publishing – Page 24 – Teel McClanahan

I don’t write every day

I am not one of those writers who writes all the time. I am certainly not one of those writers who swears by writing every day. Something, every day, no matter what. Not for me. (Though I have calculated that if I did, I could come out with something in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 new books a year, every year.) Looking back, I haven’t written any new fiction (or produced any actual pages of the two non-fiction books I have in mind) since NaNoWriMo ended November 30th, 2009. Four and a half months now, I guess, without writing a word.

Some writers include everything – from my thousand-word blog posts down to my 140-character (or less) Tweets, and grocery lists besides, but that always seemed disingenuous to me. Until I take the time to put together a book or two from my blog posts (that pot is still boiling away at the back of my mind, believe me), writing blog posts isn’t the sort of writing that I consider Writing. Using Twitter more mostly improves my ability to use Twitter more. Most of the time the write-every-day writers seem to be doing so in the hopes that it is like playing an instrument & they just need daily practice to get better and better. Which is an interesting idea. Have fun with that.

I just choose to think every day, instead. A lot of the day, every day. Thinking.

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is my audiobooks. The audio version of Forget What You Can’t Remember was completed this week, both on my feed and on Podiobooks.com. I began podcasting the audio version of UTFBF-RoaAP, Book One on my own feed yesterday (it goes live at Podiobooks.com April 27th). Book One will be 10 episodes, after that I’ll start Book Two, then probably Book Three – each of them about 10 episodes, since the books are all about the same length… And then, in about 30 weeks, I’ll be out of novels to podcast. According to the Google Calendar, where I just mapped out those 30 episodes to Fridays, I’ll run out in mid-November.

So one of the things I’ve been thinking about is that, between now and then, I’d better write something new. Maybe the Self-Publishing book I’ve been thinking about writing will be podcast-able, but in addition to that I’d better write some new fiction. There’s a good chance that, reading UTFBF over and over again for the next six months will get me to a place where I can write Book Four (and maybe continue from there with the series). And I realize that since I can certainly write a book in a month (and have produced various first drafts in: 3 weeks, 2 weeks, and even 3 days, once upon a time) that six months is plenty of time, but … I also know that for me, a big part of writing is thinking and I’d better get to thinking. Thinking I’m going to write more books.

One of the other things I’ve been thinking, along these lines, is maybe I’ll not do that cards/book thing I was thinking about. I dunno. Thinking about the packaging/marketing/sales side of it has been making me queasy. Writing the book is one thing, painting/creating the cards is another, each difficult in its own way, but then … I can’t just set it up with Lightning Source and know that anyone can walk into a book store and order it, or get it on Amazon/etc.. I can’t have it set up for Wholesale/POD at all, really, since I need the cards to be packaged with the book – I’ll have to order a huge amount of books, order the same number of decks of cards, package them together all by hand, and then … frankly, sell them by hand. Which … I, ugh… I mean, in person sales at Art Walks and Art Fairs and even via social media is all fine, but … going to stores and trying to get them to carry my product, dealing with consignment and/or other even-more-bizarre methods everyone apparently uses for accounting for business transactions… the thought of it makes me sick. I really like the idea of the product, but dealing with getting it to market makes me feel like shit.

Which has a lot to do with why I haven’t moved forward with the research and/or the art for that project. At all. bleh. (Overwhelming depression is also a factor, but one that I’m at least able to grind some productivity from.)

I’ve got to go get ready for an Art Fair today. Maybe I’ll get a chance to think more, in between customers.

Contest: What’s FWYCR book about?

“What’s the book about?” – It’s the question everyone asks, and they want a quick and easy answer. People who think like marketers want it in the form of an “elevator pitch” and people who browse in book stores want my book covers to fit neatly into the patterns they expect – but everyone wants a fast, easy way to make a snap decision about the book.

The problem I have with this is that if I could have expressed what I wanted to express in a hundred words or less, it wouldn’t have been a book, it would have been a business card!

So, I’m having a contest:
Tell me what my book is about, and you could win a prize. As Forget What You Can’t Remember draws near to its final podcast episode and people all over the world hear its convoluted conclusion, I thought the time was right to ask readers and listeners this oft-repeated and oh-so-important question. But what are the prizes?

One (1) First Prize: I’ll name a character after you in my next novel & let you decide whether that character lives or dies, plus send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).
Two (2) Second Prizes: I’ll send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).

How to enter:
Email your answer to the question “What is Forget What You Can’t Remember about?” to teel@modernevil.com. The deadline for entry is May 1st, 2009, two weeks after the final chapter goes live at Podiobooks.com.

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 & if you win I’ll still name a character after you… and… I don’t know, maybe look up international shipping rates & customs paperwork? Winners will be selected by whatever method I want – probably I’ll just pick the answers I think are best, but I’m not ruling out asking people on Twitter or some such. 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 a better answer to this question is to be able to get more people to read and/or buy my book, so I need the right to use the best answers to that end. I will be running a very similar contest for both Lost and Not Found and Dragons’ Truth in May, in case you want to go read and/or listen to those books & prepare your answer in advance.

New Video – On Margins

I should probably have posted this here last week when it went up on YouTube, but better late than never, eh? I’ll go figure out where to cross-post this to modernevil.com … when I get around to it? Look, posting this is effectively procrastination vs. editing tomorrow’s podcast episode. Ooh, I should go Twitter to procrastinate posting this. I love multi-dimensional procrastination, especially when every little step along the way is part of my job, part of building my brand/community/audience, and/or part of being a full-time creative.

What’s the video about, you ask? Umm… it’s about how I, Modern Evil Press, have decided to handle pricing of the for-pay text versions of my books, including the paperback & eBook versions through various sales channels. There is another video needed, to cover the alternatives being explored by other publishers, especially re: eBook pricing, and I hope to have it up in a week or two. (A lot going on right now – did I tell you I’ve started screen-printing T-Shirts?) Here it is, I encourage you to watch in “High Quality” if your bandwidth allows:

working out an idea

I’m working on an idea. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ve worked through a couple of iterations, since. The idea has evolved significantly, as I’ve worked, and thought, considering the meaning and the purpose of such a project. And the meaning of my life, and of my work, in general. I like the direction it’s taking. Don’t know how capable I’ll be of either selling it, or of marketing it -each of which holds unique challenges- but I’m going to keep working on it anyway.

I’ve been vaguely considering designing a custom deck of cards, akin to tarot cards, for many years. I’ve never really wanted to simply design a tarot deck, as so many others have done before me, simply putting my own artwork on the traditional 72 cards. This has something to do with my understanding about about divination works, and what part cards tend to play in it (not to mention the other roles such cards tend to end up playing on the side). I’ve wanted to not just create artwork for an existing system of divination, but to create a new system from scratch. A wholly original deck.

Of course, I’m aware that Leviticus 19:26 makes it clear that God would prefer if I didn’t practice divination at all. The context that Isaiah 2:6 gives divination is as a “superstition from the East.” I’d effectively given up the practice a few years ago, after a brief, intense period of giving in to the temptation, but it’s been on my mind again, lately. Not in the context of wanting to do readings or divine knowledge/wisdom/future, but in wanting to design the cards, and to publish a book explaining them. So I started designing. I want through a couple of interesting ideas, did dozens of sketches, and decided to go a different direction.

I’ve been working on steering my creativity in a direction toward more Christian writing. Not entirely effectively, yet, but I’ve been trying to at the very least avoid going further in the direction of the sex, violence, and apparent lack of morality that the Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction was pointing me in (though that changes character in the final books). I have a partially completed book that literally explores the concept of the unforgivable sin mentioned by Jesus – with violence, sex, action, and all sorts of other apparent sins (and exploration of the meaning of ‘sin’) along the way. I would like to write several explorations of the complex, interesting, and challenging things I have found in scripture and in my own Christian walk. But first, I think I’ll start with something unconventional:

I’m designing a deck of Christian cards, and writing a book to explain them. As I conceive it now, I expect the book to have three pain parts: One part, the expected breakdown, card by card, of how to read the cards for divination – what this one means, what it means ‘reversed’, how to lay the cards out and to interpret them. One part, a theological and biblical exploration of divination, ‘Eastern superstition’, and related new age beliefs as a temptation for modern Christians, especially as for new Christians who prior to being born again practiced such things. One part, an alternative breakdown, card by card, that uses the deck of cards as a sort of flash cards for learning about Jesus, Christianity, and the early church.

Part of the idea (which will certainly be included in the book) is that most things of this world are neither inherently good or evil, but it is our individual choices, day by day and moment by moment, that we do right or wrong. That we imbue the things of this world with the good or the evil that we do with them. A deck of cards -the ones I am designing, or any deck of tarot cards- is not evil. It is not a tool of the devil, in and of itself. It can be used to do evil, but the cards themselves are not evil. If I do a good job designing them, if I write a clear and well-organized book, both of which I believe can only happen through him who gives me strength, then my cards will be able to do good by those who choose to use them for good, and to likewise allow those who choose to do so to use them for divination. A tool. A choice.

The production, distribution, and sale of the book is easy for me, right now. I’ve got 10 books in print already, and adding one only takes a couple of weeks, once it’s written. The production, distribution, and sale of the cards -especially as part of a bundled item with the book- looks challenging. There are several options for getting the cards printed. I could pay for a huge offset run, warehouse them somehow… There are a couple of companies that will do short-run decks of cards (hundreds instead of thousands or tens of thousands of decks). I found one place that will do “print on demand” of custom cards, but not like POD book printers do -they aren’t doing wholesaling, retailing, distribution, and won’t do one-offs- but they’ll print as few as 10 decks at a time, and they’ll print (but not assemble) deck boxes, too. And I found a place that sells microperforated playing card paper, so I can print a test deck or two on my own printer. So I’ll probably go with that last one at first, get the cards how I want them. Then go to the POD printer and get a small order (they have a price break at 50 decks) & have a matching print run at Lightning Source (who also has a price break at 50 copies of a book). Then try to get them carried by Christian and new age stores, I guess.

I’m considering some options like: Putting the book out with a high cover price & one page being a coupon you mail in for a free deck of cards. Doing all the distribution myself, so I can bundle them manually, and don’t have to worry about people who buy the book through other channels & don’t get the cards. Writing the book in such a way that it stands alone, without the cards, but tells you how you can order the cards, and using the same distribution setup I have for my other books. And… uhh… do you have any other ideas? I’ll be thinking about it for a while.

The current plan is to do the research (ie: read the bible, concordances, and other bible resources) so I can write 2-4 pages (minimum) for each of the cards (at least 1 page for each of the two parts that break down each card), and to paint an individual painting for each card’s art. I’m hoping to do each painting 8×10″ or less, so I can do a high resolution scan with equipment I already own, do additional work in Photoshop as necessary, but then to have an original painting for sale that corresponds to every card. To make packaging & distribution easier (and because it fell together in the designing of the deck), I’m doing a 52-card deck, currently as follows:

5 ‘Major’ cards: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Death, & Devil
14 Apostles cards: 1 per apostle, including both Judas & Matthias and Paul
11 Miracles cards, each featuring one of Jesus’ miracles
11 Ministry cards, each featuring one group of people to whom Jesus ministered
11 Message cards, each featuring one basic, foundational, repeated part of Jesus’ message

I think the hard cards will be the Apostle cards. I need to do the research, but I’m pretty sure there are a few of the apostles there isn’t two pages’ worth of information about in the bible. Hopefully I’m mistaken. Either way, I’ll have to figure out how to represent each of them visually – I plan to research how they’ve each been traditionally and historically depicted in the last two millennia. Still, they effectively represent 14 paintings of “a man,” which, if you’ve seen my art, you know hasn’t exactly been something I’ve been perfecting. So probably 14 abstracted expressions of what each man represented or something they did or … inspired by whatever was used to depict them historically. Your suggestions are, again, welcome.

I have a list, a flexible, mutable list, of what I expect the 52 cards to be. I’m thinking of creating 52 blog posts -perhaps in a separate instance of WP, or perhaps merely in their own category- one for each card, where I can write out my explorations of the concepts. I’ll have to think about that, too. What do you think would work best? Are you interested? What would hold your interest? What would annoy you about blogging it?

Up late again. Didn’t do any audio work today (now I’m not actually “ahead” of the podcast, anymore – a lot of recording done, but no finished episodes ready to go from here on out), but absolutely have to do some tomorrow. Who wants to try to get me up in the morning? Say, around 8? sigh.

Dragons’ Truth eBook updated

The kindle version of Dragons’ Truth, my All Ages / Young Adult novel, has now been updated to look a lot better than what has been there for most of the last year. It took about four hours to go from the source document to a well-formatted kindle version, this time – I’ve got a pretty functional “workflow” now that I think will continue to serve. I should probably write it down. (It certainly didn’t hurt that Dragons’ Truth is >50k words.)

In addition, Dragons’ Truth is now available through Smashwords in all the formats they offer (and directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch through the Stanza app). Going from the kindle version to a Smashwords version I was happy with took about 40 minutes. It would have been 20 minutes, but I wasn’t happy with how the Chapter headings were coming through, and I had to switch to my PC to get the result I wanted. Some difference between how TextEdit and WordPad handle .rtf files means that as picky as I am, I have to do half the formatting in one and the rest in the other. Very smooth. No upload problems, formatting came out as expected, go have a look for yourself.

Four books down, three to go. (Not counting the poetry.) If they all go as easily as Dragons’ Truth, I’ll have corrected kindle versions and Smashwords versions in as little as 15hrs’ work.

It’s 5AM. I’m going to bed. Tomorrow: no eBooks work. Podcast work, instead. Night.