Author Interview: Commander Pants

I tracked down Commander Pants in his fortress of solitude, and he was willing to answer some questions for me.

KR: Why did you decide to self-publish?

CP: When the first draft was done, I convinced Luke Rhinehart, author of The Dice Man - an American author who is virtually unknown here in the States, but a cult hero in England and elsewhere - to take a look at it. He loved it, and when I had no success interesting an agent, he insisted on paying for me to self-publish. I hemmed and hawed for a while, fearful that self-publishing would be a mistake, but in the end I jumped in the pool.

KR: Who did you use?

CP: I started with a place that shall remain nameless. We had our disagreements. For example, they kept reformatting the book in ways that I did not like. This led to my SENDING THEM ONE EMAIL IN ALL CAPS, and that led to them “firing” me on the spot (and refunding all of my money).

This was actually great, since working with them had taught me all about formatting and formats for
publication, which gave me the confidence to go to the source. The source being Lightning Source.

I don’t know if your readership is aware, but most POD books ultimately come from one of two sources: Amazon, which does Create Space, and Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingrams, the largest wholesale book distributor in the world. Most of the other POD publishers use Lightning Source for their printing. Well, it seems that Lightning Source has no problem with little fish like you or me setting up our own imprints and using them for printing and fulfillment. I started Pantsateria with Luke’s kind gift, and off I went. Yes, it’s a bit more work. You have to do all of your own formatting, make your own cover and get your own bar code and ISBN number. But in the end, I think it’s worth it; the profit margin is better, and you get to maintain more control of the finished product.

KR: Will you go with them again?

CP:  Definitely. (I mean “Pantsateria” has a great reputation - and blood is thicker that water).

KR: What marketing are you doing?

CP: So far I have been giving books to reviewers, doing give-aways with bloggers, guest blogging and interviews like this. I have also been “trolling” by sending out the book to big names, hoping that someone would sit up and take notice. I would like to do more, but I just don’t know what (I seem to be much better at the creation end than the marketing one).

KR: What's worked well so far?

CP: To be honest, not much. Although the book has had many extremely nice reviews, it languishes. It’s sad really. I am finding that there’s an attitude out there akin to the “Irish need not apply” for self-published authors. If you self-publish, then your product must be crap. It’s interesting, because when it comes to music or let’s say, board games (I also created the board game, Acronymble), there’s a perception that going it alone is respectable, but not in publishing. The irony is that traditional publishing these days is much less open to anything that might not make a buck, and I suspect that many of the classics out there might end up self-published if their authors brought them to market today. That said, I do think that self-publishing is the
future, it just needs some time for people to get past that “Vanity Press” image.

KR: What was a waste of time?

CP: I can’t say that any of it is a waste of time, but as I implied, none of it has been very fruitful in terms of sales. It is a wonderful feeling though, when you read a glowing review, to know that someone out there appreciates what you’re doing.

KR:  Who did your cover?

CP: That would be me. I had a lot of trouble with getting the stars to show up crisply (it’s actually a bunch of starscapes stacked up. The “1st edition” of the book came out pretty awful. My savior was my brother-in-law, a professional photographer, who actually talked me through some Photoshop techniques while he was waiting for a table at a restaurant. It was amazing! He had no computer in front of him, yet still talked me through all sorts of different menus and settings. I swear, He must dream about Photoshop!

KR: Why "Commander Pants?" It's a rather *ahem* unique, pen name. I noticed another reviewer saw it and had the same gut reaction I did, that anyone using that name had to be an amateur.

CP: I like to think of myself as a Pseuper Hero (you know, a Super Hero without all of those pesky superpowers).

Seriously though, I already write music and do “found image” music videos under the moniker Commander Pants. And although all of my agent queries went out using the vanilla, dime-a-dozen, name that my parents bestowed upon me, when it came time to put a name on the book, I figured what the hell? and went with the one that I thought would be more memorable.

KR: What's the best advice you can give new self-publishers?

CP: Don’t give up, and believe in yourself. Oh, and go with the technology. I do believe that Kindles and Nooks are only going to get bigger as time goes on.

KR:  Anything else you'd like to say?
CP: Thanks for giving me this opportunity. It’s been fun. Over and out.

Author Interview: MeiLin Miranda

MeiLin Miranda was kind enough to answer some of my questions about her adventures in self publishing.

KR:  Could you tell us more about crowdfunding?  How did you learn about it?  How did you do it?

MM:  "Crowdfunding" is when the fans or supporters of a project put money behind it to make it happen, rather than hope a gatekeeper--a publisher, film studio or record producer, for instance--picks up the project. Sites like Kickstarter.com or Indigogo.com allow musicians, artists, filmmakers and writers to organize crowdfundings; some people offer premiums there, rather like NPR offers tote bags for certain levels of donation.

I first ran into a form of crowdfunding while reading the online serial Tales of MU. Its author, Alexandra Erin, was then using a donate-for-chapter model; if readers met a fundraising target, she'd write an extra chapter that week. She's since stopped doing that, but for a long time it was the most common model of crowdfunding support for online writers. I used it when I first started, and did pretty well with it.

But I needed to raise a whole other level of money to make the first IHGK book happen. It needed editing, and the closer I got to finishing what I thought was book three, the more I realized how badly the whole thing needed to be rewritten from the top--and how unsustainable it was as a serial. I needed to convert it into books, which meant money for an editor and for professional design services. I think my readers helped me puzzle out what would be attractive to crowdfunders, and this is what we came up with:

For $50, you got
--an autographed paperback
--your choice of ebook format
--an acknowledgment in the book
--and most importantly: the final unformatted hot-off-the-laptop raw manuscript before anyone else got to read it, the moment my editor (Annetta Ribken) and I decided it was done. I finished the book on August 31st, 2010 at 9:30 pm; the manuscript was in the hands of its funders the morning of September 1.

I raised about $2,500 this way from 48 people, some of whom bought two packages and some of whom bought an ebook-only version for $25; they got everything in the $50 package except the autographed copy.

I'll be doing the same thing again for book two as soon as I come close to sending a draft to Nettah the Edittah. Netta is fabulous, by the way: http://www.wordwebbing.com/

 

KR:  Did you have any interest in going the traditional publishing route?  Did you do the agent/publisher hunt?

 

MM:  I very half-heartedly looked for an agent. I think I sent out three queries. I really didn't want one, but thought, well, now I can say I tried, I guess. The material I sent was atrocious enough that it's no surprise I got turned down, and I did it having already decided to be independent.

That said, I do have two short stories coming out in different Circlet Press anthologies (http://www.circlet.com/); in fact, one of them goes on sale December 28th, 2010: "Like a Moonrise: Shapeshifter Erotica." Not sure when the second anthology I'm in is going on sale yet. And I just submitted a short story to a major online outlet, mostly for fun. If it gets rejected, I'm not concerned; I can put it out there myself. I'm just curious at this point.

KR:  You have a book trailer video, has that been an effective marketing tool?

MM:  I have no idea! :) The "Lovers and Beloveds" trailer has been viewed close to a thousand times, and the Scryer's Gulch trailer about 250 times. The funny thing is, the Scryer's trailer is about a billion times better than the LaB one!

KR:  Who did your cover art/trailer?

MM:  I did both my trailers, and it probably shows. :) I do the covers for the Scryer's Gulch books, since they're just compilations of the serial. Alice Fox (http://www.alicefox.net/) did the cover of "Lovers and Beloveds." Alice has been the official artist for that series for some time now. She is amazing. Fellow writer and all around cool guy MCM did the typography design for LaB.

KR:  How many copies have you sold?  What has been your best marketing tool?

MM:  Speaking strictly of "Lovers and Beloveds," since the book's release in September 2010 I've sold about 75 paperbacks between direct sales, CreateSpace and Amazon. Ebooks, I've sold about 150 so far among Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and direct sales on my site.

My numbers are not that high compared to people like JA Konrath, but as Netta is fond of saying, it's a marathon not a sprint. And compared to the vast majority of self-publishers, I'm doing pretty darn well. I expect things will only get better as my catalog grows.

KR:  When is the next book due out?  Does it have a title yet?

MM:  The next book is tentatively due out in October 2011. The working title is "Mothers and Fathers," though that may not be the final one. I'm about 10,000 words into the alpha draft. (I tend to "name" my drafts by software convention: alpha, beta, release candidate, final.)

KR:  Lastly is there anything else you'd like to say about self-publishing?

MM:  Sure! If you self-publish, take it seriously. Invest in your work: hire a professional editor (not your friend who was an English major in college). Hire a professional cover artist. If you're going to print, get a typographer to design the book block if you can; if you're staying ebook only, you can do the formatting yourself for the most part. There are a lot of good guides out there on how to format for Kindle and Smashwords.

Most important is to commit to writing. Finish the book. Put the time in, get it written. If it's finished and languishing in a drawer, pull it out, dust it off, give it a good shake. Then let someone who isn't invested in being nice to you read it. Revise. Design. Put it out there.

If you'd like to know more about MeiLin Miranda you can check her out at MeiLinMiranda.com.

Author Interview: Jason Halstead

I was able to ask Jason Halstead some questions about his own adventures in the land of publishing.  Instead of the more traditional self publishing route, he went with the very small press Fido Publishing.  

Here are his insights on working with a small press, and getting his books into the hands of readers.

KR:  Did you do the agent routine?

JH:  No. I'd love to find an agent, but thus far my luck has not been with me. To be fair, I've only attempted a half dozen or so agents and publishers (combined), so my rejection count is pretty minimal.

KR:  How did you come in contact with Fido Press?

JH:  At the risk of inserting my foot into my mouth, I ran across a writer's work on an independent website and found it somewhat lacking. I checked out the writer's profile and saw that they had something coming out on Excessica. I thought, "Wait a minute, if writing like this can be published..." I checked out the website and threw something at it. It was rejected for various reasons that I don't agree OR disagree with. I accept them, and decided to try something longer (Voidhawk) and definitely not along the typical vein of what Excessica takes. It was accepted. As we progressed through the acceptance talks, I became aware of a sister publishing company being launched that caters more to mainstream writing. We agreed Voidhawk would be a better fit for that company, so we moved it over to be one of the initial launches. Fido was the name of that company.

 

KR:  Would you walk us through the small press publishing routine?  How exactly did getting your manuscript into a book go?  What services (editing, cover art, publicity, etc) did they offer?

 

JH:  It's pretty simple really. I submit.  They accept (hopefully). Then comes the legal forms that have to be signed off. I suggest a variety of things (blurb, excerpt, any ideas I might have for cover art, etc.). Then they farm it out to an artist to design some cover art. Somewhere along the line (timing varies) it typically hits an editors desk. My editing experiences have varied, I'll admit, but I've yet to be disappointed. I've also met [through Fido] an exceptional editor who I continue to keep in touch with on the side. When the editing and cover art is complete, it becomes just a matter of waiting for the book to be released on its scheduled date. Voila! And with Excessica and Fido there is no vanity charges, they are legit and offer up great contracts to the author.

KR:  Is your book available at any brick and mortar bookstores?  

 

JH:  I don't know. What? Yes - it's true. I took several books down to a retail establishment when I lived in Moab, Utah, for them to consider purchasing but they had a campaign going where they were accepting book donations for the troops overseas. My books were accidentally sent there instead of purchased and put on the shelves. It's a good cause so that tempered the frustration I felt for the lack of organization. I've also taken part in a campaign called Operation: E-drop, which offers free ebooks to overseas troops.

So, with that snafu behind me, I have all of my books made available through a variety of channels that might make it possible for a brick and mortar retailer to purchase and make them available. I don't think any have done so though - the Createspace POD model is so expensive it is rather cost prohibitive to offer them thusly.  [KR: Fido publishes through CreateSpace.  They get the book ready to go, but farm out the actual printing and distribution.] They can be picked up on Amazon, however.

 

KR:  How many copies has it sold?  

 

JH:  Well, that's a tricky question too. I retain full rights to my books so I have them listed both on Fido (or Excessica, where applicable), and in a few other self-publishing locations (http://www.createspace.com, http://www.smashwords.com, http://www.bookmato.com, http://www.booksbyjason.com). Plus some I have personally sold at a book signing event. All told, I'm in double digits for Voidhawk sales, with only a single one coming from www.Fidopublishing.com. That has a lot to do with limited marketing and advertising (I think). I'm still learning that aspect of the business and I have not had any spare money and very little time to assign to it.

KR: Will you continue to work with a publisher either Fido or a different one in the future? 

 

JH:  I plan to continue with both Fido and Excessica. I have unbeatable deals with them so there's no reason not to do so - especially if I can boost my own presence and advertising to draw people to their sites. It's a win-win, I get more exposure and so do they, which helps the sites and other authors listed on them.

KR:  You mentioned that you traded IT labor for keeping the rights of your stories.  Can you expand on that a bit for the readers?  (Who would probably be interested in finding ways to get a professionally published book without having to give up ownership of their characters.)  Because of how well the book has sold, do you think it was a decent trade?

 

JH:  It's a painful story, to be honest. Over the span of a couple of months I developed a totally self-sustained web site for Fido that could handle everything necessary. I was quite pleased with it - but I would be since I wrote it. The owner liked it as well, however the ISP they were using did not support the technology I built it on. They had their own solution for an e-store, a canned package that could be customized. We decided to go that route with it and, after another couple of months of struggling with trying to adapt some particularly difficult code, www.fidopublishing.com was born. I still remain confident my design was superior, but mine was customized for the business rather than something off the shelf that had to be shoehorned into the necessary role.

Was it a decent trade based on sales? Not yet - but I remain optimistic that it will be in the future. After doing that for Fido I did the same thing for Excessica and I have some books coming out in a matter of days and months (two of 'em). Between the two sites and my own ambitions to get more PR going, I remain confident that it is an investment in time and resources that I will be appreciative of.

And if it's not, I still learned a few things along the way so it's been a win-win all along, even if at times it felt rather frustrating.

If you want to learn more about Jason, go check him out at http://www.booksbyjason.com/.  He;s got a sequel to Voidhawk and a few other interesting bits out. 

Interview with John Hartness

John Hartness was willing to answer some of my questions about his adventures in self publishing.

KR: Why did you chose to self publish? Did you try to get The Chosen traditionally published? Why did you pick CreateSpace, and did you self publish anywhere else?

JH: I chose to self-publish because I'm largely an impatient person. I don't have the patience to query agents for months and months, then if I'm lucky enough to get picked up by an agent, to have them query publishers for months and months, then if someone wanted to publish the book, to wait a year or more to hold a copy in my hands. Self-publishing is much better for someone with a miniscule attention span :).

I queried a few agents, got some polite and some very encouraging rejection letters, and then moved along.

I published a couple of collections of poetry last year using Lulu, and moved to CreateSpace because of the ease of getting listed on Amazon (since Amazon owns CS) and the lower price on author's copies. I figure at least for a while, most of the books I sell will be face to face at book fairs, so if I can get my price per copy down, my profitability goes up. I did use Lulu for the hardcover and to get the book on the iBookstore.

KR: How many copies have you sold? What marketing has worked best for you?

JH: I've sold about 50 copies, ebook and hard copies. So far my biggest marketing successes have been through Facebook pages and book fairs. But the book just came out in August, so I feel like I'm just getting started.

KR: Who did your cover? Did you come up with the idea or did he/she?

JH: I have a great friend, Lindsay Birmingham, who did the cover to The Chosen and my new novel, Hard Day's Knight. She's a photographer and Photoshop whiz, and I gave her a rough idea and she came back to me with the cover. We tweaked font colors, and then we were good to go to print. She's been great to work with and I highly recommend her.

KR: Why did you call it The Chosen? (as opposed to The Choice, say.) There's already a very famous book with the same title, and it's not precisely similar to yours.

JH: I'm not terribly bright, and didn't Google the name before I titled the book. I was not familiar with Potok's novel, and I thought The Choice (which was the original name) sounded too much like a romance novel. I thought The Chosen felt a little like Dean Koontz's book The Taken, so I went with it.

If you'd like to know more about John and his works, go check him out at www.johnhartness.com.

Interview with Hank Quense

Hank Quense was kind enough to answer some of my questions regarding his adventures in self publishing.

KR: Why did you self publish?  Did you attempt to have Tales published by a publishing house?  What service did you pick for self publishing and why?  

HQ:  I did send it to a few publishers.  One of them expressed interest and reviewed a few of the stories.  The editor wanted extensive revisions which I did to the example stories and with an idea of she wanted, I revised the stories I hadn't sent to her.  She reviewed the edited stories and wanted more edits which I did.  The changes she suggested really improved the stories and I was happy to do them.  By now six months had passed.  I subbed the selected stories again as she requested and after another several months she wanted still more changes and told me not to resub for six months or so.  This time the edits were trivial and didn't improve the stories.  I declined to spend more time on the stories.  It old her they was as good as they would ever get, so that was the end of that potential publisher.  Meanwhile my efforts to get an agent were just as frustrating.  I sent out a number of queries, but only one agent had the courtesy to reply.(negatively) 

I picked Createspace and Smashwords because they don't charge authors (if you don't need help) and most of the sales revenue flows to the author.

KR:  How many copies have you sold?  What marketing has worked best for you?  How did you set your price points?

 

HQ:  So far, the book hasn't sold as well as I had hoped.  Since it hasn't, I can't advise on what works best.  I set the price points by finding similar sized books in the marketplace

KR:  How did you get your cover?  Who did your art?

 

HQ:  I shopped around for a cover artist and was fortunate to find Gary Tenuta.  I told him what I thought the cover should look like (i.e. The three characters on it) and he got it right on the first try.  Gary is a great cover artist and I highly recommend him.

KR:  Anything else you'd like to say about self publishing? 

 

HQ: It ain't easy going it alone, but I doubt having an agent and a publisher is any easier.

 

If you want to know more about Hank and his writing, you can check him out here:

Website: http://hankquense.com

Blog: http://hankquense.com/blog

Buy links: http://hankquense.com/TFG-main.html

Twitter:http://twitter.com/hanque99

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/hankquense

Facebook pages:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hank-Quenses-Fiction-Writing-Page/102293491907

Interview with Gregory Blecha

After picking Love in the Time of Apocalypse as the indie published book for August, I tracked down it's author and asked him a few questions as to how we published it and what he was thinking about as he did it. He was kind enough to answer my questions, and I am passing those answers along to you.

KR: I'd love to know why you picked iUniverse, and how many other publishers (both mainstream and POD) you checked out.

GB: When I was shopping for a self-publisher, I evaluated perhaps four other houses in addition to iUniverse. I chose iUniverse because of the Editor's Choice program. The Editor's Choice program indicated to me there was a review process and a standard of quality (whether or not the standard was enforced was a different issue, but at least there was a standard I could aspire to). I also liked the fact that the material belonged to me and I retained the rights to what I'd written.

Apocalypse was published in 2005, and the publishing world has changed substantially in the intervening five years. For my next project I will probably produce all aspects of the book collaboratively, from editing to marketing (I have a lot of out-of-work friends who are involved in the arts and who are very talented). I'm not suggesting that I'm dissatisfied with iUniverse; I just like having more control of the process.

Once I've finished a book, I am more interested in my next project. To me, the finished book is like dried paint; I can't continue to change and adapt it. I prefer the wet paint of a blank page.

KR: How many copies have you sold? How many have you given away? What techniques work best at drawing attention in the form of actual sales to your book?

GB:I have probably sold less than one hundred copies of "Love in the Time of the Apocalypse". My best medium has been Amazon Kindle, although I haven't quite figured out how to determine what my total sales has been on the Kindle. I usually gauge the rate of sales by the book's sales rank, which usually fluctuates between 20,000 and 120,000. My best sales venue has been paid advertising on Facebook.

I've given away approximately two hundred copies. I will frequently leave a copy of Apocalypse at a "Friends of the Library" bookstand (where the sales price is fifty cents) or at coffee shops, subway stations and on park benches. This is a marketing technique known as "shop dropping'. I've found that at a fifty cent price point the demand for my book is seemingly infinite, because I continually have to replenish the stock of books I leave at the library. I have noticed that no one has ever returned a copy of my book to the "Friends of the Library" bookstand, so I hope the book stays on my readers' shelves.

KR: Who is your target audience?

I am my own target audience. I wrote Apocalypse to satisfy myself. I wanted to craft a novel that was in keeping with the novels I've read and enjoyed, such as "The Sot-Weed Factor" by John Barth, or "The Frog" by John Hawkes. Sot-Weed Factor is a dense, multidimensional satire that works as an anti-novel (that is, the book is cross-grained to the formulaic definition of a novel) while The Frog is more of a fable where the characters and story lines are instruments of the author's intent.

KR: Do you intend to go mainstream publication for your next book?

GB: I have enjoyed tremendously the modicum of exposure I've received, having published my own novel. Once or twice a year, someone happens upon Apocalypse, reads it, enjoys what they've read, and then is moved to drop me a line to express what they've appreciated about the book. Of course, with equal frequency someone happens upon Apocalypse, reads it, is convinced that I am a moron and have wasted their fifty cents, and then is incensed enough to drop me a line to to express disdain. I've learned to savor the former and ignore the latter.

Speaking of moments to savor, when I first published Apocalypse in February of 2005, a local book club was kind enough to feature my novel as its book of the month. During the meeting we spent an hour discussing the plot, the characters and the writing style. You can argue that someone who self-publishes a book is not a writer or author in the conventional sense, but for an hour I felt like a craftsman, a weekend hobbyist whose work someone enjoyed and admired. That moment affirmed to me that I made the right choice in publishing my own book.

If you're wondering what kind of reception your DIY novel will receive, let me just share my experience: the praise will be muted and condemnation strident. You'll have to be pretty thick-skinned to put up with the vituperation that emanates (mostly) from other aspiring writers. It's the equivalent of a flesh wound in a pool of sharks.

KR: How did you get your cover design?

An august pair of statues overlooks the Hoover Dam. The statues are the "Winged Figures of the Republic", designed by Oskar Hansen to commemorate the dam's construction. Apocalypse opens in Las Vegas with a trip to the Hoover Dam. The book describes the momument as follows:

"On either side of the pole sat a pair of bronze figures, erect and austere, with daunting wings protruding upward from their shoulders, like kitchen knives."

I was fortunate enough to visit Hoover Dam in 2004 and took a picture of the monument. The black and white rendition of the picture appears on the front cover of Apocalypse.

I enjoy designing my own book cover, and will design the cover of my next book.


If you want to know more about Greg or Love in the Time of Apocalypse you can find him at his website.