Teel – Page 50 – Teel McClanahan

Contest, contest, who’s got my contest?

As you may already be aware, my last contest (Tell me what Forget What You Can’t Remember is about, and win a prize!) didn’t reach as many people as I’d have liked, didn’t have as broad a response as I’d have liked, and didn’t give me as many well-thought-out answers to the question as I’d have liked. There was a lot not to like about how it went. Since that time, I’ve been thinking about what to do about it. I’ve only recently responded to the two winners, letting them know they’ve won and requesting their information so I can send them their free books.

Now, I’m going to try to turn something disappointing into something a little bit better. I’m going to change the nature of the contest, and the reward. The idea now is to have an open-ended opportunity for anyone who reads my books and wants to try another. Anyone, at any time, for any of my books, who can provide something to help me sell my books that’s better than what I’m currently using can win a free paperback of one of my books of their choice.

If that’s a better answer to the question “What is this book about?” – great! If that’s better marketing copy, a better “elevator pitch,” a blurb from another author that I can put on the cover & the website, or even an entirely new cover image – wonderful! If that’s an insightful blog post, or a detailed review (not necessarily positive), or a thoughtful analysis of character, theme, plot (or lack thereof) – I look forward to it! Be creative! Write a spin-off or sequel, a short story in the same universe, a song or a poem, shoot a video, or create any other derivative work (automatically allowed for non-commercial uses, since all my novels are available under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license) – and you’re a shoe-in!

As before, simply email your entries to me at teel@modernevil.com – perhaps containing your entry, or perhaps linking to your blog / a review / a video – and I’ll consider all entries using my personal judgement as to whether you’re doing a better job marketing my book than I am (which shouldn’t be hard – Marketing is not one of my strengths). Every time I receive an entry that I believe will help sell books, I’ll send out a signed paperback copy of one of my books (their choice) to the entrant, and I’ll get my marketing efforts updated to incorporate the new materials. So go, read or listen to one of my books, and think about how you might let someone else know about them.

Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary: You can read the eBook or listen to the podcast for free. Officially open to US Residents only – but only because I don’t want to deal with shipping books internationally. You can still enter from anywhere and, if you’re willing to help me with international shipping, get your free book. Winners will be selected by whatever method I want – probably I’ll just pick the entries I think are best, but I’m not ruling out asking people on Twitter or some such. Contest runs until I don’t feel like it anymore – which probably means it never ends, since when wouldn’t I want to sell more books? By submitting an entry you are granting me an unlimited, nonexclusive right to use your entry and any derivations thereof for any purpose, including commercial – ie: the point of having better marketing material is to be able to get more people to read and/or buy my book, so I need the right to use the best entries to that end. If you create a derivative work & would like to license it for commercial use (ex: you want to be able to make money by writing a sequel and selling it yourself), we can talk. I’m open to that, too.

wishing I hadn’t renamed my blog, right now

Calming down.

I’m calming down.

I get too upset, too easily. Little problems sometimes feel very big. Little frustrations, little failures, sometimes feel very big. I can get very emotional. A little while ago, a few words, a realization, a revelation, a simple email, got me so upset, so angry, that my vision literally went blurry. A few words. A small mistake. A communication failure. And anger.

I’m trying to calm down, though. I’m calming down. Nothing can be done. Anger can do no good. Emotional turmoil can not help, here. Nothing can. Too late.

Here we are: It’s May 1st, it’s supposed to be the deadline for my contest. You remember the one, where I ask people to tell me what Forget What You Can’t Remember is about, and the winners get free books & maybe their name in my next novel? Timed to coincide with the Podiobook’s completion two weeks ago, when hundreds of people would suddenly be able to consider and answer the question. Plus, by using a mid-roll ad, I could have a quick announcement of the contest inserted into the Intro of every episode of FWYCR downloaded from Podiobooks.com. Starting three weeks ago, a couple of chapters before the final chapter was posted, the ads were supposed to be started. This would have let everyone who was partially done with the book know about the contest, and the ad would have continued after it was complete -which is a trigger for a lot of people to go dl the rest of the book, and for many who like to listen to an entire book at once to begin- for the two weeks leading up to today. I had also hoped that this would spur people who might not be keeping up with new episodes to try to get through the rest of the book in time to enter the contest, and that if people started thinking about answering the question 3 weeks ago they might have a better chance of coming up with a good answer by today. In addition, my contest was announced over at Podioracket (I recorded an audio insert for them, similar to the one that was to be inserted mid-roll at podiobooks.com), and I blogged about it and tweeted it and talked about it with friends.

Yet I’ve only received two responses so far. Two. Two? Dozens of people have bought the paperback. At least 176 people have downloaded all 31 episodes from Podiobooks.com (and over a thousand have at least got the first chapter). Something like three thousand chapters should have had a reminder of the contest in them. Is my work so seriously a failure to engage an audience that only two people were willing to send an email to try to get a free book?

It’s hard to say.

See, the email that got me so upset was one that let me know that the person over at Podiobooks.com that I trusted to turn on the ad-insert … never turned it on. Maybe it was my fault for not being clear enough, or for putting too many thoughts/words into a single email. Maybe it was my fault for not checking sooner to be sure that they’d followed through. Maybe it was their fault for not doing it. Turns out it doesn’t matter whose fault it is – as is generally true, placing blame can’t alter the outcome of events. Deciding whose fault we think an error is doesn’t go back and run the ad in three thousand episodes. Nothing does. Nothing can go back and make the hundred and fifty plus people -who were actually engaged enough with my book to keep current with the episodes and/or to get the whole book as soon as it completed- aware of the contest.

I could extend the contest. 2/3 of the people who have at least downloaded two chapters haven’t finished downloading the rest of the book. I could extend the contest, make up a new version of the mid-roll ad, and hope that some of the people still listening will bother to answer. That’s certainly a possibility.

Instead, I’ll probably just send books to the two people who entered, put both their names in my next novel, and say ‘fuck all’ to running contests. And to relying on other people to do what they say they’ll do. And to the thought that I could ever build a fucking fan base. I’m pretty sure I could name all my fans, right now, and count them up without running out of fingers. I’ve been putting out books for five years, podcasting books for nearly a year, and I can’t get three people to send me an email to win a free book?

fuck all

Swine Flu Sale – Pandemic Prices!

In light of the WHO raising the Pandemic Alert Level to Phase 5 (on a scale where Phase 6 is a “Global Pandemic” characterized by “widespread human infection”), I’m starting a Swine Flu Sale – Save 20% off any purchase. This is a special offer for 1) People who read my blog or follow me on Twitter 2) People willing to ignore WHO’s recommendations to stay away from large congregations of people in public places.

Details for those afraid of Swine Flu (or not in the Phoenix area):
Browse my books at modernevil.com and my art at wretchedcreature.com. Email me at teel@modernevil.com and mention the “Swine Flu Sale” along with whatever books and/or art you want to order, and I’ll take 20% off the full price of your order (before any sales tax & shipping costs, if applicable). Offer not available via the shopping cart on modernevil.com – I’ll have to manually invoice you to give you this discount.

Details for brave Phoenix residents:
Come out to the Phoenix First Friday Art Walk May 1st – you can find me among the vendors in the street closure one block South of Roosevelt between 4th & 6th Streets, usually just south of the corner of 5th & Garfield. Mention the “Swine Flu Sale” and receive 20% off your entire purchase. Plus, by showing up in person there’s no possibility of shipping cost, and I won’t charge you sales tax if you pay cash.

The sale lasts as long as the WHO Pandemic Alert Level for Swine Flu is Phase 5 or Phase 6. I’m still happy to deliver purchases to people in the Phoenix area free of charge, myself. If I think of anything else, I’ll edit this post later. Stay healthy, everyone!

Time, sleep, kittens from above

Frustrated. Time, energy, ability, focus, all frustrated. Sleep 4 hours here, 10 hours there, never know how long I’ll be awake or how soon I’ll be able to wake, when I sleep. Weeks, now. Trouble getting ‘work’ done – podcasting on time, painting anything new, putting together videos, writing… Even thinking well, clearly, coming to anything.

Right now, as I write this, I’m having trouble sitting here watching a movie. That’s why I have the computer in front of me; sitting still for a movie wasn’t working. It isn’t a bad movie. My mind and body are simply … unable to focus.

Semi-nocturnal, lately, which has been causing problems, so Thursday night I went to bed at 10PM. Of course, I couldn’t sleep past 2:30AM, though I tried staying in bed another hour after. Got some stuff done in the late morning, but crashed for a long nap in the afternoon. Got up in time to finish the podcast before Mandy took me to the Sweet 16 party (formal dress) of the daughter of one of the teachers she works with. Couldn’t really get to sleep right when we got home.

Friday night around 2AM, as I was meaning to go to bed, I heard this noise coming from the ceiling. Like something moving around up there. I’d heard it before, but … this time is seemed to be accompanied by mewling. The sound of kittens. I resolved to peek my head into a nearby hole & see if I could see what it was, and after a bit of difficulty I managed to see that a cat had apparently had a litter of 5 kittens in my ceiling. For a couple of hours I thought about and tried to see if I could get them out through the existing hole, but that didn’t work out. Not getting into any details here, but if I could have done so without alerting Mandy/Rachel to it (they have a soft spot for cute things), I would have destroyed & disposed of the lot of them in the middle of the night. I went to bed with morning light coming through the windows. Slept until early afternoon.

Got up, checked with my dad (whose house I live in), broke a hole through the wall and extracted the kittens. Photos here. Found the opening where the adult cat had got in originally and sealed it up, so she couldn’t get back in and cause problems. Guessed the kittens were 2-3 weeks old. Bought some cat milk. Spent the next eighteen hours or so trying to get them to eat any of it. I guess kittens that age are supposed to be eating every couple of hours. In between hours-long fighting to get them to eat much at all (save the very eager one that gladly ate every time I offered) we tried to find them homes – asked our friends & family and everyone on twitter, Mandy blogged about it, called all the no-kill shelters she could find online (they’re all full up), and around 9AM Sunday morning I finally passed out, intending to get up again in a couple hours to try to feed them again. Thankfully, Mandy took care of feeding them the next couple of times so I could get some sleep. I got up in time to take them down to the Arizona Humane Society this afternoon, where I was told that since they don’t have a bottle feeding program, unless the kittens immediately started eating solid food, they’d be immediately euthanized, and would I like to keep them for a week and try to get them on solid food, myself? No. I just don’t want cats living in my ceiling. It was near closing time, and the entire staff of half a dozen women and young women -all quite susceptible to cute- immediately protested their euthanasia and got to work trying to convince them to eat solid food. A bit of quick paperwork, and we were out of there.

I’ll probably be up again all night tonight, at this rate. Maybe I’ll go down to Super WalMart and return the other container cat milk I didn’t end up opening. Should probably wait for tomorrow when I can stop by the Sam’s Club, too, to pick up the 5lb bag of shredded cheese that’s on our grocery list. Maybe I’ll try to sleep, or play a game of CIV:Rev. Maybe I’ll try to write a few thousand more words toward my book on being a MicroPublisher. Maybe I’ll just bumble around, frustrated & unfocused until I pass out.

background noises

I’m sitting in my living room, listening to the early morning sounds. Birds chirping, neighbors revving their truck engines, planes flying overhead, the refrigerator running…. And now that I think about it, these sounds are present throughout the day, more or less. Sounds I am aware of because, time and again, I record audiobooks at home. Audiobooks that I don’t want full of birds tweeting and engines revving and dogs barking. Audiobooks in which the thumpa-thumpa of a car stereo’s too-loud bass competing with its ill-tuned engine (well-tuned to produce the most noise, that is) is simply not appropriate. My hearing is not perfect, not by far, and I often have trouble making out speech over background noise – a cocktail party is basically a place where I have no idea what most people are saying to me. (Not to mention, I’m not much good at small talk, which is all the talk most people in such situations seem to want to have.) Still, my hearing is good enough -attuned enough- that little noises like these become big annoyances.

There seems to be less traffic noise in the mornings, after everyone has gone to work and before they begin to be released from it, so I tend to try to record in the mornings. My sleep schedule has been bizarre, of late, and I’ve been sleeping starting at roughly 3AM-7AM and -despite my best efforts (hampered significantly by an ongoing and severe bout of depression) to get out of bed after only a few hours- running through the middle of the afternoon. Today it’s further off – I put myself to bed last night at 10PM, managed to fall asleep somewhat quickly, but then my mind woke me up at 2:30AM. I tried to sleep, I fought against waking, I felt quite … I don’t know whether I’m physically or mentally tired, but … tired, but at 3:30AM this morning, I gave up on it. Got up. Started laundry. Played the Free Realms Beta for a while…

Mandy’s up now, eating a breakfast I made for her, and as I finish writing this, she’ll be getting ready for school today. I don’t think I knew how noisy getting ready for the day is until I started recording audio books. So, in an hour or so, she’ll be done with that and I can try to begin recording. I’d like to get a couple of hours of recording done today, if my voice works that long. I need to get ahead of my podcasting; trying to record at the last minute doesn’t always work, especially when I’m depressed and/or my sleep schedule is severely kinked. Last minute is where I’m at right now, actually. I don’t have today’s podcast episode edited yet. Realistically, I give myself until midnight of the day I’ve said it will go up. Preferably, it always goes up on the morning of that day. Which, for episodes longer than a minute, means I have to have it recorded ahead of time.

((For the episodes going up on Podiobooks.com, I really need to be done ahead of time – in my experience, if I fail to have my episode uploaded & ready to go there by late Thursday night, chances are it won’t hit the site until Monday. Which feels like I’m three days late, even if I uploaded it at 7AM Friday. Even if it was on my own feed at 7AM Friday. Podiobooks.com feels like the “real” venue for my audiobooks. So I really need to be ahead. Consequently, I think I’m going to let the Podiobooks feed run a week or so behind my direct feed for the next few books.))

Recording a half-hour episode takes a lot longer than half an hour, by the way. (Assuming I’m not doing multiple voices, which takes even longer.) The actual recording part tends to take me about double, so about an hour. (Last night I tried to record in the evening, since I seemed not to have a choice, and it took me over 100 minutes to record what will be about 30 minutes of text.) Editing what I’ve recorded – selecting takes when I’ve recorded multiple takes, cutting out dead air, background noises, mouth noises and the like – takes about double that, so about two more hours. With my new computer, mixing together the intro, outro, multiple sections of an episode & transitions between them, leveling everything so volume matches within and across episodes… actually only takes a few minutes. I haven’t timed it, but I seem to be able to do both versions (MEPod & PB) in under half an hour, now, including compression. Then I have to listen to the entire episode, to be sure I didn’t miss anything during the edit. I usually do this while uploading it to both servers & writing the episode description. So, for a typical 30-minute episode (without character voices), it takes me 4 hours of work. All of it while listening carefully not just to my own voice, but also to tiny background noises.

This is not work I can do eight hours a day, five days a week. And not merely because wearing the over-the-ear headphones becomes annoying well before the 4-hour mark. I am certainly going to try to put in a few long days over the next few weeks, though. I am certainly going to try to get the other 8 episodes of this book recorded, edited, and ready to go just as fast as I am able, and on to the next book. Theoretically, it should only take me a total of 40 hours to complete this entire book (not to mention I’ve already got the first episode done), so why not? The next two books in the series are each almost exactly the same length book – so three 40-hour work weeks and I should be done with the entire series, right?

Except I’m also an artist. And I’m also writing a book on my Self Publishing experiences. And I’m also creating a deck of Christian cards (and a book to go along with them). And I’m also a househusband – cooking and cleaning and the like are part of my responsibilities. And I’m also a marketer. And a web developer. And a blogger. And a filmmaker. And involved in social media. And emotionally unstable, currently depressed & off-kilter.

It’s only 1 week until the next First Friday, when I have another Art Walk to show at. (If you’re in the Phoenix area, come down and see me! I’m among the ‘Roosevelt Row‘ vendors, and I’m usually near 5th & Garfield.) I’d like to produce some more new art before that happens (though I have plenty in stock, right now – more than I could possibly show), so that cancels out part of the next week. I’ve only just begun writing that book on MicroPublishing, and I’d like to build some momentum in the writing of it, instead of letting it perhaps wither with only a couple thousand words. I can’t record every day (I can’t recall now which day it was, exactly, but one day this week I managed to stay up late enough that I thought I could record in the morning, after Mandy left, at the end of my waking hours – but apparently that was when Bulk Trash Pickup decided it was time to slowly and noisily scour my neighborhood.) and I can’t usually stand to work on audio all day, when I do. Oh, and because I want to continue posting two episodes a week to my feed, I’m doing poetry episodes again – a one to two minute episode of which seems to take 30-45 minutes to create.

So maybe I’ll get ahead by a couple of episodes in the next week. And hopefully I’ll get ahead by the rest in another week or two. Mandy just walked out the door. I’d better get to it.