Mars Needs Writers

...Renée said, and she's absolutely right. There's no justification for what you're about to see, not for any of it, but there is an explanation so hang with us for a mo', would you?
 
Wandering through fiverr.com, as the male half of this partnership is apt to do, we discovered LaVonnawanna Dahlah, an absolutely phony psychic. Oh, that's not our description: it's hers. She promises to do an "utterly fake reading" for anyone. She opens with her standard spiel, throws in whatever words you'd like to hear -- $5 = 40 words, but you can order multiples of this -- and then wraps the whole thing with her end bit and a couple of closing words that you've requested.
 
We had five dollars. We knew something that was 40 words. And this is what we asked the delightful LaVonnawanna Dahlah to do:

...but we've never actually met anyone who got rich quick. We're kinda doubtful that e-publishing is going to lead most of us into early retirement, either.
 
Yes, we know that it's never been easier to publish your own work. And, yes, we know there's a wealth of information telling people each and every step in the process. Pulling up Google and typing in "How to self-publish an ebook", we found 45,700,000 results. Within seconds, we found some excellent resources. If you, right this very moment, are about to do a little experimental publishing on your own, know there are people eager to help you on your way.
 
Know, too, that there are sharks out there, already circling your wallet and smelling money. It's easy, this self-publishing thing, but it isn't DEAD easy. You'll be tempted when someone else offers to do the heavy lifting and it will cost you if you weaken. Cash up front and, sometimes, royalties forever after.
 
This last week, we e-mailed some fresh faces on the Amazon/Kindle block to ask 'em how their novels were doing. These faces are mostly new to you, not to us. Writers can be a friendly and supportive bunch and we'd drifted across this three-set on different forums, all about to publish their stuff for the first time. We shared some of our stories, they shared some of their own, and we got an idea. We asked each of them to keep track on how long it took them to get their work ready for publication and to give us sales figures after the first three months (subtracting, if possible, the purchases made by family and friends).
 
Mostly, we wanted to know if we were doing something wrong with our novels while everyone else was getting rich. Y'see, we're absolutely ready to make some adjustments if a big bag of money awaits us just around the corner.
 
At the end of the day, none of our new friends managed to pop their work on-line and go about their day. Each of them put multiple hours into getting the work ready for the marketplace. (One of them estimated she'd spent over six hours just trying to find the right cover artist for her mystery.) Once they went to market, none of them were interested in offering their work for free -- we know people can "sell" a bunch of free novels but the royalties suck -- and none of them wanted to offer a Dollar Store Special, either. Two of them priced their novels at $2.99 a pop, the third wanted $4.99 per purchase. All of them did decent to way-more-than-decent work.
 
In three months, total sales for all three authors were underwhelming. The sole male writer sold a single copy in that period (and feels it might fall into the 'friends and family' exclusion clause but isn't positive). Even the best-selling author in this bunch took home under forty bucks -- and her "per hour" rate for the time she'd spent wouldn't dazzle anyone. But what if the authors lived in Azerbaijan?, we hear you ask. Good try but no. Even in Azerbaijan, it's crap wages. We didn't ask about expenses to date (such as cover costs, editor charges, etc) but we assume our friends are all currently in the red.
 
At the end of the day, we learned two things. One, it's tough to build an audience in only three months; and, two, e-publishing just might be the perfect get-poor-quick scheme.

...or it is, at least, as we write this blog. We're in Sin City to celebrate the wedding of Renée's sister-by-another-mother to a really good guy. See, we told you some still existed. But, oops!, now he's gone. So please excuse us if this post is a little light on the writing biz at this time. We're busy drinking champagne and playing baccarat. Actually, it's more like sipping at apple cider while losing at penny slots but you get the idea.
 
Coming into the city, we noticed the sign on your left. It's everywhere. You'll even see versions of it in the Luxor (our hotel for this adventure), where all things sell-able are Egyptian-themed or pyramid-shaped...except for this image. Postcards, t-shirts, key rings, ash trays, and on and on...and we wondered who was the wizard behind the Las Vegas welcome.

It turns out that Betty Willis, graphic designer, is the wizard who came up with the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. Created in 1959, it's probably her most famous piece -- and she's got some pretty impressive bits in her portfolio -- but she never copyrighted the LV thing. She knew it was money but she gave the piece away as a gift to the city.
 
To the best of our knowledge, BW is still alive and kicking. We think her gesture was pretty Fabulous....

...'cause when we said we wrote werewolf porn (all those many months ago) -- and when we said we were considering adding a dollop of werewolf sex into everything we wrote (only a few weeks ago) -- we were mostly kidding.
 
Mostly. After all, Wicked Games does have a hero who turns into a werewolf. There is some bed action...handcuffs, too, if that's your particular kink...but it doesn't qualify as "porn" according to true aficionados. We know because we've been doing some research.
 
Nope, not the real cover to WG.We like it, though.
 
Last week, in almost back-to-back phone calls, we heard from a pair of family members who have been following our writing career. One suggested we write faster ah, why didn't we think of that? and the other suggested we start writing the really racy stuff. "Just check how Open Your Legs for Me is doing," she suggested. "It's only like 16 pages long and it's selling buckets. It's in Kindle's top paid 500!" We checked it out and there really is a short story called OYLFM. Hmmm, okay. But, y'see, we don't really --
 
Then, she added, "Aphrodite Hunt wrote a sequel, too, kind of, called Thighs Wide Apart. It's still super short and it has one kinda stinky review...but it's still doing so much better than, uh...."
Than our stuff. Yeah, we know.
 
Or, at least, we know now.
 
Look, when we wrote Wicked Games, we knew we were writing a romance. It had sex in it (because, in grown-up life, sex is frequently intermixed with romance) and, originally, it had a sex scene with our hero in full werewolf-y lust. Doing lusty things. Concerned about even a hint of bestiality, the editorial staff at Cobblestone Press had us pull the scene. We thought then, and we think now, that they were mistaken. If our hero had turned into a poodle, yeah, we'd have been on the same page, but Dravon turned into a handsome, horny wolf MAN. Still, the folks at CP are the hot-and-heavy professionals so we went along with their judgement.
 
At the end of the day, WG is a romance-mystery without any true werewolf sex. Human sex, yes! Creature of the night sex, no! Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to get back to our research....

...and we don't mean all our royalties, either. We bought this little beauty with this month's royalties from one novella, Wicked Games, our steamy story currently being offered by the good folks at Cobblestone Press.
 
You might be wondering how, exactly, we managed to sell enough copies of our story to purchase a handbag that goes out the door, retail, for a couple of thousand dollars. Especially since our last name isn't Patterson, Koontz or King, and WG isn't exactly fresh to the market. We'd be wondering that, too, if we hadn't picked up the collector's item at the local Goodwill. Purchase price was fifteen smackeroos.

Not having much time, we couldn't do a through go-over while in the store. Once we were home, of course, our immediate concern was that this might not be a legitimate Chanel purse. Sure, thrift shops offer some wonderful bargains but still....
 
So we (i.e., Renée) did some investigation. She discovered that a legitimate Chanel handbag comes in only a few color options. One of those combos is black on white. Winner! A real Chanel bag is made from the finest calfskin, so smooth and soft you nearly pass out from the experience of touching the thing. Hmmm. Our bag feels pretty ordinary. Knowing their audience is paying for their name, the manufacturer labels "Chanel" all over the place, from hardware to tags to the interior lining. Winner! Because the Big Bucks Crowd wants the best of the best, the stitching is immaculate. So why is our stitching just a little bit...off?

Two hours into her research, Renée offered her expert opinion: "Fake." While she was working, the purse had somehow, almost magically, developed an unpleasant odor. "We didn't buy a Chanel," Renée said. "We're the proud owners of a Cha-smell."
 
The good news? We had just enough WG royalty money left over for a evening's meal at Taco Bell. Which is rather fitting for people with a limited edition Cha-smell in the back of their closet....

_ …Kate Hawkings caught our attention. She’d posted her emotions on her blog site and it gave us pause enough that we wandered through the site. The crying thing? It was one of those mid-day surges that everyone experiences now and then but the kind everyone pretends they never experience. Then we saw KH doing her very first video blog and it was charmingly awkward. It was exactly the kind of thing we’d try to do except, when she was done, we liked her even better.
 
If we ever do a vlog, when it’s complete, people will want to hunt us for sport.

Turns out, she’s always had a gift for writing (“I was once told that if my chosen career didn’t work out, I could make a living writing sympathy cards. I still don’t know if that was a good or bad thing”) and decided to write the stories she wanted to read. She says, “I love girls with a kick-ass attitude, whether they can actually kick ass or not…although my girls generally can.”

Would a kick-ass girl actually tell other people she felt like crying? We’re guessing, yes, they would, ‘cause Kate is fairly kick-ass herself. “I trained as a strength and conditioning couch,” she tell us, “studying exercise and nutrition at the University. When I decided to pursue self-publishing, I thought it would be the best option for me. I like the idea of doing everything myself and succeeding (or failing) because of my own efforts.”

Succeeding on your own exemplifies kick-assery, even if it’s worlds apart from our philosophy. Frankly, if you and you want to do everything necessary to make us a big success, we’d appreciate it.  We’ll stay at home and watch The Real Housewives.

Half of our writing team wanted to ask a couple of the standard ‘I’m interviewing a writer’ kind of questions, while the other one of us could have cared less but he got overruled. Happily, Kate answered the questions, anyway.  “The best thing about writing is, I finally have an outlet for all the crazy stuff going on in my head,” she said. “The worst thing? No matter how much work you put into it, no matter how many people tell you your work is good, there’s still that nagging voice at the back of your mind that tells you your writing is awful. You have to learn how to block the little gremlins out but sometimes they manage to sneak through.”

Her favorite writers? “I love Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series, Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy and Black Swan series, Harry Potter, Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series (although Mockingjay made me want to throw the book across the room) and David Gemmell’s White Wolf.” Any novels that she disliked? “I prefer not to call them out.  If I enjoy reading something I’ll usually mention what I enjoy but, if I don’t like something, I’ll pretend I’ve never read it.”

But what about Frankenstein, P.I.? Did she love our electronic novelette  or did she really, really love our e-novelette? “I really enjoyed Frankenstein,” she told us. No, no, different book, we said.  “What was the title again?” she asked.

It's Frankenstein, P.I., we repeated.“Why…" she said, her voice going all weird and wonky, "I don’t think I’ve ever read it.”
 
Kate Hawkins' The Sphinx Project comes out in February, 2012. The novel's blurb reads like this:Not many people can say their entire existence has been one big lab experiment: poked and prodded by scientists, genetically modified to be the best and endure the worst, subjected to daily tests and trials that would kill a normal human. All Michaela wants is her own life, to be able to go to school, flirt with boys, maybe eat ice cream now and then. So when the chance to escape finally comes, Michaela and her sister grab it, taking their friends with them.

But they weren't the only ones to find their way out of those labs. Following close behind are another breed of creature, one that doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, who exist only to feed their own hunger. The appearance of a strange boy who seems too much like them to be a coincidence makes things even more confusing. But as the world begins to literally fall apart around them, Michaela must accept his help, especially when she could lose the very thing she holds dearest: her sister.

...there's one thing you can count on: the really lazy bloggers will use the date to post their New Year's resolutions.
 
Before you start to panic because we are, by any definition, really lazy bloggers, you're right to suspect we're going to share our 2012 resolutions right this very minute. If you care to sprint for the exit door, know it's directly past the tiger pit and through a fairly large nest of brown recluse spiders.
 
On the other hand, we're not going to repeat the same promises of past years. Every year, we swear we'll lose weight. (This year, both of us did. Funny what medical maladies will force upon you.) We promise to exercise more frequently. (This year, both of us did. Funny what fear will force upon you.) We promise to spend less/save more. (That SO did not happen.)
 
It could just be the Castello di Gabbiano Chianti 2010 talkin' but, this time 'round, we're making only one promise. A single, rather difficult, resolution. This year, we write a sequel to one of our other projects.
 
No big deal, right? It shouldn't be but it is. It's comforting to know other writers struggle with this same issue. In 1983, Stephen King said he was planning a sequel to Salem's Lot. (It's Harrell's favorite King novel. How he wishes there was a sequel in the works.) But don't run down to the bookstore just yet. SK still hasn't come up with the goods.
 
For us, too, it's a challenge. In an interview about Something Wicked, we said we were plotting the Wicked sequel (Something Evil). To date, all we have is an outline. When the paperback version of Aly's Luck wrapped, we discussed Syr's World. Instead, we penned Frankenstein, P.I. While we can't claim to get fan mail -- all we have is you and you and you're not fans, you're comrades -- we have had a few strong requests to see The Preacher's Son (the sequel to The Atheist's Daughter) sooner rather than later...but, so far, it's looking later rather than sooner.
 
So, for 2012, our one wish is to write a sequel, any sequel, to one of our earlier stories. It's a shame, though, that Salem's Lot isn't available for a follow-up tale. We have some wonderful ideas....

...we're not ready for the holiday to end. Oh, there's madness swirling around us -- here, where a lawsuit claims the public can't tell the difference between a #1 bestselling book series and a line of barely-there comic books...and here, where a lovely writer suddenly finds herself unemployed -- but we don't want to discuss such things. Not today.
 
Y'see, it's the day after Christmas and we're still on holiday. Better yet, like Scrooge, we're going to continue to hold Christmas in our hearts. Unlike Scrooge, it's for today only but, hey, we're not fictional characters. So, while we hope your day was happy, you should know our celebration isn't yet over. And we plan to pretend like it's 12/25 all over again.
 
Drinking: Eggnog, of course.
 
Watching: A Christmas Carol. Wikipedia says there's been at least 28 filmed versions of the piece but our favorite (and the one we're watching) is the 1984 TV version starring George C. Scott.
 
Best. Scrooge. Ever.
 
Listening: A Very Scary Solstice, a bizarre little CD from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. The HPLHS called it, " a delightful yet hideous combining of over-commercialized holiday tunes and the unspeakable horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos", and it includes such songs as Silent Night, Blasphemous Night, Away in a Madhouse, and I saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth. It is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds.
 
Now, back to bed for us!

...Dodgson, or at least we tried to go cheap. Things didn't quite work hope as we'd hoped. "Don't get cheap on me, Dodgson" is a line we love from Jurassic Park. The movie, not the book, 'cause the book didn't have any lines quite so cool.
 
See, we managed to get a jingle for our ebook, Frankenstein, P.I. (as ridiculous a story as you're likely to read this year) and we got it on the cheap. Never mind how. We have our methods. Even at a quick 30-seconds, the Frankie jingle needed a little something to go with it so we thought, as we have thought before: "No one cares about book trailers! Let's make one to go along with our jingle!"

 You're right, this does not display good business sense. Neither, by the way, does being a writer.
 
Since there are several do-it-yourself, free animation services on the web, we thought we'd create a do-it-ourselves book trailer. We dabbled at three different spots: Xtranormal, which offered some cute animations but wanted cash up front for just about any use; Animasher, which seemed the least interested in our wallet but produced a seizure-inducing spot (not that we blame the Animasher group. We just lack skills in this regard); and Go!Animate, our favorite of the group, which slips its corporate hand ever-so-slowly into your pocket and fishes out a few quarters at a time. Go!Animate even lets you build your own character -- the first one is free -- and, so, we offer to you, above, our cartoon version of Frankie, P.I.
 
Cartoon Frankie can walk, stroll, dance, but we couldn't get him to synch to our lyrics. What are the lyrics, you ask? Here goes:
 
Frankenstein, P.I.

Keep your cops and private dicks
There’s one Eye who makes the bad guys sick
It’s Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
P.I.

Born of thunder
And of lightning
Not too bright
And mighty frightening
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein
P.I!
 
If you'd like to actually hear the jingle you crazy thing you, hit the sideways triangle below...and enjoy!

...so we thought we'd wrap 2011 up by doing a solid for somebody else. (We first heard the phrase, "You do me a solid, I'll do you a solid" in Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital, a show we watch faithfully. We realize we're probably the sole members of the Kingdom Hospital fan base but, as Woody Allen famously said, "The heart wants what it wants." We like the solid terminology but we're not sure if we've ever used it before.) So we e-went to Kiva and made a $25 loan.
 
Yeah, yeah, we know. You'd think we'd drop at least a C-note but we're writers and $25 represents more than all of the royalties we've made so far on Bill Shakespeare's Next Big Mistake. Although, like you, we're surprised we've made ANY royalties off of a teleplay, even if it's our favorite teleplay.
 
Our quarter C-note went to Ayush Tsendsuren (above), a 38 year old tailor. She lives with her husband and kids in the slum district of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and, working hard, started her own tailoring shop. Recently, her sewing machine broke.
 
Her only sewing machine. Without this piece of equipment, she's out of business. So she asked for a loan, Kiva stepped up, Credit Mongol stepped up, even we stepped up. Now, Ayush is shopping for "a high quality sewing machine, perhaps a Western brand" and we hope she gets a good one.

Next time we're in Mongolia, we're swinging by her shop.
 
Side note about nothin': We just saw another of S. King's t.v. projects, Bag of Bones and, from the ratings, a few other people did, too. The show was a little slow, sure, but bolstered by strong performances by all...until the last twenty minutes or so of the piece, when the entire thing went Z-grade. Honestly, we like cheese but this thing was a block of Velveeta and well past its sell date....