"The Thing About a Haunting"

How appropriate "The Thing About a Haunting" is now playing at Every Day Fiction--while at the same time, I'm up to my elbows in home improvements. Once you read the piece, you'll understand.

And by "home improvements" I mean home destruction. I've spent close to twelve hours a day for the last three days breaking my house. I've shattered tile, torn wall board, smashed plumbing, demolished cabinets...

Ugh.

And we haven't even started putting everything back together again.

But we will.

There will be pictures.

I promise.

For now, take a break, read my strange little story, and enjoy the last day of May.

On this Memorial Day

I want to send a big thank you to all who have served and sacrificed.

The photo above (found here and I believe it is the work of this Daniel Wood) is devoid of any national flags. To me, Memorial Day isn't as much about national pride, but pride in those who have served and sacrificed regardless of their politics or nationality.

Thank you.

Saturday Podcast: "The House Eaters" (short story)

This week for your listening pleasure, "The House Eaters" from my short story collection, The Saints are Dead. Now available in dead tree format (paperback) or e-book (Kindle) from Aqueous Press. This story has absolutely nothing to do with my YA novel of the same name. Lousy marketing on my part? I don't know.

But it is one of my favorite shorts and an homage to both Julio Cortazar and Shirley Jackson.

Five Question Friday: EJ Stevens

E.J. Stevens is the author of the haunting collection of dark poetry From the Shadows, the chilling collection of paranormal poetry Shadows of Myth and Legend, and the young adult paranormal Spirit Guide Series, including She Smells the Dead, Spirit Storm, and Legend of Witchtrot Road.

When E.J. isn't at her writing desk she can be found blogging at From the Shadows, a paranormal book blog, or hanging out on Goodreads or Twitter. E.J. Stevens is the founder of PNR4Wolves, paranormal romance authors joining together to promote the rescue and preservation of wolves with books.

E.J. is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and is an active member of the Paranormal Romance Guild. E.J. currently resides in a magical forest on the coast of Maine where she finds daily inspiration for her writing.

Five Questions with EJ:

1. What would be the ideal meal for one of your favorite characters?

Emma, vegan and teen animal rights activist, loves veggie burritos and Simon adores rare steak. It is no surprise that these two do not get along. ;)

2. If I could read a diary of one of your characters, what would I learn about him/her?

Yuki has a secret...she smells the dead. As if high school wasn't difficult enough for Yuki, she is beginning her senior year with the gift of clairescence, the psychic ability to sense spirits of the dead through smell, but this "gift" feels more like a curse.

3. What is on the floor of your bedroom?

Lots and lots of dog toys, LOL! I only have one dog, a corgi named Maya, but she is very spoiled. Her toys are literally taking over the bedroom (and hallway, and living room).

4. Which is scarier, zombies or vampires? Why?

I will probably lose all of my goth street cred by admitting this, but I am absolutely terrified of zombies. Really. I always have a very visceral response to zombies...they make me throw up a little. Okay, now I've over shared. Sorry. I blame the zombies. Their shambling, putrefying, brain eating forms will always instill a sense of terror and revulsion. By comparison all other paranormal baddies (Vamps, Weres, Ghosts, Reapers, Demons) are just fluffy, little bunnies. Though admittedly some of those fluffy bunnies have very sharp teeth. ;)

5. What items do you always have with you?

My laptop Edgar, named after my childhood hero Edgar Allan Poe, and I are inseparable. I bring Edgar with me everywhere and never leave home without an emergency supply of pens, notepads, and extra reading material.

http://www.FromTheShadows.info
http://ejstevensbooks.blogspot.com
http://spiritguideseries.blogspot.com

Editing Ninja: Passive Voice is for Losers

I’m tired of people mucking up passive voice, so here it is, once and for all:

A passive sentence is one in which the subject receives the action instead of doing it.

Example: The boy was bitten by the dog.

Snooze fest, right? And easy to correct:

The dog bit the boy.

If you are writing a slightly different kind of story: The boy bit the dog.

Easy, right? Passive voice adds extraneous words and weakens a narrative. Do a quick search of your manuscript for the use of “by” (for PCs: CTRL+F to open the search dialogue box and then search for by with one space before it). Try to change your passive sentences to the active voice.

Passive voice makes sense in limited situations. Writing a mystery?

The man was murdered. -- technically a passive sentence, but notice the lack of "by". In a mystery, we wouldn't know who murdered the man.

Some folks tend to say any sentence with a linking verb (forms of be: is, was, were, etc.) is a passive sentence. Not so. I'll address the weakness of linking verbs in the future.

WIP Wednesday: Because Writers Write

I've cooled off after yesterday's tirade. I guess I'm just a little tired of all the flag waving. The image above is from a cover of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. One of the key scenes involves several standard bearers falling in battle until Henry, the protagonist, picks up the flag and leads his unit to victory. So much death just to keep a flag flying.

Sigh.

I'm a writer. Writers write. When stereotypes are tossed around (self-published writers are __________; literary agents are __________), no one wins. Writers write.

I've almost finished the extended "Spider and I". At around 16,000 words, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Maybe I'll make it available in e-format for free. Maybe I'll do my own art and try to sell a limited number of hand-made chapbooks. Maybe I'll send it to a dozen markets and receive a dozen rejection letters. I don't know. Yet. But I wrote it because it was a story I wanted to tell.

I do know (from "Spider and I"):

Night was coming, and Jack was afraid.

I'm off the soapbox and in the trenches. Writers write. Period.

It's Always Been About the Readers

All right. I don't know where my "hackles" are, but they're raised.

I'm pissed. Vexed. Hot. Fuming.

A certain literary agent has suggested those "self-publishing" are doing it for selfish reasons and don't care about readers at all. You can read the whole ugly post here.

Sh*t.

You couldn't be more wrong, Ms. High and Mighty, AKA protector of the weak, innocent reader. My God, what would readers do without big, tough literary agents guarding their reading time (and dollars)?

Here's the best part:

"My conclusion: This trend toward self-publishing serves primarily the writer.

(Not readers and not the publishing industry as a whole.)"

Oh--that's right, because it's my f*cking job to serve the publishing industry. I forgot. *smacks head* I'm supposed to work for free for years to try and squeak through the needle's eye until the great gate-keeping elite think they can properly profit from my free labor.

Yes, do you see that little word: profit. Because publishers are in this business to make money. Not "protect" readers.

I'm sick of the hypocrisy of a system which would publish Snooki's trash and then pretend to be a protector of readers. Sick of it. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to the public. Stop lying to readers.

You know who cares more about readers than you, giant publishing machine? Writers do--all of them, whether "traditionally" published or indie or whatever. I like how we've decided the indentured servant model of publishing is "traditional". Back in Ben Franklin's day, anyone who owned a printing press was published. Don't play word games until you know a little history.

But wait--I'm not the one who has to prove I care about readers. I'm not the one readers are questioning, am I?

Every story I write is a love-letter to storytelling.

Go climb back in your stupid castle and shut the gate. We heathens will sit around our campfires and tell stories well into the night--as it should be.

Write hard!

Hello, Goodbye

Max finished preschool last Friday. I admit there were tears in my eyes. I tried to be tough, but what the hell. We have taken our children Raintree Montessori since 2006 when Owen started as a three-year-old. Max ended our tenure there in the same classroom.

Five years. Goodbyes are hard.

Today is the last Monday of school. Seniors are gone already. My juniors will be saying goodbye for the summer (those who don't have to take final exams, at least--we have an exemption policy).

I've gotten used to the hello-goodbye process at school; this is my 12th year.

But when it is my own kids... Sometimes life seems too short.

I find myself thinking of the last story in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, "Lives of the Dead". While I'm not writing about anyone's death, I am reminded of why I like stories. Like any piece of art, they can imbue life into something gone. I can write a story about a preschool boy and paint him with my Max brush. I like that about stories. They can live forever, just as they are, while the real "us" have to move on.

Have a great day.

Saturday Podcast: "In the Primal Library"

This week for your listening pleasure, "In the Primal Library" from my short story collection, The Saints are Dead. Now available in dead tree format (paperback) or e-book (Kindle) from Aqueous Press. If the Rapture does indeed happen today, at least I will have gone down swinging.

Five Question Friday: Rachel Howzell

Five questions with Rachel Howzell...

Which is scarier, zombies or vampires? Why?

Zombies, definitely. Sure, they're slow (well, Romero's zombies are slow) but there are a LOT of them. And they're hard to kill and they can cross oceans and not die and they just keep coming and when they catch you, you become one of them and they're ugly and that's just wack. Vampires are scary but books and movies tell me I'll be more desirable and talk in whispers and get to fly and sparkle. And today's vampire gets to stay in the light unlike Bram Stoker's stuffy-old vamps.

What three things are always in your refrigerator?

Turkey bacon, always turkey bacon and not just any turkey bacon but Oscar Meyer. Butter, never margarine. Bread--sourdough, wheat or those addictive Hawaiian bread rolls. Stick some turkey bacon between those Hawaiian rolls and you have a perfect snack.

Cats or dogs? Why?

I have both but I must say 'cats.' My personality is similar to a cat's. I'll come around when I need something but leave me alone otherwise. Cats don't need constant attention, 'please love me, please pet me, let me love you' thing that dogs possess. And dogs smell. Well, cats smell -- litter boxes are just, wow, but since cats never get wet, you don't have that 'wet cat' stink wafting in your living room.

What subject was the hardest for you in school?

Math. Ask me to tell you the capital of North Dakota, or when the Battle of Tonkin began, or even why manholes are round, and I'm cool like dat. Ask me what the square root of 9 is and I'll shriek and run into a corner and tuck myself into a tight armadillo ball, whispering 'make it go away,' over and over... I can do math but I hate it. It was the only subject that I got less than a B in and I'm shaking just remembering that report card.

True story: in college, I had to take a required math class. So, I enrolled in "Earthquakes and You." (Really. That was the class.) My boyfriend at the time was an Econ major and I was an English Lit major. He did the math stuff and I did the writing. It was a good deal -- at least that part was. He was a jerk in other ways but that's a different question on a different survey. Oh, and don't cheat like that, kids. It's, um... bad.

What items do you always have with you?

I ALWAYS have a pen, lip balm and my driver's license. So when I am turned into a zombie, I can write about it, my lips will be supple and won't crack as I eat BRAINS, and I can drive an abandoned Corolla without fear of being pulled over and ticketed for driving without a license.

Check out The View from Here at Amazon.

#%*$& You, Semi-Colon! (Writer, Edit Thyself)

;!

Ah, the oft-misunderstood semi-colon.

It really only has three functions in modern punctuation.

1. Joining two independent clauses.* This implies the two clauses are related and/or equal, or perhaps one restates the other.

The boys and I are on our own this weekend; we'll eat too many hotdogs and watch cartoons.

2. Use semi-colons between items in a list that already involve commas.

I have lived in Clay Center, Kansas; Manhattan, Kansas; and Lawrence, Kansas.

3. Making that funny smiley thing I use too often.

;)

That's it.

Make peace with the semi-colon. Please. I hear the rapture is coming this weekend, and I wouldn't want semi-colon hate on my head.

Write Hard!

*independent clause is a fancy way of saying "sentence". An independent clause is a string of words which can stand on its own.

WIP Wednesday: Hopes and Dreams

I'm on "tour" promoting Borrowed Saints (and writing in general) this week. Yesterday, I popped in to visit Cate Gardner and wrote about what was "Behind the Door". Today, I'm visiting Belinda Frisch's blog with a post about creating conflict and suspense. Stop in and say "hi". Tomorrow, I'll be leaning on Robert Swartwood with a little post about patience. God knows I need some.

More stops to follow.

So about this WIP Wednesday...

I'm writing a vampire-esque novella. I'm brainstorming for a middle grade (holy-sh*t, MG?) sci-fi, slipstreamy adventure book. My dear wife inspired me to write it, saying: "Why don't you write something Owen can read?" Yeah, why don't I?

And then there's the sequel to Borrowed Saints. Yes, I've already started writing that...

Sheesh. I'm starting to sound like Barry Napier with all this WIPing (love you, Barry).

Speaking of my dear wife... I want to share a dream of mine. I'd love for her to be able to stop working. She has terrible nerve issues in her mouse hand and a job which requires a ridiculous amount of clicking. She has back trouble stemming from a car accident when she was twenty.

I've taken on e-book formatting and cover design on the side (www.simplekindleformatting.com) to try and supplement our income. I'm continuing to write and hopefully build an audience. I'd love to add enough to the communal pot that she could stop working, or at least cut back and only see clients part time.

That's the dream.

Now that I've written it down, I need to get to work.

Anatomy of a Murder (and Resurrection)

...is a damn good movie. But I'm talking about one of my books.

I killed We are the Monsters last week. It was a hard choice to make because it had already received one nice 5-star rating at Amazon.

I planned on changing the cover (and I do like the new cover much better than the old), but I wouldn't have needed to kill the book without the digital rights management (DRM) debacle.

See, I accidentally selected "enable DRM" when I first published the book. (Don't know what DRM is? Read this.) I don't believe DRM is good for authors. The debate rages on, of course, but in my opinion, it hurts.

If I want people to read my stories (which I've decided is goal #1), why would I put roadblocks in their way? Some writers get all kerfluffled about pirates giving away their books. I say go for it--as long as you don't start selling those pirated books under a different name. Just give me credit, and we're good. Go ahead. Steal my books. Give them away. Grow my audience.

The only way to free We are the Monsters from the DRM monster was to kill it and publish it again from scratch. So I did. It has a brand new, completely linked table of contents, new cover art, and freedom from DRM. None of my other books have DRM, either. It just doesn't make much sense.

And you can download it at Smashwords for free (for the time being). The Amazon Kindle edition is only 99 cents.

How do you feel about DRM? Piracy?

(And if you've read We are the Monsters, I'd love to hear what you think--good or bad. Amazon reviews are a writer's friend.)

You Are Not Your Stories

So, just for the record, I'm closing the rant before it gets started.

In html, it would look like this:

rant /rant

In real life it looks like this:

Hey, writer! Yeah, you. You are not your stories. Yes, you've spent time crafting them, cuddling with them, brushing their hair, feeding them, and sending them into the world. But they are not you. They aren't even, really, a part of you, no more than the the u-bend of my toilet is part of my plumber.

I know it's a popular thing to say: each story I write is part of me.

But this is why authors tend to take too much personally. A rejection is not about you. A bad review is not a reflection on you as a person. How you respond (or don't respond) might be, but the review itself isn't.

I've written scores of stories and several short novels. This is the 728th post to my blog. I've even composed some poetry. If every word I wrote was a piece of me, I'd have gone Lord Voldemort years ago and littered the digital landscape with tiny fragments of my soul. Now that would be scary.

Yes, I care about my art--but experience has taught me this: me ≠ my writing. Thank Zeus.

If I was to rant, it might look something like this:

rant Stop pissing on other writers, reviewers, editors, and write. /rant

Have a great day, people.

#samplesunday Monsters Among Us

I kind of have a rant brewing (I'm sure it will spill over tomorrow), but instead of joining in that negative suck, let me share a story from:

"Billy Boy"
(originally published at Every Day Fiction and selected for The Best of Every Day Fiction Three)

Billy found the keys in his dad’s truck one day, shortly after they shuttered the kitchen store and the place that once sold bargain books. His dad had changed light fixtures, mended walls, and tightened pipes for five years, but without the tenants, the building no longer needed maintenance. Searching for work at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, he didn’t miss the keys. Not until later.

So the mall was abandoned, a playground in which our imaginations touched other places.

We rode our bikes after school and stashed them out back, in the high grass just off the trail near the railroad tracks behind the building. Billy was always eager to go on nights his mom worked late. We first entered the dark spaces while the world shed her summer greens for the browns and tans of fall, the dingy grey of winter lurking behind the turn of the calendar.

The game was Billy’s idea.

We built a circular wall of boxes in the storeroom of one of the anchors to the mall, the largest building on the south end. In our circle, our sanctuary, we told stories, we pushed our imaginations to the blackened corners to flirt with spiders and dust. Our stories grew arms and legs, fingers and eyes; they flickered just past our musty cardboard fortress. Our flashlights inspired stacks of empty boxes to cast shadows of strange cities on the walls. Games of chicken hung on who could bear the darkness the longest, who could leave his flashlight off in the dead, empty space.

We made monsters, and Billy was the best.

Maybe his father was the inspiration: the rasping, liquor tainted voice, scuffed knuckles, and glassy glare. Maybe Billy saw something different through the bruises around his eyes. Maybe he found something in the worry lining his mother’s face. Billy’s beasts crawled out of the darkness and ran their stunted claws over the cardboard boxes on the outer ring of that wall, sending a twist of delightful terror into my bones. Gabe’s expression echoed mine, both of us pale and contorted, hanging on Billy’s voice.

A tiny voice, really.

Lost and afraid.

We heard the sirens, Gabe and I, one night just after supper. We met in the street, both of us all wide eyes and whispering mouths. My guts could have been ice, frozen and scooped by the shovel load from my aching chest. The sirens came from three blocks down, police and ambulance, together.

“You think it’s Billy’s place?” Gabe asked, breathless.

“Let’s go.”

We planned to meet again that night, all three of us, and perfect our tales. We planned to go together into the darkness of the old mall, flashlights in hand, creeping through the silence, lonesomeness of the place. Billy promised mystery that night.

At his house, lights from the police cruisers and ambulance chopped the night into tiny bits. Billy’s dad leaned face down on a police cruiser, hands cuffed behind him. The paramedics wheeled another body down the concrete steps, thump, thump, thump. I searched the crowd for our friend.

Gabe looked at me.

I nodded.

The October air numbed my cheeks and my hands, frosting my heart while it hammered against my ribs. I felt every bump, every jostle of the pocked asphalt in the streets, the grass that snapped against my legs as we arrived behind the building. We rode through the dark at other times, but never with so much fire, so much recklessness.

Panting, Gabe and I found one service entrance open, the key still in the lock. Neither of us brought a light.

We staggered into the darkness, the abyss, Billy’s world, groping against the painted cinderblock walls. We stumbled toward the end of the line, the big storeroom, our ring fortress of empty cardboard and stories. A single, stationary light reflected on the ceiling, casting square shadows in looming distortion.

“Billy?” Gabe’s voice was a tiny thing, prey swallowed by the predator darkness.

No answer.

I followed the glow and found Billy’s flashlight on the floor next to a crumpled pile of his clothes. Our friend was gone, naked and alone into the other places. We knew. On his words, the shadows had swallowed him. He joined them.

Billy’s face was printed in the paper, and they spoke of him on the evening news for weeks.

The smaller minds called him a runaway, just another missing boy. All too common.

Gabe and I knew the truth. We had heard the tap of claws on cardboard and tasted the frosty air from Billy’s words. We lived his world in that dark, lonesome place.

Monsters Among Us features 39 tales, ranging from flash stories (like Billy Boy) to a 15,000 word novelette. Available for $2.99 for the Kindle.

Saturday Podcast: "Gary Sump's Hidden City"

Give a listen to "Gary Sump's Hidden City" from my short story collection, The Saints are Dead. Now available in dead tree format (paperback) or e-book (Kindle) from Aqueous Press.

Five Question Friday: Joel Arnold

What is the hardest part of being a writer?

For me, the hardest part is juggling writing with my family and my day job. Also, the actual writing part of being a writer can be pretty hard (but if you love it, you love it.)

Which is scarier, zombies or vampires? Why?

Depends on a lot of things. Are the zombies the slow, shuffling kind, or the fast kind? And are the vampires like Nosferatu or glittery emo kids? Overall, I think zombies are scarier, because they don't seem to have a conscience. They just have one thing on their mind--eating you! And they'll keep coming for you until you take its head off. But a vampire typically does have a conscience and there's the possibility of reasoning with it. And think about this; if you were bit by either one, would you rather be the contemplative vampire, or a mindless brain-eating machine?

What was your first curse-word?

Not exactly sure, but probably 'shit' 'damn' and 'fuck' all came out of my mouth within seconds of each other. It happened when I was three or four years old, swinging on a swing-set with a friend. For some reason, we just started shouting out curse words as we swung and thought it was so funny. It felt so freeing and great. 'Shit! Fuck! Damn!' we'd shout, and then laugh our asses off. At least until his mom heard us. Then I get the distinct feeling it was no longer so funny...

What's your favorite thing to eat or drink while writing?

I don't eat while I write, but if money was not an object, I'd drink Starbucks' caramel machiatos whenever I write. As it is, I'll treat myself to one of these every once in a while, but usually stick to regular old coffee.

If you could live in anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Hmmm...probably San Miguel de Allende, which is in the central highlands of Mexico, or Gardiner, Montana, which is at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park.


Joel Arnold's Amazon.com Author Page and Smashwords Page

How to Love the Comma, or Writer, Edit Thyself

I would say "How to Use Commas" but that will raise too much debate. Believe me: I've seen a group of English teaching assistants argue about commas for more than an hour. Ugly.

What I do want to convey is the ease with which a writer can learn to love (and use) commas well.

So let's start here (can you read this):


Would you read it in your head? Of course not. Music is intended for the ear. So are words. Reading silently ("in our heads") is a recent invention. Once upon a time, few could read. Books were expensive, difficult to reproduce, and precious things. (Ah, but now we have e-books and POD.) Punctuation symbols, like the comma, were invented to convey a message to the reader. Think of the comma as a rest, just like the rest in music. Where that rest is placed changes the meaning of a phrase, just like a well-placed pause in music can change the dynamic or rhythm of a song.

Take this well-circulated phrase to understand the importance of punctuation (and commas):

Woman without her man is nothing

Notice I didn't punctuate the sentence. How would you do it?

Woman: without her, man is nothing.

or

Woman, without her man, is nothing.

Wow. Big difference, right? We all know the famous "eats shoots and leaves" example.

So how does a writer learn to love commas? I suggest you must, must read your work aloud. I've done so with every story, book, and essay I've written in the last ten years. Commas were invented in an era of reading aloud. Meaning is conveyed through the way they make a sentence sound. You'll notice improper comma use much better through your ear.

For a more "academic" look at the comma, please visit Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL).

Write hard.

WIP Wednesday: You're a Writer, So WRITE

Anyone who has been paying attention to the little "Write 1 / Sub 1" update at the top of the page might notice it hasn't changed in the past few weeks. I know how these things become "wallpaper" and easily ignored...

Well, I haven't subbed any new stories in the past three weeks. I have four awaiting edits (hmmm, WIP). One is very short with a very long title: "Items Found Above the Bathroom Ceiling in Room 215, Best Western North, Wichita Kansas". Another is longish and needs some serious work, but I love the premise ("The Night of the Blood Moths"). So yeah, editing. "The Sons of Chaos and the Desert Dead" is in the queue for one more pass before sending it off, too. Editing.

Then I'm writing a novella for the hell of it. Because I want to. There will be blood.

One of the items from "Items Found Above the Bathroom Ceiling in Room 215, Best Western North, Wichita Kansas":

One worn copy of Stephen King’s Night Shift, paperback, 1979, with several pages missing (123-167).

The Going Price for Lawn Service (and E-books)

Read KV Taylor's brilliant post about pricing to understand my inspiration.

Back in the summer of 1988, my brother and I started a lawn service. He'd taken care of several lawns when he was in high school in the late '70s/early '80s, and figured I needed a job. I was fresh out of seventh grade and wanted a Nintendo (original 8-bit variety).

Our base price? $5 a lawn. The going rate at the time started at $10. Of course we charged more for bigger lawns, but never more than $15. We worked together. He mowed around trees and did the trimming; I tackled the big, wide-open spaces. It was hard work. By mid July, I had my Nintendo.

Why charge less than competitors?

Volume, I guess. At the apex of our business, we managed something like 35 lawns a week.

Here's the e-book connection: volume = more readers. More readers means more potential fans. More potential fans means more potential "built-in" sales for your next book.

I've just released Borrowed Saints at $2.99. It's a YA novel, right around 50,000 words, and I spent plenty of time polishing it. Sales have been weak. Very weak. Sure, I need to so some more promotion, etc. Whatever one wants to argue about value and how much a consumer should pay--I believe e-book readers have come to expect $0.99 books from Indies. I didn't start it, and I sure didn't make it happen by myself.

Let's look at the math:

One e-book at $2.99 nets the author around $2 at 70% royalty rate. An author would need to sell six times as many books at $0.99 cents (35% royalty) to make (roughly) the same amount of money.

The math seems to argue for the higher rate, right?

But I think something else is going on, something more important. Even if you only make four sales at $0.99 to each one at $2.99, you've quadrupled your readers (or potential fans). Yes, less money now, but more potential money in the future. Like an investment, right?

When VT managed The House Eaters I sold one e-book at $4.99 in two months. Since they folded, I've sold more than 30 in a month. And yes, I'm only selling it for $0.99.

Volume can work wonders, even at very low prices.

Victorine E. Lieske has sold more than 100,000 copies of Not What She Seems at $0.99. That's a success story I'd take all the way to the bank. Granted, I don't write in the same genre and Victorine has spent a good amount of time marketing her book. But wow.

So what will I do with Borrowed Saints? What do you think I should do?

(Well, I did redo the cover. It will take a while to show on Amazon.)

Great Books: Lord of the Flies

One of the highlights of my Senior English course is teaching Lord of the Flies. It's often taught a younger ages in other schools, but I use it as a "send off" for seniors. Reading Lord of the Flies is the last thing we do in class.

Why I consider Lord of the Flies a "Great Book":

The degeneration of a band of British school boys stranded on a deserted island during wartime is a frightening mirror for all human endeavors. Selfishness, greed, egoism, violence--all the ugly depths of the human psyche are laid open when the stress of survival pushes the kids too far.

The book plays with the dichotomy of civilization and savagery. As a nice parallel, the boys hunt pigs--swine are known to turn feral rather quickly when left to their own devices.

And then there's that Nobel Prize...

Favorite Line (*spoiler alert*):

"And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of a man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy."

Sheer brilliance.

I, for one, am looking forward to Stephen King's introduction in the new edition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Golding's birth.

#samplesunday Borrowed Saints

From Chapter 1: Smoke and Mirrors of Borrowed Saints, available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (soon).

Phoebe Ellison hated mirrors, and mirrors shared the sentiment.

She stood before a mirror in one of the less-traveled ladies restrooms in Springdale High, exchanging a glare with the reflection. Tiny white lines on her forearms reached from the glass and shouted in her ears. Phoebe ran a finger across her skin, wondering if it was her imagination or the truth she felt in those little, rigid scars.

Muffled voices sounded in the hall. Phoebe’s hands worked without thought—her left turned the hot water tap, and her right reached for the soap dispenser. The bathroom door crashed open. Haley Garret and her entourage brushed behind her, close enough Phoebe could smell Haley’s perfume, sick and sweet and stinging her eyes like rubbing alcohol.

If she only had a match, they would all go up in flames.

“Lookie here,” Haley said. She positioned her well-tanned face over Phoebe’s shoulder in the mirror. “A piece of fresh meat. A newbie.”

Phoebe’s neck bristled. She could leave—walk out now and not look back.

“Whatcha doing, fresh meat?”

Haley’s clones giggled.

“Washing my hands.” Steam began to rise in the basin, distorting the faces in the mirror. “Going back to class.”

“Right.” Haley pushed her shoulder into Phoebe’s back as she turned. “Don’t be late, fresh meat. Bad things happen to newbies who are late. Bad things.” Haley’s breath was close enough for Phoebe to taste.

The giggling trio disappeared through the door. Water vapor condensed on the mirror, blurring it to a white haze. The steam began to tease Phoebe’s dark hair. She smelled fire—felt it burn her nose. Smoke and ash. Voices crying. The voices always blended into a memory of her parents’ final cries. How long had it been—three months? Only three months. Pain radiated through Phoebe’s forearm, to her shoulder, across her back, and into her lips. Sweet pain. When she pulled back her hand, the hot water had seared a red mark on her skin.

She wanted to smash the mirror. She wanted to crush it into a million pieces and grind the pieces beneath her sneakers. Her right hand balled into a fist. Maybe she’d cut her knuckles on the shards. There’d be blood. Blood and pain. Phoebe fought the smile at the thought, and the bell rang, forcing her out of the bathroom, right hand clutched over the left to hide the burn.

Borrowed Saints for Kindle

Borrowed Saints for Nook (soon)

Five Question Friday: Helen Hanson

Five questions with Helen Hanson:

What would be the ideal meal for one of your favorite characters?

Amir graces the cover of my novel, 3 LIES. His perfect meal consists of lamb kebabs on a bed of saffron rice. Sides of fattoush, baba ghanoush, roasted red pepper hummus, steamy pitas, and a ramekin of tahini would round out the meal.

Pair it with a Napa Syrah, and I want a place at this table. He makes fascinating conversation.

What do you keep in the dashboard of your car?

Dental floss, a Swiss Army knife, flashlight, tear gas, doggie litter bag, USB charger, duct tape, ink pen, a tiny tactical nuke, passport, flashlight, latex gloves, boat keys, December issue of Soldiers Of Fortune, cork puller, thirty-round clip , and lipstick.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

In spite of the added danger of getting sucked into jet engines, I want a cape on my super suit. I know that’s not a superpower, but I like capes. Purple satin, I should think. Or, cobalt blue.

As for the super powers, I want to be an empath. I want the ability to tell what someone was thinking and to know with certainty if that person was a liar. Why, with that single super power, then– Then I could take my rightful place and rule the world!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!

Um. Not that I would . . .

Describe your imaginary friend.

My friend is invisible and has an IQ beyond measure. He whispers in my ear all the correct answers to life, liberty and my pursuit of happiness and finding readers. Unfortunately, he’s a gentleman and won’t follow me in to the ladies room, so I miss a lot of that great stuff, and I’m forced to waltz alone.

If aliens landed in front of you and, in exchange for anything you desire, offered you any job on their planet, what would you choose?

Emissary to outlanders. My official title: Most High Planetary Ambassador to Visiting Dignitaries and Whatnot.

Think about it. I’d routinely meet people daring enough to leave their home world and travel the galaxy in search of adventure. An endless opportunity to try exotic new foods, listen to languages strange to my ear, and ride in cool ships, what more could a writer ask for?

www.HelenHanson.com Website

http://itunes.apple.com/ud/book/isbn9780983202707 iBooks

http://www.amazon.com/3-LIES-ebook/dp/B004F9P8BI Amazon US

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/3-Lies/Helen-Hanson/e/9780983202707/?itm=1 Barnes & Noble

http://www.amazon.co.uk/3-LIES/dp/B004F9P8BI/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295645566&sr=1-13 Amazon UK

Monsters Among Us

I've collected four of my 99 cent e-books into one 115K word/39 story omnibus, Monsters Among Us. The price? $2.99.

Why would I guy do a thing like that?

1. Readers can purchase the content of four books for less than they would pay individually.

2. It would take six copies at 99 cents to equal one copy at $2.99 thanks to the 70% royalty rate.

3. J.A. Konrath told me to. *

Think about items 1 and 2: readers gain and I gain. Sounds good. But Aaron, you say, what about those 99 cent books? Aren't you cannibalizing their sales?

Maybe.** But I suspect bargain hunters will still pick them up. Monsters Among Us includes every story in The Bottom Feeders, Thirteen Shadows, and Violent Ends as well as "Black Medicine Thunder and the Sons of Chaos". It's all linked with a handy-dandy table of contents. It's also my first legitimate foray into the $2.99 price point. In the next 24-36 hours my second foray goes live. I'll talk about that come Monday... If you're observant, you'll find out sooner.

It's all a big experiment, after all.

* No, he didn't. But I did take the idea from him.
** Remember what I said about this being an experiment?

WIP Wednesday: Lost in the Font Forest

One of the fun things (for me) about e-publishing involves font selection.

Yes, you read that right: font selection. Crown me king of the geeks.

But think about it. Book covers are different in the digital era. They are an electronic "button" with which a reader might investigate or purchase your book. Fonts must be readable on small icons and draw in a reader's attention. They should convey a message about the book, too.

I could spend hours looking at fonts...

Unfortunately not much else would get done.

Some of my favorite haunts:

dafont.com

urbanfonts

1001 Free Fonts

Don't blame me if you accomplish nothing today.

If I Only Wrote One Story...

If I could only keep one story, which would it be? Which one best exemplifies my "style"? What about you, if you are a writer? Which story, novel, play, poem, etc. best represents you?

I think I'd go with "The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable"--mostly because I hope, hope, I'd make the same choice as the protagonist.* But there are other stories I love, too many to hold in one hand.

"Wanting It" from Shock Totem 3 is a love letter (okay, a sorrowful love letter) to my childhood.

"The Weight of Children's Stories" from Midnight Echo 5 chilled me as I wrote.

Plenty more...

But if I only had one, it would be "The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable". Aqueous has released The Saints are Dead, including a shiny, spiffed-up version of the story.

You can still read the "old" version online at A Fly in Amber. Or, if you want the shined-up story with sixteen others, this is for you:


*I'm just not that good with spray paint.

Great Stories: "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

Every American Literature text in this country has at least one entry, if not two, from Edgar Allan Poe. He's an icon to students everywhere, and while his texts are difficult, I never hear complaints. Something about murder, plague, and madness speaks to the teenage mind, I suppose.

I've been spending a portion of my Thursday evenings, while Max takes gymnastics class, walking through historic Oak Hill cemetery. It's a lovely, gloomy place with craggy hillsides littered with monuments, plenty of gnarled and twisted trees which snatch up the fading daylight. Ah...

And then there's this:


While the Usher family of Poe's story entombed the dead in catacombs below the house, it's simply delightful to walk past a crumbling, in-earth vault inscribed with the name "Usher".

"The Fall of The House of Usher" is one of Poe's masterpieces. You can click on the text below to read the full story, should you wish. Have a wonderful Monday.

DURING THE WHOLE of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil.