I noted in another post that I always create two covers for my books. One usually tends to lean on traditional illustration, and the other edges into photorealism. For Dead Weight, I thought the photorealistic style worked better, but so far I’m a big fan of Sophistication’s original design. That being true, I’m working with a fantastic artist on something a little more realistic. Nothing to show yet, but here’s some of his previous work:
It’s another night and I should be writing Sophistication. And I am. I jotted down 500 words. Now, however, I’m taking a break because I have the attention span of a hamster and it’s starting to ruin my life.
Sometimes, I check in to see what people are writing about my first book. And by sometimes, I mean daily. Even when readers are critical — and thankfully, this happens infrequently — they oftentimes deliver really good feedback. Honest, undiluted criticism. And their points are usually valid.
Not always. One guy dedicated two paragraphs of his critique to his belief that I misused the word ‘donned’ in the novel. Then it donned on me — he’s a gods-damned idiot. JK. I know the difference, people. He also insisted I misused the word ‘strafed.’ He was, of course, full of shit. I play video games, including lots of first-person shooters, for a living. I’m intimately familiar with strafing. But I digress, as I often do — you know, because I’m usually drunk when I post here.
Tonight, though, I read a review of my book that I loved, and not just because it was praise. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve got no complaints about that. What makes this review so special to me, though, is that the reader clearly understood why I wrote Dead Weight. I love dystopian fiction, but authors always tend to muddy it up with zombies and vampires and characters who seem to possess endless knowledge and superhuman abilities. I wrote Dead Weight because I wanted to throw away those cliches and instead focus on a relative doofus as he struggled with the apocalypse.
Here, now, is a lovely review from someone who appreciated it — and I gotta tell you, this singular feedback means the world.
Dose of reality. I work for a living. I’ve got a wife. Three kids. And a super dumb dog. He eats a lot of shit he shouldn’t — tonight, for instance, someone’s retainer. That bears no significance to this post except to illustrate that he’s a pain in the ass. I also like to play video games, as evidenced by my habitual relationship with them. I’m not making excuses. I’m not. Really, I’m not.
OK, I am.
Aside incoming: did you know that nobody, all the Internet gods included, seems to know where ‘OK’ originated? Or what it stands for? Which is why you can pretty much write it all sorts of acceptable ways. OK? Sure. Okay? Why not? Ok? Don’t do that. It must stand for something. And if it doesn’t, then write ‘okay.’ Either way, ‘Ok’ is for assholes.
Anyway, Resident Evil came out tonight. That’s where this is all leading. I should be playing it — after all, I bought it for PlayStation 4, as any person would — but then I remembered two things. First, I’m scared shitless of this gods-blasted series. Second, I need to write Sophistication, or, you know, I’ll never finish it.
Luckily, I have an ace up my sleeve. I added a repeating calendar event to remind myself that instead of drinking bourbon, playing video games, or both, I should instead do that thing that is not pure fuckery. Please observe evidence below:
There. This will solve everything. As demonstrated by the fact that this post was published at 10:20 p.m.
[Bows.]
It’s out!
That’s a lot of shouting, I know, but I’m excited. And yes, you’re right, I’ve beaten this point to death, so you have my apologies. Indulge me this last time, though: I love this format. I find that I listen to as many books as I read. Probably more, to be honest. It’s just so convenient for a long commute.
Now you can listen to my first book, too. It’s on Audible. (It’ll be on iTunes in a couple days.) It’s almost ten hours long. And best of all, it’s not narrated by me. Seriously, Joshua Nicholson has done a great job narrating, and his take on some the crazies in this book is highly entertaining.
If you’re an audiobook fan, this is a no-brainer. And if you’ve never tried one before, now’s the time to jump in. Your morning commute will fly by.
Welp.
I finally finished it.
Slight spoiler ahead, but I’m proud to announce that I think I’ve written the first death scene in any book that involves projectile vomit traveling between multiple dimensions before it kills someone.
I hope this offers you some small, wonderful glimpse into the serious subject matter that my next novel promises.
Good. Gods.
For two nights, I have struggled to write a scene. This shit never happens, which is why it’s so frustrating.
I enlisted the aid of Booker’s tonight in an effort to nuclear-bomb-detonate any reservations I held onto about being the asshole I need to be in order to get this down right.
And still it came slow, like sap from a tree.
Nearly through it, thank Zeus. But it ain’t over yet.
Books by popular authors receive hundreds, if not thousands of user reviews in no time. You may have noticed, however, that I’m not chasing James Patterson on the Top Charts lists, and that probably won’t change any time soon. So I’ll take my milestones where I can get them.
Below, a screen capture of Dead Weight reviews on the iBooks Store. Full transparency, friends and family account for eight of those reviews, and naturally, none of my besties had anything but praise. (I’m sure half of them used it for kindling, but thanks for your positivity, guys!) Anyway, just as important are the reviews from real customers (AKA, people who aren’t related to me and don’t know me).
51 total reviews so far. 45 of them like or love it. Four of them rank it as somewhat mediocre. And two think it’s a pile of dog shit.
[Shrugs.]
Pretty good. Even if you lose the eight glowing reviews from friends and fam, those are solid numbers. Which, you know, is encouraging.
I always hear from authors that they’re filled with self doubt, and my response is yes, absolutely, one-hundred percent confirmed. We put this stuff out there and we hope somebody will like it as much as we do. But we never really know. And in the dark crevices of our minds, we’re somehow certain everybody’s going to despise every word.
These reviews — at least so far (and there’s that doubt again) — indicate that at least some folks are enjoying Dead Weight. Except, that is, for the single dickhead who gave it a one-star review.
I’m not mad. I swear.
Dead Weight has been available for a few weeks now and it’s already profitable. That’s something a lot of authors, let alone first-time ones, cannot state, ever, and so I’m obviously ridiculously grateful. I figure this puts me in a select group of debut writers, especially self-published ones, who make any money at all. I’m really lucky, particularly since I’ve gone about this business all wrong from the start. Case in point, who the eff releases their book and then copyedits it retroactively? A moron, that’s who.
Luck doesn’t begin to cover it, though. What made all the difference for me was a blessing from the gods. Apple iBooks picked up Dead Weight and featured it on the front page of their store in the ‘popular fiction’ section. When that happened, my sales spiked, and they have continued steadily. I won’t be sailing the seas alongside King Trump in my newly-purchased yacht any time soon, but I have a steady stream of incidental income, and more important, people are reading and reviewing the book. Mostly positive reviews, too, and I’m going to dedicate another post to that.
Without going into sales specifics, take a look at these two charts. One, iBooks, is a relatively healthy graphic showing normal decline and growth. The other, Amazon, with only word of mouth in support, is all over the place, but the overall performance hugs zero. So far, my iBooks sales have outperformed Amazon by a margin of ten-to-one.
iBooks:
Amazon: 
In the Amazon chart, the red line represents eBook and the black paperback sales. The biggest surprise here is that people buy more paperbacks than I figured they might.
I think I’m rapidly headed toward a future in which Dead Weight rotates out of iBooks featuring, and then these charts will probably look similar and my sales will plummet. At that point, I will actually have to do some real marketing and consider price drops for future opportunities. But I’m relishing the interim.
It feels as though I have reread Dead Weight one-gajillion times, and every time I do, I catch that last, nagging typo and the copy is finally, blessedly cleansed. That is, until I read it again and happen upon one more mistake. Some trivial thing — an extra period at the end of a sentence that I can’t stop obsessing about all night as I toss and turn in bed.
I really didn’t want to pay somebody to copyedit the book. My friends read it. My family read it. Agents read it. They all helped me rid the pages of any persistent error. I wouldn’t need an editor, after all.
So after a lifetime of self-editing, I published it. And now this — oh, spoiler if you haven’t read the book yet:
Do you see that shit? Do you see that motherfucking shit? Do you! Yes, someone is reading my book on an iPhone — and more power to them — but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m referring to that yellow highlight. That’s a gods-blasted typo! And it’s not the only lingering, tainted asshole of an oversight in the book, either. By some accounts, there are at least four others. Which means there are probably lots more.
This irks me more than anything. More than people who destroy the word ‘literally’ in daily conversations. More than people who say that they ‘could’ care less. More than people who repeat sentence structures to make their points.
Anyway, I hired a copyeditor to retroactively beat the shit out of Dead Weight. Fingers crossed she’ll be able to pound it into shape without murdering it. I’ll know for sure in about two weeks, and then all the versions of the book — Kindle, iBooks, Paperback, Nook (Lolz) — will need to be reformatted and republished. Which, you know, is pretty much as bad as it sounds.
I think I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but since I’ve gotten a few questions about it from readers, the answer is yes. Dead Weight was conceived as multiple books. I’m not sure if that means two, three or four, so I’ll just say there are more pages to come if enough people care to read them. I love the world and (most) of the characters and remain excited to return and hang out with them again. I want to know what’s up in New York, anyway, and I’m sure some of you do, too.
If you scroll through this little blog, however, you will soon learn that I have two other books to write first. Sorry. Sophistication is up next. The Deep, Dark, Down after that. The good news is that I really am in the final stretch of the former. I’ve conservatively set a July release date, which factors in read-throughs by friends and family, several rounds of overzealous copyedits, and an audiobook version. My third novel — that might take a little longer. I’ve started it and it’s calling to me, but there’s plenty yet to be written. I told my wife that I want to finish up by the end of the year, but I also said that I’d take out the trash tonight and there it sits. That’s actually not at all true, but I lied to make a point, which is that my resolution means jack shit.
If ever my inbox is flooded with requests for more Dead Weight, I will dutifully put The Deep, Dark, Down on a (virtual) shelf and catch up with Zephyr and crew instead. If not, full steam ahead on these other novels. I promise that, although they couldn’t be more different from Dead Weight, they’re every bit as horrible.
A NOVEL CONCEPT 