finish the first draft of The Thing In The Woods. It's getting clearer and clearer this is a young-adult novel, so I don't need to worry about it being so short. If I can get it to 60,000 words or so, that'll be fine with me. That being said, Delilah S. Dawson's upcoming young-adult novel is 80K to 90K and Jeff Baker's recently-completed young-adult horror novel (he described it as Harry Potter meets Lovecraft) is 100,400 words, so maybe I need to be careful. My graduate school classes start in late August and I imagine the reading and paper commitments will be extremely challenging, so let's see if I can get it done by August 26. Delilah and James R. Tuck manage to get whole first drafts completed in months and they have much more familial and other real-life responsibilities than I do, so it's time to crack the whip.

2. Finish the "Coil Gun" script. I'm around 85 pages in and the minimum page count for a script to be taken seriously, according to a friend of mine who lives in Los Angeles and writes for Elementary, is 90. I think I could finish that in a week if I really put my nose to the grindstone, since I once wrote 40 pages in a week and I'm adapting one of my own short stories, not devising entirely new material. Then take it to an Alpharetta group I'm in (that I haven't attended in months) that has a monthly screenwriting meeting and register it with the Writer's Guild of America to be safe.

The Next Big Thing...

I found the idea of "The Next Big Thing" on the blog belonging to Christopher Nuttall and got reminded to do it when I saw Delilah S. Dawson post it herself. So here goes...

The Next Big Thing: Battle for the Wastelands

Where Did The Idea Come From: When I was in high school (probably around 2000), I read the first of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels and wanted to write something similar. The world of the Dark Tower is a Western-type world, albeit more feudal (there's a knightly caste called "gunslingers" who control most of the world's guns), but it's strongly implied this is a post-apocalyptic situation--the world has "moved on." Over the years, the story has mutated drastically--the technology level has shifted forward to the Civil War era, the general milieu has become rather steampunk, the characters have last names instead of "Name of Place," and I've included some deeper themes like race in a fantasy context, the merits of decentralized vs. centralized power, and whether or not leaders who are less despotic but more prone to racism are worse than tyrants who don't care about such things.

What Genre Does Your Book Fall Under: I used to call it "a post-apocalyptic steampunk Western," but my friend James R. Tuck said it would be better-described as "a post-apocalyptic military fantasy with steampunk elements." I think "post-apocalyptic military fantasy with Western and steampunk elements" will do nicely, even if it doesn't come off the tongue well.

What Actors Would You Choose to Play Your Characters In a Movie Rendition: The only thought I've really put into it is that the character Catalina Merrill could be played by Danielle De Luca. In fact, I used De Luca as the model for Catalina, since she was a relative latecomer to the story. Although the tyrant Grendel's general look was inspired by Clancy Brown's portrayal of the Kurgan in the film Highlander, Grendel's face and hair don't really match up with his. And Clancy Brown is too old now anyway.

What is the One-Sentence Synopsis of Your Book: A teen becomes a soldier in a rebellion against a scheming tyrant, who has problems of his own.

Will Your Book Be Self-Published Or Represented By An Agent: Preferably an agent. I've sent it out to one publisher, since I met an editor there at DragonCon 2012, but I'm considering tweaking it a bit more and sending it out to agents. If it gets rejected from the publisher, I've already moved onto the next step, and if they accept it, that's a way to get an agent. I'll keep working my way down the chain to small presses, some of which are following me on Twitter. Self-publishing is an absolute last resort.

How Long Did It Take You To Write The First Draft of Your Manuscript: Too long. I had parts of it written down many years ago, but decided to focus on actually finishing this one (as opposed to spreading my efforts thin on various projects) probably sometime in 2009. That didn't stop me from finishing some lengthy fan-fiction projects I'd already started, which helped delay the first draft until sometime in early 2012. It's 104,000 words, so it has more in common with an epic fantasy than a genre novel in terms of length.

What Other Books Would You Compare This Story To Within Your Genre: When I submitted it, my cover letter compared to Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century and L.E. Modesitt Jr's Corean Chronicles novels. It has more in common with the latter than the former, considering they're both secondary-world fantasy with guns, but it does have airships and other steampunk stuff like Priest's work. Also like Priest's work, it's a big enough world to set a lot of stories. I have partial or complete novellas centered around lesser characters and eight planned novels--a seven-novel cycle focusing on protagonist Andrew Sutter's war against Grendel, with an eighth novel ending Andrew's story a la Beowulf.

Who Or What Inspired You To Write The Book: Stephen King, as I've said above. Beowulf has had a strong influence on my overall plan for the series. I'm sure the Corean Chronicles have influenced things, at least subconsciously, since I read the books when I was in high school and college and working on the earliest version of this. A Song of Ice and Fire has crept in as well, especially the emphasis on the impact of war on ordinary people and moral grayness. In fact, I've compared Grendel to Tywin Lannister (an evil man who nevertheless has understandable motives, governs effectively, and generally maintains the peace) and Roose Bolton (expend the soldiers of subordinates who don't trust and husband your own, plus the "quiet land, quiet people" thing).

What Else About Your Book Might Pique The Reader's Interest: The battle sequences are Civil War in style, if airships were available for close air support and elite units were armed with 20th Century repeating rifles. The way I explore certain themes will either intrigue or offend you. And considering the amount of time I've worked on this and the number of eyes that have been on it, this isn't going to be a "bad first novel."

Notes From A Book-Signing

Last night I had the fortune of being able to visit the FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock for the premiere party for my friend James R. Tuck's new book Blood and Silver, in which monster-hunter Deacon Chalk gets involved in a civil war in the lycanthropic community.  The event also hosted readings from friends Kalayna Price, Delilah S. Dawson, Janice Hardy, Annabel Joseph, and Alex Hughes.

(Warning: Annabel Joseph's writing is *extremely* risque.)

Also attending was Carol Malcolm, chief moderator of the Horror and Dark Fantasy track at Dragoncon.  When the readings were done, she asked questions.

I was exercising that afternoon and cleaning up took longer than I planned, so I arrived in the middle of Kalayna's reading.  When she finished, it was James' turn.

"Have you all read the first chapter, the sample that was in book one?" he asked.

He decided to pick a chapter at random from Blood and Silver, Ch. 16.  Before he started reading, he explained that although the most common lycanthropes are predators like werewolves, in real life, prey animals grossly outnumber predators.  Thus, you're more likely to encounter a were-possum or were-squirrel or even a were-zebra than a werewolf or were-lion.  He then read from Ch. 16, which is the aftermath of a battle in which Deacon suffers a head injury.

Afterward, Malcolm began her questions.  Here are some of the things I learned from the answers:

*James read an urban fantasy he was told was dark and gritty and was very disappointed.

"I put the book down and said, 'I can write better shit than that,'" he said.  This is how his first novel, Blood and Bullets, came to be.

His favorite authors are Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan stories, and Don Pendleton, who created the character Mack Bolan.  If the Deacon Chalk stories were made into movies, he would like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to play Deacon and hoped Robert De Niro could play Father Mulcahey, a Catholic priest who drinks, smokes, and is apparently some kind of Special Forces veteran.  Kevin Bacon could play Larson, a wannabe vampire hunter who becomes a scientist (for Deacon) and wizard (which great upsets Deacon).

*As a child, Delilah's favorite books were Watership Down by Richard Adams and Pet Semetary by Stephen King.  When she read Outlander by Diane Gabaldon, she realized romantic fiction can have really good plots.  She emphasized her novel Wicked As They Come started out as an adventure novel, with the romantic plot added later.  It's a real story--not just people talking. When asked what a film adaptation of her book would look like, she said it would be something directed by Tim Burton.  Someone suggested Johnny Depp play the lead, provoking general laughter.

*Alex first got involved in speculative fiction at 13, when her grandfather gave her one of the Pern books.  When asked about adapting her novel Clean (which comes out September 7) into a film, she suggested Benedict Cumberbatch could play protagonist Adam, if he toned it down a little first.  James suggested Adrian Brody could play Adam as well.

This provoked an intervention from Delilah:

"I spent the whole Predator movie waiting for someone to kill him," she said.  "He was that annoying."

(I actually have Adrian Brody as an actor to play anti-hero Patrick Rassam in my Vasharia novels, along with Oded Fehr.)

*Annabel started writing her fiction for fellow moms-with-kids and it eventually accumulated to the point she had a book.  Given her subject matter, that's a bit shocking.  However, given how popular 50 Shades of Grey is, I really shouldn't be.

*I didn't really get a whole lot from Kaylana.  Sorry.  :)

I also learned about a website called Wordle, in which you can plug in text and see how often a word is used.  It expresses this in the form of a graphic, with words used many times represented by large circles and words used few times represented using small circles.  My friend Nick expressed concerns about the amount of use words like "reckon" and "arroyo" got in Battle for the Wastelands, so I will put Battle and Son of Grendel in the site sometime soon to see if there are any problems.  James said if he put his novels in there, the f-word would predominate.

Guest Post: Novels, Novellas, and Short Stories, Oh My!

Novels, Novellas, and Short Stories, Oh My!

By Delilah S. Dawson

If you’re on any sort of social media, then you know two things for sure: books are dead, and the zombie apocalypse is on the way. I can’t make any promises about zombies. But I can assure you that books are far from dead, although the publishing world is changing, maybe for the better. 

A traditional book runs 60,000 to 140,000 words for fiction, unless you’re talking George R. R. Martin, and then all bets are off. But traditional books aren’t the only answer, and not all stories need that many words. Stephen King and Isaac Asimov (among many others!) are known for starting their careers by writing short stories, which are generally 500 to 10,000 words. And with the advent of self-publishing and e-publishing, novellas of 20,000 to 40,000 words are growing in popularity. 

I wrote my first novel in 2009 and sold a three-book series to Pocket/Simon and Schuster in 2011. I tried to sell some short stories after that, and although I received several, “Almost; keep trying!” notes, I never managed to break into that market. So when Pocket approached me to write an e-novella, I was anxious to try my hand at a new medium—and also a little scared. After all, I was accustomed to dreaming big and having 100,000 words to explore my characters, set evocative scenes, and enjoy snappy dialog. How could I cut that down to 30,000 words and still feel like the tale was complete?

The answer was: pretty easily, actually.

I discovered that I love writing novellas. While it takes me around two sleepless months to whip out the first draft of a full-length novel and several months to revise, I wrote the 34,000 words of "The Mysterious Madam Morpho" in exactly ten days. The story came quickly, and editing has been a breeze. Because there was less to do, there was less to mess up. As this series is romance, I was able to focus in on the couple and keep them mostly in one place instead of the usual madcap adventure I favor. And boy, did they ever get personal fast. When you’ve only got one third of the time, you have to get busy three times faster!

As far as reading novellas, I’m starting to see the appeal. Buying an e-novella for less than two dollars can be a great way to discover a new author without investing bigger money in a book you might not finish. Or, if you really dig a series and the author has long windows between release dates, you can get a quick fix of your favorite world to tide you over. On the author side, it’s exciting to give characters who might not merit an entire storyline their own little adventure, and it’s also fun to broaden the world and explore new corners. 

Pocket liked my first e-novella enough to contract me for two more. The next step is collaborative as we go back and forth with what they’d like to see and what I’d like to write about. I’m excited to work within their wishes and deliver a story that will satisfy my editors and audience, not to mention entice some new readers into my steampunk paranormal world of bloodthirsty rabbits, dangerous cities, and topsy-turvy caravans.

To aspiring writers, I would recommend trying your hand at a variety of stories and seeing what works best. Whether you want to self-publish, enter contests, or go the traditional publishing route, every word you write is one word farther on your journey. Stephen King once said “The first million words are practice,” but he never said how those million words had to be divided up.

Delilah S. Dawson is the author of Wicked as They Come,the first in a steampunk paranormal romance series from Pocket/Simon & Schuster. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or on her blog. Her first e-novella, The Mysterious Madam Morpho,came out in October 2012.