06/28/2013 • 11:21 AM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Cool Armand Rosamilia, uber zombie guy! We talk about Armand’s books, The Walking Dead, George Romero to 28 Days Later to Shawn of the Dead and much more.
Author Armand Rosamilia was my first interview on The Cool People Podcast. Cool guy with interesting ideas about his genre, writing and the business of zombie.
Have a listen.
~ Chazz
See on coolpeoplepodcast.com
Filed under: publishing
06/27/2013 • 8:19 PM 2
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Free Scrivener Templates To Structure Your Novel
Regular readers here know I love Scrivener. I write all my books with this software. It has a steep learning curve at first, but it’s worth the effort and will save you much more time and money that it costs.
Check out this Galleycat article for free Scrivener templates at the link below. Looks useful.
See on www.mediabistro.com
Filed under: publishing
06/27/2013 • 7:23 AM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
National book marketing and publicity expert, creator of JenningsWire online magazine, Annie Jennings, queried authors to find out what SOLD books – what worked, what did not!
You’ve got plenty of book marketing strategies to consider at the link below. This is an extensive list of options written by Annie Jennings (at Jennings Wire, The World of Success). Enjoy!
I suspect the failed strategies will generalize well.
I suspect the strategies listed as effective won’t work for everyone because there are so many variables. For instance, speaking at events can certainly sell books, but factors such as your book, the audience and how well you speak can handicap your sales efforts.
You’ll notice intimacy, connection and selling one-to-one appear repeatedly. That makes a lot of sense. One of the things we should do is get out of our houses, go to readers and meet them individually. That’s one of the few dependable constants in selling books. Go to where readers are instead of hoping they come to you.
What’s worked best for you? (Before someone else says it, yes, we know. "Write the best book you can.")
What book marketing strategies do you like least worked best for you?
The answers to so many of our problems reside outside our comfort zone because to get different results, we have to do something different.
~ Chazz
See on anniejenningspr.com
Filed under: publishing
06/26/2013 • 8:03 AM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Stay tuned for a frank and NSFW discussion about writing sex versus writing erotic stories…and Charles Bukowski.
Author Eden Baylee is a friend of mine. We got together on the Cool People Podcast to chat about the business of writing erotica. Enjoy!
~ Chazz
See on coolpeoplepodcast.com
Filed under: publishing
06/24/2013 • 9:47 AM 2
Contagious diseases that threaten to end civilization as we know it have already affected me personally. (You know, besides the Not Wanting to Die Part. We all share that.)
I wrote the bulk of my horror serial, This Plague of Days, two years ago. I was definitely inspired by The Stand. However, the scariest book I’ve ever read is The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (and it’s non-fiction, by the way). That plays a large part in my story’s inception. The Hot Zone became much more personal when its warnings became real to a family member. My sister-in-law has a very important job in a Toronto hospital. SARS hit Toronto hard and she was in the middle of the crisis in 2003.
A coronavirus that may cause SARS. (transwikied from en.wikipedia.org) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Vancouver could have been hit as badly as Toronto. However, one astute nurse averted a worse disaster. She identified the symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome immediately. She spotted a patient in an ER waiting room and isolated the infected person to avoid an outbreak. You’d hope that best case scenario would happen every time. Toronto wasn’t so lucky.
My sister-in-law and many healthcare workers were in danger. However, they did the job they signed up for and did so bravely. As a result, several of those killed by SARS were health care workers.
Through my research, I knew the agency I worked for planned to facilitate the government’s plan to make me and my colleagues in hospitals in the event of an outbreak. The bureaucrats, without consulting the membership they said they served, were ready to give me up, volunteer me and put me and my family in harm’s way. With two young children at home, they weren’t merely ready to put me in danger. Their emergency plans put my kids in danger. (I’d have to go home sometime after being exposed to contagious diseases against my will.)
Those same bureaucrats plan to hide in their homes during an outbreak while sending me and my colleagues into the thick of it. This is especially egregious when you grok this: Where I live, doctors and nurses refused to pledge that they would report for work during a pandemic. The medical experts understand that when the world flu pandemic arrives, isolation from contagion is the surest way to save the most lives. Staying home is the best chance to avoid an ugly death in an overcrowded hospital.
You could say I was annoyed by these policies. One bureaucrat in charge of emergency planning told me “This is the government. They can do what they want.” (I thought the point of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was…oh. Never mind. We live there now.)
And yet the doctors’ and nurses’ unions found a spine, maintained their dignity and refused to sign the government’s proposed pledge because (1) their membership at least got consulted, and (2) many felt the government’s plan was stupid at best.
A chest x-ray showing increased opacity in both lungs, indicative of pneumonia, in a patient with SARS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Were you aware that with budget cuts in many hospitals, the first to be sacrificed are the people who cost the least money? Expensive upper management is rarely cut, but the cleaning staff has to go first? Those are the people who disinfect the elevator buttons and clean computer keyboards. SARS can survive (and wait for you) a long time on an elevator button.
You know those powerful toilets you’ll find in any hospital? They can aerosolize disease really well when flushed. There’s a factoid to keep you up nights.
During SARS, hospital cafeterias were closed. That sounds like a good idea until you realize medical staff have to eat, too. Nurses ate close together in cramped nursing stations.
For relief, you drink more coffee. It’s not just to deal with the stress and exhaustion. It’s to get a break from the mask. Worse? A properly fitted hospital mask that’s tested and certified will protect you from many pathogens for maybe 20 minutes to half an hour. When it gets wet, and it does simply with respiration, it doesn’t protect you from possible contagion anymore. You read that right. To screw up most masks, all you have to do is breathe. We don’t all get HAZMAT suits.
The medical staff all wore masks and took proper preventive measures. However, when they gathered in a tight huddle to consult each other, they pulled their masks aside.
With all this in mind, I attended a meeting with representatives of that governmental agency I alluded to. They told us we’d be safe with any old mask at all. However, a carpenter’s mask keeps out sawdust, not viruses. A hospital-safe mask is fitted individually and tested with noxious smoke. If you cough during the test, the mask doesn’t fit and has to be refitted. (Bonus points for shortsighted and stupid: This test costs money, so it’s often skimped on or not done at all.)
At the meeting, I stood up and objected to the cavalier policy on masks. I thought I was a helpful and worried hero of the people. Nope! I’d become a problem. Problems are things to get rid of.
The next Monday morning my supervisor called to “discuss my contract.” They told me I’d challenged them in a public meeting. (I challenged them, but the meeting was in no way public.) They said I sounded angry. Um, yeah. With me and my family’s health on the line? I was angry. But there’s a difference between righteous indignation and ranting. I thought I hit the right balance. They didn’t agree. (And not for nothing, the highest ranking officer on the phone sounded more angry than I was. I have the tape.)
They said I was free to hold my opinions, but I couldn’t work for them at the same time and express the truth. They didn’t want to risk any “dual messages” getting out.
They questioned my integrity, but I’d done my job well so I guess they couldn’t fire me. They said if I wanted to continue, closer monitoring would be necessary. (I have no idea what that means, but collars make me itch.) I believe it’s simpler than that. They didn’t like me when I wasn’t nodding my head. I wasn’t happy with them anymore, either. I resigned because I thought that was what integrity looked like.
Now I wonder if they took that as some kind of admission of guilt. Then I get angry again. As far as I know, the government’s emergency preparedness plan has not changed an iota. The danger, and loss of personal choice, is no less real.
So I wrote a book about the plague that’s coming to kill us. I write about how society reacts to the threat and how civilizations fail. Then 28 Days Later types of zombies show up. Interesting Latin phrases appear for the word nerds and serious lovers of literature get some existential contemplation between zombie attacks. There’s something for everybody.
In Episode 2 of This Plague of Days, released today, I include a chapter that shows exactly how bureaucrats like my former employers could kill someone like me with the same bad decisions. Will the bureaucrats read my demonstration of the worst-case scenario? I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll keep an open mind. (I crack myself up.) However, maybe an emotional demonstration will resonate more than a defiant lecture. At least those potentially affected by these policies might get and spread the message so next time I won’t be standing up alone.
If you still think it’s a crazy, paranoid and unlikely scenario, have a look at today’s links to real-life events on MERS in “Related Articles” below. Also consider that epidemiologists are clear: we’re long overdue for another terrible disease outbreak.
Read This Plague of Days. And please, wash your hands frequently.
This Plague of Days, Episode One (99 cents)
This Plague of Days, Episode Two (99 cents)
or
just grab
This Plague of Days, Season One
for $3.99.
Filed under: author platform, Books, My fiction, What about Chazz?, What about you?, contagious diseases, coronavirus, emergency planning, emergency preparedness, health care workers, healthcare workers, horror, horror serial, hospital masks, Hot Zone, masks, MERS, outbreak, Richard Preston, Robert Chazz Chute, SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, The Man, Toronto, WHO, world flu pandemic, World Health Organization, zombie fiction, zombies
06/22/2013 • 8:09 AM 18
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
A fun yet uncomfortable author interview: The Questions with Robert Chazz Chute: Writer on dSavannah Rambles
Most author interviews don’t get read. If they are read, they are lightly scanned. Too often, the same questions are asked and worse, the same answers squeak out to an audience that does not care. There are people who care about where you get your ideas or how you started writing. Those people are your mom (maybe) and the fans who are already into your books. No conversions for you!
Regular Interviews Don’t Create New Readers
Regular interviews bore old readers. They convert no one. Some author interviews make me wish they’d preserved the mystery and shut up. Mostly, I just delete, ignore and move on to see if the Internet has any playful cat videos (like you). Author interviews as they are generally practiced are lousy promotional tools. If you’re going to bother with an arduoous guest blog tour for your book, break the old paradigm.
The Solution is Umbilical Lint
Writers should avoid cliches, so enough about (slurp) how much coffee we drink. Tell us about the Hunter S Thompson acid trip you took in Juarez at spring break. Tell us about your hilarious colonoscopy (I did on the All That Chazz podcast). Share news. News is new. Be entertaining and don’t go for the standard questions and useless answers.
This week, in my post “Author Armand Rosamilia Hates Canada” we got a lot of hits, retweets and comments. People had a good time with Armand’s fun answers to my silly questions about his secret life as a belly button lint sculptor. We made people laugh and intrigued them. Getting read, whether it’s in your books or for your book tour, starts with getting people interested. Don’t lead with “How long have you been writing?” Who cares? Those sorts of questions are for authors who are already on the NYT bestseller list. (And even them, yech.)
Don’t be Afraid to be Bizarre…or Honest
In my latest interview with dSavannah (at the link below) I give honest answers and some of them are funny but uncomfortable. Some answers involve time travel to save my childhood and career. I give an honest answer that involves my mother’s death. (I didn’t kill her. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) Be honest, informative, helpful, make jokes and use more imagination. You do that when you’re writing your books. Do that when you talk about your work, too. Just don’t be so earnest! To sell art, be more artful.
If You Want Nice Fans with a Sense of Humor, Be One of Them
Another example? Listen in to my giggly interview with cool Jessica McHugh at CoolPeoplePodcast.com. You might hate me but you’ll fall in love with her and you’ll want to check out her books. Our books are extensions of our personalities. Have one. That gives a reader hope they’ll like your books.
Read Armand Rosmilia’s audacious Fatty Arbuckle reference in his post here. Armand looks like a death metal biker dude, acts like a teddy bear and is a fun guy. We got such great feedback on “Author Armand Rosamilia Hates Canada”, he told me that in his next interview he plans to bomb Alaska. I think that’s something we can all get behind.
Entertainment is the first step to engagement. Are you not entertained?
If not, the author interview failed.
See on dsavannah.com
Filed under: author platform, author Q&A, authors, My fiction, publishing, Author, author interviews, book, interview, Jessica McHugh, Robert Chazz Chute, writing
06/21/2013 • 8:34 AM 2
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Giving It Away: Why Fiction Authors Should Offer Free Ebooks by Jason Kong explores the reasoning that suggests new authors spread their work as widely as possible
Check out Jason Kong’s rationale for free book promotion on The Book Designer at the link below.
Regular readers of this blog know I’ve gone back and forth on this issue and I still get conflicting reports that make me shake my head. However, I made up my mind to get back on Amazon’s KDP Select train recently. This Plague of Days is exclusively on Amazon, at least for the next three months and I plan to use free promotions in a very limited and strategic way. (Also, my approach won’t be for everyone because a serial gives me new options I didn’t have previously. More on that after I conduct the experiment.)
What solidified my resolve was finding out precisely how the Amazon algorithms work. I read David Gaughran’s Let’s Get Visible. I found his take reassuring so I can still use free properly and feel good about it. If you haven’t read David’s book yet, you know the drill.
BEYOND THE ISSUE OF FREE: LOUSY COMPETITION
The other thing that made me sure of KDP was the abysmal state of Amazon’s competitors: unfriendly user experience and lousy search capability that works against indie authors. David explains in his book why that persists. The short answer is the other platforms are still trying to play the short game to profitability. Amazon is customer focussed and so they’re crushing. (I knew Stupid had to have a rationale, even if it’s not working and hurts them in the long game! Seriously, read Let’s Get Visible for details.)
I have some books on other platforms and they aren’t moving significantly. I’m not saying I’ll stick everything on Amazon forever, but I need the other platforms to show me something different and better before I migrate all my work to those platforms.
This Plague of Days is a lot of grim fun and an immense undertaking. I will not put it on a platform that goes out of its way to hide my books from customers. Amazon’s not perfect, but my work has a chance there.
See on www.thebookdesigner.com
Filed under: publishing
06/20/2013 • 9:40 AM 5
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
SO SAD.
The other night I ran into a guy on Vine who is obviously a reader. They are out there and they are among the most interesting people you could ever meet. Here’s the thing: when you read the Buzzfeed article at the link below, if you’re so predisposed, you may feel a stress headache and depression settling over you like a shroud. The news for books does not look good in many ways. The economy still sucks, millions of distractions pull at our time and eyeballs. The world of entertainment is a fractured mosaic.
Resist that depressive impulse. Facts are facts and they are interesting facts delivered in an entertaining way on Buzzfeed (with pictures because who reads anymore?). If nothing else, the next time somebody hits you with the Big Five’s awesome power to curate important books and direct our culture from Central Command, you can smack them right back with Snooki and Justin Beiber. But there’s more to the resistance than schadenfreude and a debate point.
The readers that are out there? They are a dedicated cult. They love good books. They love discovering new authors. They appreciate a rainy Sunday afternoon so they can pull a book over their heads and be transported. They turn off the TV. They read beside forgotten cups of cold coffee. Deep readers get comfortable on the couch as they settle into another world. As they read, they forget this disapoointing reality and invest themselves in fiction. They know books are time machines that can slow the Earth’s spin with a well chosen phrase or even make their doctor’s office wait or subway commute whiz by. The characters may not be real, but they feel real and books make people feel emotions like no other medium. Good readers know the regretful joy of immersing themselves in a great story and purposely slowing down so they don’t finish the book too quickly.
Authors are in the brain tickling business. We don’t need everyone on Earth to feel this same rapture over books. Sure, it would be great if they did, but what I’m looking for is a cult. A small army would be fine. I’m looking for a group of people who dig my take on existence. People who like my books are interested in questions that don’t necessarily have answers. My readership doesn’t have to be "5 Billion served". A dedicated following is all any author needs.
The readers are out there. I’m sure of it. Believe. I’m one of them, too.
Oh, and the guy I met on Vine the other night? He’s interested in This Plague of Days. He spread the word to his followers so more people would give my books a chance. He could be one of the Chute Book Cult priests. Or a captain in Chazz Army. Or a new friend.
"We are strong.
We are coming.
You deserve us.
The chaos in every day you have left will be so scintillating.
We make history and a new future."
~ from This Plague of Days by Robert Chazz Chute
See on www.buzzfeed.com
Filed under: publishing
06/19/2013 • 6:20 AM 15
Let’s not talk about Armand Rosamilia and the horror books everyone knows. Let’s talk about the secret Armand Rosamilia no one knows.
1. What’s the scariest movie you ever saw and why?
I always tell everyone Beaches with Bette Midler, but it’s really Breakin’ 2: Electric Bugaloo.
2. Why do you write about horror when you could be writing about unicorn and puppy erotica?
Who says I don’t use a pen-name for that stuff? But I hate puppies so I don’t write that crap.
3. What’s your secret to being so damn sexy and does that get in the way of your writing career or help your fame grow?
Being so damn sexy is actually a curse. I can’t even go through the McDonald’s drive-thru and order three McDoubles (plain, please) without someone asking for my autograph on the credit card receipt.
4. If you could remake a horror movie with two iconic monsters, which ones would you put together on screen and who would win?
This might be my first serious answer… hmm. Tom Cruise (with creepy smile) against the C.H.U.D.’s. I would like to see the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground
Armand Rosamilia
Dwellers win.
5. What stars would you cast in the movie of Dying Days (note: Not all characters can be Richard Simmons.)
Since you took the obvious answer away from me… Alyssa Milano as Darlene Bobich, even though she doesn’t look like her… I just want to finally meet my next ex-wife. And then a bunch of dudes I have no use for. Like the dreamy Drew Carey and Orlando Bloom (who people mistake me for all the time).
6. Celebrity author death match: Dean Koontz versus Stephen King in a cage at the Superbowl half-time show. The soundtrack is the fight music from the original Star Trek Spock versus Shatner fight to the death. What weapons do Koontz and King use? How does the fight go down and who wins?
Koontz uses his toupee as a secret weapon, using it at the last minute to break off King’s giant choppers and forcing them down his throat. King’s Ramones t-shirt is ineffective against Koontz.
7. In your spare time I understand you’re an internationally recognized belly button lint sculptor. How did you get into that and what’s your favorite piece of lint art?
My Abraham Lincoln is frighteningly life-like, but my Mel Gibson sculpture of his belly button lint from Lethal Weapon 2: Electric Bugaloo is also amazing.
8. What was your personal, secret, behind-the-scenes role in bringing down Mitt Romney in the last US election?
I actually went out for a few banana bread beers with him and told him, truthfully, ‘Westeros will have an election next year. Hold out for there, or Margaritaville. Either place could use you.’ Then he got into his spaceship with Bigfoot and they went to hang out with Elvis and Fatty Arbuckle.
9. What does “Rosamilia” translate to?
In Italian the literal translation is ‘Man with Giant Penis Who Knows How To Use It’. Or thousand roses. I forget which one.
10. If you weren’t a horror author, obviously you’d be bent on world domination. What would your plan to become our overlord be?
First thing I would do would be to sink Canada (sorry, Chazz) back into the Hudson River, and then destroy the New York Yankees with a meteor (sorry, um… idiot Yanks fans) and then all radio stations would only be allowed to play Steel Panther or Bloodhound Gang songs. Then I would ban all literature except my books and Watership Down. And then we’d turn the pyramids upside down and make them giant swimming pools and I’d charge $5 per swim. And then… OK, I got nothing.
Filed under: Author profiles, Armand Rosamilia, author interview, books, Dean Koontz, dying days, ebooks, horror, Koontz, Stephen King
06/18/2013 • 7:23 PM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
Win a Contract to Write a Dark Crystal Novel
Here’s a strange and maybe a wonderful opportunity for authors. Do you even remember The Dark Crystal? The movie’s from 1982, but maybe there are some Dark Crystal fans out there (or new fans waiting to be born with new blood and new life in the franchise.) Even if you don’t know the movie, they’ll provide you with what you need to know to bring life to the vision and recreate their world.
1982: I got together with my first serious girlfriend and travelled far from home for a summer for the first time. Rocky III and Asia’s "Heat of the Moment" was playing constantly…on my tape recorder. Remember those? I was young and free and nobody carded me at bars even though they definitely should have. 1982 was one of the best summers ever in the history of the world.
Ancient history, and yet, the Gelflings are gathering again. Deadline for entry in this contest is Dec. 31st. Check out the details at the link below to Galleycat. (Article by Jason Boog.)
See on www.mediabistro.com
Filed under: publishing
Winner of Writer's Digest's 2014 Honorable Mention in Self-published Ebook Awards in Genre
The first 81 lessons to get your Buffy on
More lessons to help you survive Armageddon
"You will laugh your ass off!" ~ Maxwell Cynn, author of Cybergrrl
Fast-paced terror, new threats, more twists.
An autistic boy versus our world in free fall
Suspense to melt your face and play with your brain.
Action like a Guy Ritchie film. Funny like Woody Allen when he was funny.
Jesus: Sexier and even more addicted to love.
You can pick this ebook up for free today at this link: http://bit.ly/TheNightMan
See my books, blogs, links and podcasts.
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