Signing Done

 

So. That was a LOT of work. Had to put together 50+ prize bags, get all the books together and loaded into boxes, then load THEM into the car.

Made the trek up Friday night, met Stewie at Fuddrucker's and had a glorious burger and fries. 

Then to the pretty crappy hotel. Thought it would be decent, but it had exactly one ice machine for the entire hotel. I was on the third floor, the ice machine was on the first. Fucking suck.

The bathroom had a weird sliding door. The TV was pretty old. But hey, Stewie forced me to let him pay for it so I guess I can hack that.

The next morning we met at the store and loaded stuff in. There was an uncomfortable moment like literally five minutes after walking in--you'll have to ask him about that. But we got set up and the other authors showed up--all but one who had to bail at the last moment for health reasons.

Everybody there said it was a great turnout, but to be honest I didn't move as many books as I'd hoped. I know it's a crapshoot--like, how many people who heard about the signing were close enough to come?

I was glad to find out that the local library had gotten my package--I sent them a book and some flyers, and a note saying I'd appreciate if they could put them out, and feel free to put the book in their system and loan it out.

We had a couple of people come who saw the flyer there, so that's cool.

Was a good time, for sure. Went to early dinner after that with the other authors--lot of interesting talk, plus a lot of bitching about bad publishers. I didn't say much because they're all authors, while I'm a writer/publisher, so it doesn't really matter what I say--probably isn't their experience and I'm never in the mood to debate people any more.

---

The book continues to sell, but not gangbusters. We never got over the #5 slot in anthologies, and right now we hover between 12 and 25. I'm getting a little worried about this, honestly. 

Because the October Screams book will come back every Halloween, I'd imagine. I think we're pretty close to break even, may have even passed that now. 

But the clowns book? If that disappears, what's to bring it back into the mix? What gets its awareness to rise so sales pick up?

---

Still thinking about shooting a movie next year. Question is, will it be T3 or something else, if I do it? 

Weekend Away

 

Wife wanted to go away for my bday--sort of the last weekend to do it before Fall really gets here, and they'll probably close up the house for the winter soon.

Said fuck it, week I had. Just took off Friday--means I'm off two Fridays in a row cuz I'm going up Friday night to that signing in PA so I don't have to get up super early, drive to PA, and then offload all the stuff.

We didn't do too much--just tried to relax. The wife's knee is killing her; she needs to have surgery but she keeps putting it off. Has some cortisone shots every once in a while, but this last shot only worked for like 3 days before she was in agony again. She can't walk very far without it really killing her.

Came back last night.

---

Book wise, we nabbed #1 in the audiobook category on Thursday, and have retained it since. 

We got as high as #5 in the anthology category, and have hovered in the top 20 ever since. It's kind of cool that our Halloween book from last year is also in the top 20, and at one point they were right next to each other.

BUT...if this book isn't gonna hit #1, we're in trouble. I don't know how those charts work--there's no way some of the other books above us are outselling us on day one. But Azon purposely keeps how those rankings work a secret.

It took our last book a week or so to hit #1, so there's still hope but I'm super worried that this book has to outperform our last book, yet once this book falls out of the top 100 it may be gone forever. Where our Halloween book should probably keep getting an uptick every October.

And if I take a beating on this one, I'm done. There won't be a third volume because I don't really like tossing money into the garbage. 

---

Finished my first-pass on the Ttory 3 revision. Will wait a week and then do another pass, make sure I'm happy with it, and then maybe I'll try to break it down--which I never did for this--and get an idea of just how many days it would take to shoot.

Just in case I feel stupid enough to do it at some point in the next year.

One of the best fantasy artists of all time below--Esteban Maroto.

b

 

 

Reap The Whirlwind

Today is book release day. I got up and started checking stuff, and first thing I get two quick pieces of bad news:

For some reason, Azon suddenly has the HC edition for $31.60. It's retail price(and preorder price) has been $24.95, but inexplicably that's their price now.

I immediately get on a chat with an Azon rep and tell them the problem. "That's not us," they tell me. That's Ingram, the people who are printing it. I go look at my Ingram dashboard--yep, price is still $24.95.

WTF? I send a message to Ingram support, which ain't great. Now I wait.

Other bad thing needs a little background:

Azon doesn't let you pick your pub date. (not totally true--they didn't used to AT ALL, but now you can under a number of conditions). On our Hween anthology, I submitted our book on a Sunday, because it can take up to 48 hours to them to approve it.

They approved it in like 4 hours, which means that book actually went on sale days early. That's no bueno, cuz I want the bulk of sales on day one so we get pushed high on the charts, which leads to more sales.

This time I figured fuck it--I'll push the button Monday night. Ought to be up by Tuesday afternoon.

I got an email saying there's a problem with the cover. It's ludicrous. I'm not sure what the problem is. I've got PRINTED proofs of it, so I know it's fine.

I get another rep, this time on the phone, and they tell me that the balloon is blocking the letter S. Here, look:

Does that look like a mistake to you? It's pretty obviously a design choice. I tell her, and she's like "Okay--we'll note it and resubmit it, can take up to 2 days to approve." I tell her, "It's cool--every paperback we're selling right now is coming from Ingram, so it's just Azon that's missing out on dollars."

And it's true, but still...I'm sure Azon penalizes somehow books that aren't printed via them, so I'd rather be printed on both platforms. It'll happen, just take a little time.

Good news is look at this--both books in the top 20 anthologies today:

Couple of people who got ARCs started posting reviews--favorable so far, but you sort of expect that with ARC readers...be a little while until we see how the average person takes it.

Stressful day...

 

Please Stop Me Now

 

Man, know what I just got started doing? You'll never guess.

I started revising my Ttory 3 script. Like...part of me wants to do it. I'm not sure I could physically do it, really. I shot that music video that one night, and the next day I could barely move.

But I'm suddenly like, well, let's say I could find someone who bore a passing resemblance to the original actress...and if I rewrite the other actor who's disappeared for that backup idea I had...

I mean, why? Why should I do this? There's certainly not much money in it. Hell, the next thing I'd do is a crowd funded thing to raise a certain amount, and if we didn't get there I'd say fuck it.

Cuz if there's not enough people who want it, then the only other reason I want to is that I feel like the story's not complete for everyone. And I want to see what I wrote come to life.

Man, you can see the allure of AI created elements. Like, I could feed it some images and videos of my characters, and then have it just create those scenes/shots. I could get the actors to loop their lines, or maybe just have AI do that also to make it so the lips match up. (but I'd still pay the actors like they did looping)

Dunno. But was interesting going back and over reading what I wrote nearly a year ago. I dig it. Has some cool stuff to it.

Note to self below: Watch this before it gets too chill--can only watch this in the summer.

 

 

Pressure

 

Some day we'll get a good Red Sonja movie...but if they make her some flat-chested chick, then you can just throw that in the garbage can now.

Only a couple of days out from the book release. People are getting ARCs and posting about them. I'm sending out more, starting to send out some of the author copies to the authors who are very socially active. The other people...they're gonna wait.

Just the way it works.

The audiobook is having issues--they're saying the audiobook cover doesn't exactly match the metadata. What's that look like? They don't tell you. I emailed them to say hey, if the metadata is the list of authors that Azon let me put on, they only allow 10 people. The cover of the book shows more.

If it doesn't have to match on Amazon, why's it gotta match on ACX? Fucking stupid.

Watch the debate? Not me. I ain't voting for the orange asshole, nor will I vote for the woman asshole. Wouldn't matter either way--my state is a big D state, so even though they continue to tax the living shit out of us in this state, our dumbshit population keeps putting them in. But that's why the woman's gonna win either way, so I'll vote for someone who's not gonna send money to foreign countries to murder people, women and children included.

I went to see the F13 part 4 in the theater. I think the first F13 I ever saw in a theater was Jason Takes Manhattan, so now I can part four can take its place, and gladly.

Saw the new Beetlejuice movie. Enjoyed it. Has some problems, certainly, but it's fun. And hearing the Elfman score again on the big screen was pretty great too.

The drowning exercise continues. Still no fun and you never really get used to it. Is it doing anything? Not sure. I go in for a CT scan and MRI next week--they wanted to put it on my bday, but I was like...nah, let's do it the next day.

 Maybe I'll get lucky and die on my bday.

These are cool...if they were real...

 

 

Torture Part Deux

 Been doing those nostril squirts for a couple of days, and it's basically drowning, is what it is.

You squirt it up one nostril and immediately get that feeling, if you ever went to the beach and was swimming and got a lungful of ocean water accidentally...but in this case you have to keep squeezing it into one nostril, then do the other.

Not fun. Can't tell if it's doing anything yet.

Forgot to mention--at the beginning of the Shaun movie there was a little PSA about Deadpool/Wolverine that said it's much clearer in this Atmos, and usually I wouldn't buy into that except I've seen the movie twice, and what they showed up on that screen was WAY clearer than either one I'd seen.

So the other night, went and saw it again, this time in Atmos. Yes, it looked and sounded way better than the other screenings. (I went by myself) It's weird, because when that movie is on the screen I can't stop the smile from my face. There's this foreign feeling in my gut...I think it's called HAPPY.

Going to definitely be my favorite movie of the year, and possibly of the last ten or so years.

I can tell you, though, that the videos about the "CGI mistake" in the movie...well, I'd see those videos and wondered if they were BS or real. After seeing it in Atmos, I can tell you that they're 100% real. Doesn't bother me too much but it's a clear gaffe that I wonder if they'll try to fix for the blu ray. Not sure how they'd do it though.

---

Book wise, we're less than two weeks out from the release. I have the audio book totally done now--had to do some work to get the files to pass ACX's preliminary process--hopefully they pass the rest. I'd wanted to do one of the stories using voices from buddies but not sure that's gonna happen.

Not a lot of time, and we're all busy. We'll see.