Cover Design Fun

A couple of my author friends at J. Ellington Ashton Press were in need of help with their covers.  I don't consider myself a great designer, but I've done all my own covers, so I thought I would help them out.

Contained Decay is a zombie tale by T.L. Decay.  It starts with an outbreak at the Bedford Institute, asylum for the criminally insane.  It starts out hot and just gets hotter as the zombies starting eating their way though the town.

The first cover was great and I only hoped I could do it credit.  After getting some input from our publisher, I took it the cover in a totally different direction.  The first one accentuated supernatural elements, but I went with a more natural, yet terrifying opponent.

Carrie vs. Carrie vs Carrie

I recently went on a unique odyssey of consuming Stephen King's "Carrie" in three different formats and thought I would share my experience.

Carrie - the book

But before I get to that, let me tell you what "Carrie" means to me.  "Carrie" could be one of the biggest contributing factors to me being a writer today.  I was first exposed to "Carrie" when a friend loaned me the paperback just after it came out.  I was a teenager and read periodically.  I just started reading Sci-Fi, and didn't read to much horror.  Well, Stephen King changed that.  I was literally knocked out my socks by the book. I couldn't put it down.  There was something about King's writing that connected with me.  I went from being a periodic reader to an almost obsessive one. I couldn't wait for the next King book to come out. 

And it made me think about being a writer some day.  (Little did I know that seed would take a couple decades to grow.)

Carrie - the Audiobook

Anyway, back to my "Carrie" orgy.  Two weeks ago, I listened to the audiobook on my daily commute.  It was like going back in time for me, but it also transcended my nostalgia.  I could see a nimble and intelligent writer at work.  Despite it's deceptively simple surface level plot, this is a complex book.  You have the on-going traditional narrative interspersed with an epistolary approach that is quite complex.  On top of it all, King uses some of the most overt foreshadowing that I can ever remember reading.  Trouble's coming and I have to know about it.

My wife and I had planned to see the most recent silver screen version of the book, and since we have Netflix, I thought it might be a good idea to watch the 1976 DePalma version to allow us to compare it.

Carrie - the movie (1976)

First, I've never been a big fan of this version of the movie.  DePalma's treatment seems heavy handed at times and there are several scenes that don't stand of the test of time.  That being said, I can say that I found the movie to better than I remembered.  This is largely due in part to the strength of the source material and Sissy Spacek's performance.  Spacek gives a fantastic and empathetic performance, it's hard not to root for her Carrie.  DePalma also charts the course toward the finale with a great sense of tension.

Carrie - the movie (2013)

I had some initial trepidation about this most recent incarnation, largely due to the casting.  There's nothing wrong with Chloe Grace Moretz as an actress.  She's quite talented.  It was just the fact that "Carrie" is about an ugly duckling becoming a swarm and Moretz brings a lot of innate attractiveness to the role that is hard to overcome.  Still, she does her best and almost gets over this challenge.  

For her part, Julianne Moore does a fantastic job of rendering Margaret White.  This is quite a challenging role as it could easily drift in to caricature.  While Piper Laurie's performance is somewhat stylized, Moore's is slightly more nuanced.  

As for the other roles, I think Amy Irving and William Katt are much better in portraying Sue Snell and Tommy Ross than their contemporaries.  Gabriella Wilde's Sue is somewhat plastic and one dimensional.  Ansol Algort's Tommy is more nuanced and layered than Wilde's Sue, but he comes off more goofy than earnest.  

As for the direction in the new "Carrie," Kimberly Pierce focuses on bullying and its harmful effects.  This works to good effect in this re-telling of the story.  There are times in the movie when your heart is almost breaking for this young girl who had been tormented.   

Comparing the Two Movies

If someone made me choose which version I would recommend. it would be the 2013 version. There are just too many deficits in the 1976 version (e.g. some terribly dated music tracks, the choice of split screens during the climax, etc.).  Plus the advances in special effects allows the movie makers to fully realize the climactic scenes in the most recent version.  

 

My only qualms with the new movie is that movie stretches Carrie's abilities past just telekinesis to pyrokinesis which I felt took it too far.

Comparing the Book to the Movies

Comparing the screenplays of the two movies with the original material is somewhat easy because Larry Cohen had a hand in writing both screenplays.  If you compare the two movies, you'll hear some line-for-line repetition in the two movies.  

Obviously, a movie is no match for the human imagination when it comes to realizing what a movie could be, but Cohen, in my opinion, actually improves the dramatic structure of King's book.  I don't want to giveaway the ending, but Cohen switches around two chronological events at the end of the book and finishes the movies with a better dramatic punch with the climax than King did.  It's rare that I can say a movie does that, but this is one of those times.  

In the end, I say make up your own mind about the movies, but please do yourself a favor and read the book first if you haven't.  It's a real treat.

[Author's Note:  I have not seen the 2002 TV version, but I sure would like to.]

Want to Sell More Books? Then Write Them

It seems like the title of this post is quite obvious, and it is, but there's more depth in it it than you think.

All too often a writer can put out a book and have some sales, but then watches them dwindle away.  I'm one of those authors.  "NEW" catches people's eyes.  "NEW" is easy to market.  Old is a bigger challenge.

The case in point for me is that my sales in August and September were simply awful.  I sold next to nothing because my backlog was old and stale.  At least to readers.

What does old mean?  It must mean six months because my backlog wasn't moving.

I just released a new book (Forget Texas, the second book in my Forget the Zombies series) and it has sold quite briskly.  Of course, it didn't hurt that I gave away the first book in the series (Forget the Alamo) and sold Forget Texas for half price.

It helps if you can write and sell them a series because many readers like the continuity of a series.  They like getting know your heroes and follow them on adventures.  Plus you can use the new book to market the old one.

So, if you want to sell more book, then get out there and write them.

Forget Texas Launches - Officially

Today is not only my birthday, but the launch of my latest book, Forget Texas.  As my birthday gift to you, I'm offering up the first book in the Forget the Zombies series for FREE and Forget Texas for half price.

In Forget Texas, Grant and the gang find themselves in a refugee camp that is about to be overrun by zombies. They are forced to fend for themselves as they must find a way out of the camp and then out of Texas as the zombie hordes chase them north. 

Forget Texas (on Amazon)

Forget Texas Launches Officially on Thursday

Forget Texas, the sequel to my novella, Forget the Alamo, is available on Amazon, but the official launch is Thursday, Oct. 3.

Forget Texas picks up where Forget the Alamo left off.  We find Grant and the other survivors from the zombie outbreak that overran San Antonio living a tenuous life in a central Texas refugee camp.

Things are decidedly bad as food is running low and zombie incursions from the south are picking up each day.  Grant feels the noose of death closing around him and the other survivors.  Leaving the camp is prohibited by the military.  Leaving Texas will be even harder as the President has closed the borders of all states with signs of infection.  Getting out won't be easy.  Surviving will be even more challenging.

Forget Texas (on Amazon)

Why Constant Exposure is Important

This will be a short blog piece.  It can be summed up in this sentence:

My recent sales figures have sucked!

I mean really sucked.  With exception of the sales of my most recent novel distributed through my publisher, my sales have been non-existent lately.  I know people use that phrase non-existent to mean, only a few, but I mean I’ve had no sales is three weeks on my backlog of ebooks.  

Now, to be honest, I have a novella and a handful of short stories along a flash fiction collection there.  The novella has been my best seller -- up to now.

What can I attribute this to?  

Lack of exposure.  Besides my novel, (published in late July), I’ve had nothing new to promote.   Now, that doesn’t mean I have nothing to promote and that’s the rub. I’m missing the fact that I have material to promote, but I’m just not doing it and that’s my problem.  

I’ve been locked too much into the “one-and-done” marketing syndrome.  I release an ebook, I market it around once and let that be it.  

That being said, there is a tenuous balance between marketing and spam.  You certainly don’t want to annoy people with spam, but shooting up one flare of promotion isn’t going to cut it.  

Pepsi and Coke don’t run one ad, they constantly advertise.  Again, having a small product line, I don’t need to be as aggressive as Pepsi or Coke, but I can’t let a single promotional effort be my total promotional effort.  

So, look for more promotional efforts from me.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

My Book Launch

I’m a little late at reporting on this since the blessed event was just over three weeks ago, but I guess better late than never is a good policy. Plus it allows me to have some other data.

I launched my first published novel, Sanctuary from the Dead, on July 26.  Let me be honest, what I know about book launches can be summed up on a few paragraphs.  I had participated in one other launch a fellow writer friend of mine convened.  (He interviewed me.)  I did some homework, read some blogs, but really I went with what I knew and used my gut to guide me.

Here’s some particulars:

Pre-Promotion:  I placed announcements for the event on several different community of interest sites (e.g zombie sites) and on several different Facebook pages.

Venue:  Facebook.  I used my writer’s FB page instead of an event page, hoping to drive up my ‘Likes’ -- which did work to some degree.  I did get 12 new Likes.

Process:  The event lasted 4 hours.  I had a planned out schedule putting up a new post every 15 minutes initially and then going to every 30 minutes later in the event.  The posts consisted of announcements, links to free short stories, and links to my blog where I had author interviews.

Live Interviews vs. Canned Author Interviews:  The one launch I participated in, the host did live Facebook interviews with authors (with me being one of them).  He reported that it was a lot of work and was not sure it was worth it.  I used pre-written interviews and posted links to my blog where they resided.  I can say that having participated in another launch event where the author did live interviews and I might try that.

Giving Things Away:  I released links to three free short stories and a collection of flash stories on Amazon throughout the night.  I moved 227 free ebooks that night.   Hopefully people are reading those stories and liking them, ergo giving me more exposure more and new readers.

Final Tally:

227 free ebooks given away

12 new Likes to my Facebook page  

20 Books sold within 3 weeks of release

NOTE:  I figure quite a few people came to the launch because the amount of free ebooks that got downloaded.

Lessons Learned:

Do more up front promotion

Maybe do live author interviews

Consider an event page so that I can track how many people came