The Malice Engine

The interview I did with Mark Justice for Pod of Horror is now live! We spent a few minutes discussing The Pack: Winter Kill, Evileye Books, and the future of the series, and Evileye also sent Mark an audio reading of a chapter from the book. Give it a listen!

http://www.horrorworld.org/poh.htm

You’re no doubt familiar with rochambeau, aka rock-paper-scissors, but how about roshambo?

The concept is simple: two pinheads kick each other in the nuts until one gives up.

Yes, kids really are that stupid. Looking at the bright side, though, at least they’re taking their genes out of the pool.

They may even have a career in entertainment ahead of them:

I went into a Barnes & Noble this evening and spotted stacks of Nook eReader pamphlets at the information desk and near the registers. I picked one up and an employee was all too eager to tell me more about it. There’s just one problem: the Nook is already sold out through the end of the year.

Not too bad for a product that, by some accounts, should be dead before it even launched.

I should probably qualify that statement. The people I run into who claim the e-book “fad” won’t last are all bibliophiles. They don’t just read books, they collect them. I will readily admit that I’m as much a collector — or at least an accumulator — of bits of dead trees stamped with ink and glued/sewn together myself, so I don’t fault them for it. However, it doesn’t take a big brain to figure out e-books are here to stay.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble are playing their cards close to the vest, so it’s tough to say how many units they’ve actually sold. However, with every major publisher and many smaller presses on the bandwagon, it’s tough to believe they aren’t doing well. Keep in mind, the Nook not only sold out before the holidays, but it sold out in pre-order. They have yet to get a physical unit into anyone’s hands, including reviewers’, and they’ve still sold every unit scheduled to ship out of the factory. That’s the kind of scenario every business dreams of.

The bibliophiles may dismiss electronic books, and the e-readers may have their shortcomings for the moment, but it amazes me the variety of demographic I’ve seen for these things. Technophiles are among the first in line, of course, but I’ve also seen some other writers and book lovers toting them around. I know of schools buying units for classrooms, including elementary grades. There are colleges putting them in the hands of incoming students. At work, we’ve got a retired teacher who can’t say enough about her Kindle, and she can barely negotiate her way around the Windows desktop. She subbed in our junior high building one day and had all of the other teachers drooling over her shiny white e-reader in its little leather folder. My wife and my mom both tear through novels and could care less what happens to the actual books after they read them. They’re both waiting to see if and how Amazon responds to the Nook’s color LCD, and they’ll both most likely own one or the other sometime next year.

E-books are a win-win for voracious readers. They can carry most of their library with them, and they get instant gratification when searching for a title. If they get 100 pages into a book and decide it’s garbage, with just a couple of clicks they’re reading a different book, even if they’re sitting in the park or riding on a bus or train. I hear the bibliophiles complain about battery life issues, but I have yet to hear a Kindle owner offer up any real complaints about it beyond “Eh, I’ll plug it in when I get home.”

From a writer’s perspective, why ignore them? I’ve talked to a couple of guys now who could care less if their books are on the Kindle because they think e-books won’t last (see bibliophiles above). Okay, let’s say Amazon sold 50,000 units. I have no idea how close or far from reality that is, but it’s a nice, round number. That’s 50,000 people who are going to visit a dedicated store that will be stocking your book. You don’t have to sweat which chains are in their neighborhood and whether or not their local store is stocking your book. You don’t have to worry about whether or not they shop at a local indie store that may or may not have ever heard of your or have shelf space for your book.

Yes, you still have to make these 50,000 people aware of your book, but isn’t that better than having to make them aware of the book and having to make an effort to get it stocked? What makes the book more likely for them to stumble upon: Amazon’s Recommended, Also Bought, and Also Browsed links and thumbnails, or your book sitting spine-out among a sea of other spine-out books? Even if only 1% of those 50,000 people read the kind of material you produce, you’ve just made your book easier to find with zero effort.

Sure, it’s still supplemental at this point, and I realize the overwhelming majority of readers are still purchasing dead trees. The Barnes & Noble was packed tonight, and obviously they weren’t buying Nooks and e-books. That’s why The Pack: Winter Kill will have both a Kindle Edition and the imminent trade paperback edition. It’s not smart to ignore the e-book market, but it’s suicidal to ignore the dead tree markets.

Will that hold true in five years, though? Or ten? When they get the technology behind a vibrant color display with the same battery life as the existing grayscale displays and the costs start coming down, I imagine a lot of trees will be breathing a deep sigh of relief.

Hmm… I wonder if the Sierra Club has made that connection yet?

I’ve been digging the cover of “John the Revelator” off the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack. Today I broke down and ordered the first of two SoA EPs which includes “John” and the full version of the SoA theme song, “This Life”.

If you were a fan of shows like The Shield and you’re not watching Sons of Anarchy, you really are doing yourself a disservice.

It’s amusing when people think I’m sitting on a secret fortune after they find out I do a little writing on the side. Or they think someone like Brian Keene or Tom Piccirilli are making money hand over fist because they’ve got several novels available. The reality is most writers don’t make a lot of money. Sure, some luck into Hollywood cash or a mega-hit series like Twilight, but even bestsellers are far from guaranteed riches.

Now one writer has proven that by posting her royalty statements. She sold over 47,000 copies, which sounds exciting. However, for all that, she’s made a little over $30,000. Sounds like a lot, but if that was the only book she put out that year, she’s earning the equivalent of about $15.00 an hour (and she still needs to pay her own taxes on that $30k). Even worse, she hasn’t earned out her $50k advance at that point, which means she faces the possibility her publisher will dump her. It’s more like being fired than getting laid off, as the next publisher may look at her numbers and not want to take the risk on her.

The inevitable next question is “Then why do you do it?”

The easy answer is because we like it. Some writers like to tell you they have to, but I’m not going to get all metaphysical on you. The plain truth is I enjoy the process of writing, I enjoy the business of it, and call it ego, but I like the idea of people being entertained by something I’ve written. Yes, the financial realities make it impossible to go full time at the moment, but I’d love to be at that point sometime. I don’t need to get rich doing it, but I’d be content to do it as a job.

It sure beats solving others’ computer headaches all day every day.

I think the motorcycle obsession has finally taken hold.

Every time I pass Lenore in the garage, I feel the urge to fire her up. Wet, cold Illinois weather is not always conducive to riding, however, especially for a relative rookie. I can’t tell you how jealous I am right now of friends like Weston Ochse, Nate Southard, and Paul Legerski, who all live in comfortable riding weather year-round. Note I qualified that as comfortable riding weather. If I have to dress up in layers of clothing just to get on two wheels, that’s just not a good trade-off to me because lugging and stowing all that extra gear would be a pain in the ass.

Right now the idea is to explore my limits of comfortable. After an unusually cold Halloween, we’re now getting a bit of an Indian summer. Last weekend the temps crept up to the low 60s, so Saturday morning I zipped up my leather jacket (probably the first time I actually unsnapped and closed the lapels), busted out the leather riding gloves for the first time since my riding class, and rode Lenore out to breakfast and then to karate class.

It was probably around 50 when I took off, and a stiff wind blew across the fields. I thought I’d feel most of it in my legs, but as it turned out the worst was a cold spot along my jawline. The wind came right in under the rim of my helmet, concentrated on that one spot, and after just a few minutes it started to sting. The few minutes of irritation was worth it come that afternoon, though, as temps climbed up to 68 and I spent a little more time on the road.

We should be seeing mid fifties and sunshine this week, so I ordered myself a simple balaclava to keep the wind off my neck and jaw. Another rider friend, Eric Masek, rides all the way down into the 40s, so I’m going to give that a shot as long as it stays dry enough. I spotted a pair of fleece-lined, Kevlar riding jeans that may help keep me on the bike longer, too (I’ve never been a big fan of long johns, but I suppose that’s an option I should consider).

Meanwhile, I’ve got another reason to be jealous of Nate: he just picked up a Harley-Davidson Iron 883 Sportster he’s dubbed The Late Late Show. I wasn’t particularly taken with the Iron 883 after seeing it on TV and in magazines, but then I spotted one in a parking lot in Peoria and it got me drooling. That black denim paint and blacked-out engine looks much sharper in person, and I’ve been eyeballing them ever since. I think Nate also made the right move adding the forward controls, and those ape hangers look damn good on his bike.

Like I said: jealous.

Of course, now I see Honda is putting out the Shadow Phantom for 2010. With its blacked-out engine and $7999 price point, I’m guessing it’s a direct competitor to the Iron 883, and will add to Honda’s “Honda-Davidson” rep. It’s got a smaller engine but already has the forward controls and it has glossy black paint instead of the matte black the Harley sports.

That’s not to say I’m in a hurry to ditch Lenore anytime soon. The last thing I need is another payment right now, and Lenore is a solid, comfortable ride. I have a few more customizations in mind for her, too, including a set of crash bars for that inevitable day she goes down on her side.

In the meantime it’s fun to drool while I get this weather thing figured out.

I did an interview last week on Mark Justice’s Pod of Horror, which should be available in the next week or so. I discuss The Pack: Winter Kill with Mark, and Evileye Books is providing an audio excerpt to go with the interview. I haven’t been on the show since Werewolves: Call of the Wild came out a few years back, so it was good to talk to Mark again. Keep an eye out for it!

I’m also confident the trade paperback edition of The Pack: Winter Kill will be out by the end of this month! The publisher is waiting on the latest galley from the printer this week, and assuming all is well, we’ll be ready to rock and roll. I know that’s what many of you have been waiting for, and I can’t wait until it starts arriving in your hands.

Hell, I can’t wait until it arrives in my hands. It’s cool being on the Kindle and all, but seeing my name listed on a website just isn’t the same as opening up that first box of books and laying eyes on them for the first time. It’s also tough to sign a Kindle edition. It’s fun having folks ask me to sign copies of my books at conventions, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting me to take a Sharpie to the back of their Kindle.

Meanwhile, Chimaera is moving forward, and the next prose book is taking shape in my head. Onward and upward.

This guy does an amazing translation of Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” to the harp:

For comparison, the original:

Evileye Books has announced the winners of the The Pack: Winter Kill Twitter contest they ran last week, and due to ties, they’ve decided to award books to 18 winners! The following Twitter users should contact Evileye via direct message to @evileyebooks or should email thepack@evileyebooks.com. Put your Twitter username in the subject line and your address in the body.

The winners are:

@Monrozombi
@JohnUrbancik
@DavidAPrice
@VanHalen1970
@TriumphCIO
@Greyhawk68
@Wolfnoma
@BrianKeene
@JasonCopland
@ThomasBahn
@uberguineapig
@BobFord
@Locnar1970
@NewTrendsCigars
@Cairnwood
@Dathar
@CullenBunn
@Crazy_apps

What’d they win? Check it out:

I’ve got a confession to make: I haven’t written a word in several days.

I’ve got a bad habit of only writing in a linear fashion. In other words, I write chapter 1, then chapter 2, then chapter 3, and so on. I just can’t get myself to jump around, even if I have an outline, because I’ll add detail and come up with some new ideas on the fly. This means more rewriting on the back end, or worse, scrapping chapters.

As a result I tend to sit around and mull things over, maybe scribble in the notebook a bit, and generally wait until a solution hits me. The current example of this is Chimaera, the first graphic novel in the The Pack series. I have to write a monster attack scene, and it just felt flat. I needed an angle, something to spice it up and give a little more information to the reader without cluttering things up with extraneous captions or rambling dialog.

Then I brushed my teeth. I stared at myself in the mirror, thought about the scene, thought “no, that sucks,” a couple times. Then BOOM!, the scene hit me. Now I’m excited about it, and not just churning out filler to get to the next scene.

It tends to happen this way a lot for me. Maybe procrastination is just part of my process. The benefit is it saves me some rewriting, and it helps ensure my first drafts are not far off from my second or final drafts. It also means I rarely have to scrap already-written pages, which I absolutely hate having to do. Excising filler is one thing, but abandoning passages because I sabotaged myself just kills me.

The downside is it slows me down. Sure, I can bust out several pages at a stretch when I’m on, but that procrastination means less time at the keyboard and fewer of those stretches. That’s just deadly if I were doing this full time. My friends writing for a living don’t have the luxury of waiting for scenes to come to them. If they sat around with their thumbs in their asses, they’d quickly starve to death.

It’s a habit I’m going to have to break if I want to make a living at this myself.

And finishing Chimaera instead of rambling here is probably a good start, no?

Later.