Jean Marie Bauhaus

Here’s a quick and random Friday Five to update everyone on what’s happening in my corner of the writing and publishing world.

1. Last Friday, I submitted Eucha Falls to a horror anthology for consideration. As of today, their submission tracking system says it’s #705 in the queue and their average response time is 20 days. And so I wait…

2. I’m still taking a break from Radium Town as I work my way (slowly) through Holly Lisle’s latest free course, “How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck.” By the time I’m done with it, I should have a new flash fiction anthology ready to publish, with a couple of stories set in the Dominion-verse.

3. Otherwise, I’m pondering the future of my writing career and the path I want to take. As much as I enjoy self-publishing, the entirely DIY model is SO much work — really, I can’t overstate how much work is involved in producing your own book, especially if you care about quality — and my marketing reach is pretty limited. I’m thinking about shopping the Dominion trilogy around to some publishers, or maybe even some agents, to see if I can get it picked up. Even a small indie publisher would lift a lot of the burden off of me and extend my reach.

4. Along that same vein, I’m considering serializing Radium Town. I think it would lend itself well to serialization, and if I could get it into the Kindle Serials program, I could be earning on each episode (not to mention building a fan base) as I write the novel. I need to do more research before I decide on that, though.

5. I don’t really have a five, but Friday Four sounds lame. Oh! But I guess this counts as a #5 – if Eucha Falls gets accepted to that anthology, then I will be mightily encouraged toward writing more short stories for paying markets and seeing if I can turn that into a regular income stream. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Let’s just wait and see how EF does for now.

In other news, we’ve had a lot of wicked weather this week, with more expected this afternoon and evening. Last night, a major storm passed right over us, with enough rotation to make the rain fall at odd angles while it dumped a bunch of hail on us, before moving a few miles southeast and turning into a full-blown tornado. Some roofs got destroyed in Broken Arrow, but nobody was hurt, thank goodness. I hope tonight’s weather stays on the mild side. Or misses us altogether. If you’re in Tornado Alley today, stay safe!

Yesterday, Amazon announced that it’s starting Kindle Worlds, “a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games.” Naturally, people have thoughts about this. I’ve seen opinions ranging from “Yay, this will totally legitimize fan fiction!” to “Boo, this will totally destroy fan fiction!” to “… what’s fan fiction and why should we care?”

I have a few thoughts of my own; the first of which is, this is not fan fiction. Despite the label Amazon is trying to put on it, fan fiction is by definition unlicensed and unpaid. The fact that these stories will be both licensed and paid makes them, by definition, NOT fan fiction, regardless of whether they started out that way.

What it does make it is licensed, work-for-hire franchise fiction–the same thing as all of the tie-in novels you see on the shelves for Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Buffy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The writers who produce those books work for very similar contractual terms and with pretty much the same guidelines. Back in my fan fiction days, I was interested in breaking into the tie-in novel market, and I sent away for the submission guidelines for Buffy, and also checked into the guidelines for Star Trek. What I saw then is pretty much the same thing I see here: don’t deviate from canon, keep it family-friendly, no cross-overs, etc., and whatever you write becomes the property of the franchise, to be used as they see fit with no further compensation to the writer.

The big differences are these: one, whereas for years fanficcers have argued that professional tie-in novels are nothing more than paid, legitimized fan ficiton, Amazon is coming right out and calling it that. And two, the traditional method of obtaining licensed novels involve paying hand-selected professional writers a sizable advance for their troubles that is in keeping with guidelines established by the Writers Guild of America. By lowering the bar for entry to amateur fanficcers, Amazon (and the licensors they’re working with) are able to get away with paying less than the going professional rate.

Do I think this is rather sneaky? Yes. Do I think it’s inherently evil? Not really. I think it’s a smart business move, and just another way that Amazon is pushing against the traditional publishing mold and trying to maintain their lead in shaping the future of publishing. I think they’re a little wrong-headed in the way they’re going about courting the fan fiction crowd, but I understand their reasons for doing so.

Do I think this will endanger the online fan fiction community in any way? Nope. I do understand that fear–that the production companies licensing this fiction might see this as a way to put the fans on a leash and give them more legitimacy for cracking down on unlicensed fan fiction; but, well, they don’t really need more legitimacy to crack down on fanfic if that’s what they wanted to do. And licensed fiction already exists. This is just a way for Amazon to profit directly from it by making a large portion of it exclusive to the Kindle. This is, first and foremost, about Amazon shoring up a market share where they see a potential for profit. They don’t really care about quashing or regulating fan fiction. What they care about is giving the fan fiction crowd a reason to buy Kindles.

Agree or disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this development in the comments.

Originally, my Slenderman-and-dream-inspired short story Eucha Falls was intended to be a free release, just a quickly thrown-together e-book with previews of both my novels in the back, more of a marketing tool than anything else. But then I grew attached to the idea of having a cover done by an illustrator whose work I follow (and adore) in the Marble Hornets fandom, which would really be a perfect fit. And in the interest of paying her for her work, I’d have to charge for the book. I suggested a profit share, but she prefers a flat fee, for which I can’t blame her in the least. She offered to do it for a very reasonable fee, but it’s still high enough that I’d have to do another pre-sale on Indiegogo to raise the funds.

Which, I think, is doable. I could pull my other unpublished horror novelette, Hungry Child, out of mothballs and finally do a revision to fix all the problems the beta readers found with it, and package them together for a paperback so I could offer signed copies. Maybe also throw in a few flash fiction pieces to flesh it out and make sure everyone gets their money’s worth. And if somehow the IGG campaign took off and became wildly successful, we could also talk about maybe doing that graphic novel version that Matt was all excited about.

But then yesterday I found out about a horror anthology that Ellen Datlow is putting together, and she’s accepting submissions, and in an unusual twist she’s accepting stories up to 10,000 words. EF is just over that and it wouldn’t take much trimming to get it under the limit. And if it’s accepted, it would mean a pretty decent paycheck. Not to mention a traditional publishing credit, plus it would expose my work to a much wider audience than I’m able to reach on my own. AND the anthology has the same title as my very first finished novel, which if I were superstitious I would take as a sign.

Hmm. Writing it all out, it kind of seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

There is a downside, though. Mainly, the waiting. If I submit it and it doesn’t get accepted, then I’ll have wasted weeks or months in which I could have been using the story to promote my whole body of work, just waiting to be rejected. If it DOES get accepted, then I’m sure I’ll have to wait some contractual period of time before I can publish it as a stand-alone, or in any other collections. Or do that graphic novel.

But again, if it does get accepted, I’ll get paid more in one fell swoop than I’ve earned in total royalties during my entire self-published career to date. Which, admittedly, isn’t very much.

I’m thinking I should follow the money. What do you think?

Today the Indie Spotlight falls on fantasy author Nichelle Rae!

Nichelle Rae, fantasy’s newest author, was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her love for writing began when she was 14 years old and she wrote short stories about meeting her favorite music group at that age. She received so much praise and complements on her writing ability that it quickly became a passion of hers. Throughout the years she has gotten much praise from peers, professors, and professional author’s she’s had a chance to work with about her writing and her ability to put emotions into text.

The White Warrior Series is her debut fantasy series she’s publishing as an independent author which will consist of seven books total. Nichelle already has begun three more fantasy series that she hopes to publish in the future after The White Warrior Series.

When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

This is a slightly complicated question. I always enjoyed writing from the day I realized people loved my work. But writing was always just something I enjoyed doing, nothing I really considered as career option. It’s taken years of praise and complements from a variety of people, peers and professionals, on my writing abilities to think it might be something worth pursuing more seriously. The moment I really made the decision to be a published author, was right after I sent out a sample of The White Warrior series to some close friends of mine. I was just looking for some critiques but the resulting excitement, and overwhelming praise really lit the fire for me to go after this; even if only to get my book out to these close friends of mine who suddenly wanted it so badly.

I guess there wasn’t really a defining moment of when I decided I wanted to be a writer, it’s just something I’ve always done and enjoyed.

What do you find easiest about writing? What the hardest?

The easiest thing about writing, for me, is my characters. They come to me so easily it’s sort of frightening. I understand them immediately when I start a new story. I know how they will respond to situations and progress the story along with their reactions. This might sound super weird but I sort of build a relationship with them while I write. I come to care about them as people. I worry about them when they enter a situation that seems to be too much for them, and I’m relieved when they come out the other side of said situations. I legitimately fall in love with every character I create. I cry if they die and rejoice when something good happens.

The hardest thing about writing is marketing your work. It’s difficult to get the word out and have people listen. Fellow authors are usually concerned with getting their own writing out that they can’t pay much attention to other authors. On the same token, the general public isn’t going to listen to a nobody debut novelist. It’s hard to be heard.

Talk a little about your debut novel “Only a Glow”.

“Only A Glow” starts the journey of Azrel, Rabryn, and Ortheldo across their land in hopes to save it from another age of the evil Shadow God’s rule. Azrel’s journey however, isn’t just across the land she lives in, but it’s a journey of healing and self-discovery that she needs to take.

It’s a journey of accepting who she is and to do something great with it. The end of the book isn’t just about whether she wins or loses the battle to save her world (though that’s still a huge part,) but also to see if she can overcome her own self-hatred and become everything she was born to be. Or to see if she will fail and destroy herself, thus the world becomes destroyed with her. It’s also interesting to see how she overcomes some obstacles and how she often fails at overcoming others.

How would you describe the success of your book so far?

Surprising! I’ve gotten some really stellar reviews in my email, in Facebook messages, on Amazon and Smashwords! I average about 3 – 5 downloads every day on Smashwords. It’s slow going but I was prepared for that. I understand that it takes a while for an unknown author to get on the radar, if I’m meant to be on the radar at all. If not, well, I love writing and I’m going to keep doing it because life doesn’t make sense if I’m not writing. Being successful at what I love to do would just be a bonus. I’m not doing it for the success; I’m doing it because it’s what I love. I will get all 7 of my books in this series out whether the world wants them or not, because I want them.

Can you give some tips for other Indie Authors regarding the writing and self-publishing process?

First, and the most important advice I can give from my limited experience as an indie author is this: While you’re writing your book and getting it ready to publish, find as many bloggers in your genre (even some that are not in your genre) as you can and become fast friends with them. Bloggers ARE the marketing tool for independent authors! You cannot get the word out about your book without them. Blog shop and blog shop a lot.

Second, when self-publishing a book you have got to read up on what is needed and required. Do your homework. That is the best advice I can give. Don’t jump into this blind. You could save yourself a lot of time and hiccups/issues. When I started going full force with getting this book out, I did it in 5 months, which is pretty good timing I think considering everything that needed to get done…which was a lot!

Finally, do your book your way! Get advice and ideas from people and successful authors but ultimately do your book how you want it done. Your uniqueness will make your book stand out and it will truly be your own. Make sure you are happy with it, not that anyone else is happy with it, because it’s your book, no one else’s. You have to live with it and look at it forever, so make sure you love what you’re seeing.

How can readers connect with you?

I am a huge Twitter nerd and I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m on every single day. Follow me Twitter and we can chat. You can also contact me via my website or you can just email me at Nichelle_Rae@yahoo.com. Thank you so much!

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Thanks, Nichelle, and best of luck with your newest book!

If you are an indie author and you’d like to the Indie Author Spotlight to shine on you, click here to read the submission guidelines!

Project: Radium Town, the Steampunk Weird West adventure set in my hometown of Claremore, Oklahoma at the dawn of statehood and featuring Will Rogers and Tom Mix.

Writing stage: Researching, world building & plotting

What got done: Over the weekend I did a little more research into Tom Mix, and rounded out my cast with a couple of invented characters, including my requisite genius inventor and another BDD super agent, Madeline “No Mercy” Mercier, who will act as a foil to Betty. The part of Mercy will be played in my head by Sophie Okenedo (Queen Liz X to all you Whovians). And if you’re so inclined, you can see my whole dream cast, as well as research links and inspiration for costumes and setting on my RADIUM TOWN Pinterest board.

Today I used my writing time to publish the new cover I created for Restless Spirits over the weekend, which has gotten hearty approval from the guys who’ve weighed in. Upating the cover for the e-book versions on Amazon and BN.com was simple enough, but CreateSpace was quite a bit more involved. I also made minor modifications to the books themselves, including updating the cover credits on the copyright page and adding a link to buy Dominion to the end — a simple “No duh!” selling tactic that was nevertheless lost on me until I read a tip on it somewhere last week. A natural sales person, I am not.

C25K/UFYH: You know, we had all these lovely warm days in January and February, but now that spring is actually here, it’s cold. Yesterday we even had some snow. So the C25K thing is on hold until it warms back up and stays that way. As for UFYH, I didn’t do much over the weekend, but today I bagged up all the trash and recycling and took it out to the bins, and also bagged up all of the errant shopping bags that would take me far too long to fold and put away.

And of course I gave Sasha her meds. She’s feeling a lot better since the antibiotics and vitamins have kicked in, but there’s another suspicious place on her stomach where it looks like the cancer might have spread. We’re also giving her Interferon, and the hope there is that it will boost her immune system to the point where it will be able to kill the cancer, or at least keep it in check, without draining all of her resources. Poor kitty. She’s only 10, which isn’t exactly young, but it’s not old enough to have to contemplate saying goodbye yet, either. I think she’s tough enough to get through this, though, and I still expect that she’ll be around for several more years.

Cooking: Last night I cooked up the big spaghetti squash that I picked up on Friday, and used some of it as a noodle base for a Thai-peanut stir fry that I cooked up last night using ground chicken, shredded cabbage and a frozen stir fry veggie mix. It wasn’t exactly Pad Thai, although it tasted close enough, and it was a bit Sandra Lee what with the frozen veggies, but it was delicious all the same, and with the spaghetti squash I didn’t miss the high glycemic noodles at all. When I do cook I always make a big batch, so that’ll do for dinner for the next few nights; and the leftover squash is put away to serve as a pasta noodle replacement later this week.

Later: Client stuff. I need to keep my head down and get stuff done.

Today is groceries & Bible class day, so no time for writing. The grocery shopping’s done, and I stocked up on vegetables in an attempt to get myself back on the low GI wagon. I bought a big spaghetti squash to stand in for all the noodles I’ve been eating lately, and I actually picked out some recipes from my Low GI board in Pinterest and lined up a menu for the week.

I’m mostly looking forward to making (and eating) this Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai (or at least, my own version of it). For the leftover squash I picked up some pesto mix and I’ll just toss it with that and some chicken and Parmesan and pretend it’s pasta. This avacodo, cucumber and tomato salad is on the lunch menu. Hopefully this week will remind me that vegetables can actually be delicious and cleanse all that starch and sugar out of my system so I’ll stop craving it so much. Of course, not looking at Pinterest so often would also help with that.

Later: lunch, then client projects, then Bible class and giving Sasha the rest of her meds. Then we’ll get in bed and watch Justified. We started the first season last night. So far it looks like a keeper.

Weekend plans: I need to give my current book listings some attention and make sure all my author profiles everywhere are up to date, and I need to add some content to the pages of this here blog. I might do a new cover for Restless Spirits, since my graphic design skills have improved so much since the last cover, and also because I’ve been told by male readers that they loved it but were reluctant to read it because the cover is too “romancey.” I’m also thinking about experimenting with changing my pen name from my full name to just J. M. Bauhaus to see if that helps to lure in more male readers (and isn’t it a shame that that’s even something I have to consider in this day and age? Sigh. Boys.), but that might cause me to lose my reviews on Amazon, so we’ll see.

So I FINALLY made the time to design and build myself a proper custom blog theme, and I’ve gotta say, I’m in love with it, if I do say so myself. If you’re reading this on LiveJournal (or in a reader), you should click over and give it a look-see.  My goal with the design was to capture the whole “dark fantasy verging on horror with romantic overtones” thing I’ve got going on in most of my writing, with a heaping helping of turn of the century Art Nouveau to help tie in the eventual turn I plan to take toward steam punk. Also, this pin was a big inspiration.

I also set up some new pages toward the goal of making this look like a real author site, all official-like, but I haven’t got any content on them yet. I’ll be filling those in over the coming weeks.

With that out of the way, and also in the FINALLY! department, I’ve developed an editorial schedule for my upcoming books up through 2015. The goal is to release two books a year over the next three years (counting this one), and also to write two books each year. I’m not sure yet exactly how I’m going to pull that off (Camp Nano and November’s NaNoWriMo will surely play a part), but that is the goal, and the schedule is as follows:

2013

Publish: Eucha Falls (by late spring/early summer) and The Hero Factor (by the end of the year).

Write: The still untitled paranormal suspense follow-up to Restless Spirits (not a sequel, but loosely related) and the first sequel to Dominion of the Damned. Not necessarily in that order.

2014

Publish: Dominion 2 and the paranormal suspense.

Write: Dominion 3 and Radium Town.

2015

Publish: Dominion 3 and Radium Town.

Write: Some things yet to be determined. Possibly the YA fantasy I outlined a year or two ago. Possibly a Hero Factor sequel or spin-off. Or possibly something new that hasn’t yet occurred to me.

So why am I saving Radium Town for last, considering most of the people I’ve spoken with about my pending projects have been the most enthusiastic about that one? For one thing, because I have a lot of research to do before I’m ready to get started on it; but also because I think I might try going the traditional publishing route with that one, and it would be nice to have some solid sales numbers behind me to help entice an agent and/or publisher, and I think probably finishing my series is the best route to accomplishing that. I guess we’ll just have to see.

At any rate, as I have officially entered the final month of my thirties, it feels good to have at least this much squared away and have some direction as I transition into my OH HOLY HECK I’M ABOUT TO BE FORTY YOU GUYS!

This week’s Indie Spotlight falls on Christopher Nuttall’s science fiction series, The Empire’s Corps.

You Should Never Speak Truth To Power…

The Galactic Empire is dying and chaos and anarchy are breaking out everywhere. After a disastrous mission against terrorists on Earth itself, Captain Edward Stalker of the Terran Marine Corps makes the mistake of speaking truth to power, telling one of the most powerful men in the Empire a few home truths. As a result, Captain Stalker and his men are unceremoniously exiled to Avalon, a world right on the Rim of the Empire. It should have been an easy posting…

Well, apart from the bandits infesting the countryside, an insurgency that threatens to topple the Empire’s loose control over Avalon, and a corrupt civil government more interested in what it can extort from the population than fighting a war. The Marines rapidly find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of political and economic chaos, fighting to preserve Avalon before the competing factions tear the world apart. They’re Marines; if anyone can do it, they can.

The battle to save the Empire starts here.

No Worse Enemy (The Empire’s Corps)

Six months ago, Colonel Edward Stalker and his Marines were abandoned on Avalon, left to fend for themselves as the Empire withdrew from the Rim. Since then, Avalon has been isolated from the settled universe…until now.

As a mysterious pirate organisation attempts to take over Avalon, the Marines find themselves struggling against a shadowy figure with dreams of power, while a young civilian is kidnapped and press-ganged into a pirate crew. They’re fighting to preserve something of the Empire’s order in the wake of its departure, but the pirates appear to have far greater resources and a plan that seems unstoppable.

The Empire is gone. What will take its place?

Both of these books, as well as other books by Christopher Nuttall, are available for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Learn more about Christopher and check out free samples of his work at The Chrishanger, and while you’re at it, be sure to check out Chris’s blog and Like his Facebook page!

Well, I thought I had a spotlight author lined up for today, but he never gave me his info. So here are some corgis pulling a tiny sleigh.

And while we’re at it, go ahead and have an open pimp thread.

This week the spotlight shines on Athanasios, dark fantasy author and fellow Holiday Blog Hop participant. Click here to visit his Hop giveaway page — and be sure to enter my giveaway if you haven’t done so already!

BIO

Athanasios works in Montreal as a graphic/video artist, illustrator & writer in dvd production & film. He has been crafting Predatory Ethics: weaving in factual & rumoured history for over ten years.

Athanasios has been interested in religion & faith since childhood. This led to studying a bewildering variety of beliefs from pagan, wicca, judaism, christianity, islam, to hindu, buddhism, shinto, luciferianism & much more. The interest created its own momentum & brought Mad Gods. It was followed by Commitment and then I Am Eternal.

All three are part of the Predatory Ethics saga and in 2012-2013, In Whom To Trust and I Am Eternal 2: Vampires and Indians will continue Predatory Ethics.

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