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By: Aaron Polson,
on 12/3/2011
Blog:
The Other Aaron
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Fred, the envelope please...
Mary Rajotte is the winner of my 50/50 split of In the Memory House profits for November, thus continuing a fine tradition of Canadians winning my contests. Congrats, Mary. I'll be in touch to share the bounty.
Which might (or might not, who knows?) have been a bigger bounty had I started with this:
Instead of In the Memory House. Sometimes I need a little more market research. I tend to be too much of a gut guy. You see,
In the Memory House is also the title of Howard Mansfield's book of essays about New England culture and history.
Yeah. Not my book at all. Mine features a living house which tries to make friends by killing people. Think of it as a house with Asperger's on steroids.
So maybe
Echoes of the Dead has a little more zip. The word "Dead" lands hard, at least. It does deliver the message directly, and I've found that is a key piece of marketing any book. And yes, the paperback is still coming.
And then I've nixed
Smoke and replaced it with
Vengeful Spirits. Again, I think the new title lands harder and sends a little more of a direct message about the book's content. I've also tweaked the cover with new font and image:
This poor puppy has been through a number of changes, originally starting as
Borrowed Saints. Like I said, I'm a gut guy. My heart and mind need to arm wrestle before the next book skitters into the wild.
Congrats again, Mary. And good luck, my dear books. I will try to do you better in the future.
Go ahead, shout hypocrite at your computer screen.
Aaron, you say, you've self-published a pile of books (if e-books can be piled). Why shouldn't I self-publish my novel?
Let me start with this: I've killed Borrowed Saints. It was a weak book. I kind of knew it was weak, but I was lured in by the ever-present siren song: a ton of weak books sell, sell, sell. When I read through it the last time, just before publishing, I thought--yes, maybe. There's some good writing here, and some fun characters.
But really, is it the best I can do?
No. No, it's not. It needs work. Another ten-thousand words, at least. The ending, while attempting to be "cliff-hanger-eque" fell flat. I can do better. I know I can.
So I pulled it. One of the beauties of e-publishing. *zip* Gone.
It's easy to e-publish, for better or worse. In the case of Borrowed Saints, I think it might have been worse.
Last fall, I mentioned an e-publisher made an offer for my first novel. That poor book has been through the proverbial wringer, battered and abused and edited to death. I picked it up again, planning to give it one more pass before self-publishing. Hey, if a publisher liked it...
But it stinks. The ideas, characters, and plot don't stink (much), but the writing?
Phew.
So I'm starting a rewrite (along with my other WIP, a supernatural thriller). I'm keeping the characters, plot, and general idea, but killing all the over-wrought prose. I can see the writer I was five years ago in that book. That writer is dead. Without the failure and success of the last five years, without the struggle to sneak into a few prestigious short story markets and find publishers for my books, I wouldn't have become the writer I am now.
Thank God for bad books. Thank God for the hours I've spent writing, editing, revising, and deleting. Thank God for failure and the willingness to do it again. And again.
That novel you've written? Is it the best you can do?
Just because e-publishing is easy, it doesn't mean you should.
I'm on "tour" promoting Borrowed Saints (and writing in general) this week. Yesterday, I popped in to visit Cate Gardner and wrote about what was "Behind the Door". Today, I'm visiting Belinda Frisch's blog with a post about creating conflict and suspense. Stop in and say "hi". Tomorrow, I'll be leaning on Robert Swartwood with a little post about patience. God knows I need some.
More stops to follow.
So about this WIP Wednesday...
I'm writing a vampire-esque novella. I'm brainstorming for a middle grade (holy-sh*t, MG?) sci-fi, slipstreamy adventure book. My dear wife inspired me to write it, saying: "Why don't you write something Owen can read?" Yeah, why don't I?
And then there's the sequel to Borrowed Saints. Yes, I've already started writing that...
Sheesh. I'm starting to sound like Barry Napier with all this WIPing (love you, Barry).
Speaking of my dear wife... I want to share a dream of mine. I'd love for her to be able to stop working. She has terrible nerve issues in her mouse hand and a job which requires a ridiculous amount of clicking. She has back trouble stemming from a car accident when she was twenty.
I've taken on e-book formatting and cover design on the side (www.simplekindleformatting.com) to try and supplement our income. I'm continuing to write and hopefully build an audience. I'd love to add enough to the communal pot that she could stop working, or at least cut back and only see clients part time.
That's the dream.
Now that I've written it down, I need to get to work.
BEHIND THE DOOR by AARON POLSON
Cate asked me to write about modern monsters.
She also suggested I show you what’s behind the door. (Have you read “
The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable”?)
I’m going to do both. Or, better yet, you are going to show yourself.
Here’s what you do:
1. Find a small mirror
2. Find a closet or other doorway behind which is a shelf
3. Place the mirror on the shelf
4. close the door
5. open the door, see your own image, and scream
Yes, you are the monster. So am I. Part of the thrill of horror and dark fiction, for me, is recognizing our own capacity for being monstrous.
Oh sure, you say.
I’ve heard that before. Real original, Aaron.
I should be clear. This isn’t about serial killers. I’m not
really speaking of human monsters, or accusing you of being inhuman. This is about what really lurks inside a man or woman, even a small child. The monsters in my stories are born of trauma, greed, guilt, sorrow, anger, and even joy. They are hateful but pitied. Objects worthy of both loathing and understanding. Our imaginations breathe life into their grotesque forms. Our thoughts animate their limbs. And the most monstrous of all is what can happen to the image in the mirror. True horror doesn’t stem from the threat of death—it’s the threat of losing one’s self. What happens when you look in the mirror and the mirror isn’t you?
In my latest book,
Borrowed Saints, Phoebe Ellison interacts with the girl in the mirror. They are one and the same, but different. The selfish, self-loathing, vindictive reflection manipulates Phoebe and forces her hand to do some pretty horrible things to release her pain. I felt for Phoebe, even as I wrote the book. The thought of rescuing her was tempting.
But I didn’t. Phoebe needed to find her own way to slay the monster, as we all should.
So what’s behind the door—the magic one from “The World in Rubber…”, you ask. Go back to #5 above. This time, open the door and realize the image at which you are looking represents the most amazing creature on this pale blue dot we call a home. Yes, the capacity for hate and destruction and anger is there, but the ability to love, create, and express lives there, too.
In “The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable”, Andy, the narrator, refuses to go through the door. What does he see on the other side? If anyone has criticized the question, it’s because I don’t show what Andy sees. So what is it?
Tell me, you demand. I don’t know—you tell me. Nothing more than you can find, too, if you peek. The world is filled with more wonder than I could ever imagine, and I will keep trying to tell its story, even when the monsters block the way.
Aaron Polson currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit. During the day, Aaron works as a mild-mannered high school English teacher. His stories have been reprinted in
The Best of Every Day Fiction 2009 and 2010, listed as a recommended read by Tangent Online, received honorable mention in the
storySouth Million Writers Award and Ellen Datlow’s
Best Horror of the Year. His latest novel,
Borrowed Saints,
Read KV Taylor's brilliant post about pricing to understand my inspiration.
Back in the summer of 1988, my brother and I started a lawn service. He'd taken care of several lawns when he was in high school in the late '70s/early '80s, and figured I needed a job. I was fresh out of seventh grade and wanted a Nintendo (original 8-bit variety).
Our base price? $5 a lawn. The going rate at the time started at $10. Of course we charged more for bigger lawns, but never more than $15. We worked together. He mowed around trees and did the trimming; I tackled the big, wide-open spaces. It was hard work. By mid July, I had my Nintendo.
Why charge less than competitors?
Volume, I guess. At the apex of our business, we managed something like 35 lawns a week.
Here's the e-book connection: volume = more readers. More readers means more potential fans. More potential fans means more potential "built-in" sales for your next book.
I've just released Borrowed Saints at $2.99. It's a YA novel, right around 50,000 words, and I spent plenty of time polishing it. Sales have been weak. Very weak. Sure, I need to so some more promotion, etc. Whatever one wants to argue about value and how much a consumer should pay--I believe e-book readers have come to expect $0.99 books from Indies. I didn't start it, and I sure didn't make it happen by myself.
Let's look at the math:
One e-book at $2.99 nets the author around $2 at 70% royalty rate. An author would need to sell six times as many books at $0.99 cents (35% royalty) to make (roughly) the same amount of money.
The math seems to argue for the higher rate, right?
But I think something else is going on, something more important. Even if you only make four sales at $0.99 to each one at $2.99, you've quadrupled your readers (or potential fans). Yes, less money now, but more potential money in the future. Like an investment, right?
When VT managed The House Eaters I sold one e-book at $4.99 in two months. Since they folded, I've sold more than 30 in a month. And yes, I'm only selling it for $0.99.
Volume can work wonders, even at very low prices.
Victorine E. Lieske has sold more than 100,000 copies of Not What She Seems at $0.99. That's a success story I'd take all the way to the bank. Granted, I don't write in the same genre and Victorine has spent a good amount of time marketing her book. But wow.
So what will I do with Borrowed Saints? What do you think I should do?
4 Comments on The Going Price for Lawn Service (and E-books), last added: 5/10/2011
Hellnotes posted a great review of Shock Totem #3, and I'm thrilled to say the reviewer liked my story. "Wanting It" had a long and winding road before acceptance. For example: Ken Wood (editorial genius) and I exchanged several emails about what the narrator would call his butt. Anyway, the reviewer (Dave) had this to say:
"Facing facts leads to an emotional hurt that lyrically lingers in this lovely and haunting story."
Read the rest, here.
I'm working on Borrowed Saints (letting Sons of Chaos and the Desert of the Dead cool before another editing round). Parts of the book are much better than I remember:
She held the razor up to the mirror. The black mouth of the mirror girl opened, anticipating.
Phoebe blinked.
Make it pretty.
So, yes, there's a fair bit of cutting in the book. And voices. And ghosts. Oh my.
Fair warning: It's one of those "Big Experiment" posts.
I should have started this "indie publishing" thing six months ago. Am I going to retire soon? No, not at $0.35 a book, but my sales are definitely growing month to month. And when I write "sales" what I really mean is "potential readers". This week alone, I've seen more sales than the entire month of March. The Bottom Feeders continues to be my bestselling book, with 22 copies and counting out the virtual door. Notice: I'm not selling a ridiculous amount of any one book, but several are selling modestly well. Each book is a potential reader--note I use the word potential. Do you read everything you buy?
Will the trend continue? I hope so. It's a pretty steep curve.
Scott Nicholson, an indie author who has traveled the "traditionally-published path" and man for whom I have a great deal of respect, recently posted a blog entry Marketing is Not Selling. Read it and the companion piece on IndieReader. My favorite bit: "...I am not screaming "Buy my book." I'd rather you feed your family, or buy some seeds, or donate to your favorite local charity. That's what I do when you buy my book."
Feed your family.
For the first time I feel like I might be able to actually contribute to my family through writing rather than taking away. Think about it: years spent banging at the keyboard when I could have been doing something else. I've taken myself away from my family for my fictional worlds. It isn't as simple as that, but the kernel of truth is there.
Look in the mirror, Aaron: You are not evil because you want to be compensated for your time and effort. Got it? Good.
Yes, I've been releasing e-books faster than Jerry puts the smack-down on Tom. I have a pool of over 100 published short stories, some of them smelly as last week's garbage (don't worry about seeing them again) and several unpublished shorts which were "that close". Why let them fester on my hard drive? It's taken me years to arrive at this point. Years and thousands upon thousands of words.
After my current round of edits on The Sons of Chaos and the Desert of the Dead, I'm going to put the finishing touches on Borrowed Saints for a May release. I'm toying with the idea of writing a House Eaters sequel this summer.
The bottom line: I want to be read. I might be able to spread some good fortune to my family. Sounds like goals are meeting reality, right?
I just wish I would have started six months ago.
What are you waiting for?
We have another snow day. Eight this year. I'm going a little batty, to tell the truth.
So I spent a good deal of my morning editing Borrowed Saints. This afternoon, I'll have another look at Anthony J. Rapino's Uprooted, the next chapbook for Strange Publications.
If you find yourself snowed in and need something to read (or just need something to read), might I steer you toward Jeremy Kelley's "This is Nathan Hall" (a serial short at his blog).
Innsmouth Free Press #6 is up and running, too, featuring several lovely pieces of weird fiction by writers such as Angela Slatter, Joshua M. Reynolds, Daniel José Older, and yours truly with "Drowning Old Milford". As always, it is a free read, and you can download the PDF issue for free, too.
Have a lovely day. No more snow, okay?
I just finished Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum, a non-fiction account of William James and his colleagues as they searched for verifiable evidence of various psychic phenomenon at the close of the 19th century and dawn of the 20th. The book shares a wealth of information, and I like Blum's direct approach. Many books on the subject of psychical research are either 1) silly or 2) condescending (like some of the opinions Williams and crew faced). Funny how some of the same questions are being argued about today...or not, according to hard-core skeptics who simply won't join the conversation on neutral terms. (Not much has changed in 100+ years, folks.)
Head over to Beyond Fiction for my review/insight into one of my favorite films of all time, Ghostbusters.
And hey, The Borrowed Saints might have a ghost or two...read this week's installment.
I'm out of town for the weekend, but leave you, dear readers, with the following debris:
Another installment of The Borrowed Saints and the rip-roaring conclusion of "Black Medicine Thunder and the Sons of Chaos".
Enjoy your weekend.
As I often do after writing a longer piece (this time, Borrowed Saints), I've attacked short story mode with a kind of rabid fervor. I now have five (well, almost five) competed first (or second) drafts in need of revisions...some major, some minor. I also need to put the finishing polish on that 15K novella.
I usually like revising, but the ideas just keep coming of late, and I don't want to slow down. I'm also trying to let my stories sit longer. I want them to be masterpieces. I want their wings to be firm and sure when I push them out of the nest.
I promise I'll revise once I finish my current story. Promise.*
From "The First Girl I Ever Loved":
The town is dying, but I’m compelled to drive every street, revisit every corner on which I shared history with Megan. Share history with Megan. The same old men sit in overstuffed chairs in the first floor reading room of the local library. The building is the same, I’m sure, but smaller. Perhaps, like the old men, the building has withered with age. They turn their bulbous, shiny eyes toward me, and their mouths open, stretching the slick, rubbery skin of their lips. Each holds up a braid of Megan’s hair as I pass through. They all have one, and use the strands as placeholders in their books. She kissed me for the first time—the only time—while we studied for a physics exam on the second floor, and I can still smell her under the spoil of old skin and moldy books. I enter through the back of the library and leave through the front, hesitating only to raise a hand in greeting to the old men.
Notice the odd tense shift in the passage? I'm playing with reality here, and this is only a tiny taste. I hope it works because I have big dreams for this one. Honesty is coming easier these days...just not revising.
*note the author crosses his fingers as he types this, which makes it damn hard to type
Well...hopefully those of you who signed up for the newsletter received a free story in your inbox. If not, check the spam filter. I'm just getting the hang of this thing.
I switched mailing list managers after a few people struggled with the old system.
Such is life.
If you want to be on the list and want to skip the form, send me a message at aaron_polson(at)hotmail(dot)com and I'll add you manually.
Oh...and I finished draft one of Borrowed Saints yesterday. (yeah, I cheated and skipped the last chapter until I've read through it again...sue me)
Have a wonderful weekend.
Congrats to Mary! Echoes of the Dead has my vote; nice edit. Where do you find your cover images (that you don't paint)?
Congrats, Mary! Super cool news (and a great contest, Aaron). By the way, sorry for the multiple comments on the last post. Making up for my MIA month I guess.