C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

07/31/2013 • 12:48 PM 7

Dystopian Braingasm: For word nerds and horror readers who love autistic heroes

Click it to grab it free before midnight tomorrow night!

It’s time to glimpse your future. The plague is coming. The pandemic will hit us in waves. One strange boy with hidden talents will determine whether this is the end of the world or the just the end of the world as we know it.

**Get Episode One of This Plague of Days free until midnight tomorrow night.**

Horror lovers have plenty of surprises ahead with this dystopian serial. The infected are not what you expect and the heroes and villains of this zombie apocalypse are like nothing you’ve experienced.

Jaimie Spencer is a selective mute on the autistic spectrum. Read Episode One for free now and find out why parents of autistic children love This Plague of Days.

A savage virus spreads around the globe and society collapses. In Britain, the story has the flavor of the international thriller. In America’s heartland, you’ll see what happens when the Sutr plague comes for a family just like yours.

This serial is two books in one on a collision course.

Five stars from reviewers:

“Not your average Zombie story!”

*

I think this storyline is brilliant. It’s not your cliched, run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse story. It’s character driven. It’s cerebral. It’s awesome.

The first episode of This Plague of Days is the perfect balance of back story, anecdotes, and the events of the present crisis. Jaimie, the main character, is fantastically written and surprisingly well thought out.

*

Plague of Days Episode 1 takes the reader into a new perspective-the autistic. A different concept, refreshing as well as illustrating the challenges faced in real life as well as in fiction.

*

I’ve read and watched several zombie novels and TV shows. This one is told from a unique perspective and I can’t wait to read the next episode. I think this would translate to a miniseries!

Can’t have just one chip? Season One has five episodes. Get each one for 99 cents or get all of Season One at a discount for $3.99. Season Two hits this September.

~ Robert Chazz Chute is a former journalist, columnist and podcaster. This Plague of Days is his ninth book.

Season One of the World’s First Autistic Zombie Apocalypse Novel is Complete! (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: An intro to serials and the big idea (thisplagueofdays.com)
The book I lost a job for…and why zombies? (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: A Secret Revealed (allthatchazz.com)
This Plague of Days: The mind virus is created (allthatchazz.com)
The Reason I Jump: One Boy’s Voice from the Silence of Autism, by Naoki Higashida – review (guardian.co.uk)
Is My Child An Indigo Child? (netherrealminvestigations.wordpress.com)
Autistic!Sherlock Holmes – An Analysis (lucasscheelk.wordpress.com)

Filed under: free ebooks, publishing, Science Fiction, Amazon, Apocalypse, Asperger syndrome, autism, Autism spectrum, books, dystopian, ebooks, free days, free ebook, horror, horror lovers, international thriller, paranormal, parents of autistic children, plague, post-apocalytic, Robert Chazz Chute, sale, serial, This Plague of Days, thriller, Zombie, zombie apocalypse, zombies

07/25/2013 • 11:10 AM 1

Part 2: The next tech tool authors and publishers need

The Author Marketing Club has a new tool you’re going to want. Actually, they have a bunch of tools you’ll want, but today I’ll tell you about the latest one:

The Book Widget Creator Tool

On your author site, you have your books displayed in the sidebar. You’ve used image widgets and text widgets and tried to make your list look attractive for readers. The Author Marketing Club just came up with a tool for premium members that makes it easy and uniform. Here’s a sample of what it looks like on my author site. (Scroll down the right sidebar. You can’t miss it.)

Before you reject premium membership, I hasten to add that the Author Marketing Club offers a lot of cool tools to make your writing life easier and your image professional.

The tool pulls from Amazon, so it updates star ratings automatically. It’s a set it and forget it situation. At some point, you’ll be able to link to other sites besides Amazon. Within the tool, there’s an option to input your Amazon affiliate code so you’ll get credit for those clicks.

To use it, all you have to do is choose a widget width and plug in AISN numbers from your books on Amazon. Premium membership costs $105. Over the next few posts, I’ll tell you why I joined and why that fee is entirely justified.

Stand by for more AMC advantages.

Easy tech tools for authors and publishers Part 1 (chazzwrites.com)
Kindle select: is it worth it? (leonhughesblog.wordpress.com)
5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts (maximizesocialbusiness.com)
In the digital age, what will become of author signings? (teleread.com)
5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts (living-business.co)
How My Team Uses Pinterest and The Pinterest Tool (digitalhighrise.com)

Filed under: book marketing, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Author, author marketing club, book marketing, book promotion, book widget creator tool, Cool Tools, ebooks, publishing, Tools, widget

07/25/2013 • 8:00 AM 2

Easy tech tools for authors and publishers Part 1

Time to tell you about BannerSnack. With this app, you can easily construct banners and ads for your author site. You’re going to love it.

This is a free tech tool I picked up at the Chrome Store. I just started playing with it, but I’m already very impressed. Not being comfortable with HTML often holds us back from doing more with our websites. There are several ways to work around that problem without learning programming language. BannerSnack makes it easy (even if you just go for the free options with watermarks). If you’re going to use it a lot, premium options aren’t unreasonably priced.

Here’s an ad I created for a book promotion on my author site, AllThatChazz.com:

You can start from scratch or choose to start from a wide variety of templates and sizes to get your unique message out.

If you want to make your website more spiffy, I suggest you play with BannerSnack. The interface is intuitive so you’ll have a banner, ad or button up and running quickly.

In Part II, I’ll show you an even cooler and easier tool to make presentation of your books,

and your author site, beautiful and inviting.

Why your interviews don’t work and how to fix the problem (chazzwrites.com)
How to Increase your site’s Adsense Income (itmashable.com)

Filed under: publishing, advertising, Author, author websites, BannerSnack, books, creating websites, ebooks, HTML, making buttons, Programming language, publishers, publishing, selling books, Web banner, website

07/15/2013 • 11:55 AM 0

Writers: Fantasy, Reality and the Awful Lessons

(Editor’s Note: FYI, release of the Hugh Howey podcast and Episode 5 of This Plague of Days has been a little delayed. But not by much. Explanations to follow. Some will be somewhat hilarious, especially if you’re a sadist.)

Here’s the writerly fantasy:

You know that dream you have of being a writer? We all have it with minor variations. Sometimes I picture a tiny writing cabin like Mark Twain had, perhaps by the water so I can watch the paddle steamers push up the river. Clacking away at an old typewriter with black and white ivory keys with a butler to bring scones would be awesome. At tea time, I could retire to an English country garden with a labyrinth and mull the next plot twist. Mm…okay, a Mac with black and white, fake ivory keys and coffee, not tea.

On me mudder’s side all the way back, I’m Irish. Maybe I should be scribbling in a moleskin notebook at the back of a gray pub hiding behind a tall Guinness and romantic, brooding despair. I’d run my hands through my hair a lot.

Analyze that fantasy and you’ll see it’s really about the power to be left alone and fear of people. We want to be at play in the fields of the mind. We don’t want to get retail jobs and interact with humans. We desire the protective distance a cyber interface allows. We crave the fantasy existence so we can do two things: Create Art and Not Deal. (Um, I’m not alone in my agoraphobic misanthropy, right? Right?)

Here’s the reality of writing:

We have to deal.

1. My cell phone just died and I stubbed a toe on my treadmill desk when I got up to charge the battery.

Lesson: Never move.

2. I’m behind schedule writing Season Two of This Plague of Days and I don’t have enough reviews on Season One yet.

Lesson: Kill self.

3. Someone got sick so the cover art for Episode 5 was delayed. (They’ll be okay, though.)

Lesson: Shit happens. Expect delays so you can schedule them.

4. I had technical issues with the Hugh Howey interview so I’m publishing the Cool People Podcast tonight or tomorrow morning.

Lesson: I have to deny my nature and be patient.

5. The cover art arrived but then my computer was attacked by the spinning beach ball of death.

Lesson: Have fewer than dozens of tabs open in the browser at one time. Apparently my mind doesn’t work the same way computer guts function.

6. Then, just as I tried to publish to Kindle this morning, my security software decided that was the perfect time to download a major update.

Lesson: Stab someone in the face with a #2 pencil. I’m not too picky about whom just now.

7. The update slowed everything down so much I knew I was a few minutes away from a heart attack.

Imagine your car is on fire and you’re trapped behind crumpled doors. Now imagine the seatbelt is jammed and cinched tight across your chest. You’re trying to get out but you’re pinned and the car’s filling up with choking, toxic, black smoke and your broken hands scrabble uselessly at the jammed buckle. Somehow, the radio is jammed on and it’s playing Kenny G.

It felt something like that.

Lesson: Get some cardio today. Listen to Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. Cheer the #$!! up.

8. While dealing with the computer trying to kill me, I was making my son late for his piano lesson.

Lesson: Make son play video games to the exclusion of everything else all summer so I won’t be alone in my agoraphobic misanthropy.

9. I have no minions to bring me venti skinny vanilla lattes. Taking the boy to his lesson allowed me to go get that indulgence because, by then, I surely deserved it.

Lesson: If things are going badly, I deserve an overpriced sugar fat coffee with healthy pretensions. If things are going well? Same.

10. I’m working on a few hours of sleep and, as I survey my tiny writing bunker…hey! There’s a startling lack of scone butlers, minions, interns and fans begging to slip money through the mail slot!

The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. Each of five episodes is only 99 cents each. Get the whole Season for the discount at $3.99. (And if you already have read it, please review it.) Thanks! ~ Chazz

Lesson: Write more, and faster, until I blur into another dimension where paddle steamers and garden labyrinths are the norm. In this new dimension, I’ll be loved and Guinness will come from the kitchen tap. We’ll never get old and we’ll never die. And no one will ever look like Wilfred Brimley.

So, the awesome Hugh Howey interview is on it’s way (I’ll let you know with the very next post here.)

Episode 5 of This Plague of Days will be up today, as promised.

However, it takes up to twelve hours for books to publish to Amazon so it will arrive later today.

I’m going to go kill someone in Season Two of This Plague of Days now. With a #2 pencil.

~ To learn more about This Plague of Days, go to ThisPlagueOfDays.com. Subscribe to the Cool People Podcast in iTunes or check it out at CoolPeoplePodcast.com. Follow me on Twitter @rchazzchute so I try to remember what love feels like. Check out all the books and podcasts at AllThatChazz.com or break down and go on a bargain book shopping spree here. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Related articles

You must read Hugh Howey’s novel, Wool (writeontheworld.wordpress.com)
Writer Quirks (and Advice!) from Hugh Howey (janetboyer.typepad.com)
conversation over at Hugh Howey: people stealing your ideas (morlockpublishing.com)
Navigating The Labyrinth: The Road to Publishing (droppedpebbles.wordpress.com)
How Weird Al, Kevin Smith, Hugh Howey and Scott Sigler Succeed (chazzwrites.com)
Hugh Howey on why he favors self-publishing (boingboing.net)
Wool by Hugh Howey (ofmusingsandwonderings.wordpress.com)
Podcast: Get Shorty (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, self-publishing, Writers, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, books, Cool People Podcast, ebooks, epublishing, frustrations, Hugh Howey, iTunes, Kindle, Podcast, Robert Chazz Chute, This Plague of Days, writing

07/08/2013 • 6:08 AM 3

How I’ll sell more books by studying my author ranking

Before you read this article about author rankings, a quick heads up: I’m inviting you to something fun that could help you in your writing endeavours. The link at the bottom of this article will take you to ThisPlagueOfDays.com for a post you’ll like about the advantages of serialization. At the bottom of that post, click on The Link for the Curious to get a secret (not a spoiler!) about This Plague of Days.

Episode 4 releases today!

Go to Author Central and have a look at your author rank. This shows you how you’re doing compared to other authors on Amazon. That’s not very useful information, but there is something to be gleaned from these charts.

Author rank on Amazon is interesting or depressing, depending on your score. However, the public never sees your author rank unless you’re in the top 100. As you click through and look at charts, the blue points are your highest rank on any given day (not your average for the day). The orange point is your placement right now.

These rankings are based on sales figures of digital, paper and audio. (So, as I’ve mentioned in this space, if you aren’t exploring your audio options yet, get on that.)

It’s good to own a genre if you can

If you’re really smart, you picked a genre and tried to dominate it. All or most of your books will be in one category and you won’t have many charts to click through. I’m not all that smart. I think focussing all your energy in one genre is probably a good idea. It is good advice I couldn’t take. I bubble over with ideas for books in various genres. Many of us are cursed that way.

For instance, I came up with an insta-book on doing business with the Vine app simply because (a) I was so enthused about the new app, and (b) I was working on the gargantuan This Plague of Days and felt like it had been too long since I’d published anything new. Not wanting to be forgotten, I wrote and published Six Seconds in one week. (Publishing gave my other books a bit of a boost, too, so there’s that.)

Gleaning what’s good to know from Amazon’s author rank

I have three books in non-fiction (business and publishing).

For the Hit Man Series, I ranked higher in mystery than I did in thrillers, though I ranked consistently higher in action/adventure and science fiction and fantasy.

I don’t consider myself a sci-fantasy writer. However, This Plague of Days fits neatly in the sci-fi subcategory of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic.

According to my author ranks, I rank best as a horror writer. I have several books of short stories on Amazon, but since they’re under the too vague “literature and contemporary fiction” categories, my rank there is weaker. Too general doesn’t help. I could and should put Murders Among Dead Trees under the horror category, too. It fits the tone for that collection.

Beware, however, of drilling too deep into a stagnant subcategory. The Hit Man Series sells better when categorized as action adventure and mystery. Hardboiled is a stagnant subcategory Bigger Than Jesus and Higher Than Jesus languished in too long. They were ignored because I messed up my category choice.

The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. Each of five episodes is only 99 cents each. Get the whole Season for the discount at $3.99. (And if you already have read it, please review it.) Thanks! ~ Chazz

Bonus hint

How can you tell if a subcategory is too small or dead? Check out a few forums on the genre. If the board has few members or the most recent posts aren’t in the current calendar year, uh-oh!)

Don’t major in your minor

People major in their minor all the time. They’re lousy at formatting but they spend days on a task they should farm out to someone else. They should be writing but since they don’t want to delegate, they’re doing something other than writing and revising. The author ranking by genre shows us what we do best by identifying what books people want more.

Author ranking gives us clues how we should categorize our books on Amazon for greater discoverability and tells us what our major is. You could look at bare book sales, but with author rankings by genre, Amazon does that for you in a clearer way that doesn’t allow you to fool yourself with short-term variables. Look for trends across categories for clues to optimize your books’ chances.

What the clues from author rankings told me

1. As I studied my rankings, I was reassured that I made a good choice to pursue the horror category.

2. I have two more books in the Hit Man Series in the chamber, but I won’t pull the trigger on those until things slow down with my plague serial. This Plague of Days, Season Two hits in September, so Jesus Diaz fans will have to wait just a bit longer while I major in my major.

3. As I write the next book about my loveable but luckless Cuban hit man, I’ll amp up the mystery so it fits more comfortably in that category.

4. For the books that perform less powerfully, I have some ideas that will breathe life into old titles as I create new ones.

5. The work that stands alone doesn’t perform as well. I knew this, of course, but I can see it in the charts. This is bad news because I have another huge book that was to be a one-off. Then it occurred to me. This is good news. It’s so huge, I could serialize it as I’m doing with This Plague of Days.

For more on the beauties of serialization, click here.

(That’s also where you’ll find the link to my defiant secret.)

~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of Self-help for Stoners, Murders Among Dead Trees, Crack the Indie Author Code, Six Seconds, Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire, Bigger Than Jesus, Higher Than Jesus and the zombie apocalypse serial, This Plague of Days. Read, love, review and please spread the word.

Beyond ‘Game of Thrones’: Exploring diversity in speculative fiction (herocomplex.latimes.com)
Amazon’s New SciFi, Fantasy, and Romance Subcategories (chazzwrites.com)
Amazon Author Central – possible improvements (marklord.info)
The New Face Of Publishing (arrowgatepublishing.com)
Is AuthorRank The Death Knell for Content Mills? (nexcess.net)
How to Choose the Right Genre for Your Book (savvybookwriters.wordpress.com)
Outside of Your Comfort Zone: Different Genres (english.answers.com)
The ‘Billboard’ That Can Make Or Break Your Book’s Success | Bestseller Labs (chazzwrites.com)

Filed under: Amazon, Amazon, Amazon.com, Author, author central, author ranking on Amazon, author ranks, autism, blogger, blogging, book, book marketing, books, Bookselling, ebooks, Hit Man Series, Horror fiction, Jesus Diaz, Plague of Days, writer, writing, Zombie, zombies

06/19/2013 • 6:20 AM 15

Author Armand Rosamilia hates Canada

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.

This Plague of Days: The Pitch (thisplagueofdays.com)
Summer of Zombie 2013 FREE eBook – Nine Authors! (alexlaybourne.com)
The Summer of Zombies Blog Tour 2013: Todd Brown (fearwriter.wordpress.com)
Summer of Zombie Blog Tour 2013 (lauragenie.wordpress.com)
Sick idea: how rabies spawned vampires and zombies (chazzwrites.com)
Dying Days 3 (lisawoodswrites.com)

Filed under: Author profiles, Armand Rosamilia, author interview, books, Dean Koontz, dying days, ebooks, horror, Koontz, Stephen King

06/18/2013 • 11:13 AM 7

This Plague of Days: You will be infected

The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. Click the image to purchase.

Welcome to young Jaimie Spencer’s world.

See the collapse of America’s heartland through the eyes of a boy on the autism spectrum. Watch the rise of the zombies destroy London. Two forces. One collision course.

This Plague of Days, Season 1 is like two books in one.

Terrorists release a deadly virus: Sutr-X kills 60% of the world’s population. It mutates. Now Sutr-Z is coming for all of us. Watch how ordinary people react when everything they thought they knew is ripped away.

Look around.

Your power? Your conveniences? The gasoline for your car and all that food to choose from? Gone.

The food chain is changing. The virus is spreading. Your world is falling apart and you are meat if you can’t run, fight or hide.

This Plague of Days is a horror serial that will surprise you.

Latin phrases, contemplations on the nature of God, cannibals in the streets and a strange boy who is a selective mute with an obsession for words. Don’t miss this one.

You can get five episodes for 99 cents each week by week for a summer of grim fun or you can get all of Season 1 at a discount for just $3.99. You’re going to love it.

Related articles

This Plague of Days: An intro to serials and the big idea (thisplagueofdays.com)
The book I lost a job for…and why zombies? (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: The Pitch (thisplagueofdays.com)

Filed under: Books, My fiction, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, This Plague of Days, Asperger syndrome, autism, Autism spectrum, books, deadly virus, ebooks, fiction, horror, latin phrases, List of Latin phrases, mind virus, nature of god, Robert Chazz Chute, This Plague of Days, zombie apocalypse, zombies

05/18/2013 • 2:00 PM 4

Writing and Publishing: The balls I juggle

I’m currently adding a scene to This Plague of Days in which Queen Elizabeth’s Corgis get fed to rampaging zombies as an appetizer before the main (royal) course. As I move through the day, fueled by coffee and rage, I stop to take care of details: Fun details, critical details, tiny details. Here’s the last few days:

1. Sent uncorrected ARCs of This Plague of Days Episode 1 to a bunch of people. The early reviews are happy ones.

2. Published a new Cool People Podcast. I interviewed Renee Pawlish about her strategies for writing and selling books. Good stuff and of particular interest if you read this blog regularly.

3. Updated several plugins across my five blogs, but the change to the Image Rotator Widget screwed up so the covers of my books were displayed in too huge a fashion. Sigh.

4. Sent off a couple more suggestions to Kit, graphic designer extraordinaire, for promotional T-shirts, prizes and giveaways. I plan to sell the shirts in the future, too. Fun, dark and brilliant designs by my man Kit. I knew he was great at book covers. He’s got an impressive flair for t-shirt designs, too. (Hint: hire him for your next book cover, website header, Zazzle product, etc.,…)

5. Commented on some blogs on a few Facebook posts and blogs of interest. Posted to my own blogs. (There are five now. I post to DecisionToChange.com almost daily.)

6. Wrote several new scenes for This Plague of Days and posted some excerpts as teasers. A novel is slightly different from a serial. I’m a teasing, surprising, cliffhanger guy anyway, but to keep the readers moving from one episode to the next, I added new material for extra punch.

7. I recorded a new All That Chazz podcast. I have to edit it and publish it later this weekend since that’s behind schedule. Sickness and book launch prep has eaten into my podcast time, but something had to give.

8. Emailed back and forth with future guests on the Cool People Podcast. People are asking to be on, so it’s picking up.

9. Did some promotions on Vine and performed an experimental giveaway with Murders Among Dead Trees. Hit #34 in free on Amazon on the short story collection list with one day of promotion. Lessons learned: Get a higher profile on Vine and post more often. Most of the people who picked up the freebie came through my friends on Facebook.

10. Did some research on book sales and picked up Chuck Sambuchino’s new book Create Your Writing Platform. I also listened to the Self-Publishing Podcast in which the hosts believe free on Amazon is dead (as is the 99-cent price point.)

Bonus 1: I just learned that the plural is Corgis, not “Corgies”.

Bonus 2: I learned a blog post about publishing with the word “enema” in the title, gets a lot of traffic.

Question:

How about it? Is free dead to you? Does 99 cents mean the book is inexpensive or just crap? The guys on the Self-Publishing Podcast advised putting your stuff out on all platforms. I’d feel better about that if the other platforms sold more and had a more active review culture. What do you think?

And now back to edits with The Little Things by Danny Elfman as my soundtrack…

~ Follow Chazz on Twitter @rchazzchute. If you’re feeling down, go make a kale smoothie and dance sweaty. If you’re feeling up, make sure you have permission and then get sweaty.

Ugly side effects of healthy eating (decisiontochange.com)
Book Launch Prep: Funnels, marketing, and tap dancing as fast as I can (chazzwrites.com)
I believe (but I’m not a belieber) (allthatchazz.com)
Jerks, Near-Death, Time Travel and Alternate Reality (allthatchazz.com)
A lighter quote from This Plague of Days (thisplagueofdays.com)
This Plague of Days: The Serial. The Novel. (The Movie?) (thisplagueofdays.com)
A tiny excerpt of This Plague of Days from today’s revisions (thisplagueofdays.com)
The Art of This Plague of Days (thisplagueofdays.com)
Write! Like a Boss! (chazzwrites.com)
Book Marketing: Problems and Solutions (chazzwrites.com)

Filed under: author platform, blogs & blogging, book marketing, This Plague of Days, Blog, book launch, books, brilliant designs, critical details, DecisionToChange.com, ebooks, Facebook, iTunes, pawlish, Plague of Days, Podcast, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, t shirt designs, This Plague of Days, Vine, writing

05/05/2013 • 1:15 PM 11

Write! Like a Boss!

One of the movies we love here in the secret bunker is The Incredibles. I love a good Bond movie and The Incredibles is superheroes in a Bond movie. It’s a lot of fun, though, for me, the most effecting scene is where the missiles close on the plane with kids on board. Having kids makes you cry easily and I’ve cried during that scene several times over.

Kind of a Spoiler

In the original plot for The Incredibles, the plot called for the plane to be piloted by an ordinary human — a sweet old man and friend of Elastigirl — who gets killed in the explosion. That was revised when they decided it was too dark a turn for a kids’ movie.

The best scene

For my wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, the scene she always brings up first is the attack on the city.

Samuel L. Jackson, primed to defend innocents and come out of retirement, really sells it when he sees the devastation and shouts, “Honey! Where is my super suit?!”

His wife’s reply: “Oh, no you don’t! I have been planning this dinner with the Robinsons for weeks!”

“Honey! Where is my super suit?!”

The juxtaposition of the mundane with a superhero’s clothing needs is funny, but it doesn’t stand out as much for me. She Who Must Be Obeyed is not wrong. (That can never happen.) However, it underlines that we can’t predict how our writing will be received. We must write for ourselves and hope others of like mind will find us (or we must find them). When I wrote for magazines, I was often surprised which bit of a column provoked outrage and what spurred letters of admiration. People won’t necessarily unpack your book the way you thought you sent it.

And then…

Yesterday I read one-star reviews of a few of Shakespeare’s plays. One star. Really? I know it’s a subjective universe, but The Freakin’ Bard only gets one star?

Write more. Worry less.

You could concern yourself with the trend of reviews. Report the abusive reviews. Consider correcting fallacies in reviews (like author Elle Lothlorien). Refuse to read your reviews (like author JA Konrath).

Reviewers are not your boss. You are your boss. Being boss is one of your best reasons to write. Don’t give it up. Write! Like a boss!

Stop worrying so much and just write your next best thing. The next best thing could be your best book ever (which someone will load down with a one-star review). Just write. Not everyone will love your book or they’ll love different parts of your book for different reasons. Those who dislike your work aren’t your readers of the future, so they don’t matter. They don’t pay you for your books so they literally don’t figure into the accounting.

There really is no accounting for taste.

~ Robert Chazz Chute writes like a boss. Check out his books at AllThatChazz.com (where he also podcasts like a boss.) He interviews like a boss at CoolPeoplePodcast.com. He loses weight like a boss at DecisionToChange.com. He vines like a boss and writes about Vine here. He prepares an apocalypse like a ghoulish boss full of verisimilitude and magic realism at ThisPlagueOfDays.com.

Filed under: Rejection, reviews, Writers, writing tips, Arts, books, ebooks, Incredibles, review, reviewers, reviews, Shakespeare

05/01/2013 • 11:05 PM 4

A free and easy editing program that works

As I revise my upcoming horror serial, This Plague of Days, I find some passages that I can’t wait to share. There are plenty of big reveals to come, but a few teasers along the way are fun (so click here to get a taste of horror and weirdness.) As I plod along, I’ve found a helpful way to polish the writing I want to share with you and improve my manuscript. The good news is there’s nothing to buy and you probably already have it but haven’t used the program in this way.

Before I tell you about this helpful editing program…

I have to tell you there are other editing programs that aren’t nearly so helpful. They aren’t as good as human eyes (so always keep some human eyes in your pocket.) You can subscribe to these programs at varying rates, from cheap to expensive. Some are better than others. I tested one and it told me there were 43 areas of concern in the first paragraph. Of course, even a terrible writer probably doesn’t have 43 areas of concern in one paragraph. It wasn’t even a very long one! I shuddered, cursed and looked closer.

The problem was the program threw up red flags (as in vomited red flags) everywhere. In an effort to be thorough, it overshot into ridiculously unhelpful. The grammar problems weren’t grammar problems. The spelling suggestions were all just alternative words. Stylistic choices were only that. Of the 43 problems, I found two things I might change. Might! I get that from rereading any paragraph!

The signal to noise ratio was clearly way off in the program. If I ever hate a writer with OCD, I’ll be sure to gift him or her a subscription. We’ll never hear from them again and they’ll never write another book.

So, to the “new” suggestion

It’s not new, but it is useful. I write in Scrivener (which I love). When I find quotes and snippets I want to reveal as appetizers at ThisPlagueOfDays.com, naturally I post it into WordPress. I’ve found the WordPress editor has helped me reconsider some things. It suggests neither too much nor too little. It’s elegant, free and easy to use for that little added polish to make you feel excited about getting to your last draft and publishing your book.

Grab a chapter from your WIP, paste it into WordPress, test it and consider adding it to your editorial production process. I like it.