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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

07/06/2014 • 9:24 PM 10

Why you’re going to make it

As indie authors, we’re all encouraged to work harder. That’s frustrating to hear because I don’t know any indie authors who aren’t working hard. But I’ve got good news. Your chances of achieving some measure of success are better than we’ve been led to believe. Here’s why:

1. Businesses fail all the time, big and small. But our overhead is so low, we can continue after we fail! When your hardware store goes out of business, you’re done. We get a few kicks in the ass, but authors also get more kicks at the can.

2. Every business that ever made it to sustainable got there because the boss/producer didn’t quit. Many of the biggest success stories come from people who failed and failed and failed at their chosen path but were too dumb to quit. Stubborn is our advantage.

Being a writer isn’t just a job. It’s an identity. It’s a compulsion. How often do you really consider quitting? For many of us, we never seriously consider stepping on the brake. We’re writers and we always will be.

3. We have the right attitude and mindset about what we do. When a software engineer keeps his head down through seventy days straight of boring coding to come up with an amazing game, he’s applauded. Wow! Look at the art he created after all the boring stuff he did! Imagine all the fun stuff he went without to produce all that work!

Coding relentlessly may sound boring to us, but he’s probably into it precisely the same way we’re into books. Everyone has parts of their job they don’t like, of course, but could coding be any more boring than your eighth round of edits on a 100,000 word manuscript where the timeline and logistics still don’t quite work?

What we admire in entrepreneurs is true of authorpreneurs. We make things happen in our business because we have passion for detail and it never occurs to us to quit. People who don’t quit write more books.

4. People who write more books have a greater chance at rewards, monetary and otherwise.

Years ago, I met Dick #1 who asked Guy #1 what he did for a living. “I’m into convenience stores,” Guy #1 said.

Later, after Guy #1 walked away, Dick #1 said something disparaging about how little money anyone could make out of a convenience store.

“You’re a fraction right,” I said. “How much do you think somebody could make out of a convenience store in a year?”

Dick #1 sneered. “Not much. $10,000. $15,000, maybe.”

“Well,” I said, “don’t get too judgy. He makes a lot more than you think he does.”

“Impossible!”

“Guy #1 owns ten convenience stores,” I explained. “And stop being a #1 Dick.”

So it is with books. Publish and somebody will dig your flavor and spread the word. Put a lot out there (improving with each book.) We can do okay in the long run. This isn’t an all or nothing game. It’s just a really long game.

5. The path to success is linear. You know what to do or you can learn what to do. All you have to do is continue.

Years ago, it seemed like the biggest topic was writer’s block and finding time to write. Finding time is still a challenge, but people whine less about writer’s block and I think I know why. They know they will be published now. Your destiny is in your hands and it’s not in anyone else’s.

We aren’t worried about gatekeepers now. We’re anxious for many reasons, but our entrails don’t go into knots because we could spend years writing a book that no one will have a chance to read. We know we are spending energy toward a realizable goal that will happen: publication. If you knew you were going to the Olympics to stand before the world no matter what, you’d train every day. That’s us. To get to the big show, all we have to do is get on with it.

6. There is a low bar to success. I’m not talking about becoming a millionaire. Not necessarily, anyway (though that indicates a high level of achievement.) Success is different for everyone, but you’ve got a much better shot at success than anybody daring to open a new yoga studio, hardware store or any other endeavour that requires employees, rent and huge bank loans. So cheer up. Authorpreneur is actually a pretty safe business venture.

Like many businesses, it starts off as a hobby and grows or it doesn’t, but you probably aren’t risking everything to do it. Plus, you get to do what you love. A lot of people are stuck in frustrating businesses where they feel thwarted. I often feel thwarted as a writer. I’m often envious of other people’s success. But I don’t love what I do any less. Loving what you do is perhaps the only immediate success, but it’s powerful.

7. Does finding 1,000 true fans really feel that intimidating? Many gurus say (as a general rule) 1,000 true fans is all we really need to reach sustainability. That’s less than the number of people in the tiny village I’m from. My goal is eventually to find 10,000 true fans. I can picture that. It doesn’t seem unreasonable.

The Staples Centre in Toronto has 19,000 seats and that’s just one city showing up to watch the Raptors play! (Sure, a Canadian invented basketball, but few are that excited about the Raptors. Still, they have enough die hard fans to keep the lights on and the refreshment stands busy.)

Getting half as big as the Raptors at the the writing game seems doable if I live long enough. That’s why I’m drinking more green smoothies, working out and eating less sugar. And writing my ass off.

8. Remember the statistic about how most indies make less than $500? Sure. That’s depressing. But I look at it like mortality stats. We used to die a lot younger, but that was because of the infant mortality rate. It’s a myth that people only lived to thirty a few hundred years ago. Many people lived longer but the infant mortality rate dragged down the average age.

You’ve just read all the way down to Item #8 on a blog post about writing that’s more than a 1,000 words. I’d say you’re pretty serious about this writing thing. Lots of people aren’t. Lots of people weren’t and they could imagine doing something else besides writing. For them it was TL; DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read.) They’re off pornsurfing while you stayed to hear me out to the end. You are not going to let your writing perish due to crib death. You’re in the survivors club and you know what I’m talking about when I talk about the writing life. Your chances of doing better than average are better than average. That’s why you are going to make it.

~ I am Robert Chazz Chute and I’ve written eleven books. I’ll write at least three more this year and they are going to be awesome. I am your happy warrior of the word. Check out my books at the author site, AllThatChazz.com. Find out more about my doomsday book with the autistic hero at ThisPlagueOfDays.com.

If you’ve read, This Plague of Days, Omnibus Edition (pictured and clickable, above), please review it. That would be awesome. Thanks!

Filed under: publishing, self-publishing, What about Chazz?, What about you?, Writers, #amwriting, authorpreneurs, books, chances of success as a writer, coaching, making it as a writer, publishing, publishing business, Robert Chazz Chute, This Plague of Days, will my book succeed, writer, writers, writing

07/02/2014 • 11:12 PM 10

On Writers, Publishing and Entitlement (with jokes in parentheticals)

This is not a story about titles. You’re thinking of “titling.” We digress today from the relentless cheerfulness and positivity of this blog to have a look at how some in traditional publishing still see us.

But first, since what’s to come triggered a memory of indignity, a story from the trenches:

I was once a sales rep representing several publishing houses. Hang in there for the big honkin’ point at the end.

Once upon a time I worked for an oh-so-serious publishing house in downtown Toronto. We published oh-so-serious books that were sometimes hard to sell. No surprise. We were Canadian, after all. Worse, we published books that had to sound Canadian, or vaguely British, and not even of the 20th Century. (Told you this was an old war story.)

Unfortunately, the publishing house was close to a then-fairly-famous bookstore. The publisher would take authors out to lunch. On the way back from that hoity-toity lunch, the publisher would take authors to that bookstore to say, “We put your book on that shelf and aren’t we both so lucky to be fabulous swells? No promises on your next novel, but I’ll try to get you a government subsistence grant which I shall pen from my Swiss Chalet.” (Not the chicken restaurant. An actual Swiss Chalet. You get the classist dynamic.)

The publisher, a wealthy glitterati, was draped in diamonds even during the day, not knowing that was gauche and should be reserved for dining at night (with Queen Elizabeth.)

The author, a poverty-stricken member of the lowly literati, wore elbow patches on his ratty old sports jacket. Not to appear avuncular and professorial. To cover actual holes. The ink-stained wretches get the crumbs their betters forget to throw to the dogs. Traditional publishing hasn’t changed that much through the years. (This was the late ’80s. Now, there are no lunches with the wretches. Just ignored emails. Anyway, you get the income inequality dynamic.)

One terrible day, the bookstore tour backfired.

The nearby bookstore did not have the author’s book. We published it and it was not there. (Clutch those pearls. Here’s where it gets ugly.) The bookstore owner, infamous for being a dick, did not order the book in question in any quantity. They weren’t “out”. They didn’t order and didn’t plan to do so. (“Ev-er!” as we used to say.) The publisher was wounded and embarrassed, of course, for herself and for the author. (Soon the rage would be turned on me, your-ever-loving Chazz, so don’t feel too bad for her.)

The dick didn’t want that crap novel in his store, as was his right. He didn’t like the author’s work and he didn’t like the author personally. That was perfectly understandable. Nobody but snobs liked that author’s books and nobody but his mom liked the author. I especially didn’t like him after he threw (as we called it back in the day) “a hissy.”

I was the sales rep to that bookstore. I received the publisher’s anguished memo recounting her horror. The note ended with two words, “What’s wrong?!”

Since she was the boss and also the acquisitions editor for this boring book and this insipid author, naturally, we couldn’t tell her the truth. I wanted to express exactly what I’ve written here since I wasn’t being paid enough to lie. I campaigned for the truth. However, a cooler head prevailed and my immediate boss dragged his sorry ass over to the dick’s bookstore and grovelled to get it in stock.

I felt bad for him. And me. I’d already done my job. I tried to sell the dick a book and he said no and we moved on to the other 100 books in the catalogue because that’s what grown-ups do, even when they hate each other’s guts. (That bookstore is now closed. The dick is still alive. In related news, voodoo dolls do not work. At least they don’t work this far north of the equator.)

The first point is that no one can force any place that sells books into selling any particular book. Free will and freedom and eagles and moose and all that and whatnot. It’s a business and the author in question wasn’t a social fellow. The bookstore owner wasn’t a social fellow. Their poor sales rep (i.e. me) was in the middle and I didn’t appreciate dealing with either of them.

Do I regret my time as a sales rep for big publishing? I’ve learned more as a micro-publisher. As a micro-publisher, I finally found love. Thank you.

And now…the point: A video to blow your mind.

Today I witnessed a spectacle of what The Passive Guy of The Passive Voice refers to as Amazon Derangement Syndrome. I’m about to provide you a link that shows a lot of things. I see derangement, certainly. Also, a sharp tang of smug even I have never aspired to. On the video you’ll see a lot of fear and other weirdness. Calling Amazon a monopoly when they are merely winning at competition, for instance, is pretty weird.

You will also witness entitlement. Make that Entitlement with a big E. As in, how dare Amazon not carry certain books even though they are available elsewhere? (It wouldn’t actually matter if they weren’t carried elsewhere, by the way. No bookstore carries all books. Not even online bookstores.)

Or how about this one: How dare Amazon sell Big Publishing’s books at the price that’s stamped on their books? The word “democracy” is floated out there willy-nilly. There is a distinct disconnect from reality. There are also a few lies or blind falsehoods and errors. I’ll let you figure out which belongs to whom. (See the comment thread — below — for help with that.)

For every problem Big Publishing has, they have someone else to blame. Well…one thing, actually. It’s always Amazon’s fault. Pay attention to the guy beside the woman who isn’t really moderating the debate. That’s Passive Guy himself AKA the rational one. The rest are very afraid and make few good points. When James Patterson wheels off into something about burning books, I have no clue what the #$@! he is on about.

Here’s the video of the most lopsided debate ever.

**You’ll also find the comment thread over at The Passive Voice illuminating.**

Filed under: author platform, book marketing, book sales, book stores, books, bookstores, James Patterson, livestream, passive guy, publishing, publishing house, publishing houses, publishing in Canada, publishing in the 1980s, Robert Chazz Chute, sales rep, self-publishing, The Passive Voice, traditional publishing, video, writers

06/29/2014 • 1:47 PM 8

The Business of Writing Top 10: How to have more fun

**Have you ever watched shows like World’s Funniest Commercials?**

When the show took a commercial break, did you sit on your couch and watch the regular commercials and wonder why they had to be so bland? Or did you go make a sandwich or run for the bathroom? Commercials don’t have to be as bad as they often are. Think of the annual hype around Superbowl commercials. How is it that the rest of the year, commercials are background noise for making sandwiches and flushing? The ad industry should try harder.

And so should we. Book promotion can be fun. We should take fun more seriously.

When we write our books, we are at our best. We’re witty and play with ideas and irony. We tell stories. We’re in the entertainment business. So why lose all that buoyancy when it comes to promoting our work? Advertising is writing, too. Yes, writing back cover blurbs and advertising copy is a somewhat different skill set, but this is not rocket science. Examples of good and bad sales copy are all around us. Emulate what works on you.

Some copywriters will enthuse that, sure, maybe you can write a book, but leave a couple of paragraphs of sales copy to a professional. That sounds rather convenient and self-serving, doesn’t it? I don’t believe it. It’s great to be able to hand off such work to others with confidence, but for most of us, we’re writing our own promotional copy. Let’s loosen up and raise the bar.

If you can write a book, you can promote your work effectively without falling back on the cliché of “Buy my book!” I admit, there are writers who only say “buy my book” on Twitter and they are derided everywhere. I think this happens because no one has given them permission to be as imaginative and bouncy as they are when they write their books. It’s all writing, not a separate challenge. If it feels too different from writing books, it’s probably erring on the side of bland.

This is your permission slip:

1. Have more fun. There’s a reason it’s Rule #1. It’s that important, for you and your readers.

2. Use more pull quotes from your work of genius.

3. Make a joke. Be self-deprecating. Be different. Dare to show some personality. Let the joy leak through from your usual writing.

4. Craft something you’d want to read and act upon as a reader.

5. Relax. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Your sales plan doesn’t have to come together within a week or two of your book launch. Ebooks are forever and there are plenty of kicks at the marketing can ahead.

6. Sell less and interact more. Conversations are good. Blaring at is bad.

7. If you can’t interact, curate.

8. Selling effectively is never about selling. It’s about helping your tribe identify their want and need for you. I’m not here to sell. I’m here to help you buy. Stop being so self-conscious and apologetic about what you’re doing and do what you do in books: Put on a show!

9. Not all books are for everyone. Identify where your readers hang out and go there. Advertising for a niche and to a tribe willing to spread your good word is more important than trying to be all things to all people.

Smile. Rejection is a gift. It relieves you of the stress of dealing with boneheads later.

10. Tell more stories, not just in writing books, but in your promotional efforts, too.

Here’s an example of some fun I had on Facebook today:

“Abandoned to an unfeeling universe, an increasing number of Americans are turning to This Plague of Days to confront ‘the horror of it all,'” an anonymous State Department official said. High-level advisors at the White House confirm, “An autistic boy named Jaimie Spencer, 16, of Kansas City, Missouri, may be key to resolving existential ennui. There are jokes, too, but mostly it freaks us out.”

Senator John McCain stated that Congress still can’t decide if Chute’s book is “literary bull****, zombie bull**** or ‘some other bull****.'” The gridlock continues.

Senator Rand Paul is threatening a filibuster, stating, “This is not horror per se! This is dark fantasy and President Obama knows it!” The secret of This Plague of Days remains classified to all but those who read to the end. Rumors of secret video and an offer of a free ebook are confined to those who read the TPOD Omnibus Edition. While Progressives call that anti-egalitarian and elitist, Secretary of State John Kerry said (in a speech that felt like three hours), “That’s capitalism. Whaddaya gonna do?“

Meanwhile, the US Congress approval rating has sunk to a new low of 8%, still above public approval of McDonalds’ fishwich and slightly below mononucleosis as a diet strategy.

However, in a stunning break from party lines in a gracious “hands across the aisle” gesture, Speaker John Boehner and Liberal Senator Harry Reid did come to some concord and issued a joint statement. “The pace really picks up in Season 2 and the gross outs were balanced by some high-minded stuff neither of us really understood. We are all frightened for the Spencer family and keep them in our prayers.”

~ That was fun. I wrote a post recently answering reader’s questions about This Plague of Days. Find that here.

Filed under: author platform, book marketing, Publicity & Promotion, advertising, book publicity, Business, Facebook, horror, Jaimie Spencer, John Boehner, John Kerry, omnibus, promotion, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Senator John McCain, Superbowl commercials, the business of writing, This Plague of Days, World's Funniest Commercials, writers, writing, zombies

06/22/2014 • 8:53 AM 1

Sweet Book Pie: Bonuses for readers, a tip for writers

When ebooks first emerged, the goal was to make them appear as much like paper books as possible. Generally, we’re still doing that and that’s a good thing. I’m not a fan of “enhanced” ebooks that pack in distractions. I don’t want the soundtrack to the battle scene as I read. I want to immerse myself in the story. A movie is a movie and the media don’t mix well. The movie we make in our heads from reading is usually superior, anyway.

I did use video in a different way to reach out to readers in This Plague of Days, but it’s a link buried in the back of the TPOD Omnibus, not something to accompany the story. (I told you about that secret video and the free ebook bonus last week, so click here if you missed that.)

But yet another secret awaits in the This Plague of Days Omnibus.

Many readers may not really be aware of it. This is where thinking about ebooks as ebooks comes in. I did something fun with the Table of Contents, but you have to look for it to see it all at once. The key is, the Table of Contents doesn’t have to go in the front of ebooks.

Go find it Scooby Gang!

To get the TOC in This Plague of Days, Omnibus Edition, you have to “go to” the TOC (which I placed in the back of the book.) I did this for several reasons. The main one is that it’s another Easter egg for TPOD readers.

**The TPOD TOC is one long, dark poem.** It contains veiled hints and clues to the story arc from beginning to end. Much of the poem will make more sense in retrospect. To get all of it at once, it’s in the back of the TPOD Omnibus Edition, but the individual ebooks (Seasons 1, 2 and 3) yield chunks of it, as well.

Why I love it:

It was fun to create. I like poetry, especially dark and mysterious poetry. I enjoy the fact that readers will see how it all comes together upon finishing the trilogy. I love the fact that I did something different from the expected. That’s my thing. To be perfectly honest, I love that I’ve done something a mainstream publisher probably wouldn’t allow me to do. I don’t consider myself an experimental novelist, at all. I just think it’s a fun add-on in this case.

Sure, readers could skip from chapter head to chapter head to get it, but that’s awkward. Most people won’t do that and you don’t get the full effect reading it piecemeal. Will it gain more readers? Nah, probably not many. I think of it as a little extra for people who are deep into TPOD. Cater to them what dig your grooviness and you’ll get more of those groovy people.

But there’s a much more important reason to put the TOC in the back of your ebook.

It’s about the size of the free sample on your sales page. When readers look at samples, they want to get into the story quickly. With non-fiction, I do want a peek at the TOC up front so I can grok what will be covered. With fiction, the TOC gets in the way of the narrative and cuts down on the sample size. To get readers deeper into the story, we have to get that TOC out of the way so we give the reader a bigger sample of sweet book pie.

Whenever possible, give the readers more pie so they can decide if they like your flavor. I’d rather have thousands read the sample before buying and say no than have dissatisfied readers who were looking for dragon/Big Foot erotica and, inexplicably, bought my book instead. Unread samples are where most bad reviews come from.

Generous samples get people to buy cartloads of stuff from Costco every weekend. Much of it they didn’t know they wanted until somebody said, “Would you like to try a taste?”

Add value. Add fun. Play with the reader. Give ’em more pie. Always give more pie. Put your next novel’s TOC in the back of the book.

**~ This Plague of Days book bargains continue. Find out about that here.**

Or not. I mean, geez. It’s a low pressure situation, man. Chillax and enjoy as the apocalypse unfolds all around us. You’re already soaking in it so you may as well soak it in.

Filed under: author platform, Books, ebooks, writing tips, book secrets, ebooks, horror, poetry, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Table of Contents, This Plague of Days, TOC, TPOD Omnibus, where to put your table of contents, writing tips

06/20/2014 • 7:26 PM 5

Writing: Where the money is

Everybody wonders what the next big thing will be in our expanding industry. In other words, “Where’s the money?”

As it relates to writing as an industry, money looks sparse at first glance. I mean, banking, drugs and guns is where the big money is. However, for our industry? The big money in writing is in the beams and braces. Infrastructure. The money will go to people who service our needs as indies. So ask yourself, what do we need?

1. Book apps. We don’t really understand book apps. Programmers do. Book apps with a subscription service could work, especially for certain authors who are in traditional publishing now but will soon make the leap to self-publishing.

2. Author cooperatives. Box sets may already be on the way out, but I think more authors will share resources and trade skills, either in small, structured groups or as part of a time bank organization, or both.

3. Organization provision: Many of us cringe at the idea of a union because it reeks of gatekeepers. I’d say that’s only because the writers unions that have been proposed for indies so far stink of more gatekeeping. Innovators out to advocate instead of control could do better than that, for us and for themselves.

4. An alternative to ACX that’s more generous to creators. ACX was awesome. Technically, it’s still awesome though the creator share is down. Have you noticed that, since ACX lowered the pay rate, we aren’t talking about ACX near so much anymore? We’re still using it because audiobooks are our future. For some, they’re our today! We’d like more choices and we’d like to get back to the bigger cut, though. (The obstacle is effective distribution, so that will have to be bankrolled.)

5. Selling direct from websites will become more popular. You can use Gumroad to sell digital products now. The problem is, no one wants to sideload their kindle with a pdf. Find a way around that problem and we’ll all be doing it to some degree. Fewer buttons, one click. That’s key.

6. Discoverability tools are more important than information. Make more discoverability tools (like you’ll find at Author Marketing Club, for instance.) Information is free everywhere, including here. Ways to help readers find us are harder to come by.

7. Services that promote indie authors will make money. Bookbub is at the top of the heap now, but BookGorilla is cheaper. The Fussy Librarian is very low cost. if I recall correctly, the latter was built partially in response to Bookbub’s fees. Bookbub has big lists of subscribers, sure, but they have competition and it’s growing because Bookbub is so hard to get into and can be so expensive.

8. The company that finds a way to make it easier for books to be printed and distributed (cheaper, faster and easier than it can be done at present) and get it to libraries and bookstores will make a lot of money. Be the new Lightning Source, for instance, but make it as easy to deal with as CreateSpace. (LS has improved in this regard, but I’ve checked it out and it still feels like a hassle.)

9. Translation houses. Everybody knows foreign language publishing is going to be huge. What we don’t know is whom to trust to translate our work and whom to ask to make sure the translations are any good. We’ll also need people (formerly known as agents) whose sole occupation is dealing in foreign rights sales. The markets are waiting, but most of us aren’t ready.

10. The next destination website for our readers. We need a destination website that operates as a cool magazine that curates our work to readers. We need to provide a way for readers to find us and vice versa. We don’t need another Writer’s Digest. We need a Reader’s Digest, if you will, for our work but catering to readers. If there aren’t click to buy and click to explore buttons at the end of each story or sample, it will still miss the mark.

You could, of course, simply write the next big thing.

We are writers, after all. We don’t want to think about all this tech stuff. That’s why someone with the skills to fulfill these needs will eventually appear and get paid.

If you’re still bent on writing to make money, the trouble is that no one knows what the next big thing really will be. No one saw Fifty Shades of Gray coming. It’s not like it was the first book of erotica to go on sale, but it went huge. Its imitators didn’t make near as much dough. Breaking out is not something you can chase, exactly. It happens to you and there are too many variables outside your control.

Just write the best book you can. When your book is ready, I really hope those trusty translation houses will be up and running and ready for business.

**What are your ideas for the support structure our industry needs?**

~ The good news. I’m now in the Top 100 Horror Authors on Amazon! The book launch bargains continue for This Plague of Days here. See what all the fuss is about, see the video and find the secret.

Filed under: author platform, ACX, Amazon, BookBub, future of publishing, horror, indies, money and writing, publishing, publishing industry, Robert Chazz Chute, suspense, This Plague of Days, Top 100, Top100, trends, writing for money, zombies

06/15/2014 • 7:52 AM 4

How to reach readers in a way most writers don’t

When you think of using video to promote your book, you probably think of a book trailer, like this:

I made the trailer above and it turned out pretty slick, I think. But there’s a better way. A book trailer broadcasts out. I want to motivate readers to find me, not just talk at them. Sure, book trailers can be cool, but there’s little to no evidence they motivate people to purchase more books. (Click on my old post here for thirteen options for using video. I especially like the Scott Sigler strategy.)

Here’s how I added value to This Plague of Days, Omnibus Edition.

The better way is to use video is to thank readers and engage them with a question or a reward. I opted to do both with a link to a secret video at the back of the TPOD Omnibus Edition. It’s three books in one, so, for those who care to, they can make one purchase and save a couple of bucks.

Here are the specifics of my latest launch strategy:

1. I’ve just launched two books, This Plague of Days, Season 3 and This Plague of Days, Omnibus Edition.

2. I dropped the price on the first novel to 99 cents and marked the second book down to $2.99. I’m selling the Omnibus (three big books in one) for $6.

3. At the back of the Omnibus, exclusive to those readers, is a link to a private video. In it, I talk about the saga. It’s been years in the making. This is my Star Wars. Putting it to bed is a big deal to me and I give some behind-the-scenes origin information.

4. I ask a sincere question. A secret has been buried in this series from Season One and it pays off late in Season 3. It’s a huge surprise that a lot of people tried to figure out but they only saw it in retrospect. (My beta readers all said the same thing. “Oh! Of course! You dog!”)

5. As long as Omnibus readers answer the question in the comment thread at the private video link this year, I’ll send each of them my next thriller ebook as a gift. Free. No strings or demands for a newsletter sign-up. The new thriller comes out later this summer and it even ties other books together. It’ll be a fun ride and also a solid bridge to my other books even though it’s not in TPOD‘s genre.

6. Video is a more personal way to thank readers. By adding another book to the six-dollar Omnibus, readers won’t just save some bucks. They’ll get four books (three huge ones and one decent-sized novel.) Readers will benefit and I hope to gain readers who are already enthusiastic about my particular brand of crazy.

7. I know this approach trips some fear alarms for some authors. Please don’t tell me I’m devaluing literature by pricing it too low and giving too much away. I’ve lowered the price, not the value. The literature that is devalued most is that which is read least. Times are tough for a lot of people, me included. But I still believe that generosity and helping others wins over greed. Give more and you’ll attract the people you want to be your readers. When they find you, they’ll buy all your books. Don’t chase anyone. Count the giveaway as the cost of advertising, something any business does. Let readers come to you willingly and they’ll bring you joy instead of heartache.

How did I do it?

I used iMovie, but you could use a cell phone. It doesn’t matter as long as it uploads to Youtube and designate the link “unlisted” so only those who have the link can access it. It doesn’t have to be slick and fancy or have a kickass soundtrack that sounds like it’s calculated to accompany an invasion of Libya.

Your video might even be better if it’s not slick. I love my energetic little book trailer, but heartfelt and speaking into the camera? Heartfelt is more important than slick.

But how did I sell the TPOD Big Deal Book Launch to readers?

Here’s exactly how I did it.

~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute and no one can begin to fathom the depths of my exhaustion at this moment. I am puddin’. But I’m also happy. Anxious and happy. Mostly anxious. Go make a video. Of love. (No, I don’t mean like that!…okay…maybe like that.)

Filed under: author platform, book marketing, book promotion, book trailer, book trailers, books, how to use video, iMovie, Marketing, novels, omnibus, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Scott Sigler, This Plague of Days, vampires, video, writers, writing, YouTube, zombies

06/11/2014 • 11:01 AM 1

Another way your cover can promote your book (and who to hire)

We are all struggling to find new ways to get readers interested and invested in our books. How do you promote reader engagement and launch your book higher? By engaging them in your process, I suppose. Here’s one way I’m doing that for the launch of two books this weekend.

Short story:

I’m giving away an ebook of the Plague of Days compendium to one random commenter on the Plague of Days website.

To enter the draw for three free ebooks in one, all you need is an opinion, so click here to see the cover choices.

Okay, now here’s what you need to know and who you really need to hire for your next book cover:

To be clear, the covers you’ll see at the link are my designs, not those of my graphic artist. Anybody who reads this blog knows my graphic artist is the great Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. He’s the sweet, book art genius. I came up with this idea because I already have Kit working on other designs.

If you don’t already love his work, when I unveil This Plague of Days, Season 3, you’re going to want to check out the rest of his professional portfolio, for sure. He’s a joy to work with at very reasonable prices. Kit’s done almost all my covers. If the cover’s crappy, it’s not Kit’s work, it’s my design for The Little Book of Braingasms. Now, compare that to this cover of gorgeousness in Murders Among Dead Trees. Look at those flames! POW!

Kit also does the web banners for my websites. Those spruce up any blog and really give readers the idea (illusion?) you know what you’re doing.

Kit has even done Quote Art for me to promote my books. Don’t know Quote Art? See it here and on my Amazon author profile. It’s another way to stand out from the crowd. Quote Art would make a great poster for your next convention, too.

Kit is working on my TPOD print covers in addition to keeping all his many clients happy. When does this man sleep? He doesn’t. While he’s helping me with other stuff, I’m pitching in with the draw. It’s a new way of getting readers involved in feedback on covers for This Plague of Days, The Complete Three Seasons.

My books about the autistic zombie apocalypse that will soon kill us all launches on Father’s Day and, because of the draw, I’m sure I’ll have a few more eyeballs for the release. Because of Kit’s TPOD3 cover, they’ll keep looking and check it out.

Eventually I’ll call in Kit for a much better cover for the compendium (because he’s the sweet, book art genius, that’s why, and, yes, you’ll find my efforts sad by comparison.) In the meantime, help me move more books through your input at ThisPlagueOfDays.com. You might be the one chosen to win a free book. So there’s that.

Reader engagement is often fun but it doesn’t have to be a one-to-one thing all the time. It feels great when people are curious enough to come find you. A for a nice prize and asking for an opinion is a solid way to do that.

Filed under: author platform, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Apocalypse, book art, book covers, draw, free, graphic artist, horror, Kit Foster, Kit Foster Design, kitfosterdesign, prize, publicity, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Vampire, Zombie

06/10/2014 • 12:46 PM 10

Identifying a good editor is about chair placement

I’ve worked with several editors over the years. Mostly, the experience has been good. If you work with enough people though, you get a horror story. The bad editors have one thing in common: they think it’s about them and they bleed self-importance. (Beware: at the editing stage, it’s not generally about the author, either. It’s about the reader.)

Bad editors are:

1. Belittling, condescending and even angry.

Let’s face it, for some people, editing is a power thing. They love to tell people what to do and where they are wrong because it feels great to be right. Editors like this don’t have a lot of authors who return to the whipping room for another go, however. Life’s too short. If you’re looking for a fight, there are better ways to use that energy.

One person tried to be abusive with me once and their lure was a very low fee. “Wow! You mean I get the privilege of being your bitch for a very low fee? Gee, thanks, but no.” (Hint: if you try to sell your editorial services this way, that’s a paddlin’.)

2. Lazy.

One editor went through the last few pages of a manuscript in a sad effort to convince me she’d gone through the whole thing. That set my production schedule back three months.

3. Frustrated writers.

A friend of mine was an editor and I got a chance to see her in action. When she was done, the book still had the author’s name on it, but it should have been her name on the cover. When the edits are intrusive or delete the author’s voice, it’s time for the editor to write his or her own book instead of mucking up someone else’s dream.

I could go on with a long list of bad editing practices. Many of you probably have a horror story or two to share. Instead, let’s focus on what good (and great) editors have in common.

The good editors I’ve known all do the same thing:

Picture a desk. This is the work desk the editor and author will use, virtual or literal.

Visualize the chairs. See where the chairs are around said desk?

The skilled editor who works best with authors places the chair on the same side of the desk and works beside the writer.

Working with a good editor feels good.

The relationship does not devolve into a hostage negotiation. It’s a team effort and the author is the captain of the team because their name will be on the cover forever.

The good editor is honest, but flexible enough to allow for stylistic choices. Some choices are objectively right or wrong. A bunch aren’t. Suggestions are welcome, but the author gets the final say on what he or she wants to do. Rigidity is the enemy of Art and good editors and authors know that. (Hint: Sentence fragments can be cool. They are not worse than herpes plus Shia Labeouf compounded by our sun exploding on Thursday afternoon while Yoko Ono sings)

Good editors have a light touch on the text because they don’t start off assuming all writers are idiots in need of discipline and more education. They may end up there, of course. Some of us aren’t that bright. However, good editors aren’t so cynical that they begin Chapter 1 that way and they never let their eye rolls and contempt show.

Good and great editors have diplomatic skills as well as sharp eyes. Even when a heavier hand on the text is required, good authors can become great by accepting suggestions with grace.

Good and great editors are out there. When you find one, hold on tight.

~ Let’s cleanse the palate. Time for a sneak peek at This Plague of Days 3? Go to ThisPlagueOfDays.com for a new excerpt. TPOD3 and This Plague of Days, The Complete Three Seasons launches June 15th!

Filed under: Editing, Editors, books, editing, editorial services, editors, finding a good editor, how to find a good editor, publishing

05/25/2014 • 10:30 PM 4

How to write more, faster, now

After I publish a book, I tend to fall into a mild bout of postpartum depression. To head that off, I’m writing a new crime novel as I prepare to launch the finale to This Plague of Days. This new one has a very fast pace and I’m also writing it fast. This isn’t going to fall into a plotting versus pantsing discussion because, Thor knows, we’ve all hit that gong plenty hard already. Today, let’s talk about how to discover your story.

Here’s four writers to pay attention to, in case you don’t care what I think:

1. Anthony Burgess had a cool trick I’ve used. Pick three words at random. Those words will appear in your next chapter.

Go! You’ll find gooey, fudge brownie richness with that one tool alone.

2. E.L. Doctorow said writing a book is, “like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

When I wrote my first crime novel, Bigger Than Jesus, I knew the last line of the book, but I had no idea from one night to the next what tomorrow’s chapter might bring. It worked out in a really peachy way.

3. Stephen King talks about excavating the story, discovering and unearthing dinosaur bones.

Some people start with character. I often find my brush and trowel to dig the dirt away is conflict. Everybody wants something. It’s more interesting if everyone’s competing for the same thing but use different methods to get what they want. (Game of Thrones, anyone?) Through conflict, character and snappy dialogue often emerge. Direction and velocity will reveal themselves as you discover how the story evolves. It may divert from your outline. That’s okay. Follow the drama. It might lead you off the map to a beautiful place.

4. Chuck Palahniuk suggests writing each chapter as a short story.

As each story connects to the next until the end, this process cuts down on a lot of intimidation. It also lessens the danger of a saggy middle because you’re demanding more of each story element instead of relying on the reader’s patience. Each chapter is a pillar. Don’t build a weak one and depend on it to hold up the structure.

I’m going to suggest the writing process as an exercise in free association.

Free association emerged as a counselling approach in Freudian analysis. The core of the therapy was to let the mind wander and for the patient to tell his or her own story rather than take on the worldview of the therapist. This was resolution by exploration.

The key is to let ideas bubble up and connect unhampered by the choke valve of self-criticism. Criticism is for later. In the creative process, let it go and flow. You’ll go faster and arrive in places that aren’t mundane and expected. Using these methods, you’re going to cut down on procrastination, too. You’ll write more because you’re having more fun. Stop agonizing. This is entertaining fiction you’re writing, not a eulogy.

In This Plague of Days, the autistic hero of my zompoc epic (Season 3 coming June 15!) is Jaimie Spencer. He’s obsessed with the dictionary. That’s me. I collect odd factoids. I let one Wikipedia entry lead me to another and to another until I free associate my way to new plot developments. The world is made of details and small components build bigger things. That’s also true if your world is fictional. The dictionary and Wikipedia are full of the atoms of your next story.

For instance, take a swig of Doctorow.

In my current WIP, I know the destination and I have a hastily drawn outline of how to get there. It’s not deep in details. I came up with most of it while watching my son’s soccer game. The first atom was a small conceit. The idea exploded when I had my hook. More on this later this summer.

Enjoy a tall, cold glass of Burgess.

Take a random fact from Wikipedia and see where that leads you. Your foundation is already getting poured.

In the crime story I’m working on, I needed to show the love interest’s character. She’s an underdog determined to win. That led me to a story from Wikipedia she could identify with. By showing the tragic, yet heroic story that guided her life, we understand her better and we like her immediately. (Me? I’m big on pathology. Give a character a medical problem and I can use that, for them and against them. Desmoid tumors saved the life of one character in This Plague of Days, for instance. Read the books. You’ll get that reference.)

Free association comes faster from good questions.

Quick! What are the hits playing on the radio in 1974? Which manager was first to get kicked out of a baseball game twice in the same day? What was happening to your protagonist that day in 1974 when he was thinking about baseball and listening to the radio? What song titles spoke to his state of mind? These are the connections I made to write a chapter (a pillar, if you will) that could stand on its own as a short story. Hello, Mr. Palahniuk!

As the factoids build and scenes connect into a river of stories that collect and flow into one ocean of words, new connections are made. New developments float to the surface. You’ll discover new intersections in the network of your story you didn’t suspect were there when you began to write.

That’s Stephen King’s story archeology.

Good stories aren’t written. They are discovered. It is the nuance we find in the depths of free association that contribute to verisimilitude and character interplay. It’s nuance that builds, not just a book, but a believable world.

Those details you’ll use through free association? It’s not the only key to Creativity’s lock, but it’s a good one. Try it.

~ I wrote Crack the Indie Author Code and Write Your Book, Aspire to inspire. Check out AllThatChazz.com for affiliate links to all my fiction. That would be double plus cool. Thanks.

Filed under: Writers, Writing exercise, writing tips, #amwriting, Anthony Burgess, book publishing, Book Writing, books, chuck palahniuk, creative process, E.L. Doctorow, EL Doctorow, fiction, free association, horror, how to write, procrastination, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, Stephen King, This Plague, This Plague of Days, writers, writing, writing and procrastination, zombies, zompoc

05/21/2014 • 4:44 PM 1

Publishing: Rules are Rules (except when they aren’t)

I didn’t make up any of the following. I’ve observed it.

1. When Margaret Atwood writes dystopian sci-fi, it’s not dystopian sci-fi. If you wrote The Year of the Flood, you can be darn sure professional reviewers would call it dystopian sci-fi. Some special subgroup would think less of you for writing SFF, even if your work is as brilliant as Atwood’s work.

2. If you write an about-to-be-divorced, mid-life crisis novel from a man’s perspective, I know of at least one agent who would reject it without reading a word. Apparently, those authors are “wrong” to write that story. Roth had the last word and no more need be attempted. Ev-er! (Thank Thor for choices.)

3. If you’re young and writing an autobiographical, coming-of-age novel, many skeptics will sneer at your offered manuscript and declare that it is undoubtedly, “Too autobiographical.” Rewrite it to make that less transparent and, in round two, they’ll say it “lacks verisimilitude.”

4. If you’re a teen quoting your peers, a much older agent or editor may declare that “teens don’t talk that way.” (Yes. That happened.)

“B-but — “

“No. No one speaks that way. Anywhere, ever, in any world real or imagined.”

5. If a well-known author writes an homage to hardboiled fiction, it’s an homage to hardboiled fiction. If you do it, you’re plagiarizing Mickey Spillane.

6. If you attempt something different and innovative, it’s experimental and stupid. If it’s attempted in mainstream publishing (rarely), it’s different, innovative and brave. (Forget that. Always be brave. That’s often where the fun is.)

7. You may have lived in Dublin all your life, but some reviewer will tell you your characters, “don’t sound Irish enough.” That’s because they think the cartoon presentation of Irish dialect in a cereal commercial is a documentary. Not all Irish people sound like leprechauns.

Don’t worry about it. If you wrote it their way, you’d turn off too many readers with awkward depictions and hard to read dialect. And earn the wrath of all of Ireland. I like Amy Adams, but the movie Leap Year was an affront. Not a single Irish person had even a passing interest in particle physics, but the old men were all afraid of black cats. Nice.

8. You have a clever plot twist in your manuscript. That black sheep beta reader will rush to tell you he’s read that same twist in two books, so it’s a cliché. Back to square one for another rewrite. Never mind that the execution is different, all stories are similar in some regard and those two books he’s talking about were published before 1975.

9. Win a writing contest and somebody will spend a blog post on how undeserved the win was. They will claim they did not submit a losing entry into the same contest. However, the heat of their condemnation (a sun-surface temperature usually reserved for Nazis and pedophiles and Nazi-pedophiles) will reveal their jealous motives and their cowardly lies.

10. Someone will assume that, since you wrote a zombie novel, you’re a hack chasing money and trends. (And by “you”, I mean, “me.”) Never mind that I started writing This Plague of Days before there was a Walking Dead. I don’t chase trends and, while zombie readers tend to be rabid readers, it’s really a small sub-genre. I know few rich zombie writers, though I know several who deserve riches.

Sadly necessary addendum:

Someone called my serial “clichéd.” I won’t say whom and no hard feelings, really. It actually struck me as funny. Say what you will (and I know some will.) But really? “clichéd?” I guess it’s virtually indistinguishable from all the other zombie books where the zombies aren’t really zombies, the vampires aren’t really vampires, the humans might be the supernatural players, bio-terrorists attack in very weird ways, three worldwide plagues evolve as the virus spreads across continents and, oh, yeah, the hero of my zombie apocalypse is an autistic boy with an obsession for Latin proverbs who sees auras and is a selective mute.

Just like all the others.

The crux

I guess what I’m saying is, no matter how many manuscripts you read professionally or personally, for consideration or for review or for whatever, don’t fall into cynicism. Come to each manuscript or book innocent and free of preconceptions. Give us a day in court before you condemn. You might fall in love. That happens, too.

~ Robert Chazz Chute writes a lot of books. Check them out and click those affiliate links at AllThatChazz.com. Season 3 of This Plague of Days and This Plague of Days, The Complete Series, launches June 15, 2014. Find out more about This Plague of Days at ThisPlagueofDays.com.