Selling Myself For Fame And Profit

II - Middleground

Meanwhile, as I was half-assedly selling my kid's book, I was also writing a new novel and trying to finish up one that I'd started before THE WHISPERING FERNS. It wasn't easy for me. I have a lot of ideas and I love to write but I'm an insufferably slow typist, primarily using two fingers and a thumb and along the way, I also managed to shatter my arm in six places and move 3,000 miles East to Maine. So things were going slowly. 

My long-suffering novel GRAVES (Which is just now being finished up...) is a simple zombie survival novel - no gimmicks, no fast zombies or sci-fi explanations for things - People get infected, die, come to life and bite other people. It takes place in one single overnight shift in a drug store in Montana. It should have been a simple book to dash out, but I made the brilliant choice of writing it from the point of view of eight or so of the customers and employees of the drug store, with chapters alternating. I also found that I had to be in a very certain mood to really enjoy writing it. 

Novel number two is a little different. MR. PALE STEPS OUT, to put it simply, is a revenge novel set in a post-apocalyptic version of  Utah in the 1960's. Simple, eh? I'd been reading a lot of old crime pulp and got enamored with the idea of this old-school heavy getting caught up in a heist just as the bombs go off and taking cover in a safe room and not getting out for a few years later. Everyone he knows is dead and he's stuck in the middle of Utah, which he hates, and he doesn't have any nice clothes, a plan or any idea what he's doing. So he latches onto a group that's ravaging the area and does what he does best - kills some people. Mr Pale is in the final edits stage and I dig the world I've created for him to play in - there's mutants and zombies and religious cults a-plenty. Cool old cars, reliable guns, dusty towns and bad, bad men. It also has a pretty sweet cover by Deeply Dapper - 

So I finally have some books to start flogging. I plan to self-pub them - like my Moonstone Bay series (Which I'm writing the second novel now) I think they're fun reads, but not exactly what's selling commerically right now. Zombies are hot, but mine's a pretty specific kind of zombie book and while I'm sure alternative timeline noir is burning up the charts, I've always pictured the Mr. Pale series as fun, short form pulps that I can write in between novels as palate cleansers. 

I conquered the intricacies of E-Pubbing with Whispering Ferns but any real success eluded me and I aim to remedy that this time by doing what I should have done in the first place - make people want to read my books and more importantly, make people aware of the existence of them. How? Well.... I'm not 100% sure. I'm still short on free time and I don't have money to advertise, but I have a few ideas....

Selling Myself For Fame And Profit

I - Background

 

In a couple of months, I'm finally coming out with a novel. I released one a year ago - THE WHISPERING FERNS, which was the first in a series of kid's books under the name Kristopher McClanahan. It was a really fun experience and I love the book. It's only sold about a dozen copies, but some of those are to strangers and that's really gratifying, especially because I did so much wrong when I released it.

THE WHISPERING FERNS was a novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo that paid tribute to the kinds of books I loved as a kid, good natured, somewhat innocent adventures, where friends were made, mysteries were solved and ghosts were hunted. It takes place in the Pacific Northwest and centers around a boy named Smith who goes to live with his aunt and uncle in a tiny fishing village called Moonstone Bay. While there, he finds new friends and a ghost in the forest. 

A simple story and a lot of fun to write. That was the easy part. I had a cover made by my pals at Deeply Dapper, one I like a lot, and I let images of big numbers parade in my head every once in a while. I also did the smart thing and found a writing group to latch onto and glean info from, The Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Chat Board, AKA Verla Kay's. I loved it there. I made a lot of connections with other writers and illustrators who were doing the same thing I was: creating a world to entertain people. Some were all out pros and some were just starting, like I was.All of them were funny and insightful and great.

I also started promoting myself on websites and blogs, commenting on posts and making myself known as the generally witty and handsome fellow that I am. I got some attention and even had a few agents casually take a look at my novel. Unfortunately, something I knew was a fault made itself clear to the agents - my book is old-fashioned. There's humor and action and adventure, but there's no sons of gods or scathing sarcasm. Not the kind of book that sells. 

But that was okay, I was already pretty darned excited about the E-Pub world and the way it was expanding, so I went that route, unraveling the tricks of the websites to eventually come up with a pretty solid little E-Book, which you are welcome to purchase for three bucks on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple and Smashwords. 

The problem is that by the time my book came out, I'd slacked off on being a real person in cyberspace. I hardly commented on blogs or blogged myself and had virtually vanished from Verla Kay. So my little novel was released with barely a blip and there it has remained.... Waiting....

The Back Flap: Twitchy's Dream


When I was twenty-one, I was living in California with my buddy Rob, unloading trucks on the overnight shift for the largest Wal-Mart in the area. (How I got there is a totally different story) I worked with a whole crew of misfits and weirdos, as is fitting for an overnight crew thirty minutes from Hollywood.

Amongst them was a little Mexican dude we called Twitchy. I think at one point, after I moved back to Idaho, my buddy told me his real name, but I'm not sure I knew it the entire time I worked with him. He was just over five feet tall, slim and had the eyes of a really paranoid rabbit. I don't think he was actually on anything, though it wouldn't be overly surprising, but he seemed to be continually strung out on life in general.

We didn't really chat much with the crew while I worked there, we were kind of the token white guys and the newest to boot, but one night Twitchy started chatting with us about where we were from. When he found out - after a bit of explaining and possibly, charades - what state Idaho was, he got excited and melancholy at the same time, something that can really only be accomplished by a short Mexican at 3am.

There in the darkened hallway leading to the stockroom, Twitchy poured out his hopes and dreams to us. His greatest ambition in life was to move to Idaho, buy a trailer with a porch, a pistola and a cow. Then he could sit on his porch in the evenings before bed and watch his cow. (And presumably use his pistol to celebrate at weddings or chase off snakes or something, he didn't get into that.)

That was the extent of his dreams. After telling us about it, he got a look on his face that was almost heartbreaking in it's simplicity. It was the face of a child on December 18th after sitting on Santa's lap. I'll never forget the little man's simple imagery, how such a small, basic existence could be the pinnacle to a man's existence. In a way, I felt pity. I wanted to become rich and famous. Write a best-selling novel, draw a comic book series, act in a movie, hell, I was happy with the dream of meeting a beautiful woman and living in an elaborate house large enough to need a ladder in the library.

But then and now, I think I envied him more than anything. I often get so caught up in the "What-Ifs" and the "If this, then that"s of my life that I don't stop and realize how lucky I've been. I grew up poor, I remember walking to the grocery store with the last of our food stamps in my hand like they were gold, the nights in my room when I could hear my mother sobbing quietly about bills. At times it was hard and throughout, I had fantasies of making it big, countless, myriad variations, each resulting in a fabulous life for me and my loved ones.

And the whole time I had a wonderful life around me. Family that loved me, friends I could count on. Two full floors of books at the public library. It made me who I am today, and that guy ain't too shabby.

I have a beautiful wife, family that loves me and friends I can count on. I own two dogs that weigh as much as a cow and I have a trailer that I could sit on the steps and watch them poop in front of if I really wanted to. No pistol, but I am starting to teach myself to cook Mexican food, so you never know.

I still dream big, but at the same time, I've learned to love where I am in life, to appreciate how lucky I've already gotten. This is a picture my mom loves, and it could have taken the place of this entire post....

I think it's a great reminder to be thankful for the simple things in life.