Tag Archives: book

Grab Life by the Ass by Aaron Dennis

Grab Life by the Ass

Be sure to enter promo code QX24R when checking out via smashwords

Act now or you will miss out on this amazing half off deal!

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. – Lao-Tzu

Are you happy? Are you where you want to be in life? Do you feel like you’ve lost your edge? Consider the following: You only have one shot-not at happiness, or love, or success-you have only one shot at life. Your life will end altogether too soon, so there is no time to waste in crappy moods or thoughts. There are no survivors on this earth, so why do you throw away your few precious seconds living a life you don’t enjoy? Would you like to change that? This is not a BS self love book. This is an easy to understand manual, a map, that will lead you to the life you want to live. This manual contains 17 life lessons that will help you to transform your autopilot mentality into a magical awareness and appreciation for the short gift of life we’ve all been given. The world will not conform to your wishes. People will not change for you. You should not change for people, yet you should change your perspective for yourself. Even Gandhi told us: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Let me begin this book with a story. When I was thirteen years old, I had a recurved bow. I got bored with firing arrows at a bale of hay, so I started letting them loose all over my grandma’s property just to watch them soar. The property was rife with oak trees, and some of those arrows vanished, never to be seen again.

One cloudy day, a storm threatening rain and winds blowing, I was walking around the back end of the property. I was standing beside the trunk of an oak, my mind wandering aimlessly, when something on the ground in front of me drew my attention. I can’t recall what it was, nor do I recall if I discovered what it was, because no sooner had I taken a step that something else drew my attention. I turned around.

A blue arrow had sunk about six inches into the soft ground where I had been standing. That arrow would have sunk right into my skull had not something made me move. It might have killed me, or it might have just made me a vegetable; it really doesn’t matter either way. What was important was the fact that I knew then, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that life ends. Life is short. There are no survivors on this earth.

Perhaps I was fortunate—obviously, I was fortunate enough to survive, but the question was why? God’s will? Perhaps, but more importantly than my survival was the lesson I received from the universe: You have one shot—not one shot at happiness, or true love, or following your dreams; you have one shot at life, and to waste even a single moment of it is beyond idiotic. Life is too short for missed opportunities.

I’m in my thirties at the time of writing this book, and since that day, I’ve maintained a special state of awareness, one that involves feeling the ever-presence of death, and before I make any decision, I ask myself if it’s a decision for which I’m willing to die. You see, if something hadn’t drawn my attention when I was thirteen, that might have been the end of my life, so a decision as seemingly insignificant as taking a step meant the difference between life and death, and each decision we make leads a little farther down the path of life, or it might lead us to our demise. My life since then has been lived with a magical feeling, and every action I perform, I perform with joy and alertness because it could be my last one.

Something as simple as driving to the store for a beverage can lead to a deadly car wreck. Leaving for the store at five instead of six can lead to my doom. Drawing money from an ATM can lead to a run in with a gun-toting mugger. Walking through a park during a storm might mean getting struck down by lightning, or the wind blowing a rotted branch, making it fall onto my head.

Do I dwell on the eventuality of death? Nope. Instead of focusing on the negative aspect, I choose to harness the potency of the positive aspect—I’m not dead yet, so there is still time to enjoy life, but then, why would I ever waste a minute doing something I don’t want to do? Why would I ever place myself in a position in which I don’t wish to be? Why would I ever perform an action for which I don’t care? My life is precious—every single second of it, so, too, is yours.

I’m writing this book because I don’t like the world in which I live. Don’t misunderstand that sentiment. I enjoy my life. I love the earth, but the world of which I speak is the world as perceived by mankind, a world of hurt feelings, regrets, wasted moments, comfort zones, poor decisions, and an overall disregard for the beauty, the commodity, and short expectancy of life. Too many of us don’t regard life as the magical thing it is, and by disseminating this knowledge, I’m putting something out into the universe, so, too can you.

Otherside by Aaron Dennis

otherside

Welcome back, everyone. I’m still experiencing some delays in producing the Otherside audio book. From issues with Findaway Voices to new issues with Author’s Republic, the release of Otherside audio book has been pushed back and back and back.

I wanted to release it last Halloween, Halloween of 2020. My new goal is Halloween 2021. That gives me about a month to have everything resolved and approved, so fingers crossed.

While you’re waiting for the Otherside audio book, you can download the Otherside ebook for a 50% discount!

You can view and download Otherside via Smashwords

Be sure to use coupon code UA32H when checking out.

A man witnesses a murder. The deceased speaks in riddles. Vertigo settles in….
Adja wakes to learn he’s got the mojo. The old woman teaches him the ways of Voodoo. He must stand alone, under the guidance of Bear, against Snake, a villain, a murderer, an innate force, but there are other forces amidst the crack between the worlds.
Are you brave enough to journey…to the otherside?

J, a childhood friend, and I were celebrating his new business deal. The real estate market wasn’t exactly booming at the time, but a little luck, and the right connections, graced J’s pockets quite nicely. In turn, he had invited me to spend a few nights in New Orleans.

“Once the sun drops below the horizon, a man can find just about anything,” he said to me with a crooked smile.

It wasn’t even five minutes later that we sat in our room, gawking at the hired women. They writhed in pleasure from the mere touch of my hands. Soon, the voluptuous, young ladies polished off our alcohol. Inevitably, I produced something else for them to polish, but J was displeased with the dwindling amount of liquor.

“Seriously, dude, I don’t want to see that,” J grumbled with a shake of his dark, bald head.

He fumbled at the nightstand for his wallet while I zipped up. “Heh, sorry,” I chuckled. “Didn’t mean to put you to shame, bro.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he slurred, obviously at the limit of his tolerance.

I walked over to get my wallet instead.

“Just go get more booze,” he added, holding back a laugh.

I licked my lips before taking it upon myself to gallivant away from the promise of sex in order to purchase more spirits. As it was, I had just taken a bump and was reeling from the white powder. A walk down the street might clear my head. Truthfully, muddled minds were always a thing of beauty for me back then.

I had no shirt on and was only wearing a pair of old, blue jeans. My cowboy boots made me stumble; the weight of fine leather and thick heels was uncomfortable. After a wink at my woman, I stuck my wallet in my pocket, secured my belt, and clunked out of the room. A look back revealed the dilapidated old apartment building then doubling as a hotel.

“Party-hearty,” I mumbled and tried to focus on my new task.

The boots I wore caused a degree of pain without socks, but it was too late to turn back. After all, I had managed to get myself down two flights of stairs. Blistered ankles were the least of my concerns, but damn did the leather chafe something fierce.

As I continued staggering down the street, I noticed the sounds were intoxicating, or rather I was intoxicated, and the street sounds became a melody of lewdness, lasciviousness, eroticism, and debauchery. I laughed to myself, smiling all the while at the street women who threw eyes my way.

They were flabby, but wore revealing clothing; teeth were missing, and their hair was a tangled mess. Just finished up with a few Johns? Ah what the Hell do I care? I ignored my inane, mental ramblings. My stilted pace through the glow of orange streetlamps required what little focus I maintained.

My face was numb. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. For a second, I thought back to those voluptuous breasts waiting, beckoning, up in my room, but I turned a corner and found myself in the alley next to the motel. Blue dumpsters sat along the red, brick walls. I stopped for some unknown reason. For the first time in my life, it seemed I had no thoughts; my mind was a total blank, and I felt my lips droop as I stood there.

Gaming past, present, and future

A Nintendo Entertainment System

A Nintendo Entertainment System

Hi, everyone. I’ve brought you many game reviews such as; The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker, Chaos World, and Actraiser. I usually bitch about gaming in my reviews, so this time, I’m just going to bitch about gaming—satirically of course—no review.

 

This all began when I first learned about Steam. Reading through what Steam is, and how the platform works, I couldn’t help but feel out of touch. I mean, it’s awesome for game developers, indie or otherwise, who want to release games and get traction, but I don’t get why gamers would buy games through Steam and then play them on Steam, but then I had to consider just what gaming is, or rather, what it is to me.

 

Like most dudes in their 30s, I began my gaming sojourn with an Atari. I think it was the 2600, but it might have been anything. From the Atari, I was upgraded to the NES. My first game was the Mario and Duckhunt twofer. They were games. I played them. They were okay. Then, I got Simon’s Quest, and you can read my Castlevania reviews here.

Castlevania II Simon's Quest

Castlevania II Simon’s Quest

Simon’s Quest blew my shit. The music, the story, the monsters, the magic, the mayhem! Oh my God, that was some serious shit to me, and I was like 6 years old then. Games went from incomprehensible lines and pixels, to plumbers jumping on mushrooms, to bad ass vampire slayers destroying evil curses, and then I got Life Force. Holy freaking cow, games then turned into a space adventure, fighting mind-boggling aliens through unimaginable alien worlds!

Life Force NES

Life Force NES

Holy fracking shit, I then got Megaman 2! Robots running and gunning, blowing other robots to shit, and stealing their weapons only to fight more, bigger, badder robots?!?! WHOAA!!!

Megaman 2

Megaman 2

Of course, I calmed down a little after that. R-Type wasn’t a novelty. Final Fantasy wasn’t a magical journey. I liked those games, but the feelings evoked were never the same. It’s like the first time you get laid; you, like, can’t believe it’s happening, and then it’s over. Sure, you do it again, and you get better, and sometimes things are different, but it’s never the same as your first time no matter how bad your first time was.

So, to me, gaming is like sex? Wait, where was I going with this? Oh, right, Steam, and all that.

Yeah, so gaming, for me, was a way to immerse myself in a foreign world where there were new rules and new adventures, and then there were multiplayer games. This is back when multiplayer games were played by people in the same room, on the same console, looking at the same T.V. screen. Yeah, it was a great way to get socially awkward kids, who were bad at sports, together and do something they liked, socially, together, physically, in the same room.

Now, most multiplayer games are played alone, which is weird to me. It’s cool that people from different countries and cultures can do something together, but no one is hanging out in the same basement, playing games together as a social gathering. I mean, these are games. They just happen to be video games. Would you want to play Monopoly with three other people in three other countries? Games are supposed to being people together, but I digress.

The real question is: Why do we like videogames? Why do we play them? The sights, the sounds, the stimulus? Sure, but they also evoke emotions, memories, and we often enjoy something that someone else imagined; something we could never imagine ourselves.

Now, the same thing can be said for books, T.V., and movies, and maybe this is why some people like watching other people play videogames, but that’s another concept that blows my shit to dust. People watch other people play videogames.

I like books. I read about things I could never do, like, say, fall in love with a vampire. Can’t happen IRL. I like movies because I get to see things I can’t really see, like a dragon setting a village on fire. I like T.V. because I get to see people do things that people don’t really do, and the consequences are often humorous; I like comedy shows like Seinfeld; yeah, those guys would’ve been dead or jailed long before season 9, but, here’s the kicker, with a videogame, I can interact with all those qualities.

I can’t play a movie, book, or T.V. show, but I can play, interact with, a videogame, and suffer consequences like a game over. I can share those interactions with other people in the same room as me when playing multiplayer games. I have no desire to watch someone play Wind Waker unless that someone is in the same room with me, and I can fuck with them. Then, they hand me the controller, and we take turns, but the idea is that it’s a social gathering with gaming as the activity. Otherwise, I’m just gonna’ pop in The Edge of Tomorrow!

This makes me wonder why gaming companies even release games anymore. Why don’t they just make FMV shows? If people wanna’ watch a game, watch an FMV show. I loved Reboot. I love watching MLP and Overwatch, too, but that shit’s on special sites. You know what I mean!!!

On the other hand, I can’t judge or condemn people for what they like. I also support E-sports. I mean, gaming contests have existed since gaming was a thing, and if someone who plays basketball for a living can earn a living, why not someone who plays NBA Live? A game is a game, right? And if we watch people play real games, why not watch them play virtual games or video games?

I could play basketball, but I’d rather watch it on T.V., so who can say what’s what?

I guess, in the end, I just feel out of touch. There are so many games out there, good and bad, that I will never play them all. I’m not going to download every single NES rom from emuparadise. I’m not going to get to play every game on the SNES. Hell, I just learned about Neopets at the beginning of 2019. It took me 14 years to learn that the game existed, so I have so many games to discover and play, for better or worse, that I’m just not willing to exert the effort required to stay on top of the contemporary gaming trends.

I think the newest game I played was Ark, and that shit fell flat on its face after like 6 months.

Fortunately, indie game developers are making more and games for dudes like me. Unfortunately, I don’t know where those games are released or how I can play them. I guess I could sign up for a Steam account and even buy Steam hardware, but then I’d be saving my games and game files to the Steam cloud sever, and if people stop playing on Steam then all that shit vanishes, but my NES still works, and even if it didn’t, I could buy one of those mini-NES’s with the built in games.

For me, the whole point of gaming is to bring people together, but it seems like technology is pushing people apart, and we’re trying to make games like real life, but if real life was so great, we wouldn’t be escaping it to play games, get me?

I mean, consider that before movies, we had books. Now, we have movies…but we still have books! To me, the NES is like a book, and no matter how great it is to own every copy of Harry Potter on your e-reader, it’s so much cooler to own the whole print series, and you read it over and over again, right? You don’t read it once, and then trade it in for A Song of Ice and Fire, right?

I don’t know. Maybe, I’m just getting too old for this shit. Oh, yeah, Harry Potter and A Song of Ice Fire all suck, so eat that!

Anyway, you can find and read all of my game reviews here! Thanks for reading this post about my issues with aging and gaming. Make sure to fuck around this website and check out my original stories.

How to make money writing

money

I met an acquaintance for lunch. He works for a book review company, and we were speaking about writers. He went on to say that independent writers are just terrible.

I asked him why he held that opinion, and he enumerated his reasons; the story is sloppy, the plot meanders, the pacing has issues, the characters and dialogue feel contrived, and overall, they just don’t seem to understand how to write.

Playing devil’s advocate, I asked him what made mainstream writing superior, and he replied that mainstream writing doesn’t suffer from the same pitfalls.

I then asked if that meant that every book he reviewed by a mainstream writer was perfect.

He said no. There were several books by mainstream writers that he read that were quite bad.

I asked if they suffered from any of the same downfalls he had enumerated regarding independent writers, and he admitted that that was the case.

I pointed out that mainstream writers have editors, and before I finished, he interrupted, saying that that was a problem for independent writers. They don’t use editors. They just write a story and think it’s ready for publication.

I went on to finish my thought; mainstream editors must not be that great if mainstream books suffer from the same pitfalls as independent writers. He frowned and didn’t know what to say.

I then pointed out that independent writers do in fact hire editors to clean up their manuscripts, but they don’t know that the editors they’ve hired are crackpots. How can they know? Who is there to tell them?

He nodded, but added that there are plenty of competent editors out there who not only work for publishers, they also do freelance work.

Yes. I agreed. I told him the real problem isn’t independent writing, or writers. The real problem is the independent publishing system. It’s too easy, too accessible.

I can sit down and pound out one page of crap in 2 minutes. I can have it published to the whole world, even major book distributors, in 5 minutes.

He said that was indeed the problem. Someone needs to sit down with these independent writers and explain to them what they should do after they write a story and before they publish it, but that all that information was available.

Indeed it is, but no one is forcing these writers to access that information.

In the world of major publishing, it’s very difficult to have a story published. There are numerous checkpoints along the way.

Let’s assume a new writer has just completed their manuscript, and they want to achieve major publication. The first step is to query an agent. If the agent likes the query, they’ll want to see the manuscript. If they like the manuscript, they then want to know how large the writer’s fan base is. Which awards have they won? What other publications do they have? Is their story marketable to a wide enough audience for the publisher to make a profit?

Then, if everything looks good, the agent goes off to query publishers. When a publisher finds an interesting manuscript, they provide the writer a contract. The publisher then has its own checkpoints.

They design a cover. They pick the title. Their marketing department designs the blurb and marketing strategy. Editors clean up the manuscript for a broader audience. Every effort is made to provide that book with the highest possible chance for success.

Who is doing any of this for independent writers? Who teaches them how to write a proper query? Who is teaching them which agent is best? How do they win awards or build a fan base if they’ve never published before?

Who is teaching them how to find an editor? Who is teaching them which is editor is best? Who is teaching them how to design a cover, pick a title, or write a proper blurb? Who is paying for services rendered? Who is then selling their book?

I pointed out to my acquaintance that there’s nothing wrong with independent writers or their writing. They’re just working blindly, alone through an enigmatic system that isn’t designed to help them succeed. It’s only designed to allow them accessibility.

He agreed.

I added that the mainstream publishers have made it even more difficult for great writers to succeed, and that the ones who are succeeding aren’t doing so because of their superior writing; they’re succeeding because they have a better understanding of the publishing system.

There are also hundreds of independent writers who have done so well on their own that major publishing houses approach them in order to sell them a contract. He agreed again.

The truth is that there are innumerable, amazing writers out there. They are so creative and imaginative, and they have these phenomenal tales to tell, but they are just clueless when it comes to presenting those stories, and they are clueless on how to distribute those stories. They are also very, very impulsive; they get their great idea, they think they can pound it out in a month during NaNoWriMo, and then run off and publish it for the world to see.

No. No. No.

All of these writers need to slow down, like, way, way down.

These writers then think they need to join these contrived writer groups who promise to make their stories available to hundreds of thousands of readers.

Now, I’m not talking about peer editing groups, or groups of writers who work together to share their knowledge. I’m talking about those groups, which act like distributors; the groups that accept books. That’s really what they’re doing; they’re signing up new books, not new writers, and they promise to sell those books to consumers, but they don’t actually do that. They just try to engage those writers in joining blog tours, giveaways, and review exchanges, but none of those things are effective because there are no consumers there. No one is going to those groups looking for a new book to buy.

What a writer needs to do is slow down.

Write that story. Get it all down. Fill it with absolutely everything. Then, step back. Stay away from that story. Forget all about it. After months, go back and read it as a reader.

The writer will then notice redundancies, plot holes, pacing issues, and an overall sense of confusion because the story is no longer fresh in their mind. That’s the time for the rewrite.

Some chapters will be too long and boring. Some will be too short and feel rushed. The contrived dialogue must be rewritten to sound like organic conversation. Some passages will have to be restructured and organized. There can be found better and more clear and concise ways to provide information. All the extra fluff–the stuff that doesn’t add anything to the story–will have to be cut.

Once the rewrite is complete, that writer will then need to make that story available to a very small, niche audience. To do this, one simply asks for beta-readers. Beta-readers come in all shapes and sizes, though, and some of them will skim  over a 100,000 word book in a day or two, and their feedback cannot be productive.

Did you read Harry Potter in a day? Did you read it only once? You have to read a book slowly, numerous times to get all there is to get from it.

The good beta-readers will take their time to figure out what they like about a story. They take their time to figure what they didn’t like. They will explain why it was good or bad, and what they would like to see change.

It’s that writer’s duty to take all that constructive criticism and apply it if they believe it will enhance their book. However, enhancing that book doesn’t mean making it better in the eyes of the writer. It means making it a better experience for the reader, and that’s another problem.

No one is teaching this simple concept: Write for you. Publish for your audience.

The version of Harry Potter that you read and loved is not the version that Rowling wrote. It’s the version the editors cleaned. It’s the version the publisher approved.

Now, during the time it takes to secure beta-readers and receive feedback, the writer should be experimenting with different covers, titles, and blurbs. They should also be shopping for editors.

After the second rewrite is accomplished with the help received from beta-readers, the writer needs to hire an editor. A real editor will spend at least a few weeks carefully reading the book. Their job is to take that sequential account of events and transform it into a story that readers will enjoy experiencing.

While the editor is doing this, and hopefully communicating their thoughts with that writer, the writer should be talking about their story with an audience. Otherwise, who will be buying the book once it’s published?

Eventually, the writer will receive feedback from their editor. A good editor’s advice should be taken to heart, and their changes should be made, not for the writer’s sake, but for the readers’. Once those changes are employed, the writer needs again to step back, and forget all about their story. After a few months, they need to go back and read it again as a reader, but they also need to consider what kind of publishing is best for them.

If they want major publication, they need to consider all those concepts provided earlier; finding the right agent, proper querying, and perhaps even hiring a review agency, which reviews arcs, so they can prove their story will be appealing to a large public.

Most of these services will be expensive, and a lot of people don’t want to spend money, but an independent writer can’t even hope to compete against major publishing all on their own. The big houses have endless resources. Being an independent writer doesn’t mean doing everything alone; it just means being responsible for everything.

My acquaintance and I discussed all these concepts at length. We both agreed that if such a methodology was employed by all writers, it would no longer matter if a book was published by a major house or self published. Of course, the number of sales can vary greatly since the big houses include marketing and advertising departments. In the case of independently published writers, they will then need to spend more money to purchase book release services, but here’s the thing; major publication forces a writer to spend a ton of money anyway, more than you might imagine.

Let’s assume this writer does go the mainstream route. The contract is signed. The book is perfected and released. The big house offers a $2,000 advance. That’s an advance, a promise that the book will recoup that $2,000 within the first six months to a year of publication. If it doesn’t, that writer might lose their contract and their edited version of the book, title, cover, and blurb because the company owns all those rights.

Now, if the book is successful, at least $2,000 must be earned by the publisher before any royalties are paid to the writer. In order increase the chances of this occurring, the publisher will instruct the writer to purchase 5,000 copies of their own book. This automatically places that book on The New York Times Best Seller list, so everyone can say, “Hey, it’s a best seller, so you should buy it, too!”

5,000 copies of a book at cost is still very expensive, probably about $25,000. Then, that writer, who is under contract to do all this is, is instructed to parade around the country and sell their book in person, on their own dime. The company books the events, but the writer has to cover their own expenses, so a year of touring adds another $25,000 to that writer’s expenses.

Suddenly, that $2,000 advance doesn’t seem so great, and this is precisely why most writers have day jobs. Of course, if they survive their first year, they ‘re in a great spot; they can easily secure publication of any book they write after that first one, but it still won’t guarantee that the royalties will outweigh the cost of touring the second book.

It takes quite a few books and many, nerve-wracking years to achieve financial independence. That’s why you get writers like Ursula K. Leguin, who have been published by major houses for years, who go out and set up GoFundMe accounts, asking consumers to cover all these costs.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if a writer is independent or mainstream. There are millions of mainstream writers you’ve never heard of, who have day jobs. It is very difficult to become a wage-earning writer, and there should be no rush in trying to achieve that.

Another offer made by mainstream houses is a chance to option movie rights. The best selling writers’ books are always movies. More people read Harry Potter after the movie came out. What writer doesn’t want their book turned into a movie?

Movie options can be obtained by independent writers as well. It isn’t easy. It might cost a pretty penny, and a writer might have to hire a lawyer in order make certain they aren’t being cheated out of royalties from products like action figures, video games, or apparel.

This enigmatic process bypasses millions of writers. That’s why I’ve used my own experiences to outline a strategy that will lead every writer to success.

I don’t promise millions of dollars in revenue, but I do guarantee that any writer who takes their time and studies my strategy can make a profit from their writing. For just 99 cents, I offer you the following:

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

This manual brings to your fingertips all the practical knowledge required to build your long term writing career. Any writer of any level will benefit from the material within this comprehensive guide. From the neophyte to the professional, anyone who reads this book will learn everything from formulating an idea for a story, to practicing the art of the short story, to writing proper fanfiction, and writing an original novel.

This book not only teaches how to write, but also how to market, edit, publish, and all with exercises and even free resources. From start to finish, the ideas presented are done so in an easy to understand and entertaining fashion. By the end of this manual, you will not only know how to write, edit, publish, and market your book, but you’ll know what kind of publishing is right for you.

Why don’t publishing companies want you to know these secrets? Publishers run an exclusive good ole’ boy club, and in doing so, they choose who they help to succeed, and who they help to fail, but when you learn these secrets, you’ll know that no writer needs a publisher in today’s internet age. Bypassing a publishing company not only allows you to maintain control and earn the bulk of your income, but it relegates the old, dinosaur, publishing companies to obscurity.

Buy How to Become a Successful Writer from Barnes and Noble

For just 99 cents, you will learn at least one thing that will help you to earn more money from your writing. You know 99 cents is worth making just a few more sales every month, but if you’re still not convinced, that’s okay. I provide everyone with numerous free resources. Just check out my Editing Services and Free Resources tab. You can enjoy numerous articles regarding all aspect of writing and publishing.

Thanks for reading this post. I wish you success throughout your writing journey.

The Cayneian Audiobook is now Available

Cayneian: A Man From Blood By Aaron Dennis

Cayneian: A Man From Blood
By Aaron Dennis

A man stands resolved. Dysart, clan Bloodhammer, has returned to the island of Volgunther to purge it of the evil called Salamandrus. He has given his tongue, so that he may speak no contracts. He has given his manhood, so that he may not know his power as a man. He has given his mind, so that no God may take pity upon him.
Wielding the forbidden power of Sang Daemanus, Dysart imbibes the blood of Daemons to cast his spells, to grow his strength, to fuel his powers, but will he be able to stave off the bloodlust before the evils upon the island claim him?

Check out this Kirkus review on Cayneian, A Man from Blood:

This series opener sees a warrior determined to free an island from a Daemon’s grasp.
Dysart of clan Bloodhammer has lost his sloop and is now washed ashore on the island of Volgunther. He’s immediately
set upon by savages, but thankfully a man named Talbot saves Dysart with his bow and arrows. At his nearby cabin,
Talbot learns that his guest has no tongue. Then Dysart draws a rune in hog’s blood on his throat, which allows him to
speak. He explains that his people, the Cayne, once inhabited the island. They also woke a Daemon called Salamandrus,
making a pact with the entity for power that involved the ritual of Sang Daemanus. Later, they sealed the Daemon away,
but “instead of ending their service to Salamandrus, they departed from this place, hoping to retain their power.” Dysart
has come to end his people’s accord and make Volgunther a hospitable island once more. After obtaining an axe and
other supplies from Talbot, he travels east toward a settlement. He saves a pyromancer named Randall from wolf men
and drinks their blood to receive heightened senses and healing abilities. But Dysart concludes that his rune for speech
will fade without the esper oil derived from a plant somewhere on the island. Randall joins him, and they head for Etmire
Abbey, where they encounter the Order of the Cross. Dysart will need every ally he can find as he battles through
monstrous hordes toward Salamandrus’ lair in Castle Golvundehr.
Dennis (War and Glory, 2017, etc.) squeezes all the gore he can from his muscular imagination to enhance his novel,
which recalls the viscera-strewn adventures of fantasy icons like Conan and Elric. Readers learn early on about Dysart’s
magic: “Animal blood is effective, if weak. Human blood is potent, if unsavory…but Daemon’s blood makes us
unstoppable.” This results in a marathon of grisly dispatches—encounters with frog men, murderous plants, zombies,
and worse—that propel the hero but also fuel his addiction to power. While the plot is somewhat linear, the gruesome
premise shines blackly throughout. Dysart not only needs blood, but he’s also traded his tongue, his testicles (“that we
might not realize our own power as humans”), and his mind as an initiate of Sang Daemanus. Fighting at his side are
characters like Pattius, a thief; Marcus, a knight; and Reman, a young orphan. The author often fleshes out these warriors
just enough to draw from readers a meaningful wince as he sacrifices them to Dysart’s cause. A dreadful ambience
hovers even in quieter moments, as in the line “Only darkened hills loomed in the distance. Everything else was flat
grassland molded by gusts of wind.” The dialogue during combat scenes is appropriately maniacal (“Blast you, croakers!
Fall to the wrath of Randall!”), yet Dysart is capable of speaking beautifully. In cautioning Talbot, whose family is dead,
he says: “Hold their memory dearly, and do not rush to see them.” Though the violence grows monotonous, a finale
bristling with invention redeems the work.
A bloodbath that should impress readers of the grimmest fantasy tales.

This review is attributed to “Kirkus Reviews”, and you can follow the link to my review on their site.

For now, the Cayneian audiobook is available through a couple of retailers. More retailers will be making the audiobook available over the next few weeks.

Buy Cayneian on Google Play

Buy Cayneian on Scribd

Buy Cayneian on Nook Audiobooks

You can still download the ebook for free until January 1st, 2019 via Smashwords

Finally, I have 30 giveaway codes for the new audiobook! If you already have an Authors Direct account, the book will simply appear instantly in your library, ready to play. If you don’t have an account, visit authors-direct.com/redeem to enter your giveaway Code and email address. They’ll automatically create an account and send a link to download the Authors Direct app, where the audiobook will be waiting in your library.

Since I only have 30 giveaway codes, I can only give them to the first 30 people who email me, asking for a code, so don’t be shy! Email me right now dennis@storiesbydennis.com and ask for a Cayneian giveaway code.

How to Become a Successful Writer by Aaron Dennis

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

Do you read much?

What kind of career have you considered?

Do you enjoy writing? Have you even thought about writing a book? Or writing poetry? Or maybe just writing some short stories?

Do you know anything about editing or publishing manuscripts?

Maybe, you do read, and you do write, but you don’t really know what it means to clean up your writing for an audience, and you don’t really know how to publish your work. That’s okay.

Maybe, you’ve tried to write, but you can’t come up with an idea. Maybe, you think your idea is just a rip-off of an existing idea. That’s okay, too.

Maybe, you’ve been writing for a few years, and you even published some books, but literary agents won’t take you seriously, your writing groups aren’t helping you sell, and you just can’t seem to attract that target audience. It happens.

Regardless of where you are in your life, in your writing career, if you’re so much as considering putting thoughts into words, you need to check out How to Become a Successful Writer: Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis.

This manual brings to your fingertips all the practical knowledge required to build your long term writing career. Any writer of any level will benefit from the material within this comprehensive guide. From the neophyte to the professional, anyone who reads this book will learn everything from formulating an idea for a story, to practicing the art of the short story, to writing proper fanfiction, and writing an original novel.

This book not only teaches how to write, but also how to market, edit, publish, and all with exercises and even free resources. From start to finish, the ideas presented are done so in an easy to understand and entertaining fashion. By the end of this manual, you will not only know how to write, edit, publish, and market your book, but you’ll know what kind of publishing is right for you.

Why don’t publishing companies want you to know these secrets? Publishers run an exclusive good ole’ boy club, and in doing so, they choose who they help to succeed, and who they help to fail, but when you learn these secrets, you’ll know that no writer needs a publisher in today’s internet age. Bypassing a publishing company not only allows you to maintain control and earn the bulk of your income, but it relegates the old, dinosaur, publishing companies to obscurity.

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

Buy it from Smashwords today

For just $.99 you can have all the knowledge at your fingertips. Believe it; there is something you are doing wrong, or something that you are not doing, or something that you’ve misunderstood, or something that someone misconstrued to you, and without reading through How to Become a Successful Writer: Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know, you are setting back your writing career.

Acquiring one simple piece of knowledge can be just what you need to boost your sales. Isn’t that worth $.99?

Acquiring one simple piece of knowledge can be just what you need to better reach your target audience. Isn’t that worth $.99?

Acquiring one simple piece of knowledge can be just what you need to know in order to hire a competent editor. Isn’t that worth $.99?

Acquiring one simple piece of knowledge can be just what you need to begin your writing career and on the right foot. Isn’t that worth $.99?

Acquiring one simple piece of knowledge might just keep you from throwing away 5 years of signing on with a hybrid press claiming to be an independent publisher, and all without them ever selling your book. Isn’t that worth $.99?

For anyone so much as thinking about writing a story; for anyone who has kept their nose to the grindstone for the past 5, 10, 15 years, How to Become a Successful Writer: Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis is an easy to understand guide that not only introduces topics about which you may not know, but it expounds upon numerous topics about which you must know to achieve long term success.

Do yourself a favor and get this book today.

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

How to Become a Successful Writer Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know by Aaron Dennis

Buy it today from Smashwords

Also, don’t forget about my November deal!

smashwords affiliate ebooks sales

smashwords affiliate ebooks sales

Learn more about selling books as an affiliate right here!

Niki Nyan’s Book Blog is the place for honest, indie reviews!

Black cat

Niki Nyan’s Book Blog is a new book blog site. There, you can read reviews and excerpts of great books, or perhaps, not so great books.

Niki specializes in indie books, mostly from Smashwords, and so far, her book reviews have varied somewhat from genre to genre, though she prefers speculative fiction–scifi and fantasy–she’ll read anything that tickles her fancy.

Her love of reading, and her love of reading real books, books written by people who enjoy reading and writing over companies who have published books for a broad audience in order to earn a buck, has led her not only to Smashwords, but Goodreads, too.

She has been kind enough to review some of my books, not from my suggest or submission, and in turn, I showed her how to make money via Smashwords and book review blogs.

You can check that out here.

I hope that you all treat her as kindly as you’ve treated me. Please, do go peek at her site, Niki Nyan’s Book Blog. Be her friend on Goodreads, and follow her on Twitter.

I believe she’ll keep up the great work and run a very successful book review blog, so be sure to share this post and her site!

 

Can you succeed even without a solid publicity plan?

Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

self aggrandizing aaron meme

Question: Would a great book succeed even without a solid publicity plan?

 

Answer: No, and I’m speaking from experience.

 

When I first began writing, I tried to tell everyone that my book was out, it was great, well written, edited, the whole shebang, but who did I tell?

 

Consider the question. With no publicity plan, who is there to tell that you have a book, and that it’s great, and that everyone should buy it?

 

With no publicity plan, you have no Twitter followers, no blog followers, no one subscribed to your website, no friends on FaceBook or Goodreads, no contacts on LinkedIn, etc. You must have a receptive audience. You must be able to tell receptive people, who are already interested in your kind of writing, that you have released a book, and how can you have people following your every move without a publicity plan?

 

The publicity plan builds exposure; by its nature, it calls people’s attention to you. Then, when people know you exist, you can let them know what you’re peddling, and how it’s different or better than what’s on the market now.

 

Exposure is absolutely necessary, and even books that are not so great tend to fly off the shelves when a publicist somewhere says, “these are great.” However, since such a thing was said to numerous individuals, who then told others, who then told others; the exposure led to readers, which led to conversations about those books regardless of how great those books were or weren’t; if they were terrible, they surely had great sells at first, because of a publicity plan, and then tanked when they failed to live up to the hype, but that’s a different discussion.

 

It’s tough to build a publicity plan, for sure. It’s even tougher to build a free publicity plan, but it is not impossible.

 

The simplest way to build fans is to engage with likeminded people. People are social creatures who enjoy discussing their likes and dislikes. They value their own opinions as well as the opinions of their peers, so it’s imperative that you, a writer, ask yourself some serious questions. What genre do you write? For whom are you writing? Like whom do you write? How are you different? Better?  More important? Be friends on FaceBook, Google+, Goodreads, and Twitter with those likeminded people. Discuss what they like. Discuss what you like. Start a book review blog or vlog—learn more about that here!!!

 

In the meantime, write your book, hire an editor, and engage beta-readers. Then, once you have loyal fans, show them that you’ve written a book, too.

 

There are other routes as well. If you have the money, you can sign on with netgalley and get your book in the hands of serious reviewers. Reviewers are important because those people discuss their likes and dislikes with likeminded people, so they are promoting for you; of course if your book sucks, you’ll never sell, or at least not for long. You can also purchase media release packages. Kirkus has some great packages, but you better have a fat wallet already. There are cheaper media packages, but even if you find them, they don’t guarantee great results.

 

I’ve personally spent as much as $100 on media packages, and saw virtually no increase in sales, so you get what you pay for, and no, Kirkus won’t guarantee you sales either, but their reach is far more extensive than any cheaper media package you’ll purchase. I still believe that spending money is the quickest and easiest way to inform potential readers that your book is available, but that exposure won’t guarantee sales. No exposure of any kind guarantees sales, but the more people you reach, the more likely you are to land a sale. It’s always a numbers game.

 

Free promotions, though slow moving due to the inherent difficulty in reaching people, by way of engaging likeminded audiences before releasing your debut novel, are far more efficient because what happens is that you build loyal fans who wish to discuss your book with others, and word of mouth is the best way to sell a product; you don’t buy Black and Decker because an ad told you to buy Black and Decker. The ad only informed you that Black and Decker exists, that it’s great, that it’s a deal. You buy Black and Decker because you asked your neighbor what brand of drill they use, and they informed you that they like Black and Decker; it’s the same with books.

 

Books are just a product. It doesn’t matter how great your book is. If no one knows it exists, no one can buy it. On the flip side, just because your book is great doesn’t mean that everyone will like it. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like Harry Potter.

 

On top of everything, it’s important to know that you aren’t selling a book anyway; you’re selling an idea. The title, cover art, and blurb portray that idea, and then the book explains the idea, so with no publicity plan, there is no way to sell anything.

 

Once again, be sure to read this article from Journal. I explain how to earn money from reading, but the importance of the article is that by design, the plan reaches numerous readers, so that when you do release your own book, you already have hundreds and maybe thousands of receptive fans.

 

Even Stephen King, who I can’t stand, tells writers that to be good writers they have to read a lot. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about because reading a lot doesn’t make anyone a good writer, however, if you do read a lot then chances are that you discuss what you read, which means that if you have an audience for your book discussions, you have audience for your original material. Of course, King doesn’t explain that…. He should be telling aspiring writers to engage readers because they build exposure, and they learn what their peers enjoy reading.

 

Before anyone jumps me, I won’t to point out a few things about King. I don’t believe he reads much. I don’t believe that he read much before he started writing, and even if he did, and you do, the idea that reading a lot makes you a better writer is invalid. Think about the fact that the version of The Stand that you read is not the version that King wrote. The version you read is the one rewritten by his editors, and you’ll never write like an editor because editors change their voice based on their authors’ voices, their publishers’ voices, and their projected readers’ predilections.

 

On that note, be sure to follow my blog on Quora, where I often discuss editing tips as well as other topics revolving around reading, writing, and selling books.

 

What are the signs of a bad publishing contract?

Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

writer editor

Question: What are the signs of a bad publishing contract?

Answer: It depends on what the meaning of bad is….

 

If a writer is offered a contract from a traditional publisher—a major publishing company like Penguin, or even a smaller company like Baen—all contracts will be fairly standard; advances, 5 years service, 25% royalties from print copies, maybe 33% to 50% from e-book sales.

 

A writer will be offered a reasonable advance from a large company; the advance is based on the projected sales of the book over the course of 6 months, sometimes it’s longer, and even though the writer is generally contracted for 5 years, if the book does not sell, the publisher has a right to release the writer; that is the end of your career in the mainstream publishing industry, period.

 

A smaller company will offer a smaller advance, if they offer one at all, but they won’t usually cut a writer free for failure to sell, although they may choose to not renew the contract after 5 years.

 

There are other kinds of contracts, ones from presses who claim to be mainstream publishers or even indie presses, and they are not. Here are some things to scare a writer off.
If the publisher demands a fee, run.

If the publisher wants you to do anything more than write, run.

If the publisher wants you to crowdfund the money to publish your book, run.

If the publisher wants you to promote the books of their other authors, run.

 

Most “indie publishers” are little more than three people publishing through Amazon and CreateSpace anyway. You can do everything they do on your own and keep all your money.

 

I went through an indie press that seemed reasonable, but they then charged $7 for my ebooks; how in Hell was I supposed to sell with my prices that high?

 

They never got me any reviews, they failed to edit my work properly—the biggest no-no—and they even “lost” my contracts.

 

There are real indie publishers like Baen Books, Rocking Horse, and Edge, so if you’re unsure about the publisher you’ve approached, research the company; when were they established? How many employees do they have? Which books and authors have they published? Then, track down an author, through their website or Twitter, and talk to them. Ask them how they like working for that publisher.

 

The basic premise to stand by is the following: If you can’t land an agent, you won’t land a publishing contract with a real company. If you want to land a contract with a mainstream publisher, learn how to land an agent; they’ll do the rest for you.

Be sure to follow my Quora blog for more information

So you want to be a writer part 7

 

writer editor

It’s important to consider the types of publishing platforms before releasing your novel. Rather than diving right into the different kinds, I’m going to tell you a story; the story of my writing career, or rather how it began.

I initially tried my hand at writing a novel many years ago. I was about 18, in college, and still playing Dungeons and Dragons on the weekends with a great group of guys. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to write a story based on some of our adventures.

I set about the task, and three pages in, I hit a wall. I wanted my story to be true to the game, and I didn’t have all the manuals, and I certainly didn’t own all the novels, and since I was 18, that meant that the year was 2001, which is before the internet really blew up; I mean, there were certainly millions of people on the internet even back then, but I don’t think Wikipedia (shouldn’t it be Wikipaedia?) existed at the time, and I have no clue if WoC or TSR or whoever ran DnD at the time had a website, but it didn’t matter; I didn’t even have a dial-up connection; there wasn’t a need for it (this was the golden age of e-mail subscriber lists, though).

I talked to my buddies about the idea, but the more we talked, the more it seemed it was a useless endeavor. I didn’t really care too much about it either; I just thought it was going to be cool to write a book, but the fact of the matter was that my passion didn’t outweigh the obstacles, so I just let it go.

Ten years later, I had such an idea for a story I decided I was just going to go ahead and write it, or try to. I sat down and simply described the series of events, which became my very first short story: Eudora.

At that time, I had no idea how to use punctuation. I knew grammar well enough, and I’ve always maintained an abundant repertoire of words, and have always been a decent raconteur, so in the end, all I tried to do was chronicle the events of the story, and it worked. I had no plans, though, but Hell, I knew that since I completed one story, I was certainly capable of completing another; publishing stories, however, was the farthest thing from my mind.

I wrote four stories over the course of two or three months just for fun, and then I showed some friends and family, but I claimed that I had found the stories online and just thought they were neat. No one really seemed to care, until I wrote one more story. I called it: Shadowman.

There was an older gentleman I knew by the name of Jarrett Slavin (sorry if I misspelled it, Coach), who upon learning of my newfound passion, he asked to read the stories, and he really enjoyed Eudora and Shadowman, and he suggested I find a way to get published. Had it not been for him, all of my other titles would not even exist…what might have been….

Nevertheless, I was then left the daunting task of achieving publication, so I got on the internets, Googled “publishing”, found the addresses of a few publishers, and sent out my stories, of course they were all short stories, and no publisher wants those, but I found other methods of publication. I found Xlibris, a print on demand (POD) company, and of course, no sooner had I e-mailed them that I received a call, and man, oh, man was I pumped. I really thought I had just made it big league. (Big league, not bigly.)

All POD companies want is your money. They’ll take anything, and you’re responsible for your content, for your quality, but they’ll certainly charge you for reviews, trailers, covers, promotional packages, you name it; they’ll charge you, and honestly, if you have the world’s greatest book, they may actually be helpful because they can certainly help you get your book in the right hands, but my book, my four, short stories called Shadowman, were far from good, far from quality writing.

Regardless, as I spent more and more money, and then ran out of money, I kept writing, and when I finished my first, full length novel, Lokians, I started my search for publication all over again, but I knew POD was not for me. I needed someone else to do all the legwork for me, but I didn’t think it was fair that I had to pay for the legwork. I just wanted to write, so I set about the task of mailing and e-mailing traditional publishers, and even smaller presses like Edge, and no one was interested, so I did more research on what was required to achieve publication, and learned about literary agents, but when I contacted them, they never replied.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your outlook on life, I found a press, which labeled itself an independent press, Eternal Press. For all intents and purposes, everything looked good. Their books were available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so I figured that it was a good start. By then, I knew that mainstream publishers were purposefully keeping writers out until those writers made a name for themselves, so I knew I just needed to work hard and make a name for myself through a small, independent press.

Well, initially, I submitted my manuscript, and the acquisitions editor was kind enough to tell me that while my story seemed interesting, there was a great deal of information dumped onto the reader right at the very beginning, so I went through a round of what I thought was editing, and figured out that rather than telling the reader everything I thought they should know before the story started, it might be better to allow the world to unfold throughout the story. Then, I resubmitted, and they accepted it, and man, oh, man did I think I had hit it big. An actual publisher with editors, and marketers, and everything was going to polish my book and sell it, and all I had to do was sit back and write.

Well, when the contracts came, everything seemed legit. All they had asked was that I also made an effort to market and sell the book, and I thought that was only fair; it was my book after all, and I certainly wanted to talk about it, so I made social media accounts and started telling no one (because I had not built a fan base) that my book was coming out.

Next, I had to write a blurb, and I didn’t know what that was, nor had I comprehended its importance, so I just wrote about what the story was. No one made an effort to correct me, so I thought I had nailed it. Then, I had to come up with a cover, and I am not really an artist; I’m not even a visual person, so I came up with some weird concept with a bunch of aliens and space ships, and they told me to try again because it was too flashy, too busy. Later, I realized the truth was that they didn’t actually employ artists, and I’ll get back to that later.

We settled on a cover, which I didn’t really like, but I was just so excited and so ready to start selling, I accepted. Then, we moved on to editing. The “editor” made very few comments, adjustments, and suggestions, and so again, I thought I had nailed it. I mean, if an editor doesn’t have much to say or change then the story must be near perfect, right? Well…not so much.

Finally, the release date came, and the book was finalized. I was invited to join some Yahoo groups and even participate in a live chat where I was to discuss my book with potential readers. It turned out that there were no readers, only other authors writing for the same press. That was a little disappointing, but I didn’t think anything of it because I knew the publisher was certainly going to sell my book. Selling books is their job, and if they don’t sell, they can’t stay in business, right?

Wrong again; they made their money by enticing their writers to purchase copies of their own books, just like a POD company, and then it became my job to go out and find places to set up and sell to people, but no one let me do such a thing. Barnes and Noble didn’t allow it. Books-a-Million didn’t allow it. There are no local bookstores where I live, so my best bet was a friend’s comic book store, which felt really awkward because his customers where there to buy comic books, and out of the hundred copies of my terribly written book, I sold three on my first attempt, and none on my second attempt.

In the meantime, my e-books were priced at nearly seven dollars. Who is going to spend seven dollars on an unheard of book by an unknown author when they can spend nine or ten dollars on Harry Potter? The answer? No one. In the three years that I was published through Eternal Press, and with the four books that I released through them, I may have earned as much as forty dollars. That meant that Eternal Press also earned about forty dollars off my sales, and about five hundred dollars off my purchasing my own, print copies. That meant that if every writer, and there were hundreds of us, each bought five hundred dollars worth of books each year, Eternal Press made some decent money, but the writers only ever spent money.

Consider that if I had sold all of my print copies at twenty dollars that’s only $2,000, and that sounds great, but then you have to subtract the $500 spent on purchasing the copies, and I think it was more than that, but we’ll keep the numbers round. That leaves a $1,500 profit, which is still nice, but then you have to factor in time, travel, gas, food, the posters I had made up, the business cards, and in the end, had I sold all of my copies, all one hundred in one day, I may have cleared $800. That’s still not terrible, but without the fan base to be able to move all hundred copies over the course of a day, a week, or even a month, that $800 not only dwindles from continuously traveling and setting up, but it starts looking worse and worse. Had I sold all hundred copies over the course of a year, which I didn’t, that’s still $800, and probably less, over the course of a year, hardly a success story, and as I stated, I didn’t sell more than three copies.

I kicked, I cried, I screamed, I complained, I begged; I wanted my prices lowered, so that the e-books would sell. I wanted to submit updated versions of my books, too, versions that didn’t have common errors and formatting errors; yeah, formatting errors. How retarded was Eternal Press? They weren’t even capable enough to format their books properly, and in the end, there was nothing to be done. The product was what the product was, and I had the option of peddling my crap and disappointing readers, or sitting idly by until the contracts expired; I mean, Eternal Press wasn’t selling anything.

During that time, I wrote a great deal more for two reasons. For one, I just really enjoyed it, and two, I felt a need to vindicate myself, or perhaps apologize to readers for having released dreck. Then, of course, I had to figure out what kind of publication I was going to try next; I certainly wasn’t going to go through Eternal Press again.

I spoke to a few, other, smaller presses, but I didn’t like what they had to say; they wanted money up front, they didn’t want to make the books available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, or anywhere apart from their site, or they wanted to keep too much off the top, so I went back through my old, short stories, cleaned ‘em up, and published free to Smashwords, entered those stories into their premium catalog, and bang! Those stories made it onto Barnes and Noble…and iBooks…and Kobo…and Nook, and you name it.

I also wrote fanfiction and published it to FanFiction.net, and with my newly released short stories, which were free, I started to build a fan base, but my titles with Eternal Press just rotted away, and I could not, in good faith, promote those titles because they were not the best of me. Finally, I hired a few editors for my new, full-length titles.

One editor, after paying for services, told me to re-write my book, and then resubmit, for another fee, of course. I did not hire them again. The second editor just re-wrote my whole book from start to finish in their own voice with their own views. I mean, it was a totally different book with different characters and different interactions at that point. I did not keep any of those changes. Then, I hired a real editor, Chuck Sambuchino, and he taught me how to edit my story for readers.

That book was released under the title The Dragon of Time, Gods and Dragons, and it has gone on to do quite well. Through CreateSpace, I made print copies available, and they are much cheaper to sell, and purchase for my own uses, than the print copies released by Eternal Press or Xlibris. I also e-published, for free, to Amazon, which I then pulled for reasons that are not yet pertinent, and since I had hired my own cover artist for five dollars through Fiverr.com, I had a banging cover, a cover that blew the covers made by Eternal Press to dust.

I also uploaded the book to Smashwords, which meant it made it to all, online retailers, and get this, I got to keep almost all of the money earned from sales, and other people can also sell my book via an affiliate link, so we all make money. I must admit, though, that I did try to use Gods and Dragons to land an agent and achieve major publication, and while numerous agents replied, and with admiration, no one felt it was “marketable”, but that isn’t accurate; the truth is that they didn’t think I had enough fans, which meant the mainstream publishers wouldn’t touch it because, remember, they want your fans, not the other way around.

This is precisely why I want you to build a fan base before writing your debut novel. Then, you can prove to the agent that you’re the real deal!

At any rate, Eternal Press wound up being purchased by another company and became Caliburn Press. No one told me for the longest time, but then an old friend from Eternal Press happened to ask me how I liked the new owners, so I went and found out that my books weren’t even available on Caliburn’s website, but they were still available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so I got in touch with Caliburn over the discrepancy to learn that my contracts had been “lost in transition”. After some arguing, I simply stated that if that was the case, and there were no copies of my contracts, then the rights were mine, and I demanded all my titles pulled.

At this stage, while writing this very post, I have gone back and recreated all four of those books. Three are part of the Lokians series, and the fourth book was Shadowman, which has been totally overhauled, and is now titled: Otherside. I mention this to show that it has been nothing short of a long and arduous journey, and I am discussing it because I am trying to show you all the possible pitfalls of publishing. The short of this: go big or go home.

What I mean is; either do not stop trying to achieve major publication, or just go the self published route. You might get lucky with an actual, independent press like Edge Publishing, Rocking Horse Publishing, or Baen, but you had better be careful. Do your research. Look at their books on their site, on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, on iBooks. Look at their prices, if there’s an option, look inside and read some of the titles. Don’t be shy; go and track down the authors, too, and ask them how they like being published through that press.

Now, the nitty-gritty:

If you have a fan base, if you have a bangin’ title, cover, and blurb, and if your book is expertly polished, self publishing is a fantastic way to go. Not only do you have complete control—Hell, even King self publishes some titles—but you get to keep almost all of your money, except the money Amazon will steal from you. I’m not even kidding, they will steal from you ten and twelve cents at a time, and they will often not pay you for Kindle pages read through KOLL, or KULL, or KENP, or whatever the Hell it is now. That’s why I pulled my e-titles from Amazon, but Smashwords has been a paragon of self publishing.

If your book isn’t up to snuff, though, self publishing can kill your career before it begins. Basically, the thing to note is that your book must be near perfect to land a literary agent or be taken seriously by a real, indie press, and if your book is that good and well written, you can use it to just make a name for yourself by self publishing, but self publishing requires so much friggin’ work because all of the responsibility falls on you, but then if you’ve built your fan base by following the advice from these posts, and your book is stellar, and you do self publish, and you do sell, you will be approached by agents or even publishers. Of course, if you’re already successful, for what do you need them?

That’s up to you. You may need them to help you get movie options, or you may just want them to sell for you. It’s your call, but you need to consider everything before writing your novel.

Stay away from POD companies like Friesen Press or Xlibris; everything they do, you can do, or you can hire someone to do it for you, and for a much lower price than they charge. Yes, you will have to spend some money and do some serious legwork, but even if you decide to self publish you can hire someone to turn your book into a movie, you can hire artists to turn your book into a graphic novel, you might even find some indie, game developers and sweet talk them into turning your book into a game; the possibilities are there.

Avoid hybrid presses. Some of them are obvious; they charge you upfront, or they’re really just a crowdfunding platform that charges you to use their services in the hopes that enough people will pay to publish your book; utter nonsense. While I’m against crowdfunding to publish a book, you can do it on your own without using a hybrid press. There’s also a ton of information out there on how to crowdfund successfully.

It’s just my personal opinion that charging people to publish your book is wrong since you can publish for free. You’ll only need money for a cover ($6 now on Fiverr, so it should be Sixerr) and to hire an editor, but if you shop for editors, you can probably get away with spending less than $1,000, so…crowdfund if you want to; no one is putting a gun to peoples’ head and forcing them to donate, so if you’re comfortable crowdfunding, asking people to give you money so you can produce content for which you charge…go for it.

Then, there are other, hybrid presses, like Eternal Press, Caliburn, or whatever they call themselves now. They are a bit more surreptitious in their behavior. They act like a small, independent press, but their staff is crap; their artists can’t make decent covers short of Photoshopping, they know nothing of blurbs, marketing, or selling books, they won’t help you get reviews, they want you to buy your books, so they can profit, and they won’t even edit your book properly.

I even had an argument with the previous owner about how to sell books, and she told me she had a business management degree and didn’t need my opinion. Well, I’m not stupid or uneducated. I know what a business management degree is, and it has nothing to do with economics, marketing, branding, or selling, and is obviously why she ended up selling the failing business.

So, if you stay away from hybrid presses and PODs, that only leaves major publication, really. It’s just as hard to get picked up by the real, independent presses as the major houses, so you’re better off trying to land an agent, which means learning how to query, how to write a synopsis, and knowing that you need to already be successful in order to be taken seriously by an agent…so, again, you might as well go self published for your debut novel, but don’t feel pressured to, either.

It’s up to you; go big or go home. Mainstream presses will certainly do their utmost to sell your book. There is no doubt about that, but that doesn’t mean that your book will sell. It doesn’t mean that your book will be expertly polished, either; I have written extensively about how terrible mainstream editors are nowadays, but hey, even crap sells, am I right? Not to mention that you can still hire a freelance editor —and will probably have to in order to be taken seriously by an agent.

The thing to consider when going mainstream is their modus operandi. Yes, if you get picked up, they may give you a small advance; debut advances are generally $2,000, but you will not earn a dime in royalties until said press earns back their $2,000, and you generally have only six months to achieve this, and if you don’t, they’ll release your contract, and not only are you back at step one, but you’ll need a new cover, a new editor (the press will still own the cover and their rewritten version of your book), and you’ll never get another shot at mainstream publication.

On the other hand, you may sell quite well, and then they will tell you to go ahead and buy 5,000 copies of your own book in order to fake your way onto the New York Time’s Best Seller list. Yup, not even kidding, so forget that $2,000 you earned; you’re about spend ten-plus grand, and then, they’ll want you to go out gallivanting from store to store across the country, and sell your books on your dime, and you may sell…you may not sell, so it really boils down to what kind of life you want.

Perhaps, you have always dreamed of traveling the country, visiting book stores, selling and signing copies, performing readings in front of adoring fans. There’s nothing wrong with that. If that’s your dream, follow it, do absolutely everything required to achieve mainstream publication. Avoid absolutely everything that doesn’t lead you to mainstream publication. Do understand that it may take years, and years, and years after completing your novel for you to find an agent and actually get published, so again, there’s no reason not to self publish your first title, prove you can sell, and then reach for mainstream publication with your second title.

Here’s why. Assume you finish your novel today, and it’s perfect, and edited, and whatever else. You contact an agent, and since you are not supposed to contact multiple agents at once, you wait, and you wait, and you wait, but you never get a reply, so after three months, you figure you can query another agent…but they don’t reply, so you wait another three month, query another agent, and a month later, they are kind enough to tell they are not interested. It’s a hassle, so you figure you’ll send your manuscript to Baen Books, but you are not supposed to query more than one publisher at a time, so you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and a whole year goes by, and they don’t reply, so you figure it’s safe to query Rocking Horse, and after eight months, they are kind enough to let you know that they are not interested…. It’s a lot of wasted time, right? You can certainly keep writing in the meantime, and should keep writing, but if you released your debut novel on your own, during your two or three year wait period, you could be making some sales, enjoying your life as a writer, and making a name for yourself. Of course this means self publishing the first book, and writing the second book with the goal of achieving mainstream publication.

Now, do you remember the first few posts where it was stated that success means something different to different people? Do you remember where it was stated that being a successful writer is a lifestyle? Some people don’t want to parade across the country, selling books; some people just want to sit at home and write, and self publishing is great for that, but really, there is no reason to avoid trying one or the other.

If you can achieve major publication, that’s a surefire way to build a fan base, and then you can release whatever you want on your own, and keep all the money, but beware, there are some instances in some contracts where this is not allowed, so it may better to start off self publishing, and then trying the mainstream route.

Whatever you do; learn to write, build a fan base, hire an editor, and then do your research. For more information visit my Quora blogs, or check out my Editing Services Tab. You can also flip through numerous posts right here, which will help you outline a strategy for achieving long term success through the consistent release of quality content. Thanks, I’ve been great.