Sep 11 2011

Business & Creativity – It’s All About Marketing

 

As an indie author, I have had to learn a lot of things through trial and error.  I have done more than my fair share of research online into the whole “self-publishing” gig and read all the “How-To” articles that are strewn all over the net.  The problem is, unless you have actually handled your own independently published project from start to finish, all the “How-To” articles in the world will not adequately help nor prepare you for the adventure that will sweep you up in its wake. 

Unfortunately, all the freelance projects and years of “on-the-job” experience that I have accumulated since going indie author cannot really be included on a resume.  These days employers want to be able to go to an ex-employer and ask them all about your work ethics and abilities.  To add insult to injury,  a lot of them won’t even consider your years of actual on-the-job experience if you do not have a college degree to back it up.  For whatever reason, they seem to think that someone coming fresh out of college knows more about a topic than someone who has spent decades or longer learning the trade from the ground up.  It is this mind-set that often have employers passing up some very uniquely qualified, and oftentimes extremely creative, employees that could have knocked them out of their chairs with all the knowledge they have accumulated over the years.  It is also this mind-set that keep a lot of businesses from realizing their full potential simply because more often than not, the best person for the job, the ones with creativity to spare, are left to languish in a mindless job while those less-qualified individuals are left in charge.

They say that success is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration.  What most business managers fail to recognize is that, until they implement that 2% of inspiration, that creativity, it does not matter how hard they push on that other 98%, they simply will never hit on the 100% that they are capable of.

Most managers run a business straight-forward, when, in reality, business is about as non-straight-forward as anything gets.  It’s not about business at all, it’s not about numbers or pushing harder or trying to work more efficiently.  What business is ultimately about is marketing, and in order to give any marketing campaign its due, you are going to have to be creative.  This is where 99.99% of your average business managers fail.  They are like men standing before a great brick wall with hammer in hand.  They think that if they keep hitting away at that wall, if they hit it long enough and hard enough, it will eventually come crashing down.  What they like is the creativity, the ingenuity to look around to see if there is a door or window into the building.  They lack any type of creativity, any type of ingenuity, and fail to see the big picture, they fail to see that there are other options.  They are like horses with blinders, they keep plodding along, doing the same old tired plan that has failed them for years.  But as I said, they are so single-minded that they think if they just keep going, it will all eventually work out.  That simply is not the way business, or the real world for that matter, works.

Being a successful author works in much the same way.  It’s not always about how good of a writer you are, but how well you market yourself.  Doing this on a shoe-string budget will prove to be even more challenging.  And again, reading all the “How-To” articles and books you can get your hands on will not always do the trick.  You have to ultimately remember that what works for one person will not always work for you.  Just because Amanda Hocking made it big doesn’t mean that following her plan to the letter will result in you being just as successful.  Chances are, you simply will fall far short of your goals and expectations.  As with any business, you must be flexible, and, above all, you must be creative.  And never be afraid to change your plan of attack if something simply isn’t working.  If networking on Facebook isn’t getting you the hordes of readers that you want, then toss it out the window and go back to square one.  Try something else, or try lots of something else.  Don’t be afraid to walk on your own path, and, above all, don’t be afraid to deviate from that path if it’s not taking you to your ultimate destination.

 

Sep 4 2011

Rules? What Rules? I Don’t Write According to YOUR Stinkin’ Rules

I use to think that the forum and story site over on XN was great.  Lots of freedom, no stinkin’ rules to get in the way of creativity.  Not like all the other pieces of shit story sites out there, enforcing ‘morality’ issues on a porn site.  How full of yourself can you get?  But now, however, I’m beginning to agree with Michael C. Laney:  to post on XN is born of desperation to get your shit read, at any cost.  You KNOW your story is going to get trolled to death, you KNOW your story is going to get voted into oblivion by the slew of sock accounts created by jealous writers.  But that’s not what makes you desperate to get read.  What smacks of desperation for that site is that by posting on the site you do NOT know if you are going to have yourself banned and your story yanked because you hurt the delicate sensibilities of some of the Morality Police on the site or piss off one of the god-mods who seem to take some sort of demented delight in removing stories that have not broken any “rule” but merely a “guideline” that was handed down by another mod but not “affirmed” by those who actually run the site.  So to post on there a story that you find perfectly innocent can end up going the way of the do-do bird.

I don’t like Lush and Lit.  In reality, I hate them with a passion because of their draconian rules and admins and mods who are so full of their shit and self-importance that they make the lives of everyone else on the site miserable, slowly driving away traffic.  I see the same thing happening over on XN.  It’s suicide of the lowest form.  While Lit and Lush is suicide due to self-appointed self-importance, XN is killing itself over indifference.  Whatever.  I will give Lit and Lush this, though.  At least with them, I KNOW my shit will get pulled, or not even posted, if I break one of the many, many, MANY rules that they impose on writers.  It’s why I don’t write for them.  Until they start paying me to host my lude creations, I will not jump through hoops for them. 

The general sense of creative freedom is the reason why I chose XN over all the “other” sites out there.  But now XN is drying up like a creek bed in the middle of a drought.  The mods are too full of themselves to realize it, the Morality Police are too full of shit to realize it, and the admins are too wrapped up in other money-making ventures to give two shits.  So the few decent writers have left, taking their hordes of readers with them.  Sure, there are still “writers” on their churning out the same crap stories over and over again, but I am not one of those writers who are willing to jump through a hoop to get read.  It’s why I went indie author on the publishing houses’ asses.  I not only want that creative freedom, not just deserve it, but as an author who  lives in the land of the free, I DEMAND it.  Will I get it?  Well, it depends.  I like the way Michael put things:  I am not a slave to any site.  I write my own shit, I host my own shit, I publish my own shit, and my own shit makes me money.  I give my ideas and creativity to those who enjoy it, to those who want to read it.

And in the end, that is all that matters:  getting read.  Not having a “politically” correct version of my story read, but the raw, crude, and sometimes brilliantly written storyline that I intended.  If that means that I may have to strike out on my own, then so be it.  I will not bow down to anyone’s ideas of what is right and wrong.  Not even to get a few thousand more reads.  Because when you are independent, it means you reject the norm, the regular reality, the rules, and insert your own.  And last time I checked, that’s what “creativity” was all about.

Jul 18 2011

Bret Michaels, I Soooo Hate You Right Now

 

 

Late Saturday evening on 7/9/11 I was scrolling through my Twitter account when I came across a tweet from Bret that was posted approximately 1:30 the previous afternoon.  It said “Playing football with the fans on the beach hours before the show in Biloxi tonight. Awesome!” and had a pic of him standing in the water down in my birth place (see above).

STOP.  EVERYTHING.

DUDE!  I totally could have been at that show!

It appears that I’ve managed to miss Bret all the way around this year.  First I missed him and his band back on May 28th at the Hard Rock.  Now I’ve missed him and the rest of my boys, along with the Crue (the freakin Crue damnit!) on July 8th.  The whole thought makes me want to cry.  Who knows how many more shows The Crue will put on?  Who knows if I’ll even have the money to pay my light bill next year, much less find some cash to go see Bret at the Hard Rock in May?  Who’s to say that Bret will even bother to come back to the Hard Rock?  And Goddess knows I will never actually meet the guy so why should I even care?  Oh, wait.  I really like concerts.  And I worship Bret Michaels.  That would be why I care.

Well, Bret, since I’m not destined to meet you any time soon, allow me to introduce myself.  I’m Nicola Chey Matthews, Mistress of the Erotic Night, gothic erotic fantasy and horror novelist and one of very few registered female perverts … that admit it, at any rate.  My mind stays in the gutter and I enjoy doing 80 mph down the interstate with my music blaring wide open … with my car still on the road, mind you.  The gutter is reserved solely for my brain.  I like creating movies out of words and inviting other people into my very warped imagination.  I don’t think like most people, I have a very warped sense of humor, and most people don’t really get me.  Oh yeah, and I consider you my personal hero and mentor, so much so that I dedicated the first novel in the BEFORE THE SUN RISES series to you.  But I don’t think I’m someone you would want to meet. 

All kidding aside, I do so hope that I will have the opportunity to someday meet Bret.  Until then, I’ll just have to keep pounding away at the keyboard and hope that other people enjoy reading my brand of perverted imagination as much as I enjoy writing it.  Of course, if Bret liked it too then that would just be the giant cherry on top of the whipped cream that sits atop the big chocolate cake of life.  But I know not to press my luck ;D)

 

Jun 25 2011

The Formatting Fiasco: Formatting Novels for Different Platforms

 

 

The Formatting Fiasco

 

I believe it was Thomas Edison who said “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”  Over the years, people have inserted whatever difficult task they were after in the place of “genius.”  For me, it’s writing that is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Actually, I think it’s more like 109% perspiration.  And never has any writer worked harder than the independent author who self-publishes.

 

For those of us who do it all ourselves, we often spend as much time, and oftentimes more time, in post-writing with the formatting, editing, proofreading, creation of cover art, etc. than we do the actual writing of the novel.  For us, the creativity does not stop after the writing is done.  We still have to proofread it, edit it, rewrite parts of it, create the cover art, and the horrid, horrid job of formatting the thing for various platforms.

 

Herein lies The Great Formatting Fiasco.  Unfortunately for us, formatting is mostly trial and error.  After a while we get better at it, learning to always insert a page break in between chapters, the title page, the copyright notice page, and all the other important pages.  We learn which margins, font type, and font size work best for which size book.  Of course, there is always room for error, and formatting for a printed format is completely different from formatting for the Kindle format.  I’ve learned that eBook formats and Kindle formats are interchangeable, meaning that I no longer have three separate formatting files. 

 

One of the main problems, especially when it comes to the printed copies, is that you never really know what it is going to look like until you have forked over the money and purchased your own copy.  Then comes reformatting the files, uploading them again, and ordering yet another galley copy.  And heaven forbid you should find spelling and grammatical errors in them.  Just changing one word has the potential to throw off the printed format so much that all pages after the correction have to be reformatted.  It’s enough to make an author want to run screaming from their desk.

 

Checking out the formatting for Kindle editions is not as bad as having to order a half-dozen printed copies.  I don’t even own a Kindle, but I downloaded the free app from Amazon.com and always request a free sample of the book as soon as it becomes available.  For the most part, I can change the formatting and have the corrections uploaded before anyone has the chance to purchase one of the ‘mistakes.’  Still, since I only get a small sample, I can only hope that the rest of the novel looks as good as the first few pages.

 

Out of all the work that goes into producing a novel for the different platforms, I would have to say that formatting gives me the most problems, but it is also the easiest to fix, for me at least.  But I guess when you have reformatted more than 7 projects for 3 different platforms for 2 different websites, you have to get pretty good at it really quick.  If I had the luxury of taking my time, I wouldn’t get nearly as much done.  After all, novels sitting around on my computer drive aren’t going to sale if they are not formatted and ready to go.

Jun 25 2011

Sneak Peek: “Into the Darkness” from the Book IMMORTAL SINS

a sneak peek of the short story

“Into the Darkness”

from the book Immortal Sins

the 2nd novel in the BEFORE THE SUN RISES series

Chapter 1

 

After her escape, he had beaten her twin sister until she lost consciousness.  He hadn’t meant to kill the girl, but so enraged was he after her sister’s escape that he had done just that, however accidental it may have been on his part.  Finally realizing that she would be back with reinforcements, he had quickly packed up and left.  The twins were, after all, cops.  He had gotten as far away as he could as fast as possible, leaving the broken body of the twin still shackled to the basement floor.

That had been five years ago.  He had wanted Altania Lewis like no other woman before her.  He had dreamed about her every night since, his evenings spent systematically plotting out her capture and eventual conquering.  But no matter how much he daydreamed and planned, he never could entertain the notion of killing the woman.  And that was what pissed him off more than anything.

Ashton Jones was a serial killer.  He had started his craft when he was only ten years old.  At the age of twenty-six, his craft had been honed down to a fine art.  He had gotten so good at it, in fact, that he had been recruited by the High Council about two years ago.  He had spent the first year following their rules, jumping through hoops, proving to all of the Elders that he would not go rogue if he was embraced.  Twelve months after his initial recruitment, one of the little fledgling vampires had been allowed to embrace him.  The High Council made sure he would not be too powerful once turned by allowing a novice to do the embracing, but he was still strong enough to continue to be an assassin for the Elders.  Now he had an endless supply of victims that he not only got to kill, but these victims would stay alive for as long as he wanted, allowing him to spend days or even weeks trying out new inventions and increasingly grotesque methods of torture.

Now here he was, in one of the many, many buildings owned by the High Council, waiting on his new partner.  Except what was standing in the middle of the room was not a partner, but the object of his obsession.

“I don’t give a shit if he is under the protection of the Council, Stealth.  I am going to kill that son-of-a-bitch!”  Altania Lewis was being held by both arms by the vampire Stealth.  She was thrashing against him so hard that his sharp nails were gouging out deep gashes in her skin.  The five foot six dark blonde woman paid little attention to the piercing pain.   Her sapphire blue eyes were glowing with rage.  Incoherent curses were thrown in between death threats and tales of castration with a rusty razor blade.

Ash had not moved from his position inside the doorway.  He had been asked to come down to meet his new partner.  The last person he had ever expected to see when he entered the room was the woman whom he had vowed to destroy… mind, body, and soul.

“She is under the protection of the Council, Ash.  If you harm her in any way, you will be put to death.”  Requiem spoke quietly to the vampire who stood stone still inside the door.  “She is now your partner, an appointed Vampire Assassin just as you are.  As such, she is entitled to the same privileges and protections as all our assassins.  You will protect her with your life.” 

Stealth was telling the wriggling woman in his arms the same speech that Requiem had just given him.  He wasn’t so sure that she was listening, though.  The woman was still screaming obscenities at him in addition to her vivid recounts of what she had planned for his testicles and penis.

Ash merely nodded his understanding to the vampire that stood between him and the screaming woman, still too shocked to think about much of anything.  His mind just kept going over and over the fact that he had dreamed of nothing but this woman and what he intended to do to her once he found her.  Now the council was practically handing her over on a silver platter.  Except that the meal in question had a huge ‘do not touch’ sign on it now.

Stealth had finally let Altania go, her initial anger having burnt out.  Her rage gave way to tears, her emotions so overlapping each other that she now stood in a far corner, crying quietly and rambling on about how she had discovered her twin sister, Altolya, beaten to a bloody pulp and chained like an animal to the cold stone floor of Ash’s basement.  Stealth was attempting to console her as best he could, but she was so deep into her anguish that she didn’t appear to hear him.  Instead, the vampire kept trying to turn her around and face him, thinking to use his vampire glamour to quiet her down.  Altania, however, kept her back to the vampire, her hands over her face and her entire body crammed into a corner of the office.

Ash still wasn’t sure what to make of the whole thing.  He finally had this woman who had haunted his dreams for years, yet now she was protected by vampire law.  To do anything other than protect her would mean his immediate death.  His immediate slow, and painful, death. 

The situation was not any easier for the woman who was still crying in the corner.  For five years she had criss-crossed the entire country, going from one crime scene to another in search of clues that would ultimately lead her to the monster who had so brutally killed her twin sister.  Her obsession with finding and bringing Ashton to justice had caused her to lose her job with the Shadow Cove PD.  She had been so preoccupied with Ashton’s little escapades that she had nearly gotten herself and her fellow officers killed during her last assignment.  Concerned with her declining mentality, her former captain had her reassigned to the Vampire Council’s assassin division.  He had hoped that the change of scenery would help her to heal after the death of her sister.  Instead, she discovered herself in the same room as her sister’s killer.  Which begged the question of whether or not her captain knew the Council was going to partner her with Ash or if this was solely the perverted plans of the High Council Elders?

“How could they do this to me, Stealth?” Altania asked with a calmness that worried the nearly three hundred year old vampire.  She still had her back turned to him, so he wasn’t sure if she really was calm or if she were slipping into some sort of manic state.

“To help you heal, Altania,” Stealth said just as quietly.  “Ash is a valued member of the Assassins now.  He went through the same training as you.  He has been taught the value of life.  His only victims are assassinations that have been sanctioned by the Vampire Council.  He is forbidden to harm any other being or face the same tortures and demise as his former victims.  He knows the rules, Altania, and he follows them to the letter.  He has changed.”

The woman turned around swiftly and glared up at Stealth.  “He has not changed, Stealth.  You of all people should know that it takes more than a few years of study with the Council Elders to change a heart blackened by decades of immorality.  That person there will never fully understand the value of a life, not even his own.  He would just as easily give up his own if it meant getting what he wanted.  And what he wants is me.  Now thanks to your Council, you just delivered me to my sworn enemy.”

She was angry, but that anger was giving way to a deadly calm as she pushed past Stealth.  She walked up to the eldest vampire on the Council, a man whose name that no one knew save for the other members of the Council.  “What happens when this bastard tries to kill me in my sleep?  Do I at least have permission to defend myself?  Or would you all rather I just roll over and let him kill me?”  She glared up at the vampire, looking at his eyebrows instead of directly into his eyes.

The vampire looked back and forth between the frail looking woman directly in front of him and the much taller, much stronger fledgling vampire who had finally moved into the room to stand a few feet away, watching quietly.  “The two of you listen, and listen well.  You are partners now, and as such you will defend each other with your very lives.  If either one of you should come up dead, be it by your partner’s hand or another’s, the remaining member of your team will be tortured to death, along with any and all remaining members of his or her family.”  The old vampire’s gaze shifted from Ash and back to Altania as he spoke.  “A better question, Miss Lewis, would be exactly how much of your family are you willing to sacrifice to avenge the death of one?”

Altania glared up at the Elder.  “You think that threatening him with death will keep him from killing me the first chance he gets?  He would happily put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger himself if it meant he got to point the gun at me first.  Has the centuries of immortality replaced your brain with cobwebs?”

The High Council Elder stared at the young woman for a few minutes before he moved to where Ash stood, walking around the still form as he spoke.  “Do you notice anything different about your, ‘sworn enemy,’ as you call him?”

She watched the vampire circle around Ashton, looking at him closely for the first time.  It was only then that she noticed the man’s normal dark brown eyes were now flecked through with gold, the iris ringed with a yellow-gold hue.  Her mouth dropped open.  “You turned him,” she mumbled in quiet surprise.

Altania stood in stunned silence for a moment before the vampire’s threat and all it implied finally settled into her brain.  The Council was not just going to force them to work together without killing each other.  They were going to make certain that they protected each other with their final breath.  And while her family was being used against her to make sure she didn’t chop Ashton’s head off in his sleep, the High Council was using his new-found immortality to keep him in line as well.  He would be given access to an endless supply of victims that he could keep alive and torture for as long as he wanted.  And if he were to harm her, the Council would hand him over to an assassin who had been applying his tricks of the trade to vampires for centuries untold.

Seeing that neither were going to argue with him, the Elder moved back to his desk.  “You two have your orders.  You will go now.  I expect updates every two weeks.”  He sat down in his leather chair, going back to his mountain of paperwork, effectively dismissing them all without so much as looking up.

Requiem and Stealth ushered Ash and Altania out of the room.  Neither vampire spoke as they turned and moved down the hall, away from the front entrance of the building.

And just like that, two sworn enemies discovered themselves shoved together in an impossible situation, forced to protect each other with their very lives.

 

copyright 2011 Nicola C. Matthews

All Rights Reserved