Jefferson’s Road

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In case you missed it, Jefferson’s Road: Patriots and Tyrants is now available on Amazon.com for the Kindle. I don’t know if it’s simply a function of me being impatient, an effect of Amazon’s recent move to clamp down on Author self-promotions, or some other factor at play, but I find myself constantly checking the sales data, wondering when this book is going to take off. I’m not looking for a million copies sold, mind you (maybe I should be?), just more than one or two. Of course, it’s early yet, and I did just get the announcements out to Kindleboards and Mobilereads, along with a few posts in the remaining safe places on Amazon left to indie authors. It’ll be real interesting to see how well this works out for Amazon, and how long it’ll be before they decide whether it’s working or not. Already I’m seeing a number of authors saying things like, “Hey, my sales haven’t been so great, lately.” Enough of that happens, and Amazon may have to rethink their overall strategy here. Maybe we’re all together just a bunch of snowflakes, but if enough of them stick and move in the same direction, you can stop traffic. So I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m reminding myself that this isn’t some six month, one year, or even five year plan. This is a ten to twenty year plan – an attempt to get as many of the stories swimming around in my head out on paper or electronically available so other people can enjoy them besides just me. Yes, I’d love to be earning my living solely through my writing, but that day appears to be a long way off. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, the end result of a long obedience in the same direction.

And it still remains to be seen what happens when a professionally published book of my hits the stands. The Lost Scrolls is still due next March, so we’ll see whether or not I’ve been able to build any credibility as an author at all before that time. All I can do, I suppose, is keep writing, keep telling the stories, and keep on telling people about the stories as often as I can.

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I’m sure to catch a little flack for this, but I’ve been waiting for some time to release Patriots and Tyrants on Amazon and Smashwords. Today, I pulled the trigger. Not really sure why I get this way every time I release a book on my own. There’s always a sense of dread – wondering whether or not it’s really done, really as good as it could be. This despite hours and hours pouring over it, nit-picking tiny details (like whether or not to include periods in the initials for the FBI, or whether to capitalize AM and PM), and rewriting sections that weren’t working quite as well as they should. I think, however, there comes a time when you just have to bite the bullet and say “It is enough.” I’ve done due diligence to get it right, and now I have to put it out there. It wouldn’t be the first time a typo has snuck into a story, and even those with a full staff of paid professional editors still find errors in their products. The advantage of being an indie author is that I can make the changes when they’re brought to my attention. Nevertheless, the e-book version of Patriots and Tyrants will be available on Amazon in the next day, and via Smashwords to a whole lot of other sites in about a week or so. I haven’t planned on releasing it in hardcover right away, though I may do it sooner now that I understand the process a little better. Regardless, I’m lowering the price on The Spirit of Resistance to .99 for the next month, so those who haven’t bought it yet can take advantage of the discount. This should be available by tomorrow as well. I will, naturally, post a link and a general announcement once the book is available for download. In the meantime, I’ve crossed 45,000 words on Eye of Darkness, and the other day I finally figured out what happens to bring this story to its conclusion (though it requires a little refining to get it just right). I believe this will put me on target to releasing it by the end of the month.

UPDATE: Looks like Patriots and Tyrants is now available through Smashwords, if anyone wants to get an early version. You can download it here:

Jefferson’s Road: Patriots and Tyrants

Enjoy!

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I think I just figured out why Tuesdays are such good marketing days for me. Usually I’m working an overnight shift on Tuesdays, from midnight till 8 am. After sleeping for about three or four hours, I’m still pretty groggy for the rest of the day. Duh. Anyway, I did manage to make some progress today. I wrote another chapter in Eye of Darkness, another chapter in Jefferson’s Road: The Tree of Liberty, and rewrote a chapter in Jefferson’s Road: Patriots and Tyrants (which is why I’m holding back a bit on releasing it).

So I guess I shouldn’t complain. Of course, I did all of this during the overnight shift (things are pretty quiet until the guys start waking up between 4 and 5 am. Yeah, they’re all early risers!), but I haven’t been as productive since waking up around 11:30 this morning after my shift was done. Then again, I did spend some time with my wife, so I daren’t say the day was wasted. 

David will be going to scouting later this evening, and I’ll take the laptop with me. I can get a bunch done while I wait for him at his meeting.

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I have to admit, I’m a little torn right now. Been looking at the sales figures for May so far (yeah, I know. It’s early in the month), and naturally there’s been a bit of a drop-off in interest for The Coppersmith. Jefferson’s Road: The Spirit of Resistance continues to plod along in the single digits, as it has been doing for some time now.

Thing is, everytime I release a new book, I get a sales bump. It’s only been a few weeks since I released The Coppersmith, and I am tempted to release Patriots and Tyrants ahead of schedule, if only to kick that sales bump into gear. 

I’ve told myself to wait till the end of the month, but I’m questioning that wisdom. Wouldn’t it be better to release the books I have available a little closer together, say two to three weeks apart instead of four or five?

The downside of that is not having any real feedback yet from some of the people I’ve offered it to. I don’t know how significant that will be, and in all fairness, I have gotten positive reviews on it from my Wednesday Night Writer’s group as it is, so it’s not as though I’m tossing something half-baked out there.

Of course, what I really should be doing is knuckling down on Eye of Darkness. I have been working on it, of course, but I’m nowhere’s near done. Right now I’ve got slightly less than 34K words, so not quite to the halfway mark. But I have to do better if I’m going to have it ready by June.

I dunno. Maybe I should just stop looking at sales figures…

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Sales of The Coppersmith took off after releasing it at the end of April. In a week I’d sold seventeen copies. All in all, very exciting news. Of course, at such a low price ($.99), I only receive about $.35 of that, so it adds up to a little more than $5 (one of them is through Smashwords, which means I won’t see it for a while.). But as I’d suspected, I think it’s having a positive effect on the sales of The Spirit of Resistance as well, though whether or not this holds true throughout the month remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I’m slated to release Patriots and Tyrants later this month, but today I’m working on Eye of Darkness. The story has capped 28,600 words so far (yeah, I’m a little behind the 1,200 mark, but I’ll make that up today I’m sure), with no sign of stopping. Twice now, I’ve hit a roadblock (I’m doing this sans outline, which is fun!), but each time I’ve found a way around it.

All I know is that today I’m going to try and get them through the mountain pass to the Ronami village on the other side… okay, okay. No context. You’ll have to find out what that means once it’s done. Believe me though: this one is worth waiting for.

Twenty Days, Twenty Four Thousand Words

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That’s how much I’ve written on this latest novel. It’s called Eye of Darkness, and it’s a fantasy novel. Picture something along the lines of J.R.R. Tolkien meets Thomas Harris.

The story is told of Lucas Veritatus, an ex-Sheriff of the North Country with only one eye (one human eye, that is). He has been asked to investigate a series of  missing children in the Outlands, a no-man’s land of thieves and swindlers outside the jurisdiction of his former province. He doesn’t rely on magick, but he is surrounded by magical creatures (witches, faeries, werewolves, dragons, etc.), and he must use what we would consider normal investigative techniques to solve the abductions and the murders associated with them.

Anyway, I started this story twenty days ago, and I just haven’t been able to stop since. I’m averaging about 1,200 words a day, which isn’t much, but it’s a lot faster than what I’m used to. At this pace, I should have it done by the end of May. June at the latest. It’s an absolute blast to write. I haven’t simply enjoyed writing in a while, but now I’m having fun again.

I read the first chapter to my writer’s group the other day. They loved it. A nice break from the dystopia of Jefferson’s Road.

On that note, I do expect to have Patriots and Tyrants ready to release in May. I have that chapter to rewrite, but I’m satisfied enough with the rest of it, that once I get it done, I’m going to go ahead and put it out there. Look for it at the end of May (and perhaps Eye of Darkness by the end of June?). I’m on such a roll!

And This Is Why I Seek Critiques…

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Real tough critique of Patriots and Tyrants today at my writer’s group. I’m grateful for it. Still reeling, of course, but grateful. Thing is, I knew this going in. I knew this chapter was an info dump, but rather than do something about it, I delayed and chose to let the critique group tear into it.

In all fairness, I’ve received nothing but praise from this group for the last fifty to sixty chapters. I’m deliberately including the chapters from Spirit of Resistance because they were loving the story that far back. So I’m certainly due for a criticism.

Of course, all that previous praise went to my head, and now I’ve got the emotional gunk that comes with a tough review. Not a big problem, though. I’m a big boy. I can handle it (cries into coffee).

The real problem, of course, is figuring out how to fix this chapter. It’s integral to the whole narrative of Jefferson’s Road. Naturally, it’s the chapter on Cultural Marxism, the one that explains the whole justification for the coming war. It’s central to the entire series – if readers don’t understand Cultural Marxism, they won’t understand why the Civil War is necessary (I’m speaking fictionally, of course).  But now I have to find a new way to tell the story of Cultural Marxism without resorting to an annoying info dump.

I’m toying with a prolonged dialogue between Peter Baird and the members of the militia campground he’s just met, which means that not only do I have to rewrite the chapter, I also have to expand  and probably add a new one as well. That’s okay, of course. Patriots and Tyrants feels a little lean right now anyway.

My natural instinct is to cut away what doesn’t work, but this time I genuinely can’t do that. I want this information out there. And the story isn’t quite long enough as it is. So adding is the solution, not cutting. Changing the lecture Peter gives to a dialogue will do that, certainly, but I also have the arduous task of keeping it interesting and active-less cerebral than it is now.

I can do this, but I do feel a little depressed about it right now. Oh well. I’ve got two weeks before the next group. That’s time enough to fix it and print out a new set of chapters.

On a related note, I finished the edits to The Coppersmith yesterday, and I spent the bulk of my morning typing them in. I’d hoped to get the rest of the changes in before the end of today, but it doesn’t look like I’ll make it. Frustrating. Once I finally get all the changes in, I have to find someone willing to give it a read and give me honest feedback. ‘Course, I need the same thing for Patriots and Tyrants, and I can only take two chapters at a time to my crit group. Just not sure who I can go to.

And in my heart, I really just want to spend more time exploring this new world I’ve created and the characters who inhabit it. Editing and rewriting is boring! Oh well. I’ll man up and get it done.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve written fantasy – a couple of decades, to be precise – and I’ve forgotten how much I love it. This new series I’m working on is a bit of a psychological breather for me from the darkness of Jefferson’s Road, which is kinda crazy because it’s got a darkness all its own.

I came up with the idea about a month ago, driving back to the house I work at after dropping off one of my guys at his parents’ house. I took Lake Road back, and was treated to a beautiful full moon glistening on the water. I have to say again how marvelous it is to live where I do. Just being able to see the incredible blues and greens and whitecaps on the water from my front window is a daily blessing. Anyway, as I enjoyed this scenic respite, I began thinking of the different kinds of stories I’d developed over the years. Writing a psychothriller like The Coppersmith is very different from writing fantasies about elves and wizards and dragons, etc.

That’s when it hit me: why not combine the two? Imagine a Sheriff in some fantasy land (think “Sheriff of Nottingham” type Sheriff) who uses a skill set resembling forensics to solve crimes while being surrounded by magical creatures. His forensic skills would be a magic all their own to those used to relying on incantations and spells.

So I’ve started the book – as yet untitled – and my lead character, Lucas, is an ex-Sheriff with one eye. His other eye he keeps hidden behind a patch, because it has been enchanted. He can scry with it, but only if he uses the blood of a victim. Moreover, he is no longer Sheriff because of it, for the king in the land issued an edict banning all sorcery from the realm (for political reasons, etc.). He still serves his king, and has to resist the urge to use an ability others might crave, because of the personal cost to his soul every time he does so.

Now imagine this Sheriff is tasked to finding a serial killer in this magic land, while all around him the townsfolk are blaming the magical creatures, such as faeries or witches or what-not. That’ll give you an idea of what I’m putting together.

I’ll post a suitable excerpt as soon as I come up with one. At the moment, I’m near the end of chapter three and still loving it.

And, of course, I’m still editing Patriots and Tyrants as well as preparing The Coppersmith for release this month. And writing The Tree of Liberty, too. And finishing The Elixir of Life. Yes, I really do intend to get all this done!

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And just like that, Patriots and Tyrants is finished! I’m actually quite surprised and rather pleased with the ending. It’s a nice, solid hook into the third installment, The Tree of Liberty, which I will start shortly.

I do, however, have at least one scene left to write. However, it’s something that has to happen earlier in the book–commentary on the actions of the Federal government related to the crackdown on civil liberties. I’m taking something along the lines of the infamous Janet Napolitano memo to watch out for right-wing terrorists and applying it to this situation.

In doing so, I can once again point out that Jefferson’s Road is a caricature, of a sorts. I am deliberately magnifying and diminishing aspects of our political climate–both to tell a compelling story as well as to highlight the rampant fear-mongering which has so overwhelmed the nation.

To that point, I’m especially grateful to Christopher Truscott’s excellent review of the first book on his blog. I guess the only thing I’d take issue with are the four stars. Four stars, Chris? Really? You didn’t think maybe it deserved one more? (I’m half-kidding, of course! He called it “Frightful,” which is kinda the same reaction I got from Gordon Ryan on his Amazon review. He called it “A Furtive Read,” and said, “I write political thrillers myself, and have considered creating a scenario where killing a president might be justified, but I have refrained on the basis that such discussion is tantamount to insurrection, or, at the very least, ill-considered. Jefferson Road has not absolved me of that trepidation.”

I suppose that’s a good thing, because I don’t intend to resolve anyone of such trepidation. I fully intended Jefferson’s Road to be frightful and furtive, because I don’t want it to fall into the same category as something like The Turner Diaries, which were read by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and used as justification for his terrorism.

I am not endorsing nor recommending terrorism. Far from it! What I am doing is laying the case that heated political rhetoric causes terrorism, and may indeed cause terrorism in the future.  However, it isn’t the rhetoric of the Left that causes leftists to be terrorists, nor is it the rhetoric of the Right that leads right-wingers to contemplate terrorism (and yes, that statement is very carefully phrased). Rather, it is the rhetoric of the right that motivates the Left to action, and it is the rhetoric and policies of the Left which may eventually cause the right to push back. Jefferson’s Road is the story of that push-back.

I’ll give a more succinct explanation in the Author’s foreword for Patriots and Tyrants, and I hope you enjoy reading the novel.

Updated March Sales Figures

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So here are the numbers for March, the first month that Spirit of Resistance is available in print: 11 e-books and 12 p-books. Total, so far: 71 books since last July. This is 57 electronic and 14 print, and does not include the 61 sample downloads from Smashwords where people did not pay.

Admittedly, the sales aren’t nearly as good as what I’d hoped for. Broken down by sales channel, this is what it looks like:

Amazon 42 $93.16
Barnes & Noble 1 $1.28
Sony 9 $14.64
Kobo 3 $4.97
Apple 4 $7.24
Smashwords 2 $4.61
e-store 10 $50.12

The Amazon number includes four paperback sales as well. If, however, we look at the aggregate sales since the beginning, we see this:



Plotting this on a trendline gives me this hope:

Still, the solution to earning decent money from this is going to come from more books driving more sales to each other. And I’ve already got the strategies in place to pull that off. In summary, it’s not as good as I’d hoped, but certainly better than it’s been. And it’s going to be a long climb before we reach the tipping point.